A special thanks to Barney R for his wonderful editing.
*****
He had tried to fight it by hitting the bottle. There was a time he recalled when he just hung about in the house in a drunken haze.
When sanity would return, as it often did, his betrayal and helplessness would seize him; with that awful feeling deep within him growing larger and larger, gnawing into his mind and senses till he could stand it no more and he would then seek escape by grabbing another bottle to keep that ugly monster within him at bay.
The house was soon gone. After all, even booze came from money. He recalled moving into a one room apartment in the downtown area. In fact calling it an apartment was really a joke just like his life had become.
The street downstairs was busy in the evenings with hookers plying their trade. And the daytime was not really a safe place for strangers in the town. But then he didn't really need to worry. After all he was jobless and a laughing stock with no honour or dignity somehow surviving from the proceeds from the sale of his home and the inconsistent inflow from his penning.
Brad smiled bitterly at the recollections, the days working now moving at a breakneck turtle speed. His secretary had popped her head in a couple of times but the look in his eyes as he struggled to concentrate on his laptop screen was an all too familiar sign and she hurriedly moved out and gave a slight shrug of her shoulders to those watching her brave entry.
Today no one would venture in with their output for the day, unless called upon.
He met his first woman after Nancy there ... on the streets. He had left the apartment for a quick bite before returning back to finish off another of his e-publications.
As usual he was half drunk and must have dozed off in the small corner restaurant that was his regular. The dishes were oily and greasy and with all the gravy put in you couldn't really decipher one dish from another. But that was all his money could buy.
The owner shook him awake at closing time. This had happened before but he always paid for his food and never created a trouble so the owner never really bothered if he dozed of every now and then.
As he staggered back to what was now his home he saw someone standing under the lamplight who he thought he recognised! It was Nancy his pissed out mind informed him and she was here to beg his forgiveness! He staggered closer and peered in the dark. Her hair was still dark and wavy. Of course it was. He had seen her picture many times in the newspaper during the past many months with her new husband nee her ex-lover and the man who cuckolded him for over a year.
The press said that they made a perfect couple, he was tall and groovy looking and successful in what was his inherited property business and she was his beautiful and charming better half. She no longer worked they had reported somewhere. She was now a socialite, moving with the moneyed and powerful. Her eyes were the same too, just like he had first seen them so many wonderful years ago.
"I knew you would return to me one day Nancy," his alcohol soaked brains heard him say. He hugged her tightly, finding solace in the warmth of her soft body. Her boobs pressed tightly against his frail and weakened body. They felt good.
He took her by her elbow and graciously escorted her to his meagre room. Shutting the door behind him, he once again peered at her, trying to gauge her feelings. But that seemed one heck of a strain for his alcohol soaked brain to co ordinate. He blinked and gently rocked on his heels. Then he felt her nimble fingers deftly unbuttoning his worn out shirt buttons. His jeans were soon followed by his boxers and his hungry manhood stuck out, seeking comfort, seeking love and comfort.
They were soon in the bed, legs entwined, arm in arm, kissing, licking then kissing again.
"I haven't taken a bath for two days, let me wa...," he heard himself croak.
He heard a rustle then the sound of a packet tearing. Then those soft fingers were putting something on his lost and lonely fella.
"Just put it in," he heard a feminine voice say. That was one command his alcohol soaked brain immediately deciphered and acted upon.
The morning sun's rays filtering thru the broken window pane opened his eyes the next day. After a long time he felt satisfied, almost happy. He looked down at his semi erect cock with dried semen and juices sticking to it and gave a start. Nancy!
He swung his head around. The one room apartment was not all that big. He saw a dark haired woman with garishly painted lips and finger nails sitting on the chair in front of his laptop. She was peering into her hand held mirror and checking herself out.
She had a leather skirt on, that is if you could call that short piece of clothing a skirt. And she was topless. Her big boobs hung free and swung pendulously to the motions of her hand. He stared at the face. She was a pretty woman. But the lines on her face which she was now trying to hide clearly told their story. The woman had seen better days. This woman was a hooker and he had brought her to his apartment the other night. Nancy was still in the arms of her lover nee husband.
