Chapter 1

Standing under the streetlight, Silva looked at her colleagues positioned at different spots along the road. Colleagues, she thought contemptuously when a more accurate statement was that they were competitors. Each claimed a spot on the street and was willing to defend it with physical violence if need be. Sometimes when they got off the street, they would talk about their experiences, but it would be hard to say they were friends or even friendly with each other.

Traffic along the street was light that night and she’d be lucky to get enough money for the rent that was due the next day. She looked over at Crystal, who had claimed the other side of the streetlight. She knew that Crystal would make less money than she would over the course of the night. Most of the women on the street had no class and wore the same kind of skimpy clothes as the other girls along the street. The only reason that Crystal had any business was her young age. The under-eighteen crowd always had customers no matter how trashy they looked since men loved screwing young pussy. The young whores had no self-respect, thinking and referring to themselves as Ho’s.

It was hard for a woman in her early thirties to compete against a seventeen-year-old girl, but Silva managed. Silva knew presentation was everything as she straightened her skirt to show off her full ass and adjusted her tight top to better present her breasts. She took a moment to take stock of her assets. She was a tall woman with a nice body shown off in tight-fitting silver clothes that contrasted nicely with her dark black skin. To complete the look, she wore a silver wig, silver makeup, and silver boots that made her look even more exotic - like one of those 60’s Go-Go dancers. It must be working, since she was still making good money.

After Crack had become too expensive to use because of the destruction of the cocaine supply by the Druids, she had managed to kick her addiction. Since then, she had gained some of her weight back and looked better than she had in a decade. She had to wear dentures because she had lost her teeth as a result of her addition. The dentures were good and bad. A lot of men enjoyed a blowjob that included a good gumming without the pain of teeth, but a woman in her thirties shouldn’t be wearing dentures.

Her musings were interrupted when Crystal taunted, “So silver- bitch, getting much business tonight?”

“More than you,” replied Silva tired of the taunts directed at her by the younger woman. One of these days, she would put the little girl in her place.

“Bitch.”

The discussion was cut short when a white sedan pulled up in front of Silva. The window on the passenger side of the car rolled down and she stuck her head through it to chat with the man inside. It was a white guy, pudgy and harmless looking with a balding head in his late twenties. He was exactly the kind that needed the most flattery to part with a little of his money. She figured he was a fifty-dollar blowjob. Smiling at the man, she made sure that he got a full glimpse of her breasts and asked, “Hey handsome, you want to party?”

For the next few minutes, they went through the dance of agreeing to the services to be provided and the price he would pay for them. She had been right in her assessment that he was a fifty-dollar blowjob. She climbed into the car and said, “Go on up the street and turn into the back of the grocery store. Lots of privacy there.”

The john followed her instructions, looking a little nervous about what he was doing. Silva was already hard at work, knowing that the faster she got him off, the sooner she could return to her spot. Hoping to build up his excitement, she said, “Hmm, I bet you got a monster in your pants.”

The john smiled and nodded as he turned into the alley that ran behind the grocery store. He parked the car, already getting hard from her words and the fact that her hand was slowly working its way up his thigh. Once he had turned off the car, her hand stroked him through his pants.

She cooed, “Oh, I like what I’m feeling. Can’t wait to get started sucking on this monster.”

“Go ahead.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” asked Silva hinting about the money. In not such a subtle hint, she held out her hand and rubbed her fingers together.

The john understood the gesture and fished out his wallet. Pulling out two twenties and a ten, he handed her the money before returning his wallet to his back pocket. Silva put the money in her little silver purse and removed a strawberry-flavored rubber. She quickly undid his belt, unzipped his pants, and pulled down his underwear to get access to his average sized member.

She cooed, “Oh, what a monster.”

The john pulled his pants down a little more and reached over to fondle her. She reached up and undid her tight shirt freeing herself. He grabbed her, much too hard, but she didn’t complain. Complaining would only make her time there last longer. She slipped the rubber over him and started to suck.

She thought to herself that it was time to get the loser off as fast as possible so that she could get out of there. Making moans as though she enjoyed it and artificially slurping her lips, she worked him with her mouth and hand. The louder the blowjob, the shorter it lasted. She made a mental bet with herself that she could get him off in less than a minute. She won the bet.

When she lifted her head off of him, the world turned upside down in an explosion of pain as a fist connected with her mouth. Shocked at the totally unexpected violence, she sat up wondering what was going on. A second blow across the side of her face snapped her head around and the world spun. It seemed like the world had exploded in a flash of bright light before fading to gray. For a moment she thought she was dying.

