FicWad

Dating by Appointment




“Why d’you do it, Baby Boy?” The husky voice, dried out through hours of steamy passion, tickles my skin like a torrent of tiny razor blades, making me jump as lips brush against my collar bone. “You’re too good for twenty bucks an hour.”

I sigh restlessly, making it clear that it’s a touchy subject which I’m not up for discussing with some older guy up against the wall of the Belleville Seven-Eleven. He always asks though, every other night after his bi-nightly fix of sixteen-year-old ass. And every night I just tell him that I don’t want to talk about it because, well, I don’t. It’s a subject that makes me feel dirty and dispensable; worthless and disgusting; numb and lifeless. I am just a toy to whatever guy pays my fee, a stupid little ragdoll for them to do with as they wish. Even when they hurt me, hit me, kick me, I never complain. I just can’t afford to.

But this guy, a nineteen-year-old by the name of Gabe Saporta, he’s never done anything to me other than what he pays for. Sometimes he even slips me an extra ten or brings me some hot food, always brings along his warm smile. At first he just tried to give me money, after rescuing me from some guy in an alley who was being a little too rough for even me to cope with, but I refused. I may be a whore, but I still have morals; I earn my money,

So instead he settled for being a steady client; the nice kind of client who almost feels like a friend. Apart from people in my line of work don’t have friends. Just clients who pay for our bodies until they’re numb.

“I’m not saying I don’t enjoy it, Mikey; you really are very good at what you do for such a young kid.” I can’t help but blush at his gentle praise, the look in his magnetic eyes making me want to let him into my head instead of just my body. ”I just don’t understand why. You’re sixteen. You should be out with friends on a Friday night.”

The sad hue to his words makes me stop my icy pretence; it’s not the first time he’s tried to lecture me on something that he has no right to tell me off over, but this is the first time that he’s sounded so genuinely sincere whilst doing up his belt buckle and wiping at the sweat on his forehead. It kind of makes me feel sick inside, the idea of someone actually caring about me, because the second that someone starts caring is the second that I risk being a let-down.

And, for some obscure reason, I don’t want to let Gabe down. He’s too nice for that. Even if he doesn’t know when to drop a topic.

“I don’t have any friends.” I mumble back, nibbling into the tanned flesh of his neck as though it’s a toffee-apple. More because I want to than because I want to actually have worked for my twenty bucks. “And sixteen isn’t so young. You’re only nineteen yourself.”

I smirk as he moans into my bite, a smug feeling of satisfaction coursing haphazardly through my veins because, as Gabe said, I’m really fucking good at what I do. Much better than most of the older guys offering my service for five times the price. I just can’t afford to charge higher rates, it’d most likely cost me what meagre customers I have and that’s something I just can’t let happen. Things might be bad now, working as a teenage prostitute on some of the most dangerous streets in the US, but they could be so much worse. For example, I could be without a roof over my head, albeit a leaking motel-room roof. Or I could be forced into being some sort of dealer, a path that I refuse to take; I’ve seen what can happen to those who stumble on that path.

My big brother for one.

He wasn’t doing it because he liked the idea of some kind of a gangster lifestyle, but because he understood that he had to do something to keep us in shelter. It was just the two of us after our parents died and I, then fourteen, was completely lost in grief. I needed a home, a family to support me; he did his best to provide. And he ended up dead. Too much cocaine at a fellow dealer’s birthday party. They found him dead in the bathroom, eyes wide open and bloodshot.

I was two months into being fifteen when that happened. Three days later I was working the streets, refusing to let Gerard’s attempt at keeping me safe be in vain by ending up homeless. I at least owed my big brother that much.

I still miss him. Still cry for him in my sleep, begging him to come home and take away all of the bruises and aches that my line of work brings me on a daily basis. Fuck, there’s not a second of any day when Gee’s not in the forefront of my mind. I know he’d be disappointed in me for selling myself off like this, but I don’t have a choice. Keeping my independence is the best way I can honour his memory.

And I’ll be damned if I don’t. Like I’m not going to hell anyway.

“Hey, Baby Boy. You alright?” The silken slither of his words snake into my ears, making me realise that tears are wet on my cheeks and that my left cheek is being pressed tightly into his shoulder. Where I feel safe. “I might only be nineteen, but you’re just a kid doing things that even I wouldn’t do. You can’t keep it up forever, Mikey. It’s killing you.”

He’s right. The honey-skinned boy with a face too pretty to hold such omnipotent thoughts is right. So right it hurts.

I haven’t slept properly without a nightmare for well over a month and I haven’t had a night off for longer. I can feel it in my body; it can’t take many more rough customers. Hell, even Gabe was a struggle for me to get through tonight. Of course he noticed and went extra gentle, stroking my introverted tummy all the way through because he knows I like it. It’s not just physically destructive, mentally too. I can’t remember the last time I ate something; I can’t afford it in any way possible, neither economically nor physically. If I put on weight then nobody will want my body and, without a desirable body, where would I be?

