3

"Honey, hasn't anyone told you pretty girls don't ever have to pay for their food? In fact not even for their drinks at bars. That's a standard."

Oh, the classic line.

But he doesn't pity me. That's my fault, as I broke character as I was spacing out.
Didn't look so hungry, or fatigued, or sad.
In fact I wonder how I actually looked. Well, pretty hot according to him.

Damn, he probably thinks that I'm yet another young fuck.

Damn it.

That's not the point of this exercise.
There is no exercise involved in this, actually, only the thug, his gun, and no running, no screaming, no fight.
This isn't the early nineties, or the late seventies.

Damn it, I fucked up bad.



"Oh, no. That's not what I meant. I just only meant I was broke. I didn't want you to buy me lunch."

I tell him with the classic puppy eyes.
If I brush him off coldly, he'll never go away.
These eyes meant "I actually want it but I feel bad asking you", or the classic "I don't want to be needy".
Too classic for anyone to fall for. He wants a girl who plays hard to get.
I'll be easy. I'll be one he won't want and he'll just walk away from.

"No, I think you heard me. You don't have to pay for lunch, and you're hungry. I haven't had lunch yet, and I know a great bistro a few blocks down. Now, we're walking down to the bistro together, I order my usual, you order whatever the hell you want and we sit on a bench near the bistro and eat. Understood?"

His eyes were firm.
He was not going to take no as an answer.
I guess I wasn't making it easy enough as well, he got mad.
A sense of pride and having what he wants and getting more than that.
All by brute force.

I like it, but I don't.

The thug is not going to have a good time today, is he?
Worst case, he makes nothing and gets arrested, and I fuck up and get a free lunch and nothing more.

Oh well.


"Fine. But next time I get you a coffee."

His lips curl upwards in his victory.

"Eh, if I let you."

Or if there is a next time, is what he actually means.


"Fine."



This time I let him win so there isn't much more to that, but I can feel my phone vibrating in my pocket.
Most likely a text from thug.

Oh, well, I can ignore it for now.

I know he can't beat the shit out of me.

Mutual friend won't let him, as they ain't go shit without me in this business.





George Clooney and I walk four blocks east and one north to arrive to a small secluded street, with a little bistro as he told me we would find.


"Here we are my lady. Let me take you inside."


As we walk near the entrance, the nearest waiter, waiting on the outdoor seating brightens his eyes.

"'Ey! Louis!"

Oh?


The man is French.
Louis, pronounced Lou-ee instead of Loo-is.

I see where the accent and the attitude comes from, as well as the reasoning behind the bistro.


"Qui esta le bebe?"


Louis just walks along, smiling like he was walking around with some prize in his hands.
Gleaming, as the other waiters shook his hand and greeted him.


We soon reach the inside of the store, which was virtually empty.
I don't get why people wouldn't want to eat inside.
It's dusty out there in the urban streets.


"Louis, Louis."

An owner comes out and gives him a half hug.
I guess European man hugs are friendlier than American ones, since you know they don't care about people wondering if they're gay or not. I mean Louis here is dressed really nicely, and he's not even working today.
I mean put a blazer on and it's pretty much a suit.



"Ah, Theo."

He smiles and pats his back, whispers something into his ear.

What have I gotten myself into.
I'm getting free lunch and then leaving today.

Don't take a risk.

If he was Italian I would've been shot already. Most likely gangster.

But French, I'm okay.
They die in the name of love. Not family pride.


A waiter comes back and leads us into a booth towards the back, and that's when I realize that it isn't that nobody wanted to sit inside. It's that they don't let people sit inside during the day.

Fuck.


"You know what, I"

"No excuses, you're here now."

He halfway shoves me into a booth.
Fuck, this is not going to be fun.

Well, time to pull the big guns.

Well, little, as it's in my purse. Singular. Oh well.


"No, I"


The moment I try to pull my mini revolver out, I feel a cool metal on the back of my messy head, as well as three separate clicks around me.

I'm assuming the owner directly behind me, and then three of the waiters surrounding.

I don't move.
I don't move a muscle as the time freezes, and Louis looks just more and more happier.
His smile, which I originally thought was just the alpha male smile, turns creepier and creepier as my eyes widen further.



