on a pregnant hooker. He’s a crafty businessman who never misses an opportunity to make more money.
Oh, yeah, I’ll take care of Sally and her baby. I’ll take real good care of her brat and never let it out of my sight. She’ll earn back every dime she’s cost me and then some.
An evil grin spreads across his face.
Damn naive pussy. Don’t know what the hell she’s just handed me. She’s gonna find out—soon enough.
The remaining three months of Sally’s pregnancy pass by quickly. She suffers through withdrawals, but feels healthy and has a radiant glow by the end of winter. She continues to sell her body, attracting a whole new clientele who are only too eager to have sex with a pregnant whore.
On Sally’s twentieth birthday, one month prior to her baby’s due date, she poses a question to Angel, “How about we become family-of-choice.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, there’s family, which you can’t get rid of and then there’s family-of-choice—the ones you aren’t related to, but you adopt into your heart, as if they are.”
“Hmm, family-of-choice. I like the way it sounds. So, we’d be like, related?”
“Exactly!” Sally grows serious. “Of course, we have to say the sacred vow.”
Angel rolls her eyes and laughs, “I knew there was gonna be a catch.”
Sally shoots her a glare. “Oh, shut up! Listen, and if you agree at the end, say, ‘Yes.’”
Angel snickers, “Do we have to seal this with spit or blood or anything like that?”
Sally stares at her with subdued fury. “Do you want to do this or not?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Sally continues. “All right, here goes. We promise to stand beside one another—always—as if the same blood ran through our veins.
We’ll be connected, as one, and fight for each other until the bitter end. We’re family now and will allow no one to stand between us.”
She looks expectantly at Angel.
“That was real pretty.”
“Well…?”
“Well, what?”
“Do you agree?”
“Yeah!”
The girls clasp hands and spin in a circle while laughing.
On St. Patrick’s Day, Sally’s labor pains begin with her friend by her side. Sally cries out, while seized by an intense contraction, “Jesus Christ, no one told me it was gong to hurt this much.”
Angel holds her hand in an attempt to comfort her. “It’ll be okay. Try to picture this. You’re on a gorgeous beach in a beautiful bikini instead of lying here in labor.”
Sally, momentarily taken aback, looks at her friend as if she has lost her mind. “What?! Fuck the beautiful bikini! This really hurts.
Besides, why the hell would I be wearing a bikini? Girl, have you seen me lately, I look like a damn whale. And last I checked, whales don’t wear bikinis!”
Angel tries another approach. “Okay, forget the beach—bad idea.
Try to concentrate on your breathing.”
Sally loses her patience. “My breathing? Why the fuck would I want to do that? I don’t have to concentrate on it. Just happens. Honestly, where do you come up with this shit?”
“I don’t know.” Angel replies, near tears. “On TV, they always tell the pregnant woman to concentrate on her breathing. I don’t know what I’m doing. Just trying to help.”
Sally softens as her contraction subsides. “I know.” She takes hold of her friend’s hand. “I’m glad you’re here.” Sally squeezes Angel’s hand as another powerful pain overtakes her body.
Nature runs its course. Sally’s contractions wrack her body and her instincts tell her what to do. She delivers her son, with Angel by her side, on one of the same beds where she has laid hundreds of johns. No doctors, nurses, or midwives. Just two sister prostitutes, alone in a grungy motel room, welcoming a new life into the world.
Angel hands the new mother her son. The minute she sees him, there is no question in Sally’s mind as to what his name will be. “Oh, look, Angel, he has his brilliant green eyes.”
“Whose eyes?”
Sally answers almost in a whisper, “My brother’s. He has Eric’s eyes.” She continues, her voice denoting her wonderment, “He looks just like him.”
Tears begin rolling down Sally’s cheeks as she clutches her son to her chest. She begins sobbing uncontrollably for all she has lost, all she has given up and how screwed up she has allowed her life to become. “Angel, why have I been given such a precious gift? I’m not worthy.”
Angel sits on the edge of the bed beside her friend and wraps an arm around her shoulders. “Maybe you’re being given a second chance. Don’t question it, just accept it.”
Sally looks up, her eyes moist with tears. “A second chance?”
Angel nods.
Sally honors her brother and her best friend by naming her child, Eric Angel McFee. Her eyes solemnly fall upon her son as she promises, “Little man, as God is my witness, I promise to do right by you and always protect you. No harm will come to you while there’s a breath left in me.”
She looks at Angel and asks, “Will you be his godmother and swear to look after him should anything happen to me?”
“I’ll kill anyone who tries to hurt him.”
Within weeks of Eric’s birth, Sally realizes the leverage she has handed her pimp. She begs to be allowed to stay with her son but Ax says, “Let me tell you how it’s gonna be. I’m gonna keep that motha fucka with me each and every day until you work off your debt to me.
You cost me plenty of dough, not working for the past six weeks.
Now it’s time to pay up or I’ll chop that fuck’n brat up and make you watch!”
Horrified and desperate to protect her son, Sally does as she is told.
Ax comes and goes daily from his favorite parking lot with Eric Angel in the backseat of his car. Sally often hears her son’s cries, which tear at her soul, as he is ignored by Ax.
She is only allowed to fulfill her son’s needs (food, change of diaper, bonding, etc.) after she has serviced several johns and hands over her payments to Ax. She is then allowed to take Eric Angel into one of the pre-paid motel rooms for a short time. Sally treasures this time. She snuggles him close as she feeds him and looks lovingly into his twinkling eyes. “Hey, there, precious, do you know how much mama loves you?”
Responding to his mother’s soft voice, Eric Angel locks eyes with Sally and coos.
Sally makes faces at and tickles her son, causing his face to erupt into a beaming grin. She revels in watching him track her every movement with his inquisitive eyes and often lays on her back holding him above her, gently rocking him from side to side. Occasionally he drools down onto her, causing her to laugh. She justifies, in her mind, how she works extra hard to bring in and service the johns.
It’s just a job…a means to an end…a way to be with my son.
Eric Angel learns to crawl, to say his first words and then begins running—everywhere. Sally continues to sell herself