Reese’s maroon-bodied El Camino cruised along Lincoln Boulevard, and we both draped an arm out through the open windows, savoring the cool evening air of Spring. He’d already lit a joint as soon as we hit the carnival parking lot, and was making it dance between his lips while he drummed on the steering wheel with his fingers. His taste in music was one of the only things that didn’t fit his out-and-out “white boi surfer” aesthetic — Dan Auerbach poured his soul out through the vintage car’s rattling speakers, sounding much more melancholy without the other half of his duo that made up The Black Keys.

I didn’t mind, I’d listen to just about anything that wasn’t loud, angry butt-rock after being subjected to multiple hours of Jay’s awful custom playlists on the Throat Trash stand. My ears felt plugged from the excessive volume of the speakers behind the attraction, and my throat was scratchy from the 3-ish dozen cocks that had forced their way down it during my shift. I kept trying to subtly clear it, and wishing I had a water bottle or something to soothe the sensation.

“So what time you gotta be back at the big top tomorrow?” Reese projected over the music and rushing wind, plucking the joint from his stubbled mouth and offering it to me.

“Evening again, I rarely get day-shift anymore,” I accepted the half-smoked roll and puffed it, letting the cloud expire in my lungs for a few moments before releasing it into the empty streets.

“Yeah, makes sense — day shifts are all B-squad girls. You’re too Hot for that.” He said it without looking at me, but I could see the crook of his grin even from the corner of my eye. I was again mortified at the girlish flutter the compliment caused in my belly. So juvenile. Guys called me “Hot” all the time, why was it any different when Reese said it? Maybe because he wasn’t following it with “slut” and then spitting on my face.

He hooked into the parking lot of Jack in the Box without slowing down much, and the jostling of the car bounced my braless tits around beneath the thin, black camisole I’d slipped on above my frayed jean shorts. My hair was still pulled back into a high, poofy pony, and it still had dried streaks of jizz in it, despite my having tried to scratch them Free in the Shower. He maneuvered us into the drive-thru lane and halted at the large outdoor menu board.

“Good evening how can I help you?” A bored-sounding voice crackled through the speaker below the little order-review screen.

“Yeah uh, can I get an order of tiny tacos, some bacon cheddar potato wedges, and a Sprite? Aaaaand,” he looked over at me.

“Just a strawberry shake,” I said, and he squinted his eyes as if he didn’t believe. I just shrugged and nodded — I needed something cool for my throat, and the food there wasn’t all that different from what I could have gotten back at the carnival. If the munchies hit me when I got home, I could always down a bowl of yogurt with some fruit.

Reese relayed my order, then swung us around to the pickup window and paid for everything like a true gentleman. A surly teen handed our bags through the window, and we parked in a slanted spot facing the TR!P Santa Monica music venue across the street. Huge likenesses of Hendrix, Morrison and Slash watched me plug a straw into my shake while Reese unboxed his tacos. Then he stopped abruptly.

“Whoops, first things first,” he grinned, reaching across my thighs and clicking open the glove compartment. Inside was an old-timey tin box with pictures of those yellow, loopy butter cookies on them. He snagged it, popped the lid, and pulled out a fresh joint and lighter. I shook my head at his enthusiasm, but wasn’t going to say no to another toke.

He lit up, puffed it, then passed it to me while he continued his foray into the world of miniaturized tacos. The windows were still down, and I listened to the sound of the occasional car rushing by as I peered out at the buzzing streetlights, lost in abstract thoughts.

“So, you dating anyone?” Reese popped a tiny tortilla stuffed with meat and cheese onto his tongue, looking over at me.

“Oh, nah — I’m not really the relationship type, I guess.” Sip straw. Avert eyes. Jagger judges from the wall across the street.

“For real? Guys probly ask you out all the time I bet.”

“Yeah, I guess. I mean honestly I’m usually just at work or at home. Guys at work aren’t really trying to ‘date’ and at home I’m usually sleeping,” I laughed for my own sake.

“Do you wish guys at work wanted to date?” He held his hand out, and my cheeks flushed for a moment before I realized he just wanted a turn at the spliff. I ashed it and passed it back across the center console.

“Mm, noo. They’re not the type you’d wanna settle down with, for the most part.” I didn’t want to offend by lumping him in with everyone else at the park packing a dick between their legs, but I also wasn’t expecting a romantic interrogation.

