***

Slapping a hand over my mouth, I trip down the metal stairs that lead to the streets, trying to blink through my tears and not gag too loud. I can hear one of them storming out after me, yelling and screaming the alias that I’d given them while demanding that I come give them what they’d paid for. I can’t, though. I can’t go back and sleep with the two of them at the same time. My stomach lurches again and I have to clamp my hand down tighter in order to stop a loud cough from eruptting out of my mouth.

I’d gotten as far as letting both of them push the top of my dress to my waist and kiss me and rub their hands on me; I’d been alright then, even thinking that I would be able to charge them double the rate for doing them at the same time. But as we’d gotten farther and they’d started requesting things being done to them at the same time, I’d begun to feel the vomit building at the base of my throat.

After they’d realized I was growing a little uneasy about all this, they’d started to get a bit harsh and a lot more violent. By throwing me on the bed and pushing my back in to walls roughly, they were trying to intimidate me in to staying. However, when they’d realized that I was going to walk out the door and leave them to rub one out for the other, they got even angrier. I’d had to throw a few weak punches and deliver a few kicks, even going as far as clawing at their slick forearms, in order to pry myself free of their grasp.

Why had I agreed to do this? Why I had I even thought for a second that I’d be able to do this?

Drawing in a deep, shaky breath through my nose, I glance over my shoulder to see if any one of them are following me, my eyes searching the people that have now started to file out of the shops that litter both sides of the street. I don’t recognize any faces and I knew that the memory of their sweaty, disgusting expressions would be burned in to my memory forever, definitely not allowing me to overlook them in a crowd of people so soon after the event.

When I turn around, I begin readjusting my dress, assessing how I am physically and try to repair the broken strap of my dirty bag. I pull the severely stretched straps of my dress back up on my shoulders and try to situate my full breasts in the petite cups of the top-half, praying that someone doesn’t pay me enough attention to get revolted and call the police.

Next, I look over my arms, legs and face and feel around my stomach, searching for any gashes or bruises. My bottom lips cut, I find out as I slide a finger over the chapped skin, and there’s a spot on my forehead where, if I press too hard, I wince in pain, which signals that an ugly bruise is surely going to form. My knees are a little banged up with carpet burns from the beginning of our little venture and from when I’d tumbled down on my struggle to get out of the room. Add a few other non-serious bruises and severely sore fingertips, and I’m alright; banged up a little, but alive and capable of walking.

I turn my attention to my purse now and continue walking down the boulevard, looking up only occasionally as I try to fuse the two broken ends of the strap together.

Suddenly, I feel myself slowing and accidentally veer to the right, obviously towards doors and people exiting and entering out of them. I try to avoid them, but one stranger gets caught due to my lack of not paying attention.

I run right in to him and before I can just mumble an apology and continue walking, he grabs on to my elbow and whirls me around. It’s not hard, his actions aren’t, but it surprises me and I gasp while clutching my bag to my chest.

“Are you alright? I didn’t do that, did I?” He indicates towards my damaged face and squints his pretty green eyes while leaning in a little closer, the gem-like orbs roaming over my face. “Damn, you’re lips bleeding quite a lot there, miss. Have you got any towels or anything in that bag of yours? Might want to tidy that up if you do.”

I jerk away from him then, my brows fusing together in confusion at his choice to be nice to me.

“I’m fine,” I grumble, slowly starting to head away from him, though I continue to stare at his handsome face.

“Well, you don’t look fine.”

His eyes look over my entire body as he says that and I see them widen in realization and it makes my cheeks redden.

He’d obviously just recognized what I did for a living and so I now know that it’s time to make my get away-that I should leave before he tries to persuade me to stay long enough for him to call someone to help me or, even worse, try to bring me in for himself for the night. I don’t want any more customers; I just want to find a shelter and sleep.

“How 'bout I help you out, yea? There’s a little store over there where I can help you get cleaned up.”

I scoff and slide even further away from him. “Look, buddy, I’m not looking for any more customers, alright?”

“No, no-I didn’t mean it like that! I was only talking about getting you some band aids and a bit of disinfectant on that big bruise. Nothing sexual and no money, just a nice person offering you some help.”

I narrow my eyes and pause my walking, realizing that he’d been unnoticeably trailing after me and that it was sort of pointless. Biting down on my lip, I stand up on my tiptoes and glance behind him, looking for any other people who he might’ve been hanging around with tonight. I see no one, however, and when I look back to his face, he’s gazing at me hopefully.

