Taylor saw a trick. A green Honda Civic was slowing down and, yes, the guy was nodding at her. She walked to the driver's window as fast as she could, though slower than usual because of the irritation on the ball of her left foot.
"Can you tell me which way to Kroger's?" he asked.
Damn. She knew and gave the fucker directions.
A pretty, slightly built African-American woman with rich chocolate skin and a tiny wasp waist, Taylor had been on her feet and in stiletto-heeled boots for about six hours straight. Her feet were tired as usual, the toes pinched together and trapped and sweaty. She thought a toenail might be digging into the toe next to it. Worst of all, something was wrong with her left foot (corns? warts? she didn't know the difference), had been for several days, so she felt like she was carrying a jagged rock under her shoe.
Back on the sidewalk, she leaned against a wall and lifted her left foot off the ground for a few seconds. She thought about trying to find a restroom where she could rest the barking dogs but just then another car with a man in it slowed beside her.
An ugly white guy driving a white Mercedes asked, "You want to go to a motel with me, honey?"
"Sure," she said, trying to flash a come-on smile (he probably had money -- the car) but it wasn't easy with her feet screaming in their boot-prisons. She slid into the passenger seat as the radio played some schmaltzy not-rock, no-lyrics music. Taylor twisted her feet around inside her boots, trying to alleviate some of the pain.
Beep Beep Beep
"Gotta put that seatbelt on, honey," the trick said, in between puffs on a cigarette. He had a gruff voice like someone who had once been strangled. A fat, pink-faced man with a shock of white hair, he wore a standard business suit and had a slight case of body odor (she'd smelled worse) and a pronounced five o'clock shadow.
"Why don't we go to a motel?" he said, smiling and showing nicotine-stained teeth.
"Well . . . can ya be nice to a girl today?" she asked, fiddling with the heel of her boot and trying to make eye-play despite the pain, "I be having some problems with money and, I don't sell sex, that's illegal--"
"Sure is," he interrupted her bullshit, not gruffly but with a knowing smile. "Whatever we do, it'll be for love. And so will my little gift of appreciation for my new honey."
She giggled.