Eventually, he was not satisfied with doing it doggy style and pushed her face-down flat against the floor. He tucked her hands underneath her hips to aggrandize her submission. The weight of him made it so Aria had to sneak in breaths between his penetrations. The thought about what people had tracked across the floor that her cheek was now pressed up against crossed her mind as a distraction from the trespass of his dick inside her. It took her back to Mr Johnson. She had become an expert at this point of dissociating from the burn. Aria could feel the icy sensation of liquid exposed to air on the side of her face that was turned to him, instead of to the carpet. She assumed it was spit, but it was blood. “Oh shit,” he said, realizing that the force of the intercourse had given him a nosebleed. But he didn’t stop. He let it trickle down his lip and onto her face, occasionally sniffing to reduce the flow.
“You’re a fine fuck … yeah, you’re a fine fuck, aren’t you?” he whispered forcefully, less to her than to himself, trying to turn himself on even further. Eventually, his body went stiff. Gripping her thighs to hold himself inside her, he exhaled the almost painful-sounding moan that Aria had come to expect when men came. Breathing heavily, he went limp, not caring that the weight of his body was given over as a burden to Aria’s. She managed to shift out from underneath him, the rash of carpet burn now on her face and the front side of her hands. “That was good,” she said, breathing heavily and smiling, hoping to give him the impression that she’d actually liked it. He petted her while he caught his breath. She focused on the pores of his face, instead of the features of it. She still didn’t want to remember this man or take note of anything about him.
Despite having just fucked her, he closed the door when he went to use the bathroom. She yelled through the door, “I’m gonna go catch a bus.”
“Nah, I can take you back,” he responded.
“No, it’s fine, really. I need to get to a place that’s closer to here anyway.”
“OK,” was all he said.
Aria paused to see if he was going to say anything further. But there was only silence. So she folded the $150 and put it in the right cup of her bra before stepping out into the parking lot of the motel, closing the door behind her.
She started jogging. The impact of her feet against the pavement made it impossible to quell her tears and so she started crying, using the tears to wipe his blood off of her face until there were only smears left. She sat down on the first patch of grass she could find until she had collected herself well enough to walk back to a bus stop on the Orange line, where she was able to get change for a bus fare.
She didn’t tell Taylor where she had been or what she had done that day. When she got back to their car, before he and Luke showed up for the night, she used one of the water bottles from her backpack to wash the crime off of her face so there wouldn’t be any evidence.
When Ciarra returned to the car lot, she greeted Aria with ardor. “How’d it go?” she asked.
Aria handed over the money that she had made. Ciarra took half of it to give her pimp and gave the rest back to Aria. “It was OK. It’s not really my thing,” Aria replied. She had prepared to defend herself against a fall from grace, but no defense was necessary.
Ciarra seemed infinitely more satisfied with Aria’s failure to do what she herself did so well. She laughed at Aria with a hair flick and said, “I get it. Not everyone’s got it,” then winked at her as Aston fussed for her to pick him up and onto her hip. Ciarra left their short meeting feeling self-satisfied. And that self-satisfaction bought Aria some time outside the scrutiny of her focus.
Aria tied Taylor’s little flashlight to one of the grab handles in the back of the car and wrote in her journal.
“I fucked a man today. I am forever poisoned by it. No … imprisoned by it. To be loved instead of fucked must taste like so much freedom that the lack of bars and chains alone would make you bleed. I’m not doing it again … At least I hope not. I guess you never know what might happen. I have seventy-five dollars now, which I can’t let anyone know about. It seems strange that homeless people steal from each other but whatever. There isn’t anyone around to hear me cry about it. There is nothing special about fucking. I don’t get why men like it so much. I want love. But I got stuck in the intestines of misfortune too young. The acid has become my home.”
She closed her journal and put it back into her backpack before turning off the flashlight. She was glad of the $75. It would buy her a full stomach long enough for her to find another way of making money.
CHAPTER 16
Aria closed her eyes and listened to the harp, whose fairy-like plucking stood out against the melody of the classical orchestra. She imagined the musician’s hands and fingers stroking across the strings. Her body knew every note of the song. Then again, everybody’s did. The song was “Silent Night.” The speakers in the mall had been playing an endless rotation of Christmas songs for a month now.
She had come to the mall to use the public restroom and dig through the dumpsters behind the stores, which promised to be full because it was Christmas Eve. She found herself sitting in the common area of the mall, between the rows of kiosks, watching children
