"Where'd ya go?" I asked.

"To turn a trick," she replied as she grabbed a small mirror from her purse and quickly applied bright red lipstick. She'd perked up and actually seemed happy about this "trick." And she said it so matter-of-factly, I figured a "trick" was something like an old friend, though I wasn't sure.

"What's a 'trick'?" I asked.

Candy laughed as she sat me down and schooled me on the world of prostitution. I sat there in horror as she explained that girls-and sometimes boys-took money to let someone to do to them what Pete had done to me.

"Listen, girlie," Candy snapped, noticeably irritated by my facial expressions, maybe because she thought I was judging her, "you might as well start charging for what your foster father is taking for free."

Pete wasn't my foster father. But that wasn't important. What was important is that what Candy said made some sense.

"Listen," she continued, "how old did you say you are? Eleven?"

"Well," I retorted, "I'll be twelve real soon."

"Doesn't matter," she responded. "It wouldn't matter if you were sixteen! Who's going to give you a job? How are you going to eat? That hot chocolate and donut weren't free!"

She had a point. I remembered that just a little while earlier I was hungry and tired and cold. Candy told me that by turning tricks she'd make a hundred dollars on a good night. I thought about it for a few moments. It didn't take me long to realize she was right-both about me needing money to take care of myself and about no one giving a fuck about me.

I really didn't have any choice.

"Okay," I whispered, giving in to necessity, "show me how to do it."

She laughed.

"You already know how to do it," she said. "Pete's been making you do it. Now, you just need someone to show you the ropes."

With that, she stood up, smoothed out her miniskirt, and headed out the door toward the corner. I slowly followed her with my head down and heart pounding, wondering what lay ahead.

While we stood on the corner waiting, for what I didn't yet know, Candy reached into her halter and pulled out a joint and a Bic. She lit the joint, took a couple of puffs, and handed it to me.

"What is it?" I asked as I examined it.

"Weed, girl!" she snarled, irritated at my ignorance.

I took the joint and sucked in as I had watched her do. I started coughing so hard that I was sure the cocoa I'd just drunk would come up through my nose. I grabbed my nose to try to keep anything from coming out, but nothing did. My nose and throat burned as I gagged out a cloud of smoke. Candy laughed.

"You've got to hold it in for a while once you inhale," she said, taking the joint and showing me how to take a hit.

I watched her again, then took the joint and sucked. Although I did choke a little, I was able to hold the smoke in for a few seconds before exhaling. And just as I had reacted to the "feel-good" liquid Pete had given me, I instantly loved it. In a few moments, I was hitting the joint like an old pro. While we passed it back and forth, Candy reached into her purse and broke out a small bottle of her own feel-good, except she said it was called "Mad Dog" (the label read "MD 20/20"). Shit, between the joint and the Mad Dog, within moments I was feeling really, really good.

Not long after finishing the joint, I got my first customer. An older, small-boned white man driving a very nice Caddy pulled over to the curb where Candy and I were standing. With the joint and booze, I wasn't even feeling the cold night air.

"Hey, ladies," he said with a sly voice. "Nice night, isn't it?"

I didn't say a word. I didn't know what to say. So, as I had done with the weed and Mad Dog, I just watched Candy and followed her lead.

"Yeah, handsome," she said. "Beautiful night. What are you looking for?"

"What are you offering?" he replied.

They both spoke so properly.

"Well," Candy said, "are you looking for a single or a double?"

I later learned a single meant one girl, and a double meant two.

He looked from her to me, back to her, and then back to me. His indecisiveness reminded me of how Momma once looked when she was trying to choose between two colors of paint that she wanted to put on the walls.

Don't think about Momma now, I told myself. It'll make you sad and that will make you cry. In fact, don't ever think about her again. You can't afford to be sad or do no more cryin'. You gotta take care of yourself now. You gotta do what you gotta do!

"How old is she?" the man was asking Candy, bringing me back to my bleak reality.

"Eleven," she replied. "So she'll cost you extra."

They were discussing me as if I weren't even there.

"I know," he said.

Obviously this wasn't his first time with little girls.

"She does look very young, though," he continued, looking at me and licking his lips. "I like them young."

Candy, a pro at seizing an opportunity for extra money, added, "She's a virgin."

I wasn't really sure what a virgin was. Oh, sure, I had heard the term before. Around Christmastime, folks always talk about the Virgin Mary. But they talk about her only at Christmas, so although I had heard the word, I didn't really know what it meant. Didn't matter, though. The joint and Mad Dog kept things simple for me.

No one gives a fuck about you.

"I'll do a single. Just her," he said, a huge grin appearing on his face.

With that, Candy opened the door, shoved me in, and said, "I'll see you in a few minutes."

