Free Nothing but a Smile by Steve Amick

exactly what to expect with her. She strongly suspected the old gal's faculties were prone to a wide fluctuation, because though half the visits went pretty much as she expected, nearly half the time, right near the end, Sarah Chesterton would announce that he'd sent her somecash by mistake. Whenever she did this, she presented it with almost the exact same speech, like something she'd scripted and memorized:
Oh, by the way, I think young William made an error. He seems to have sent
me
some money he intended to send you, dear I could tell from the note he included it was for you, to deposit in your account, but I'm sad to say I must have misplaced the accompanying note. So sorry …
And then she'd slip Sal anywhere from twenty to fifty dollars in a banker's security envelope, never once dropping the charade, never winking or smiling.
    And then, on other visits, there was just no envelope and no mention of money. The visit would be as pleasant as these more lucrative occasions, except there was no cash gift dressed up as a misaddressed letter from Chesty. Sal couldn't pick up on any pattern of disapproval. It was possible Mrs. Chesterton was slightly fuzzier on these days, and that was what made Sal think it had to do more with her failing faculties than with her frugality. When she was on the ball, she knew they needed some help. When she was having an off day, it was probably all she could do to keep it straight who “young William” was and where in the world he was.
    Sal had tried, the first few times, to refuse the money, but on the days there was money, the old girl was so sharp, she played her part to the hilt, laying it on thick about this missing letter from her nephew in which he made it absolutely clear this was for his wife, to be deposited in their account. So when there was a security envelope, Sal played along.
    Unfortunately, today, when she really needed it more than ever, there was no envelope.
    Sal smiled and kissed her husband's guardian on the cheek and squeezed her birdlike hand and took her exit, knowing she would have to hurry now. She was going to have to make another stop. Because there was no envelope today, she was going to haveto go through with the contingency plan—the one involving another envelope she'd been carrying in her purse.
    All in all, her morning up here had been a bust.
    The bell captain who held the door open for her made no attempt to hide that he was staring her smack in the blouse.
    Speaking of busts,
she thought.
    And all the way back, as if she had actually been speaking out loud of busts, men passing in the street and fellow passengers on the El resumed their perusal of her physical attributes. Some smiled—affably enough, without cruelty, as if they were doing her a favor. She couldn't help think they were getting something for free.
All these men …
She wished, too late, that she'd taken a silent tally since starting out this morning: how many had grabbed a look? It got her to thinking.
    Not only had she never been with another man, she'd never let another man see even a little of her body naked, except for maybe the women's doctor her pop had insisted she visit once, before she got married, and even he seemed to be looking away through most of it. Also, she was dressed in a hospital gown and he only opened the ties as necessary. It wasn't exactly the same.
    But that had changed, she realized, since she'd sent in those first test shots. Some unknown, unseen strangers—strange
men,
no doubt—had now seen her. Maybe not in the flesh, but still.
    It was strange to think that if she sold something—something maybe not as coy as the keyhole shots where she showed no nipples or even the full cheeks of her bottom, but something beyond, something more risqué, like the first batch, it would skyrocket her entire solar systems past any other gal she knew in terms of number-of-men-who've-seen-me-naked. Even more than her wilder friends like Reenie. Strange, she thought, how doing