wreck//charlotte one-shot

Charlotte Blair

Oh mother, tell your children
Not to do what I have done

Night after night, john after john, Charlotte begins to wonder if she can keep going like this. This is the only life she's ever known. Educated by the University of Whoring, she has a PhD in intercourse, but life? She's a child to the world outside of the red light district. She hardly leaves it now. She used to venture out to watch clips of the games, see if any faces were familiar. She mostly explored to catch a glimpse of the elusive pickpocket, but again she seemed to fail. It's been months since she's been beyond warehouses and street corners with sick looking women standing on them. What a cliche they all were.

Charlotte grabbed a half empty pack of cigarettes and pulled one out. The girl hadn't been a smoker until recently. There something about the feeling of smoke in her lungs that calmed her mind. Maybe it was that she knew they were bad for you, that they'd send you to an early grave. Perhaps that's the reason Charlotte also had a bottle of illegal liquor stashed away as well. Not the nice stuff you'd get from the store but the kind that a guy named "Jimmy" would make in his bathtub downstairs.

Honestly, anything to make her give a shit would help.

She'd recently quit her independent contractor work- in other words she lived in a brothel now. After scraping by on the streets with something resembling honor, she had given it up and moved into the building she had grown up in. Another woman lived in the room her and her mother had shared, but she was assigned to the same floor. She could still see the marks on the wall she had made sitting outside the room waiting for her mom to finish up a visit with a customer. Tiny little people carved into the wall just above the floor. It'd been painted over but she could still see them. It was a larger figure with long hair and a wonky smile (she wasn't the best carver) and a smaller figure with long hair and a great big grin. They were holding hands.

Dumb kid.

In her tiny room she had her cigarettes, her cheap liquor, a pretty large bed in the center, and a tiny window in the corner. She had stacked pillows beneath the window to sit by it and look out on the district. Probably to think and daydream and waste time. A tiny dresser held all her worn out clothes. There was no lock on the door but Charlotte had shoved a chair underneath the handle. At least it made her feel a little safer.


She knew they'd come. It was reaching evening time, and they'd all come in around sunset. She'd open her door and like cockroaches when a light is flicked on they'd scatter to the doors in the hall, impatiently waiting for their turn with the broken woman inside. She wasn't looking forward to it. She rarely did. She used to though. It used to be a game, a rebellious way of exploring herself and stealing secrets from others. Now... now she knows what it truly is. It's all she's ever known and it's all she's ever been. She knows every inch of herself and without even seeing who is walking in she'll know what they'll be like.

There had been a regular coming in lately. An older man, salt and pepper hair but still physically fit. He had nice clothes, expensive shoes, and always brought gifts. Sometimes chocolate, which was hard to come by in the districts, and sometimes other things. Yesterday he had brought a necklace. It was a simple chain with a little ivory colored piece at the end surrounded by gold colored metal. It was a nice gesture but it made her feel uncomfortable. He was an older man, had a wedding ring tan line on his hand but never the actual band on. She wondered if his wife knew. She wondered if she cared.

Normally, a wealthy regular was a god send. Gifts, and a regular source of extra cash was perfect for someone in Charlotte's line of work but it was the guy's name that got her.

Clyde.

Of all the names in the world why'd it have to that one? She just had to grit her teeth accept her lot in life. She slipped the necklace out of a drawer and clasped it around her neck. The ivory piece rested just between her breasts, probably purposely so.

As she waited for the nightly shouts to "Ready yourselves girls, the dogs are coming" Charlotte thought about the other clients she'd had that week.

A lot of old men, but that's what you get for being in this line of business, but also younger men too. A fellow not too older than herself had cautiously entered her rooms. His name was something like Jake or Jack. He had dark hair and deep brown eyes, but there was something wrong about him. His eyes felt strange on her face and he didn't touch her once. He paid for his hour and asked only to "look." He probably had never seen a naked woman before. She doubted many girls were flocking to get in bed with him. He slurred when he spoke and had an odd limp when he walked. But she took his money, wasted an hour making awkward talk without a shirt and sent him on his way. She wasn't sure if he'd come back or not. Maybe he'd see what all the other girls' looked like before settling on one.

Another special occasion happened early in the week. It was a Monday night, a slow one at that, when a woman came in. Late twenties with her hair pulled back into a sensible bun. She wore a plain dress and plain shoes and seemed a little nervous and overwhelmed at the situation. The longer she stayed the calmer she became. The lady wasn't quite sure what she wanted so Charlotte and a couple other girls had lined up for her too pick. While she didn't end up picking Charlotte, the girl could still hear her through the walls.

People, they're all starved for attention. For the touch of another human being. What is a girl supposed to do if she is the one who supplies touch? When she gives and gives and gives until there's nothing left? Is there a brothel somewhere for whores to go and get a good heart fucking? Is that a thing?

