The sun had just come up, and I had been working all night. I was desperately in need of a shower. It had been a long, very hot night, and all I wanted to do was get to my air conditioned apartment and sleep all day. My one piece dress was wet with sweat and probably other bodily fluids. I was wearing sandals so my feet hurt more than usual, and my jaw ached as well. But I couldn't go home, not yet. My problem was that I was short, about $100.
Early Sunday morning, the chances weren't great that I'd find a customer, but I stuck to where the Johns usually searched. All but the most desperate working girls had gone home. I was never out this late, usually I made my money and then some before the bars closed, but tonight I spent three hours with a friend at the ER. She had overdosed - or maybe it was her epilepsy - but either way, the time I spent taking care of her was time I wasn't taking care of business, and my pimp, Michael, wasn't going to want excuses, he was going to want his money. Tif, the girl I was babysitting wasn't even Michael's girl, so he wouldn't care that I was looking out for her.
I needed at least two customers before I could go home and face my pimp.
I saw a car, black, old fashioned but well maintained. The guy inside was like eighty, and dressed in his Sunday best. I saw Eve, one of the older working girls, step out, so I stepped out about a one hundred feet past her. I was so much younger and prettier than Eve, who was kind of old and used up. The streets and meth hadn't been kind to her.
The car slowed down and Eve said something I couldn't hear. There was familiarity in her voice - whoever this guy was, they knew each other. Probably a regular, but then the John saw me, and passed Eve, stopping right next to me.
"You working?" asked the guy, reaching over to crank down his window.
"Yeah," I said. "$40 for head, anything else in negotiable."
The man frowned. "Eve only charges me $20."
"Eve doesn't look like me," I said.
"Hey!" yelled Eve, staggering her way towards me. "You fucking cunt!"
The John let me in his car. "Where to?" he asked.
"Away from that crazy bitch," I said.
He drove, and eventually I directed him to the back of a church, where I do most of my business. The John seemed nervous. "Can we do this somewhere else?" he asked.
I directed him to my second location, in back of a strip mall. The place was overgrown with thorny vines and smelled liked garbage, which sucked, because the John's old car didn't have air conditioning. He had to roll the windows down.
Once we were parked, I touched his knee. "So what are you looking for?"