The lights in the parking lot of a diner at three in the morning buzzed with effort. On the outer edge of a parking lot, on the curb, a man named Animal Valdez was packing a joint. He was the only one around and enjoyed his quiet time. He was an exuberant sort, who got excited by the smallest of distractions, so he always forgot how nice it was to just sit and smoke alone.
Animal had just finished working and was still in his clothes, a pink cropped T-shirt, faded denim shorts, and a white fur coat. His ears were full of earrings, his lips packed with gloss, and his curls were rather unkempt from being grabbed on and pulled all night.
Animal was a streetwalker. He roamed the city up and down its sidewalks until someone solicited him for his company, and he was rather popular. He was the only male hooker in his area, though he wasn’t really sure if he would call himself a man entirely. He always felt like he existed a bit to the left of men, but he didn’t mind being referred to as one. Still, he would rather smoke a joint alone in an empty parking lot than hang out with his friends at the bar. He looked at the world through kaleidoscope eyes; things were so much more vibrant to him, and he didn’t have any friends that understood that. Until that night, Animal had never had a real friend at all.
An engine revved down the street. It spooked Animal. He turned around quickly, joint lit in his mouth, to see a pink Mercedes speeding down the road. The car approached his spot and made a sharp turn into the parking lot of the diner. Animal exhaled smoke as the car backed into a parking space right next to him. He stared at the car, wondering who would come out. He had never been told it wasn’t polite to stare.
A woman in pink heels stepped out of the car. In fact, everything she was wearing was pink: her dress, her stockings, her nails, and her jewelry. She had even dyed her hair and her eyebrows pink. The only things that weren’t pink were her eyes, which were hazel. She was easily recognizable. Animal had seen her walking up and down the street that night. She had given him nasty looks, so he smiled at her. He always thought it was best to be nice to people, even if they were mean to you. The woman slammed her door and put her hands on her hips, looking down at him with an irritated expression.
“Do you want some of the J?” Animal asked her, holding out his joint. She snatched it from him and took a puff. “What’s your name?”
“Kandi,” she said, exhaling smoke. Her voice was lighter and sweeter than she’d imagined. “Has no one told you that’s my street? I thought you worked over on 12th. You can’t just change streets like that.” Animal shrugged.
“12th Street got boring,” Animal said, noticing that the mouthpiece joint had pink lipstick on it. He was happy about that, and he pretended she had given him a kiss. “They closed down a popular restaurant so there isn’t enough traffic anymore, anyway.”
“You know a lot of the girls don’t like that you do whatever you want,” Kandi said. He offered her the joint, and she looked at him for an extremely long time before taking it. “But you’re intruding on my space, and I’d like you to move.”
“Okay,” Animal said, shrugging. Kandi opened her mouth to say something, but she realized she had nothing to say. Her posture relaxed, and she looked at Animal with concern, though she tried not to show too much concern if she could help it.
“Okay,” Kandi said, suspiciously. “I’m glad we agree.”
The parking lot was quiet. Only one car swished past on the road. Animal smoked his joint and stared at Kandi, who stared back because her hazel eyes were as big as his own. She noticed one of them was green and the other was blue. She looked around at the parking lot, where only three other cars sat parked up at the front. Animal was sitting rather far back, away from the diner, and had a small pink backpack with him.
“Which ride is yours?” Kandi asked, thinking maybe she could bully him about his car.
“None of them,” Animal said. “I don’t have a car.” Kandi raised her eyebrows.
“Geez, okay,” Kandi said, suddenly feeling too guilty. “Um, so, do you want to get food?”
“Absolutely,” Animal said with a grin. His two favorite things in the world were food and sex. “Finish this joint with me?” Kandi nodded, and she sat down on the curb with him. She hadn’t spoken to him once the entire night until now. She hadn’t expected him to be so friendly. People weren’t friendly to her, but mostly because she had lost her friendliness over the years herself.
“So, I know this is a weird question, but I’ve heard your name is Animal. Is that real?” she asked. She was bad at ice-breakers because she asked the questions on her mind, and sometimes they didn’t always make people comfortable. He didn’t make her feel comfortable either, but no one made her feel comfortable right away, not since she had been young and ignorant of what happened in the real world to women as clueless as she had been once.
“Yes,” he said escort bayan bursa to her with a simple nod. People had asked him that question many times his entire life. “You can call me Annie if it makes you uncomfortable. It does for some people.”
