***

“Thirty bucks, right?”

I say nothing, just keep my eyes trained on the stained carpet of my motel room, waiting till I hear the click of the door before I look up to the nightstand resting on my right. It was cluttered with full ashtrays, empty cigarette cartons and many of their smoked-to-the-stub contents, condoms, tubes of lipstick and the fresh bills my John had thrown down.

I drop the sheet I’d been using to hide my naked chest and scramble over to snatch up the cash.

Ten, twenty and thirty..

The cheap bastard had actually given me half the amount I’d told him when he’d picked me up on my beat nearly an hour ago. I’d wanted to say something to the asshole when he’d brought up the amount, but I was still recovering from an attack by a John that had happened more than three nights ago, when I’d tried to tell him that he was being too hard. Since then, I’ve just nodded and hidden my face with my hair, hoping to not anger them and if I did, that they’d strike my stomach or somewhere other than my face, because it was what lured in my customers.

Scowling, I fold the only money I currently have to my name and stuff it in a strap of my ripped up stockings, chewing on my lip as I stare down at the green paper.

I had no idea what I was going to do. My weekly rent for this piece of shit room was due in two days and this was all I had: thirty bucks, which left me seventy shy of what I needed. Barb, the landlady who ran this dump, was already threatening to throw me out because she kept saying she didn’t need the cops snooping around here and I just knew, when I went up to her and explained that I would be a day or two late with my rent, she wouldn’t hesitate to cast my few belongings out on the hot Los Angeles streets.

Basically I was fucked and I would have to hope that there were a lot of horny people out there who needed a good lay.

Glancing over to the scratched up alarm clock that rests on top of a mini-fridge across the room, I groan a little. The blurry numbers read two o’clock in the morning, the prime time that everyone starts swinging past these shady parts looking for a bed mate.

I let out a curse and begin to grumble about the slow bastard who’d just left my room, because it was his fault that I wasn’t out there right now getting more money. He’d taken too long to get off, so we had to keep going until he let out a garbled whine into the base of my throat.

Fucker..

Slipping on the dress that barely hit the tops of my thighs and held in my full breasts, I decide to forgo putting my bra back on (it takes too long for a nervous John to undo) and hastily slip on my heavily scraped up red heels. Tripping out of the door, I grab my big bag off one of the only chairs in the room and go about reapplying a layer of red lipstick as I traipse down the unsheltered corridor.

I need seventy more bucks, I think as I try to concentrate on walking and slathering on the crimson stuff. I need to get at least three more John’s in and try to convince them that I’m worth more than ten bucks..

I don’t know if it’s because I haven’t eaten anything all day or a result of the fact that I was really going to have to beg some of these cheap assholes to convince them that I deserved that extra green, but I felt as my eyes started to sting.

Though I’d been at this ‘job’ for only a few months, I never cried after servicing someone. Somehow I’d steeled myself long ago when I’d first decided that this was my only option and so all these things didn’t get to me near as bad as I know they would if I would’ve come in to this raw and with open wounds.

But now, as I got closer to the part of the street that had been labeled as mine and a few other girls, I have to sniffle a bit and hastily wipe at my eyes with my fingers. My heart hangs a little heavy in my chest, too. It’s like this treatment as a ragdoll was finally catching up to me and I realize that I hadn’t taken a step back for a while. I’ve just kept my eyes focused on getting as much cash as I could and I lost myself in all of it.

You don’t have time for this shit, a harsh voice in the back of my head grumbles. You’ve got to get your skinny ass out there and make some goddamn money so you can pay your fucking rent!. I sigh and give myself a shake, holding my head a little higher while glancing around to take notice of the traffic my beat was currently getting.

That little voice was right. I was being stupid and needed to put all that bullshit aside for the sake of my survival, however meaningless it was. I had to get a few John’s tonight because I needed more cash for my shitty little motel room. If I lost it, then I would be homeless and that meant no place to take customers back to, which would result in no money and me being on the verge of finally meeting my end.

A car full of rowdy men drives by and I smile, stretching out my hands to wave and give a big grin.

When the beat up thing comes to a screeching halt and then backs up to me, I draw in a deep breath, shut down the walls on the Delaney that was soft and fragile and allow the harder exterior to file out while I walk over with a steely grin stretching across my lips.

Just seventy more dollars, Delly, that’s all you need.. And with that thought, I start throwing out prices, agreeing to the one of the things that I’d ruled out when I’d started this so many months ago: a three way. Sleeping with one of these sleazy bastards was bad enough, but two? The very thought makes my stomach hurl and a nasty taste to rise up in the back of my throat.

“Sure.”

I say the word and am giving them directions to my motel room before I realize what I’ve just done. But it’s too late and I need the money.

What’s a whore like me going to do, though? I have no other option and so I allow principles to be broken and boundaries to be crossed.

I’m a whore; I have no other choice.