Denae made her way into the heart of boy’s town, as the bit of tenderloin where she resided was known. Few people would clock her as one of the highly painted caricatures of prostitutes that worked the streets in this slum. Yet she knew that she probably would do at least a few hours in a glory hole to supplement her income. She might have no other goals, but escaping this trap was definitely on her list of things to do, and to escape she must have an airtight ‘legend’ or at least one that most people wouldn’t investigate. Unfortunately, Denae admitted, that would probably mean abandoning the work she was putting into becoming at least a competent medical tech.

Would she, even if she no longer rented a flop from the likes of Hammer always be confined to working for a ‘gray market’ clinic like the one that she was currently working at? The question often gave her pause as she made her way to the place she’d won and contemplated the reality that she was only a half step away from putting on a short skirt, clown paint and all the accouterments of a street walking whore when she’d mentioned that she’d taken an introductory course as a med-tech in highschool.

The rest as some were wont to say was history. Mack, who frightened her half to death told her to come to the gray-market clinic he ran that was partly funded by of all people Hammer. Denae showed up, more like Gina ordered her to go to the clinic and at least see whether or not she wanted to pursue the opportunity. She had gone and except for his face, Denae wouldn’t have known Mack from any other person she’d ever dealt with in a medical situation.

After an hour of sitting at a desk and proving that she could operate the office software Mack had asked if she could do blood draws. “I was supposed to, but I’m really not very good at it,” she’d admitted.

“You’ll get better at it. The thing here is, most people who come to this clinic have no other place to go so you’ll get plenty of practice,” Gina had told her. Gina didn’t come to Mack’s clinic every day but she’d come along to give Denae morale support. Denae did blood draws that day, more than she ever thought possible under Gina’s watchful eyes. The beautiful transvestite was an excellent teacher Denae had to admit, when she wasn’t furthering Hammer’s subjugation of his ‘girls’.

As Denae looked at the scene of sordid flesh rental on the street near where she called home and considered her own path away from such a business she considered the various hard taught lessons in deportment she’d gotten from Gina, who outside of the clinic wasn’t at all afraid to inflict pain to teach lessons. “You’ll remember to avoid doing what causes you pain,” the woman had told her, “modern society has almost forgotten the value of pain as a behavior modification tool.”

For most of the first few weeks that Denae had spent under the hand of Gina, when it wasn’t certain that she wouldn’t be locked in a set of stocks and rented to the lowest of the low of the monsters that visited this particular little annex to hell, pain had been the one constant that was used to break her will.

These days Gina insisted that Denae hadn’t broken, but as she surveyed the girls renting pleasure on the streets near where she would sleep without worrying about making a living by renting her body, Denae wasn’t certain the older woman was right. There were days she wanted to tear Hammer’s little empire down. That was until she recalled the scene a few streets over. The place where the girls and boys who worked the streets were almost universally addicted and knew that was one of the reasons that every girl on this section of street would use condoms for all their activities and would visit Mack’s clinic regularly to monitor their health.

Denae was about to walk on by with her past no more than a distant hum, barely acknowledged, she’d escaped this by finding a task she could do. A shouted argument drew her eyes, and Denae’s blood ran cold. Hammer wasn’t terribly kind, but he didn’t put up with too much abuse of his girls. Injured girls earned him no money.

Denae recognized the girl, but more than that she also knew the man who was shouting from within the car. It was an expensive, open topped sports car. The driver was wearing clothing that probably cost more than most of the girls would earn in a month. The car, more than the whole street would make in a year. He cruised here a couple of times a month and haggled over paying for his perversions like he was arguing over the bread on his table rather than trying to keep whatever girl he patronized from earning even a grain of rice.

Before she’d considered what she was going to do, she’d moved and told one of the standing girls to get Hammer or Gina. She arrived at the side of the car and told the girl to move along. The man who was well aware that he’d been fucking asses, who hated that he continued to come back month after month, glared at Denae. “You’d better get that boy back here,” he growled, “He owed me a blowjob!”

“Did he now?” Denae mocked, “Hammer will count his money, and know who is right.”

“What’s Hammer to you bitch?” the man sneered, “I know you ain’t one of Hammer’s faggots.”

“Landlord. Not everyone can afford to live in a good neighborhood,” Denae answered the John.

She considered. The man was notorious for trying to not use a condom. Then she saw Snake, the man was terrifying, even now that she knew he probably wasn’t as bad as she’d imagined in her first few days here. Interestingly enough, the heavily tattooed man flashed her a sign telling her to try to get the man to park. “Why don’t you park your car and come with me, I’ll make sure you get the best blowjob on Glory Lane.”