“Annie is a cute nickname, but I think Animal is a cool name, too,” Kandi said thoughtfully. “People think Kandi is a stage name or something, too, but it’s just my name, and I just like it.” Animal nodded.
“You get me,” he said flirtatiously. She punched him in the arm. He giggled and passed her the joint. “Joke’s on you. I enjoy being hit.”
“Oh, okay, so you’re a freak,” Kandi said. “That means I can bully you, right?”
“Only if you want me to get a big fat crush on you,” Animal said, puffing the joint.
“I plan on it,” Kandi teased. “I want you to pay for my meal.”
“Yes, ma’am, I love a woman in charge,” Animal said. His voice had a bit of a melody to it that Kandi liked. Animal stomped out the joint, which had reached its end. “Let’s go inside?”
“Yes, please, it’s so fucking cold,” she answered, standing up. Animal took off his white fur coat and gave it to her. She took it because it looked incredibly warm, and it very much was. It smelled like milk and honey body soap. She recognized the scent. “Thanks.”
“Thanks for sitting down and smoking with me,” he told her. “Not many people do.”
“Why not?” Kandi asked. “You have a unique reputation, but you don’t seem mean.”
“I couldn’t really tell you,” Animal said. “I stayed with this woman named Camille when I left home, and she told me I have problems connecting with people because I didn’t get to when I was a kid. I spent most of my life in a cage, you know? I never went to school. I barely know how to read. Oh, can you help me read the menu, by the way? I usually ask the servers, but you’re here.”
“Yeah, I’ll help you read the menu,” Kandi said, a bit shocked by what she had just heard. Animal was an open book, so he didn’t mind sharing, even if it was a little too much. People rarely told Kandi vulnerable things like that. She wasn’t one to tell people much or get to know them more than she needed to, but she understood some people were just that way. “I’m, um, I’m really sorry that happened to you. I grew up in the countryside, so I get the seclusion part of it, at least, but my parents loved me. Well, when I was a kid, anyway. Your parents are sickos, it sounds like. Like sick in the head.”
“Yeah, they were some nasty people,” Animal agreed, though most of his childhood was fuzzy, like white noise on a television. “I don’t remember a lot, though, so I’m okay.”
“I think that’s the opposite of okay,” Kandi said. “But I haven’t gone to therapy for my traumas either, so I’m not judging you.”
“Thank you for not judging me,” Animal said. He had a sparkle in his eyes, mostly because Kandi’s jewelry was reflecting into them. He was also glad to have some company that wasn’t paying to sleep with him, even if a part of him wanted to sleep with her. His libido was high and arousal came easily, and Kandi was beautiful, especially all wrapped up in his fur coat. He wanted to get in the jacket with her, but he didn’t want to scare her off. He was forward, but he had people tell him about three times a week that he could be too forward.
Animal opened the diner door for Kandi. Golden chimes made a slight tune on the way in, and Animal brushed at them to make them chime again. Kandi approached the counter, where an individual with half a shaved head, and a simple nametag that said DEAN, looked at her, and then at Animal playing with the chimes behind her. Kandi looked at him, too. The host placed two menus on the counter.
“Seat yourselves, wherever you’d like,” Dean said, astounded by all of Kandi’s pink. “We won’t have a very hard time finding you.”
“Thanks,” Kandi said without a smile. She took the menus and began walking into the dining room. “Come on, Animal.” The host looked at them strangely as Animal followed Kandi without protest.
Kandi and Animal sat on opposite sides of a booth. When Kandi sat, her breasts bounced, and Animal found that exciting. Kandi took off his coat and laid it next to her, looking back at him to see him staring at her cleavage, lost in a daydream. She snapped in his face and he sat straight up, looking dead into her eyes.
“If you need something to stare at, look at the menu,” Kandi said.
“But I can’t read,” he said, batting his eyelashes.
“Be a big boy and sound out the letters,” Kandi told him, looking back at the menu. “If you see a pretty picture, I’ll tell you what it is.”
Animal was good and looked at the menu. He knew a lot of shorter words, but the larger ones intimidated him, so he looked at the pictures instead, like Kandi had said he could.
“I want a grilled cheese,” he said, decidedly. “And chocolate milk. And a waffle.”
“Would you be cool if I got pancakes and a strawberry shake?” Kandi asked.
