Out of Pocket

Image: Shutterstock by Yuliya Chsherbakova

Trigger Warning: This story includes sexual exploitation, beatings, and slavery.

Out of pocket-when a working girl/woman rebels and makes eye contact with another pimp.

Tau whistled through her teeth tunelessly. She swung her ratty boa back and forth with a languid swing to her hips. Her hair was in pigtails, she was wearing her pink schoolgirl outfit and huge silver sparkly shoes with clear heels. She loved how it made her feel like a punk fairy godmother. She buried her hands in her white petticoats underneath her sparkly skirt and fluffed them. She paced in the fishbowl, a glass enclosure that faced the street. Everyone walked by the chest high window. Madam set the window higher on purpose. It made the customers look up the girl’s skirts, it made their legs seem longer and the breasts bigger. Tau swayed to the stripper pole set in the center. She flipped upside down with ease and spiraled down, giggling. She placed her hands on the floor then pushed upward into a cobra pose and shook her titties at the street. She glanced at the window. Hah! Three fish in the bowl. Men wandering aimlessly, pausing for sidelong looks at Tau’s antics.

The red light in the corner flickered quickly. She jumped to her feet. It hadn’t been ten minutes since she’d walked in and she already had business. Kai passed her in the doorway. Kai’s mouth looked like a cat’s ass. Her pinched mouth was rouged like a clown. Her make-up was her rebellion, applied in a fury. Androgynous, frightening, grotesque, but kinda funny in a morbid way. Her outfit was a torn dirty maid’s outfit with black fishnets and ragged tennis shoes.

Kai hated being one of Madam’s girls. She ran away once. No one would take her in, and she had no idea where to go. She had been sold as a child before she could even process how the world worked. She ended up giving blowjobs in the bus station bathrooms trying to earn ticket money home. That’s where the cops found her. Madam bailed her out and let her know that the fee would be added to her tab, along with food, clothes, room and board. She would never be free. Madam also described in detail how this little adventure proved Kai had no place to go. No one wanted her. No one would ever want her. She wasn’t worth saving. Kai had fumed the whole way back.

Kai stomped to the middle of the fishbowl to lean against the stripper pole. She lit a cigarette, and then flipped off everyone in the street. It was hot in the fishbowl. The afternoon sun streamed in. An oscillating fan struggled to waft the tepid air around. Kai finished her smoke and stubbed it out on the glass. She squatted to do this, spreading her knees to expose her period stained panties to the street. She chanted in her head. ‘Fuck off. Keep walking you fucking douchebags. I hate you. Go away. I am dirty. I am diseased. I am mean. Go away. GO to your wives. They only hate you half as much as I do.’

Soon thinking became speaking then that devolved into Kai shouting and pounding on the window at the men who were now crossing to the other side to pass the window. Kai pointed at some hapless grandfather and shouted.

“YOU! Yes, YOU! Why don’t you just fucking die?!!! I hate you! That’s right! Run, you fucker!”

Kai’s make-up smeared the glass. She drew a penis being cut in half in the greasy smear. She wiped the sweat off her face with her lace shirt then sat leaning against the pole, and smoked cigarette after cigarette in boredom. She knew Madam was punishing her. The longest any girl usually spent in the hot box was thirty minutes. The bank across the street had a digital clock on the sign. It had been an hour. Kai was just considering peeing on the window when the red light blinked in the corner. She threw a shoe at it in frustration. Madam opened the door and pointed into the dark hallway past her.

“Move.”

She was terse.

Kai played with the edge of her skirt.

“I need to pee.”

She hated to hear the whine in her voice. Madam’s forehead wrinkled in anger. She pointed at a mop bucket nearby and didn’t look away while Kai crouched over it like an offended cat. After Kai had pulled her panties back up, Madam grabbed her upper arm and frog-marched her to a nearby room. A wiry muscular man was standing beside the bed, holding a belt in one hand and his chubby dick in the other. Madam pointed to the bed.

“Lay face down.”

Kai looked at them then the filthy bed between them. She shook her head.

