Seven

"They weren't all middle-age," Margaret said, "and they weren't all men, neither."

"What?"

"You heard me. That's why what they said about me isn't true. Middle-age men and all. Of course there were some of those too, the ones who paid the best. And the mormons. Bring 'em young, they say. They liked me young, not so much later on, but high school was a premium for those guys. Sure I took their money. Why shouldn't I? What'd I get from George Capelli? Nothing, that's what. It's why I did it, why I started doing it, I mean. I figured I might as well get something. They were going to get theirs, so why shouldn't I get mine?"

"I guess," Tommy started to say, but Margaret didn't stop to acknowledge his remark. She was going now.

"So I heard some girls talking and they said the best places were the commuter stations down the line, out there in the neighborhoods, you know, outside the center city. There the guys, and women too, were the loneliest and the horniest and the ones most ready to pay. Downtown you were asking for trouble, violence even, for sure getting ripped off. Out there in the open they didn't dare. Someone might see. Someone might talk. But there was no harm in giving a ride home to a schoolgirl, it was friendly even, being a decent citizen. Young maiden in distress out there by the tracks without a ride. I'd wear my shortest skirts and tightest tops, just a little bit of lipstick to look like I was still, you know, learning the ropes, becoming a young woman, blossoming or blooming or whatever. All innocent like. Twirling my hair around my finger, stepping up to the edge and stepping back, didn't take long for someone to get to talking. What's a nice girl like you and all that kind of thing. Men coming home from the office, but not so eager to get straight home, and why should they be? Back there they knew there was that woman who'd been cooped up all day watching the kids or just watching the tv, slowly going crazy and just waiting to take it out on the man who at least got to get out in the world, meet some real people, have some lunch with friends or whatever. And the kids, if they were little, would be all over the poor guy, couldn't even get a minute's rest before he'd have to crawl around on the floor and play horsey or play with blocks, or if they were older listen to them complain and bitch and moan about that asshole at school or those idiot teachers or too much homework and nobody cares and nobody listens, and if they were even older then it was money and plans and the car and parties and boyfriends and girlfriends and him being just a clueless old man who was hopelessly out of touch and utterly pointless. Better to put it off for a while and fuck some pretty schoolgirl and give her the money he might have otherwise just given the damn kids. And she'd make him feel better, all right. She'd suck him like the wife never did anymore and let him do most anything he wanted, but not everything, of course, even if there was a lof of cash on the table because after all, a girl has got to make the rules or else she might as well be a fucking robot."

"With the women it was worse. I always hated it, but they were lonely too, I guess, and sometimes just for the sake of variety I'd let one eat my pussy and I'd go down on her with my eyes shut tight and my mind on the drugs I was going to buy that night. I wasn't a junkie, not exactly, but I liked my high, and I tried to keep it going as much as I could, which was most days, now I think of it, most days for about seven years, from fifteen to twenty one or so, when I had my first baby. That's when I gave it all up. All of it. I don't care what they told you about me after all that, because I only lived that life until my first one came around. She totally changed my life. After Angel was born there was no way I was going to do any more drugs, or any more drinking or even smoking and I even stopped eating meat, did you know that? Did the vegan thing for a long time after that. Kept myself all skinny and hungry all the time, just to remind myself, just to stay who I was for as long as I could."

"I never told you about their father, now did I? You might have known him. Cameron Hawk his name was. He was a skater dude. Really fucking good at riding a skateboard. Pretty fucking useless at anything else. I liked his body, I really did. He smelled awesome and he looked good, always got me hot. I could have had more than the three kids with him because I never let him use a rubber, always wanted him raw inside me, huh. Always wanted him, you know. He got sick of all that after a time, left me for some brutally ugly fat chick who didn't like to fuck as much, so that's what made him happy. Never had much money. Not from him, not from anyone. We lived on the government, pretty much, me and my kids. I could have still been out there working, you know, but I had my babies to look after, and I wasn't going to let anybody else do that. I loved it. I really did. Didn't need much money. We had our little old one bedroom down below street level. The kids had the bedroom. I had the rug on the living room floor. Lived like that a long time, you know. It's funny how we never met after high school. Did you move away? I pretty much stayed around the whole time."

All the time she was talking, Tommy was picturing her story in his mind. It was easy enough to do. He'd seen a lot of it, after all, seen her at those railroad stations, seen her getting into those cars. It was what she didn't know but she'd know now if she really could read his mind. He determined to say nothing of it. That way he'd find out for sure. What did she know about it? How he'd spent half a year doing nothing but staring at her, or looking for her in order to stare at her, and thinking about her, and dreaming about her, always dreaming, whether asleep or awake, about her and her long black hair and the way she would twirl it around her finger just like she said. He could make up stories forever about Margaret Garfield, the way she looked, the outfits she wore, the places she went and the people she met and the things she did with the people she met, and what happened after she passed out of view, and how she'd take her clothes off, bottoms first for some reason in his active imagination, skirt or pants, then panties, then socks, still with her top on he'd picture her narrow ass and her slick sparse bush, though he had to admit that the state of her pussy was always varying in his mind. Sometimes she'd have more hair and sometimes it'd be all wet, and sometimes there'd be none at all, and sometimes she'd be pink, then red, then glowing, and really tight or wide, wide open, depending on how she'd position herself, how the guy would want her to be. The middle age guy. It usually was, he knew, no matter what she said now. He'd been there often enough. He'd seen them following the same pattern. Usually they knew it from each other, they passed her on from one to the next, talked about her on the morning train, deciding which one would get her on the return trip later that day. They called her names, affectionate pet names like "the cunt", or "the little slut". He listened in on them on his way to school in the morning. They were all such creeps, with their oily hair and their salesmen shtick and their stupid frat-boy faces. Twenty. Twenty bucks was all it took to get her to suck their dicks in the alley behind the men's room at the station. Tommy had twenty bucks but he didn't have the nerve. He'd never had the guts. And after all, he was in love with her. That wasn't at all what he had in mind.