“You can have anything bursa sinirsiz eskort you want,” Animal said. “It’s important to eat things you like. It releases happy chemicals.” Kandi thought about it for a moment.
“In that case, can I also have chicken tenders and fries?”
“Oh, that’s a great idea. I want chicken with my waffles,” Animal said. He swung his legs underneath the table. Now and then, he tapped Kandi’s leg with his shoe. She kicked him back at a point.
“You’re gonna get my stockings dirty,” Kandi said articulately. Animal smiled and poked her again. She kicked him harder, and he just giggled. Ha had a very high tolerance to pain.
“I clean my shoes with a toothbrush, they’re not dirty,” Animal said. “I like to keep myself and my things clean. It feels good to wash up.”
“That makes me happy to hear,” Kandi said. She was glad to hear his hygiene was good. It gave him some brownie points. “Clean boys are good boys.” Animal smiled and tossed his hair around a bit, glad to receive any bit of praise. He received little praise for anything outside of sex. It was why he kept the job he had. Most day jobs didn’t want to hire him, anyway, because he had a record of getting fired for sexual misconduct. Sometimes Animal wished he could have seen the camera footage from his previous jobs. Every instance was consensual, and all he remembered were good feelings – before he got fired, that is.
Dean, the host, walked up to them. They were tired; it was early and the other two tables occupied the only server working, but there were only three tables at a time that night, so Dean smiled big at Animal and Kandi.
“Alright, what can we get started for you guys?” Dean asked. They had their notepad at the ready. Animal stared at it. They looked at him, at their notepad, then back at him, who met their eyes. “Um, are you alright? Sir?”
“Can I have a piece of paper to draw on?” Animal asked, seriously, as if the matter was very important to him. Dean looked at Kandi and she gestured for Dean to offer some paper. Dean flipped to a blank page, tore it out, and gave it to him. He pointed at all the pens in her apron pocket. “Can I have a pen?”
“I can get you some crayons,” Dean said, protective of their pens. They were ballpoint and very expensive. “They’re for the kid’s menu, but we’ll make an exception.”
“What colors are they?” Animal asked.
“Red and blue, usually?”
“Good enough, I can make purple with that,” Animal said, having hoped there would be a pink. Pink was his favorite color. It was another reason Kandi was growing more and more enchanting as time went by.
“I’ll definitely go get those for you when I ring in your order, or are we just starting with drinks?” Dean asked, flipping back to their original page.
“We’re ready,” Kandi said. “The weirdo sitting across from me is getting chicken and waffles, chocolate milk, and a grilled cheese.”
“Actually, can I have a chocolate shake?” Animal asked, tapping Kandi again with his shoe. She shot him a warning look. It tempted him to do it again.
“Never mind, it’s gonna have a chocolate shake,” she said.
“No worries at all,” the host said, crossing off something on her list and adding something else. “And you, miss?”
“I’m going to have the chocolate chip pancakes, a strawberry shake, chicken tenders, fries, oo, and some buttered toast with cheesy scrambled eggs if you could,” Kandi said, taking Animal’s menu and folding it up on top of hers. Dean took them with a smile, though they knew the chef would throw a bitch fit about how much food they had ordered. “Could I have one of those back, actually? I will want dessert.” Dean gave her one menu back.
“We’ll have everything right out,” Dean said, going back to the counter to ring in the order.
“You like to eat?” Animal asked Kandi, who looked at him out of the side of her eyes.
“Work makes me hungry,” Kandi said plainly, flipping through the menu to eye the desserts.
“Me too,” Animal agreed with a nod. He was glad. He never understood pretty women who freaked out about how many calories were in their food when they already ate so little. He believed rather strongly that anyone who looked good thin would look even better with fifty extra pounds on them.
He tapped her stocking again, but lightly. She sighed, exasperated.
“Give me your hand,” she said, holding out her own. Animal gingerly placed his hand in hers, finding the moment romantic. She smacked him on his hand, which stung and turned red. It only hurt a little, but it still shocked him. They met eyes, and she looked stern. “Stop kicking me. I’m serious.”
Kandi gave Animal back his hand after he nodded, understanding. He rubbed the top of it, where it was red, and found the stinging a pleasurable feeling. It reminded him of being spanked or slapped, which were also feelings he enjoyed. He understood they were punishments for bad behavior, but he enjoyed them, even escort bayan outside of sexual contexts. He tried not to show it and pouted at Kandi instead. She rolled her eyes. Animal looked down at his shoes and took them off using his own feet. Kandi eyed him shifting around and was curious when she looked at him. He tapped her stockings, but he was just in his fuzzy socks.
