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  XXX Book One

  Lana Sky

  Maxim: Submit

  Maxim: Submit By Lana Sky

  Copyright © 2019 by Lana Sky

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Edited by Mickey Reed

  Proofread by Charity Chimni

  Formatting by Charity Chimni

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks so much to everyone who supported this draft along the way! Please keep in mind that this story includes dark, graphic and explicit content matter that is not suitable for readers under the age of 18—or for readers who are uncomfortable with the following subject matter: explicit sex, mentions of sexual abuse, mentions of child abuse, graphic depictions of violence, and mentions of self-harm.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  About the Author

  Also by Lana Sky

  Chapter 1

  $375. That number is the only thing on my mind as Fuckface #3 rails me from behind.

  That’s what he calls it: railing.

  If only he were actually good at it.

  Damn near bored out of its skull, my brain takes his stupid term and spins it around, making a game out of it. Rail. Railroad. There are train tracks not too far from here, actually. I can hear the distant howl of the siren riding the still night air—the de facto theme song of a small fucking town like Mayer. The lonely whistle drowns out Fuckface’s final groan as he thrusts deep, pinning me flat against an icy brick wall.

  Thank fucking god. My palms are rubbed raw and sting as I let them fall to my side. Then I wait. The bastard knows the drill: in and out. But, instead of going for his wallet, he runs a meaty hand over the back of my head, gathering my hair in his fist.

  “That was so fucking good, baby. I’ve never come so hard.”

  “Likewise,” I choke out. I even sound nice. Ish. Kinda. After all, I still have to keep the act up until I get paid. The truth is, I don’t orgasm. Ever.

  Especially not with a man who smells worse than the overflowing dumpster a few blocks down.

  When he doesn’t move, I brace my hands flat against the wall and try to shimmy out from under him—but Fuckface must have drunk more liquid courage than usual tonight. His breath fans my neck, reeking like the toilets at Barney’s after happy hour.

  “You want to show me how good it felt?” He grinds his hips against my ass, showing off his flaccid, not-much-to-brag-about-even-when-hard dick. “How about a kiss?”

  “How about an extra fifty?” I shrug him off and wrench the hem of my dress down while he staggers against the opposite wall. No more Miss Nice.

  “Pay up.” I stick my hand out.

  He spits at it. “Bitch.”

  Ugh. Considering how many “frequent flier miles” this douche-wipe has racked up over the past six months alone, one might think he’d have learned some manners by now. Or at least the common fucking decency to pay upfront.

  “You know the drill,” I tell him, making my voice hard, the way Benny taught me to. I bet no one else’s johns ever gave them this kind of shit. “Pay up.”

  Fuckface runs a hand over his gray stained t-shirt before fingering the pocket of his still open jeans. Considering what he did with those fingers only minutes ago—sloppily, I might add—it’s disgusting fucking imagery. I hope the electric company doesn’t mind the extra germs on their blood money.

  “I don’t know, baby,” Fuckface says as he reaches for his wallet and thumbs through a stack of bills. “Have you really earned this?”

  I crane my neck before I can help myself and catch a peek: fifties, fifties, fifties… He fishes out two and offers them to me.

  Fucking asshole.

  I snatch the money before he can pull it out of reach and snap my fingers impatiently. “Baby, you’re a little short.”

  Fuckface chuckles. “Why don’t you come and get it, you little bitch?”

  Well, he did ask for it. I turn and take a few steps toward the mouth of the alley. The extra distance gives me enough time to reach along my hip and draw the knife strapped to my right outer thigh.

  The dumb bastard didn’t even notice it.

  “Come back, you bitch,” he tells me, laughing. I sense him behind me, his footsteps heavy and slow. “You know you need the money.”

  He’s right. I do.

  So I stop, letting him come up behind me. I wait until he palms my ass and tries to push up against me again. After tucking the handle of the knife into my palm, I turn and jam the butt of it into the fucker’s beer gut with one hand while grabbing the wallet with the other.

  “Nice doing business with ya,” I tell him, snatching out the full amount he owes—along with a little extra for “service fees.”

  I drop the wallet while he groans behind me and leave the alley. Even on heels, I make it to the bus stop in ten minutes flat. I’m already on my way back to the city before the bastard can get his pants back up.

  The money in my hand isn’t anywhere near enough. But I’ll make it last.

  I don’t have a fucking choice.

  Chapter 2

  Everyone likes to think that their soul doesn’t carry a price tag—and sure, some lucky sons of bitches never become desperate enough to find it. The first step is having to look at yourself in the mirror and no longer seeing a person, just an object with pretty eyes. She’s worth about fifty a lay, you tell yourself—a hundred dollars tops.

  Cha-ching.

  When Benny first “scouted” me for a place in his business, the only question to leave my mouth was, “Will I get the money upfront?”

