Hookerville: Rae and open Who: Rae B and open Where: Hookerville Warnings: TBD
It didn't take long to hear about it. It wasn't the men; ordinarily, it was never the men. Men spoke amongst themselves but they didn't whisper. Men thought these places existed because they had a right to their existing. On the outskirts of town usually, out of the way but convenient enough. She'd known there would be something: it was salt in the air she could catch at. Men ensured there would be something but they didn't gossip about it. They expected it. Women whispered and Rae heard them because that was as inevitable as anything else.
It wasn't well-run. That much she judged on entry to the little shanty-town of trailers and lawn-chairs. It looked uncared for, and the people in it disparate and disconnected. Yes, there was salt in the air, the faint taste of heat and lust and appetites Rae knew as well as she knew hunger - but it was curdled with the thin, bitter taste of shame. Shame had no obligation to show up and make itself at home, she knew that very well. She looked glossy now, in red, clean lines and fitted shapes but she hadn't always, after all. It wasn't unpleasant, that much was also true. The trailers varied, in as much as any place run independently by its constituent parts varied. But that didn't offer much in the way of protection, regularity or finance.
Still, it wasn't meagre. This wasn't one or two girls, doubtfully named, wreathed in bruises. Had it been, it wouldn't have survived five minutes after she'd left it. Appetites, after all, could wane as well as wax. It was enough, and in the fading summer light Rae stood in between one trailer and the next and observed, salt on her skin like the wash from the sea.