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  Heather Lewis is the author of two other novels, House Rules and The Second Suspect. In 2002, she took her own life at the age of forty.

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2004100912

  A complete catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the British Library on request

  The right of Heather Lewis to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  Copyright © 2004 Hobart Lewis and Ann Rower

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious.

  Any similarity to real persons, dead or alive, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  First published in 2004 by Serpent’s Tail,

  4 Blackstock Mews, London N4 2BT

  website: www.serpentstail.com

  Printed by Mackays of Chatham, plc

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  At a crossing of the line,

  everything you need is mine.

  —Nico and Philippe Quilichini

  “Saeta”

  One

  For the longest time I didn’t call it turning tricks. When I’d leave work, cross the street to the train station and, if some guy – man, I guess really you’d call him – had come off the train, was on his way home, I’d take his money.

  We’d do it in his car. I’d work maybe twenty minutes. Get maybe twenty dollars, which was good compared to what I made at my job across the street. Besides, it’s hard to get more in a car. At least I told myself this. Though I guess how much depends on what you’ll do for it.

  I wouldn’t do a whole lot; acted pretty grumpy about doing anything. But then they liked that, one or two of them especially did.

  This wasn’t something I was looking to do, though by how easy it happened you would’ve said it was. People have. Still, for me it happened by accident. And while it’s true I needed the money that’s not all I needed from it. I don’t care what anybody says. I understand the reason for telling people that, people outside it. But the thing is, I could never really see anyone as outside it. What the extra need is, the thing besides money? I’ve never pinned it down. I know it’s there, though.

  *

  So anyway, every day after work I’d wait. Well, maybe not every day, not at first. Gradually it got to be that regular. And then I got regulars. By then it becomes a two-way thing with them depending on you and you depending on them. Once it’s there, who’s to blame doesn’t matter because you’re each getting what you came for.

  Maybe it started because I didn’t want to go home. Home right then meant my parents’ house. It hadn’t meant that in a long time and to have it mean that again, so late in the game, relatively, wasn’t easy or even simple.

  I had, after all, picked the Juvey place over them, but that had turned out nasty. Worse than I’d thought and I’d thought bad. Of course, I’d had a shaky start there and after that was marked. This didn’t feel new to me, but the way they went about reminding you daily and in such obvious ways, the way they made you a dog, put a leash on you – and I mean this literally – I had to get out no matter where I’d end up.

  I’d ended up at home with a capital H, and so every day after work I avoided going there. This despite the fact my parents weren’t living there and wouldn’t be for months. It didn’t matter. Everything in the place belonged to them. Nothing much belonged to me. They’d tossed my stuff when I got locked up. Anyway, as long as I stayed there it seemed I belonged to them too and I needed not to be reminded of this.

  For quite a while I’d gone to a bar after work. One across the street, catercorner to the station. Soon enough that turned into a thing with one of the bartenders. This was based not even on sex but on cocaine and, that not being my favorite drug, I tired of it fast.

  Maybe somehow I figured if I hung around outside the bar instead of inside I’d get paid instead of paying, or trading. Trading, anyone will tell you, ranks as low as you can go and already I’d had years of it. Been born to it really. And so I felt the need to move up. Or I needed to make things plainer.

  So I did move up, which meant out, or never going in—the bar, that is. I don’t know when the first time was, though I do remember it. And like always, like everyone else, I was thinking, well, maybe just this once.

  The reason it’s never just once is the same reason money’s only a part of it. Most anyone can take or leave that, though they don’t think they can. The cover story of all time, that’s what money is. The excuse of excuses no one will question because they so much need to use it themselves.

  The first one, I didn’t want him to know he was first. Even before it was actual work I didn’t want anyone to think they were first.

  Later, of course, it becomes good business to convince them all it’s your first time, first time for money anyway. Not too many would believe beyond that. And when even that becomes impossible to sell, then you try to convince them they’re different, or that what they’re asking for is.

  Always you try and convince them you like it, or them, whichever seems more important. Unless they could care less about that stuff. Those are the easiest in a way, well, depending.

  But that actual first time it’s not so likely you’d want him knowing, unless there’s someone else in it to profit. And I’d promised myself I’d never have someone like that.

  So that first time happened by standing around. By walking past the bar instead of going in. And then past my car and not driving home. It was awkward, but more for the guy off the train. Wasn’t his first time, that I could tell, but probably his first time this close to home.

  Once I saw his hands, the way they fiddled with his wallet, I didn’t so much relax as switch. We were still talking about him buying me a drink. He was asking how much that would cost and worrying about the cash he had on him.

  I don’t know, maybe he thought we were talking about a motel. I wasn’t. Knew while I’d cost more, I’d pay more, so I wasn’t going any farther than this parking lot. I just wanted him to show me his car.

  Finally he said, “Where do we go?”

  So I said, “You got a car?” And that was that. That part was settled.

  The car was nice, nice for this. One of those ones with a front seat that moves back all in one piece. Not so good for driving, but good for sitting in.

