Chapter Text
Chapter One
As the rot spreads within her, MJ stares up at the ceiling.
The man thrusts in and out, taking that rot, digging a hole, and planting it deep inside of her spirit. He fosters it, watering it with his cock and encouraging the filth to put down roots. To grow into something hideous that will devour her from the inside-out. To take her someplace shameful where she’ll never be clean, and it’s all her fault because she’s choosing this life.
She’s not charging as much as she wishes she could, but it’s like her novelty has worn off. They men recognize her at the bar now, so there’s nothing shiny and new about her anymore. Where they used to happily buy her ten dollar sodas all night just for the chance to go into the back room with her, they now look disappointed when they see it’s her that they’re going to sit with and not one of the other newer girls.
She doesn’t know if it’s just because she’s not new and the men are regulars, or if there’s something inherently wrong with her, but she’s not making as much money as she was before. If she tries to charge what she’s worth, they won’t sit with her. They won’t go in the back room with her. They won’t look at her at all.
And she supposes that should be a good thing. That seedy men won’t want to use her up and spit her out like rotting meat. But if she doesn’t make money, she doesn’t pay her rent. She doesn’t finish college.
She knows she shouldn’t have turned down that job, but the thought of working for a corporation full of normal people with normal lives when her skin is quite literally dripping in sickness makes her feel a shame so arresting that she can scarcely breathe at the thought of it.
No, it’s too late for her. She made the mistake of working for this bar, and now she’s stuck here, and that’s her lot in life.
The man comes, and she feels it filling her up and turning her stomach. She tries to ignore the churning as he pulls out and fixes his clothes. He compliments her, as they usually do, and she gives them one of her quick smiles, as she usually does. The man kisses her on the cheek before he leaves the back room, heading back out into the main bar. She sees a flash of the green walls as the door swings open and shut again.
And now it’s time to go get the next one.
MJ pulls down the hem of her short skirt, teetering on heels that make her much too tall. She looks in the mirror above the dresser in a room that shouldn’t exist, ensuring she looks as put-together as she possibly can. It wouldn’t do to look used-up when she’s trying to present herself as the best possibly option for the patrons to choose.
Heaven forbid they have to face what they’re actually doing in a place like this.
MJ pushes back her long, red-brown kinky curls and looks at the way the harsh lights caress her russet-brown skin, and she wonders how much longer she can bear this life. She still has the rest of the school year to finish, two more rounds of tuition due, and rent due every month. If she could just get back to where she was when she first started working at the bar, then everything will be okay. She won’t have to go in the back room anymore, and she can go back to sitting in booths and letting them touch her a little bit.
It would be so much easier.
Exiting the room, the music pounds in her eardrums as she makes her way to the front of the bar. It’s mostly empty tonight, and she was fortunate to have gotten three guys because some of the other girls didn’t show up. The empty stage with its forlorn pole seems to mock her as she walks past it, headed for the abr.
If only MJ had the luxury of not showing up. Paul would never allow it. He’d beat her for even thinking the words. But ever since she disappeared the one night that Spider-Man took her to Frank’s, Paul’s been on her ass.
He beat her for that, too. When she refused to tell him where she went, he beat the fuck out of her for withholding and had made sure she was in the car by nine every night since. There was one night where he let her stay home, and that was because he wanted to use her all night.
And she’d just let it happen.
MJ has been letting things happen to her for a long time now.
MJ takes a seat at the bar. The bartender and owner of the bar, Marietta, gives her a pointed look. She’s in her fifties, at least, and her expression is shrewd.
“Stand outside,” she says. “Otherwise no one will come in.”
MJ doesn’t want to stand outside. It’s cold and raining and she doesn’t want to advertise herself. But she knows what will happen if she doesn’t. Marietta will tell Paul she was being “willful,” and then Paul will punish her. If she doesn’t want to get punished, she’d better just go stand outside.
With a sigh, she walks outside the bar. Her platform heels click-clack their way across asphalt as she moves to stand beneath the short awning that juts out of the front of the bar. To her right, she can see the seedy massager parlor. To her left, the back of the Japanese restaurant she’s never gotten the chance to go to. She crosses her hands over her shirt, which is little more than an off-shoulder crop top, and stands outside like a walking advertisement for Whore Central, the place where she’s the only thing they have to choose from tonight.
