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  “Steady,” he told her, thinking she was so thin he could feel the bone in her arm moving against the flesh.

  Out of the blue, she told him, “I don’t take it up the ass.”

  John couldn’t think of which was worse: the thought of her mouth or the thought of her asshole. A quick glance at the sores on her arms and legs made him taste the peanut butter and banana sandwich from lunch.

  “Okay,” he said, not knowing why she felt like sharing and wishing to hell she’d stop.

  “Makes me shit funny,” she told him, giving him a sideways glance. “I thought I should tell you if that’s what you were planning.”

  “I’m just going to make sure you get back,” he assured her. “Don’t worry about that other stuff.”

  “Nothin’ comes for free,” she told him, then laughed. “ ’Cept maybe this time. Of course, the walk—now, if you consider that your payment, it ain’t exactly free.”

  “I was going this way anyway,” he lied. “I live down here.”

  “Morningside?” she asked, referring to one of the wealthier neighborhoods backing onto Cheshire Bridge Road.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Three-story house with a garage.” She stumbled again and he kept her from falling on her face. “Come on.”

  “You don’t gotta be rough, you know.”

  He looked at his hand around her arm, saw immediately how tight he was holding it. When he let go, there were marks where his fingers had been. “I’m sorry about that,” he told her, and really meant it. Jesus, he was thinking about women all this time and he didn’t even know how to touch one without hurting her. “I’m just going to walk you back, okay?”

  “Almost there,” she told him, then mercifully fell into silence as she concentrated on navigating the bumpy path where the sidewalk ended and dirt took over.

  John let her take the lead, keeping two steps behind her in case she fell over into the street. He let the enormity of what had just happened wash over him. What had he been thinking? There was no reason to get himself involved in Ray-Ray’s troubles, and now he was losing a day’s pay so he could take this pross back to her strip, where she’d probably make more money in one hour than he made in three. Christ. He could have lost his job. He could’ve been thrown back in prison.

  Art got a nice stipend from the state for employing a parolee, plus extra tax breaks from the feds. Even with all that—all the so-called incentives that were out there—finding somewhere to work had been almost impossible when John had gotten out. Because of his status, he couldn’t work with kids or live within a hundred yards of a school or day-care center. Legally, employers couldn’t discriminate against a felon, but they always found a way around the law. John had been on nineteen interviews before finding the car wash. They always started out, “How you doing/we’d love to have you here/just fill this out and we’ll get back to you.” Then, when he called the next week because he hadn’t heard from them, it was always, “We’ve filled that job/we found a more qualified candidate/sorry, we’re cutting back.”

  “More qualified to pack boxes?” he had asked one of them, the shipping manager at a pie company. “Listen, buddy,” the guy had answered. “I’ve got a teenage daughter, all right? You know why you’re not getting this job.”

  At least he was honest.

  The question was standard on every application. “Other than misdemeanor traffic violations, have you ever been convicted of a crime?”

  John had to check yes. They always ran a background check and found out anyway.

  “Please explain your conviction in the space provided.”

  He had to explain. They could ask his P.O. They could get a cop to run his file. They could go on the Internet and look him up on the GBI’s site under “convicted sex offenders in the Atlanta area.” Under Shelley, Jonathan Winston, they’d read that he raped and killed a minor child. The state didn’t differentiate between underage offenders and adults, so he came up not as a person who had committed this crime when he was a minor child himself, but as an adult pedophile.

  “Hello?” the hooker said. “You in there, handsome?”

  John nodded. He’d been zoning out, following her like a puppy. They were in front of the liquor store. Some of the girls were already working, hoping to catch the lunch crowd.

  “Hey, Robin,” the hooker yelled. “Come on over here.”

  The woman who must’ve been Robin came over, doing a better job on her high heels than John’s companion had managed.

  Robin stopped ten feet away from them. “What the hell happened to you?” She looked at John. “Did you get rough with her, you motherfucker?”

