On the street corner Peaches flaunted herself. Wearing fishnet stockings and high heels, she beamed with erotic magnetism. Hoop earrings hung from her lobes and red lipstick colored her lips. She had curly red hair, and a small, curvy body.

The night was warm with a small breeze stirring. The moon sat high in the sky amongst  stars. The moon glowed, gave off radiance, a peaceful refuge.  It drifted in and out of the clouds, playing hide and seek.

Now you see it. Now you don’t.

Peaches gazed at the moon and thought to herself: I see you trying to hide, moon. Maybe you will. Maybe you won’t.

Merryweather Street was busy this evening with cars cruising by.  Sex shops boomed with clientele.  Strip joints boasted neon signs of naked women shifting in the darkness; their movements giving off a glow of sexual delight.

This was Peaches’ turf. She worked it every night. Other girls knew not to cross; just like she knew not to cross theirs. Her pimp, Jimmy, kept things under control. If there were a problem, it would result in a black eye or two. Or even a little spilled blood.

“How much, baby?”

A car full of young guys (children) had pulled up to the curb, the one talking halfway out  the passenger window. They looked like a pack of drooling, horny dogs. And they looked just like the guy who’d expect a fuck after the prom. Or after a date on Friday or Saturday night.

Peaches was not like that. She was an adult. She’d been around the block more than once, seen those childish things back in school.

God, had it been that fucking long?

 “How much, baby?” The kid looked desperate. Was getting sarcastic. Muscles outlined his shirt.

“For starts, don’t call me ‘baby’.” Peaches’ tone was stern, but turned provocative as she said, “Unless you’re payin’. Once you pay, you can call me anything you like.”

“Sorry, baby –I mean, ma’am.”

“Good boy.”

“So . . . how much, then?”

Damn, they all looked like they’d cream their pants any second.

“For all of you?”

“Yeah.”

Peaches figured they probably had girlfriends that hadn’t given them any this week. She was their “escape route.” Their release of built-up pressure.

Before Peaches could give them the price, the kid said: “We’ve got a hundred and eighty between all of us. Is that enough?”

“I ain’t the Dollar Tree, kids.”

As desperate as they were, she could use the cash. But Jimmy would’ve made her bleed for that fuck-up. She didn’t need that, wanted to stay on good terms with him. If he wanted a fuck every once in a while, cool. If he wanted a blow, cool. She was his property. No one else’s.

“Guys, the rate’s two bills apiece. Gotta make a living out here, you know. Can’t do it with pennies from a piggy bank.”

“Okay.” The kid looked really unhappy as they started pulling away from the curb.

Then the brake lights came on.

“How about a blow?” The kid needed it bad.

“That’s more than two bills, kid. Sorry.”

As he popped back into the car and they drove away, she heard a couple of “Shits!” and “Fucks!” from the windows.

The moon still played hide and seek up above, still radiated its glow.

She walked up the sidewalk and passed a small café’ with people eating in the window, at the bar, and in booths. A greasy smell hung in the air; it made her stomach sour. One of the customers was reading a paper with the headline:

“SERIAL KILLER TAKES FIFTH.”

Peaches damn near hurled. She didn’t want to see that. It seemed to have haunted her for the past few months. This city had enough death to read about, rather than something else bleeding the vein.

No sooner had she stepped off the curb, a van pulled up out of nowhere. Startled her. Barricaded her from the other sidewalk. The spectacled man in the driver’s seat looked over at her.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.” 

“Well . .  . you did! ‘Bout fuckin’ took my toes off!”

“Sorry, just wanted to talk to you.” He actually sounded sorry. Nice, too. From the streetlight that illuminated his frame, she saw he was dark-haired, and cleanshaven, and looked middle-aged.

“That’s okay. No problem.” Peaches was still pissed, but pushed the emotion aside. “What’s up?”

“Well,” he said, “I was just wondering how much you charge?”

He seemed sweet.

Peaches leaned inside the window, showing her deep cleavage. His eyes immediately went there. And he smiled.

Why would he want a whore? Peaches thought. Didn’t his own girl satisfy him?

      “What would you like, a suck or fuck?” Peaches words hung in the air, almost as if they shocked the guy.

He looked up and said, “I guess just sex. Nothing else.”

“Okay, it’ll be two hundred for a half an hour,” she proposed.

“No problem.”

The man smiled again, and Peaches thought he was cute. Charming. He reached over and unlocked the passenger door. As the overhead light came on she was now able to look at his full profile: handsome, with blue eyes; nice shirt; nice pants. He wore more office-type attire without the jacket and tie. As she got in, the newspaper with the serial killer headline was on the seat.

“Oh, sorry,” he said, grabbing and throwing it in the backseat. Peaches felt an icy chill run down her spine, still thinking about that headline.

She sat down and buckled up. The dashboard lit up a bright blue glow and they pulled away into traffic. The moon dodged in and out of the clouds.

“Where would you like to go? Any special place?” He kept his eyes on the road.

“Well, I have one place in mind. But since we’re in your van, we could just do it in here. Save ya some cash.”

“Sounds good.”

It occurred to her: doing it in a van seemed like stooping to the kid’s level. Just a backseat fuck. No more. No less. Although, it was just business. Money earned.

