Kristin didn’t think that being inside could be worse than being out in the freezing cold on the track. After all, she was inside. It was warm. There was a bed rather than the cramped seats of a car, and there was a bathroom where she could clean up and so could the men.
She had been wrong.
Out on the track, she might have had a half hour between being dropped off and finding a new trick. Here the men arrived in an endless procession. There were so many of them that she lost count.
Sometimes Soothe would have to wait to give a man waiting downstairs the room number because the one Kristin was with hadn’t finished.
Hanger had disappeared, leaving Soothe and Kristin alone. Kristin had thought they would share the Johns, but Soothe didn’t seem interested in that. She answered the phone and sat outside, smoking and waiting for the next call.
One hour melted into another until time lost any meaning. After every man, Soothe would come in and take the money they had left. Then she would tell Kristin to get ready because the next guy was outside.
When Kristin had complained about being hungry, Soothe had walked over and pinched her stomach, hard enough to make Kristin yelp.
“You could use losing some of that puppy fat anyway, bitch. There’s a time to party and there’s a time to work and this is work time.”
Day passed to night. Still the men arrived, did what they wanted and left. One choked her so hard that she passed out. When she came to, he was gone and Soothe was standing over her asking where the money is. When Kristin told her what had happened, Soothe slapped her and told her she’d have to make it up.
After a time, Kristin seemed to go somewhere else again. She watched herself from above, like her shadow had slipped from her body.
Then it was over. As she waited for the next man, Soothe came back in, collected the money and told her to go take a shower because they were going out.
Kristin stared at her. All she wanted to do now was sleep.
“You can sleep later,” said Soothe. “I thought you said you were hungry, bitch.”
“I was,” said Kristin. “I mean, I am.”
“Quit complaining and go shower, you smell skanky.”
Soothe took her to a diner. They sat together at a booth near the kitchen. At one point the kitchen doors swung open, and Kristin glimpsed a man hunched over a range. He was fat and sweaty, and she recognized him as one of the men who had visited her motel room.
He looked up. Their eyes met for a second and then as she saw a flicker of recognition as to where he knew her from, he quickly looked away, like he was ashamed. The doors swung shut and Kristin had lost her appetite.
She picked at the food on her plate. Soothe scolded her for not eating and called for the check. She paid and Kristin followed her back outside where a cab was waiting.
“Come on,” said Soothe, getting in.
“Where are we going?”
Soothe held the door open. “We’re going to make you official.”
Kristin didn’t know what she meant, and she didn’t want to ask in case Soothe got mad or changed her mind. Right now, anything that avoided her having to go back to the motel room came as a relief.