For Sarah, home is not the kind of place you and I would want to find ourselves. It’s not warm, comfortable or has any of the creature comforts that normal people have. There’s no television or microwave. In fact, there’s not even a bed or a decent duvet and it certainly lacks a bedside cabinet; nowhere to put those little items that one accumulates over time, such as dildo and vibrator.

Hygiene – huh! What’s that? There’s no bathroom or shower and there’s no washbasin or toilet as such. There’s certainly no privacy. Perhaps there is a toilet and washbasin, but it’s not like it is hygienic, not when it’s potentially shared with a few thousand people a day.

Sarah has a harder than hard life with a room on the tenth floor of a multi-storey car park. It’s not ideal, but it's home, for now. At least it’s out of the freezing snow and ice that covers the streets below.

On the plus side, there is lots of air conditioning, lots of open space, especially in the evenings. The hard concrete walls that surround her are even decorated; not by her, but by some kid that turned up one day with a few spray cans and some ideas of what would look good. Sarah thinks the pictures are grotesque but she can hardly ask the council to clean her flat for her at their expense. At least, if she did ask them, she would be certain of warmer accommodation for a few days at the pleasure of her majesty’s.

Sarah lives in a world of sameness. Every day she wakes because her bones are cold, this is closely followed by the sound of car engines; some screaming and screeching up the circular ramps. If she’s unlucky, one of them will park right next to her, get out, slam the door shut and walk away without giving her a second look. Most of the time, the car owners park some distance from her bedroom. Not because they acknowledge her privacy, more to do with the fact that they don’t want to get their car scratched.

Sarah has to rise early though. She has a spot on the ground floor that she frequents and if she’s not there she may not get paid for the day. The day starts with Sarah pushing her sleeping bag down around her legs before she gets out of it. There’s no need for her to get dressed; she’s always dressed. Her air conditioning is stuck on ‘freezing’ and so she sleeps in all her clothes, a thick jumper and the duvet, and a hat; two hats, in fact.

All of Sarah’s clothes have been accumulated over time, you daren’t get rid of any in case the beast from the East settles in one night, grabs you by the proverbial bollocks and kills you off. She had heard of one man that had died in his tent overnight when the temperatures fell so rapidly.

The first job Sarah does is head down a few levels to the toilets. She takes a much-needed piss and if she’s eaten anything she may have a number two. At the moment bowel movements are few and far between – because her meals are fewer and farther apart than they should be. Still, if she gets paid enough today, she will reap the benefit later on at the soup kitchen.

After washing, Sarah assembles her belongings into a neat little pile in the corner of her room. She used to leave them out on the floor of the car park until some tosser parked right over them and left tyre marks over her best frock. At least the black marks added to the design that was already there.

There is no locker to put her favourite items in. When you’re this desolate, having something is only marginally better than having nothing at all. After all, who would nick stuff that smells, is dirty and probably frequented by more than a million species of bacteria not to mention a few invertebrates.

The corner of her room is the safest place for everything that she owns.

Sarah dons her felt hat, grabs her padded mat and a few copper coins from her savings and takes the lift to the ground floor. She places the mat close to the payment centre and sits on it. In front of her is the hat with the copper coins sprinkled inside. It was looking good, she thought, and she had already made sixpence in the short time she was there.

All sorts of people come and go. Mostly people that are dressed smartly. Some smile awkwardly at her, put their money in the machine, purchase their ticket and leave the car park. One or two come prepared with a hot cup of Costa coffee or tea which she is rather grateful for, the occasional few buy her a sandwich and a measly few throw her a few coins that they had leftover. Not enough for a proper meal or a warm bed for the night. Most of the people though, ignore her. It was a tough job, begging, but someone had to do it.

Sarah knew what they were thinking. It was all money for drugs; cocaine or much needed heroin to get high on. What she wanted though was money so that she could afford a place on the bed welfare scheme; a place where people like her got a warm bed for the night. Someplace where she didn’t shiver or feel cold and had some food even if it was only broth.

By the time Sarah finishes her eight-hour shift and all the commuters have gone home, she gathers her hat and counts her profits. It amounts to six pounds and thirty-seven pence. Not quite enough for a bed for the night. She looks at the money and instantly knows that it would dwindle in no time at all – what, with the cost of sandwiches and a hot drink. She thought hard about the drugs. At least it would be an escape for her, a place in the sun for a while.

Sarah stands up, pleased with her earnings for the day and with a sense of urgency, strides back to her room on the tenth floor. As she rounds the corner she spies Jez; standing there in her bedroom looking out over the darkening city. She turns to leave but as she does so he calls out to her. She quickly hides her earnings in an inside pocket of her torn waterproof top and walks up to Jez. She smiles at him when she gets close though she knows not why. Nothing he had ever done for her was all that good. Though he wasn’t all bad either; far from it, she thought.

