In shock, Ciarra covered her mouth with her hand as he struggled despite his weight to drop to one knee on the ground in front of her and begin to speak. “Ciarra … Baby doll, I love you. Since the first time I laid eyes on you, I knew you were gonna be something special in my life. The only thing more beautiful than you is your heart. You’re such a special woman to me. I know I’m not the best to look at. But I plan to take care of you. You can quit this and love only me. What do you say? Will you marry me?”

Ciarra watched his eyes well up with tears, in a state of complete disbelief. There were too many thoughts and feelings to sort through in the seconds granted to her, with his life lingering on the precipice of her reply. “Yes,” she said, letting him slide the little cubic zirconia solitaire onto the ring finger of her left hand.

Larry leaned in for a kiss, bracing himself against the gloss of her knee-high white go-go boots. For the next hour, instead of getting swept up in the commission of her seduction, Larry lay on the bed with her and held her close. Ciarra was careful to give him the impression that she was happy and in love with him too. He could not see or feel beyond the walls of her façade. Larry was in his own little blissful world alone.

In Larry’s world, Ciarra loved him. In Larry’s world, he wasn’t taking advantage of the women he paid to have sex with him. He was engaging in a transaction that served them both so he could get the affection he so desperately needed, but that no other woman would grant him willingly because of the way he looked. In Larry’s world, he had come to Ciarra’s rescue and would give her the care a young woman deserves. He could already picture her in the morning, cooking him breakfast in the newly decorated kitchen of his little house. He had always wanted to be a father. Sadly, no woman had been interested in choosing him to sire her child. As he lay there on the bed, happier than he had ever been, he imagined it would be a boy. He pictured the green field of the Dodger Stadium and the look on his future son’s face when he called over the man selling peanuts.