"Good that you're awake now. A few minutes more and I would've had to walk off with your laptop. Gimme my hundred dollars now, my daughter is waiting for me to take her to school," she said. She then stood up and began feeling her boobs, as though giving them a thorough check up, totally unconcerned about the naked man on the bed with whom she had spent the night and now had a semi erect manhood because of her.
"Hundred dollars?" repeated Brad hesitantly.
"Yup, you got that right buster. I normally charge a hundred dollars an hour and five hundred for the whole night," she answered as she put her bra in place, all along chewing a gum unconcernedly.
"It had been a long night and I was planning to go back to my daughter when you came by," she continued.
His heart sank. There had been no Nancy the other night, just a figment of his stupid imagination. Why should she come to meet a loser like him in this shabby downtown area? And if she did want to be with him, she wouldn't have started her year-long affair with that asshole. He looked back at the voluptuous woman standing in front of him whom he had mistaken for his Nancy under the dim street light. Like him she too had a daughter and he was holding her up.
He felt a stirring and looked down to see his manhood standing straight up, dried semen sticking at its base. He had a problem there. The thought of the woman going back to her daughter seemed to have triggered off a reaction in him that he couldn't understand. He quickly grabbed the bed sheet and covered himself up. He looked up to see her watching his antics with a funny look in her eyes. I bet she has seen lotsa cracks like me and perhaps some even worse he thought glumly.
But he had another problem, a much bigger problem. He had seventy five dollars to see him thru the week before the payment for his next penning was transferred to his bank account. And the whore was asking a hundred dollars. No, he didn't like it when he thought of her as a whore. She was a mother and circumstances had made put her in the oldest profession of mankind. No, she was just a mother making ends meet.
He looked down at his finger. His last valuable possession was the small platinum ring gifted to him by his grandfather when he joined the engineering college. A loser like him didn't deserve such luxury, but a woman with a daughter could put it to some good use. Besides, he needed those seventy five dollars to see off the rest of the week.
He took it off and silently handed it over to her.
"Put it to some good use. Maybe you wouldn't have to stand under the street light for some days to come," he said.
"Why? You have some problems with my standing under the street light?" she asked with anger visible in her voice and eyes.
"In case you didn't notice, I happen to make some honest money unlike some," she spat, her left hand pointing out in the general direction of the uptown area with their towers of steel and glass, and corruption.
His heart went out to her. She was a brave girl. Maybe he could learn how to survive from her, maybe.
"No, you got me wrong there. What I meant was that you could take some time off and spend some moments with your daughter. I'm sure she needs you more than your johns. You could perhaps stay with her," he replied as sincerely as he possibly could.
She looked at him with a funny look on her face. In her trade she had seen all types. Perhaps she was trying to put him in one of those slots in her mind regarding men and their kinkiness.
Perhaps she is thinking of me as a closet paedophile Brad suddenly thought.
"I too have a daughter ... or had one," he whispered.
She continued to look at him silently.
"I'm Rosy," she finally said.
"Brad," he replied as he nodded his head in acknowledgement.
"Whose this Nancy gal?" she asked out of the blue, "You kept calling me Nancy while you banged me."
He found himself blurting out before he even realised it, "My ex."
She didn't reply immediately, but instead looked around the shabby one room pad and then swung back to face him.
"You live but once mister, and no woman or man is worth wasting your life for," said Rosy. She had winced a bit when she uttered the male word. No doubt hurt deeply by the father of her child.
They continued to stare at each other. He lite a cigarette and offered one to Rosy. She was getting late, but it seemed there was something going on in her mind.
"This ring is worth more than my services and I don't like charity," she replied back with her wonderful chest thrust forward as though in an act of defiance. She may be a whore but she was no beggar. Perhaps that's what she wanted to say.
Brad smiled bitterly. She had been right; she certainly has more ethics than some working in those towers of steel and glass she had just pointed out. And she certainly had more ethics and self respect than someone he had known but then really not known.
