Ben Newell

Guilt Trip

The ATM was a drive-thru, sparing me the hassle of getting out of my old Honda. I had used this very machine an hour and a half ago. A two-hundred-dollar withdrawal from my checking account. The money was already gone; now it belonged to the blonde escort in the smoke-colored Charger riding my ass.

I owed “Sexy Sammy” fifty bucks. The two hundred had gotten me your standard suck and fuck. I had pumped away between her chunky thighs, pulled out, and dumped my load on her sizable tits. I had finished like this with other sex workers, perhaps three or four, with no problems whatsoever. 

But Sammy—well, she wasn’t having it . . . 

No sooner had I emptied my ball bag than she frowned and said, “That’ll cost you extra.” I had laughed dismissively. “I ain’t kiddin’, baby,” she had continued. “You paid for half and half. I didn’t say nothin’ about you poppin’ off on my titties.”

She hadn’t been joking. She had, however, been full of shit. But I was hesitant to protest. Her online ad had read Totally Independent Provider, but that could’ve been more BS, and the last thing I needed was some irate pimp showing up at my apartment to collect. 

This is why a lot of guys preferred the incall; they didn’t want the girl to know where they lived. Incalls were cheaper, but the risk of a sting operation was much greater when you went to her location, usually a motel. One too many episodes of COPS had given me a fear of walking into a trap, hence my willingness to pay extra and have the party at my place. 

Now, inserting my debit card into the slot, I regretted this decision. Fifty dollars was nothing to sneeze at. Still, I didn’t want to get my ass kicked, or worse. It all hinged on her ad, and whether or not I believed her claim of independence. 

Sitting there behind the wheel, my finger roved over the keypad. I regarded the computerized screen as if it were a smear of fresh dog shit on the sole of my shoe. I felt emasculated, felt like a total pussy for going along with this without so much as a peep of dissent. We had agreed on two hundred dollars for head and straight sex, which she had provided. I had paid her. End of story. I didn’t owe the bitch a goddamned dime. 

“Fuck this,” I muttered, plucking my card from the machine. I threw my car in drive. The Charger’s headlights made me squint as I peered in the rearview mirror, squint at Sammy, her face twisted with rage, as she got out of the car and rushed toward my open window. 

“Get back here, motherfucker!” 

I sped away, leaving her standing there in a short black dress which allowed for easy access. You wouldn’t have known from looking at her that she had a clit ring. 

Or maybe you would. 

***

I spent the remainder of my conscious night drinking beer and peeking through dusty miniblinds. My nerves were shot. I was a paranoid mess. Every car sound in the parking lot made my heart race. I imagined the worst, imagined some enraged flesh-peddler kicking down my door and pistol whipping me in front of the sofa. 

This went on for hours. It was just past two in the morning when I started to feel better. And this wasn’t just from being drunk, which I most certainly was. Sammy had had plenty of time to inform her pimp of what had happened. He could’ve come over and kicked my ass a dozen times already. This led me to believe that her ad had been on the level. Totally Independent Provider, I thought. The truth. She worked alone. 

Granted, she could always come back with some other guy, her boyfriend and/or dealer. But this was unlikely. She was too busy serving clients, too busy making payments on that smoke-colored Charger and feeding her opioid habit. 

By the time I got in bed and turned off the light I was feeling much better, convinced that I had gambled and won.

***

I opened my eyes to a hangover and somebody knocking loudly on my door. I preferred the former to the latter. Hangovers were nothing new. A late morning visitor, on a Sunday no less, was entirely unfamiliar territory.  

Fearing the worst, I got out of bed and padded across dirty carpet in my T-shirt and boxers. Imagine my relief when I pressed my eye to the peephole and saw Indu, my Indian neighbor, out on the landing. I unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door. 

Indu had moved in a few months prior. We had little contact. I heard her coming and going, smelled her cooking, saw her packages piled in front of the door. Indu didn’t own a car. She had everything delivered. The few times I had seen her around the property she wore a backpack and walked with a fast and purposeful stride, like she knew exactly where she was going and how long it would take to get there. 

“Sorry to disturb you,” she said, her face etched with concern, her manner tentative. “You drive the red car?” 

“Yeah,” I replied. 

“Somebody busted the window . . .” 

I was nonplussed. My head foggy, legs weak. I needed a big glass of water and some coffee. 

“The police are on their way,” Indu told me.

That woke me up. “The police?” 

“I just called them. I’m surprised somebody didn’t notice it earlier . . .” 

I wasn’t. The tenants at the Las Palmas Apartment Homes tended to mind their own business. If somebody had even spotted my window, they had probably attributed it to a volatile domestic dispute, the wicked handiwork of a disgruntled spouse or girlfriend; in essence, none of their concern. 

I wanted to slap Indu for being a model citizen. She had unwittingly compounded my problem in a big way. Cops, I thought with a sinking feeling. Fucking great. I left her on the landing while I went to my bedroom and put on some shorts and sneakers. Then I followed her down the exterior stairs to the parking lot. 

My poor old Honda had seen better days. The driver’s side window had taken a serious ass whipping. Spiderwebbed glass remained in the frame, but enough had broken away to allow the bastard to reach inside and unlock the door. 

I crouched and peered into the cabin. The stench punched me in the face. “Jesus Christ!” I winced and retreated in disgust. 

Indu stood a few feet behind me, blessedly oblivious of the revolting odor. Lucky for her, there was no wind to speak of, not even the slightest breeze to carry the smell of fresh shit. 

I couldn’t believe it. The window, yeah. I could see Sammy coming back in the early morning hours to vent her anger on my glass. Keyed paint. Slashed tires. I could see all of that and more. But this . . . 

The deranged prossie had taken a dump on the driver’s seat. 

