Up against the wall

Damned hope, a twenty and a living reminder

She wasn't thinking too much that night... she was too numb. All that she had focused her aching mind on was making her way home before the bar patrons were forced to take their leave, and she would be made to take their weight again. The time on her watch ensured the darkness, and the rain pummelling down made it hard to see; she was using only muscle memory and the 8 meters she could see in front of her to make her way home... Her fingers were cold - bitterly so - like that was the place that the frostbite had first entered before making its way into her bloodstream. Walking by the old alley about 3 blocks from her apartment seemed to calm her that night, whether that was the rain dinting her bare skin or not she couldn't quite tell.

Up the alley, she saw a man in a suit with a black umbrella standing under the unfinished gutter pipes of one of the many apartments above. A glow seeming to come from behind him illuminating the constant stream of water and the ever heavier growing rain. A small dry patch was formed under his umbrella signaling that he had been there for a while. He took a drag from the cigarette that was so delicately placed between 2 fingers. This man-made her feel like the whore she truly was while saving her from the monsters in the dark that she still feared like she was a child; he gave her back her innocence while still reminding her of what she had become...

As he puffed out his smoke she caught his eye, he smiled at her with all the lust that a man as lonely as he felt. Although his mouth spoke with the cries of silent desire... his eyes screamed a different story; one of compassion and hurt. She quickly moved to fix her smudged lipstick that was a shade of red that showed the scorn and hate that she regularly received. She adjusted her little black dress that was torn crudely down the front by her last customer in the hopes that maybe this man might see her as more than just a service. He laughed slightly and dropped his fag as he approached her flustered and bumbling mess of a self. His voice both scared and settled her. He walked until the space between their bodies was close enough that a sudden gust of wind may have forced his body to touch hers. He was tall with broad shoulders and the muscle build to match, his eyes a dark shade of blue that screamed out to all the hurt that shed locked away over the years; His eyes held their own pain and kindness while still seeming to her like the stars were somehow lodged into his pupils.

He leaned down to her until his lips brushed her ear sending the lightning that surrounded them down her body. She had never felt this... it was like a teen crush intensified by the number raindrops that were surrounding them. He smelt like a mix of cologne, smoke and aged books. She felt his breath on her ear as he asked her if she was alright to do the job that she had committed to years ago. She felt something pull inside her... something that she had thought had died many years ago; her heart.

She leads him by the hand the three blocks to her apartment in the rain... he never seemed to mind the entire time. She had never brought a client back to her home, she promised herself that she wouldn't do such a thing. She laughed at herself for having hope that this man would stay, but her hope stayed strong none the less. They talked a limited conversation that was nice no matter how short. His eyes still held a look that screamed of a traumatic recent event... although she never did probe.

They walked through the door of her small living space and into her bedroom. She felt like the little girl about to give herself to willingly give herself to someone for the first time... something she never had the privilege of doing. Across the room from her stood the man that she had nothing short of fallen for in the short time they had spent, he was taking off his shoes. In a low but gentle voice, he asked for the price of her service. For a short second, she was brought back into the reality of the fact that this man was still a customer and she was a service... she answered in a monotone but still considerate voice "a hundred for the night". That was all it took for the man to remove the jacket of his suit. With a subtle whisper of thanks and a cheesy but honest smile, she slipped back into her enchanted state. He approached her while slowly and teasingly sliding his belt out of the loops in his breaches. He dropped the long leather strip onto the floor as one side of his pants fell just below his hip. He reached her and gently pulled down the sleeve of her dress with his large hand and leaving his eyes to drape over her bust before turning her around to delicately unzip her sodden dress leaving her in nothing but her white bra and underwear. She turned back to him and unbuttoned his damp white shirt before letting it fall to the ground just behind where he stood. She looked at the button that was on his pants and back up to his eyes almost as if to ask for permission to continue... He simply took her small soft hand in his larger one and directed it to undo his dress pants. After the article of clothing had dropped around his ankles and he had stepped out he picked her up and placed her on her bed with ease.

She was covered in him, skin on skin. She felt his rhythm. She felt content...

She was laying on his chest as he detailed the sadness she could see in his eyes. She commented and comforted when needed but was on the verge of sleep. She had decided that this was him, the one that made her feel like no one else had ever done, the one that both ripped her from reality and made it better, the one who made her feel like she had a heart again. She gently drifted off to sleep peacefully for the first time in forever in the arms of the man that she had decided was going to make a difference to her... and she was going to try to make a difference to him.

The next morning she awoke to a cold empty bed and a hundred and twenty dollars in cash on the nightstand next to her. With the payment, a note that read 'thank you for the night darlin', an extra 20 for the therapy session' under it was his name messily scrawled in the same pen used for the rest of the note. At that moment she felt her heartbreak, the man that she promised herself she would stay with... saw her as nothing more than a service. That was the day that she damned hope as she lay there crying in her bed for hours. Little did she know he regretted not staying,

and little did she know about the daughter she would bear...