Whorehouse Blues

by Rob Pierce

Sadie didn’t like it when I blew smoke in her face but I was paying her, she wasn’t paying me.

“You a bastard, Rennie.” She spat on the floor, and something green came out. Cheap fucking carpet wasn’t gonna damage, but I’d had my fluids mixing with hers just a minute ago, better not have shared any of that.

“What the fuck, bitch?” I stepped back, leaned on the dresser and looked down. She sat on the edge of the bed, her bra back on but nothing else.

Sadie coughed. “You don’t gotta do that. You always do that.”

“You got johns do a lot worse.” I dropped my cigarette on the carpet, let it burn. I lit a new one.

“Different men,” Sadie said, “hurt me different ways. You blow smoke in my face, that’s pain. I charge more for pain.”

I pulled a matchbook from a back pocket, got out the Bic pen I bought earlier, set the matchbook on the dresser and wrote on it, tore off the half I wrote on and left it there, stuck the half with the matches back in my pocket.

“That’s my room,” I said, looking at Sadie, one hand on the dresser. “There’s a good tall bottle there. Show up when you’re done. We do this without smoke.”

“When I’m done,” Sadie said. She looked tired. It was late, and I had a feeling I loved her. And she’d never be done.

And I would drink alone in my room until that time came.

Charge more for that.

Rob Pierce is the author of the novel Uncle Dust, the editor of Swill Magazine, and an editorial consultant with All Due Respect Books. He has been nominated for a Derringer Award for short crime fiction, and has had his stories published in Flash Fiction Offensive, Pulp Modern, Plots With Guns, Revolt Daily, Near To The Knuckle, and Shotgun Honey, among others. He lives with his wife and two sons in Oakland, California.