Moan a "Lisa"

I was just a girl with a lot of different names. But everyone's favorite was Baby.

It was sighed, it was screamed, it was cooed, it was moaned. And it sounded so good when it was. The best part of myself made up the essence of a momentary bliss, when one could touch the sky and come back down with more than mere memory as souvenir.

I left a kiss on every cheek after it was all done. Red lipstick stayed the longest. Maybe not forever - like I wanted. But it would do.

I raised myself up, back curving as nude shoulders thrusted back in the dark. Closed my eyes, breathed deeply, and shook my hair out of my face - blinking to keep the tears away. Hands ran up my sides, hot, swarmy. I didn't look back down in their direction. The sound of his labored breathing was enough; I didn't need to see his face.

My legs swept me away from the bed, sliding against slippery skin and satin sheets.

"No, stay in bed for a while, babe..."

Feet pressed against rough, wooden floors as the sounds of the night leaked through the walls and windows of this dim, clustered, apartment. Car horns and the loud music of those driving, rowdy neighbors sitting out together on the stoop; the ticking of the world tocking at me as I made my way to my bathroom, and sat at the vanity.

Time. It stared me in the face - mocking. Mocking my bare flesh and disheveled hair. Mocking what I've become.

This apartment, this block of Eurydice Avenue, was my entire world. For fourteen years, my heels clacked and clicked on these sidewalks; calling the lonely and the wandering to me. Fourteen years, and all these green contacts have ever seen was the way the world moves in rapid spins. The whirling had me dizzy at times, as all I did as I watched was stand still.

The corner had an odd fixity about it; the street pole, a constancy. It seemed the world seduced everyone to move it's way except me. I guess the bitch hated competition - me being a seductress of another kind...

My fingers ran through my hair, my fake eyes numbly monitoring through the mirror as I fixed the dark knots and tangles. But my wiry fingers weren't enough...where the hell was my brush?

The chair shuddered as I kicked away from it, thudding out the compact bathroom and into the bedroom again, the man still laying there on my bed, staring. I grabbed my rouge kimono from the corner post as I looked around for my brush, ignoring him for now.

Finding it on my dresser, I made to go back to the bathroom when he grabbed at me on the way.

"I like how soft your hands are," he said. "Just like a dream....delicate. Almost as if the skin is apart of the air."

He toyed with my fingers as I stared down at him, not truly focused on him or his words. But the way he did this; as if admiring fine china or a glass animal. It reminded me of some night a thousand tears ago.

A night when the world still loved me.

...I pulled my hand away and smiled, as flirtily as I could. "I'm paid well enough to keep them that way." And continued on down the short hall, my footsteps punctuation if there wasn't already. He laughed, deep and breathy, but there was no way he could understand the joke.

The tangles gave way now. I needed to wash up again before my next trick, though. It bothered a man to smell another on a women's body. So naturally, it was bad for business.
Hot water came slamming out the shower head as I twisted the diamond shaped knob. Steam rose up and gripped my face and the flesh of my arms. I would have slipped my robe off, then, but the man from earlier was still in bed. One more job to do.

"Sweetie," I said, bent over him with my lips at his ear. "You're gonna have to leave. I've got others on the meter, you know."

But all he did was stare at me. It was fairly dim in my little squat, but I could make out his features now almost as well as I had on the corner earlier. Pale skin, bristled and squared jawline. Dark brown eyes with a firm, steady gaze.

Too young for me. Twenty-six maybe. Not what used to be my type. But there was something about him I couldn't completely dismiss. Something in the softness of his smile. As if he were trying to comfort me - here, of all places. Me, of all people.

"Did you hear me, hun?" I asked anyway. He wouldn't make much difference. He was here with me after all - paying for this body, this empty vessel. What could he bring to me besides the dollar?

He was quiet for a while. Still staring, still smiling that little smile. I reared up, resigning. I guess the next man would have to do something about him. But just as I went to walk away, he asked in return,

"What's your name? I mean...your real name? The name your mother gave you?"

He wasn't the first to ask this, either. "It doesn't matter anymore. Call me whatever you want."
Fourteen years, and I might as well have forgotten it, anyway. It didn't mean much, now. Funny how a couple years of a few white lines and one broken promise...could do that to you.

The robe slid off of me in a whisper and fell to the ground in the same breath. And with a loud clatter of plastic rings 'round metal, I disappeared for a bit.

Under the spray of water...I was gone.

Somewhere higher, with the words of the songs that flowed from my lips. The water erased me, and I could pretend I was pure again. As if my life still had any worth, and I meant something to myself. It was something beautiful, this shower.
Business sense be dammed - I took any chance I could get to be here; standing in this small white space. Where I could act like I forgave myself at all for how my life turned out....

"How old are you?" My eyes shot open. The curtain was slightly transparent, and through it I made out the figure of the man sitting on my vanity chair. A scattered and distorted image it may have been, I could at least see he had his clothes back on.

