“Hey, kids … Shouldn’t you two be at school?” he asks.
“We’re not kids,” I say, and I grab all our stuff. “Let’s go, Alisha.”
He glowers. “Not kids, huh … Where’s your mom?”
“Not your business.” We turn around and start walking through an alley, but the creep follows us around.
“Two girls on the street without any parents … should I call the police?” he muses.
Police. That word … Normal people use it to solve their problems, but we aren’t normal. Police are the enemy of the people who live on the streets. They only make trouble for us … or catch us when we’re jumping straight into it.
I glance over my shoulder. “Leave us alone.”
“How old are you?” When we don’t answer, he says, “I think I should call the cops.”
“No,” I bark. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”
“Yeah … I could go back to that grocery shop and tell the owner you stole from them.”
My eyes widen. “You …”
The wicked smile on his face makes me want to attack him. “What’s your name?”
I narrow my eyes. “What’s it to you?”
“I just wanna know,” he says shrugging.
Like him, most people call me kid. I’ve heard it so many times that I just adopted it as my street name. Nobody knows my real name is Alexis. Neither do they care. They just want my attention.
“None of your business.” I wave him off. “You have proof of what we did?”
He holds up a Polaroid photo, flashing it between his index finger and thumb. “All right … here’s the deal, kids. Either I go to the grocery shop, show them this, and they’ll call the cops, or…”
“Or what?”
He cocks his head. Then he brings his hand down to his crotch and zips down his pants.
My eyes widen, and I do the first thing that crosses my mind.
I kick him straight in the balls.
He cringes, drops to his knees, and releases the photo. Before it drops to the ground, I grab it and tuck it into my makeshift pocket that I ripped into a pair of secondhand jeans I found in the dumpster.
“Motherfucker,” I say, spitting on his face. “Let’s go, Alisha.”
She nods, but there’s a terrified look on her face, one she’s never wore before.
And I know why it’s there. Not because it’s the first time someone’s almost caught us … but because of what he wanted us to do.
It wouldn’t be the last either.
A few days later, I first let a man touch me for money. It didn’t take long for that to turn into jerkoffs, blowjobs, and sex.
I don’t know how old I was. I didn’t keep track.
It didn’t take long for the police to find out either.
Months later, we were taken in by an orphanage. We were one of the oldest, and we never fit in. I couldn’t deal with all their rules. I craved the freedom that I’d experienced for so long, and I wanted it back. As strange as it sounded, I actually wanted to be a street rat.
So when the time was right and we were old enough, we ran away.
And we’ve been on the streets ever since.
Me, selling my body to any man who wants me, and Alisha, stealing whatever she can get her hands on.
But this time, we decided we’re not just doing it to survive. We’re gonna try and make a living off this. Our promise to each other: Get a home, a warm bed, and hot food on the table while being free as a bird.
And if that means we’ll forever have to sell our bodies and steal, then so be it.
***
Now
“Sounds tough … what you’ve been through.” He lets out a long breath.
“Yeah, but it’s all I’ve ever known. I don’t know much about what happened before that, so it’s okay.”
“It’s not, but I get it. I was in the same spot. I did what I had to do.”
“Exactly.”
“So you’ve been letting other men have you for a night since … forever?”
I shrug and then nod. “It is what it is.”
“How did you not contract anything?” he asks. Subtlety obviously isn’t his best asset.
“Condoms,” I say. “I can’t even remember the last time I didn’t use one … well, except now, of course.” I wink.
“I feel honored,” he says, grinning.
I shove him a bit. “It’s a fucking special thing, asshole.”
“Oh, I know. I wasn’t joking. And you know what? It’s been a long time since I fucked like that too,” he muses, biting his lip. “I could get used to it.”
“Could you now?” I raise a brow.