Tiffany Scandal - Jigsaw Youth

“What did you do for work?”

“I’m a call girl. Or, arm candy, as I like to put it.”

“Arm candy? This sounds like a story.”

“I met a lady in Silver Lake that got me set up dating high profile dudes. Sometimes even ladies. Not regular dating, mind you. I was paid to show up to dinners and events, places these people didn’t want to be seen alone. It wasn’t anything sexual. Though, ha, I did offer services. You’d have been stupid not to. I got paid ten grand to hang out with this one guy for four hours. We watched a movie and ate a bunch of candy. I jerked him off with my feet at the end of it. But, dude, ten grand.” Red shrugged.

“Whoa.” There were questions I wanted to ask.

“Anyway, the guy I was dating didn’t like me doing that work. I kept it to dinners and events with clients. So, you know, zero sex. But he still wasn’t into it. Kept getting jealous and paranoid. Eventually, I quit to give us a shot. He found work out here and I came with him. . ”

Red paused, looking at the polaroids on the table. Picked one up and chuckled.

“Lucky’s tits. I scored this one for helping her move. It’s funny how quickly you grow a collection when you befriend other Suicide Girls.”

There were dozens.

“He wanted someone he could control. It wasn’t long before he wanted to regulate who I could talk to, where I was going to spend my day.”

Red angled an empty coffee cup and set it back. I grabbed the pot from the counter and refilled her cup.

“Thank you.”

“De nada.”

“Long story short, I got out of it.”

“And your job?”

“I can do that shit from wherever. I’ve built up a decent clientele list. Most were stoked to hear I was back in. Usually, someone’ll buy a plane ticket so I can spend the evening with them.”

Ira looked around. Even though Red’s place was nice, it seemed incredibly modest for someone who was earning ten grand in one evening.

“No offense, but, uh, what do you do with all your money?” Ira asked inspecting the chipped mug that said World’s Greatest Grandpa, surely a thrift store find.

Red laughed. “None taken. For a while I was supporting my brother without my parents knowing about it. He was the perfect kid in their eyes, but they didn’t know that he had problems. He got into drugs real bad, couldn’t keep a job or anything. So I would pay for him to go to rehab and help him get an apartment whenever he was out. We always said shit like he was traveling or something else that seemed just as a cool, and they never asked any questions.”

“Is your brother still in LA?”

“His body is. He OD’d on heroin about a year ago.”

“Fuck. I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Thanks. Since he died, I’ve just been saving up. I’ve never needed much in life, so I’m happy keeping things low key and knowing that I have money to take off wherever I want to, whenever I want to. Also, I’m not going to be a babe forever, so I’m sure I could use some of that money to start up some business.” She sneered. It was cute.

She slouched in her chair. Looked up at the clock. It was four in the afternoon.

“I’ll shut up. Let me show you around this shithole.”

The rest of the afternoon went quickly:

Loud music.

Ladies in their underwear.

Garments all over the floor.

We shared a mirror to apply our makeup.

Lipstick prints on the mirror.

Group selfie.

I uploaded it while Red finished up in the bathroom. Ira and I took turns taking pictures of each other with the Polaroid. I shook mine from the corner, but it still bloomed a chemical spot. Ira’s turned out better. Nonetheless, our tits joined the pile.

We wrote “Thanks for letting us crash” on a note and left it with the pictures.

She took us to a dance club. I couldn’t tell if this was a serious outing, or if we were just there to fuck with young people. Some women by the entrance were majorly done up. Eyeing every inch of the place, searching for someone to talk to. The moment we walked in, it was like open season on our bodies. Stares from everywhere.

We relocated to a booth. Across from us, a man and woman were making out, like it was a competitive sport. Her hand vigorously rubbing the crotch of his jeans. We took turns guessing what their day jobs were.

“Shit.”

Ira elbowed my arm.

“Look.”

I followed where she was pointing. At the bar was a young man that looked like Original Douchebag from the truck stop diner. He was wearing jeans with rhinestones on them. He approached a woman at the bar.

“Is that the same guy? Looks just like him.”

“I don’t know. But yeah. .”

We filled Red in on Corn Jesus, the sheriff, and our Missouri welcome.

Wordlessly, she walked over and elbowed him in the face.

Ira looked to me, and we set our drinks down and ran after Red. We made it to the Tercel, got in, and took off.

“I can’t believe you just did that,” Ira said.

Then the headlights were on us. A massive pickup truck tailgating us, revving its engine.

“Motherfucker.” Red floored it, weaving through traffic, cutting off other drivers. People honked their horns all around us.

When I looked again, the truck was still there.

Red weaved between two cars and turned an abrupt left. It felt like the car went up on two wheels. All three of us screaming. The pickup roared past.

We were in a construction site, with eyesore barriers all around us, obscuring the truck. I felt like I was floating in space. Limbs no longer a part of me. Everything cold. I’d done this before, something like this. My hands clammed up. I couldn’t help but think we’d died in this same car, in some other time or place.

I said, “I think we’re okay.”

“That was a serious maneuver,” said Ira.

Eyes still fixated on the rearview mirror, Red said, “I thought this was the onramp to the highway.”

She blindly pointed to the onramp on the other side of the trees. Her chest rose and fell heavily. This surprised her as much as it did us.

Red eased off the brake and rolled the car out of the construction site. We drove back to her place.

These bad bitches have had enough for the night.

There are unspoken rules that women are expected to follow. Be good. Stay close to home. Never question anything. Be afraid. Never fight.

We don’t live that way.

We are human beings and not anyone’s property. We don’t owe anyone anything. We make our own rules and break them whenever we feel like it.

“Rule number one. Never, and I mean never ever , date a girl who’s still in the closet,” Nic’s Montana accent more pronounced the more she drank.

I handed her another PBR from the cooler on the balcony. The sun was setting, making the sky that lovely purple glow just above the tree line. Portland, like much of Oregon, had trees pretty much everywhere, even in the city center. One of the things I loved about it. We killed those beers and opened two more, and shared war stories about dating closeted lesbians.

“I’ve been chased away from so many homes because dads didn’t want me near their daughters. Shouting shit from the doorway, like, ‘Don’t you try and turn our daughter into a gay! She’s a good girl. Rah rah rah!’ Into a gay . Like there’s black magic involved or some shit. Shazam, gay all of a sudden. You believe that? And I’m good. I’m real fucking good to a girl. I might swear like a sailor and drink like one to boot, but I treat a lady like a fucking queen.” She took another hearty swig and stared at the ground.