Out on the street, MJ can see people walking back and forth on the sidewalk, and she finds herself gazing wistfully. This bar is on a strip of other, more normal bars, so it’s often that she sees groups of friends stumbling by, drunk and laughing. She’d give anything to be a part of one of those groups, even though she hates the feeling of being drunk. She’d give anything for the normalcy of getting ripped with your friends and stumbling down the street to the next bar.
A man on the sidewalk turns his head to the right, looks across the small empty parking lot, and does a double-take. He’s got his hood up against the rain and the most bland face MJ can imagine, but he’s looking right at her.
She sighs. Time for the next one.
The man drifts closer. “Is this a bar?”
“Bar Monaco,” MJ says, arms still crossed. It’s freezing cold outside, but she does everything she can to keep herself from shivering. She wants to look enticing, not like a drowned, waterlogged rat. “Did you want to come in for a drink?”
The man glances behind him, then looks her up and down. “I guess I could come in for a little bit.”
MJ perks up a little bit. This man has never been here before. That means he might pay more. He might buy drinks and if she takes him into the back room, she might make enough to keep some after paying Paul.
“Come in, then,” she says, giving him one of her quick, flashing smiles. “Out of the rain.”
It’s not long before he’s doing exactly what she wants him to do. He starts off at the bar, buying her one soda. He seems disgruntled about the ten dollar price, but there’s a hidden desperation that clings to him and shows MJ that he’s going to be the perfect customer. And the perfect customer e is, because he takes her to a booth and buys her sodas for an hour of conversation while he sits beside her and fingers her under the table.
She feels sick for being happy about this. But the server is quick. He comes as soon as her soda is empty and offers another, and the man just keeps buying them. All MJ has to do is let him touch her.
When he leaves, it’s after a long rant about his wife and how frustrating it is to be a parent, and MJ is left to count the empty glasses on the table. There’s ten. That’s fifty dollars for her and fifty for the bar. That, couple with the one hundred she made off the three men she took to the back, that’s a damn good night. Paul will want most of it, but if she combines with the rest of the upcoming week, she might just have her portion of rent before the month is up. Last month, Ned had to cover it, but he doesn’t know what she really does for money, so she doesn’t think he was too upset about it.
She hopes.
God, she’s a terrible person. She’s stupid for trusting Paul and she’s stupid for getting into his car every night. She’s stupid for calling him her boyfriend when in reality, he’s just a glorified pimp. There are so many reasons why she thinks she’s stupid, and that’s exactly why she can never leave this place.
There’s no room for stupid, dirt, and rotting in the real world.
One more man comes in that night, just past one AM, and he doesn’t want to buy drinks. He’s looking for…something else. So MJ takes him into the back room and gives him the something else he’s looking for. He pays her fifty bucks and she gives half of it to the bar, as she’s required to do. It kills her to hand it over knowing what she had to do to get it, but it’s the rules, so she does it anyway.
As she’s cashing out for the night, Paul’s car idling in the parking lot, she finds herself thinking about Spider-Man again. About the man who supposedly is in love with her, and she feels sad.
He wouldn’t love her if he knew who she really is.
MJ climbs into Paul’s car and hands him half of her money for the night. He takes his time counting it before leaning over to kiss her on the cheek.
“Good job tonight,” he says. “Did anyone else show up?”
“No, it was just me tonight, so I got all of the customers,” MJ says quietly. She clutches his plaid shirt around her body, huddling into it for warmth. He never turns the heat on in his car, so she’s still freezing fucking cold. She wouldn’t dare complain, though. Not unless she wants a strike to the face.
“And this was all you made?” Paul pulls a sour face. “This doesn’t make any sense. You used to have four hundred dollar nights.”
“Yeah, and now I have closer to two hundred dollar nights, if I’m lucky. It’s just the way it goes, Paul.”
Paul’s eyes blaze with bridled fury as his gaze snaps to her face. “Attitude.”
“Sorry.” MJ grits her teeth and lowers her eyes to her lap. “I’m sorry.”
Paul’s furious eyes linger on her for a moment longer before he counts her money again. “You’ve got to do better than this, babe. I’ve got bills to pay.”
“Yeah, and so do I.” MJ can’t stop the words from escaping her lips. It’s like someone’s physically reached down into her throat and yanked them out. “Ned can’t cover for me again.”
Paul lashes out. His fist catches her on the cheek and a blinding pain explodes across her face, reverberating like an echo. She gasps for air, clutching her hand to her cheek and lamenting the bruise that’s sure to purple there tomorrow. Something for her to cover with make-up. Again.