“True. Can’t imagine most dudes would want their girl working at the carnival, lotta sharing huh?” He had a thoughtful look on his face while he sucked the weed cig, but it passed like a cloud as he exhaled and took a swig of Sprite. It seemed like he may have just been genuinely curious. Herb is as likely to cause brain munchies as the belly kind. If he was trying in any way to ask me out, the pitch sailed right by me.

“You think you’ll keep working there — like, long term I mean?” He passed the cig back to me.

“I haven’t really thought about it… It’s good money, aaand it’s better than an office-“

“Ha, yeah dude fuck offices. I’ve tried that route — obvi not my thing,” he lifted one of his dreads as indication and let it fall back onto his crumb-scattered tee.

“Me neither, parents probably wish I’d do something like that, though.”

“They know what you do now?”

“Nahh we don’t really talk. They just know I’m out here making it work.”

“Yeah. Gotta eat, right?” He smirked and held up the little carton of cheesy potato wedges, but I declined, the smell making my stomach twist a bit. We chatted about music and Marcy and surfing for a while longer, until the snacks and encore joint were finished, then he chauffered me home while my eyelids weighed down on me.

We pulled up to the blue and white towers of my complex at Avalon Playa Vista, just north of the airport, and I thanked him for the ride, grabbing my clothing bag and empty shake cup.

“I’ll see you back there tomorrow?” He leaned across the passenger seat as I held the door.

“Yeah, def,” I quirked my lip and waved, tossing the door shut and watching him motor off.

My body was a thousand pounds as I collapsed onto the puffy white bedspread of my mattress, and I fully intended to get my Ass up and Shower again before officially going to sleep. But exhaustion won the fight, and I woke up drooling into my arm at 4am.

“Fuck…” I lifted my head groggily, glancing around the darkened room, and ultimately decided to just crawl under the sheets, twisted clothing, crusty hair and all.

*****

When the sun finally reached me through the drawn blinds and death-like burial of comforters, it was nearly noon. My phone was face down on floor, murdered by neglect, and my mouth tasted like old strawberries and sour dick. Priority numero uno became a tall glass of water as I smacked my lips disdainfully.

I stumbled into the recently-renovated kitchen and filled a cup from the door of the fridge, slugging it down like a desert wanderer, or coma patient, before blinking hatefully into the sunlight issuing in from my patio. I’d never been a morning person. And to me, morning was whatever time you woke up on any given day.

The stove clock said 11:46, still lots of time before work, but no real plans to fill it. I figured I could at least check that Marcy was still alive, so I fished a charger cable out from my couch cushions and plugged it into my rectangular pocket-window to the world, before dragging myself to the Shower, at long last.

My thick, brown ringlets were a stubborn tangle, and I winced as I drowned them in conditioner and finger-combed them back to sanity. The little room was mired in the scent of mango body wash, and that at least restored some life to the well-used husk I was still inhabiting from the night before. I sang little catches of Auerbach’s melodies, and started to think about breakfast. Or lunch, more realistically.

“Morning sleepyhead,” Marcy replied to my message of 3 skull emojis.

“Need ramen,” was all I typed back, and she replied with a thumbs up.

I couldn’t be bothered with the upkeep of an actual car, but my apartment was only a 20-minute ride on my electric longboard from Venice, and the weather was great that time of year. So I slipped into some track shorts and a sports bra, tossed my wallet and phone into my drawstring bag, and hit the pavement, freshly-cleaned curls catching the wind behind me.

Lunch traffic was picking up as I zipped by the Whole Foods and rounded the corner past LA Fitness. I had a membership there, but mostly relied on good genetics and somewhat careful eating to stay thin. Well, thin enough. My tummy wasn’t as flat as Marcy’s, but she was a freak of nature. No matter how much she ate, she never gained more than a couple pounds. And she shed them in her sleep, forever retaining the body of a recent high school grad.

I got a few pervy honks along Admiralty Way before picking up the bike path and following that to the Ocean Ave area. Marcy was sitting out front of the ramen spot under one of the umbrellas, tapping her foot and scrolling her phone in the sunshine. She had on a cute little teal dress that showed her perky nipples clearly against the lightweight fabric.

“It lives,” she said, shading her eyes as she glanced up at the sound of my approaching board.

“Fuck you,” I slid to a stop, before picking the board up and crouching to hug her. “Noodles. Please please noodles.”

“Alright alright, it’s not goin’ anywhere,” she lifted herself dramatically from her seat and we jingled in through the front door. 10 minutes later I was slurping down Spicy Tonkotsu and reverse-blowing on each hasty mouthful.

