Repose Memories (reposememories) wrote in repose, @ 2017-06-02 08:33:00 |
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Entry tags: | cris martin, marta flores, ~plot: memories |
What: Memory
Will characters be viewing the memory or experiencing it?: Experiencing
Warning, this memory contains: Implied underage sexual situation.
The night is fresh. It’s that weird place between spring and summer where it’s not cold but there’s a bite when you’re out late. You’re always out late.
You can see neon from where you are. The tattoo place across from the bars, it has a light-up sign with a mermaid whose tail swishes from side to side. When you first picked a spot, you were closer to the mermaid. You liked the hell out of it, the fact that it was neon green and neon flesh color, and the tail was as constant as the hands of a clock. Tick-tock and it counted down time. You could fixate on it even when the view was obscured and anticipatory fear clutched your belly.
Fear kind of hangs around a lot at night. It’s like a smell in the air, and it’s not just you. The streetlights don’t feature much round here, and the streetlights are kind of inconsistent. Sometimes the bulbs blink and then burn out and this end of town doesn’t see a lot of rich people complaining about the light. It works for them, kind of. That it’s dark and they run the town along with the people who really run the town.
So you can’t see real well what’s coming. Your boots are too tight. Your toes are crammed up near the edge but they fit last month, mostly. You’re growing and it makes you so goddamn hungry all the time, like you’re burning up whatever you put in, during your sleep. You’re thirteen and you’re gawky and whenever you see yourself in the mirror, you’ve lost whatever it is that made you a cute kid. You’re not a kid anymore. Your legs are cold, and your arms are cold and you wrap your arms around your stomach because that’s cold too, but casual. Like, hey, I’m not scared, I’m just really fucking cold, casual. Scared isn’t a good look, and you need cash tonight. Scared isn’t a hot look, except to a few whackos and you don’t want to get in a freaking car with a nutjob.
You’re not safe the way some girls in town are. Most girls in town are. You’re not being watched, there’s no procedure, nobody coming down here is terrified of what happens if they mark up the merch. That’s the whole point, this isn’t uptown with a pay-off to crooked cops to stay out of the streets. This is old town, where the cops don’t bother to show up and the safety comes from numbers.
You’ve been six months out of a gig with safety from people who watch from the side-streets and you’re still feeling that glug of adrenaline and fear each time you pick a place to stand, along with that light, giddy feeling that this is all about you, baby. You work it, you keep it. You’re not over it. It still feels pretty fucking good and the numbers are up. There’s six of you, and you’re bffs. Unironically, because you’re young enough that bff means something, and old enough that you know these bitches will be with you if you go to that shitty little clinic and hold your hand.
It feels solid. It feels real. Safety in numbers is an absolute, you’re solid on that. Some guy stumbles down the road, clearly up to his eyeballs in booze, but that doesn’t stop them from calling. You hear your friends and you smile. The guy’s too drunk to get it the fuck up or to get off and what should be ten minutes max and done, turns into real work.
You can hear the hum of an engine coming the other way. A car. The cars are better because the guys in them have gotten here on purpose. They know what they’re looking for and they pay pretty good, but it’s also a car. Safety in numbers pretty much shaken out until there is none anymore, and they have a thing going. Check the plate, enough small change for a phone-box if it works (or lift somebody’s phone, either works) and know who is gone. It’s not much. The cops wouldn’t do shit if nobody drives back, but it’s been six months without someone watching who can fuck you over, beat you bloody or trash your business which is enough to keep them straight, and nobody’s dead yet.
You take enough of a walk over to lean on the window. He’s not cute. They’re never cute. He’s old, somebody’s dad, maybe. He’s got that dad-aged spread, his face is wattled and fat and he’s looking at your rack and your ass as you put forearms up on the roof and lean in. Half your rack is Kleenex, so this guy’s gonna be disappointed if he’s a boobs man, but he wouldn’t be down here if what he wanted was old enough for tits. You’re one of the oldest, and you have something up-top.
You can see him shudder anticipation when you lean in. You’re not so hot on books and stuff, but you can read an old guy getting a hard-on real good. He flips the locks. Locks, he has the doors locked and you fucking hate that sound. Not like whatever kid probably sits in back, who wants to open their own door. You want to know the doors open. You flick a look in back. There’s a freaking car-seat. Fuck this guy. But it says he’s got somewhere he’s gotta get back to. Somebody’s waiting, maybe.
He cocks his head toward the passenger seat, and the butterflies bloom out inside your stomach. You don’t have this shit down yet, you’re not ice-cold. It still scares you every time you wrap your hand around the handle of the door and duck your head inside. Your hair falls over your face, curls that smell like cheap drugstore perfume and the street and inside his car, it smells like BO and artificial pine.
You delay. Seconds, but there’s enough time in there that your buddy can write a note. License plate number, and you hope she isn’t working. He slides a hand over torn fishnet, casual, the heel of his palm jammed up against your crotch, and the squeeze of warm fingers.
“How much?”