“I don’t give a fuck about your rent,” Paul says quietly. “I don’t give a fuck about anything but the money you make me. So if you want your rent paid, then I’d suggest you get down on your knees a couple more times a night so you can, hm?”
MJ’s eyes sting and she says nothing. She knows what will happen if she tries to defend herself or argue. He’ll only hit her again. So she sits there and waits for him to stop glaring at her.
He counts her money a third time. “This is fine for tonight. But you need to do a better job. This isn’t working for me. Okay?”
When she doesn’t respond, he reaches out with a quick hand and pinches his fingers around the crook of her neck and shoulder. She cries out as the agony rockets downward through her body, her shoulders coming up as if they can fend him off.
“Okay, okay, okay!” she wails. “Let go! Please!”
He pinches harder. “Answer me when I speak to you. Stop withholding.”
“I’m sorry, okay? I’ll do better. I’ll bring more.”
“Good. That’s my girl.”
His words spread over her skin, poison seeping into her body, and she looks out the window through tear-filled eyes. There was once a time where those words had made her feel good. They’d made her feel special. Now, they just make her want to be sick. She doesn’t want to be his girl.
But who else would want her now?
“I’ve got some place to be, so I’m gonna just take you home instead of to my place,” Paul says, his hand on the top of the wheel, spinning it to turn the car out of the lot. “That cool?”
“It’s fine,” she mumbles. “I have an exam tomorrow anyway, so I need to get some sleep.”
“Good luck on your exam.”
Paul’s words are almost comical. To go from berating her to beating her to wishing her luck on her exam in the same fifteen minute span is preposterous. It’s not for the first time that she feels a deep hatred for him unfurling within her chest, but there’s nothing she can do about it. She’s as trapped with him as she is at Bar Monaco. She’s a whore and a loser.
And that’s just the way it is.
“Where do you have to be?” she asks, unable to stave off the curiosity.
“What do you mean?” Paul replies, his eyes on the busy road.
“You said you have someplace to be, but it’s almost two. Where do you have to be?”
“I have business to take care of,” he says. “Business that isn’t yours. You just worry about your test, or whatever it is.”
“I’m just asking.”
He pulls out his phone and glances at the text on the screen. His thumb taps out a reply and when he speaks, it’s almost in a monotone. As if she means nothing to him.
“I will beat the ever-loving fuck out of you if you don’t stop asking. So do it again. I dare you.”
MJ exhales through her nose and looks out the window again. The streets, sidewalks, and people pass by in a blur beneath the city lights. She doesn’t know what Paul does. She doesn’t know what he does for a living, what he does for fun, or what he does at night after her drops her off at the bar. Whatever it is, it definitely can’t be legal because he refuses to talk about it. And maybe there’s a part of her that wants to know just so she’ll have some sort of power in this farce of a relationship.
When she gets home, he grabs her by the throat and kisses her so thoroughly and soundly that she has no choice but to kiss him back. She’s afraid of what will happen if she doesn’t. So even though she hates it, she engages, and she’s happy to pull back when it’s over.
“I’ll pick you up tomorrow night,” Paul says, and then he gives her an almost sour look. “Try to dress better. Maybe you’ll have a more…lucrative night.”
MJ resists the urge she has to slap him or cuss at him or do something. But there’s empty holes inside of her where her personality used to be, and she doesn’t know where those holes came from. So she does what she always does, and she agrees with him.
“Okay, Paul,” she says.
“Love you, babe.”
“I love you.”
She leaves the car on the wake of her lie, and heads into her apartment building.
MJ cries in the shower, like she always does. It’s the only place she feels safe enough to break down, and the only place where she’s unable to hide behind anything. It’s just her, the walls, and the water, and it’s the only place where she can let the rotting soil breathe. Where she can get a break from the festering and feel clean, even if just for a moment.
She tries not to think about who she used to be, because it’s never made any sense to her why there’s a version of her from before and after. Before what? She doesn’t know. All she knows is that the version of her that exists after whatever it was that scooped holes out of her spirit and emptied her out is broken, and that version is going to stay broken as long as Paul is in her life.
After her shower, she sits on the couch with Ned and watches the news. Spider-Man is in critical condition. Nobody knows if he’s going to be okay. And there’s a sickened piece of her soul that wishes she remembered him because maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s the key to what’s missing. That’s the key to what scooped her out and made her un-whole. But even if she did remember him, it doesn’t matter because who she is now is rotten.
She hopes Peter will be okay.