“Lean closer,” Des said. I waited for her to say something else. To ask if I was still willing to do this, to see if I was okay. She wiped her thumb underneath my eye and pulled a kohl pencil from her pocket. “Up,” she said, and I raised my eyes to the ceiling while she ran the eyeliner back and forth, back and forth, rimming my eyes in black. I could feel tears building up but knew that I’d make a mess of my makeup if I let them fall. I told myself there was only one first time for everything. To think of it as one more con—some idiot wants to spend his money on me? Fine. As Des finished my makeup, I had that same feeling again, the fly, crawling across my chin. I tried to keep still, but I couldn’t stand it and twitched to shake it free.

“What the hell?” Des said. She had drawn a black line down my cheek.

“You didn’t see anything?”

“I saw you freaking out. What do you mean? See what?”

“Nothing,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

She licked her finger and rubbed at the mark on my skin. “I need you to be cool about this, okay? We need this cash.”

“I know,” I said. “I will.” She brushed my cheeks with powder and stood back to look at me, smiling at what she had made of my face.

“Hot as hell,” she said, air-kissing near my ear so she didn’t smudge her lipstick. I sat on my hands so she wouldn’t see that they had started to shake.

THE MAN, who I was supposed to call Tom, would pick me up in a black car so we could eat dinner at the Italian restaurant at the Tropicana. I made my way down the boardwalk ramp, careful to place my feet so I wouldn’t get the heels stuck in the cracks, just like Des taught me. The driver got out and opened the door without looking at me. I took a breath and peered into the dark cavern of the back seat. I had seen moments like this a hundred times—the young woman who had been bought, ducking into an idling car that took her away. You could tell the ones who were new at it by the way they took one last glance over their shoulders before they shut the door, while the old hands smiled and pushed their chests out, a thousand-yard stare in their eyes. I decided I wouldn’t look back.