Have You No Shame?
She walked casually into the bar, wrinkling her nose at the smell of smoke and urine. The chairs were bad wood, and the place hadn't been cleaned in years. She smirked and looked around.
This would be the perfect place to pick up on her next paycheck.
Men cast their drunken gaze at her as she passed by, her outfit slim and skanky. For a whore, she had a trim body, not bone skinny, but not oversized. To most bar-goers and perverts, she was the icing on the cake of their night. Her hair was blonde and soft on the eye; surely also to the touch. Long and flowing, it was her lure to attract wandering eyes. Her body finished the animal magnetism they had for her, and soon, she had more than a few drinks offered her way, in their foolhardy attempts at a night on the town, or rather, in the sack.
They never saw her eyes, nor did they care to. Self centered as they were, they never think to look into those pools of icy blue apathy, uncaring for a single one of them, looking only for her next full wallet. They were the eyes of a predator, and she had more than once gotten more than her fair share of a man's cash, spiking his drink if she could before the night got hotter. After their time in some abandoned apartment, she would rob them of everything they had, them being passed out from the 'date-rape' drug.
Of course, no man who picked up a whore from a third rate bar would complain of being robbed by the hottest woman on the street. So she would get away with it, time and again. No one could stop a seductress like her.
Those words were repeated by many men in this bar as well.
A voice from a back table muttered, "Except maybe herself..."
The words floated across the bar, landing on mostly deaf ears. They came from the mouth of another whore, though she contrasted greatly from the other.
She was slightly overweight, though her face retained most of its youthful quality, though her eyes, and the bags underneath of them gave her away to being at least in her forties. Even her breasts sagged a bit much for her age, and she kept mostly to herself in the corner of the bar, sipping away at the small glass of scotch that was her nightly reprieve. She didn't get much business, because of her body, and even in this rat hole of a bar, the pickings were slim.
Her words had traveled the length of the bar room, and landed on the ears of the newest girl on the block. Her icy gaze turned on the woman in the back, and she made a point of strutting over to her table, and leaning forward over it to look at her. Her breasts hung over the table, full and round, as though making a point before she even spoke. The older woman snorted a little, which added to her range of ugliness to the men around her.
The vixen spoke now, for the first time since entering, and the words that came from her mouth were even icier than her eyes.
"And what, might I ask, would a slut like you know anything about a first-class woman like me?" She leered at the woman, grinning as the latter struggled for words. The younger raised herself back up, and laughed fully, before laying a ten on the table, and saying loudly, "Go find yourself a man who's willing to get drunk enough to find even you beautiful!"
The men around burst into drunken laughter at this, and several spilled some beer on the older woman, and she sputtered angrily as it dripped down her face and body. The other smirked and turned around, walking off to find her first catch of the night, when she heard the scraping of the table on the floor, as though someone got up really fast. Her instincts told her a cat fight was coming, but when she turned around, the old whore was just standing at her table, her eyes fixed in a blaze of hatred.
"What do you sell yourself for every night, huh?!" She screamed at the youth, who was clearly perplexed by this question, "Why do you go to bars every night, and end up in an apartment with a man you'll never see again?! Have you no shame?"
The words struck the younger whore like a stone. She glared at the older woman with hatred and malevolence, then smirked again.
"What have I to be shameful for? I'm beautiful, I'm free, and I've got the money to make me happy, and any pick of man I want. I don't need some old bitch telling me that my lifestyle isn't right when she's doing the same thing!"
The men in the crowd were whistling and whooping, listening to the burns, and some putting bets down for a fight to break out between the two.
"I do this for my SON!"
The declaration was louder than the drunken shout of the men around the bar, and it went quiet almost immediately. The older woman's eyes were streaming with tears, her make-up running down her cheeks.
"Do you think I want to do this?! Do you think I like having a different man take me every night, not knowing if he'll kill me when he's done?!" Everyone had been silenced by her words, but she continued to scream as though the entire establishment were in an uproar, "I have no other choice but to sell myself away every night, so I can feed him, and let him grow up and have an education! He deserves that much, and not to be in the situation I am!" Her eye's blazed with hatred for the youth, who seemed to be in a state of shock at this old woman telling her off, "I do this for my child, not for money, not for pleasure! You do it for all those reasons! Have you no shame?!"
The young whore strode up, and slapped the woman across the face, knocking her down.
"Bitch, you don't even want to try to get back up," she said as she spit on the woman, "Before you even think to try and teach me a lesson in life, I think you should back up and tell it to your own loser self!" She looked around the bar, at all the men nodding and whistling in approval to the young lady, "Tell you what, guys! A free night's fucking to throw this cunt out!"
The bartender tried to stop the fighting with his shouts, but many men had already drowned him out with their own drunken shouts, while some went as far as to do as she said, hoping for a free night in bed. Finally, the bartender pulled out a shot gun, and fired it straight up through the roof. The ruckus immediately halted, as men ducked to keep out of the way of possible stray bullets.
"EVERYONE OUT, NOW! BAR'S CLOSED, FUCKERS!"
No one moved for a moment, until the bartender cocked his gun and the previous shell flew out.