"Honey, you're fast but not fast enough. Listen,"

His face is about an inch away from mine.



"Sorry, babe, but I know who you are."

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２

It was indeed cool and cloudy today.
No worrying about make up melting in the sun, or getting tan.
A starving bitch's gotta be skinny and pale, right? Well, I mean... it attracts a more generous crowd as paleness is a general signal of malnutrition and dehydration. As well as general fatigue. And the sensitive boys love it.

You know, I'd much rather be helped by some lab geek will ill intentions than some buff retard who has a kind heart.
Here's the thing: In this business, the more easily intimidated and physically weaker your man is, the better.
My thug gets it easier. More so, when the hero has a smaller ego, it makes my job easier as a little stroke will make it enlarge and throb harder and faster than one that's already bloated.

So I take position in the square, slightly off, under a shade. Trees over a bench. Me on the bench. Standard urban bum position, as I like to call it.

Assume the normal position, the off balanced fetal.
Suck on my thumb and bite my nails, and quiver.

Look like the world is ending.

Although, in reality, world really never began or ended once I gave up on it before it gave up on me.



I like watching the world during the time I wait for someone to approach me.
The happy couples, hand in hand walking down with coffees, and the families, the friends, the business men, and the students with giant backpacks.
Always different yet the same. Just like this city, or like life in general.
Always different yet the same.

So dull, yet so amazing at the same time.
It's like watching a cell split, because you know what? Everything is made of cells splitting. That's a known fact if you went through sex ed in the fifth grade.
What we don't get to see before our very eyes, is it actually happening.
Only then it's cool and amazing. Only then is it the tiniest bit interesting.




I lose track of everything when the sun shines out of the clouds, and the concrete turns white except for the patch of shade I sit under, which remains an ugly shade of gray.

"Pretty day, isn't it. "


Surprised to have someone take my back without me noticing, I turn around quickly, falling out of character.

"Woah, woah, woah. Didn't mean to scare you there. You okay?"

Tall, dark man.
Probably European, based off the fancy clothes and the tiniest bit of accent left on his tongue.
Most likely a good amount older than me. Very George Clooney like, in the sense that he aged extremely well.
No ring. Doesn't matter, probably sleeps around with young women five times a week. I can tell from the scent that he reeks of, he doesn't do it for hygiene. Does it for the ladies.

"Mm, I'm okay. Bit tired."

I fell right back into character, as he seemed like the perfect gentleman for the thug.
Once we get rid of any way for him to contact the outside, then we've got a shit ton of cash, right on the money. No pun intended.


"What makes you?"

I don't like all these questions, but as usual I make up bullshit answers.

"Working all night. Mm, on my feet bussing tables at one place and then another. Double shift at two different places. Lovely, isn't it?"

I conjure up a weak smile. Works every time.　Like a charm. Or, I am the charmer.


"That's no fun. So you decided to relax in parks when you're not working. Why haven't I seen you at this one before?"

Because I only come to the same park once a month, rat bastard.
Good cover, ain't it?

"Mm, well, it's my first time at this one."

Lies. Been coming here monthly since it was snowing.



"Well, welcome to the park then. You know, miss,"


He opens his mouth to say something, and smiles like he has plans. Well, with me.


"What?"

I look up innocently at the man, and he smiles like he's got dirty thoughts. Undressing me with his eyes.
I'm used to it. No, better yet. I'm used to pretending I don't see him investigating.


"Had lunch yet?"

A date, how cute.

"No, but I might as well wait until I get home. I'm dead broke."

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Standard of Living 1

The Standard of Living

I for one never understood what it is that people live for.
I understand that biologically people are to reproduce and have offspring to pass down their genes.
From a sociological perspective, people are to earn a living, live under a roof and feed such offspring and clothe them, as well as provide support and love.
Society and fitting in. Having a house, a fence around a yard, a dog in it, smiling children at the bus stop, neighbors with similar yards.
What bullshit. What utter bullshit.

