Devious - Lisa Jackson [80]
Here, cars could actually pass and identities were hidden in the shadows.
She paused under a streetlamp, lit a cigarette, and made her way to her favorite corner. Sometimes she had to share the territory, which was all right; she felt safer just knowing another working girl would notice her. And she had her cell phone if anything got a little too kinky or rough.
The night was warm but thick, the rain threatening to start in earnest. Even so, because she was desperate and couldn’t go back to her apartment without some cash, she let her jacket slide off her shoulder.
In a tube top and black leather skirt, she knew she looked her best. She kept herself in shape, her waist small, her ass a “bubble butt” that wasn’t too large, just big enough to attract attention. Her hair was still thick and lustrous, falling nearly to her waist in loose red curls. The johns loved her hair. Oh, they were into her breasts, too, but it was her fiery, tousled hair that really caught their attention.
Go figure.
She leaned up against a light post and took a deep drag on her cigarette as a few cars rolled slowly past. She gave each one an interested eye, but no one stopped and no windows were down. It wasn’t worthwhile to call out.
A bunch of teenage boys drove by. Their car, a black Lexus two-door, throbbed with music, the bass heavy even through the closed windows. On the second pass, they stopped and a cloud of marijuana smoke drifted out as the driver’s window was eased down.
She sauntered up to the driver’s door. A pimply faced kid who didn’t look old enough to have a license, his hands gripping the wheel so hard his knuckles showed white, could barely look at her.
There were four other boys crammed into the car.
“How much?” the driver asked nervously, and the kid in the passenger seat had the brains to turn down the rap music.
She eyed the group, thought of her younger brother in Duluth. He was older than these punks, but not by much. “Five hundred a piece,” she said, because she had her standards. Underage horny boys, especially a pack of them, were off-limits. Big trouble.
“What?” In the lamplight, the driver looked like he’d just peed himself.
“Fuck! No way!” an African American dude in the backseat called. “That’s highway robbery, man.”
“Going rate.”
“Like hell.”
“That’s the going part of it. You’d better get going.”
“That bitch tryin’ to rip us off!” said another kid, one in the shadows of the backseat, his face hidden.
She wasn’t into playing games.
“Gang bangs aren’t free,” she said.
“You ain’t seen what I got, baby,” No-Face purred. As if he were God’s gift.
The rain was coming down hard now, so she said, “So let me show you all what I got, okay?”
“Yeah, baby,” the guy in the passenger seat said.
Gross.
She whipped out her cell phone. “If you don’t want me to call my pimp, then you’d better get yourselves out of here. You know he’s pretty badass.”
“We . . . we got fifty bucks,” one kid offered up. Jesus, had his voice even changed? “Don’t that buy a blow job? It’s my bro Jesse’s birthday.”
“Happy birthday, Jesse,” she said. “How old are you?”
A kid with red hair pressed his face to the window of the backseat.
“He’s eighteen,” No-Face insisted.
She almost laughed. Jesse couldn’t have been more than fourteen, fifteen tops. The fun was over. She threw her cigarette onto the street, mashed it out with the toe of her platform, then dialed a fake number into the phone. When a male voice answered, thank God, she said, “Yeah, Big Len, I got me a little problem down here . . . Yeah, my usual corner. Some punk kids are hassling me . . . Yeah, bring Ralph along. And make it quick.”
“She’s just fuckin’ with us, man.” No-Face again. The wise one.
“I wish she was fuckin’ us,” the black dude said. “Check out her ass.”
Gracie glanced down the street, as if expecting someone. That did it for the driver. His mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. “I’m outta here. My dad will kill me if I get into any trouble with his car.”
“What a pussy!” No-Face wasn’t impressed, but the driver hit the