Ornlyphans

At nineteen years old, Annie was frustrated.

It had been eight years since Mr. Warbucks had plucked her from the Hudson Street Orphanage and relocated her to his mansion in New Jersey. At the time, Annie had everything she ever wanted: a house, a family, and every modern comfort that money could buy. She wore the best clothes. She attended the finest schools. She read the most interesting books, met the most important people, and ate the most glorious food. Living in the Warbucks mansion, she had every need cared for. But now, for the first time in eight years, Annie wanted more.

At first, she wasn’t exactly sure what “more” meant. This feeling of wanting something crept in slowly. It was a vague desire that wasn’t immediately decipherable. Annie would wander from room to room in the mansion, past all the luxuries she once adored, with a newfound feeling of emptiness. She couldn’t shake this idea that none of it mattered.

Maybe she missed the city. When she first met Warbucks, her adoptive father, he reveled in showing her the sights and sounds of New York City. He took great pride in introducing her to everything Manhattan had to offer, from beautiful concert halls to the bustling downtown, and of course, Central Park. They used to take long walks through the park, talking about everything. It’s where they got to know each other.

But as the years went on, the pair spent less and less time together. Warbucks was often away on business, and the recovering economy seemed to only make more work for him. Annie, for her part, was busy attending school. After years of private tutoring to raise her to the academic level typical for children of the very wealthy, she applied and was accepted to Columbia University.

Though campus life was new and invigorating, the dingy female dormitories in Lower Harlem reminded Annie too much of her past. About a week into her first term, Annie called home and reported back just a few details of her living situation. Her father promptly insisted she return to live in the mansion, and offered the use of his private chauffeur for her commute.

Annie appreciated the comforts of home, and while it helped her focus on her studies it took a toll on her social life. The routine – of trips back and forth and books and essays and solitude – was starting to wear on her. She felt isolated from her peers, from her family, and at times even from herself, her own dreams and desires. As she sat in her sterile room and stared at the blank ceiling, this feeling of wanting, this newfound emptiness that had only recently wormed its way into her soul, began to feel overwhelming.

—

Oliver Twist had hit rock bottom, or at least he hoped he had, since it was difficult to imagine anything lower.

At twenty, Oliver looked young. He was extremely malnourished, and it had affected his growth. His clothes were tattered, his hair oily and unkempt, and except for the once or so a month he had the chance to shower at the Harlem YMCA, he smelled awful. New York City was not proving to be the new start he dreamed about as a poor boy in London.

After Mr. Brownlow died when Oliver was fifteen, he found himself sinking back into old patterns. Oliver was in and out of jail for much of his later teens, well-known by the police for his frequent petty crimes. When he wasn’t out pickpocketing on the downtown streets, he could readily be found stealing food from local shops, smoking opium in the alleyways with a group of other ne’er-do-wells, or frequenting the city’s brothels which were largely tolerated by the authorities, though not when the patrons were excessively drunk.

When Oliver turned eighteen, he was arrested for snatching the purse of a well-to-do London brunch-goer in broad daylight. Faced with the prospect of an adult prison sentence, Oliver fled the country smuggled aboard a cargo ship heading to America. He had long read about the shining New York City in the newspapers that often doubled as his blanket, and the Great Depression notwithstanding, Oliver thought he could turn things around if he could just escape England.

He was wrong. Two years into his attempt at a new life, Oliver missed the familiar streets of London. He often longed for the gruel he was fed in the orphanage, now realizing that it may in fact have been the most consistent period of nourishment in his life.

These days Oliver took to sleeping in Central Park. Though he had been more than willing to work even a low-paying job, few employers were willing to hire a scrawny, smelly boy with a foreign accent and no documentation. It seemed that prostitution may be the only way for a boy like Oliver to earn a living. But what little money he made from turning tricks in the East Village or selling his body through gigolo-for-hire services – whose patrons, despite often being very wealthy, frequently paid less than the agreed-upon rate – was quickly spent on meat pies and ale at the nearest pub.

Filthy, hungry, and penniless on the streets of Manhattan, Oliver understood that he was heading rapidly towards either a miraculous recovery or certain death.

—

This semester, Annie was enrolled in an English Literature course. She read works by great American authors like Mark Twain and F. Scott Fitzgerald, as well as those of renowned British authors like Virgina Woolf and Charles Dickens. She enjoyed reading, diving into worlds unlike her own and letting her imagination be fueled by the prose.

