Sex for pocket change.

The train beeps and the doors open, we get in and sit opposite each other in the same booth. The feeling is edgy like that terrible silence when you know something drastic and unfortunate is about to happen...


She gets up and moves to the far end of the train carriage.


“Um, ‘scuse me sir but I just need to ask for help. See I’ve gotta get home to my step-mum in Alamein and I need forty cents to call her and… thanks a fuckin’ lot. Fuckin’ cunt…“Um, ‘scuse me sir but I just need to ask for help. See I’ve gotta get home to my step mum in Alamein and I need forty cents to call her and… thanks a fuckin’ lot. She starts to ping pong her way up the train carriage sliding in and out of each booth, left then right then left again muttering obscenities with every rejection. Before I know it she’s in the both opposite mine and I’m digging around in my pockets for change.


“…listen then if you haven’t got any money then can I just use your phone I really need to call my mum, um step, step mum m-my step mum and…” The guy she’s talking to is staring at her with a look that suggests he doesn’t understand a word she’s saying, as if he’s trying to pretend he doesn’t speak the language and I start to feel outraged on her behalf. Outraged because I know that this girl can’t afford the dignity to tell him to get stuffed until she’s sure he won’t cave in. I can’t stand watching people being made to beg, I can’t stand all these people with change jingling in their purses and pockets sitting there struck suddenly broke. It’s only forty fucking cents, who cares what she’ll spend it on? Everyone is sitting in silence exchanging conspiring looks of disdain, disgusted that she may be trying to eat into their weekend beer budget, begging for change which is obviously for drugs; but then it is a Friday night so I guess… and then it’s my turn and we sit facing one another again.


Before I even fully aware of her I notice the stench coming off her clothes, she’s got that spicy sweat smell of homelessness and her white fleece tracksuit is covered in green and brown stains. Her face is a mess of red splotches and running mascara and her matted peroxide blonde hair is pulled back into a ponytail; she’s no older than fifteen. Even before anything is said I am already holding out the forty cents. I look at her, at the desperation in her eyes and feel stupid about the book in my hands and the sentence I have been reading for the last half an hour to avoid this moment. She shifts over so that we are no longer facing each other but sitting side by side and whispers into my ear-


“Hey thanks darlin’ all these other cunts’re so tight they prob’bly don’t shit. Hey do you do prostitution, would you do it with me? At Boxhill I need five bucks you know” Everyone is trying to draw me into their conspiracy of silence, offering me a look of sympathy, I ignore them and produce another dollar hoping this will buy her off but she looks at it and bursts into tears. “Fuckin’ no, you can’t say no I need to get home. Please, please I’ll do it for two dollars why won’t you... fuck Fuck... FUCK ME!” Everyone seems to have found part of a discarded newspaper to hide behind and I don’t know what to do. Her whole face is going red, a deep bruised red and she has snot bubbling out of her nostrils mingling with the tears which pour out over her cheeks and drip off her chin into a puddle on her dirty lap.


“Listen if you want to go to Alamein don’t you just change over at Camberwell?” I say feeling like such a dickhead, knowing how pathetic what I’ve just said is. I'm staring at my hands unable to look up, I know she’s looking at me as if I just couldn’t understand and I realize that I really just can’t.


Reading this over I wish the story was fiction, I know that the local paper keeps talking about our local youth homelessness problem but when it is all statistics and expert opinions it is easy to believe that there might be a solution... like all you have to do is... this however is not quite so simple when the problem materializes in the seat next to you on your way to wherever and tries to sell you sex for pocket change.