The conversation started the same as it always had, had a good day, he would ask. The reply would always be the same, a few pence here and there, she would tell him. Then would come the offer of help from him, the dipping into his pocket, not for money but a bag of the white stuff. The offer of a few specks of magic dust for the pennies she had, felt a reasonable exchange, but she relented; reasoning that if she kept the money, then another day may give her enough for a well-earned rest.

She kindly refused Jez’s offer of instant relief and bent down to pick up a jumper from her stash of clothes. Jez watched her bend over, watched her bottom try to fill her loose jeans, then came the surprise question of the century!

“Want to earn a few quid?”

Sarah smiled. By the time she had stood and looked at Jez, she had already made the calculation.

“Can you afford nine pounds?”

“Why nine pounds?”

“Why not, that’s what I’m worth right now.”

The fact was, Sarah was worth far more than nine pounds and had she realised that she could have raised the stakes a little. She realised that by saying nine, she had hinted to Jez what sort of money she already had for the day. He wasn’t stupid.

Jez smiled. “I’ll give you four pounds.”

“Nine,” she retorted, “non-negotiable.”

Jez started to loosen his trousers. Sarah pulled her sleeping bag from its plastic container and spread it over the floor.

“Make yourself comfortable,” she said, pointing to her bed.

The pair of them were briefly interrupted by the last person to claim their car and by the time they had rounded the exit ramp, Sarah’s hand was upon Jez’s groin and was feeling him up.

“You like a good cock, don’t you?”

Sarah pulled her hand back and opened it – palm upwards.

Jez reached in his trousers and pulled out a fiver and a few coins. Sarah stood resilient and waited. Jez fished out two more coins and dropped thee into the palm of her hand. Sarah pocketed the money and resumed her feel of his cock. At least she had an honest job for the next few minutes.

In truth, Jez did have a nice cock, and it was always clean and well presented. She would have given the world to find out where and how he kept it so clean, but that didn’t matter at that precise moment.  Sarah was sinking to her knees and pulling Jez’s cock free of his trousers before enveloping the head with her lips. She pulled the foreskin back down its rapidly extending length and sucked on the end; rolling it between her lips and tonguing his slit. She fished Jez’s balls out of his trunks and fondled them. She felt a heady need build up in her as she sucked and handled his engorged cock.

“Not so fast,” sighed Jez; his hand came up on the back of her head to steady her movements as she rocked to and fro on his cock.

Sarah stopped and looked up at him. “That’s nine quid for full sex, not a blow job,” he questioned.

Sarah didn’t expect anything less from him and let slip a smile from her lips as she stood up. She pulled her jumper over her head and dropped it on top of her makeshift bed. She started to loosen the buttons of her top before Jez took over; his hand fishing out a breast and his mouth sucking on her nipple while she unbuttoned her jeans.

Sarah pushed them down her thighs but could not finish the job as Jez pulled her upright to kiss her. His hand found her knickers and slid inside. His fingers flicked over her lips; prising them apart before sinking one, two and then three fingers inside her.

Sarah clung to his arm as he finger fucked her wet and juicy cunt. She hadn’t realised how much she missed an orgasm. She gasped hard against his arm as she was tipped violently over the edge; her climax taking over her whole body as she shook violently.

Jez lowered Sarah to the floor and she crawled onto the sleeping bag. She raised her legs in the air and pulled her knickers off; letting them fall to the side of her head. She opened her legs for Jez before letting her finger fall to the entrance of her cunt.

Jez had dropped his trousers and was kneeling on the floor watching her play with herself. He grabbed hold of her ankle and pulled her towards him before rolling her over onto her stomach. Sarah opened her eyes wide and pulled herself up onto all fours. She felt Jez’s stiffness slip and slide over her wetness before it carefully selected which hole it would use. Sarah was thankful for small mercies; after all, the contract was fluid.

Jez’s hands grasped her slim waist and before she knew it, he was balls deep inside her and thrusting like a demented demon. It was almost like there was a time limit in operation and he wasn’t going to default on his allowance, after all, extra time meant extra money.

Sarah could feel Jez slow down after the initial surge of energy. She raised her hands and placed them against the cold concrete wall before pushing back onto his cock. Her back arched in a sexy display of eroticism despite the clothes that bunched around her midriff.

Sarah’s eyes were closing, her head was nodding in agreement and her orgasm was building once more. She steadied herself with her hands while fucking her body back to meet Jez’s forward motions. His moans and groans told her all she needed to know and she quickened her body’s reflexes to climax at the same time as him.