As she flayed her arms around trying to protect herself, the john was pushing her around in the car and hitting her. All she could hear was his shouting.

“Fucking bitch. A fucking one minute blowjob! I’m tired of getting ripped off by you fucking whores.”

Silva found herself choking on her dentures as the john ripped off her panties. She wanted to scream when his member battered at her ass, but her mouth wasn’t working right. Her vision was funny, a double vision of the world slowly turning in front of her eyes. The pain of his entry was excruciating, but that paled to his fist’s continued hammering on her body. She felt one of her ribs give and a flare of pain from a blow to her kidney. In an explosion of incredible pain, the world disappeared.

Silva was only partially aware of the world as she lay on the ground. The world spun around her, but the only thing that she could make out clearly was a tapping noise in the background. The tapping noise increased in volume as it came closer. She tried to move her head to see the source, but her stomach threatened to heave.

A calm deep voice from about five feet away said, “Stay still until medical care arrives. You’ve been seriously hurt, young lady.”

She wanted to ask what happened, but her jaw hurt and wouldn’t work. The man came closer and said, “You’re jaw is broken. Don’t try to talk.”

She felt inside her mouth with her tongue feeling that something was weird. She couldn’t place what was the matter with it. The voice came back, “I had to remove your dentures. You were choking on them.”

Silva lay on the ground unable to move, feeling the light touch of some sort of blanket covering her. There wasn’t much good about her situation, but at least she wasn’t exposed naked for everyone to look at. If she hadn’t felt so horrible, she’d have been angry but the pain sapped the strength from her. The man sat down beside her and started to sing, “Hush, little baby don’t you cry...”

His singing struck her as the ultimate irony to her horrible experience. At first, she listened to him thinking he was crazy. However, as a minute went by she found the gentle deep voice singing the nonsense song somehow comforting. Here she was, a thirty something whore lying beaten in an alleyway after being raped finding herself comforted by a children’s song. She couldn’t even see the face of the man helping her.

The sound of the song was soon drowned out by the sound of a siren approaching the alley. Bright white flashes alternating with blue flashes lit up the darkened alley, hurting the eyes with their intensity. She closed her eyes, finding that she couldn’t take one more discomfort.

With the arrival of the police, the man stopped singing. She listened to the discussion of the people around her.

Someone, she assumed was a cop, said, “Hey, Harry. What have we got here?”

“A woman that has been viciously beaten. She has a broken jaw, signs of rape, and bruises on most of her body,” answered Harry in a matter of fact voice. Listening, she now had a name to go with the voice that had been singing. His name was Harry, but she didn’t know anyone named Harry.

She could hear the cop kneel down next to her. She recognized his voice when he replied, “That’s Silva, she’s a hooker.”

“She’s a victim, not a hooker,” replied Harry with iron in his voice.

Lying on the ground, Silva was surprised to hear her rescuer make the distinction and mentally cursed Officer Calhoon for his attitude towards the women in her profession. He felt that they were all losers that brought down society by their mere existence. He didn’t understand that they had hard lives and worked to make money just like everyone else.

The cop, having had this discussion more than once with Harry, sighed as he said, “You’re right, I guess. Of course, she could have tried to rip off the john.”

Harry shook his head as he said, “You really should get to understand the people you are trying to protect. You might be surprised to learn that most of them are nice people that live and work in a hard environment.”

Another vehicle pulled up, adding flashing red lights to the cacophony of colors. The ambulance had arrived. Silva tried to pay attention to what was going on around her, but she had used the last of her physical resources on listening to the discussion. The world faded to a dull black.

A beeping noise was the first thing that Silva noticed when she woke in the hospital bed. The light overhead was harsh and she had to blink before her eyes adjusted to the brightness of the room. There was an IV stand with a saline bag hanging off it, a heart monitor, and other hospital devices around her. She didn’t recognize half the stuff in the room.

She felt as if she were floating in space, her body disconnected from her mind. She knew that whatever painkiller they had given her must have been very strong. Years of drug abuse made achieving that level of numbness almost impossible. She wanted to say something, but her mouth wouldn’t move.

A woman in white clothes came over to the bed and looked at her, checking the tubes running to her arms. She’s a nurse, thought Silva as her mind slowly regained a nominal level of function.

The nurse said, “You’re awake. That’s good. I’ll send Harry in here in a minute.”

Silva wanted to ask about this Harry guy, but she couldn’t move her mouth. She wondered if they had inserted some kind of ball- gag in it. It made her wonder if she had woken in some sort of bondage fetish dungeon. It was so frustrating to lay there unable to communicate.