“You know it’s still edible when it won’t give you third-degree burns, right?” Marcy picked up a huge pork gyoza and eyeballed it closely.

“Ah-m stah-vring,” I said through a superheated mouthful of broth and softboiled egg, fanning my lips. I don’t know why I always got the spicy kind, I was kind of a wuss when it came to spice. But the regular Tonkotsu just wasn’t as exciting. It was like comparing fizzy soda to plain old water.

“Anyway, Kassie called out for tonight,” Marcy finished her inspection and took a big bite of her dumpling.

“Ah-w mah-n,” I dribbled some broth over my lip, catching it quickly with a napkin.

“Yeah — Rod texted. Guess she woke up with a cold.” I rolled my eyes at the convenience, but I also understood. Our first few weeks after clean-up duty were no cake walk either. It’s almost like you have to build up your sexual calluses, as unsexy as that sounds. Girls often came and went in the span of a few weeks. But there was always fresh young Pussy looking to earn easy money on the West coast. And when Rod landed his ringers, he took decent care of them.

I had tried to quit during my third week as an official employee, after a guy bit my nipple on Motorboat. But Rod talked me down, and there was a nice bonus in my check that Friday, to smooth things over. The man knew how to make his money, and how to keep it coming in. That much, I couldn’t deny.

“So who’s filling in?” I asked, mouthful swallowed and tongue tingling with the spicy afterglow. Marcy looked at me over the tops of her clear frames. “Who’s filling… No…”

“Yup.”

“I thought she wasn’t allowed on Thrash anymore!”

“Desperate times.”

“But no one’s gonna use her, they’ll be on us all night!”

“Mhm.”

I dropped my head in defeat. Paloma was a fat-assed Latina who’d been working the carnival for maybe 8 months, and in that time she’d managed to draw complaints from almost every attraction. We wondered why Rod even kept her on staff — but there were a handful of big spenders that would come asking after her every week, without fail. They didn’t care that she couldn’t suck dick without gagging horribly, or that her Pussy was ugly, or that she had rolls on her sides — they were just there for some authentic, grade-A, Latina bubble-butt. And they knew they could count on her being at the Anal Adventure booth.

It had a really dopey cowboy gimmick to it, where the girls were tied over springy little horse carvings with their assholes presented at crotch height, and the guests could come “ride” them while shooting cap guns at blow-up dolls dressed like indians. It was sort of the last resort for Paloma, since she couldn’t really do anything else — but apparently she was being brought out of semi-retirement to fill in for Kassie.

” Why can’t Brianna do it?”

“Vacation.”

“Michelle?”

“Flu.”

“Kimmie?”

“Quit last week.”

I let my head fall back from my shoulders and growled at the ceiling panels. If the guys at Thrash didn’t want to deal with Paloma’s weak-Ass, shallow throat, they’d decide to wait for a turn with the other options at the booth. My throat was just beginning to feel better from the previous night. But it looked like my voice would be gone by Wednesday, instead of Thursday, if Kassie wasn’t coming back for a bit. What could we do but suck it up, though, literally?

After lunch we decided to browse the nearby marina slips, hunting for hunky captains with sailboats that could whisk us away from all our worries. But all we got were some guys blasting by on jetskis yelling for us to show our tits. I figured why not and flipped my bra up at them, but the ungrateful pricks didn’t even cruise up for a closer look or offer us a ride.

After that we kicked our legs over the side of the Lagoon bridge for a while, not far from the carnival. My phone said 4:13, and I knew somewhere Reese would be blazing it in a few minutes, probably by himself. We still had an hour and change before we needed to head for the shack, and that’s when a very unexpected encounter took place.

“Hey there, ain’t you girls from the carnival?” The deep voice came from over my shoulder, and we both turned.

“Uh, yeah we work there,” I said to the beer-bellied cowboy wearing a white yoke button-up, tucked into a pair of faded, straight-leg jeans. His goatee was sporting some gray hairs, and the pointed toes of his brown boots were all scuffed up.

“Beg your pardon, I’m Lenny — was at y’all’s stand last night and, well I was just darned impressed,” he stuffed his hands into his pockets with the compliment, puffing up his chest.

“Oh, ha — thanks,” I replied awkwardly. Somehow his politeness made the whole situation even more uncomfortable.

“Listen I uh, have some friends who do like, videos, for that kinda thing and… Well I just wanna give y’all my card, in case you might be interested.” He slipped a couple of gold-embossed, glossy black business cards from his pocket that read “Randall Ent. Productions” and handed them to us.