“I don’t know,” I trail, looking him over wearily. He wouldn’t be the first John who’d tricked me and made me perform some sort of sexual favor for only a few bucks.

“I swear that I’m not going to hurt you or anything, miss. You just look like you need a bit of help.”

Chewing on my lip harder, I begin to think. I really did need to get cleaned up and I knew the missionary I was headed to would only offer a hot meal of nasty food and a hard cot for me to sleep on for the night. My kneecaps were burning where the cuts and scrapes were and my head had started to throb.

I let out a deep breath and give a curt nod of my head. “It has to be someone public, where you can’t do anything.”

His emerald eyes soften even more after I say that and he offers a sorrowful smile before nodding. When he gets close enough, his fingers brush over the middle of my back and I frown before putting a good bit of distance between us. He pulls the hand away and holds it up to show he meant no harm while smiling innocently.

“There’s a convenience store right over there, I think, and a McDonald’s just ‘round the corner,” he says, shoving his big hands in his pockets.

I frown, slightly confused as to why he felt the need to point out the fast food joint, but I don’t say anything, just follow beside him; I don’t want any contact with him other than what I have to have.

When we reach the convenience store, he holds the door open for me and when I pause, he just smiles and gently motions for me to go in. I stay close to the frame that is farthest away from him and watch from the corner of my eye. I was still sure that he was planning something, despite all his sincere looks and words.

Strolling down a few of the isles, he picks up a few rolls of paper towels and a bottle of peroxide, then turns to me.

“Do you need anything else? I’ll be glad to get it for you.”

I give a shake of my head and shrink away as he starts to head towards the register. He pays quickly and then heads out of the store. When he doesn’t stop a little short of the entrance, I grow confused again. Was he going to give me the stuff or lead me half across L.A.?

This time I decide to say something.

“Hey, where are you going now?”

He turns and pauses just on the edge of the sidewalk. “The McDonalds I pointed out. You said somewhere public and I thought I’d get you some food.”

“No, you don’t have to do that. That stuff is more than enough.”

“Really, it’s not a big deal. I could go for one of their burgers right now, anyway, and you could keep me company. Not like that! I meant, we could talk, but only talk! Fuck, none of that came out right.”

I have to hide the smile that comes across my lips in a fist and ignore his look of relief that comes on his face when he catches my faint giggling.

“Alright, I’ll come.”

He smiles and waits till I’ve drug my feet next to him before continuing towards the eatery.

I can’t help but think about how stupid I am and how random this whole thing is. I’m walking down the street to a McDonalds with some guy who I ran in to while I was trying to get away from the two idiots that I couldn’t fuck at the same time. If that wasn’t the beginning of a script for a movie, then I didn’t know what was. I mean, no one could write this shit!

All joking aside, I start to wonder if I’m being smart about this. Though I did feel as if a truck had ran me over, I knew that I could probably go on and be fine. I want to say that it was the way he’d looked at me or the way he’d scrambled his words just then, but I know I would be lying. It’s just because he’s proved to be pretty nice so far and even a weary, skittish person like me isn’t going to turn away some good help.

It’s stupid, though, I conclude as my eyes catch on the lit up McDonalds sign. It was incredibly stupid and I would still have to watch him in order to make sure he didn’t try anything..

Again, he holds the door open for me and waits till I’ve entered before he does. When I step in to the vicinity of the staff that’s working so early on this morning and the few customers that are in here, they all sort of wrinkle their noses or send me disgusted looks. Though I’m quite use to it, I feel as my cheeks blaze in embarrassment and duck my head while hiding to the part of the restaurant that holds no one.

He follows after and allows me to pick where we sit before easing himself in the chair next to me. I frown, but when I go to move to the other side, he stops me. “How can I fix you up if you’re sitting way over there?”

I snap my head around and steel my gaze on him. “You are not touching me.”

He sighs and pushes the bag of stuff towards me before just nodding and resting his crossed arms on the tabletop.

Finally unfolding my arms from around my bag, I pull the things out he’d purchased for me to clean myself up and begin to open the paper towels and disinfectant while he just watches. He doesn’t say anything, just keeps his eyes on my figure while I lean down to press the now-soaked single sheet of thin, soft paper to my blazing kneecaps. I wince in pain when the liquid comes in contact with the burned and gashed skin, but manage to slam my mouth shut before a painful whimper leaves it.