Annie also enjoyed attending lectures, though she found herself increasingly distracted by some of the young men in her classes. These boys were handsome, well-dressed scholars from prestigious families and upper-class lifestyles. They were born into money and wore it well. 

Annie often caught herself staring at them as they took dutiful notes in their thick workbooks. She imagined what it would be like to have some time alone with one of them, in a cozy room with the lights down low and a record playing softly. She felt a lustfulness wash over her that at once ashamed and delighted her; it was both alarming and exciting, and made it hard for Annie to concentrate in class.

But Annie was woefully inexperienced in the art of collegiate courtship. The few attempts she made at what she considered flirting were coolly brushed aside by the flock of toffee-nosed boys with whom she found herself hopelessly enamored. These repeated failures decimated her self-confidence and deterred her from future vain endeavors.

It’s not that Annie was unattractive. Though her curly red hair had straightened with time, her slender frame and dimpled smile did not disqualify her from the attention she sought. Nor did her father’s wealth, which should have gained her entry into the social circles that were teeming with the kind of young men Annie hungered for.

But something about her made Annie nearly invisible to this crop of boys. It’s as if they could tell she was an imposter, a poor orphan cosplaying in rich girls’ clothes. Though Annie had done well to avail herself of the wealthy lifestyle of her peers, there was an indelible marker somewhere deep inside her that, though she couldn’t identify it herself, was somehow obvious to the bona fide elite.

Thwarted repeatedly by systems and structures she did not understand, Annie felt powerless.

–

One night while lying in the freezing cold, some trash from a nearby dumpster forming his makeshift bed, Oliver recalled a young woman he once knew back in London. She was a fellow pickpocket who occasionally ran with his crew, though she mostly worked alone. They couldn’t have been older than twelve or thirteen, Oliver figured, and yet his memory was that they shared a deep connection. Her name was Joanne, Jo for short.

Bonded by the trauma of living in poverty and the fear of getting caught by the police, the two young thieves became quick friends as they traded war stories and swapped techniques whenever their paths crossed. As this budding friendship blossomed into a closeness that Oliver had previously never known, new feelings emerged that were hard to explain.

Whenever he and Jo got together, Oliver would feel a warmness in his chest. Even now, just thinking about her, an echo of the feeling returned. They would break off from the other hooligans and sit together, talking for hours about anything and everything. Oliver felt comfortable being himself around Jo, a kind of trust that was virtually unheard of in their world.

Oliver had encountered other girls before, and had even felt a kind of primal attraction to them, a nascent arousal that was equal parts thrilling and perplexing. He felt this way around Jo, too, but with her it was more than that. He couldn’t wrap his head around it then – he could barely do it now – but the emotion was so strong that one day when they were alone together, the urge to kiss her was too much for Oliver and in a moment of pubescent impulsiveness, he gave in.

The kiss was rejected. Jo leaned away, shocked, and Oliver’s world shattered. The bond he thought they shared was apparently non-existent, a one-sided fantasy that lived only inside his foolish head.

After that day, Jo would pass Oliver in the street without greeting him. Oliver felt betrayed, scorned by the person he trusted most in the world after he had made himself vulnerable. He felt sad and lonely and mad at himself and the choices he had made. But most of all, he just felt worthless. His best friend had sized him up and determined that he was of absolutely no value to her.

Shivering under the New York sky, Oliver realized that she was probably right.

–

Seemingly incapable of landing a date, Annie was forced to look elsewhere for the kind of thrill she craved. Wandering aimlessly through the campus bookstore one afternoon, she stumbled upon the world of romance novels. Enchanted by the promises of sex and betrayal, passion and heartbreak, she stayed there reading the dust jackets until it was dark. When it was time for the store to close, Annie took out the checkbook she borrowed from her father and bought the whole section.

Most nights after finishing her homework, Annie would lock herself in her room and plunge headfirst into a world of tawdry entanglements and sultry affairs. It became her obsession, and the irony of her own fruitless love life in comparison to the women she read about became more and more painful.

And Annie was no prude. Though she had no experience with sex, the novels she read made it sound exciting and adventurous, bold and adult. The stories did not generally contain any graphic descriptions, but Annie had inferred enough to understand the basic mechanics. She read dozens of books, with each one trying to imagine herself in the place of the female protagonist, and in the process making herself ever more eager to turn theory into practice.

