1 Chapter 1

My name’s Jimmy. I’ve just turned thirty-nine, though people tell me I don’t look a day over thirty-two. Just as well really. I work the streets. I also make more money than the average Joe pushing a pen day after day, so in the end his life becomes no more interesting than a battery chicken’s.

I’ve been walking these same city streets for years, almost since I left high school. Education didn’t really work out for me. At least not the type they give you in school. I learnt more on the streets than I ever did locked up in a bloody classroom. Teachers never taught me how to defend myself against a drugged up john who wants my mouth and my arse, but who doesn’t want to pay for the privilege. Teachers never taught me to get the money first, before I deliver my service. I had to learn those things the hard way, two or three times, actually. Life on the streets is tough, but if you keep your eyes and ears open a guy can do pretty well.

I guess I’ve always been a loner. Growing up I never had friends and after a while I never wanted any. Can’t miss what you’ve never had. Even now I know people, but I never let them get too close. I like my own space and it’s a good thing because there’s a lot of it on the streets, especially after dark. I can walk and walk and walk and never have to say a hello I don’t mean, or smile when I don’t feel like it. People leave me alone and I leave them alone, unless they’ve got cash. I can force a smile for cash. I can force almost anything for cash.

Tonight I’m wearing a pair of jeans I lifted from a display bin outside a second- hand shop. They fit really well. A little too tight, perhaps, but that’s an advantage. They make my bubble butt look firmer and give the appearance I’m hung like an ox. The T-shirt I stole from a trick who short-changed me. I’d put it on by mistake. He’d got a sudden attack of the guilts, pushed a handful of notes into my hand, and then pushed me out the door of his hotel room. I counted it up and he was a twenty down. Didn’t bother me. The shirt I left him with was old and reeking like a dishcloth. Now I have a new one. White and washed and smelling like spring. My head is shaved. Luigi down at the barber shop did it for a tenner. Great. I don’t have to worry about fucking around with combs and gel and shit like that. Guys like running their hands over it. I don’t know. Maybe it gives them a thrill to feel the roughness of my scalp. They sure do like me rubbing it over their arseholes. Must be the tickle and sting of the bristles.

I’ve got four piercings and three tattoos. I figure that’s enough until I strike it rich. I’ve got both my nipples pierced and my ears. I wear gold rings in all my piercings. I’ve got a tatt of a flaming skull over my left pec, one of a demon with a giant cock on my left upper arm, and a merman on my right upper arm. Don’t know why I chose them. Just appealed to me at the time. But I do like the water. I love the beach. Sometimes I catch sight of the merman in a shop window or a hotel mirror and wish it was me. Imagine that! Being able to swim anywhere I wanted. Maybe that’s why I chose it. Freedom. I’m all about freedom.

My body’s in good shape, deeply tanned from living under the sun, and ripped. Not an ounce of fat on this bod. All the walking I do, the occasional bit of running (for my life), and, naturally, all the fucking, keeps me in great shape. I walk past gyms and laugh at the poor dickheads paying a fortune for a body I got just from living my life. Living hard has its benefits.

* * * *

“Hey! How much?”

I look across the road—some barrel-bellied twit in a cheap suit is waving a fifty at me. He doesn’t stand a fucking chance. Just because I make a living from selling my arse doesn’t mean I don’t have any self-respect. Some fat fucker flapping a fifty at me appeals to me about as much as cancer.

“Hey buddy! Hey! I’m talking to you!”

I walk on.

“Ya fuckin’ faggot!”

I laugh.

You’re the one desperately waving a fifty at me and I’m the fuckin’ faggot?

I keep walking. I lift a hot dog from a vendor while he’s bending down to get more serviettes.