Chapter 1

Ruth Kingsman had to get ready for another night of work. She got up and went into the bathroom to start getting ready. But there were a few unusual things about Ruth’s preparations for work.

She looked up to where there should have been a mirror on the vanity, but instead, there was a cheap, store-bought picture of a rowboat tied to a dock with the lake in the background.

Ruth had taken the mirror down several years ago when she moved into her small trailer. In fact, Ruth had gone to great lengths to remove any reflective surface in her apartment.

The only mirror she had was a full-length one on the back of the bathroom door, which she kept open at all times unless she needed the mirror.

She hated the sight of herself and had even gone as far as getting brushed stainless steel appliances and even the toaster was non-reflective.

You see, Ruth was a big girl – some would call her voluptuous, but most people just called her fat or overweight. And she hated the way she looked. So much so, that when she walked down the street, she kept her eyes on the ground ahead of her so she wouldn’t catch a glimpse of herself in some store window.

She also watched out for puddles when it rained, intentionally kicking a small pebble or dirt into them as she got close and causing ripples so she wouldn’t see herself in them. It was almost to a point of OCD with her, but it was what she felt she had to do to keep from seeing the way she looked.

Ruth had always been bigger than average. In school, the kids picked on her for being chubby. In high school, she never went to any school dances or parties because of how she looked and the teasing and whispering and laughing that always seemed to accompany her.

But it wasn’t until Jack came along that things spiraled completely out of control.

Ruth and Jack met at a 4th of July community picnic in the small Tennesee town of Jasper. They hit it off right away and for a while, things were great between them. Ruth had never been happier.

She actually thought that she had found the one person to make her feel like she belonged and that she mattered. After a little over a year, there was some talk of marriage and one evening they decided to take a nice drive in the country. He proposed to her on the drive and she was over the moon with happiness!

But unfortunately, her happiness would be short-lived. They were engaged for four months and were to be married in about a month when Jack came over to see Ruth. He had come back from Chatanooga about a half-hour away and had something to talk about with Ruth. She didn’t know what it was, but she was scared it might be something bad. And she couldn’t have been more right.

“Ruth, honey, I have met someone else. I didn’t mean for it to happen, and I never wanted to hurt you. But I can’t help it. I’m sorry, but I am going to be leaving for Chatanooga next week. I have a job waiting for me, and she and I are going to be living together there. I know this is sudden, and I wish it was easier on you, but...” he said.

Ruth was beyond devastated. Her whole world imploded and she with it. After he left, she shut herself up in her small apartment and stayed there. She didn’t go to work, didn’t go to the store for a week, she didn’t set foot out of her small apartment.

Her boss came by once or twice to see if she was all right – she didn’t even answer the door. She was numb and didn’t care about anything. She didn’t care if she lived or died ... she had already died inside, so what good was it to go on?

One day, a couple of weeks later, she was blankly watching television, not paying attention to what was on really, it was just on to make noise. Suddenly an advertisement for the Texas Travel Industry Association came on, telling people about all the wonderful things to see and do in Texas, how great the weather was, and how friendly the people were.

Something inside Ruth clicked and she decided right then and there that she was going to leave Jasper and everything about this life that had let her down and move to Texas.

There was nothing but pain and sorrow here in Jasper, and moving to a new town in a new state would give her a clean slate. Nobody would know her there and she could start over. She also decided that she would move to a large city so she would be invisible ... she could blend into the crowds there.

She picked Dallas as her destination, and after packing up just a few things she wanted to take with her, things she would need, she bought a one-way bus pass for the Lone Star State.

She didn’t say goodbye to anyone, she didn’t even quit her job. She just disappeared without looking back. There was no one in Jasper worth saying goodbye to ... and no one would give a damn that she was gone anyway.

That was almost five years ago and since coming to Dallas she had established herself in a small, run-down, but still functional trailer. She looked for a job for a while, and went on several job interviews, but just as in Jasper, her size and her figure always shut the door on her before she could show off her talents and skills.

With no place else to turn and with bills piling up, she was desperate. She couldn’t go back to Jasper and wouldn’t even if she could. She didn’t know what to do.

Then, while riding the bus home from another fruitless day of job hunting, she passed through a neighborhood she wasn’t familiar with.

It wasn’t one she wanted to get real comfortable with either; a rough neighborhood where drug deals and muggings were just part of the scenery and no one did much about it. Even the police didn’t like coming into this neighborhood.

As she watched the run-down houses and boarded-up shops pass by, she noticed there were several hookers roaming the streets.

That’s when the idea hit her. There was one “talent” she could use that was sure to be in demand to somebody! Ruth didn’t have any sexy streetwalker type clothes, but she did the best she could, shopping at the Salvation Army and second-hand stores.

Fortunately, she was a pretty good seamstress, having to learn to alter and adapt the clothes she bought to fit her, and she was able to fashion some workable “hooker wear” from what she found.

She would always remember her first “trick”. She was absolutely terrified. She was working the corner of Park Ave. and Young St. in the business district. Not really a prime location but there were a few people out.

After a couple of hours and about half a dozen “interested buyers”, a man came by in a mid-size Chevy four-door car. It wasn’t much to look at but it wasn’t beat to hell either. The man inside, a tall somewhat thin man with black plastic-framed glasses rolled the window down. She walked over to the car to see if he was interested in “a good time”.

“Hi sweetheart, are you waiting for someone?” he asked innocently. And thus began the dance. Neither one of them wanted to be the first to make a statement that could possibly land them in jail, so they talked around the subject for a couple of moments, feeling each other out.

Finally, he decided that she was what she appeared to be and not an undercover cop. “How would you like to go to a party?” he said.

“Sure, I suppose that would be okay. I’m in the mood for a party,” she said. She got in the car and they headed for a cheap hotel a few miles away. Ruth wasn’t experienced enough to have a place set up for her nightly “parties”, so she had no other option than to go with him to his hotel room.

Looking back on that first time she kicked herself for making so many stupid mistakes. He could have been a vice cop and arrested her, he could have been some kind of pervert and done something to hurt her, or he could have killed her outright – she had no one to check in with or look out for her so she would have simply disappeared – another nameless routine murder in the big city.

But things didn’t go wrong like that. And although it made her physically sick afterwards, she earned her “C-note” quickly enough. He even offered to drive her back to her corner and gave her a goodbye kiss!

That first night she managed to make a couple hundred bucks – fucking the first man and a couple quickie blowjobs. Not a bad first night and certainly more than she would have made at some entry-level secretarial job someplace.

Since then she’d had all sorts of customers – some really good, a couple close calls that she was lucky to get out of safely. She learned some very valuable lessons on what to do and more importantly, what NOT to do!

Ruth finished up getting dressed. Then it was time for the least favorite part of getting ready ... putting on her makeup. It wasn’t the makeup or putting it on that was the problem, it was that she would have to face herself in the mirror do it.

But she had devised a system that made it a little more tolerable. She had put a curtain across the mirror on the back door of her bathroom so that all she could see initially would be her head and face from the top of her shoulders up. This way she could put on her makeup and if she thought it necessary, she could slide the curtain aside and check out her outfit as well.

These days Ruth was doing better for herself. She had a small trailer and an old, but fairly reliable car. Her wardrobe was much improved as well and she had found a better locale to ply her trade. The only thing that had not improved was her outlook on herself.

Actually, her chosen occupation, while lucrative. had not helped her perspective of herself. Now not only was she staring at a fat woman in the mirror, but she was also facing a fat whore!