“No fucking way.”

Madam’s hand lashed out and slapped her. Kai fell back against the wall. She was shocked at how fast the attack was. Madam grabbed her wrist and slipped a manacle over it while Kai was still reeling from the blow. Madam pulled the fastener hard, drawing Kai’s hand to the metal bedpost. Kai jerked against it then lashed out with her foot at the man. He leapt forward to grab her ankle and secured her to the footboard with ease. Madam grabbed her by the hair and cranked her head back painfully, so that they could see each other’s eyes. Madam whispered,

“He is paying for the privilege of punishing you. So, while you struggle and weep. I make money. Rebel all you want. Mock me, rage at strangers, I will always find someone who will pay to fuck you or fuck you up. You will learn eventually. I always win.”

She glanced at the man who was slapping the footboard with belt.

“Don’t hit the face. One-eyed whores don’t sell well. If she dies, you owe me a lot more money. We clear?”

The man nodded.

Madam closed the door on them without looking back. Kai tensed at the first thwack of the belt. She tried to go somewhere far away in her mind.

Tau found Kai the next day, wrapped in a sweaty ball of moaning flesh. She poked Kai with her long pink fingernail.

“Dayum. You got fucked up. What did I tell you about being a freak in the front window? I told you that shit may be funny, but it draws the bad ones.”

Kai mumbled, “They’re all bad. Fuck off.”

Tau shook her head. Her new multi-color extensions whipped Kai’s face with enthusiasm. Kai batted them and her away. Tau grabbed a wrist and hauled a moaning Kai to her feet.

She jerked Kai’s arm.

“Quit fighting me,” Tau snapped. “Madam told me to get your shit straightened out.”

Kai tugged at Tau’s iron grip.

“You and Madam can…”

“I know, I know. We can fuck off. Just like everyone else on this planet, right?”

Kai just stared. Tau sighed.

“C’mon. Let’s get you showered.”

Kai stood under the warm spray, fuming at being hosed off like an elephant at the zoo. Tau sang merrily as she soaped Kai up. Kai glared at her and asked.

“Are you always so fucking chirpy? Don’t you hate this? You’re a jizz rag with a pulse. Could you be just a little less pleased with yourself? You’re creeping me out.”

Tau raised an eyebrow then dumped a bucket of ice water over Kai’s head. Kai howled with fruitless rage and danced in a circle shivering. Tau tossed Kai a towel and began filing her nails.

“I like being happy. You’re just an old piss bag who doesn’t know how to have fun,” Tau said.

She blew the dust from her fingers then began with the left.

She added, “My mama always said people like you would sulk in a palace as much as they’d sulk in a slum.”

Kai tossed the towel at her head and asked.

“Is this the same soulless bitch that sold you into this life?”

Tau quit filing to glare at Kai.

“My mom is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. She wept when I left. Wept! You didn’t know her, so you don’t get to say shit!”

Kai held up her hands in surrender.

“Alright. I’m sorry. She’s a fucking saint. Okay?”

Tau sighed.

“C’mon. Let’s get lunch.”

They ended up in a noodle shop slurping ramen from steaming bowls. Tau pointed at Kai and told her,

“You need a better attitude.”

Kai almost choked.

“You are kidding, right? Madam rakes in the money peddling our flesh. You’re telling me you don’t dream of killing her?”

Tau looked up briefly to think then answered, “No.”

Kai shook her head, “I do. I dream of skinning her alive while she is raped then eaten by hyenas.”

Tau gasped, covered her mouth with her hands then dissolved into giggles. “You are damaged,” she said.

Kai shrugged. “If I am, it’s her fault.”

Tau shook her head and said, “That’s bullshit. You choose who you are or you let people choose for you. But it’s always a choice. Besides, none of this…” She motioned to include them, the shop, and the universe in general, “None of it matters. None of this is real.”

Kai replied, “That parade of dicks is pretty goddamn real. I can’t get the taste out of my mouth.”

