“Oh, yes, yes!” With a loud choked-off grunt, Trina’s client for the night collapsed on top of her, pressing her down into the sweat-soaked mattress. The guy panted furiously into her ear, his hot, dank-smelling breath hitting her face over and over again. Yuck, Trina thought, fighting every internal impulse she had in order to stay still underneath the sweating, flabby husk on top of her. Trina did what she always did: silently counted to thirty, then shoved at the guy’s shoulders, peeling him off her chest and pushing him to the side so that she could get up from the bed and stagger to the bathroom to clean up.
The client was still gasping for breath on the bed when she came back a minute later, his whole body flushed a deep red. “Jesus, that was good.”
“Thanks,” Trina said, but her voice came out hollow rather than genuinely grateful. She walked over to the dresser opposite the bed and got back into her clothes as quickly as possible. She hated being naked in front of clients. More often than not, she tried to keep her bra on, at least, but this guy had wanted to see all of her. At least it’s over now, she said silently to herself. Now I can just go home and stop freaking out about making the rent this month.
Trina cleared her throat and tapped her feet impatiently, annoyed that her client was taking so long to pry his ass off the bed. “That’ll be two hundred dollars,” she said firmly, finally getting the guy to lift his head up from the pillow and look at her.
“I paid for the hotel room, though,” the client said, slowly lifting himself out of bed and reaching down to the ground to pick up his clothes. “Anyway, have a good night.” He struggled into his clothes and then moved toward the door of the hotel room, but Trina stepped in front of him, barring him from exiting that easily.
“You’re not leaving here until you give me my money,” Trina said between clenched teeth, barely containing the rage that she felt spark to life inside of her chest. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled painfully, her body going on alert mode, readying itself for a fight. The client was a mushy, soft guy, but he was still a man, much bigger than her. He could take her if he really wanted to.
The client narrowed his eyes at her, his upper lip curling up into a snarl. “You threatening me?” he asked, a mocking edge to his voice.
Trina balled her hands into fists, digging her nails into the skin of her palm. Don’t fucking try it, asshole, she silently prayed. “Two hundred dollars. Now,” she barked out. Don’t fucking try it. Not tonight.
The client stared at her for a long moment, breathing hard, and Trina half expected him to tackle her to the ground, but finally he sighed deeply and reached for his wallet, throwing several twenties on the ground for Trina to take. “There. Happy now, whore?”
Trina rolled her eyes, but she still waited until the client left the hotel room to kneel down and pick the bills off the ground. She didn’t want him to have the satisfaction of seeing her on her knees.
“Fuck this day,” she muttered out loud to herself as she walked back over to the dresser, bracing her hands on the smooth hard surface as she stared at herself in the mirror against the wall. She looked tired—exhausted, actually, like every drop of energy in her body had been wrung out of her like water from a damp, overused towel.
I can’t keep doing this, Trina thought, a little frightened at the blank emptiness she saw in her own eyes. She’d been fucking guys for money for years, but only recently was she operating alone, without a pimp or madam to depend on for protection. Every client she took was a gamble. Every time she fucked a guy, she was risking her life. God, she never thought that she would miss having a pimp, for Christ’s sake. But she did. She really did.
A sudden shrill ringing noise tore Trina away from her morose thoughts. Somebody was calling her on her cell phone. “Hello?” Trina said after answering the call.
“Hey, girl! It’s Kittie! I’ve got a new phone!”
Despite everything, Trina found herself smiling, her cheeks almost aching with the unfamiliar sensation. “Hey, Kittie. It’s been a long time. I haven’t seen you on the streets much.”
“Oh, I’m not on the streets anymore,” Kittie said.
Trina was a little taken aback. Out of all the working girls in the city, Kittie was the one that made it out alive? That was odd. Kittie seemed to love the work more than any other girl Trina had ever met. “Uh, so you’re done with… the work?” Trina was unsure if she should say “sex work” out loud in case Kittie was talking in a public place.
“No, of course not, silly!” Kittie replied. “I work at a brothel now. It’s so much cleaner and easier than picking clients off the streets, you know?”
“No, I wouldn’t know,” Trina said, sighing deeply and pushing some of the sweaty, messy hair back from her forehead.
Kittie didn’t seem to notice the melancholy in Trina’s voice. “So what have you been up to, babe?” she asked excitedly.
“Um, same old, same old,” Trina said, going over to sit on the unmade bed. “Working by myself now.”
Kittie went silent for a moment before she finally stuttered out a response. “Oh, uh, you’re a lone operative, huh? Do you like that?”
“No,” Trina scoffed with a bitter laugh. “But I don’t really have any choice. Remember Roberto, my last pimp? He got clipped by one of the major crime families in the area. So I’m on my own.”
Kittie fell silent again, and Trina was a little worried that the call had disconnected before she picked up on the sound of Kittie’s steady breathing. “Um…” her friend said uncertainly.
“What?” Trina prompted her, too tired to put up with Kittie’s coyness at the moment. She just wanted to get up, crawl into bed, and pretend that her life was much better than it actually was.
“Well, my boss told me today that she’s looking to hire some new girls. They’re run by one of the mobs in the city, but it’s totally safe, I promise,” Kittie said. “Would you be interested?”
“I don’t know, Kittie…” She got back on her feet, pacing back and forth across the entire length of the hotel room as she considered Kittie’s offer. “I mean, it sounds tempting, but after what happened to Roberto, I don’t really want to get mixed up in the mob, you know?”
“You won’t!” Kittie said enthusiastically. “It’s really safe and clean and regulated. You won’t have to deal with anything more dangerous than you already are. You could come by tomorrow night to audition, if you want.”
“I have to audition?”
“Well, yeah, but you’re gorgeous, honey. I wouldn’t worry about that. I’ll text you the address, and you can decide if you want to show up tomorrow at seven. Okay? Love you, bye!”
Without any further ado, Kittie hung up on Trina, leaving her alone with her thoughts in the crappy hotel room.
Trina considered Kittie’s sales pitch, weighing the pros and cons in her head. It’s the mob, the cautious part of her brain argued forcefully. You can’t get mixed up with the mob.
I can’t keep doing what I’m doing, either, Trina thought, rubbing at a few aching spots on her arms, where apparently the client had grabbed her a little too hard during the trick. I can’t keep doing this.
Ding. Trina received the promised text from Kittie, telling her the exact address of the brothel and the name of her boss. “Dana Caliperi…” Trina said out loud. “That sounds familiar.”
It took her a second before it clicked. The Caliperi family. The ones who’d ordered the hit on Roberto several months ago.
Fuck, Trina thought, letting her body sag against the nearest wall. What the hell was she was supposed to do? Continue what she was doing and wait for a client to get violent with her? Or go to work for the people who put her in this position in the first place?
“I’ll just go to audition and see how I feel,” she said to herself. “Then I’ll make my decision.” Her stomach clenched painfully as she forced herself into motion, leaving the hotel room and heading in the vague direction of her apartment. I’ve got a bad feeling about this, she thought. But what other choice do I have?