“Oh, god. Not me, please do not choose me,” Lola said to herself as she watched the middle aged man slowing his dark red mini van to a creep. He was wearing a blue button down dress shirt with sweat stains around his armpits that revealed his beer belly, and even from a distance she could tell he was beginning to bald. “Not me. There are tons of us to choose from, pick someone else dammit!” Lola knew with her luck that the man was going to stop his car in front of her, and she was right. The man stopped his car, but left the engine running. He looked straight at her and lifted one eyebrow. He was even less attractive up close.

“F***,” Lola muttered. She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and walked up to the man’s car. She adjusted her barely there clothing, for maximum cleavage visibility and leaned into the man’s open window. “What can I do for you, baby?” she said using the sweetest voice she could muster. She flashed her pretty smile at him, even though she knew he wasn’t paying much attention to her face.

“Get in,” the man said, his forehead was beaded with sweat and he was squeezing the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles were white. He was clearly nervous, a first timer maybe? This certainly wasn’t Lola’s first time; she’d been doing this almost every night for several months now.

“You got it sugar,” She said winking at him, and ignoring his onion breath that was wafting in her direction. She was a pro.

She opened the passenger side door, and slid into the car. The seats were hot on her bare thighs, hardly protected by her tiny black skirt, and the floorboard of the car was littered with old receipts and empty water bottles. The car had a faint scent of stale french-fries, but this wasn’t unusual.
The man pulled away from the curb and back onto Blume Street, this is where the girls worked who were self employed. Those who were not in it because of drug addictions and the force of men, but simply the desperation for money and no job credentials. Like Lola, they all knew they might be able to get jobs at fast food restaurants and other minimum wage, dead end jobs, but they were accustomed to a certain way of life when it came to material goods, and they could make far more money walking the streets. Lola being young and pretty knew she could (and probably should) have worked through an escort service. She knew that it was much less dangerous, and the men were wealthier and of higher status. However, Lola also knew that if she were the one having sex with the men, all of the money belonged to her, and she sure as hell was not going to give a cut to the person who simply set them up with the men. She could do that on her own, and keep the money to herself. It might not be as glamorous, but if she had to sell herself, the only benefactor was going to be her.
Lola noticed the gold band on his finger. He was married. She looked at the back seat, there was a car seat and a several toys littered about. Married with children, she thought. What a scumbag, but this was typical.

The drive was awkward, and the man kept glancing in her direction nervously, unsure if he should try to make small talk and if so, unsure of what he should say. Definitely a first timer, she thought. She knew she should try to alleviate his discomfort by speaking to him. She just sat quietly looking out the window, silently hating him, but knowing she needed men like him, or she would be out of business. He pulled into the parking lot of a Motel 6. Lola bit her lip trying to hide her disappointment. Sometimes men would take her to nice hotels with soft beds, expensive furniture and clean bathrooms, it was the only bit of joy she could take from this job.

“Is this okay?” The man asked, his voice shaking slightly.

“Sure baby, it’s just fine,” She responded sweetly, smiling at him again. She’d definitely been taken to worse motels than this. She watched as he turned off the car and dropped the keys on to the floorboard as he pulled them out with shaking hands.

“S***!” he muttered as he reached down to get them.

“Why don’t you head inside and get us a room,” Lola said, unbuckling her seat belt. She knew he was too inexperienced to have gotten a room in advance like most of her more seasoned customers would know to do by now. She almost felt sorry for the man. Almost. He nodded and went inside. She took the opportunity to be nosy, and began looking through his things in the glove compartment. She found an ID badge for some sort of office building. He probably worked in a cubicle. The name below his picture said Jared Paterson. She put the badge back and continued searching his things. She didn’t find anything very interesting or important, so she closed the compartment, and leaned back against hot leather seat waiting for him to return. With the air conditioner now turned off, the heat began the settle around her. She closed her eyes, and imagined herself back in her old life, back when everything was still good.

