Moonlight

Ten

Back at that door. The buzzer. The camera. The empty square behind her with the streetlamps, the parked cars. The same menacing buildings, and the same sense of desolation, but now things were more familiar. Alice was starting to feel a better understanding of the lives that were unfolding all around her.

There was no question this time. The door unlocked with a buzzing sound that ended in a faint click.

Phil somehow had too much class to give her figure the appreciatively look he probably wanted to give her. He just smiled with the mutual recognition. He motioned to opened the door, but Alice shook her head.

'Later. First, I need to talk to the boss.'

She walked into the small office. The fat woman was smoking a cigarette and doing the crosswords. Alice noticed that, in a few cases, she had written longer words and added extra letters outside the frame.

'Shame felt in public. Thirteen words,' the manager asked Alice.

'Embarrassment.'

She tried it.

'Can't be. Too short.'

'Two R's. Two S's. And it starts with E, not I. It ends with a T.'

'But I need it to start with an I.'

'We need many things.'

'Yes,' the old woman philosophised, and threw the booklet to one side. 'I've fucked it up, anyway. So, what do you need?'

'I want to work here.'

The woman laughed. It sounded like rocks and mucus were being stirred inside a metal bucket lodged inside her.

'You? Here? Is this a joke? I'm proud of what we do, but I have no illusions that we – '

'I like it here. It's more my style,' Alice said, matter of fact. Inside she was trembling: a new challenge she was putting herself through, another leap into the darkness.

The woman looked at her shrewdly now.

'Make me understand. You want to work here, five days a week, eight hours, be one of the girls?'

'Not exactly.'

Another disgusting laugh.

'Not exactly! So, you want to pick and choose?'

'I want to come when I want, and do what I want. You keep your cut.'

'My cut. I already have my cut,' the fat woman said, planting her eyes onto Alice, 'Why do I need you? You're just going to spoil the business. You will piss off the girls. Coming and going... Picking and choosing.'

Alice knew the woman was just after a bigger cut. Alice was just five percent, and this woman was another Tom willing to exploit her. But she didn't care: this was her choice.

'I'm sure your customers wouldn't mind a change of menu for once,' Alice said running her fingers along her figure. She was wearing a striped jumper and a pair of jeans. The simplicity of her wardrobe choice however betrayed class and calculation: she looked expensive, without a hair out of place. The brothel could charge more for someone like her.

'Nah,' the proprietor said, 'I don't need you.'

Alice knew this was just her way to negotiate and didn't move.

'How about a bigger cut?' she suggested. She would have done it for free, after all. She didn't care. But she wanted to be here as a worker, not as a client any more.

'Maybe,' the woman said vaguely.

Her cigarette had burned out in the ashtray. It was now a long cylinder of unsmoked ash.