Dead in a ditch, that’s where.

It’s getting to the point, after just over a year of being in the business, where I can’t even stand to be touched by other people without it making me flinch away in fear. Something that, as you can well imagine, is not the greatest habit for a prostitute to pick up. I think Gabe’s noticed that too; why else would he start asking my permission to touch me and making sure that I know when he’s close?

I force myself to lift my head from his shoulder, the place that’s just offered me my first glimpse of safety in a very long time, and look Gabe dead in the eyes. Eyes that have never been anything less than caring towards me, if a little lust-drunk. I like the way the midnight stars are shimmering in his pupils, making the entire way that he’s smiling at me sympathetically just dazzle with some sort of inner light. The kind of inner light that makes me want to just full-on sob and tell him everything.

“I know.”

Both sets of eyes widen when my response comes as two weak and submissive words. I always stay strong, even when I want to scream I hold it in, but right now, with a client’s arms pulling me close into his chest, I can’t help but sound like a small kid begging to be helped.

And in return Gabe, going by the compassionate look of pure caring on his features, can’t help but hug me tighter. It’s not a grab or a squeeze, but a proper, loving cuddle. The kind that I haven’t had since Gee died and even then his were nothing like this. Like nothing bad can ever happen again because I’m in Gabe’s arms and I know that Gabe won’t ever let anything happen to me ever again.

“Then why d’you do it, Baby Boy?” He whispers, lips tickling against my ear like the meticulous strokes of an artist’s paintbrush. “What about your family? What happened to them?”

I wince at the word I’ve been trying to avoid ever since Gee left me; family. Something that I haven’t had for a very long time now and won’t be having any time soon, if ever. It’s a word that feels like acid in the raw, open wound of where my heart once was and makes me hide further into Gabe, letting myself pretend that the heartbeat I can hear is that of my big brother’s long-still ticker.

“Dead.” I shudder and I hear Gabe gasp, hands rubbing soothingly on my achingly overworked back. “All of ‘em. Dead.”

“You live all alone?” I nod against him, my tears seeping out of my eyes and through his grey t-shirt. “Aw, Baby Boy. It’s alright, I’ll fix it for you; I’ll make it all better.” I look up at him sceptically, everything in me begging him to stop getting my hopes up at the idea of something that can never happen. “I really like you, Mikey. I don’t just fuck you because I know you won’t take my money otherwise. You’re a good kid, you deserve better than this. Better than me.” He swallows past a curios lump in his throat. “But that won’t stop me from doing this.”

Before I can even process his words, his pillowy lips are smothering my own and taking my breath away completely, thus forcing me to rest all of my meagre weight against his sturdy body. My heart erupts like a Roman candle on the fourth of July and my entire body tingles with pleasure at the gentle touch of lips on lips, hope on dreams; soul on soulless. Apart from with Gabe kissing me like this, I feel like I have a soul. Not just any soul either, a soul worth saving. He’s kissed me before, of course he has, but it’s never been like this; so passionate, so pure and so sincere. So full of honest-to-God love.

So of course I kiss back, my swollen lips getting carried on the steady tide of his own and swimming with it. It’s my first proper kiss, one with actual love and no lust behind it and it makes me feel like I’m worth something.

Like I’m more than just some cheap, underage whore outside a convenience store. Like I have a family.

When he pulls away, an action he draws out so the my mouth tries to cling onto his, I let out a small whimper of protest and hold onto his waist as though fearing being left all alone again, even if it’s something I’m used to by now. He just chuckles, a hand running lazily through my hair, and nuzzles into me; him doing everything to make me happy even though I’m his prostitute.

Even if his hour ran out a good twenty minutes ago.

“C’mon, Baby Boy.” He breaks the sweet silence after a few minutes of us just snuggling against one another. “I’m taking you back to my place, it’s safe and warm there; I can take care of you.” He tickles my empty tummy, making me squirm and actually giggle for the first time since I was just a little kid. “And feed that bony ass of yours up.”

It’s a nice idea, a pretty little fairy-tale for me to yearn to believe in, but I just can’t. I can’t afford to miss out on a whole night’s business.

“Gabe, I’d love to, but I’ve got guys wa-“

“No. You don’t. Never again; I refuse to date a prostitute.” He snaps in, sending my head reeling with some sort of inexplicable joy. “You can come live with me, for good. I’ll be all the family you need, Baby Boy, and you won’t ever have to do any of this again. That’s a promise.”

He’s serious. He’s really fucking serious and I really don’t have to do this again.

Holy shit.

“Gabe?”

“Yeah, Baby Boy?”

“Thank you.”








A/N: Thank you very much for reading and I hope you like this, I’m not too sure personally. Anyway, please let me know what you think! :)