John ground a cigarette butt on the ashtray built into the top of the litter bin. He checked the time on his phone and drained an energy drink, crushing the empty can in his hand and popping it in the mouth of the bin. It was better in these circumstances to be absolutely punctual. For once he was spitting on his own doorstep, but needs must and all that. He had timed it so after he had visited the sex worker for a half-hour session he could then catch a 2 o’clock showing of ‘John Wick 3’ at the nearby generic cinema on the charmless retail park, just around the corner from the ugly functional flats he stood before like a bathetic sentinel. That way he had an alibi to hand if anyone spotted him.
John checked no one was around and lit a one skin joint and glanced at his phone again. 12.50 pm. He’d been standing there for around 15 minutes and thankfully he’d seen no fellow punter exit the block. The very thought of seeing who had preceded him made him nauseous. She’d texted him the time (1 pm) street name and flat number. The flats were numbered one to twenty in four blocks containing five one-bedroom flats spread over two floors. He checked the Vivastreet profile again to make sure he’d got the price right.
Selena, thirty-two, oral and sex with a condom, rimming(receiving) £60 for thirty minutes. Strictly no CIM, bareback, or A-Levels. OWO £20 extra. John had five crisp 20-pound notes in his wallet that he’d got from the cash machine at the corner shop. He felt weak legged off the joint and paranoid. John had smoked it to take the edge off his nervousness and he enjoyed being sucked off stoned but it had accentuated the anxiety he felt because of the familiarity of the area and its close proximity to his home.
Some teenagers were walking towards the flats, passing a cigarette and a can of lager between themselves. He was feeling genuine panic now, too stoned to deal with the mildest of meatspace interactions. 12.55. Fuck it. His mind was trying to will his legs to purposefully stride to the flat entrance but all he managed was a breathless stagger to the doorway. He stabbed a finger at button number nine on the intercom.
She’d buzzed him in before he had a chance to introduce himself. ‘Open,’ came the staticky voice. He pushed open the door and went into the block and was greeted by a row of bin lockers with the residents’ numbers daubed on each one. All was grey, from the battleship coloured walls to the concrete floor no one from the council had bothered to tile or carpet. She stood at the top of the first flight of stairs, a forlorn, strangely ghost like figure in a blue hooded top, the hood pulled down to cast her face in shadow, black leggings, and tatty gold sandals. Her toenails were covered in faded red nail polish.
Her flat looked like it was actually lived in, unlike other sex worker apartments that he’d visited that looked like anonymous hotel rooms. Curtains were drawn, it was gloomy in the flat, the only light from a bedside lamp with a low watt bulb. It was cleanish enough anyway. Disconcertingly the far wall next to the bed was painted a fluorescent pink with a ‘Hello Kitty’ mural daubed upon it crudely and competently, giving it an unsettling creepypasta vibe. And here he was, a bovine dullard in the copious flesh. John felt momentarily disoriented, thinking for a moment there was a glitch in his simulation, that everything would suddenly pixelate and break up but no he was still immured in this version of reality.
Early thirties it said on her profile but she looks late twenties.
“What’s your name,” croaks John, his throat dry and scorched from the joint earlier.
“Selena.”
He told her his name.
“John... John…” she said twice, like she was trying the sound of the word out. He asked her where she was from.
‘Ruska Roma.’ Selena asked John what he wanted. He told her and counted out four twenties. Selena took the notes and left the bedroom, pushing the door shut behind her. John began to undress and Selena rattled around in the tiny kitchen.
They stood naked before the sink in the bathroom despite his protestations he had showered not long ago. Selena was short and petite, about chest high to him, a round pretty face with a slightly bulbous nose,beguiling green eyes, hair cut short into a natural blonde bob, thin lips, fantastic skinny tits and a peachy arse that was a corporeal piece of art. She had a tattoo on her lower back of a butterfly, out of which flowered an ornate spiral pattern. John stroked her shoulders and saw her suppress a shiver of revulsion.
“You’ve got a great body, you should be a model,'' said John nervously, immediately loathing himself for uttering the banality.
Selena laughed and said, “Too fat.” She was staring at his gut as she said it. Running the cold water tap, she took his half-erect prick and held it underneath the flow, scooping water onto his cock end with her free hand. The water was icy and Selena just kept repeating ‘That OK?” to which he passively assented as she cleaned his cock.
How sad this all is, he thought, the pair of them caught in life’s abject transactional embrace. John felt a little sleepy off the joint now its initial paranoid jolt had lessened. His ennui was dispelled when she shut off the cold water and turned on the hot tap and with no warning stuck his dick under it, in a peremptory manner in total contrast with her previous slightly pedantic concern for the comfort of his prick.
“Fucking hell,” said John,’”that tap runs too hot quick.” He recoiled with his scorched member in hand. A shy smile danced on her melancholy features.
Selena, with a sudden vigour to her movements that surprised John, sprung on the bed and cheerfully spread her legs, planting the soles of her feet onto the bed. It looked fucking hot. Her blonde pubic bush was trimmed into a tiny triangle, a small tattoo of a red rose just to the right-hand side to it. There was a gold stud in her clitoral hood and she had neat labia lips. John knew not to kiss her so headed for her breasts.
