“Just looking to make some money,” I finally say, the grin returning to my lips.
He glances over his shoulder into the darkness, before he turns to look at me again.
“Why?”
It’s a simple enough question, with a not so simple answer, but I do my best to be honest without telling everything to this random stranger in the night.
“My sister is sick. Trying to afford some medicine for her, is all.”
He nods as he looks down at my sneakers, cranes his neck to look behind me, then arches an eyebrow up at me curiously, “So, what are you selling? I don’t have much money on me, but I’ll buy something to help out.”
“You’re looking at it,” I tell him with a quiet chuckle.
He looks confused for a moment, before the look of realization dawns over him and he shakes his head.
I immediately feel deflated.
Rejection comes with the territory, but I still haven’t gotten used to it.
“Alright, well. You got a place?” he asks.
A relieved breath escapes me as I turn my eyes back toward him again, “The only place I ‘have’ is with my sister and I don’t take anyone there.”
As soon as the look of the deal being off enters his eyes, I immediately think of something.
“The alley around the corner is actually really private. It’s dark and as long as we’re quiet, no one will ever know we were there.”
“This is crazy,” he murmurs as he shakes his head.
“Please? She really needs this medicine,” I all but beg him.
He gives me another once over up and down before he nods.
“Lead the way.”
Chapter
Two
“What’s your name?” he asks me as we enter the alley.
“Huh? Oh, Oliver.”
“Nice to meet you, Oliver, I’m fucking insane for doing this, but you can call me Simon.”
I let out a laugh as we walk further into the alley, before I finally decide it’s a safe enough distance from being seen, butstill close enough for me to make a run for it if things get to be too dangerous.
I blow out another breath as I begin to pull my jacket off, then set it on the ground just in front of me. Etta always asks me about any scrapes or bruises I come home to her with, and I don’t know how much longer I can keep lying to her, so I do my best to keep any visible marks out of the equation.
Oliver watches as I drop to my knees, ready to go, then reaches back and fishes his wallet out of his back pocket.
“What’s it worth?”
“Blow jobs are fifty.”
He lets out a low whistle before he licks his thumb and begins to pick through the notes in his wallet, before pulling out three and showing them to me.
“And what does one-fifty get?”