The Service Station - Beyond The Obvious

Everyone knew what she was and who she was, so there was no point pretending, but that didn't stop her. Sitting here in the harsh lighting of the service station cafe she imagined she was driving home to her husband who was dutifully waiting for her with dinner on the table. But there would be no drive home tonight, and there would be no doting husband. Instead she’d just sit and wait until she was needed, then she’d close her eyes and do her duty. There were 8 men in the place - the petrol pump attendants, the cafe staff, the three businessmen heading to somewhere - but no customers. She provided a different service at this service station.

The businessmen looked at her and whispered and smiled to each other. They were quick to judge, she was the whore, the jezebel, the fallen woman. They'd never say it to her face but their disapproving looks they gave her told her all she needed to know. Why were people so unwilling to look beyond the obvious? Did it make them feel uncomfortable to see the truth? She hadn't made the choice to sit in a near deserted petrol station on a windswept road, waiting for lonely truck drivers to satisfy their needs. She hadn't fallen, she was pushed.

Her father's abuse was physical, sexual and emotional - that saying about sticks and stones breaking bones but words never hurting is so untrue. Broken bones mend, but broken minds don't.

Her father blamed her for the abuse he dished out. He was the first man to call her a whore, the first man to make her unmarriable, and the first to remind her of that fact. But there were others, he passed her around like a spliff, allowing each of his friends to take a turn with a fragile, scared teenage girl. One of those friends had promised to save her from her misery, had promised to set her free. So one night she packed her bags and waited for him. 
He took her away all right, but only as far as a farm on the outskirts of town, where it dawned on her that the money changing hands between her ‘friend’ and the strange man was for her, she was being sold like a used carpet. She was now the property of the owner of the gas station.

Not that the other members of staff knew that he was her boss, her pimp, her lover. To them he was the respectable married man who ignored her when he visited the station and who spoke about her in disapproving, hushed tones to the others. But when the others had gone, he’d take his piece of the action and his share of the money.

She dreamt of happy endings, but there were no fairy tales in her world.  So she'd sit here, proud, straight back, waiting, waiting for the next client to take what he needed.