Tau raised an eyebrow and said, “That’s your ego you’re tasting, not cock.” She put down her chopsticks and began mimicking Kai’s whine. “Who are these men? How dare they buy me? How dare they touch me? How dare Madam make money off me? How dare those people be happy while I am so miserable? ME. ME. Me. Goddamn. Find a different song. I’m not happy to make other people happy. I’m happy because I’m alive, and there are still good things in the world. Being shitty harms no one but you. When I shower, I wash clean. I know how to let it go”

Kai reached out and knocked Tau’s soup to the ground, “Let that go, asshole.”

They looked at the upturned bowl on the ground then each other. While holding Kai’s gaze, Tau’s chopsticks lashed out lightening quick and tipped Kai’s bowl into her lap. Kai leapt up in a fury. Tau laughed and clapped her hands. She told Kai, “A shitty attitude is its own reward. Let’s start small: try smiling.”

Kai snarled at her. Tau tilted her head and said,

“Maybe a tad less teeth?”

Kai flipped her middle finger up and smiled,

“How you like this then? Is this the happy hooker you want? You don’t fucking get it, do you? You just don’t have horrible things happen to you. That’s where this dippy ass philosophy comes from. Maybe if you felt real pain, had something really bad happen you’d understand my pain.”

Tau laughed in her face.

“Seriously? We work in the same place. I’ve had bad johns. But I have a lot of good ones. One guy beat me so bad I had to get stitches on the inside as well as the outside. I was tore-up for weeks. I was 13, I think. It was before you got here.”

“One of my other clients found out and went nuts. He brought me the guy’s hand a week later. Found him in some sleazy bar and kicked the shit out of him. Drug him outside and chopped his hand off. Can you believe that? I thought it was so sweet I did him for free and paid Madam out of my tips.”

Kai’s head snapped up, “Tips?”

Tau laughed at her, “Yeah, tips. You can buy your freedom if you earn enough. But you have to be NICE and Smile occasionally.”

Kai shook her head, “Bull shit. Name me one whore that bought her freedom.”

Tai wiped her mouth and pointed at the older woman serving noodles to long line of customers that wound past them, “Ms. Wu. She bought her freedom and the noodle shop down the street. She and Madam still talk now and then. But I’m pretty sure Ms. Wu spits in Madam’s soup when she brings over a bowl. Still. There’s your example.”

Ms. Wu looked up and waved at them. Tai smiled and waved back. Kai looked at Tau, who smiled brightly. Kia couldn’t remember a time she didn’t feel like punching that smile. It was so light, and carefree. It didn’t belong in this shithole. Tau asked her, “You ready?”

Kai stared at that cheerful face then nodded, “Yeah. I guess I am.”

They walked back hand in hand, arms swinging. Kai mimicked Tau the whole way. She waved and smiled. She had to steel herself. She could do this. It was all an act, but if she wanted to be free this had to happen. Tau squealed and tugged her arm, “C’mon! I have a surprise for you!”

Kai let herself be led to her room. A dress lay on the foam mat that served as a bed. It was light cotton, pink with yellow daisies. Kai stared at it like it was a gutted cat, not a pretty spring dress. She knew all she had to do was pick it up and the transformation would be complete. The old Kai would be bundled into ball and stored deep in the recesses of her brain. The new Kai would survive by floating over the darkness on a cloud of vapid innocent joy. She hated herself for it.

Kai drug a beanbag into the fishbowl when it was her turn. She was wearing her new dress and a pair of Mary Janes. She plopped into the chair and read quietly until the red light blinked in the corner. Madam waited for her in the doorway. She took in Kai’s appearance and said, “You look nice, dear.”

“Thank you,” Kai replied.

She felt dirty, she betrayed her anger. Her truth. She made her way to the client. He stood with his back to her. She crossed to the sink to wash her hands. She fluffed her hair and turned to greet her visitor with a shining smile. It was the man with the belt. He had locked the door. He didn’t have belt this time. He had a knife. He smiled and said, “I brought more money. Lots more.”

Kai’s smile died. She whispered, “Of course, you did…”