“How’d you get so banged up, by the way?”

His question draws my orbs up to his face and I frown when I notice how soft and pained his expression is. It’s as if he’s hurting while watching me do this and, at seeing this, I scowl.

“None of your business,” I hiss.

I tear off a clean paper towel, pour some more liquid on it and press it back to my kneecap, wincing again.

He doesn’t say anything else while I manage to get the skin of knees cleaned up, but when I start to feel around my face for the big bruise and the cut on my lip, he interjects.

“Now you can’t clean that up yourself. Just let me help you, alright? I promise I won’t try anything.”

I narrow my eyes, challenging him while inwardly knowing his was right. I had already smeared half of the cleansing stuff on parts of my face that weren’t even hurt.

“If you do anything, then I swear I’ll scream and slap the piss out of you, alright? You can go find some other girl if that’s what you’re looking for tonight.”

“I swear,” he says, nodding a bit.

I sigh and slide over to the seat next to me, allowing him to take the one I’d just been sitting in.

He has to get a new paper towel and pour more disinfectant on it, as the one I was using had already dried up from all my attempts. Gently, he grips my chin between his index finger and thumb in order to hold my face still and ease the thing on my forehead.

“Sorry,” he says when I hiss in pain. “Sorry, I’ll try to be as easy as possible.”

The rest of the time he cleans me up is spent with me grimacing and muttering curse words as he rapidly apologizes and holds my chin gently. When he finishes, my bottom lip is now throbbing in pain as the disinfectant seeks in, but my head isn’t hurting and neither do my kneecaps.

Moving to the other side, he starts to gather all the used paper towels. “So, you hungry now?”

I just shrug my shoulders and pull my bag in to my lap, staring down at the scared thing while he heads off to the trashcan and then to the front to order something. I contemplate just leaving now, ditching him without incident, but then grumble a few curses as a voice in the back of my head tells me I at least owe him a thank you.

So I wait till he comes back around with a tray packed to the top with fries and drinks and burgers, ignoring when I feel as my mouth heavily starts to salivate. I stand up quickly and edge a little closer to the exit door.

“Thanks,” I start to mumble. “I have to go now.”

“Come on, you can stay a little while longer and help me eat all this food.”

As my eyes flash over to the tray again, I bite down on my lip but hiss in pain when my teeth run over the cut. Sighing, I just give a nod and then slide in to my seat again, which causes him to smile widely.

He lays out what he got for me and then digs in to his own. I try to control how fast I’m shoving things in to my mouth and chewing them, but I’m absolutely starving. I hadn’t had a proper meal in days and when I had eaten, it had been a few crackers or something I could easily swipe from some place.

We say nothing as we eat, mainly because I’m too busy devouring all the food.

When we’re finished, he picks up all the trash, places it on the tray and the shoves it to the side, beginning to slurp on his drink.

I grab mine as well and lean back in to my seat, looking anywhere but at his gaze.

“Can I ask your name?”

Snapping my eyes up to his face, I give a nod. “Elaine,” I lie.

“I’m Harry, it’s nice to meet you, Elaine.”

I don’t smile or nod or do anything that would make him think that I believe him. Who in their right mind would genuinely mean that it was nice to meet someone like me, a dirty, filthy whore?

“So do you have a place to sleep?”

I frown at his question and glance over to a clock that rests against a far wall, sighing when I realize the numbers mean the inhabitants of the mission are getting woken up and served breakfast; they wouldn’t allow me to grab a cot now.

I shake my head and just continue to sip at my coke.

“Well, you could come with me. I have a hotel room a couple of blocks away and there’s two rooms, so you could sleep in ond without worrying if I’ll bother you or anything.”

Suddenly, I’m lurching forward and slamming my drink down, narrowing my eyes at the boy. “Why are you being so nice to me? Don’t you know what most people do, Harry? They turn away in disgust and walk the other way."

“Well, that makes them the disgusting people, doesn’t it? I could tell you needed help, is all, and I’m not the type of person to just turn away from someone.”

Saying nothing to that, I settle back in to my chair but keep my narrowed eyes on his face.

“My hotel is just a few blocks away,” he says again, his eyebrows raising, obviously trying to prompt me for an answer.

I think for a few seconds, considering how nice and unthreatening he’d been so far, how none of the missions were taking people this early and that my motel room was probably still occupied with drunk, horny bastards.

“Fine,” I mutter.