Now, here she stood, in a nylon pink miniskirt and a cut-off tee that Ciarra had coerced her into wearing. They had been standing there for less than half an hour before a man in a BMW pulled over to the side of the street. He had stopped for Ciarra, whose attempt at a plaid naughty-schoolgirl uniform had been attracting men like moths to a flame. Ciarra seductively leaned her arms on the frame of the lowered passenger window. Aria couldn’t hear what she was saying, but she knew that Ciarra was trying to sell the man on the idea of sleeping with her instead. Ciarra had promised to get her hooked up with a “john,” the depersonalizing word they used for a client, before leaving with one of her regular clients that her pimp had arranged for her that afternoon.

Ciarra’s regular john was sitting in his parked car a block further on from where they were standing. His engine was turned off. Aria could see him watching through the rear-view mirror. His name was Larry. He was a gentle ogre of a man who was missing most of his hair. He wore a “God Bless America” t-shirt over the bulk of his severely obese body. The way he was smiling while he waited for Ciarra made Aria pity him. He was so clearly unaware of the level of Ciarra’s deception.

Ciarra had been complaining about this regular of hers while they were on their way there. “I don’t know, he’s sweet but sometimes it’s like, what the fuck do you want to pay me for?” she said, laughing at how ridiculous it was to her that most of the time he just wanted to talk and take her out to dinner instead of to fuck. “I don’t know whether he’s lonely or what the fuck is goin’ on. Maybe he’s in love with me.” She winked at Aria when she said it.