  Like I said, he didn’t know how to act, so he started walking me around to the passenger side. He stopped somewhere near the hood ornament.

  Anyway, he let me walk the rest of the way by myself and I got to my door before he got to his. Had to wait for him to pop the locks.

  I was wearing kind of a short skirt. He had on a suit, a lightweight one sort of olive-colored. It was almost too late for dressing this way, too far into fall. Far enough that I was wearing stockings, black ones, the kind with a seam up the back.

  I guess what I’m saying is we both looked the part and that made things easier. Easier for me at least. And he was young and not bad looking, and this helped me too.

  I’d gotten my money already, outside the car. Not much left to do now but do him, so I put my hand in his lap. Got him the rest of the way there, then unzipped him. Touched him some before I put my head down.

  It was fine really, was no big deal. He took maybe four minutes, and when he came I swallowed because neither of us had planned any place else to put it. Besides he’d been decent so it seemed wrong to leave him a mess to clean up.

  I didn’t wait around, mostly because I could tell he didn’t want me to. I just got out of his car and started walking to mine, then kept walking past it again.

  Wound up going into the bar after all.

  I spent some of the twenty drinking because the bartender I knew came in late. Once he got there I stayed as long as he did. Sat at
the bar until they closed. Then sat at a table until he finished locking up, counting the drawer, drying some glasses.

  When he got done, he came over. He pushed aside the table I sat behind. Got down on his knees so he was in between mine. Afterwards we did maybe half a gram, though it was more like speed cut with coke than vice-versa and this wasn’t the first time. Still, I wasn’t ready to start anything over it. Not yet. Just noticed and knew I’d have to say something sometime soon.

  My end of this deal had been short to begin with and was now getting shorter. Like I said, I’d seen I was paying too much for too little. I guess getting paid out there in the parking lot made me really feel it. Before it’d been more of an idea.

  I guess you’d call this a transitional period.

  Two

  The transition didn’t last very long. Lasted only until this new one walked up to me. It couldn’t have been more than a few weeks later.

  I went with him a few times there in his car before he asked me to come home with him. That’s not something I’d usually agree to, never had in fact. I’d made up my mind not to when I began this. But he was kind of a rough guy, which made it harder to refuse. Not for the reasons you might think, but because that thing pulls me. And then, too, he’d dangled a carrot, which was his wife.

  So we drove to his place. It couldn’t have been even ten miles from the station. Going up the driveway seemed to take longer than getting there.

  Once inside he sat me down on the living-room couch with a drink and then called his wife to join us. I couldn’t tell yet how he wanted it played so I stayed put – drank my drink, smoked my cigarette, and kept quiet.

  His wife was good-looking, nothing suburban or matronly going on, which was a decided relief. I looked her over pretty carefully because I knew he’d want at least that much. She acted shy of me, fidgety. He’d told her to expect me, or to expect something. I could tell by what she was wearing – a long black negligee that trailed a little behind her when she crossed the room.

  She sat down beside me. I still waited for my cue, didn’t touch her. I understood they’d scripted things this far and so I put out my cigarette, not wanting it to get in the way.

  The wife touched my cheek, still awkward and shaky like she was trying to find the right way to go about it. When her fingers got to my neck I found myself borrowing her shivers. Found myself trembling all over and so already I knew this was not a good thing to pursue. That it would make me feel something, which naturally is about the last thing you want.

  I turned my head away so I didn’t have to look anywhere near her eyes, great big brown eyes I could tell were sad every night and not just this one, not just because of this. Hers was the last sort of headset I needed to slip into. I knew I couldn’t afford to get that kind of sloppy around her husband.

  By now she’d begun touching my breasts so I took off my shirt, left my bra on because he told me to. He told me to hike up my skirt and open my legs, and I did these things too. All this time I looked at my bag. I’d put my underwear in there when he’d had me take it off in the car. I’d put the first half of the money there too.

  Not looking at his wife didn’t exactly solve all my problems. She’d solved some of hers though, and was no longer so hesitant. She’d slid on to my lap, was facing me. By then I had to turn my head back to her and besides, like I said, not looking wasn’t working anyway.

  I took the negligee off her shoulders, began to kiss her there, held her around the waist and she let the negligee drop.

  Her husband, by now he’d sat down. I could catch sight of him over her shoulder. Could smell his cigarette, hear the ice in his glass. At first, closing my eyes helped. But I found I liked keeping them open better. Felt safer that way.

  She was wearing one of those female lingerie things I couldn’t name. All I know is you unbuttoned the front of it. Well, I did. She started to take off my bra, but her husband still didn’t want this. And he didn’t want us lying down on the couch either. What he wanted was her on the floor on her knees and everything taken off her.

  This was the point I got nervous, began searching for a way out. But I had no idea why because what she did to me now had me leaning back one minute and grasping her the next — back and forth like this until he got out of his chair.