She slammed the door and looked down the street behind us, as if she were expecting another car.

When we drove off, I looked out the window at her pretty much the way I'd looked out the window at my daddy and Uncle Jr. when Mr. Burns drove off with me and Larry. I was wishing she'd run after us, pull me from the car and say, "No, don't take her," then take me home and take care of me herself.

The man didn't talk much, except to say his name was Joe. He looked like he could be around my daddy's age. He drove for a few blocks and parked on a small, residential street. It was immediately apparent that no one would see us because this street was exactly like Diane's: perfect-and empty. There weren't any people hanging out on their porches like we did in the hood. No police cars cruising by as they often did in the hood. Nope. Not a soul in sight. Just me and Joe. He didn't want to talk. Almost mechanically, he got out of the driver's seat and climbed into the backseat. I stayed in the front seat, staring straight ahead, not knowing what to do.

"Come back here," he said.

He didn't yell it at me like Pete would have. Just a firm request. I nervously and quietly obeyed. I was glad for the joint and Mad Dog and the way they made me not feel. I liked not feeling.

That night in that car with "Joe," I turned my first trick. Right there in the backseat. (Luckily for him, we were both short.) Although he was doing to me what Pete had done, it didn't hurt as much. And he didn't hit me. Kinda funny, but just the absence of violence made the experience better.

When he was done, he worriedly asked me if I had started my period because he hadn't used "protection." I knew what a period was (I'd learned about that in sex ed), but I didn't know what protection was. I told him I hadn't started my period.

"Good," he said, " 'cause I wouldn't want you getting pregnant."

Like we'll ever see each other again! I thought, but said nothing.

As we got back into the front seat, he slipped me two twenty-dollar bills. Forty dollars! I felt like I was rich!

This ain't so bad, I thought while I held on to the money for dear life.

Joe was blabbering on about something as we drove back to the coffee shop. I wasn't paying any attention to him, though; too busy thinking about all of the soda and candy I was going to buy with the money in my hand.

As Joe let me out at the corner, Candy was waiting.

"You all right?" she asked, handing me another joint and what was left of the Mad Dog.

I didn't answer her right away. I took a hit off the joint and finished off the Mad Dog. As the weed and the booze began to soothe my mind and body I knew that, with them, I could do anything. I tenderly looked at the money still clutched in my little hand. I loved that I'd found a way to take care of myself.

"I am now."

"Come on, girl," she said as she wrapped her arm around my shoulders and guided me down the street. "It's late. That's enough for one night. I'll tell you what. You can crash with me."

Cool, I thought. We headed off for her place, arm in arm, like two best friends out for an innocent walk and enjoying the evening air.

The joint we were smoking and the forty dollars in my pocket kept my mind and my conscience clear. In fact, I was beginning to think that Candy's life wasn't all that bad. As we walked, I began daydreaming of the great life we could lead-just she and I, sisters against the world. It was a nice dream, and one that I thought just might come true. That is, until I got to her house and met her pimp.

- On the way to her house, Candy schooled me about pimps. She said a pimp was someone who protected you and kept you from getting beat up by tricks (or anyone else for that matter). After the experiences of being hit at will by Diane and repeatedly raped by Pete, I decided I could use some protection. She said her pimp's name was "Money" and that he was good to her.

"Come to think of it," she said, stopping for a moment to ponder, "he's better than most pimps." She didn't say why.

All the streets in Lancaster looked alike to me, so, as far as I was concerned, Candy's street looked like Diane's. Her house was even shaped and laid out like Diane's, except nothing was blue and white. Instead, everything was red and black velvet. The living room had a big ugly red velvet couch and matching love seat. Huge black velvet pillows trimmed with shiny gold tassels were strewn everywhere. The pictures on the walls showed all kinds of people and creatures-women, tigers, clowns, etc.-each painted onto a black velvet canvas. These velvet monstrosities covered every wall. There was a black marble coffee table with smoked glass in the middle. Matching end tables bracketed the red velvet couch. In the center of the coffee table and each of the end tables were black ceramic vases, which held silk red roses. Even the carpet was red shag.

Now I love red, but this is ridiculous!

"Make yourself at home," she said, heading to the back of the house. I'd no sooner sat down on the couch than she returned to say that Money was in the bathroom.

"He likes to take bubble baths," Candy said as she sat down beside me. She reached under the couch and pulled out a bright orange tray. It reminded me of the kind they had at fast-food restaurants. On the tray was weed, Zig-Zags, and a bent playing card. I wasn't sure what these items were for until she began using them. She pulled two Zig-Zags from the pack licked the edges and then stuck them together. Using the playing card, she scooped up some weed and put it in the papers. Then, with precision and skill, she rolled the weed back and forth between her thumbs, middle, and forefingers until she had a perfectly proportioned joint. After looking it over approvingly, she pulled out her Bic and lit it.