"Wanna fuckin' try me?! Get the fuck out!"
This was immediately followed by rapid movement towards the door, as they all left. The vixen sniffed as she turned down a corner, filing away from the lines of men leaving the bar. Her hand stung from slapping the old whore, and she rubbed it to her clothing to soothe it. She was turning down Albert Street, when she sensed someone behind her. She stopped and turned around, to see one of the men from the bar there, grinning devilishly.
She put a hand on her hip, and looked at him with the expression she had whenever she was dealing with a customer-slash-potential victim.
"Hey sweetie, what can I do for you?" she said, putting as much honey into her words as possible.
"I was just at the bar," he said, still grinning, as he waved a hundred in his right hand, "And I saw how you slapped the piss out of that other girl." The man licked his lips, adding, "I like 'em rough."
She leaned her head back ever so slightly, letting him see her neck, knowing it gets them every time, and winks at him.
"Well, if you've got then money, honey, I've got the time to be your Queen Bee for the night."
He smiled wider, his eyes hiding a gleam of savage lust very poorly.
She led him to her apartment, since it was closest. She wasn't worried, as she never told anyone it was hers. The man at the front counter always made it out as though she were new in town, knowing her occupation, and he was compensated well for keeping it that way. She led him to her room, and locked the door.
***
She found herself at the alley behind the same bar later that week. She looked behind her to make sure no one was looking for her, then walked down it. There was an old, rusted door at the end, and she knocked on it with three raps, two taps, and a slight kick. The door opened up and she rushed inside as it closed behind her.
The room was dim, and she looked around for the guy she was looking for. She found him at the table, making portions of the product she wished to buy. Purchasing a few grams, she paid more for it than what it was worth, and left hurriedly back for her apartment.
She opened it up, after shuttering her windows, and laid it on the table, like she had seen at the underground meetings between gangbangers and low lifers. She lowered her head and closed one nostril, sniffing it quickly like she had observed. The effect was almost instant, and her nose stung a little, but she was already higher than her apartment by then.
***
Watching the news, after having just finished with her last man, she saw a portrait of the whore she had slapped... what was it? Three weeks ago? She couldn't remember. Her head twitched a little, alerting her to her need. She spread out another line, and sniffed it quickly. Her attention went back to the screen to see that the old woman had been murdered in an apartment complex on the other side of town. The whore grinned widely, and through the half emptied container of vodka and drugs in her respiratory system, she yelled, "Take that, you bitch! WHO'S DEAD NOW?"
She laughed and laughed, though eventually she began to sound like she was sobbing more than crying.
***
A month had passed, and she sat in the corner. She rocked back and forth on her bum and feet, arms wrapped around them, as she cried. Images of her mother dying, her father beating her, sexually abusing her, flew through her mind, and she leaned over to the little table she kept in that corner to sniff out what might have been left from her last hit. Her appearance was quickly that of a super model, bones apparent, but her make-up still perfect as she picked up the nearly empty container of lipstick, and reapplied it. She looked in a mirror to make sure it was as ruby red as ever, then went back to weeping.
***
She threw her mirror at the wall. She hated seeing herself in it. She was ugly, she knew it. Ugly, ugly, ugly. She was frustrated. She hadn't had a single man for three months now. She sniffed another line angrily, her head tweaking as her hair splayed out messily, untidy as her make-up was unkempt. She up-ended her table, and screamed again and again.
"This is your fault, bitch! THIS IS YOUR FAULT!"
***
"Hey, you in there?"
Three knocks. No answer.
"Hey, can you hear me? I saw you come back last night, you looked really bad this time!"
Still no answer.
"Alright, well, just letting you know, you're three months late on your rent! I need it soon, or I'm going to have to kick you out!"
He left. Still no answer, but the door opened just barely, an eye staring, wasted and pale, after the man.
***
The apartment's third floor was taped off. Paramedics were climbing the stairs with a stretcher. One of them shook his head. A newbie looked at him curiously.
"Young girl took the wrong path. This is what happens, and it happens a lot here in this city." He said to the young man's stare.
It was quiet for a little while.
"How did she die?"
"Hung herself."
"Hung herself?"
"Yup. Got her head mixed up in some bad stuff," he said, as they came to the floor that the young lady's room was on, "She was a pretty successful ... playgirl, if you catch my drift, and not a bad con artist. She fucked up though, and got mixed up in some bad shit."
"Why would she kill herself if she was so good at what she did?"
"Probably the drugs, kid. Drugs mess you up."
"Did she leave a note? Like a suicide letter?"
"Nah... Just seemed to up and hang herself. Pretty sad, if you ask me."
They got to her room, where another paramedic was precariously taking her off the noose she had made for herself of her own clothing. The older one was setting up the stretcher, while the other looked around the room. He happened to glance past the corner she normally sat in, and had to do a double take. He wandered over to it, and looked at what was etched into the corner. It was stained with blood, which made him think she had done it with her nails. The words were hard to make out, but he called over the senior paramedic. They both examined it for a time, before the older one tsk'd and walked off, waving for the younger to follow him and help take the body downstairs to the ambulance.
In the corner, these words were etched:
"I am ashamed"