It was on a night like this that I met her.

Betsy.

I had taken to walking the streets at night after my relationship with Cindy ended. Well it was better than staying home and watching old sit-coms on television. They were funny the first time around, maybe even the second time. But when you're watching Hawkeye Pierce deliver the same zinger at Frank Burns for the thirty-eighth time, well let's just say the joke's worn a bit thin.

So I'd hit the streets, avoiding the sleazier part of town where the strip clubs run twenty-four hours a day. All that flashing neon and barking spruikers telling me in a voice that would drown out a jet engine that they have real live nude girls inside. I guess the fake dead ones don't bring in the crowds. I gave into the constant verbal battering once and went inside one of these "quality" establishments. I paid five dollars for a glass of watered down beer and watched a bottle blonde remove her clothes with all the vitality of a paid political announcement.

Whoopee.

So I kept to the quieter streets of uptown where people are rich enough to afford doormen and car thieves snub anything less than a BMW. Sometimes I got strange looks from the few people I met. An unknown man walking aimlessly around on his own tends to raise suspicions. I considered buying a dog but there are strict laws governing dog ownership, and there is something humiliating about walking around with a plastic bag full of dog turds. So I walked alone, trying to forget about late night television and a girl named Cindy.

Cindy.

I swear I loved that girl. She was my everything. I honestly thought she was as happy as I was. I make a decent living as an accountant and she had a good job as a real estate agent. We were doing the nine to five thing and saving for a house to call our own. But that ended just two weeks after my thirty-fourth birthday, when I came home early from work. All the computers were down because of a power outage, so the boss sent everyone home, after ensuring we would work through our lunch break the next day. Our boss was a real humanitarian. There was a rumour going around the office that he kept a time clock next to his bed, so he would punch in and out when servicing his wife.

As I walked into the small apartment we called home I heard a noise coming from the bedroom. Cindy always got home before me but this was early even for her. Thinking we were being robbed I carefully made my way down the hall and slowly poked my head through the open doorway. And there was my Cindy wearing the top half of a Cat Woman outfit and straddling a large man dressed as Superman.

I was shocked.

I was horrified.

Didn't she know Cat Woman would never bonk Superman? Batman maybe, but never Superman. At that moment she looked over and saw me, the horror and disbelief evident on my face. I expected her to say something, deny it was happening, claim she was being forced against her will, anything but what she did. She turned back to the man on the bed and kept right on bonking him.

I did the only thing I could in the situation. I went to the kitchen and made myself a pot of tea. After she had finished she came out to talk to me.

"Honey, it's not what you think," she said.

"I think you were having sex with our bank manager," I replied.

"Okay, so it is what you think. But I was doing it for us."

"Us? How on earth can you having sex with our bank manager possibly be a benefit to us?"

"He said he'd give us a low interest home loan if I did."

"Oh." It was all I could think of to say. I guess what she said held some sort of logic. But I still felt betrayed. And I knew others would be hurt. "What about his wife? What if she found out?"

At that moment I heard the toilet flush and a middle aged Wonder Woman walked out of the bathroom twirling her magic lariat. It was the bank manager's wife.

She looked me up and down then turned to Cindy and said, "We have another one, do we? Well I guess I can handle him for you. I'm in the mood for a little bondage." She looked me up and down. "And he is kinda cute. Don't forget now, Cindy, Jonathan and Richard will be here soon."

"And who are Jonathan and Richard?" I asked my fiancée.

"The milkman and the baker. Honey, it's not what you think."

I left that night.

And so it was that I was walking down a street in a quiet part of town in the middle of the night. As I went by an alley voices from within grabbed my attention. I could see a group of four people, one woman and three men, illuminated by a street lamp. Two of the men were holding the woman from behind, while the third was on his knees before her, running his hands up her legs and under her skirt.

Now I am the first to admit I am not a hero, but I had just had a particularly hard day at work and most of my time walking the streets had been spent thinking about Cindy. I was ripe for trouble. So I cautiously moved into the alley, using the shadows to conceal my approach. I picked up a handy piece of wooden board that was sitting in a pile of garbage and crept closer, stopping at the edge of the shadows. I didn't want to reveal myself in the light of the street lamp.

Gathering up my courage I raised the wood and ran at them, yelling incoherently. The one doing the touchy-feely act turned just in time to catch the flat of the board across his face. It made a loud slapping noise as it hit him, instantly bloodying his nose and knocking him on his arse. His companions let go of the woman and faced me. I knew I was in trouble if I couldn't bluff these two into believing I could take them on and win. I decided the best approach was to fake total lunacy.

"Come on," I yelled, "I'll take you all on. I know Kung-Fu and I'm not afraid to use it." The only thing I knew about Kung Fu was the television show that was on Friday nights at 11:30. I leaped towards them, waving my arms wildly with elaborate chopping motions, all the while making weird sounds like a cat being strangled.

All three of my opponents stared at me for a second, then turned tail and fled. There's a lot to be said for acting like a complete loon. I turned to the woman who had fallen in a heap when her attackers let her go. She looked up at me as I extended a hand to lift her off the cold, garbage-strewn cement.

"What the hell do you think you are doing?" she yelled at me as she slapped my hand away.

"I'm helping you up," I replied.

"I can see that, you idiot. I meant why did you scare them off like that? Are you some sort of mental defective?"

"No, it was just an act to bluff them. I was just trying to protect you."

"Protect me?" she asked incredulously. "What makes you think I need protecting?"

"Well there were three of them attacking you. Anyone would need help if they were outnumbered like that." I had the feeling that this wasn't what I'd presumed it to be.

"They were not attacking me, you idiot. They were my johns."

