One Hour

The room smelled like stale cigarette smoke and sweat. It was potent. There were hookers of every flavor in the room, waiting for their next sixty-minute romance. And all of them had a nose for fresh meat. A black woman with light brown skin and a pierced nose propositioned me. Then there was the Oriental woman with hot pink hair and no breasts. And the girl so translucent that her veins were visible. I had to pay an extra fifty for "Cassidy", a blond with small features and an All-American girl inside of tramp's clothing. She had a trio of guys eyeing her.

With the curl of her index finger, she led me out of the room, past a couple of sweating kids, and up the creaking stairs. The backs of her high heels were chafed and the straps had worn blisters on her feet. The fishnet stockings seemed like something out of a porno with awful disco music, but, she was never comfortable about her legs. A scrawny redhead was coming down the steps dressed in bright pink, a cigarette dangling from her mouth, a john behind her. Her smile was leering and cheap, as if her desire for cock had gone without reason.

Coughing, I turned my eyes back on the girl leading me up the stairs, seeing just the underside of her ass beneath her short black skirt. She had a nice ass once upon a time, before she was a whore. She didn't try to glamorize what she did. She gave up. She still had slender arms, but there were bruises behind her biceps that had turned yellow with age. She didn't care about that either. It wasn't the worst she'd ever been treated. Besides, she made an extra hundred off of him. Her blonde hair was gloomy, cloudy. There wasn't much life left in her body at all, truthfully.

Entering the room with a busted plastic "8" nailed to the door, the sound of a john fucking away on another whore in the room next door brought on a reality I hadn't counted on. My palms were sweating now and my stomach churning. She didn't even flinch. She just tossed her pack of cigarettes to the night stand and unzipped her corset top. Removing it, her hand massages under her arm, rubbing out the imprint of the hemline. I'd taken a stance over by the window, watching the green city below move back and forth to oblivion.

"What's your pleasure tonight, Honey?" She said it with a soft voice that sounded tired.

"I don't know. What are you in to?" I said, watching her reflection in the window.

"Doesn't matter what I'm in to. I'll do anything you want me to do. Did they tell you the prices downstairs?"

"Yeah. Yeah, they told me your prices."

"Not my prices. It's the man's prices. Believe me."

"How long have you been doing this?"

"Three years," she said, her voice a bit uneasy.

She moved in behind me, wrapping her lean arms around my chest, her breasts cramming against my back. She kept her face off of me, her breath warm and fast on my neck.

"I saw you," I told her, "in a coffee shop a couple of nights ago. You were with an older gentleman."

Releasing her grip on me, she takes a few steps back and takes her drink off of the table.

"I don't know no gentleman."

The ice rolled around in the glass when she sat it down, and I took a single step to the right, nearer to the corner, when she sat down in the window sill.

"So, you followed me here? Or what?"

Staring blankly at the yellow and red sign that reads Mingh's 24 Hour Laundry, I felt a warmth run through my chest and shoulders.

"Maybe."

"Listen, Honey, I don't do guys without rubbers. Hand jobs and blow jobs are fine, but you can get them cheaper from another girl. If they didn't tell you that, they're fucking you. I'll take it in the ass for an extra two hundred. If you want bondage or kinky shit, that's fine, I just have to go get the gear."

"I'm not," I told her, glancing at her face and bare shoulders.

"You're not what?" She asked, her green eyes trying not to make eye contact.

"I don't like kinky shit," I said with a grin.

She had a great smile once upon a time. With a diet of hot showers and square meals, she probably could have it again. Her breasts had lost their shape and had fallen from the shape of grapefruits into the shape of tears. Her nipples were pink and large. Kind of limp, probably from all the johns. I didn't know and I didn't want to know. Moving to the television set, I picked up my glass and took hers from the table, offering it to her so she didn't have to get back up.

"Take your cock out, Baby," she told me. "Unless you want me to."

Standing still, I imagine my silence was all the initiative she needed. Setting her glass beside her, she leaned forward, grabbing the waist of my jeans and pulling me towards her.

"You want to take off your shirt? Keep it clean," she said genuinely. "It looks like a nice shirt."

She always liked a man in a crisp white dress shirt. Reminded her of times in her life that were more pure. I tossed the shirt to the table, landing it in the ring of dew from her glass. Her fingers were chilly as she took out my cock, stroking me with her hand as I continued watching out the window.

"Have you ever done anything like this before? "

"Had a girl jack me off?"

She laughed, "No. Paid a girl."

"No," I told her honestly, staring into those green eyes for just a second.

"Well, Honey, just relax. I'll do all the hard work. If you want to talk, just go ahead. What line of work are you in?"

It was difficult to concentrate, but, I found solace in the sound of her breathing and sucking. My forearms began to tremble and I gripped the green trim around the window.

"I don't want to talk about work..."

I hesitated, fearing for the safety of my cock in between her jaws. Then I said it anyway.

"...April."

My cock fell out of her mouth, her shoulders raising and her posture stiffening as she backed up against the window.

"Who the fuck are you?" She fumed.

"I didn't figure you remembered me. The second I saw you in the diner the other night, I knew it was you."

"Why should I know you?"

Her voice belied her curiosity, maybe her shame, and she continued to glare, her plump breasts trembling naturally opposite her arms. She let her blond hair fall over her face, guarding her from her proverbial accuser.

"We actually danced together once. It was, Jesus, six years ago. The Homecoming dance. Sophomore year. You were," I hesitated and corrected myself. "You are the prettiest girl I ever danced with. That was the best thing that happened to me those all four years of high school."

Her breathing turned in to heavy gasps and she looked away from me, her left arm folding to conceal her bare breasts. I adjusted myself back in to my Levis and took a quick look around the room.

Picking up her corset, I handed it back to her and looked out the window as she quickly dressed again. She was adjusting a breast when I took a seat beside her, unsure if she'd even stay and keep listening to me.

"I remember the day you left home to come out here and become an actress. People hated you for it. For leaving. Then, you had that commercial ... for soda ... and the whole town became your lifelong friends. There used to be a sign up that said `Hometown of Actress April Brooks'. It kept getting stolen, so, they finally quit hanging new ones up."

"So, you saw me, found out I'm a whore and decided to throw down a hundred bucks and get a blow job from the Prom queen? Is that it?"

"No," I sighed.

"Come here to laugh at me? Maybe to make the phone call back home and tell them that I pay the rent by letting guys fuck me in a dirty bed. Are you that kind of man?"

"No," I promised.

It was never my intention, but I still found myself sitting there in the window, watching her cry, curse and pound the window sill with her bawled fists. Maybe I was trying to prove how good of a guy I was, I'm not sure, I just put an arm around her and her body flew against mine, her trembling arms grasping me, her tears and hot breaths melting my skin. With my left hand, I stroked the back of her head, bringing her only closer.

When her emotions buried themselves again, April took a seat on the floor, hiding even from the world outside the window. Sniffing, she runs a hand through her hair, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand and pulls her legs against her torso.

"I've been with so many guys. I don't know how many. You just call everybody `Honey', shut your eyes and pretend like every guy fucking you gives a shit about you. I don't want any sympathy, I made all the choices on my own. I came out here, and things went my way for a while. Then I met this guy and all of my dreams escaped me. Every morning, I think about leaving. The world just got so big. I forgot my way home. And those signs ... the ones that kept getting stolen ... I used to get them in the mail from my family every three or four months. When they stopped coming, I knew I couldn't go back. I don't know what I ever did to you that made you come to this place," April sighed. "But I'm glad I did it."

Rising, she wrapped her arms around me and kissed my cheek, slinking back enough to look directly in my eyes.