Not even ten minutes later, they pulled into a dead end alley between two brick buildings that held businesses by day and was adjacent to an old cemetery wrapped in a spiked iron fence. Enclosing the dead and buried. One gravestone was a huge statue of a bird, its wings ready to take flight. Weirdly, it seemed to be the dominant stone.

The van pulled to a stop and was shut off. The man smiled at Peaches, then got out and went around to the back and opened the doors. He folded down the seat, shoving the paper into the floorboard with others that were many weeks old.

Cringing, Peaches read them:

“MURDER IN PARK: POLICE THINK IT’S RELATED TO FIRST;” “MURDER ON THE STREET; POLICE SAY DEFINITE SERIAL KILLER;” “POLICE HAVE NO CLUES IN LATEST CASE.”

She forced herself to stop reading. “Quite a collection you have there.”

 “Huh? I’m sorry. . . .What?” he sputtered.

“The papers. You’ve got a lot of them. Keeping track of the killer?”

He seemed to search for the right words before saying, “Well, it’s just something I’m making a scrapbook of. My mom did that when Kennedy was shot in sixty-three. I’m sort of a collector.”

“Interesting,” Peaches said. But she really wasn’t interested.

“Well, I think we’re ready back here,” he said, smiling again.

“Okay.” She opened the door and walked back there, her hand out. “Two bills please.”

“Sure. No problem.” He took out his wallet and handed over ten twenties.

“Tips are appreciated, too.” She tried to be funny, but it seemed to fly right over his head. He just stared at her, still smiling.

She reached in her purse for a condom. “What color would you like?”

“Oh, you pick. I don’t care.”

 “I like red. The color of my lips,” Peaches told him, caressing her lips with the tip of her tongue.

“That’s fine.”

“Would you like me to put the condom on?”

“Yeah.”

She knelt and slowly unbuckled the guy’s belt, unbuttoned the pants, unzipped the fly, and let the pants slide down to his shoes. He was already hard, poking through the opening in the boxers.

She grabbed his warm cock, stroking it, opening the condom with her teeth, then slipped it on his cock. She got up and stripped, then climbed inside the van. Reclining back, she spread her legs wide. Not wasting any time, he climbed on top and slid inside of her.

Hard as a rock.

With some clients, the sex started slow, but this one took off like rabid dog. He pounded her, deeper with each thrust. Trying to bury his cock like he was digging a grave.

Peaches clutched his neck, slipped her fingers through his hair. She squeezed his arm, enjoying each thrust of his thick cock inside of her.

The slapping of flesh echoed in the air.

Above them, the moon eluded the clouds, came into view.

Peaches wrapped her legs around him, holding him tight. Feeling him pull it out and slam it back in. Deeper and deeper. Faster and faster. They were drenched with sweat.

This guy was fulfilling her. Actually fulfilling the desire she sold. Most of her clients couldn’t. But this one surely did.

And in the midst of their passion, a feeling began to rise inside of her. A feeling she did not need. Or want. Not now.

Not tonight.

Jesus, not tonight! she begged.

It grew fast. Pulsated. Coursed through her veins.

Her will to remain human shrunk. She wanted to fight this, but could not.

So she lay back with another body on top of her and let it happen. Unseen to her lover, her head lolled back in the darkness of the van.

Her skin crawled, itched. Gray hair formed on her skin, thickening. Her nails grew long and sharp. Her facial features turned canine. Wolfen. Her vision became a greenish blur. From both sides of her skull protruded long pointy ears.

Eyes shut, the man was still in the heat of the act, ready to climax.  If his eyes had been open, he would have still been oblivious, as he enjoyed his last earthly pleasure.

He came hard, and fast, shuddering. 

When he opened his eyes, he saw the serial killer that stalked the city. The one the police could not catch.

He tried to move, but Peaches’s legs—now hind legs—were locked around her prey. Locked around this feast.

His penis shrunk. Feelings of being dirty, used, and now terrified, came over him.

The werewolf clawed his back, and it bled. Her jaws hung wide, exposing razor-sharp fangs. Her eyes were lustful, but not for sex. For warm blood and flesh.

Her breath smelled of death.

He tried to break free, but the creature held on, its roars reverberating throughout the van. From one side, it clawed the man’s neck, then sunk its nails into the meat of his waist.

Peaches fed.

Warm blood filled her mouth, spilling onto the walls and floor of the van as her fangs sank into the throat. The sound of flesh ripping filled the air as the man’s neck was torn off, but hung on by shredded skin.

The body was now limp as a doll.  It was drained of life, of the fluids that had made it function.

As his soul drifted upwards, giving him the light to return home, he saw the werewolf tear into the carcass and continue to feed.  In the end, it was just a shell.

Like an empty tomb.

#

The next day Peaches woke up in the cemetery behind the gravestone shaped like a bird. She was nude.  Dried blood was on her belly, breasts, and face.

She looked over at the remains of the man’s body: the open chest cavity, the bones. One mangled arm was still attached to the headless torso, the other gone. Below the torso, everything was missing. Not far from her lay the head, its face frozen in horror.

The van sat baking in the sun.  The smell of death was everywhere.

Peaches wept. She hated this curse. Hated it!

#

That night, the moon tried to hide behind the clouds, but again became prominent.

And beneath it, Peaches feasted greedily on yet another mortal.