Fucking Civics

Caroline hated school. Every bit of it; science, math and civics.

It was a fast walk down a slow road that brought her to The House. Prostitution really and truly began for Caroline when she was sixteen, back when she and Leslie were sneaking into bars to see “Rattler,” their favorite local rock band, or maybe even before that, when they were getting high and listening to Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd on Leslie’s brother’s turntable and Caroline was pocketing loose change for smokes off the top of his dresser when Leslie wasn’t looking. Regardless of the exact moment it happened, it was Leslie who showed Caroline how easy it was to get into the bars where Rattler was playing, even while underage. It was testosterone fueled men collecting cover charges and checking ID’s against the likes of these two youthful hotties, so it really didn’t take much. A smile, a nod, a wink, perhaps a quick favor, and like the wave of a magic wand “Besto-Presto… where can a girl not go when a mere man blocks her path?

After so many shows Ratto, Rattler’s lead singer, finally noticed the stage-side pair, so they screwed him together in the tour bus out behind the bar, which was both less scary and more fun, doing it together. That it happened while they were hammered was funner still, and then Ratto turned them on to cocaine for the first time afterward. The next weekend she and Leslie were there again of course, front row, and saw Ratto pointing them out to Kenny D, the “Rattler” bassist, who treated them to more of the same, only with crack this time, so they started hanging around the bus both before and after shows, becoming low level “groupies” if you will. As such they were passed between the band members on weekend nights until the enjoyment of them ran out and new girls were picked from the crowd, leaving Caroline and Leslie left out; alone and hooked. Once hooked there were really only two options for the girls; find a junkie with access to the drugs they needed and join up with him in his shit lifestyle, or go out on their own in search of what they needed. Leslie chose the first path. Caroline watched as her friend was handed around from dealer to dealer by the asshole, sucking them off for a bump when the couple was too broke to pay until Caroline finally concluded, “why share?”

Out on her own at nineteen Caroline learned that it was not the tricks to be feared, nor the drugs, nor the hunger. It was the streets themselves, the ghostly wandering; house-to-house, room-to-room, into backseats, public restrooms, truck cabs and alleyways alone. Alone together that is, with some acquaintance or stranger who was always bigger and stronger, with every one of them demanding more of you than you’ve already given, always more. But when everything is already in the ante, what more is there to bet? She could never be sure of what she would find in those places, or in that person she was alone with there, doing literally anything they demanded of her for fifty fucking bucks, or sometimes twenty-five, or even ten. And worse, to wake up in a drugged haze without remembering, with only lingering pain to let you know that anything had happened at all, and still nowhere safe to go, no home to return to.

Caroline quickly discovered that life was not all fun and games, that there were some places she had to go where she absolutely didn’t want to be. So much for Besto-Presto.

It was that lonely search for what she needed that initially brought Caroline here, as those with commonalities tend to attract, and congregate. What she thought of as “The House” was over on Tyler Street, two blocks east of the city center at the very end of a row of Victorian-styled two stories which had somehow survived the wrecking ball. Tyler Street had long since been re-zoned for business, so its row of antique houses functioned mostly now as law offices, or insurance agencies rather than as dwellings. Every house but the one on the very end of the street had shingles hung denoting their current purposes’, but that last one needed no shingle, as in the daytime a coterie of young women used its veranda to escape The House’s inner, unmoderated stuffiness, and in so doing sufficiently advertised its’ object. But it was after sundown when the business of that house became even more obvious, for as every other enterprise along the street darkened and locked up, that one came alive, it’s brightly lit bottom floor off-setting it’s blacked-out upper windows, that and an increased volume of mostly male customer traffic, some of it merely walking up from the neighboring houses (which were of course businesses), as wives had been telephoned on lunch breaks and pre-warned that “working late” might be necessary tonight, so go ahead and forgo dinner. “I’ll get something out,” they told them. And that is exactly what they did.

