Chapter 1
It was cold and snowflakes were slowly drifting to the ground around me where I sat on a thin piece of cardboard. The people around me hardly gave me a look as they entered or left the bus station.
“Could you spare some change, please?” I said to an older woman.
She ignored me and hurried off.
“Change, please?” this to a man in his forties.
“Get a fucking job.”
“Can you help me with one?”
“Yeah, you can give me a blowjob,” he laughed as he walked past.
“Fucking asshole!” I screamed at him, bringing more attention to myself which was a bad idea.
I had seen a squad car roll by a few minutes earlier and I still didn’t have enough coins to buy something to eat. I pulled my filthy jacket closer and changed position. My legs were falling asleep under me.
“Hi, what’s your name?”
I looked up and there was a woman standing in front of me. She wore a black fur coat that reached to her feet which were inside a pair of boots.
“Why do you want to know?” I asked and began to get up. I didn’t need some religious freak trying to save me.
“I’m just being friendly.” Her voice was soft, calm and soothing. I couldn’t see her eyes which were covered by large sunglasses. I thought it strange considering it was now snowing heavily.
“Maxine,” I said and got up.
“Hi Maxine, I’m Supergirl.”
Okay, I thought, that’s it, time to run for it before this crazy bitch attacks me.
“Nice meeting you but I got to go.”
She grabbed my arm and held me back. “Don’t be afraid, I am not crazy, all I want is to talk to you and invite you for a coffee.”
“Let go!” I tried to pull away but she held tight. I kicked her but she blocked it with her foot.
“Maxine, I am not going to hurt you, please, have a coffee with me. I can change your life.”
I was too cold, too tired to have an argument so I sighed and relaxed. “Fine, there is a diner around the corner.”
The diner was warm and the smell of eggs, bacon, waffles and coffee made my stomach growl. I hadn’t had a decent meal in weeks, just bread and cheese.
The woman in the fur coat led the way and sat down in the last booth. A few of the other customers gave her approving looks until they noticed me.
Ragged jacket, dirty and ripped jeans, one black boot on one foot and a sneaker that used to be white on the other, and wearing only one sock. My black hair was tussled and dirty. My face grimy and my hands had cuts and broken nails. I was a mess.
“What do you want? Pick anything,” she said when I had sat down.
The waitress came up and gave me a hateful glare. “What can I get you?”
“A cup of black coffee, no sugar and a plain muffin,” said the woman.
“The Belly buster,” I said.
“Coffee or tea?”
“Coffee, light on the milk, plenty of sugar.”
When the waitress was gone I turned to the woman sitting in front of me. She had taken off her sunglasses and her eyes; they were the strangest eyes I had ever seen. They reminded me of ice with a hint of blue in them. Her skin was flawless and so was her makeup.
“Who are you and what do you want?” I said.
“I want to help you, I was once like you and someone took me under her wing so to say and now it’s my turn.”
I didn’t believe a word she said.
“You were never like me.”
She smiled showing perfect white teeth and a pink tongue that gently licked her upper lip. It was something sensual about the gesture. She lifted her right hand and began to tick off items.
“Broken home, abused, foster care, escape, back to foster care, more abuse, drugs, alcohol, rape, new foster home, more abuse, more escapes. Sound about right to you?”
“So, lots of street kids have that background.”
“How old are you?”
I looked down at the table. “Eighteen.”
“How long were you in the system?”
“Fourteen years.”
“I was since I was born but got out at sixteen.”
I looked back up at her and asked, “How old are you.”?
“Twenty-one.”
When the food arrived I dug in. The Belly buster included bacon, waffles, eggs, grits, coffee in my case and juice.
“Eat slowly or you might get cramps,” she said.
The woman was tearing her muffin apart with delicate fingers and popping small pieces in her mouth.
I went back to my food and finished it in no time. I needed to get going if I wanted to find a safe place to sleep that night.
“Well, thanks for everything, but I got to go,” I said and began to slide out of the booth.
“Wait, where are you going?”
“To find a place for the night.”
She put her hand on mine. “Maxine, why don’t you come back to my hotel room?”
All kinds of warning lights went off in my head. Maybe she was a serial killer, child molester, or she had some dude in the hotel waiting for her to bring back a victim he could rape and later kill.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Maxine, listen to me, nothing will happen to you. There is a warm bed, a shower and then we can order room service, please, trust me.”
Her soft voice and kind strange eyes got the better of me. I hadn’t slept in a real bed for months, ever since I had escaped my last foster home.