“Did you take your shoes off?” Kandi asked, surprised. She almost told him to put them back on, but she liked the fuzziness of his socks. She slipped out of her heels, her feet covered now by just her translucent pink stockings. “Put your feet over here. I want to feel your socks.”
Animal stretched his legs out as close to Kandi as they would get and she felt up his socks with her dainty feet. He brushed up her leg with one of his feet because he also liked the way her stockings felt.
“Where did you get these?” Kandi asked, blushing a little.
“At Harriet’s Boutique,” Animal told her, feeling positive feelings. “I got them on a discount because the lady at the register was one of my past clients.”
“Did she give you the discount before or after the sex?” Kandi asked.
“In between,” he answered. “I thought she was so nice for doing that, so I ate her out in one of the dressing rooms.” Kandi raised her brows, impressed.
Dean cleared their throat. Animal and Kandi jumped in their seats because they hadn’t known the host was there. Dean had seen the couple playing footsie under the table and had walked in on their conversation, but tried to ignore it because they had walked in on worse. They once had to kick someone out of the restaurant for fondling their husband in his pants, however, so they didn’t like things to escalate too much in their diner. That couple had been the only ones in the restaurant, granted, but Dean refused to clean cum off the underside of the table. Dean smiled at Animal and Kandi. Animal smiled back at them while Kandi tucked her hair behind her ears and slipped back into her heels.
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to put your shoes back on,” Dean said. They carried a small brown serving tray with two milkshakes. They placed the strawberry one in front of Kandi but withheld Animal’s drink until he put his shoes on. He didn’t want to, but he did it anyway because he realized he wasn’t getting his drink until he did. Satisfied, Dean handed him his milkshake and a 2-pack of crayons. Animal forgot all about his shoes, immediately opening the pack. Dean looked at Kandi. “I’ll be back with your guys’ food.”
“Thanks,” Kandi told them. Dean walked away and Animal worked on a crayon rendition of his milkshake, which was in a very fancy glass. He loved the milkshake glasses here. If they were smaller, he’d probably have taken one home by now. Kandi sipped her own, watching him focus on the details of the glass. His drawing was very crude, but it still mattered to him. He proudly slid it over to Kandi when he was done, and she laughed.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh,” Kandi said, composing herself again. Animal looked at her like he was waiting for her feedback. “I love it. I like the smiley face you drew on the cherry, even though there aren’t cherries on top of our milkshakes.”
“In a perfect world, there is,” Animal said, matter-of-factly. Kandi nodded in agreement. She loved candied cherries. “I think you’re from a perfect world, too, because in my perfect world, everything is pink.” Kandi felt shy. He had said something that made her feel close to home.
“Mine too,” she said, twirling the straw around in her milkshake. “I’ve been pink for a long time, and I think I’ll be until the day I die.”
“Then you can have a perfect pink funeral with balloons and a shiny casket.” Kandi scoffed.
“Do you even know what a funeral’s like?” she asked.
One of Animal’s fuzzy memories knocked on the door of his brain. Behind the door, eleven-year-old Animal was in his backyard with a shovel, digging a hole. His father had gotten into an argument with his mother, a horrible one, the worst argument they had ever gotten into, and Animal was burying his mother because his father didn’t want to deal with it. Animal was just glad to be out of the cage. His mother had done nothing but abuse him his whole life. The only reason Animal cried was that it rained and his father told him he was a lazy piece of garbage for not digging the hole fast enough. He made him finish doing it in the rain. Animal had never felt so filthy in his life, so he vowed to take any opportunity he could to be clean. He closed the memory door, hoping he’d never see it again, and came back to reality. Kandi looked at him, concerned because he had stared into the space in front of him for a solid sixty seconds. She was about to ask him if he was okay, but he perked back up like someone had flipped a switch on in his head.
“Never been, but aren’t they supposed to like parties?” he asked, chipper as usual.
“Not usually,” Kandi said, still worried. “At least not here. I think in other countries it is. Are you okay, by the way? You zoned out for a minute there.”
“Just letting a memory pass through,” he said, taking a sip of his milkshake. “My brain is like a train station, but I’m an awful conductor, or whoever runs the railroads, so the trains go wherever they want.”