Despite having pulled away at the first noxious whiff, I doubled over and gagged. My hangover didn’t help matters, this and the brutal heat conspiring to make me puke on the pavement. 

“Ohhh,” Indu remarked. 

Poor girl. She was getting more than she had bargained for. Did she regret knocking on my door, regret involving herself in this tawdry affair of her neighbor’s? I imagined so.  

This was no way to spend a Sunday. 

***

No sooner had I stopped puking than the police arrived. The first officer on the scene was young and rangy, his hair buzzed like a soldier’s. He was polite and thorough. 

“I called,” Indu spoke first, then answered the officer’s opening questions, explaining exactly how she had come to discover my damaged car. I pictured the whole thing as she talked. Indu walking down the stairs, weighted down with that backpack of hers, going God knows where, when she suddenly spots my car and stops in her tracks. Out comes her smartphone and we’re off to the fucking races . . . 

I wouldn’t go so far as to call a hooker taking a dump in my car a godsend, but it did spark a line of investigatory reasoning which worked to my advantage. 

“This was personal,” the officer said, more to himself than me. “Overkill . . .” 

The word hung there between us. He was fishing, hoping I would open up and come clean. 

“Yeah,” I said, looking at my sneakers and scratching the back of my head, “Thing is—um—I’m pretty sure—well, yeah—I know who did it . . .” 

Meanwhile, backup had arrived. The second officer was black, heavy, old. He approached my car, stopping in his tracks when the white officer said, “I wouldn’t get too close, Monty. She don’t exactly smell like roses . . .” 

Arms crossed, the white officer stood there before me and listened patiently while I fed him a line of bullshit about an angry ex-girlfriend. 

“We broke up last week,” I told him. 

“Who broke up with who?” he asked me. 

“I broke it off,” I said

“Does she still live here?” 

“No way.” I shook my head for emphasis. “I kicked Gina out.”  

He asked me if I wanted to press charges. I hemmed and hawed, acting like I was really torn on the matter, acting like it was just chewing me up inside. 

“It’s entirely up to you,” he stated. 

“No,” I finally told him. “Gina’s got enough problems. I don’t want her to go to jail . . .” 

He scowled at my car, then met my eyes. “You’re a better man than me. Good luck, buddy.” 

His silent colleague seemed amused yet hardly surprised by the whole affair. No doubt he had seen it all. Both officers, I knew, had lost all respect for me. And I couldn’t blame them. What kind of man lets his ex-girlfriend get off scot-free after she breaks in his car and craps on the driver’s seat? 

By the time both cruisers wheeled out of the parking lot, Indu had returned to the safety and sanity of her own apartment. I went back to mine and searched the cabinets for cleaning supplies. I was in luck. I found a canister of Lysol fabric disinfectant which I had bought some months prior after coming home from work and finding rat feces on the couch. I didn’t have disposable rubber gloves, so I just used my yellow dishwashing gloves. Best of all, I had a mask left over from the pandemic. 

It was a foul job. The heat made it damn near unbearable. But I got thorough it without throwing up a second time. 

My cloth seats were black. You could hardly tell where Sammy had dropped a deuce. You could still smell it though; the Lysol helped yet failed to totally mask the odor. I opened up the last of my black trash bags and spread it out on the driver’s seat. Windows lowered, sunroof open, I drove to the dumpster and thew away two soiled rags, the gloves, my mask, and some jagged pieces of safety glass. 

I started to drive back to my apartment, then decided against this. My car needed to air out. I got a 20 oz. Gatorade at the corner store, then hit the interstate and put my old Honda through her paces. She shimmied at 60 mph, so I stayed in the right lane and kept her at 55, content to let the other motorists, of which there were few, pass me by as the wind whipped my hair. 

The trash bag was a temporary fix until I could get a proper seat cover. The sooner the better, I reasoned, taking the next exit and circling back the way I had come. AutoZone had just what the doctor ordered. The beaded seat covers were tan and breathable. Ideal, the florid clerk told me, for hot weather. I threw in a cheapo pine-scented air freshener. Everything came to just under forty bucks. The seat covers were thirty-five, a small price to pay for placing a protective barrier between my bony ass and a seat Sammy had used for a toilet. 

***

I stopped at a red light several blocks from my apartment, eager to get home, take a shower, and eat something, when I noticed the billboard . . . 

PORNOGRAPHY: GATEWAY TO HUMAN TRAFFICKING, the sign read, text above the closeup of a young lady’s face. Her terrified eyes met mine. Her mouth was covered with duct tape. At the bottom of the sign was a hotline to call should I suspect something of this sort. 

Despite driving through the intersection several times a week, I had never noticed the sign. Of course, it could have been new. Or I could have been lost in my own thoughts.  

I raised the Gatorade to my mouth, swilled the dregs. My stomach grumbled. I tried not to look at the young lady’s eyes, but they were like a magnet for my gaze. Even when I managed to look away for a second or two, glancing at the traffic light or the road ahead, I could feel her looking at me. 

The knuckles of my left hand had turned white on the steering wheel. The light was taking forever. I shifted in my seat. The beads massaged my back. What with the Gatorade and the new seat covers, I should have felt better than I did. 

Sammy was no victim. If anything, she should thank me for refusing to press charges. Because she was definitely the culprit. A guy would have rapped on my door or waited for me in the parking lot. Sammy was flying solo. Nobody was holding her against her will, nobody was making her do something she didn’t want to do. She wasn’t like the young lady on the billboard, her situation was entirely—

A bleating horn made me jerk. Heart hammering, pulse pounding, I regarded the SUV in my rearview mirror. 

“Okay, okay. Chill out, asshole . . .” 

I drove through the intersection, no longer in a hurry to get home, no longer in a hurry to do much of anything.