I was going to throw up.
“Don’t call me cupcake,” I growled. Okay, I was focusing on the wrong thing, but I couldn’t think about Yoss out there—
“I’m gonna be sick,” I gasped.
I covered my mouth with my hand and tried to breathe normally.
That’s where he is tonight. Letting men…do things to him.
I grabbed a bag and vomited the contents of my stomach.
“Gross! Shit, that’s nasty!” Karla squealed, getting to her feet. “Screw this, I’m not hanging out with you if you’re going to puke all over the place. You’d better tell Yoss I was here though. But I’m out. Later.”
When I was sure I wasn’t going to throw up again, I quickly threw out the bag of sick. Then I curled onto my side and replayed Karla’s words over and over again.
A hustler. A commercial. A pro.
Yoss was a prostitute.
And I had been worried that he was selling drugs. I was such a dumbass.
I barely registered the first tears that slid down my cheeks. I soon was lost in miserable, horrible thoughts of Yoss in back alleyways doing awful things with awful men.
I could only assume that Manny was his pimp. That in return for keeping him safe, Manny secured Yoss’sservices.
Oh god!
How long had Yoss been…hustling?
Since he was twelve?
I was going to be sick again.
I bent over and heaved until there was nothing left in my stomach.
My heart broke into tiny, bitter pieces.
I curled into a ball and let the tears fall.
Not for me.
Never for me.
They were all for Yoss.
I couldn’t fall asleep until Yoss came back. I kept my back to him as he slipped under the covers beside me.
Like always, he never touched me. We lay side by side, feeling each other’s heat.
I had wondered why he had never tried anything with me. At first because I was scared he would. Then later because I wanted him to.
Now I understood why.
How could he want sex with me when he was selling it to strangers?
Did I want him to touch me now that I knew? Did it change the way I thought of him? I wasn’t sure. I hated that I questioned my feelings at all.
It wasn’t his fault that he was forced to make the choices he had. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the men—Yoss on his knees—dark, secluded places where they wouldn’t be caught.
