Floored

New Car Smell

At least the hapless buck chucked in the gutter. It was so hard to get the smell of vomit out of the Statesman. Both times Caitlyn had to do it, she’d scrubbed for hours and the stomach churning scent of sick hung around for days.

Story of her life. The unfortunate, lingering smell of something gone bad.

Customers liked new car smell. It was a status thing. Part of the reason they liked hiring a car instead of jumping into a taxi. It went with the uniform she wore: a crisp white long sleeved shirt and fitted black skirt and jacket, with a stiff peaked black cap which she tucked her hair under, and low-heeled shoes. No jewellery, and just a lick of a neutral tone lipstick. All improvised because she hadn’t been able to find a supplier of uniforms for female chauffers other than fancy dress hire shops and websites, who made them way short, way tight, and way pornographic—not anything remotely like what a professional driver should wear.

Though she was kidding herself about the professional driver thing, the least she could do was look the part. She could drive, like everyone else, and had a perfectly clean, accident free record, but that was more fluke than good management. It only meant that at twenty-seven she hadn’t spent too many years accumulating miles, being exposed to other bad drivers, and raking up incidents.

At least in the usual manner.

It was the uniform for all its ‘melt into the background’ blandness that had gotten her into trouble tonight. When she arrived to collect them from the club, Hapless, the buck, and his mates Hopeful and Hardly were convinced she was part of the surprise strip show. Only because Hapless’ father was sober was she saved from being seriously manhandled before the real stripper showed up in a latex nurse’s uniform and used the Statesman as a prop in her dance of a thousand pelvis grinds. That was before the throwing up started, and well before she dropped Hapless and his entourage to their hotel.

It was the first time she’d been mistaken for the stripper—what were they thinking—though wandering hands were a regular occurrence. But enough was enough. First thing tomorrow she was buying a pair of plain black tailored trousers. The skirt left her too vulnerable; sent the wrong signal.

Story of her life. All the wrong signals and practice perfect susceptibility.

Now all she wanted to do was sleep, because tomorrow she was booked for another buck’s night and had to do this all over again. The picking up, putting down and waiting, the intense politeness in the face of drunk, drugged, and plain old boorish behaviour. Plus the abuse. Let’s not forget the abuse. Which ranged from the benign—‘Oh fuck, we have a woman driver’, to the more humorous, ‘It’s a chick. We’re all going to die’.

At least in trousers instead of a skirt she’d avoid hot hands on her skin. After Justin she didn’t want anyone touching her skin. For a long time. Maybe forever. She was off men, and being touched, at least until she was sure she was finally safe from Justin; he moved to Silicon Valley or a small, bare cell—or both. Preferably both.

Morning was a reality when Caitlyn put her key in the door and let herself in. The flat smelled stale like mothballs. She’d thought being above a dry-cleaners would make the small, old, studio apartment smell all sorts of chemical clean. But no—just nose itching naphthalene. She thought she’d be used to it by now. Six months. Didn’t they say you could get used to anything in six weeks? Well, not anything. It was going to take a lot longer to get used to feeling so deeply humiliated, and maybe forever to get over feeling so unalterably stupid, and the whole ‘sins of the father’ thing was too much to contemplate. And the need to keep looking over her shoulder...

It was better not to think about that. That was just a new fact of life.

She went to the bathroom and turned on the hot water, undressing while she waited for the pilot light on the old heater to ignite. She shivered on the tiny coloured tiles, watching for the blue and orange flame, and wondering if naphthalene and natural gas were in any way an explosive combination. It was like an igloo in here. She really should buy a bathmat.

How the stripper managed not to be covered in goose bumps, teeth chattering, by the time she got down to a g-string and pasties with the stiff breeze blowing across the harbour, she didn’t know. How she didn’t get arrested was another question. She’d had an incredible figure and dead eyes.

Caitlyn knew she was the only one who’d noticed the eyes, or worried about her being cold, or getting charged with indecent exposure. When her striptease ended and the stripper had given the buck a very public lap dance on a park bench, she’d simply bundled up her clothing, shrugged on a coat, got in a rust bucket Mazda and driven off. Not one of the nine men who’d hooted and cheered for her bump and grind, or the two other male chauffers who’d tried to look like they weren’t enjoying the show, bothered to help her collect her gear, or offered to walk her to her car. In fact, not one of the men had spoken to her without using the words, ‘take it off’, ‘babe’, a swear word, or variations of ‘cor’, raah’, or ‘auw’. She was a much-loved abandoned toy. No wonder her eyes were dead.

Caitlyn had blue toes when the pilot light eventually came on and held, and hot water flowed through the showerhead. She stepped over the lip of the tub and got under its heat. This really was a crappy flat. But it was what she could afford after the licence was paid, the Statesman bought and registered, and the monthly payments got made. In addition, it had the very attractive advantage of being as far away from any connection with her old life as a latex nurse’s uniform was from a real stethoscope.

If Caitlyn’s old life was ignorant bliss, this—the lukewarm water, the chemical smell, and the obscure address—was breadline reality. This is where you lived when you’d screwed up and you were trying to start again. This is where you lived, without a phone connection, using a post office box, when you didn’t want anyone to find you, and it was a reasonable bet they wouldn’t.

Dry, warm and tucked up in bed, she stared at the fingers of sunlight invading the room. If she continued to book night jobs and needed to sleep late, she should hang a sheet over the window to help the threadbare curtains keep the light out. That would mean buying another sheet. And a bathmat. And trousers. At this rate she was going to need a second job to keep her first job floating.

Still, she was alone, and free, and safe. In control of her own destiny again. She wasn’t some man’s plaything. His dupe. His walking, talking, promise of respectability, or his fall girl. Even though she was rigorously staying off the grid as much as possible, she wasn’t reduced to earning her living as a stripper.

Her eyes weren’t dead. They were wide open for once. If it meant she could pull herself out of this hole and build herself a new life, she’d never blink again.