She had a decent job working at a garden center, and she had a pretty house of her own, and she even had a gorgeous girlfriend. She had discovered she liked girls in high school, but she tried to deny it for a few years until she met a girl named Kim who was pretty, and exciting, and helped Lola to discover who she really was. But when the economy crashed, the last thing people were buying were plants, so Lola was let go, and couldn’t afford to finish college. The money was running out fast, and Lola had to move into a small apartment because she couldn’t find a job. This was around the same time that Kim started sleeping with a male model named Jason. Fucking Jason. It broke Lola’s heart when she discovered that she was just a phase in Kim’s life, at first she was furious, but as time went by she just became more and more empty. She would give absolutely anything to go back to her old life. Truly anything.

Lola was thinking about the downward turn her life had taken since then, and was feeling incredibly sorry for herself when Jared knocked on the window making her jump. He pointed towards the building. She was beginning to sweat from the heat, so she opened the door quickly, relieved to get out of the sweltering car, but she was still feeling exceedingly hopeless as she followed Jared towards the room he had gotten for them. He used a silver key attached to a pieced of wood sporting the motel’s logo to unlock room number 9. She walked in after him relieved to find that the room was heavily air-conditioned. It smelled a bit musty, but over all it seemed to be decently clean. She looked at the yellow wallpaper that she had seen so many times, and touched the patterned armchair in the corner that matched the ones in all of the other Motel 6 rooms that she had been taken to.

Jared undressed himself quickly, and stood before her in nothing but his black dress socks and tighty whiteys. His expression was a mixture of excitement and terror as he stared at her expectantly. She just looked at him for a moment, slowing taking in his round belly sprinkled with hair, and his small blue eyes, which were still just looking at her, taking in her whole body from her short skirt to her low cut top. She hadn’t noticed how tall he was before.

She swallowed hard. She did not want to do this. She hated sex with men. Their parts were all wrong, and they were so heavy and sometimes they were extremely hairy. Women were never hairy like that. Also unlike women, men sweat too much and they’re absolutely clueless as to what a woman really wants. But Lola quickly snapped out of it, knowing she needed to get into character if she wanted to get her money. She started walking towards him swaying her hips and undressing herself slowly, seductively.

Jared’s eyes widened and he swallowed. “God, I wish my wife still had a body like that.”

“Well I can be your wife tonight, honey,” Lola said “I can be whoever you want me to be.” She put her hands on his chest wanting to gag at the feel of all the hair on him. She hated him so much.

When it was all over they lay side by side on the bed for a moment staring at the ceiling before Lola jumped up and began dressing herself, which didn’t take long seeing as she hadn’t been wearing much to begin with. Jared was still just staring at up at nothing, probably pondering what he had just done as the guilt set in.

Lola hated this part. It was always so uncomfortable, for some of these men, she was the biggest mistake they would ever make, and that was a horrible thing to consider. She just wanted to get out of this room. She put her hand on her hip and cleared her throat. Jared turned his head towards her and looked confused for a moment before realizing what she was waiting for.

“Oh… right,” he sat up and climbed out of bed. He picked up his pants, which lay crumpled on the floor, and put his hand in the pocket retrieving his wallet. He opened it up and retrieved a stack of bills. “This guy from work… the one who told me about you… he said this would be enough,” He said swallowing and holding out the money. Lola took it from him and counted out the hundreds.

“Yeah, this is what I usually charge,” She said, the sweet act no longer necessary. She was still young and pretty so she could charge more than most of the other women who worked the same streets that she did. She folded up the bills and tucked them safely in her bra. She walked out of the room without saying another word to the guilt-ridden man watching her leave.

She considered getting a cab and just going home, but her night wasn’t over and she didn’t have the money to spend on frivolous things, so she slipped her feet out of her heels and began walking barefoot on the dirty sidewalk. It was only a few blocks back to Blume Street.