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A Window Without Curtains
She was called Mira by her clients, though it wasn’t her real name. Her real name had been shed years ago, discarded like an old skin in a city that didn’t care for pasts. She walked through the night in cheap perfume and tighter smiles, her heels echoing on concrete that never forgot the stories of women like her.
By daylight, she was invisible. By night, she was needed.
Room 403 was like the others. Beige walls. A bed that smelled of cleaning chemicals and regret. A window that didn’t open, without curtains, as if the hotel itself had given up pretending to offer privacy or dreams.
Tonight, the man was late. Mira didn’t mind. The quiet was better company than most.
She sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the flickering red numbers on the digital clock. 9:46. The room buzzed faintly from an old neon light outside. She could see its pink glow on the wall, shaped like the outline of a woman, eternally lit and forever waiting.
She used to wait like that — in doorways, under blinking signs, for someone who would change things. A man with kind eyes. A job that didn’t come with bruises. A way out.
But hope, she had learned, was a luxury sold to people with options.
Not to girls like her.
She met Layla at the corner of 52nd and Main three years ago. Layla had been in the game longer, a little older, a little harder. She smoked menthols and always carried pepper spray and a knife in her purse. "Hope gets you killed," Layla said once, lighting a cigarette with a shaky hand. “You dream, you slip. You slip, you die.”
Mira remembered laughing. Not because it was funny — but because it was the only sound she could make that didn’t feel like screaming.
The client finally showed. Tall, maybe mid-40s, with a wedding ring he didn’t bother to hide.
“I don’t want to talk,” he said, tossing a crumpled wad of bills on the dresser.
She nodded. It was easier that way. Words were dangerous — they made people real. She didn't want him to be real.
She went through the motions. The fake moans. The practiced eyes. She thought of the ceiling, counted the little bumps in the paint, kept her breath even.
When he left, she showered with the water scalding hot, scrubbing skin that never quite felt clean. Then she sat back on the bed, legs folded, watching the window again.
It was raining now.
The neon woman outside still smiled.
One night, a month ago, Mira had walked into a bookstore. She didn’t know why. Maybe because it was raining, and she had nowhere to be yet. Maybe because it smelled like old paper and safety.
She wandered in wet heels past shelves full of stories — princesses, detectives, women who fought dragons. She picked up a poetry book and flipped it open. The words were soft. Angry. Beautiful.
“Do you want help finding something?” the clerk asked.
Mira looked up, startled. The girl behind the counter couldn’t have been more than twenty, with round glasses and gentle eyes.
“No,” Mira whispered, holding the book tighter.
She didn’t buy it. She left without a word.
But she came back two days later. And again the week after. She never bought anything. Just touched the spines and read a line or two. Something about it made her feel almost human again.
Tonight, she opened her little purse. The one with the broken zipper. Inside were five twenties from the client, a stick of gum, a cracked compact, and a folded receipt from the bookstore.
She stared at the receipt like it was a relic. Like it belonged to someone else.
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