  The only thing he took off was his belt. He put it around her waist and pulled up. This made her stop what she was doing to me and that made him mad, or gave him the excuse. He'd gotten down behind her and was pulling harder on the belt, was rubbing against her, pressing into her. She’d laid her head across my lap and I was holding on to her. I put my fingers into her mouth because I didn’t like how she sounded. I couldn’t listen to it.

  When he put his dick in her ass she grabbed hold of me. She had her arms around my waist, her head tucked into my stomach. I probably should have held her too, but instead I tried pulling away, but getting leverage was impossible. It was then I noticed him watching me.

  He fucked her methodically. Slammed her pretty good, and it was clear this hurt her. She was crying into my skirt. But the look on his face? There was nothing there, a hint of a smile but that was it. Maybe that’s why I was trying to get away.

  He hadn’t paid me enough to watch something like this. He’d paid me enough to do it to me, but not to watch him do it to her. And if this sounds like a pure thought, understand it as purely self-serving. Believe me, getting it would’ve been way the hell easier.

  When he’d finished with her, we left her there on the floor. I put my shirt back on, picked up my bag, followed him out to his car. I knew we weren’t done yet because he hadn’t come off. Turned out, he was always like this — he got his money’s worth always.

  Now, outside, he took my bag from my hand. Put it on the hood of the car and then pressed my head down beside it. He held my hands together behind my back and I didn’t mind any of this. I was kind of sleepy about it and didn’t struggle. I just waited.

  I felt his dick through his pants before he took it out and then I felt it between my legs, rubbing me. He let go of my hands. I tried to find something to hold on the hood of his car, but couldn’t. There was nothing there. And so when he pulled me back, I turned my face into my bag because it smelled smokey and leathery; it smelled familiar.

  I don’t know whether this would’ve happened without having his wife, but when he fingered me I got edgy. I knew he was bringing me close and I didn’t think I could stop it. Worse, I knew he could tell. Not that he said anything. He didn’t have to. What he did was put his dick in my cunt and not my ass. And this not being his style made it clear to me he really wanted to be sure.

  I didn’t take long once he’d done that. And though I was silent about it, I knew he felt it by the little tug he gave my hair. And just to ice it, he pulled out. Jerked himself. Had his dick up close to my ass when he did this, but then slipped it away. Pulled my skirt down and leaned into me.

  This wasn’t entirely new. He always jerked himself. But he’d hand me his handkerchief, let me clean myself off. Tonight, though, he was rubbing me in it. Tonight, he wanted me taking this home.

  After, he walked around and got in the car. I wasn’t completely sure I could move but I did. Moved my hand first, toward my bag, and then moved the rest of me. And while my legs were shaky, there wasn’t too far to go.

  I opened the door and sank into the seat. He started the car. I had my bag on my lap and was rummaging for a cigarette. Soon as I’d lit it, he took it from me and so I had to start over. We didn’t say anything, not until we got out on the road. Then he was asking where to drop me because before we’d always been in that parking lot.

  That’s where I should’ve gone back to. My car was still there and I knew it wasn’t good for him to know where I lived. My faculties let me down, though. And there he was suggesting he just drop me at home. “Wherever that is,” he said.

  So this man, this regular, he drives me right up to my door. And without me having to ask he gives me the rest
of my money. And though I’m thinking it’s not enough and never again, instead we’re making another date, and he’s saying he’ll pick me up here instead of the train station, and while this is all bad precedent I’m agreeing.

  Three

  Walking into my parents’ house felt even worse than it should have so I headed straight for the living-room, for the bar in there. Open their liquor cabinet and the smell of gin is enough to knock you to your knees. I’m used to it, though. I got out a bottle of vodka, opened it and poured a short one into the nearest glass. My parents are not the highball type, tall glasses I guess being frivolous.

  Now I had the drink, I put my bag down on the coffee table and dropped on to the couch. I was thinking how at their house – the couple – there was no coffee table, nothing in front of the couch to block his view.

  The date I’d arranged was two days off, which occurred to me meant the weekend. Well, Friday night. I still had my day job, the one I was supposed to go to in the morning, but this seemed less and less likely.

  I began taking things out of my bag. First the cigarettes, then my lighter, then the cash. Laid the four new and now-wrinkled hundreds across the table. I nicked the edge of one with my cigarette, and I might have kept it burning, except I’m a little too practical for that. Last I took out my underwear.

  If he wanted a weekend, we’d have to talk about money. But the problem was he’d pay it. This was why he’d become such a staple. The reason I told myself anyway. The excuse for why I did and let him do things I’d never agreed to with the others. I mean, the very first time he’d gotten me in the backseat on my stomach and for just forty bucks. Then I wised up and told him that sort of thing cost more.

  I poured another drink and took it to bed, that and the cigarettes. The rest I left spread across the table. I didn’t sleep a great deal, and when it got light I thought it’d be easy to just get up and go to work. I’d planned to wear the same skirt. That was the hitch, the thing reminding me that maybe something had actually happened or changed.