Well versed in the principles at hand, Annie understood that there were risks involved, though the prospect of disease or pregnancy were not among them. (Bizarrely, these outcomes were never mentioned in Annie’s stories.) The nature of the result that Annie feared most was not physical but emotional. Nearly every volume from Annie’s impressive corpus fit a standard narrative: Men, by their nature, will use a woman for pleasure and then discard her once they’ve had their way. This apparently universal truth is what scared Annie the most. She was terrified of being abandoned.

So it seemed that Annie was in a tricky situation: she yearned for a man to satisfy her growing needs, but she was inept at the process of finding one. And if by some miracle she were to ensnare a suitable partner, in all likelihood he would leave her in short order and she would be back where she started. Worse, in fact, for gaining the knowledge of what she’d been and would continue to be missing. The circumstances were so dire that Annie had nearly exhausted hope when she discovered, as if by some divine intervention, what seemed to be the perfect solution to her libidinous conundrum.

—

It had been almost five days since Oliver had eaten a good meal. Sure, he’d rummaged around for scraps in the trash and drank the filthy city water from a broken hydrant, but he was hungry. He was also dirty. The gym where he occasionally showered was closed for renovations, and even the rain lately was stained with the soot of burgeoning industry.

Every evening around suppertime, Oliver would check in with Mr. Cromsly at the Blackwell tavern off 3rd Street. Most of the time there was nothing, but occasionally Cromsly would tell Oliver about a client. Oliver wasn’t sure how Cromsly found these people, but they were usually men, middle-aged, closet homosexuals who were afraid to be spotted in the kinds of establishments where they could likely find some relief for free.

On nights when Oliver was working, Cromsly would pay for a small meal at the tavern and, when it was cold, lend Oliver a coat. Then he’d arrange for a room at the inn around the corner, where Oliver would wait for his John. Oliver hated this part. The anticipation as he sat, alone, on the small bed in the drab room. The fear, the adrenaline coursing through his veins, the disgust at himself and what he was about to do.

But after Oliver had performed his services, he would get to stay in the room. The clients always left rather promptly after they’d been satisfied, though Oliver couldn’t imagine that what he’d done had been particularly satisfying. Oliver would rinse his hair, wash his clothes in the sink, and fall into a deep, dark sleep that would inevitably last until the innkeeper started banging on the door that it was time to go.

Oliver would dress and leave, trying his best to hide his face from anyone he passed. He always had strict instructions to meet Cromsly at Blackwell the next morning to pay his share. Per their arrangement, Cromsly was entitled to the majority of the fee. Cromsly explained that this money mostly went towards booking the hotel, advertising to clients, and paying off the authorities. Oliver was usually left with just enough for three beers and a sandwich, or four beers if he wasn’t feeling hungry.

These daily horrors constituted the routine of Oliver’s hard-knock life, and though it fueled a descending spiral of self-pity and self-loathing, it was his only way to survive. But lately, there were no customers for Oliver. Cromsly explained that he let the clients decide who they’d like for the night, and nobody who had Oliver before ever wanted him again. Without work Oliver had no way to bathe, no way to eat, and nowhere to sleep. And this was a vicious cycle, because an unwashed, unfed, sleep-deprived boy did not make for the best prostitute.

Oliver was tired, and not just because he hadn’t slept. His soul was exhausted. The life he was living was not sustainable, and he was acutely aware that, one way or another, something had to change. So when Cromsly told Oliver one December night, after nearly two weeks of no work, that he had a job for him, Oliver nearly turned it down. What was the point, he wondered aloud, if afterwards he would be right back on the street.

But this job was different, Cromsly explained. The client asked for Oliver specifically, and was willing to pay double. And this time, it was a house call.

 – 

Annie sat on her bed, legs and arms crossed, eyes closed, trying to meditate. It didn’t work. Her mind was racing, her body was filled with electricity. The light red hair on her legs stood firmly at attention. For the first time in a long time, Annie was excited.

She was excited because last night she did something that she had been working up the courage to do for weeks: she called a phone number she had seen scrawled on a brick wall a few blocks from her school. Though there was a cacophony of illegible text covering the faded bricks, this one advertisement caught Annie’s eye.

