Child of the Night
The winter nights are the worst. The cold Pacific air is her enemy from December through to February, whipping her into submission. It pushes and it pulls and if it weren't for how she needs to do this she'd be yelling a screw you at the violent gales and stomping her way indoors to find some form of sanctuary. The wind spends these months slapping her rounded cheeks to turn them a painful shade of crimson and it causes her to appear younger than her seventeen years. She looks oh-so-vulnerable and she's knows that it adds to her appeal.
While she considers the winter months the most unpleasant, the evenings when it rains are somewhat bearable. Work is slow, the usual steady stream of customers dwindling down to only a select few regulars who wouldn't miss out even if the world happened to be coming to an end. Most punters prefer to spend the wet nights in the comfort of their warm homes with a warm meal and a warm bed as opposed to battling the heavy downpours to reach the sources of their dirty secrets. This enables her to leave work early, running down the soaked sidewalks until she reaches the towering apartment complex, sneaking inside and seeking refuge on the couch belonging to a friend who'll never know what she does after dark.
Selling her body to strangers isn't the difficult part. It has become second nature. She simply closes her mind, closes her heart and prays for the best possible outcome. It may seem absurd to people who don't understand, but after several years of failing at keeping down a conventional teenage job the idea of entering a trade she has been observing from the age of eight seemed like a natural progression. She's witnessed her mother returning to their apartment with random faceless men enough times to understand the ins and outs of prostitution. You could say she's learnt from the best.
Like mother, like daughter.
No, the hardest part is the waiting. Standing in the street and just waiting. When she's alone in the sleazy backstreets the darkness feels suffocating and the damp and cold do nothing to help matters. Despite the cold she has to keep herself on display at all times and it takes every ounce of the self-control she has to not fold in on herself to conserve some heat. She hates hanging around like a toy on a shelf waiting to be bought.
She gets through the nights using the notion of another day another dollar.
"Come on Sam, there's no business tonight. Let's head home," her mother says as she rounds the street corner, voice husky from twenty years of smoking.
"Okay mom."
They begin walking in the direction of their home and they look identical in every way, from their long blonde hair to the black spiked heels on their feet. Slowly Sam stretches out a hand to catch her mother's fingers, tangling them with her own and squeezing tight. Through the connection of their hands she tries to tell her mother that she isn't to blame for her current situation. They stay like this until they reach their single bedroom apartment on the other side of town and they go to bed, sleeping curled around one another.