It was cold that night and the sharp November starlight smeared like body glitter against the flat black Sheffield sky. It had only stopped raining about ten minutes ago, which meant that all the hard working employees occupying what the locals un-affectionately called, “Whore’s Row” were wet and glistening and generally soaked through.

Didn’t matter though, it was only half past one and Friday was always the busiest night of the week. Twice as busy as a Thursday, because who has the energy to be out shagging whores on a work night, and half as busy again as a Saturday when the guys who’d been out shagging whores on a Friday night were taking their wives or girlfriends out or maybe just hanging round the bars trying to hook up with an easy lay that they didn’t have to pay for.
Brandy and Maxine, who had been firm friends since their chance meeting six months ago, were huddled together at the entrance of a coal merchant’s - glad of the protection that the doorway gave them from the worst of the wind and rain. Brandy was an old hand at the game, pushing fifty with a couple of teeth missing, she couldn’t command the prices she had ten or even five years ago. She didn’t mind though, she’d been shacked up with Rocco for nearly eight years. Rocco was one of the less successful local pimps, strictly small time, never ran more than three girls at once and for the past six months he’d only been running Brandy and the new girl, Maxine.

Now, she was a different kettle of fish altogether, twenty-three and pretty as anything. If you took her out of the laddered tights and the outrageously short skirt (considering the weather) and the even shorter leopard skin jacket that barely covered the bottom of her boobs and put her into a business suit or even just a pair of jeans and a t-shirt you’d have given your right bollock to take her home to meet your mother. It was only the smack that kept her on the streets, the smack and the booze. She’d been trying to kick both for over a year but Christ, it’s not easy.

She was lucky in one respect though; Rocco was a sweetheart. That’s probably why he never made it past being a small time pimp. He didn’t have the heart to slap his girls around. He ran them for as long as they wanted to be run and he took forty percent and if a customer got too rough with them then he’d break that customer’s thumbs, about such things he had no qualms whatsoever.

So there they were, Brandy and Maxine, standing in their doorway, their hair stuck to their foreheads and the cigarette butts around their wet feet beginning to drift into miniature cotton wool continents. The street was only dimly lit and when they settled into stillness, Maxine could see the stars reflecting on the surface of the puddles.

It was nearly knocking off time. It had been a busy night but even in this trade the workers welcome a bit of overtime and here was coming a likely lad, swaying a little as he walked, hands thrust deep into the pockets of his parka, his head down, as though he wasn’t looking for it.
They always try to look as though they’re not looking for it.

The girls stepped out from their doorway shelter and they stood a little straighter as he neared them, automatically pushing their chests out as far as they could. Brandy tucked her over-bleached hair back behind her ears and nudged Maxine.
“Reckon ‘e could be my last of the night,” she half whispered.
Maxine did not reply, just fidgeted at the waistband of her skirt and licked her lips.
“You all right, Darlin?” Brandy asked, “Can we ‘elp you with sumit?” The man stopped walking but did not answer.

He stood there for a little while, as though he was unsure of what to do or how to react. Then, ever so slowly, he lowered the hood of his parka and looked at them. As he did they were suddenly struck by his peculiar appearance. Neither woman could put their finger on exactly what it was that made him appear strange. He seemed to have no wrinkles at all on his face, no crows feet, no creases around his mouth, no five o’clock shadow, nothing, he looked brand new.
“What’s the matter honey?” asked Maxine, “You new in town?”
Again the man did not speak, only stared deep into Maxine’s eyes, and then, slowly, he lowered his gaze until he was staring straight at her cleavage. This continued for about ten seconds.
“Ere, if you want it that bad then why don’t you just take Maxi’s ‘and and she’ll take your mind off all what’s worrying you,” said Brandy.

Still he stared, although he was at least looking Maxine in the eyes again. She stared back at him, trying to size him up, trying to figure out if he was just shy or maybe a complete fucking lunatic.

In the end she said, “Yeah, there’s a place just up the way. It’s real quiet, we could go there, you wouldn’t regret it,” and as she said it she was already reaching out and taking his hand. He whimpered a little at her touch, and then they were walking up the road towards the hole in the wooden hoarding and stepping into the derelict churchyard beyond. As the couple disappeared from sight Brandy shouted, “Ere Maxi, you go easy on ‘im now. Looks like a good fuck ’ud frighten ‘im to death.”

Behind the hoarding, beneath the shadows of the roofless church she took him inside her. He smelled her sickly perfume and her stale rain water sweat and all the time she whispered encouragements in his ear. It took less than a minute, and then for a long time he remained perfectly still, still inside her, leaning all his weight against her slight frame, then he pulled back and staggered ever so slightly.

“You alright, hon?” she asked, genuinely concerned as the man stared down at his now flaccid member, fumbling uselessly at the spent condom she’d fitted only seconds earlier.

He turned then and ran and as his shadow disappeared through the hole in the hording Maxine realised that she hadn’t gotten the money upfront. Jesus wept! How many times had Rocco told her? That’s the first rule of the game.

She leaned back against the cold granite wall of the church and pulled her purple knickers up. She lit a fag and looked up at the curious stone gargoyle that stared down at her, and beyond it she saw the broken trusses jutting out at odd angles and beyond them the arms of ivy that grew about the fractured steeple and then the low wisps of cloud and then only the blackness stretching away to the stars in their infinite distance.

She drew deeply on the cigarette, let her eyes loose focus and it was then that she saw the huge shooting star streak across the sky. She paid it no mind and went back to her pitch, looking forward to knocking off time and a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich.

•

Centuries later, when the strange visitor had finally finished the last draft of his - Milky Way, Whirlpool and Andromeda Galaxies: A Compendium of Dominant Planetary Species - the curios greeting customs of the carbon based bipeds of Earth were a great hit and pushed the book to the top of the charts.

The End

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