FOR A GOOD TIME, CALL

Normally Annie wouldn’t have given a second thought to the graffiti. In fact, had she not been looking for something of the sort, she wouldn’t have seen it at all. But Annie had a plan, a scheme to jumpstart her lascivious pursuit, and it started with a phone call.

Blackwell, who ya lookin’ for?

Hello, I’m… I saw your advertisement.

Pardon?

I saw your advertisement. On one-hundred and thirteenth street.

There was a pause on the other end.

Hold on.

Annie was so nervous she could barely hold the phone still.

Hello?

Hi.

Who’s calling? Whaddaya want?

I- I saw your advertisement on one-hundred and thirteenth-

Alright alright, what do you need?

Annie explained to the gruff-sounding man on the phone exactly what she needed. She needed a man. Preferably a young man, but not too young. And preferably handsome, but not in a way that she might find intimidating. He should be kind but not a pushover, spirited but not overly-energetic. Oh, and in case it wasn’t clear, Annie needed this man to ravage her. She needed, badly, to get laid.

Annie was told that this could be arranged for, and the standard fee. But when she was told to meet at a hotel, Annie balked. In all the books she had read, hotels were the setting for tawdry affairs and filthy one-night stands. For her first time, Annie wanted to be somewhere she was comfortable. And given that the standard rate was less than half of her weekly allowance, she offered to double it. The offer was accepted, and a list of names and descriptions was read to her.

She listened for a while to the scratchy-voiced man on the other end describing in less-than-perfect detail her potential lovers. It was hard to tell the difference between the options she was being presented with; they all seemed the same. But eventually one candidate stirred Annie from her haze. She wasn’t sure why, but this one seemed special. She asked the man to repeat his description.

Oh, okay, thanks. And, sorry, who was this one again?

Oliver.

Oh.

Annie took a long pause to think it over.

That’s my dad’s name.

 – 

Oliver had never been to New Jersey. He heard about it once in a J.W. Riley poem, how it was mostly just suburbs and factories and roads. During the cab ride over – generously arranged by Mr. Cromsly – Oliver stared out the window and confirmed these things for himself. Although he could by now be fairly described as a professional, Oliver was still nervous. And not in the normal way where his whole body tensed up as he waited for his customer to enter the room.

Today was different. Mr. Cromsly had insisted that Oliver purchase some new clothes for the occasion. (Without any money to speak of, Mr. Cromsly bought the clothes and promised to deduct the price from Oliver’s pay.) He was wearing a blue buttoned shirt and khaki slacks. He wore his same battered sneakers, but the pants were a bit long so they mostly hid his shoes. Oliver felt out of place in these clothes, out of place in this state, and as he exited the taxi and looked up at the Warbucks mansion, out of place in this world.

The anxiety Oliver had been feeling evolved into plain fear as the cab drove away. He was not scared of being arrested, or being injured, or of being humiliated; in his years as an orphan turned pickpocket turned prostitute, Oliver had experienced all of this and more. Oliver’s world was filled with poverty, disease, filth, death, and despair. He knew this world well, and he was comfortable in it. In this moment, as he approached the large solid oak doors of the biggest house he had ever seen, Oliver was afraid of the unknown.

 – 

From her bedroom, her eyes still closed, Annie heard a knock on the front door. One of the maids answered it, and Annie heard the door close. She opened her eyes, got off the bed, and cupped her ear to the door to listen. The voices were muffled, but gradually they began to grow louder. Annie couldn’t make out the words, but she sensed it was quickly becoming an argument. She considered, for a moment, locking her door and going to sleep and shutting out the whole world. But the thought passed. Annie mustered all the courage she could, took one last look in the mirror, and rushed downstairs.

What Annie encountered as she entered the foyer was Ms. Mapleton arguing with a scrawny young man in oversized trousers. She stopped in her tracks as it dawned on her that this was the man who would comprise her first encounter. He was not unattractive by any means, but he looked so different from the boys Annie was used to. His hair was wild and uncombed; his shirt was untucked and not fully buttoned; his eyes were a beautiful, bright blue.

Annie gathered herself and walked over. She could hear now that Ms. Mapleton refused to believe that this sooty English boy was really a guest of Annie’s. Annie’s callers – and they were relatively few – were generally bookish young women with a backpack full of study materials. Ms. Mapleton had asked the man to leave twice now, and he had refused.

Carla, he’s with me.

You’re joking, child. He smells like the sewer!

I’ll take him upstairs and make sure he showers.