Money finally emerged. He had on a beautiful silk black robe and diamond rings on every finger, which I noticed as he reached out and gently shook my hand. Candy introduced us and informed him that I was a runaway.

So that's what I am, I thought.

Money was pale white like Candy, but very handsome, tall with a slender build. He obviously worked out because he had muscular arms and a rippled chest, easily observable through his open silk robe. He had the deepest, bluest eyes-when he looked at you, you felt his eyes on your soul. His wavy black hair hung to his shoulders and matched the fine soft black hair that formed his mustache and goatee. He was soft-spoken and had the most beautiful white teeth when he smiled-which he did often. Shoot, he was fine.

When he asked Candy how much she'd made, I watched her reach into her halter and give him all of the money she had stuffed in there. I got nervous.

I hope he didn't expect mine! I didn't do that shit for him!

But he didn't ask me. In fact, he never even looked my way-it was as if I weren't even there. While he was talking to Candy about his money, his entire focus and complete attention remained on her-as though he were studying her. He counted the money and, obviously happy with the amount, turned to me and asked: "Are you hungry?"

"Yeah," I replied.

Hungry? I was starving! I had never been that hungry before in my life. I felt like I could eat an elephant. I hadn't yet realized that my ravenous hunger coincided with the decline of my weed high.

Money whipped us up some of the best tuna I'd ever had. It wasn't until we were sitting around, each of us eating our third tuna sandwich, that they gave me the scoop about the munchies and weed. After we finished eating-three tuna sandwiches each, plus chips, cookies, ice cream, soda, and popcorn-Money "hipped me to the skip." That is, he laid down the rules.

"Listen here . . . ," he said, leaning forward to talk to me while he lit another joint.

Full and satisfied, we had returned to smoking weed and drinking. It seems that when Candy wasn't turning tricks, all they did was smoke weed, drink, eat (because of the munchies), then smoke more weed, drink, and eat some more-a never ending cycle that seemed cool to me.

". . . nothing in life is free," Money continued. "If you're gonna stay here, you're going to work and earn your keep. Starting with all that damn food you just ate.

It never occurred to me that Money expected to be paid for feeding me. I had forgotten Candy's warning that "nothing is free."

Completely unconcerned about what I might be thinking, he went on. "Now, to be one of my bitches, requires working every night-except when you're on your period. And all my girls have a daily minimum."

I looked around when he said "all my girls," because I hadn't seen anyone else in the house except me, him, and Candy.

"At first, yours will be lower than the rest," he continued, ignoring my search for his phantom harem, "that is, until you've learned the ropes. But, then I'll actually be raising your quota because you're young and can charge more. You'll give me my money each night, and if you don't meet your minimum, I'll kick your ass."

He wasn't yelling. He never even raised his voice, but the intensity in his eyes and the firmness in his voice told me he was very, very serious.

He went on and on about his rules, and how I'd better have his money. I wasn't listening, though. As soon as I realized what he was saying-that I had to give him all of the money I made from turning tricks-I started tuning him out. It was obvious that this arrangement was not going to work for me. I couldn't understand the reasoning in allowing someone to do to me what Pete and Joe did and then give someone else the money. Hell, I figured if I'm going to go through the misery and degradation of doing it, I should at least get to keep the money, right?

His ending was short and sweet: "You really don't have a choice. If you don't join my stable, I'll kick your ass. In fact, every time I see you I'll kick your ass. And if I catch your little ass working my turf without giving me my money, I'll kill you."

Then, as his lips turned up into a nasty snarl, he crooned, "Welcome to the Money Train, girlie."

With that he stood up and casually strolled to the back of the house, snapping his fingers at Candy as he went. Before she ran after him, she leaned over to me and whispered: "It's not as bad as it seems. Besides, what else are you going to do? Money will take good care of you. You'll see. Just give it a chance."

She seemed to be almost begging me.

"Candy!" he bellowed from the back of the house. Startled, she jumped and went scurrying off in the direction of his roar.

I sat there, trying to figure out what to do. It was cold outside. All I had was forty dollars.

What should I do? Should I stay and join his stable (whatever that was)? Turn tricks and give him all the money? Or should I go back to Diane's? Where else could I go? How would I get there?

I decided to run. Fuck it. What did I have to lose?

I waited until I heard sounds coming from the back-sounds like those Pete and Joe made when they were doing it to me.

As I headed toward the front door, I noticed a jacket lying on the back of the red velvet couch. I grabbed it and quietly slipped out.

I began walking. I didn't even know in which direction I was going. I just walked. It was very early in the morning. It was cold. I was lost. What in the fuck was I supposed to do now?

6.