Disclaimer: Hi, I still don't own RENT, but I do own that random guy I guess. O-o
It was one of those humid summer nights. Though it wasn't dark (when was it ever?), the starless sky above seemed to be clothed in a sort of pinkish-gray fog. It was as if the naked night sky had finally gotten some modesty, or something along that line.
On the other hand, Angel Dumott-Schunard might as well have had an 'open for business' sign hung around her neck, from the way some of the men were ogling her. Whether they knew her gender or not was hard to tell- her tight pink zebra-print miniskirt, while not leaving much to the imagination, didn't exactly reveal anything vital to reproduction. The only explanations she had for picking out something so tacky was that she hadn't had the time in between waking up and had thrown it on in a rush, or that she was late on the electric bill again. Either way, said skirt did seem to attract the gazes of the majority of the males in the area.
Out of nowhere came a young man, possibly in his mid-twenties. He tapped Angel on her shoulder, and she turned around. The man held a crisp fifty-dollar bill between his index and middle fingers, giving her a questioning look. She nodded and pointed up to an apartment across the street, one on the third or fourth floor of one of the countless brick buildings in the area. No words needed to be exchanged, after all. Actually, it was usually a better idea not to talk to her customers. It kept her from getting attached.
And, just like that, she found herself in the same ordeal she found herself in every night: her and the patron of the day, lost in a tangle of sheets and sweat and sex.
The seventeen-year-old had already learned to tune everything out. The biz had been great at first, (after all, who could resist it? Getting paid to have guilt-free sex was like getting paid to eat candy and sit around on your ass all day for a teenager) but after a week she'd learned how rough it really was, how you had to be totally submissive, how it was fine for your customers to anything to you because, after all, you're just their servant for the time they pay for you…you're not a person. You're a toy, used for the pleasure of sexually deprived men and that only.
In the afterglow of the lustmaking (love was far to holy a word to use for this practice), the man held out a package of cigarettes, offering her one. She took a cigarette from the cellophane-wrapped box, giving him a small nod of thanks before he held out his lighter and lit it between her rouged lips. As she took a drag, she couldn't help but wonder why this guy was buying sex. He was attractive enough, and young. Most of her patrons were at least thirty, and if younger they tended to look a little down on the looks and the luck.
"Thanks." The customer said finally, standing up and stubbing out the cig in a battered plastic ashtray stolen from an Applebee's. Angel said nothing, didn't even bother to watch him put his clothes back on and leave her money on the armoire. He seemed trustworthy enough; she doubted he'd leave without paying. He'd had cash, anyways, and it was more than she usually offered. The guy obviously had money. So Angel just laid back in the bed, staring up at the ceiling and the lights until it felt like they were boring holes into her irises. Then she closed her eyes and fell asleep.
When she woke up, the lights were out in the room, her partner was gone (as she knew he'd be,) and her payment was on the dresser (as she knew it'd be.) With the money, however, there was something else. A crumpled blue index card with just a few words scrawled on it in a messy sort of chicken scratch. Despite the handwriting, it didn't take her long to realize what it said, what it meant. She'd heard of it happening to some of the other girls she worked around, but had never imagined it would happen to her. The dropped the card, and it fluttered to the floor at almost the same time she did.
"Welcome to the real world, baby, you've got HIV."