Ms. Mapleton was incredulous, but with Mr. Warbucks away on business, Annie was the master of the house.

Whatever you say, darling. Make sure he washes before he sits on any of the furniture.

And with that, Ms. Mapleton walked away and left Annie and the man standing across from each other beneath the high arched ceilings of her adopted home.

Annie.

She reached out her hand, expecting the man to kiss it.

Oliver.

He shook it, roughly.

 – 

As Oliver stood in the enormous shower, surrounded on all four sides by glass, he felt exposed. Though the door was locked and he was alone in the washroom, he felt naked, even more naked than the naked he was. But the water, instantly hot and incredibly pressurized, felt like a dream. Oliver took nearly half an hour, luxuriating in the space and attempting to collect his thoughts.

Where was he? What was he doing here? Was he really there to have sex with this beautiful young woman? Did she really want him to? Was he good enough for her? Was he good enough for anyone? Did the maids look down on him? Was he even fit to step foot in this house?

Oliver turned off the water. He dried himself on the softest towel he had ever felt and dressed back into the clothes he had brought. They still smelled like his old self, but he hoped the scent would quickly be replaced by that of the soap he had very liberally applied to every crevice of his body. He took a deep breath, then another, and opened the door to Annie’s room.

Annie sat on the bed, legs crossed, eyes closed.

How was your shower?

Good. Thank you.

Annie opened her eyes and re-evaluated the person in front of her. Oliver’s hair was long and wet, and it made him look like some kind of merman who had just crawled out of the sea. He would do, she thought. She smiled.

Have a seat.

Oliver sat on the bed, a full two feet from Annie. Although he was fully aware of the purpose for his visit, even if he couldn’t quite believe it, Oliver wanted to respect her space. Annie liked that.

Do you go to school?

Huh?

Are you attending college anywhere?

Uh. No. No, ma’am.

Annie chuckled, and told Oliver that she was nineteen years old so he shouldn’t call her ma’am. She asked if he lived nearby.

No. No I live uh… well, uh… I live in New York.

Annie perked up.

I love New York! My dad used to take me there all the time. It’s so electrifying! Do you love it there? What are your favorite places to go in the city? Have you been to the Metropolitan Museum? Do you enjoy Central Park?

Oliver was uncomfortable. He wasn’t used to sitting and chatting with anyone, let alone a bubbly young woman. He didn’t know the answers to these questions, and Annie was talking so fast that he couldn’t even remember the last thing she asked. He was becoming increasingly uncomfortable, the calming effect of the shower quickly wearing off.

Oliver looked around and saw a room filled with luxuries he could hardly imagine. An enormous bookshelf filled with hardcovers. Silk blankets on the bed and an armada of pillows. He glanced over at Annie’s closet, filled with clothes of every color, and a crate of shoes of every variety. The decor was beautiful, but the wealth on display was disgusting.

Uh… hey so, should we get on with it?

Annie frowned. Just like a typical man to skip straight to the end. But in order to stick to the plan, Annie couldn’t let Oliver lead. To invert the natural order, and thus avoid the emotional pain of a woman scorned, Annie would need to take charge; change the power dynamic. She knew he needed money. She had money, and thus, for the first time in her life, power. Annie intended to use this power to have a sexual experience that would not end in heartbreak. Unlike in all her romance novels, this time it would be she who was using him. It would be she who would refuse his letters, think only of herself, and eventually, forget his name.

Yes. Let’s fuck.

 – 

They both sat there a few moments, on the bed, unsure of what to do. Oliver was used to his patrons making the first move. They were usually aggressive and eager, wasting no time in partaking of the flesh they purchased, so Oliver rarely had to do much proactively. Annie, on the other hand, had never done this before. She had never even kissed a boy, let alone rented one to fuck. This was all going to be new.

Oliver cleared his throat.

Hm?

Nothing.

They sat in silence for a few more excruciating moments. Oliver couldn’t take it anymore. Without a word, and in a single fluid motion, he pulled his dress shirt clean over his head revealing a scrawny chest with scattered splotches of blonde hair. Annie stared at him, studying the front of this man she had hired for sex. Oliver gestured at Annie’s shirt.

Do you… wanna…

Oh.

Annie snapped back to the moment. She slowly and carefully removed her top, revealing a pink lace bra with a gold clasp in the middle. Annie felt a rush of cold hit her chest. But there was no turning back now. She sidled up to Oliver and kissed him. He kissed her back. They awkwardly began exploring each others’ lips, keeping their hands mostly at their sides.