"Your what?" I asked. I wanted to make sure I heard her right. She looked no more than 18 ... maybe 19, but with a mouth like an old sailor. Her long brown hair was a mess of tangles.

"My johns, my clients." She looked at me like I just wasn't getting it. "Jesus, you really are an idiot. They were my customers. They were going to pay me a hundred dollars to have sex with all three of them."

I looked at her dumbfounded. "You're a prostitute?"

"Oh very good, you finally worked it out. At this rate you'll be up to a fifth grade education in no time." This woman had a gift for sarcasm. I turned around and started to walk away. My bed suddenly looked very inviting.

"Hey, don't just walk off like that," she yelled after me. "You owe me a hundred dollars."

"What?" I said, turning back to her. "How do you figure that?"

"Well they weren't going to pay me till afterwards, and seeing as you scared them off before they could do the deed, you owe me what I was going to be paid."

"I don't have that sort of money," I said, patting my pockets for emphasis.

"Well you better find some," she said, walking up to me and poking me in the chest. "You owe me."

She was a feisty little thing. She couldn't have been much taller than 5'3" but she certainly packed a punch. The finger poking she was giving me in my chest was beginning to hurt. I grabbed her hand and looked into her big brown eyes.

"Look," I said, "there's a twenty-four hour donut shop around the corner. If you promise to stop poking me I'll buy you a donut and a cup of coffee.

"Two donuts," she said, pouting those full lips of hers. I will always remember how she looked at that moment, standing defiantly in the light of that old street lamp, threatening to poke me again over a donut.

"Okay, two," I agreed and smiled at her.

She smiled back at me. It was the kind of smile that lit up a room. She bent over and pulled a battered old backpack out from under a nearby cardboard box.

"And while we are having our coffee and donuts, we can discuss the hundred dollars you owe me."

The donut shop was really just a grease trap and the donuts were just stale bakery items with sprinkles, but at least the coffee was crap. It also appeared to have more than its quota of police officers sitting at the counter. Some of this town's finest, scarfing stale donuts and drinking bad coffee, while outside the latest crime wave was hitting its peak. The woman grabbed my arm and dragged me to a corner booth. She looked at the counter jocks with some trepidation.

"I don't like being near cops," she whispered to me. "There's something greasy about them."

"It's probably the donuts," I said. "How do you want your coffee?"

"I like my coffee like my men," she said.

"Strong and black?"

"No, white and in a cup."

I wasn't sure if that was a joke or not, but I decided not to push it. I walked over to the counter and ordered two white coffees and a half dozen donuts. The cop I was standing next to looked over my shoulder at the girl in the booth.

"I see you picked up Betsy," he said.

"Betsy?" I replied, "Is that her name?"

"Well actually we call her Twenty Dollar Bet."

I looked at him, not understanding what he meant.

"She bobs for twenty bucks. Two tenners for a tongue lash." The cop was getting exasperated at my ignorance. I guess I was just slow that night.

"She charges twenty dollars for a blow job." The cop turned to his partner and mumbled something to him, which must have been funny because they both laughed loudly at it. I collected my order and went back to the booth.

"You telling jokes over there?" she asked as I sat down.

"No, they were just telling me your name, Betsy."

"Oh were they now? And what other pearls of wisdom did they impart to you?"

"Nothing, it's not important."

"God I hate those bastards. All I am trying to do is survive on the streets, and they make it as hard as possible." She looked at the cops over the top of her coffee, her eyes squinting against the steam rising from the cup. She looked back at me and asked, "What's your name, Slim?"

"Howard ... Howard Bloom."

"Betsy Powell," she said, offering me her hand. I shook it.

"Pleased to meet you, Betsy. So why are you living on the streets?" I didn't expect much of an answer but she must have been in a talkative mood.

"My step father bashed me so I left."

"Why did he do that?" I asked.

"He was a bit upset because I had sex on his car. Well one of them anyway. He owns a car dealership, you see, and I had sex on the hood of one of his cars with his best salesman."

"But how did he know you had sex on his car? Did he catch you in the act?"

"Well it was a little hard to miss, Howard," she said with a wink. "We were doing it during his lunch break."

"You had sex on the hood of a car in the middle of the day?" I was amazed.

"Yup. Middle of the day, middle of the lot. I think he was just pissed because we dented the hood of a car he had just sold. You should've seen it. There was a perfect imprint of my arse on the hood of that Chrysler. Anyway, he hit me and I left."

"Did he fire the salesman?" I asked, trying to find some sort of sensibility in a totally insensible act.

"No, he wouldn't sack his own son."

I sprayed coffee across the table. "His son? Your step-brother?"

"Yup. What can I say, he was an incredible fuck. Besides, I like dangerous sex." She smiled at me with those full lips of hers. I was soon to find out just how dangerous she liked it.

"So what about you, Howard? What's in your dark past?"

"I don't have a dark past," I said, wishing she would change the subject.

"Sure you do. I've seen you walk these streets night after night. That's not normal behaviour. Come on, Howard, tell me everything."

I don't know why but I did. I told her all about Cindy, about the Super friends orgy, everything. And truth be told, I felt better after getting it all off my chest. Betsy listened to every word and when I was done she took my hand.

"I know just what you need, Howard. Come with me." She got up from the booth and led me outside. It was a lot colder out there and I pulled my coat shut against the wind. Betsy led me over to a police car parked by the curb, then around to the driver's side.

"What are we doing?" I asked. I was worried she was going to steal the car. The last thing I wanted was a spot on "Wildest Police Videos of Thirty-Four Year Old Men Stealing Cars With Teenage Girls". But instead of breaking into the police car she knelt down and quickly unzipped my fly. In a matter of seconds she had my dick out of hiding and was gently stroking it.