Page 13 of Benji

I snorted. “No. I’m a lawyer.”

“Ah. Makes sense. Your apartment, your nice car. Do you get to say ‘you can’t handle the truth’ and shit like that?”

“Well, I’m legal counsel. I mostly do groundwork for the people who get to say that.”

He nodded slowly. He didn’t say outright that he didn’t like lawyers, but he didn’t have to. “Right.”

“My name’s Nolan O’Brien, by the way,” I offered, hoping it would prompt him to give me his surname. It didn’t. “And your last name?”

He seemed surprised. “Oh. Smith. Benji Smith. Original, huh?”

Smith.

It absolutely was not his name.

“Nice to meet you, Benji Smith.”

He gave me a fake smile and picked up the TV remote. “So, what should we watch?”

FOUR

BENJI

I don’t knowwhy it was so hard to lie to him.

Maybe because he’d been so generous, so kind. And that was a rarity in our world. It usually came with conditions and was a transactional exchange.

Men were usually only nice to me to get what they wanted from me.

But I wasn’t lying to him to deceive him. I was telling him the not-truth to protect him. The only person who knew my real name was Fitch.

Ky knew I had a not-so-nice history, but there wasn’t one person in our profession that didn’t. We all had issues: abuse, abandonment, desperation.

People rarely went into sex work willingly. It was because of limited options and no other choice.

Did I have other options? Any other choice?

Maybe.

The only choice I had was either escape, selling my body to keep my heart and soul free, or stay in my old lifeand have it cost me more of my soul than I was prepared to give.

And anyway, I found Fitch and Ky, and the three of us were as tight as brothers. We promised we’d keep each other safe, keep each other out of trouble and away from the dark path of drugs and bad shit.

We were our own family, and that was our life preserver. We didn’t need drugs when our escape from reality was the bond between us.

I understood why many of our other friends did though. To escape the pain and misery the only way they knew how. The only way they could.

It was a crying shame and evil of those who preyed upon them.

I had no time at all for those arseholes or anyone who would use the vulnerability of others for personal gain.

Like my father.

“Have you had enough to eat?” Nolan asked.

I’d zoned out, staring blankly at the TV and not seeing or hearing a word of the movie I’d picked.

“Oh yeah, thanks,” I said. “I haven’t eaten this much in ages.”

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