What's Your Price

He hadn’t told anyone about this. “One night, my second one there, he came to my bedroom. He gripped me around the throat and told me I was going to suck his cock or the only food I was going to get for the next year was his friends’ cum. Anyway, he let me go. Being a street kid, you learn to have something to take care of yourself. I had a knife. Instead of my mouth on his dick, he got a knife in his, and then I gripped the bastard thing, and severed it. That was the start of earning my reputation.”

She frowned, and he saw she’d stopped eating.

He loved that she sat opposite him, naked, with no intent to hide. Her knees were drawn up, and her hair fell around her in waves. She spun toward him, crossing her legs at the ankle. “Do you still have the knife?”

“I do.”

“Did you get arrested?”

“Nope. The bastard never filed charges. I was to later find out that he had a whole bunch of child porn in his home.”

“Is this guy still alive?”

“No. He met his untimely fate when he took way too many heart pills.” Again, when he realized the bastard was still hurting kids. At the age of twenty, he paid the fucker a visit and he left that house after the guy went cold. “What was your weapon?”

“I … I didn’t have one.”

“You didn’t.”

She shook her head.

“You didn’t have a good life though, did you?”

“No, I didn’t. It was an interesting time for me.” She picked up another tortilla. “I don’t like to talk about it.”

“Talk.”

She tucked her hair behind her ear. He’d come to notice it was a habit when she didn’t want to talk.

“I was a big kid. I wasn’t beautiful, nor was I flattering. I was always called fat and ugly. I was even told that anyone who showed any interest in me I should be grateful to.”

“Who told you this shit? The kids?”

“No. A couple of the foster moms along the way. I got a thick skin to the name-calling. Then at around fifteen, I think I finally grew into my body, and that was when life got … intense.” She pressed her lips together. Her brows drew together and he wanted to soothe whatever troubled her.

“The guy. The one you ran away from?” he asked.

Laura blew out a breath. “Okay. I will talk about this once. I don’t want to go over old ground or anything. If you find that you don’t like me after this, that’s on you.”

“I won’t be affected.” He’d kind of built the story in his head. All he wanted was for Laura to fill in the blanks.

She rubbed her hands together. “I went to stay with this family. They seemed nice. They always do. Hard-working parents. Sweet kids. They didn’t know hard life or being passed over. For a couple of weeks, everything was fine until I discovered why the guy wanted my bedroom to be in the basement.” She stopped and she stared at her hands. “That night, I lost my virginity.”

“He took it.”

“I didn’t exactly fight him off.” She closed her eyes, and he saw her hands clench. “So, the next night, I thought that was it. It was done. He came again and again, until I couldn’t stand it. I ran. I ran to the nearest city, and it was there I bumped into a woman. Obviously, a week or two has passed by this point. I’m starving. I’m broken. I’m alone. Her name was Liza. That’s what she said. She had no ID, but she told me her name was Liza. She took me in, and for five days, she taught me so much.”

He couldn’t stand to see her eyes closed. The man in the pictures was as good as dead. “What did she teach you?”

“Men wanted something for a price. She told me that the world wasn’t ready for me. That if I didn’t take control of myself and who I was, I was going to break. I’d lose everything.” She pressed her lips together. “On the last night with her, before her pimp beat the living crap out of her and killed her, she told me that the only person who can tell me to do what I want is me. I’m in control of my own destiny and men, their weakness is their dick. You control the dick, you control the man.” She averted her gaze. “So … I went back to him. I made an arrangement. He could have me as much as he wanted and often, but I needed my education and money.” She got up from the bed.

“Laura.”

“I stayed for two years at least. I got my high school education and enough money to get the hell out of there.” She took a step away. “He and one other guy are the only ones I’ve ever slept with. The other one, he was a tester to see…”