Virgin whore Ellie

Loneliness in a big city can crush a person harder than anything else.

No one to talk to, even just to say “hi.”

No one who cares enough to ask if you’re doing okay.

No help when you really, desperately need it.

And most of all: no one to borrow money from.

And I needed money. Right now. Desperately.

As always.

I came to Los Angeles nearly a year ago from a small, dusty town in Indiana. I’d been planning it since I was twelve. I saved every penny I could, determined to escape — to get away from the mediocre life that was waiting for me.

I didn’t want to end up like most girls back home. Like my mom, who at 23 had already said goodbye to her dreams, stuck with two kids and a loser husband — a quiet, timid man who’d never rise above bagging groceries until he died.

It’s not that I didn’t love my parents. I adored them.

But I wanted something more. I wanted to show them I could make it, make them proud, maybe even one day take care of them the way they deserved.

Somewhere along the way, I lost that dream.

My own personal American dream vanished faster than cigarette smoke. The first days in LA showed me just how worthless I was in the face of what this “dream city” demanded.

I thought I’d be welcomed with open arms: young, pretty, fit, not stupid, full of energy and drive.

And I was — for about a month.

I explored, I took in the sights, I spent my savings.

Less than a year later, I felt beaten, chewed up, swallowed and spit out by the marvelous Los Angeles.

There were hundreds like me here.

I disappeared in a crowd of hopefuls, people desperate for success, pouring in from all corners of the world expecting the best and getting the worst.

Like them, I stupidly believed I’d be the one exception — that I’d get lucky, make it, achieve what others only dreamed of.

Just like in all those beautiful, promising movies I grew up watching.

God, how naive I was...

Ten months after arriving in LA, I was exactly where I’d landed when my money ran out.

I took any job that helped me pay for a crappy room without a bathroom, in a run-down apartment building on the edge of the city.

I served drinks in dive bars.

I went door to door selling insurance.

I hawked beauty products.

I wore a disgusting chicken costume in front of a greasy fast-food joint that specialized in undercooked poultry.

The pay was awful, but I got two meals a day, which helped me save a bit on food.

That was until last week, when my boss told me she no longer needed me.

Just like that — after yet another shift where I practically died from heatstroke.

And so there I was: no job, no plans, no money.

Behind on rent.

I wanted to scream, to claw at something, to run into the street and yell that life is one big bastard screwing us at every turn.

I didn’t dream of becoming a model anymore:

“Sorry, Eleanor, but you’re too short. Only 5′6”.”

Or even of landing one steady job.

I just wanted to get out of this city that was crushing everything in me that had once been worthy of respect.

It was doing it so well I stopped seeing myself as someone worth anything at all.

I wanted to leave LA.

Leave it behind, breathe again, start over somewhere — somewhere better.

The place I thought was heaven turned out to be hell.

But I couldn’t go back home.

Not to the parents I’d been lying to all along, saying everything was going great.

Yeah. I was doing great, fantastic even.

My apartment looked like a bomb had gone off in it — with a sagging bed, a makeshift kitchen with a gas burner, and a window that stared straight into a brick wall.

Five days ago, after yet another failed job interview — “not enough experience” — I got drunk on some cheap wine from a 7-Eleven.

Alone, as always.

In that crappy little mold-scented room.

And for the first time since I’d arrived in LA, I cried.

I was done.

The future looked like pure hell: either I found a job, or I ended up on the street.

And finding work? A miracle.

In a city that swallows up thousands of new, hungrier, shinier people every day, I — burned out like a war vet — didn’t stand a chance.

This is what life in the City of Angels really looks like.

At least to me — one of the fallen.

I had fallen.

Soared like Icarus, and crashed hard.

I hit rock bottom.

I was so deep in the mud I no longer cared.

About myself, about life, about anything.

I just wanted to leave.

If I stayed here any longer, I’d lose the last shreds of who I was.

I’d become one of the walking dead — some zombie surviving on the edge of poverty.

I had nothing anyone would want.

No jewelry to pawn for a bus ticket.

No way to ask my parents for help — not after all the lies I told.

They didn’t deserve a daughter who had to beg.

“Well, Ellie, time to face the truth.”

I muttered that, staring at my reflection in the window — warped by factory flaws.

The blonde girl staring back didn’t look too cheerful.

In fact, she looked like shit.

Thin.

Dull green eyes.

Hair a tangled, brittle mess.

That wasn’t me.

That was…

“A whore,” I said, smirking bitterly at the ghost in the glass.

I was a whore.

Or maybe — I was about to become one.

Just once.

For a decent price.

No less than ten grand.

If I was going to sell my body, I had to put some value on it.

I wasn’t doing this because I wanted to.

I had no other way out.

People might call it extreme, but most people have no clue how brutally life can corner you.

Ten thousand dollars could change everything.

Get me out of LA.

To Alaska, where women are outnumbered by men.

To Europe, where nobody knew me.

Anywhere.

Even home — where I’d show off the money and make up some lie about modeling for a foot cream ad.

Except I wasn’t selling my image.

I was selling something else.

Something far more valuable than feet.

My virginity.

Not because I’d planned it that way, saving myself for some future husband.

It just… happened.

A few relationships in the past, ones that seemed serious enough — but I never went all the way.

I couldn’t even say why.

Lack of trust? Fear of consequences?

Didn’t matter.

What mattered now was that I had something some people might actually pay for.

I turned away from the sad reflection and sat down on the sagging bed.

I’d already logged into my email earlier but couldn’t bring myself to look at the inbox.

I was terrified.

Afraid no one had answered.

Afraid someone had.

Afraid of being mocked — of being called a whore.

Afraid someone would actually agree to pay.

It would’ve been so much easier if no one responded.

Then I could stay “clean” and pretend it never happened…

Over thirty messages were waiting.

The number alone sent me into some kind of dizzy panic — somewhere between euphoria and dread.

My hand trembled as I gripped the mouse, like I had the flu.

Still, I managed to open one message, then another, and another.

Offer after offer — each one higher than my asking price.

$12,500 from someone named JR.

$17,000 from Narcissus.

$25,000 — again JR.

$25,500 — DaddyBear.

*$28,000…

I opened the emails, read, closed, opened the next.

I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

Not because someone wanted to buy what I was offering —

but because the final bid had reached $42,600.

I was worth more than I thought.

I was… more expensive than an engagement ring.

One small, meaningless part of my body could buy me freedom.

No one would ever know.

Not my parents.

Not my old school friends.

Not my neighbors back home.

No one.

“Wait tomorrow at 4 p.m. by the Riviera Country Club.

Bring the latest Cosmopolitan.

I’ll be in a white Mercedes.

— JR”

“Oh God,” I whispered, realizing that what I did in a haze of wine and desperation was suddenly… real.

“Oh God. Oh shit.”

I closed the laptop.

“You wanted this. Now you’ve got it,” I muttered.

“…Where the hell is the Riviera Country Club?”