The House, having originally been built to satisfy the traditionally nuclear family in an age prior to birth control, was large, as large families had been the norm in its day. There were five “bedrooms” inside, that is to say rooms which had been built and designated for that purpose. More lately three other rooms, a nursery, etc., had been converted into bedrooms simply by adding beds to them. Some of those converted rooms actually had to be passed through to get to the other bedrooms, which led to many awkward and embarrassing moments in The House’s present function. The biggest, nicest of these bedrooms belonged to Lacey Slocum, it having been bequeathed fairly to her through the dominance of her status; that dominance having been derived from her tenure in The House, her popularity with it’s clientele, and in no small part to her unrivaled (at least amongst the other girls) malevolent viciousness. While many had fucked Lacey Slocum during her time in The House, Caroline had seen nobody, but nobody fuck with Lacey Slocum.

The other rooms were also parceled out by status, the preferred ones given to the most requested, or to those whom Lacey decided should have them, usually to those most compliant to her. It was assumed by Caroline and the other girls, as Lacey had already been installed in her hierarchal position when each of them arrived, that Lacey owned the property, though that was not the case. The House was actually owned by a shadow man, a man who went unrecognized by any but Lacey when he showed up to inspect his investment. It was he who provided for maintenance on The House, and who paid the bills, and whom Lacey immediately jumped for at his appearance without asking how high, as she was no dummy. Lacey Slocum enjoyed her elevated position. She liked deciding which girls could stay, and which must go. Lacey had worked hard to attain her place in The House, and it was this man who both put her in her position and who allowed her to stay there, and it was he who provided Lacey with what she needed to run The House, conditionally of course, those conditions being easier to meet when done with an iron fist, which was Lacey Slocum’s preferred method anyhow.

Still, though not an ideal one, The House was definitively a society, a society being a space shared by two or more people for their mutual welfares. As such there were necessarily “house rules” to follow if one wished to remain in it. In fact, there were both written and unwritten rules. Firstly, to stay in The House required a signed contract which, while legally useless, at least provided both landlord and tenant with some semblance of situational control, or rights, if you’d rather, the contract allowing that in order to remain a member of The House’s protective society you would abide by it’s rules, the first and foremost of those rules being that you must contribute to it’s prosperity, in this case that meant 50% of earnings as stated, along with cultural and educational contributions when possible. 50% seemed like a lot, but in return the house offered the necessities which nearly any human life requires; food, shelter, community, safety, and most importantly… steady, fixed rate employment. Since moving in, Caroline not only had what she needed, she was actually getting ahead. But as with any other society, there were also consequences for those who broke these written rules. Those consequences themselves were not written, but were understood, and were at best violent, and at worst evictive. As harsh as that might seem those written rules laid the groundwork for order, a thing which few engaged in this line of work were likely to find anywhere other than a penitentiary, while also being a thing which every person without it instinctively longs for. If eviction does not seem to you like much of a punishment, then you are reading from a place of privilege and can have no understanding of the importance of order for a young girl alone and destitute on the streets, a girl whose life is “survived” more than “lived” in the endless chaos which comes from feeling like the lowest rung on the human ladder, “fucked” that is, floundering at the complete and utter bottom, her life and well-being at the mercy of every single person or persons she happens upon, not to mention the destructive hazards and elements of the natural world itself; weather, temperature, disease, and hunger. Caroline didn’t ask to be a prostitute. She certainly never wanted to be one. She didn’t raise her hand in the third grade to proclaim a desire for it when the teacher asked the children what they wanted to be when they grew up. But as bad choices have equal consequence she found herself on that road, and The House provided the first, best, and only hope anyone had proffered to her as one… a prostitute, that is.

And Lacey Slocum was it’s Queen; beautiful (if hard-eyed and tight-mouthed), boldly sexy, sophisticated (or not, as occasion demanded), Lacy reined over what had begun as a weak democracy when she arrived, but what she, through strength, intrigue, and professional success, had turned into a benevolent tyranny. Lacey Slocum ruled the roost. The others cast their votes as they always had, but Lacey’s was the only vote in the final count, and none were foolish enough to question it. In The House’s small, dog-eat-dog world, it was Lacey who sported the longest fangs.