  That’s the way the cookie crumbles in this world. You’d sell your ass for a dime the moment the rent is due. Just as long as you could smell it first, feel the telltale promise of money in your hand. Hopefully it’s enough so that the rabbit-eyed kids shackled to you don’t have to eat their Cheerios on the street corner tonight. Let’s say that the kids aren’t even yours.

  That’s my life.

  There’s no use crying about it. To be fucking honest, I don’t think I have any tears left. So, when Benny calls me into his office for a “special” assignment the moment I get back from Mayer, I don’t let myself think through the potential cons. I just accept.

  “What’s the job?”

  Good old Benny wrings his fingers together. Though it doesn’t take much to make a man like him nervous. Why the hell he chose pimp as a career, I will never know. At least he doesn’t beat his girls. Sometimes, a few of us don’t try to take advantage of him—like me.

  “It’s…a little fucked up,” he says, staring down at the peeling tile floor of his office. It’s really just a spare room in a laundromat on Fifth, but he put a desk in here and even has a secretary, Grace, who answers hi
s burner phones and sometimes keeps the police off his tail with on-the-house blow jobs. “It’s not exactly legal…”

  I raise an eyebrow. “Benny, my outfit isn’t legal.” I gesture to the black, skintight dress I “borrowed” from JC Penney’s the other night. As long as I keep the tag intact, I can have the bastard smuggled back into the store before the next inventory.

  Any other night, the joke would have drawn a chuckle out of him. But Benny just sighs and drags on the lit cigarette perched at the corner of his mouth. “Not like that. This is some freaky shit, Frankie.”

  I roll my eyes. “Freaky shit? Getting fucked in an alley butt-ass naked because you can’t afford to get a drop of some loser’s cum on your dumbass dress is freaky shit.” My elbows still sting from the friction of being pressed against the brick wall while FuckFace #3 did his business. “How much does it pay?”

  Benny Ireland never shies away from talking about money. His entire profession is built upon it, for chrissakes. But, rather than lay out any solid figures, he sighs again. “There’s this guy I want you to meet. Tomorrow. Noon. It’s at a café downtown on the south side. Don’t you fucking dare be late.” He reaches into the pocket of his faded gray suit and pulls out a business card, which he places within my reach on the desk. “He can tell you more than I can.”

  “He the John?” I pick the card up between two fingers, eyeing the front of it. It’s plain. There is no wording on either side: just a single silver letter X and a phone number.

  “Don’t know,” Benny says, drawing another hit of his cig. “Don’t think so. He’s kinda old. Bald. Though it’s not like you have a type.”

  “That’s right. My type comes out of a cash register. Bills and quarters,” I say, “You know me, Ben.”

  “Damn right I do.” He puts his cigarette out in the ashtray, but his hands shake and he winds up getting more ash on the table than anywhere else. “Ever heard of the name Koslov?”

  “Is that like a country or something?”

  “I’ll take that as a no,” Benny says, rolling his eyes, but I think I hear him sigh. “Good. Trust me, you don’t want to have heard of it.”

  “Why?”

  “No reason.” He shrugs and darts his gaze to the opposite end of the room. Any other night, I’d press harder. Make him squirm.

  A night when my arms weren’t scratched to shit.

  “So what’s this guy into for you to pick me?” I demand, tucking the business card beneath my bra strap. “Brunettes? Baby faces?” It’s not like I have low self-esteem, but I do have two perfectly working eyes. Eyes that reveal a girl who is not too bad to look at, but nothing special either.

  “You want the truth?” Benny leans back against his ratty armchair and cracks his knuckles one by one. “The bastard just came in and asked me to give him the most desperate, money-hungry girl I’ve got.” He glances me over, frowning at what he sees, the prick. “You, baby, fit the bill in every fucking way.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Ben.” I turn on my heel and kick the door to his office. There’s no latch on it, so it flies open against the adjacent wall. The thud startles Grace, who’s perched on the edge of a washing machine, painting her nails pink.

  “Yikes, Frankie,” she chirps in the high-pitched drawl she uses to lure in customers. Her shtick is that creepy Lolita shit, pink baby doll dress and all. “Benny do something to piss you off?”

  I just look at her sideways and shrug. “Everybody pisses me off.”

  Grace nods slowly like I’ve just given her the answer to some million-dollar question. “Oh. Well, see you around, Frankie.”

  Well, isn’t that the truth in a nutshell: I have no choice but to come around.

  After working for a week straight, I’m still five hundred dollars short. Daisy will have to miss that fucking field trip she’s been talking about—again. All because I’m too damn tired to tack on an extra blow job or waste an extra five minutes of my goddamn life for a few more bills.

  I’m too tired.

  Too hungry—once I eat, I can think. I can plan a way to score more cash in time.

  I’ll make it up to her.

  I wonder if there’s anything left over in the fridge. Some bread to make a goddamn sandwich. A piece of toast.

  I’ll make it up to her.