Charlotte sat on her tower of pillows gazing out over the district. She wondered if she could remember the names of all the people she slept with. She stretched her mind and found she couldn't even remember the very first guy's name. Then again they don't always give names and she doesn't always give hers. She likes the fake names though. When she wants to change it up. She'll pucker her lips and whisper "Lola" or pop her hip out and announce "Roxanne." You know, hooker names. Johns will pay good money just to hear what they want, even if it is a lie. Well, the whole thing is a lie. It never feels good. It's never enjoyable, it was at some point but not anymore. Even though she smiles and poses and croons about their skill it's all a facade.

She's a circus performer, the kind that saw people in half. It's fake but people just fucking love to see it. They oo and ahh and say "How'd he do it!?" It's just a lie but people love lies.

She was becoming way too cynically for just the beginning of the night. Grabbing the neck of a nearby glass bottle, Charlotte chugged a good portion of the caramel colored spirits. Maybe they'd numb her mind enough to think of another things. She couldn't drink too much, no one likes a sloppy callgirl.

Staring down at her hands, she examined the coarse callouses on her palms. The polish chipping from her nails, and the blue veins that could be seen through the pale skin.

Could she have been someone? If she hadn't cut her hair and taken that first payment? If she had run away from the brothel instead of calling it home? Maybe she'd be one of those cute little shop clerks. The kind that cut fabric or measure out herbs. The pretty ones that blush when you look at them, the kind that upstanding young gentlemen ask to escort home. Was she always destined to be in this tiny room waiting for the vultures to come pick her bones?

A voice rang through the hallway and the girl raised herself from her station by the window. Dragging a thin dress over her frame, and stuffing her feet into stockings, she unlodged the chair from her door and swung it open. Leaning against the frame she saw the other girls take their places.

"Charlotte? You okay?" Polly the girl across the hall asked. Her blonde hair came to her just below her breasts and she was wearing white- how funny to see that color in a place like this. "Charlotte, honey, you don't look too well."

"I'm fine," she said, looking away. She couldn't look at that white dress anymore. She looked too much like a child in it. All curls and lace, it was disgusting.

"Honey, you look sick. The skin under your eyes are all purple, are you sure?" the woman kept insisting, walking closer and grabbing Charlotte's face by her chin.

"I'm fine, Polly please back off," she said yanking her face away.

"I just think you should-"

"Fuck off Polly," she said with an air of finality. The rest of the women were quiet save for a few whispering further down the hall. Charlotte could just imagine what they were saying. Oh that Blair girl has worn out her welcome just like her Ma did. She's gonna end up in the gutter just like her. Couldn't keep her grubby little hands away from spirits and now they'll be the death of her.

She shook her head to clear it but it made her dizzy instead.

Footsteps on the stares stole everyone's attention. They all stood up straight and leaned on the walls and door frames. Each one tried to show off their best asset. Low cut dresses, skirts with high slits and thigh high stockings. Big lips painted a deep shade of red. Charlotte just stood in her doorway, leaning against the wood to help her stay on her feet rather than to make her body look appealing. The Johns filed in, some making a beeline for their regular girl and some wandering and checking their options.

Salt and pepper hair slipped by, pausing in front of Charlotte for a moment. She saw his expensive shoes- the kind with stuff laces and with leather that shines. She looked up to welcome him inside only to see him walking further down the hall.

She should have fucking known. They all get tired of her. Her mom did, that fucking pickpocket did, the girls did, and now her fucking john did.

Standing in the hall she waited until all the men had found a room and all the doors were closed. Left alone, she could hear the regular thumping and noises of the night and with her own room empty she felt a pang of loneliness.

She couldn't even sidetrack herself with work because no one wanted her anymore.

Without really realizing it, her knees buckled and she slid down into the floor. She could remember how that sandwich tasted years ago with Clyde, not the fat one down the hall giving gifts to some new prostitute, the one she actually gave a shit about. The one who always slid into the shadows. Charlotte was never that good at navigating shadows, at least not as good as him. She wished she was there now. In that little home eating that dumb sandwich. Her hair had been wet, her feet curled up in the dinner chair.

God, she missed him so much.

The tears were already rolling down her face before she noticed they were there. How long had she been sitting there? Must have been awhile because she heard a door open and a man exit, his footsteps making the wood underneath them quiver.

He didn't say anything to her, just based by silently. No one took a second look at the ruined mess of a person crying quietly on the floor. Hours passed and eventually she stood up and closed her door.

It was dark inside. The sun had set and she hadn't lit any candles. She didn't feel like seeing anything right now, and kept the thick darkness intact. Laying on her bed she stared up at the ceiling wishing he was here, or rather she was with him. That the cracked ceiling was somewhere else in this pitiful district and underneath it was him.

She missed his words. He was so eloquent and she was so... not. He'd have a word to put there, she knew it.

What a wreck she had become.