This wasn’t how things were supposed to be.

She was the whore – fallen, despicable.

Yet here she sat, poised on the edge of the bed like an angel, ever the image of one neither fallen nor despicable.

“Are we doing this or not?” Her disdain filled the room. She wrapped her arms around her knees, sighed, looked toward the carpet.

I said nothing, leaned harder against the door.

She was the whore, repository of failure. But the intensity in her eyes compromised her expendability. Had I known then, when I let her into my luxury car, that she was not, in fact, human waste, I would have driven elsewhere, looked elsewhere for whatever it was I was looking for.

I didn’t want to fuck her because of carnal desire. I wanted to fuck her to debase her, to make myself feel better. I was the upright citizen; she was the whore.

I had ruined lives, trashed futures, lost everything.

She was supposed to absorb, affirm my failures, allow me to start anew.

But her body radiated goodness, filled the motel room with oppressive optimism.

“You’ll still have to pay me,” she said, oblivious to the worth I saw in her.