Jez pulled out of Sarah and let his jizz wash all over her backside and onto her bedclothes. More bacteria thought Sarah, to add to the growing number of stains. When he pulled back from her, he quickly stood up and got dressed.

Sarah was still panting like a dog and stayed in the same position as one. She slowly gathered her trousers and started to dress. It was an effort to put all the clothes back on but she had to. She was beginning to get cold.

Darkness invaded the car park by the time she had dressed. Lights had flickered on near to the stairwell. She looked at Jez but didn’t say a word.

“Well, I’ll see you around,” he said before lowering his head, “I’ve got to be going now.”

Sarah understood perfectly well enough. “Thanks for the money – I needed that,” she shouted after him.

She turned around and hugged the money to her chest. A smile, the likes she had never seen for quite some time, spread over her face. She almost jumped for joy. A feeling spread through her that was far, far better than any orgasm.

ooOoo

It was the last night for Sarah in the car park. She packed her belongings and headed towards the Marian foundation for the homeless. Fifteen pounds, it said, would secure a bed for two nights and help with finding a more permanent situation.

She triumphantly walked into the offices to see people around her chatting and smiling against the makeshift beds that filled the hall. She was shown to a desk where they told her she would be met by a man so that certain details could be exchanged.

Sarah nodded to the person a few beds away and they struck up a small but important discussion. She seemed so much like Sarah but much younger. Far too young to be in this place.

A man appeared by her side clutching a clipboard and pen. “Sarah?” he asked.

Sarah looked confused, shaken and visibly disturbed by Jez’s presence. She looked around her once more before standing to leave. A feeling of disappointment came over her, like she was a fraud and had inadvertently walked into the wrong place.

Jez placed his hand on her shoulders to keep her in her seat. He sat next to her and explained all that she needed to know about the operation, the people that belonged to the Marion foundation and what they tried to do.

A feeling of anger rose inside Sarah, she started to sob. “Just getting your money back are you?” she snapped at him.

Jez shook his head. “We don’t want your money, you can keep all the money you have. We – I mean I – just needed to get you here, to safety.”

“Why didn’t you just fucking ask?” she retorted. Her anger welling up, desperate for an outlet.

“Would you have come?”

Sarah thought about it for a while. She shook her head as if to say no, her lips quivering like a child that had been caught stealing sweets.

“How long have you worked here?”

“A good few months before we met for the first time.”

“Why the drug selling, why that?”

“It’s a front to allow more people to accept who I am and what I do.”

“What – so, no drugs, you just take advantage of people and fuck them instead?”

Jez looked away and into the direction of the woman that had struck up the earlier conversation with Sarah. Sarah followed his eyes, “You fucked her too?”

Jez shook his head. “Look, I’m sorry that happened, it shouldn’t have, it was wrong of me, unprofessional, but don’t leave this behind you, stay the night at least. Make friends. Yes.”

Sarah nodded. Part of her knew that she would not have trusted anyone that promised her a safe haven for the night without any form of payment. She would have expected to pay for it and some of her so-called friends had funny ways of taking it. She looked across at the young girl and smiled. She was so much younger than her. So much more vulnerable.

A bed for two nights, she thought, she looked up to the ceiling, how lucky was that. Over fifteen quid. It was the most money she had ever earned in one day. She felt so proud of herself, so enthused with her elevated position in life.

She stood and walked towards the young girl. She took the money from her pocket and gave her half of it. She winked at her, “you’re as rich as me now,” she said, stroking her hair before returning to her seat. She waited to be shown a bed. Her bed.

ooOoo

Sarah stayed at the hôtel des riches for eight full days. She was offered a menial job that tied her over at precisely fifteen quid every two days despite her only earning nine of those through the job. She never realised that though. She never realised a lot of things, especially how Jez subbed the rest of the money, not just for her but her friend as well.

She never realised how Jez felt after tricking her into sex and then into this home. She never realised that he was struggling to come to terms with the way he behaved just to make someone believe he was doing it for their benefit. And she wasn’t the only one.

All of those questions that Jez raised in his head never actually got answered, not even by God.Not even when he went to meet him on the edge of the suspension bridge that spanned the gorge.

A life for a life, as they say.

Sarah did ask after Jez when he failed to turn up for work one morning. She was told that he no longer worked for the Marion Foundation. Sarah wasn’t smart enough to notice the tear that formed on the corner of her eye or what it meant.

The money from Jez’s final will and testament went into the Jez foundation for troubled men. It’s where Sarah works now as a Social Worker. It is run the way Jez would have wanted it to be run, but a little different to the way he would have.