She croaked, “Who’s Harry?”

The noise she made was barely intelligible as speech. The nurse, with years of experience in dealing with patients, knew what the likely questions were and replied, “You’re in the hospital. You suffered some pretty serious injuries, but you were lucky to be found by Harry. He’s waiting outside to see if you are all right.”

Silva repeated, “Who’s Harry?”

The nurse paused and thought about the sounds trying to figure out what the woman was asking. It took her a moment to realize that she wanted to know who Harry was. Smiling as she considered the effect that her words would have on the woman.

She answered, “Happy Harry found you. He’s a Druid.”

Silva couldn’t believe her ears. Everyone that lived or worked on the streets knew about Happy Harry. The guy was a living legend even though she had never met anyone that had seen him.

She murmured, “Happy Harry.”

“Yes, Happy Harry found you,” replied the nurse understanding the statement. The nurse finished her business and left the room walking in a very brisk efficient manner.

Silva lay in the bed wondering how it was that Happy Harry had found her and why he bothered. She was just an aging hooker trying to get by on the last of her looks. Of course, as a result of her beating, her days as a whore were over. A whore that couldn’t use her mouth couldn’t give blowjobs.

The reality of the situation crashed down on her when she realized that she was really screwed now. No job and no skills for finding one meant that she wouldn’t be able to earn money. Without money, she wouldn’t have a place to live or food to eat. It was even worse than that. Until her mouth healed, she wouldn’t even be able to eat solid food. What does a homeless person do when they can’t even eat? The tears started to well up in her eyes.

“Tsk, tsk,” said the voice she recognized as the one from the alley. It had to be Harry. He approached the bed as he said, “Don’t cry. Things aren’t that bad.”

‘Things aren’t that bad?’ she wanted to scream. How could he be so cheerful while she was so miserable? She decided that it would be easy; he wasn’t the one in the bed facing a bleak future.

Humming to himself, Harry sat down in the visitor’s chair and looked at the patient. She was in pretty bad shape. The doctors had said that her jaw had been broken, her cheek had been fractured, a rib busted, suffered a concussion, and her kidney had been damaged. He estimated that she would be in the hospital for a week, maybe more. If she, like many prostitutes, had a child at home, then he’d have to make sure that the kid was helped.

Settling into the chair, he asked, “Do you have anyone waiting for you at home?”

The question cut Silva like a knife. She had a daughter, but the girl lived with her father in another town and hadn’t seen her in more than ten years. The girl was the same age as Crystal and it was her hope that the kid hadn’t followed her into the business. Other than that, she was alone in this world. Shaking her head no was the only way to answer.

Nodding to indicate that he understood, he said, “That’s one problem taken care of for the moment. I imagine that you live somewhere near where I found you.”

Wondering what he was getting at, she nodded that he was correct. Her one room apartment, if it could even be called that, was two blocks away from the streetlight where she worked. She took a moment to study the man sitting beside her. He was wearing a green robe with a gold medallion around his neck. His clean-shave face, perfect teeth, and build gave him a trustworthy appearance that was only marred by a scar across his forehead. In a funny way, she thought of a father figure. The idea that she, a black whore, was looking at a white guy as a father figure rather than a sugar daddy made her want to laugh.

“So I imagine that you are wondering what is going to happen to you now,” said Harry as he watched her reaction. It was clear from how she looked at him that she was thinking about something different than that. However, he knew that she would very worried about her future. He continued, “First, you are getting excellent medical treatment and will stay here until the doctors think you have recovered enough to leave. I’ll make sure that everything at your house gets packed up for storage while you are here. I’d hate to think that you could lose everything.”

Silva stared at Harry finding it hard to believe that he was doing this for her. It touched her far more than she would ever be able to express. Harry said, “Once you get out of here, I’ve got a job that won’t require you to talk for a while and it will provide a place for you to stay. It’s a job within the Emergency Response Team of the Fusion Foundation, but you won’t be required to sign up for a long- term service. Just enough for you recover, get some training, and locate a job.”

The disbelief that he was going to do that was obvious on her face. Noticing, Harry laughed as he explained, “Hey, I’m on the Board of Directors and have a little leeway in what I do.”

She sagged onto the bed starting to feel tired. Harry said, “Until you are recovered, I would like you to work with a police artist to get a picture of the guy that did this to you.”

Puzzled, she looked at him wondering why he would bother to track down some guy that beat up a whore. He answered her unasked question. “Others need to know what he looks like so that they can protect themselves from him. He’s a criminal and you’re not. I’ll pass out pictures of the guy on the street and we’ll catch him.”