Don't get me wrong, I love children.
They are adorable, they are pure, and they are animals.
They live by the small amount of knowledge they have and the large amount of instinct they can't control.
They are a good way to judge human nature as well as judge the nature of their parents, as a three year old can mimic the actions of their parents without understanding the reasoning behind them.

As a child, I was always sort of a loner, different from the other children.
I couldn't help the fact that I thought the other children were stupid, naive, or just plain retarded at times.
I would excel beyond them in all the subjects and run past them in relay races.
For that very reason, I worried my parents a lot.
They thought I was autistic because I would not socialize with the other children, and liked talking to adults about strange academic topics that were borderline obscure.
The school thought I was mentally challenged because I did not know how to share.
My grades said otherwise, yet, not being able to share is apparently more of a reason to hold somebody back when they are in grade school.
Again, as soon as my parents were told I was to be evaluated, they called the family lawyer to come in and sue the big private school for their 'discrimination'.
Soon I was out of the school and was transferred half a dozen times before I graduated middle school, and another half dozen before I graduated high school.
I gave up halfway between middle school and high school. Kept the grades but ditched prim and proper attitude, and exchanged it for a different kind of perfectionism.

The art of lying. The art of con.
Being in a bad place that has lots of money has a lot of benefits, but not very many downfalls.
There is a shit ton to be sold and traded, and the profit margin is at a percentage that would make wall street tear up in ego tantrums.
Again, none of this is legal at all.
But things that money can't buy- Love, Happiness, Success, you name it- can all be bought illegally if you are indeed willing to risk a whole lot more,


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It's a Saturday morning, and the cars are busy outside my small city studio.
Staring out the fourth floor window. "It's perfect for people like you", I remember them saying when I got this place. "Too high for someone to climb in the window, and too low for you to jump out and die."

Fucking bitch of a land lord. She probably thought I was some depressed teen running away from home.
Old lady, thinking she's seen it all, done it all, and for most understands it all.

What she sees is the cell walls and not the nucleus of our very beings.
In easy pop song terms, it truly is 'the surface'.

She thinks that I'm a student at the local community college, where many high school drop outs with GED's go while working two different jobs in order to pay the cheap price of a shitty education.

I make her believe it.
I pay tuition to a school that I don't go to. In return they send me bills in the mail to make others believe that I actually go there.
I tell her I waitress during the day and bartend during the night.
"Bartend, eh...", she said, clearly not believing that part of the story when I told her a few months back.
She probably thinks I'm a stripper.
Don't really give a flying fuck though, because I am not a waitress, bartender, or a stripper.

I live here by extension of my life from high school, living off the cream of society.
Only the best parts for only the worst. The good, the bad and the ugly.
Well I ain't so good but ain't so bad either, and am sure as hell not ugly at all.

Today I will be a pretty girl, a damsel in distress.
I will change into a flouncy white sun dress and a sky blue bohemian cardigan and walk out into the streets of Greenwich Village, laughing only inside while wondering how many people might catch the Alice in Wonderland virgin-angel reference.
I will then go into the square and wait for some poor boy to ask me what is wrong while I'm crying, and tell him that I am a hungry vegan who can't eat fast food. Then he'll get a salad for me, or maybe even a tofu sandwich, and tell me that everything will be all right. While he's buying said sandwich, I won't take his wallet, or his belongings, but will be bought the sandwich in gratefulness. I'll be really happy about it.
Then after I eat, some thug that my friend knows will come beat the hell out of the boy and take his shit.
I'll act devastated. I'll call the medics, I'll call the cops, and I'll provide all the wrong answers to all the right questions asked. Then I'll tell him that I'm so sorry, and that we should meet up again so I can do something for him next time. He'll still feel like a hero for saving me from the thugs. His ego is stroked, and he anticipates something else being stroked in the near future. Game over for him, because he'll never get that call and we'll never meet again. At the end of the day after repeating this a few times, thug and I meet up with my friend, and we split the earnings.


This is my life now.
One a week we do this, as we have fun activities like this planned six days a week with one day off.
I live well.
I live without a heart, but I have a roof, some clothes, and good food to eat along with a glass of wine every night.
I can still buy Love, Happiness, and Success, although you know what?
Haven't paid for shit since I've started in this business.

My standard of living.

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