Mark stared deeply in the mirror and gazed into a face he didn’t recognized. His bright blue eyes had become dull, his dark hair was now white. Wrinkles now covered a saggy face which once had been youthful. He cringed, but he stared nonetheless. “This is reality” he thought, “this is what I’ve become, it’s cowardice to hope things will get better.” After admitting this to himself he sits on a chair, nervously waiting in his hotel room.
Mark had had a hard life, but he didn’t shy from it. From an early age his father had put him to work on the ranch, waking up hours before sunrise to take care of the animals and maintain the property. Mark had loved his father, and wished he was still alive. He wondered what he would think of him, now that all these years have passed. Mark always attempted to work hard and be a good and moral man. He married young, right after high school to his first and only girlfriend. He had loved that woman more than his own life. She was taken away from him too soon in a car crash. Some piece of shit drunk driver who had come out of it alive while his wife bleed to death, alone on the side of the road. He had done everything right in life, and yet some piece of shit just partying took her away from him.
He reached to his wallet and looked at a picture of his family, when the two kids were still young and the big loving smile of his wife. “I tried my best to raise them without you” he said in a soft whisper. Mark was a working man, provided a roof over his children’s head, food, clothes, every necessity they would need, but despite the heart that had nothing but love for his son and daughter, he was not nurturing. He didn’t know how to talk to them, make them open up to him, to tell him their joys and sorrows, to ask for his advice… and so they lived in the same house, but they all had their own separate life. It never felt like a true family after she was gone. Familiar faces, but the cohesion and warmth was gone…
His son had died from a drug overdose a few years back, his daughter left the house when she was seventeen, only to talk to Mark every once and a while to ask him for money, which he always gave her. He wished she could become financially independent, be with a good man who would take care of her, give him some grandchildren, some laughing voices to bring happiness to his lonely sad home. Someone to love and be loved back… But that was just a wish, and just like his ugly old face in the mirror he would look at his life and embrace reality, not hide in a desired fiction.
He looked at his watch, she was a few minute late, Marks heart was pumping and his loins were feeling hot from the Viagra. Some men from work had recommended this girl to him, a prostitute they said, but who looked like a regular girl, the daughter of your neighbor in a Sunday morning at church. He didn’t know if he liked the church reference, but he understood what they were trying to say: She isn’t some tattooed old whore smoking too many cigarettes hanging out at a truck stop taking anyone who offers her a little bit of money in a shit smelling bathroom.
Seven more minutes have passed. Mark is starting to think this is a mistake. He had never been with another woman before his wife passed away, and had never been with one afterwards. He was nervous, he knew it, and tried to calm himself with a cigarette and talk himself on not leaving. He had brought the cash, and wanted to ask for what his coworker recommended as the “girlfriend experience.” He wanted to pay the prostitute to stay with him for a little while after sex, just so he could hold her. He needed to lay down and put his arms around her, and hers around him, and lay in bed, and feel the warmth of a woman with him, the smell of her hair. He felt so alone and it had reached the point that his was willing to pay for some human contact.
There’s a knock on the door, he shouts “It’s open!” but he almost lost his voice, it was the nerves and his heart was pumping in his chest. He felt like a teenager about to give his first kiss all over again. He can hear the high heels of the prostitute as she walked inside the room, as she walks in he looks at her legs first, and then chest and he liked what he saw, she spoke while still walking in, she said “Hi stranger, my name is Samantha…” and he gazed into her faze. He saw the hair and makeup at first, she looked feminine, she had a sex appeal, but still remained her youthful look that gave her an air of innocence. But then he looked into her face with more attention. Her expression had changed from that of a wicked smile, into that of shock.
“Dad what are you doing here!?” was her first reaction. It was so out of character for her father to be asking for a prostitute, she was in disbelief for a moment. Then as the reality of the situation sets in she turns around and tells him she has to go before he was able to answer. Mark shouts at her “Don’t! Please stay, I haven’t seen you in years…” She recognizes her fathers voice and admits to herself she hasn’t seen him and feels guilty for this. She misses her father. She turns around and asks how he has been. Mark answers that he’s been good. He wants to hold her daughter, he wants to take her home. He wants her to finish school and find a good man… He asks her the same, she responds the same.
The situation starts organizing in Marks mind. Why is his daughter a prostitute? He asks her if there’s a reason why she’s doing this, if she needs money, he can give it to her. She says she doesn’t need his money, that she does it because she likes doing it. There’s an awkward silence. Then she asks why is he here. Mark simply replies that he supposes he’s lonely without her mother. She tells him that she’s also lonely.
Another awkward silence.
She tells him she has friends that could give him company, and they would treat him well for being her father. Part of him wanted to say yes, but this was his daughter telling him this, which served as a stave in the heart. He simply tells her not right now, part of his not wanting to completely reject the offer, another one not wanting to take it from his daughter.
Another silence.
She tells him she has to go. Mark asks her if she would visit him for thanksgiving. She tells him she would love that, but he could tell in her voice that this wasn’t true. She tells Mark that he has her number, and if he needs any of her friends to stop by to just give her a text. Marl just sat in silence without replying. She didn’t know why she repeated this, regretted it after it was done. She probably wanted to find a way to end the conversation and get out of there. Mark shouts at her that he loves her as she walked out of the hotel room, she didn’t say anything back.
Mark sits in his chair for a few more minutes, the crawls into the bed, holds on to one of the pillows, and begins to sob.