His mouth tasted like a garbage can. A garbage can filled with old cigarettes and rotting meat and beer and old socks. As they started to make out, Annie wondered if this is what all boys’ mouths tasted like or just this one. She thought she’d try to distract herself with other sensations. She brought her hands to his chest and began to feel his slender body.

Oliver followed suit, bringing his hands up to Annie’s breasts. Oliver had been with a few women before, but they were all much older. Their breasts were saggy and worn, and they lacked the youthful spirit that flowed through Annie. Oliver fiddled in vain with the clasp on the front of Annie’s bra until she finally undid it herself, revealing a pair of perfectly round small breasts. Oliver quickly took one of them in his mouth. Though the sensation was completely new for Annie, she was mostly just relieved that she could stop kissing him.

They continued to explore each others’ bodies and remove each others’ clothes. In Annie’s romance novels, the lovers would dramatically cast aside their cloth impediments with the careless abandon of a bear tearing away the packaging of a campsite’s unguarded food. And yet here in her spotless bedroom, Annie found herself carefully folding her dress so it wouldn’t get wrinkled.

Finally, the pair of horny orphans were down to just their underwear. Annie’s matched her bra, pink lace with small ornamental bows that suggested the contents underneath were delicate and special, worthy of soft reverence and gentle touch. Oliver’s had stains. And holes, big ones. Through a large rip in the generously-described-as-off-white cotton Annie glimpsed the side of Oliver’s semi-erect penis. She looked away, at once embarrassed and intrigued, and without making eye contact, slowly slid off her panties.

Oliver did the same, clumsily pulling down the curtain to reveal the beleaguered star of his fast-approaching performance. Even though he had just showered, and even though it was the only penis Annie had ever seen, it was also the dirtiest penis Annie had ever seen. It was faded and almost gray, much darker than Oliver’s skin. It looked like it was wearing its own shadow. It was somehow both hard and wrinkly, erect and unwelcoming. It seemed as if it had lived a hundred lifetimes, all of them filled with sorrow, and was weary of the specter of continued dissatisfaction that hounded its unsightly form.

Annie stepped forward, placed a pillow on the floor, kneeled with undue deference, and put it in her mouth.

It tasted like death. Though its stench raised a brief but stern warning, it could not have remotely prepared Annie for the sensation of placing her tongue on this wretched slab of warm decay. And it was lumpy. Or, not lumpy, but lumped. Or maybe kinked. Its shape was amorphous, undefinable, yet distinctly unpleasant, nearly abstract but unfortunately quite concrete. It was like trying to swallow the fruit from a tree native only to Hell, a poison pill that made no effort to conceal its fatal contents.

After what seemed like an eternity, but was likely only three or four seconds, Annie withdrew the dusty cock from her newly filth-stained lips and did her best to look anywhere but up at the briefly felated urchin looming over her.

Th- thank you.

Annie didn’t know how to respond. She anticipated being somewhat unprepared for this encounter, but it was now dawning on her that she was well out of her depths. And yet, succumbing to this phallus of sunk cost, she resolved to brave onward. She stood, confronting the naked Oliver, and took a step forward to press herself against his body, erasing the last remaining space between them.

I want you inside me.

 – 

It had been true when she said it, but Annie no longer felt sure. It took several minutes of careful negotiation to consummate this unholy union, both parties fumbling around on top of Annie’s thick muted pink comforter attempting to find an angle that suited them. It took three hands and more than a little saliva to slowly guide Oliver’s feed-starved hog into Annie’s dust-bowl-dry trough.

Once it was in, they weren’t quite sure what to do. Annie looked up at the grubby boy on top of her, not with the lustful adoration of the women in her novels but with the annoyed impatience of a rush-hour commuter waiting for a green light. Is this really what it’s like? This act which had been promised to her as the pinnacle of human connection and experience, the culmination of years of waiting and wondering and longing for the day she could finally perform what seemed to be the last rite of full adulthood… was this all it was? A sweaty boy shoving his drippy appendage haphazardly into her private parts?