  “No,” he said, then, because she was digging into her purse for something that would probably bring him a great amount of pain, he said, “Please. I didn’t hurt her.”

  “Aw, he didn’t do nothing, baby girl,” the hooker soothed. “He saved me from that jackass down at the car wash.”

  “Which one?” Robin asked, her anger still well above ballistic. The way she was looking at John said she hadn’t quite made up her mind about him and her hand was still in her purse, probably wrapped around a can of pepper spray or a hammer.

  “Which one? Which one?” the hooker said, a good imitation of Ray-Ray. “That skinny nigger that says everything twice.” She looked up at John, batting her eyelashes. “You like ’em a bit younger, don’t you, honey?”

  John felt his body stiffen.

  “No, I don’t mean it like that,” she said, rubbing his back like she was soothing a child. There was something almost maternal to her now that she was back in her fold. “Lissen, Robin, do me a favor and give ’em a half-and-half. He really saved my ass.”

  Robin’s mouth opened to respond, but John stopped her. He held up his hands, saying, “No, really. That’s okay.”

  “I always pay my debts,” the old hooker insisted. “Kindness of strangers or whatever the fuck.” She followed a car with her eyes as it pulled into the parking lot. “Shit. That’s my regular,” she said, using the back of her hand to wipe the blood off from under her nose. She waved at John as she jumped into the man’s car, yelling something he couldn’t make out.

  John watched the car leave, feeling Robin’s eyes on him the entire time. She had the same steely stare as a cop: what the fuck are you up to and where do I have to hit you to bring you to your knees?

  She said, “I’m not her fucking stand-in.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said, throwing up his hands again. “Really.”

  “What?” she demanded. “You too good to pay for it?”

  “I didn’t say that,” he countered, feeling his face turn red. There were five or six other hookers openly listening to their conversation and the amused expressions on their faces made him feel like his dick was getting smaller and smaller with every second that ticked by.

  He added, “And she didn’t say anything about paying for it, anyway.” When Robin didn’t jump in with something else, he said, “I was just doing her a favor.”

  “You didn’t do me any favors.”

  “Then don’t do me any,” he said, turning to go.

  “Hey!” she screamed. “Don’t walk away from me.”

  Without thinking, he had turned back around when she yelled. She was obviously playing to the crowd. He felt himself shrink another few centimeters.

  He tried to moderate his tone, asking, “What?”

  “I said don’t walk away from me, you stupid prick.”

  John shook his head, thinking his day couldn’t get much worse. “You wanna do this?” he asked, reaching into his pocket. He had saved twenty bucks a week for the last three weeks just to make sure he could swing the payments on the TV. He had fifty bucks in his pocket and seventy tucked into the sole of his shoe. John doubted the girl made even half that during the lunch rush. Hell, he barely made that in a day.

  Her chin went up in defiance. They must have picked up the gesture in hooker school or something. She asked, “How much you
got?”

  “Enough,” he said. What the fuck was he doing? His tongue felt thick in his mouth and he had more saliva than he knew what to do with. Flashing the money had worked, though. The peanut gallery had shut up.

  Robin stared at him another beat, then nodded once. “All right,” she said. “You want dinner and a drink?”

  John chewed his lip, trying to figure out how much that would cost him. “I just ate lunch,” he told her. “If you want something to drink …”

  “God,” she groaned, rolling her eyes. “Are you a cop?”

  “No,” he said, still not following.

  “Half-and-half,” she told him. “Dinner and a drink.”

  John looked over at the other women. They were laughing at him again.

  “Shut up,” Robin barked, and for a minute John thought she meant him. “Come on,” she said, grabbing his arm.

  For the second time that day, John was being led down the street by a hooker. This one was a hell of a lot better than the last one, though. She looked cleaner, for one. Her skin was probably soft. Even her hair looked good—thick and healthy, not stringy from too many drugs or covered with some cheap wig. She didn’t smell like a smoker, either. John’s cell-mate had been a chain-smoker, lighting one off the last. The guy couldn’t even sleep for more than an hour without waking up to have a smoke and there were some days he smelled worse than a wet ashtray.