“Fine, but if you try any shit I will fuck you up.”
She smiled. “Sure, I’ll remember that.”
Chapter 2
The hotel was three blocks away and very swanky. When we crossed the lobby one of the receptionists looked up and was about to say something but Supergirl waved him off and we continued to the elevators.
She opened the door to the hotel room with a key card and let me step in. It was huge. From the hallway, I could see the living room with floor to ceiling windows.
“Go on, have a look around,” she said and closed the door behind us.
I walked further inside and opened the first door to my right which turned out to be a bathroom the size of a small apartment with a Jacuzzi and a shower. The next room was a bedroom, with a king-size bed, a dresser and a walk in closet. When I walked into the last room which was on the opposite side I stopped in my tracks.
“What the fuck, who is he?” I said and pointed at the naked man sleeping on the bed.
Supergirl came up behind me and said, “Oh, him. I think his name is Rod, or Tod, something like that.”
“Is he your husband or boyfriend?”
She left me in the doorway and went to the living room where she took off her coat.
“Hey, I asked you a question,” I called.
“No, he is just a guy I picked up, but don’t worry he is deep asleep and will be for the next forty-eight hours.”
I closed the door and walked up to her. “What’s going on here?”
She sighed and went over to the bar which she opened and then said, “Would you like a drink?” I always have a whiskey neat at this time.”
“It’s only eleven in the morning.”
She turned and smiled. “So?”
“No, thanks, I’m fine.”
She finished making her drink and then sat down on the sofa, looking up at me she said, “How would you like to be able to travel the world, and have enough money that you would never need to have a regular job?”
I sat down on the chair opposite her. “What, being a hooker or an escort?”
She sipped her drink and then gently put it down on the glass table next to the sofa. “Not exactly, but kind off, yes.”
“I’m not following you, but just so you know, I have never and will never sell my body to a man or a woman.”
“Look, why don’t you take a shower and we can talk some more, you do kind of smell a bit.”
“Fuck you,” I said and got up.
She was right, though, when I took off my clothes in the bathroom I almost gagged. It had been weeks since my last shower and as I peeled off the layers of clothing I felt horrible.
There was a packet with disposable razors provided by the hotel on a shelf. I took one, stepped into the shower and turned on the hot water. Almost scalding myself I left it as hot as I could manage and then began to scrub my body. The water turned light brown and when I began to shave my armpits little tufts of hair clogged up the drain. When I started on my pubic hair it got worse, so I had to stop, clean the drain before I could continue shaving.
When I finally stepped out of the shower and looked at myself in the mirror a completely different Maxine stared back at me. This one had clean wet hair, rosy cheeks, full sensual lips, round firm C-cups and an ass most women would die for. The 70’s style bush was gone and a landing strip about half an inch wide grew above my clit. Using the hair dryer I brushed my hair and then put on a robe provided by the hotel before stepping out to face Supergirl.
“Who are you?” she said with a smile when she saw me.
“Very funny. Could you please tell me what this is all about and who the guy sleeping in there is,” I said and pointed at the bedroom door.
She came up to me and slowly began to undo the belt. “Hey, stop it,” I said.
“Let me see you, and I will tell you everything,” her voice barely a whisper close to my lips.
Suddenly the robe was at my feet and I stood naked before her. She stepped back and then walked around me. When she had completed the circle she took my face in her hands and gently kissed my mouth.
“You are perfect, and I knew it,” she said when we came apart.
I was shocked by the kiss and wasn’t sure how to react. I put on the robe again and for a second the thought of legging it out of the room crossed my mind, but I realized the only clothes I had were in a heap in the bathroom.
Instead, I sat down on the chair where I had been before. Supergirl went back to the sofa and after sipping on an apparently new drink she said, “I am a hustler, and I need a partner. There is Supergirl, and she has a sidekick, which in this case would be you.”
“Eh, I don’t get it?”
“The man sleeping in the bedroom, he was Supergirl’s mark. We came here a few days ago because there is a diamond convention in town. That man was here to buy diamonds, with cash. We simply followed him around and when the time was right Supergirl introduced herself and me to him.”
“I thought you were Supergirl?” This made no sense at all.
“I am, as of this morning, but last night I wasn’t.”
“So, what happened to her?”
“Have you heard about Murphy’s law?”
“Sure.”
“Well, at the convention there was a man who she had hustled in New York a few months earlier, he recognized her and called the cops.