Love For Hire

Los Angeles, California…

Kinsley tapped her debit card to the machine to pay for her groceries. She bit her bottom, hoping it would go through. The machine beeped, and the words ‘Insufficient Funds’ flashed across the small screen. Kinsley sighed. She took out her wallet and returned her debit card to its slot, and then took out her credit card. “Let’s try this,” she said and waited for the clerk to set the machine up once more. She tapped her credit card to the machine again and waited. The machine beeped, and the word ‘Denied’ flashed across the screen.

She had one last-ditch effort as she took out the credit card her parents had given her for emergencies. She did not hold out much hope since both her parents worked for minimum wage themselves and often could not make more than the bare minimum payments to their bills. She was pretty sure this card was maxed out, too, but she had to try. The clerk set it up again, and Kinsley tapped the card… Denied.

Kinsley signed, embarrassed as she stood with a long line behind her of people impatiently waiting. Kinsley could not pay for her purchase. She apologized and then made a quick escape from the store.

She walked the five blocks back to her apartment. Stepping through the security-locked door, Kinsley retrieved her mail. She climbed the three flights of stairs to her apartment. She cringed as she reached her door and found an eviction notice taped to the door. She had paid her rent late the last four months and not at all this month. Kinsley took the notice down and went into her small bachelor apartment.

Locking the door, she walked over to the kitchenette counter and put everything down. She browsed through the mail. There were utility cut-off notices. And a notice from her school informing her that she was more than three months late with her tuition payments and therefore, her status as a student with their school had been terminated.

Kinsley opened a notice from her bank. As she looked over the statement of her bank activity, she saw four bounced cheques resulting in four NSF charges of $45 each and penalties from the four different vendors she bounced the cheques with. She also saw that her service fees went through, and now her account was so overdrawn $300; she did not know how she was going to get her account out of the red.

Kinsley only worked part-time. She had been hired on as full-time in the beginning, but in the last year, her hours had been cut so drastically. She only made minimum wage, and she lost almost 9% in taxes on each cheque. Lately, she only made about $200/week, and she was struggling to survive. She could not even move home since her parents themselves had moved to a smaller apartment themselves when she moved out three years ago to cut their expenses. They had no room for her. She really had to think of some way to come up with money and quickly because she was going to starve to death and be homeless soon.

Maybe she could pick up more hours now that she was kicked out of school. After all, without classes to attend, she had all the time in the world to work. Speaking of work, she had a shift in an hour. She jumped in the shower and then threw on her pastel pink waitress uniform and raced to the bus stop. She almost missed the bus, but as she reached the stop, she banged on the closed door to get the driver’s attention. He frowned but opened the door and let her on.

It was a fifteen-minute bus ride to her job. She worked in a small diner. Kinsley walked in and made her way to the back to hang up her coat when the restaurant’s owner stepped out of the office. He pulled her aside and told her she could collect her stuff and go home because she was being laid off. He handed her a pink slip and a severance cheque of $200.

“Oh, please, Rick, do not let me go. I need this job,” she begged.

“I am sorry, Kinsley, but we have not been getting much business lately. I cannot afford to keep you on. I have to cut my expenses. I am letting everyone go. From now on, I am running the kitchen, and my wife will be waiting tables. I wish I could afford to keep you, but I just do not have the budget. I am sorry.”

Kinsley sighed and put her coat back on. She understood where Rick was coming from. The economy was down, and times were tough for everyone. He had to do whatever he could to keep his business afloat. So, she walked back to the bus stop and made her way back home. As she sat on the bus, she stared at the severance cheque. $200, it was not even enough to get her account out of overdraft. She would deposit it and lose the whole thing and still own money.

She had no choice. She had to ask her parents for a loan. When she got home, she went next door to her neighbour’s apartment and asked if she could use their phone. Her cellphone had been cut off three months ago for failure to pay the bill. She was $1000 behind, and the cellphone provider had taken her account to collections. But the old lady next door allowed her to use her phone. She was a sweet, lonely woman, and when Kinsley used her phone, she would often stick around and visit for an hour as compensation for the courtesy of using the phone.

Kinsley called her mother, Dara and asked if her parents could spot her enough to cover her rent this month. Maybe if she could come up with the money, her landlord might let her slide one more month. “I am sorry, Chica,” Dara said. It was funny she had been in America for all of Kinsley’s life, and still, her accent was so thick one would assume she was still living in Mexico, “we just do not have the money to give you. The warehouse laid off your father two days ago, and we are struggling to make our own rent. I want to help, but we just do not have the money to give you.”

“Ok, I will figure it out somehow.”

“If you get evicted, you can always sleep on our couch until you can get a new place,” she’d rather not. Her parents’ couch was so uncomfortable. She thanked her mother anyway, and then she decided to call around and see if she could get one of her friends to loan her some money. She called her friend Lydia first, but Lydia could not spare any money. She herself was just getting by. She then called her friend Adalynn, but she was a student and living on a fixed income and could not help.

Finally, she called her friend Mackenzie. “Sorry, Kinsley, I cannot. I just paid my bills, and I have nothing left.”

“Ok, thanks anyway,” she said with a heavy sigh.

“You know if you need the money that badly. I know how you can get it,” Mackenzie said.

“How?”

“First, I have to ask what are you willing to do to get it?” She asked cryptically.

Given that she was going to be homeless on the street begging for change… “Anything.”

“You know people say ‘anything’ all the time, but they do not really mean it.”

“Mackenzie, I have not eaten in three days. I have no job, no money, and soon no home. I will do anything.”

“Ok, well, I have been making some money on the side to supplement my income, and I have to say it pays really well.”

“Ok, so what is it?”

“You cannot let it get back to my folks.”

“Ok,” she said suspiciously.

“I have been working for an escort company. Guys call the service, and the company calls one of their girls and sends them over.”

Kinsley could not believe what she was hearing. “You are prostituting?”

“Prostituting is such an ugly term. I am an escort. Basically, I just go on a date. I spend some time with these men and get paid.”

“So, you do not have sex with them?”

Mackenzie laughed. “Of course, I sleep with them. But it is not so bad, really; it is a classy service. The men that use it are all wealthy businessmen. They are not the sleazy, dirty losers that pick up strung-out hookers on skid row.”

“I do not know. I do not think I could do it.”

“It pays $300 an hour,” Kinsley could not breathe. That was a lot of money. She could pay off her debts fairly quickly if she did it for a short time. It would most defiantly fix her problems. “You did say you would do anything,” Mackenzie reminded her. Yes, she had said anything. Could she really do this? Could she really afford not to?

Kinsley closed her eyes, feeling horrible. “What is the number,” she was left with no other options. She would do it just for a short time. Once she was caught up, she’d stop and get a real job. She just hoped her parents did not find out. It would kill her mother.