Still, The House offered community. Caroline found that being in a common group, having others to share your experiences with, and listening as those others shared even worse ones, the most disgusting and shameful experiences imaginable, was empowering. These girls were actually able to laugh about the ugliness they had encountered. Sharing their stories about the regular degenerates and monsters who frequented The House lifted all of the girls up until those men became even lower on morality’s ladder than they themselves were. In fact, the girls easily convinced themselves that all men, not just the ones who paid to fuck them, were beneath them, and though usually prone on the bottom, the girls’ common experiences with men’s perversities and fetishes elevated them on the moral plane up above men, and Caroline heartily bought into this theory. It was actually the men who sucked, philosophically speaking. Caroline was bought in, at least until those mornings when she woke up from a drug-hazed “date” in a twisted ball of sheets, semen, syringes, and vomit. In those moments she did not feel “above” anyone at all, but at least she had a place. Caroline was “home.” So long as she was in The House she had a room, her own space. Here were people who empathized, who would help her clean her mess up, who would help her clean herself up, after all... tomorrow it would likely be one of them. When the same thing had happened out there in the real world, Caroline had been on her own in her mess.

The term “working girl” is a misnomer. Although for some it could be lucrative, sex with strangers is many things, but it is hardly work, despite phrases like “hand job” and “blow job”, there was really nothing difficult at all about it. In fact, the less actual physical labor that Caroline did, the more she grew to detest it. She even half-assed the few chores assigned to her, and more than once suffered Lacey’s wrath for it. But fuck Lacey anyways. A few knocks to the head seemed preferable to cleaning toilets. Caroline detested the thought of work so much that once she’d been accepted into The House escape from it’s lazy lifestyle became undesirable, and too difficult to contemplate; getting “clean,” and getting a “real” job seemed almost ludicrous, though that did not stop her from sometimes pondering how she’d come to be here at all.

But that question was easily answered. When someone states a desire for the only thing you have left, any fool will take what they can get for it. Caroline certainly had, when she was down to nothing else. That is what you do when your body is all that is left. You sell it to eat, you sell it for warmth, you sell it for vanity, for pleasure, or for a high… and sometimes you sell it just because selling it is better than giving it away, yet regardless you sell it, and you feel thankful that you have it to sell, that someone even wants it. The shames of both the sale itself and the acts required of it quickly pass, and with no real reproach you do it again when the opportunity presents itself. From there, it is not long before you begin marketing yourself for those opportunities, dressing differently, walking differently, behaving differently, even thinking differently to justify those unseemly actions. You become caught in a cycle; fucking=money, money=drugs, drugs=broke. No fuck, no money, no high, no bueno.

Those thoughts naturally led Caroline to where she would be if not for The House, and to what she would do if she were evicted? But they were thoughts too dire for contemplation. She could not go back to the chaos of the streets. Not now. Besides, she told herself, it was always some other girl who grew too old, too sick, or too strung-out to be desirable, and thus useless to The House’s society. It would never happen to her, would it?

But the morning mirror never lies, does it? Those dark circles are hard to hide, and those scars from other nights, and other men, and dirty needles. The streets remain so close, right outside her window. And the addiction remains, always with her, a dark cloud looming above.

It was a common fear, eviction. Something the girls often brought up to one another out there on the veranda while fanning themselves from the Louisiana heat, at least when Lacey wasn’t around… what would they do when their turn came? But there were no good answers, so the topic seldom lingered, snuffed out until tomorrow when the question would likely be raised again, as it was the question every girl was concerned about.

Snuffed out right up until Caroline’s turn came. That day when there was a difference in Lacey’s eyes when they looked into hers, and an unfamiliar timber to her voice. That day when Caroline felt more than saw that the others had formed in a lioness-like circle around her, with she their prey, and they ready to pounce. And she knew how they felt, that they would willingly claw and kill so long as it was not them at the circle’s center. They would turn on her and swallow her up to stay in Lacey’s graces. Caroline knew because she had done it to others herself.

That day when anger didn’t help her, and tears couldn’t help, and there was nothing to do but to pack up her dirty drawers and go back there… to that coldest of places where fear and desperation, and the unknown awaited.

Every girl’s path here is different. Caroline had never asked for this life. She’d never even wanted it… but here she was again, cast out, alone on her chosen road.