I sighed. "You should really be gone by now." My voice reverberating by the close walls and the falling water.

"I haven't paid you yet. I doubt you'd want me to leave, knowing that."

"Dammit!" I snatched the curtain back to see him better. He was smirking, dark hair gleaming bronze under my lights. "Kid, you staying would be a bigger loss than gain. I may be what I am, but it's common practice to keep a trick out of the way of the next. Otherwise, it's just tacky."

"Kid?" Parroting me. Ignoring the rest of what I'd said. "Does that mean you're older?"

I snatched the curtain closed again, muttering, "You're gonna get your ass kicked..."

"What was that?" I didn't answer. Just closed my eyes again. Disappeared.

It was quiet for a while after. I thought maybe he'd finally left, until he said. "I think that was your doorbell ringing..."

My doorbell?...Shit!

I flew out of the shower, all thought of a towel or any fabric for decency absent from my mind as I ran towards the front door, yelling, "Shit! Shit! John! Hang on! Shit!"
The hallway outside of my apartment was dark. Empty.

My regular client, John, was no where to be seen. I slammed the door with soaked and furious fingers. Stomping feet and trembling fingers, I was back in the bathroom in seconds.

"Look what you've done!" I roared, naked body curved over his seated form, my hands flailing - not so delicate now - in his face. "Look what you've done to me!"

But soon I'd collasped onto the cool linoleum, body shaking as my eyes heaved tears I hadn't been able to shed in months. "Look what I've done..."

And I saw James in my head. Shining in my mind as bright as the flames that burned in me for him. Then. His smile. His eyes. Two of the most deceptive and cruel things God ever created.
I only ever thought of him at times like these - when it seemed my world was at the brink of crumbling again. Of course I would think of the man who'd first shattered it, all those years ago.

"You're the prettiest girl I've ever seen. Damn." I fell for that line so quick.

"Let me take you home tonight. Just let me have that, Lisa, and I'll give you everything you ever wanted. Any and everything." I fell for that one, too. And I gave it to him. I gave my all.

My soul, most importantly. But in the end, it wasn't me who sold it. I gave it for free - James, however, gave it away for a hundred bucks and a hit.

His last words to me before he left me alone with four strange men in an apartment like this, were, "This is where you're gonna shine brightest, baby. Forget all that pop singer bullshit. You're the prettiest girl, I've ever seen. Your voice isn't what people pay attention to. Remember that. "

And he shut the door on me...and so much more. Fourteen years ago.

Look at me now. Mona Lisa, he used to call me, because I was picture perfect.

Well, the picture's starting to crack. I'm losing my smile. I lost everything else so long ago.

"Hey! Hey!" The man said cupping my face.

"Shut up! Get away from me! I'm ruined!" I tried to fight him. But I was so tired. I'd been fighting myself for years, I didn't have much more energy to fight someone else.

And so, his hands were able to cup my face again. "Look...I can take you out of here." He said.
"I want to."

I stared at him, tears distorting my vision slightly. "...why?"

"Because you're the prettiest girl I've ever seen. And I don't believe you deserve a life like this."

It broke my heart to hear those words again. But I laughed anyway. A dry, creaky laugh that hinted at the splintering inside of me. "Oh." I said. "So you want to save me. I see."

I slapped his hands away and stumbled to my feet, picking up my robe along the way. "Get the fuck out. Now."

He grabbed my hands, and looked me hard in the eyes. "I'm serious. Let me take you away from here. Let me help you."

Ah. So that's what it was about him, blazing in his eyes. I couldn't help smiling as I realized. It had been a while since I'd seen such innocence...such hope in somebody. I almsot didn't believe in the two for a while, living in the darkness for so long. It was a crushing thing. I wish I still had the capacity for them. Wished my heart could beat enough to sustain them.

But I could humor him, and myself, too.

So, I told him, "I'll take you up on that."

"...Really?" Surprised I was suddenly cooperative. He expected more, maybe.

"Mmhmm." I answered, nodding my head. "Tell you what, if you can walk out of here, and wait for me on the sidewalk outside, I'll go wherever it is you plan on taking me. I'll let you save me. On one condition."

His heavy eyebrows furrowed. "Okay...what?"

"You can't look back for me. At all. You look back, and you might as well forget about me forever. Got it?"

He reared back, head tilting so that his chin tipped up. He looked skeptical already. "...sure."

"Go then. I'll be with you in a bit. Just remember what I said." And I winked at him as he took a final wary glance before walking into the dark of my apartment, fading away. The front door opened and shut. His footsteps echoed less and less as he walked further and further away from here.

...he thought he knew. About what in particular, I wasn't sure. Maybe me, or the way people like me worked in general. But he had the self-assurance of someone fresh to these parts of the world.

I stood at my window, watching as he emerged from the building's main entrance below. He made it to the front stoop and stopped. And, just as I expected, his brown eyes found mine. I shook my head before letting the curtain drop closed again. Shutting me away.

From what this time, he and I may never know.