  Robin pulled him into the woods behind the Colonial Restaurant, tossing over her shoulder, “You got enough for a room?”

  He didn’t answer, couldn’t believe this was actually happening. She was holding his hand, walking him through the woods, like they were on a date. He wanted to hear her voice again. The tone was soothing, even though she was obviously in a hurry to get this over with.

  She stopped, still holding his hand. “Hey, I asked if you have enough for a room.” She indicated the woods. “I don’t do it outside like some fucking animal.”

  He had to clear his throat so he could speak. His heart was pounding so hard in his chest that he could feel his shirt moving. “Yeah.”

  She didn’t move. “You’re sweating.”

  “Sorry,” he said, taking back his hand, wiping the palm on the leg of his jeans. He felt a stupid, uncomfortable smile on his lips. “I’m sorry,” he repeated.

  She was giving him that hard look again, trying to figure out what he had in mind. Her hand was tucked into her purse. “You okay?”

  John looked around, thinking no matter what she carried in her bag, it was a real mistake for her to be taking strange men into the woods. “It’s not safe here,” he said. “I could be anybody.”

  “You’ve never done this before.” She wasn’t asking a question, just stating the obvious.

  He thought of Randall, that kid at the rental store, the way his Adam’s apple had bobbed in his throat when John crowded in on him. John could feel his own throat clenching, making it hard for him to talk.

  “Hey,” she said, rubbing her hand on his arm. “Come on, big boy. It’s okay.”

  John noticed that her voice had changed. He didn’t know why, but suddenly, she was talking to him like he was a human being instead of something she had to scrape off the bottom of her shoe.

  “I didn’t want to do this,” he told her, realizing his tone was different, too. Soft. Real soft like he was trusting her, sharing something with her. Without warning, his mouth opened, and out slipped, “Oh, God, you’re so pretty,” like he was some kind of pathetic freak. He tried to make it better, adding, “I know that sounds stupid, but you are.” He scanned her face, trying to come up with something else to say, some proof that he wasn’t some kind of freak she should pepper spray.

  Her mouth looked soft, the kind of mouth you could kiss forever.

  No, he couldn’t talk about her mouth. That was too sexual.

  Her nose?

  No, that was stupid. Nobody talked about pretty noses. They breathed, they ran sometimes and you blew them. They were just there on your face.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “Your eyes,” he blurted out, feeling like even more of an idiot than before. He’d said the words so loudly that she’d flinched. “I mean,” he began, lowering his voice again. “I’m sorry. I was just thinking that your eyes …” Christ, she was wearing so much makeup it was hard to tell. “I think you have nice eyes.”

  She stared at him, probably wondering how fast she could get the Mace out of her purse and douse him, maybe wondering if she could snatch his money when he went down. “You know,” she finally said, “you don’t have to woo me. Just pay me.”

  He tucked his hand into his pocket.

  “Not now, baby,” she said, nervous suddenly. He was doing something wrong. There was a way to do this and John didn’t know.

  “I’m sorry—” he apologized.

  “You pay me in the room,” she told him, waving for him to follow her. “It’s just over here.”

  He stood in place, his feet refusing to move. Christ, he felt like he was a pimply kid again trying to get to second base.

  She finally sounded annoyed. “Come on, big boy. Time is money.”

  “Let’s stay here,” he said, and when she started to protest, he talked over her. “No, not like that. Let’s just stand here and talk.”

  “You wanna talk? Get a shrink.”

  “I’ll pay you.”

  “This some twist for you?” she asked. “I start talking and you jerk yourself off? No way.”

  She was walking back toward the road and he scrambled to get the money out of his pocket. Some of the bills flew out of his hand and he dropped to the ground, picking them up. When he looked up, she was still moving away.

