Free The Timekeeper by Jordana Barber

hell, and he conveyed to me that he’d wear me down.
    He smelled of rotten meat and days old stale beer, he was missing teeth, a scarred face around his left eye and the corner of his mouth, and going bald . The smell was putrid enough to make me gag .
    “Hello, Jim.” I refused to glance at him. A look from me would only encourage him. I shouldn’t have said anything to him in the first place, but I wanted to get this exchange over with so he’d move away and I could avoid his stench .
    “Ilana, you are stunning today. You’ve still got a ring on your finger. A real shame, we’d be wonderful together. Your beauty, my brains, we would be unstoppable.” I couldn’t stifle my laugher , bursting into hysterics before I managed to get a word out.
    I didn’t care about hurting his feelings. Jim gave me the opportunity to be needlessly cruel, something I needed to do to relieve the stress of the day. It took me a minute to catch my breath. The expression on his face was priceless.
    “Fuck off, Jim. I wouldn’t get with you if you were the last creature on Earth. I’ve got the beauty and the brains, and you’ve got absolutely nothing to offer in a relationship except your terrible odor. You’re so foul that soap and a SOS pad don’t stand a chance of ever removing your stink. One of these days , I’ll drag my hubby to one of the meetings so he can beat the shit out of you. Since he’s not here, keep talking to me and I’m going to kick the life right out of you myself.” I glared at him, and he quickly scurried away to a different chair, deciding he had taken enough abuse .
    An ex-hooker I happen to get along with rather well took his place.
    “Damn girl, I can’t believe he’s still trying that shit on you.” I smiled, she’d been the only person in here I could relate to, and we had become good friends over the course of this ridiculous, court ordered bullshit. She was real, with bona fide problems and I appreciated that, especially since she had the same cutthroat attitude I did.
    “Hey Ro. Yeah, he doesn’t seem to get the hint. I keep telling him, and he keeps ignoring me. Fucking moron. How you been girl?” She grinned back at me, missing teeth and all.
    “I think I’m doing better than you. You look kind of down, everything okay?” I guess you need to be good at reading people as a hooker. Ro ranked as one of the best in my eyes.
    The woman never missed a thing. Most didn’t bother to give her any credit. Everyone assumed she was nothing but a nappy-haired crack whore. Judge a book by the cover and you might be surprised . If I had my way , I would take her to the Aliis with me and given her a job as an assistant Ambassador, she’d be excellent .
    “ Evet , I’m having one of those days. Problems with the ex, nothing to worry about, just irritating.” She gave me a typical unsympathetic stare. The woman didn’t feel pity for anyone, she’d been to hell and back , and survived every painful moment.
    “I had those same problems with a pimp I had a while ago. Kept trying to convince me to come back after I’d left. Tried to kidnap me. Told me he loved me, claimed he wouldn’t put me on the street again, and he’d stop beating me. Ain’t nothing you can do but put a bullet in his head. That’s the only thing that worked for Joe anyway.” I smiled at her and nodded . She’s seen a hard life, I didn’t know the half of it, but she never seemed to stop surprising me.
    “Ro, I love ya. I’m not sure any of that was helpful, but I appreciate the sentiment.” She gave me another toothless grin.
    “Ain’t no thang girl, we cool.” I grinned back at her and we tapped knuckles. She was making an effort to clean up her life, the chick needed a break and this was the first step to her getting one. A moment later the meeting started. I won’t bore you with the details and these damn things took forever.
    Twenty people showed for the meeting, and the NA Nazi, an evil little nun of