The first time, the very first real time after the disaster with the Asshole, Lou had shown up at Tarantula Gardens before I’d even made it home, before I’d even washed the smell of that man off me. I found her sitting, legs crisscross-applesauce, on my doorstep. A bottle of bourbon warming between her thighs.

“How was it?” she asked.

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to explain it—that I felt both different and exactly the same. I’d shed a skin I didn’t even know I’d had. I felt tough, untouchable, even with the ripe nimbus of the mark’s breath, heavy with nicotine and the rotting flora of unflossed teeth, in my mouth.

“I don’t drink that,” I said, nodding at the bottle in her lap. “I only drink beer.”

I put my key into the lock of the apartment I was still getting used to, the one whose first and last months’ rent Lou had paid. I pushed the door open, wishing she’d at least given me an hour to clean myself up, consider my feelings on my own.

Years later, when I was managing my own set of girls navigating their own first times with marks, I’d realized the strategy to what Lou was doing—not giving me enough time to think things through, to change my mind. I tossed my keys onto the table and set my bag down underneath it, heard Lou following me inside.

The high from the pie escapades, what we’d done to the Asshole, was starting to burn off. I’d done things in the last week that made me ask myself why I kept saying yes to her. Why was I listening to this woman I barely knew? Why did I let her talk me into the things I was doing? But on the other hand, there was this apartment. I wasn’t sleeping in a car. I wasn’t crying myself to sleep at night. Not every night, anyway.

And there was that money I owed her boss. I couldn’t forget about that.

“Beer isn’t gonna cut the mustard tonight,” Lou said, following me inside and plopping herself down on my couch. She was always saying things like that, that made her sound like she’d come out of a different era altogether.

I went to the kitchen that I still didn’t know, searched a moment or two for a clean glass, and ran it under the tap. Lou’s eyes tracked me as I took long deep gulps of water, trying to wash out the taste of him.

“How was it?” Lou repeated.

“Well, it’s the first time I’ve ever fucked someone for money, I’m not entirely sure how it was,” I snapped. My hands were shaking as I refilled the water glass.