Oliver, in turn, closed his eyes and thought of home. He thought of his life in the orphanage; the nights he spent starving and cold, penniless and alone, wondering where oh where was love; he thought of the days he spent wandering London’s streets, stealing from tourists’ pockets and sleeping in doorways; he thought of Jo, and the pain of losing her friendship; he thought about his voyage to America, the weeks he spent crammed into a box not much larger than himself; and he thought of the disgusting men for whom he’d suffered excruciating fornication just so he could have something to eat the next day. Oliver thought about all of this pain, suffering, and heartache because, for this first time in his career, he was struggling not to ejaculate.

After about thirty seconds of incoherent and mild thrusting, Oliver failed. In a few heaving bouts, he exploded forth his grimy jizzum like an elderly leper with a whooping cough. Annie was alarmed at Oliver’s inscrutable convulsions as he unceremoniously loosed his feeble seed. 

At once surprised and ashamed, Oliver meagerly smiled an apology at a bewildered Annie.

Do you want to keep going?

Annie, finally feeling that she had experienced enough, politely declined the spurious offer. Oliver clumsily pushed himself off of Annie and rolled over next to her, his limpening penis leaking premature ejaculate like wax from a newly-bought candle left to melt in a hot cupboard.

They lay in silence for quite some time. Annie began to regret the series of actions that brought her to this unsettling moment. She was mad that she let herself be so thoroughly fooled by cheap fiction; that she had imbued with such transformative power the simple act of enveloping a stranger’s erection; that she had so naively convinced herself that it was possible to derive pleasure from sex without enduring its inevitable trauma. Or, put another way, to have her cock and eat it, too.

Oliver just hoped he would still be paid.

 – 

Annie watched from her bedroom window as a yellow taxi carried away her hired lover, and with him her virginity. It was at this moment that she realized her grand plan had truly and completely failed. Not because she was now madly in love with a boy she’d never see again, but because her initial assumptions had been wrong. She thought she could exercise a measure of power by coercing sexual pleasure from a helpless young man. But Annie failed to account for the contagiousness of desperation, the flu-like way it spreads from person to person and infects them with overwhelming need. In the same way that Oliver needed money, Annie needed intimacy. They both acquired from each other their most basic sustenance, though it was slowly dawning on Annie that this may not have been a fair exchange.

And not just because Annie felt like she overpaid, though she certainly had, but because there was a deeper injustice at play. Oliver left a bad taste in Annie’s mouth in more ways than one. It was eerie, but he reminded her of her orphan past. The trauma Annie had worked for so long to overcome was suddenly resurfaced by this ghostly whore in ill-fitting garb. The aura of powerlessness that pervaded Miss Hannigan’s dreary orphanage was palpable to Annie once more. She felt like she was that little girl again, trying to force a smile while her very essence was being eroded by forces beyond her control.

Though it was only mid-afternoon, Annie curled up beneath the covers on her sullied bed and shut her eyes. She prayed for a deep, dark slumber from which she could emerge, renewed, tomorrow.

 – 

Oliver rode in the back seat of his cab in a state of bewilderment. It had all happened so fast. One afternoon he was vomiting liquor and stale bread onto a piss-soaked alley in the bowels of Manhattan, the next he was cumming inside the vagina of a pretty young woman in her mansion in New Jersey. He had whiplash.

He also had forty dollars in his pocket, which would be thirty-five after he paid the driver. Sitting there, watching the New York skyline come into view, Oliver felt grateful to Annie. And not just for the money, though he was certainly thrilled to have it. But Oliver felt like a weight had been lifted off of him. This whole time in America, Oliver felt shackled to his orphan past. With every misfortune, big or small, Oliver was reminded of his lowly upbringing. Every injustice, every cruel twist of fate was warranted, Oliver felt, because he was and would always be a member of the lowest possible class.

But an idea began to form in Oliver’s mind, an epiphany with the potential to release him from the prison of his perpetual impoverishment. Annie needed his company just as much as Oliver needed her money. Oliver was desperate, to be sure, but so must Annie have been in order to willingly endure Oliver’s meager carnal offering. For the first time in his life, Oliver felt desired. Not loved, certainly – that was something different he understood – but wanted, at least enough for a modest fee.

And as Oliver rode back to the city, grappling with the sexual capitalism from which he was finally deriving some perverted form of self-esteem, he decided to keep the money. All of it. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do with it, and he wasn’t sure how long he could evade Mr. Cromsly, but for the first time in his life he felt empowered. Yes, he was still just a boy for sale. But this time at least, he knew his worth.