Sitting opposite Ashleigh in the small booth seemed natural enough... like they might have enough in common for this to be a comfortable meal, at least, not some smarmy business dinner where she had to portray something, play a character to earn trust, reveal secrets, or simply get closer to someone else.  She had been many things in many places... a devout Christian to get friendly with a local parishioner with a collection of fine art.  A small-arms dealer to make a trade with a cholo who was looking to add kevlar rounds to his arsenal-- that was a hell of a job.  An exotic dancer with a thing for bald men-- especially bald men with multiple overseas companies and America's largest collection of Rolex watches.<br/><br/>But here, at this cafe, she was never anyone but "Iz", and nobody ever asked what she did for a living.  This, and a few other places in the city, she wasn't anybody-- much less anybody that someone would come looking for.<br/><br/>She felt for the briefest moment like Ashleigh was doing more than just 'size her up.'  The tough routine was a bit irksome, but she let it go for now.  Who could expect less from a girl whose living in the class of people most commonly missing, assaulted, addicted, or murdered... the most free, the most enslaved, the most common and the least noticed except by those who trade in vice.  The young street-person was a valuable commodity for illicit trade, and armor was a necessity of survival.<br/><br/>"Well I don't have any dick for you to suck, not for me or otherwise."  She sipped the black coffee that mutton-Lee-Jones brought, gave him a gentle wink in thanks.  "But that doesn't mean you're not a whore.  Not yet anyway."  She shrugged.  "It's only a matter of time and resignation."<br/><br/>She lifted her dark eyes, unzipped the black leather coat and shrugged it off.  Her gold-hued arms were lean and toned, not some bull-dyke's hamhocks that would split a door open.  It was hard to see where her strength come from before, but she was certainly no dainty flower.<br/><br/>"This is the part where I convince you to get a shit job flipping burgers or selling t-shirts at one of these shit bodegas.  The job goes great but you never get a raise and you eventually settle out for ends on someone's needle, get knocked up by whoever-the-fuck you can and squeeze them out like puppies for a check each month.  Right?"<br/><br/>She was wearing a sleeveless top-- black, tight over what had to be a decent c-cup, v-necked and shimmering like a silk blend where her silver and turquoise necklace dangled near the tip of her cleavage.<br/><br/>"Or maybe I tell you that Jesus is gonna save you, and you start screaming at people on the street to get his favor."  Her dark eyes flashed, and her voice remained even... this was not some speech she had worked up... the words were rolling out, coursing over the lives she'd watched cave in.  "You beat people with bibles by day, and suck off your fellow apostles by night, and you convince yourself it's God's work.  Finally one day you might just get out of there by marrying a failed college jock who tells you that you need to have as many babies as possible to fuel the fires.  You do it, brainwashed as fuck, and at least you won't have to think about all the ways that God has fucked you over."  Her lips, the color of a wine's stain on white satin, curled into a tight smile.  "But that's not it."<br/><br/>She leaned back, set the coffee cup on the table, and looked askance at the young woman across from her.  "I could go on.  Most of the faces I'm seeing in my mind right now?  The last time I saw them was in mugshots and missing posters, babe.  I'm just sharing the good ones."  She trailed her nails over the whorls on the laminate, the simulated wood-grain.  "The real question is... what do<i>you</i>want?  You're<i>not</i>stupid.  You can pull cash all night and get by, but you know that the laws of probability will catch up.  Everything happens eventually.  You're just going through your eventually's faster than most."