  He said, “Fifty dollars!” and she froze.

  She turned slowly, and he couldn’t tell if the offer had made her more annoyed or just plain angry.

  “Here,” he said, standing up, walking over to her and putting the cash in her hand. There were a lot of ones, a couple of fives—all part of his take from the tip box back at the car wash.

  He said, “I’ll keep my pants on, okay? No funny stuff.”

  She tried to give him back the money. “Don’t fuck with me, okay?”

  “I’m not,” he told her, hearing a tinge of desperation in his voice. He was going to scare her away again and this time no amount of money would get her back. “Just talk,” he said, pressing the money back on her. “Just tell me something.”

  She rolled her eyes, but she kept the money. “Tell you what?”

  “Anything,” he said. “Tell me …” Jesus, he couldn’t think of a damn thing. “Tell me …” He stared at her, willing her face to give him a clue—anything that would keep her here a little longer. He looked at her beautiful mouth, the way it was twisted with irritation and maybe something that looked like curiosity. “Your first kiss,” he decided. “Tell me about your first kiss.”

  “You have got to be kidding me.”

  “No,” he said. “I’m not.” He took a couple of steps away from her, held his hands out to the side so she could see he wasn’t going to do himself. “Just tell me about your first kiss.”

  “What, you want me to say it was with my sister? My father?”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “Please don’t lie.”

  She crossed her arms, her eyes giving him the once-over. “You’re giving me fifty bucks to tell you about my first kiss?”

  He nodded.

  She looked behind her, then looked back at him. She counted the money out, crisp bills tugged from one hand to the other as her lips moved silently. “All right,” she finally said, tucking the wad of cash down the front of her shirt. “Stewie Campano.”

  He laughed at the name.

  “Yeah,” she said, smiling for the first time. She had perfect, straight teeth. “Real Romeo, our Stewie.”

  “You went out with him?”

  “Hell no,” she said, insulted. “He was two years younger than me, one of my little brot
her’s friends. We were playing around one day.”

  “Playing what?” Her brow furrowed and he quickly said, “No, I’m not looking for that. I just want to know what you were doing.”

  “Swimming in his pool,” she said, hesitant, obviously still trying to see what John’s angle was. “That was the only reason I’d go over there with my brother, because Stewie had a swimming pool.”

  John felt his smile come back.

  She had decided to continue the story. “So, like I said, it was late one night, full moon and all that, and we were playing in the pool, just horsing around, and he looked at me and I looked at him and then he just leaned over and kissed me.”

  “Real kiss or a kid kiss?”

  “Kid kiss,” she said, a smile working its magic on her face. She was truly beautiful, the kind of dark-haired, olive-skinned woman that poets wrote about.

  Her smile turned mischievous. “Then a real kiss.”

  “Go, Stewie,” John said, creating the image in his mind—the backyard, the moon, the various floats and flotsam in a family pool. “How old were you?”

  “Thirteen,” she admitted.

  “So Stewie was—”

  “Ten. I know.” She held up her hands. “Cradle robber. Guilty.”

  John was amazed at the kid’s bravado. “God, I don’t even think I knew what a tongue kiss was when I was ten.”

  “Yeah, well I was thirteen and I didn’t know,” she told him. Then she laughed, maybe at the memory or maybe at the absurdity of the situation. John laughed, too, and it was such a sweet release that for the first time in twenty-five years he honest to God felt like he was okay.

  “Jesus,” Robin said. “I haven’t thought about that kid in years.”

  “What’s he doing now, you think?”

  “Doctor, probably.” She laughed again, a short, sharp sound of pleasure. “Gynecologist.”

  John was still smiling. He said, “Thank you.”

  “Yeah.” She pressed her lips together. “Hey, what’s your name?”

  “John.”

  She laughed like he was joking.

  “No, really. John Shelley.” He made to offer his hand, and she took a step back from him. “Sorry,” he said, dropping his hand. What had he done? How had he ruined this?