“I thought your name was Lenny,” Marcy said, turning the card over.

“Oh it is, Randall is my buddy’s name — well his last name. First is Dill.”

“Dill Randall,” Marcy intoned.

“That’s right.” Lenny rocked on his heels, dragging the moment on longer than any of us wanted him to. “Ah, well, anyway — I’ll leave ya to it. But I hope to hear from you girls! Or at least see ya back on the beach sometime,” he laughed awkwardly and tipped a hat that wasn’t there, before turning and crossing the remainder of the bridge.

“Did… we just get asked to do Porn?” I turned the card so the gold letters glinted in the afternoon sun.

“Yup, by a cowboy,” Marcy held her card up to the light, as if that could help expose it as a counterfeit.

*****

“GhLLARGHH–KHF-KHF…gghhGGHH…” Eddy shook his head while he watched Paloma disappoint yet another customer on the Thrash stand. It wasn’t just the gagging — we all gagged, even Marcy — it was the way she squirmed and thrashed like she was being murdered that ruined the fun for guests. That, and her saggy buttermilk tits.

We hadn’t even reached our first break yet, and already several guys had literally stopped fucking her face to wait for a turn with me or Marcy. And Eddy was amenable enough not to make them get back in line. They just waited and stroked their dicks until one of our mouths was available, then they plunged in roughly to finish up. I didn’t know which was worse, having to do her job for her, or knowing that I was essentially swallowing a bunch of her spit straight off the guest’s unsatisfied dick.

The chunky Latina was always wearing too much makeup, and it streaked down her face in teal and magenta streams as she coughed and drooled onto her thick thighs. Her customer wasn’t even that big — when he rammed his dick to the base against my lips he was still just barely Cumming in my throat. I swallowed continuously until he pulled out, then gasped for breath and looked around with watery eyes.

Even through the teary blur I could see how long the line was at the base of the steps. Why the fuck did it have to be so busy on that night of all nights? The cleaner girls were even having trouble keeping up between shifts, and I’d seen them hustling around the sandy walkways with buckets and spray bottles clutched to their bouncing chests.

“NEXT,” Eddy hollered, beckoning with his good hand. He usually kept the other one stuffed in his pocket, stiff and gnarled as it was from some kind of accident at his previous job. All he would say when asked about it was how worker’s comp is a bunch of bullshit.

A dopey-looking college kid with big ears climbed the steps and looked around at his choices. Marcy was getting her neck pistoned sloppily on the center cushion, so it was either me or the fatty. The kid unzipped and cut toward me, and I cussed under my breath before opening up.

“Alright, chickadees — go fly,” Eddy said as he fumbled singlehandedly with the wrist straps for our first break a little later. He was a decent guy, if a bit cranky. And he never fucked with us, like sexually, which I appreciated. We hobbled down the steps behind Paloma as the boards creaked beneath her feet, and some guys in line sniggered at the sight of her. I didn’t like her, but somehow I didn’t like them even more.

“I’m gonna swing by Rod’s office, wanna come?” Marcy’s forehead was a lopsided checkerboard of recent cumshots, trailing up into her poofy hair. She swiped some of it from her eyebrow as she spoke.

“What the hell else am I gonna do?” I shrugged, plucking a pube from my tongue that had been driving me crazy for the past 20 minutes. We hadn’t seen where Paloma wandered off to — presumably she would hide out in the Shack until our break was over.

I followed Marcy past the Vogels’ tent, which had a performance scheduled for the following night. The schedule at that point was Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays — and I wondered how Mrs. Vogel was able to withstand two consecutive nights of being folded like origami and fucked like a meatpie. Must have been a German thing, based on the Porn I’d “researched.”

Rod’s office was a little air-conditioned box near the ticket booth at the front entrance, and he was usually in there when he wasn’t walking the grounds to check on everyone. We knocked on the thin, aluminum door and heard him yell for us to come in with that thick, Balkan accent of his. He was leaned back in a metal folding chair, with his feet up on the cheap wooden desk that held his computer. On the screen, a soap opera in a foreign language carried on dramatically.

“My favorite Marcy, what you need my girl?” He rolled his r-sounds as he spread his arms, jowels dark with graying stubble. He looked like a washed-out Wall Street businessman in his loosely buttoned, off-white collared shirt and wrinkled gray slacks. And his hair needed cutting, unintentional bangs swooping sweatily across his forehead above his thick, dark eyebrows.