  I don’t even realize I’m already home until I stagger through the front door and catch the tail end of what seems to be World War III.

  “You touch my doll again and I’ll put my fist through your damn mouth—”

  “Hey!” I slam the door behind me, marshaling all six rug rats to attention.

  The threat came from the youngest, Ainsley, who stands barely taller than my knee. It’s not too hard to see what pissed her off this time: a decapitated Barbie doll at her feet.

  The culprit appears to be Eric, the second youngest, who keeps flashing Ains his middle finger when he thinks I’m not looking. Great. Standing between them are the four oldest. Mikie’s been smoking again—I can smell him from here. Daisy has her shirt on backward, while Ollie and Ray are in the middle of a silent shoving match.

  Sighing, I throw my head back, stare up at the ceiling, and count to ten out loud. Meanwhile, the bickering dies down. Without looking, I dig into my bra and fish out the wad of cash tucked inside. Then I snap my fingers and gesture in my general direction.

  “Line up.” I look down and find Mikie, the oldest at sixteen, standing in front of me with his hand outstretched and I quickly rip off a few fifty-dollar bills. “Electric,” I tell him, pressing the money into his hands. “Drop it off on your way to school tomorrow. There’s a ten in there for lunch. Don’t forget to turn in your homework from last week too, and if I get a call from the principal tomorrow, I swear to God—”

  “Got it,” Mikie huffs, snatching for the money. “Damn it, Frankie. Chill.” Then he steps aside.

  I wave up the next two: they come as a packaged deal. “Heat,” I tell Ray and Ollie. “Don’t forget to pick up the neighbor’s recycling on the way home, either. Whoever gets the most cans gets the extra slice the next time we order pizza.”

  “Oh holy shit!” Ray exclaims before shoving Ollie out of his way.

  I have to sidestep them both in order to continue with the dispensing of the household chores. “This is for the rent stash,” I tell Daisy, shoving some of the last few bills into her hands. “Take the ten for lunch.”

  “Um, Frankie?” She looks at me, her brown upturned eyes shining and hopeful. “About the field trip…”

  Something in my chest feels tight. Fuck. I tug at the strap of my dress, but the damn sensation doesn’t go away. “Hold on.” I pry the money from her hands and count it. One hundred and fifty—every bit of the extra I stole from Fuckface # 3. To make up for it, I’ll have to work my ass off—literally—tomorrow night in order to have enough left over for the bills due at the end of the week. But what the fuck. It’s not like having almost enough matters. “Take it,” I say, tucking the money into her hands.

  She frowns. “Are you sure we can—”

  “I’ll work something out.” I wave her off and dig out my final few ones. “Milk money,” I explain while the two youngest look up and nod. The moment I hand the cash over, they immediately start shrieking over who owes who what.

  Ah, the rat race of life. It never ends. Not even here.

  “Bed. Everyone,” I command, jabbing my finger at the stairs.

  They hustle off after ten minutes of whining, and I savor the silence composed of wailing sirens and the shouts from the neighbors next door. The place is a fucking wreck. Daisy must have made dinner tonight because there’s a pan with something burned onto it soaking in the sink. The living room is a sea of book bags and loose pages of homework. Without any money to spare on bug spray, I find the roaches out in full force.

  It feels like I wear out the bottom of my heels attempting to stomp on as many as I can while I tear through the house, picking shit up. Shoving shit somewhere else. Scr
aping shit off more shit.

  When I’m elbow-deep in the middle of washing the dishes, my fingers slip on a knife and I cut myself on my wrist. Accidentally. Twice. As the blood-colored water circles the drain, only then can I finally fucking think. I hear shouting. Someone’s threatening to blind someone else with toothpaste. Someone’s crying. Someone’s slamming doors.

  The peeling walls around me form a prison. A hellhole.

  It’s all I’ve got.

  So I just keep scrubbing until the dishes are clean and the water runs down the drain. Then I take the couch for the night, facing the door just in case that bitch decides to come walking through. I consider taking the dress off, but it’s safer on me than it would be in the morning rush once the kids get up for school.

  Besides, a little blood never hurt anyone.

  Chapter 3

  I wake up after everyone’s already gone—something I don’t do too often. The house is silent when I finally crawl out from beneath the open sleeping bag someone draped over me. I find a lukewarm Pop-Tart beside a shitty cup of coffee on the end table near my head.

  Daisy.

  With a sigh, I haul myself upright and strip the dress off. Then I climb upstairs and wander through the maze of clothing spread across two bedrooms in search of a clean pair of jeans and a tee shirt. The jeans might be mine or Daisy’s. The shirt is probably Mikie’s.

  When I start to brush my teeth, I notice that it’s already wet courtesy of Ainsley, who doesn’t seem to like using her smaller, pink toothbrush. I make do anyway, and I almost feel semi-normal after a belly full of sugary pastry and one of the beers I keep hidden at the back of the fridge in a bag marked veggies.