“Who are you? I didn’t know Jenny had a sister,” he said.

I had been reviewing for a test tomorrow at the dining room table when I got interrupted.

I looked out the kitchen window to see who might be ringing the bell at the front door of the mobile home I shared with my mom and sister. It was almost ten p.m. and a bit late for most visitors. I had an idea who (or what) it might be, but I didn’t want to think about it.

Mom, Bitsy Laurence, was at work, and, being a cocktail waitress at the Kitty Cat Lounge, she wouldn’t be home till after 1 a.m., if then. Increasingly this year, she didn’t come home until after sunrise, usually smelling of booze and sex.

Sis, Jenny Laurence, might be at work, too. She danced at a club in the city, when she wanted to, and when she wasn’t strung out on drugs. But I hadn’t seen her since I got home from summer school classes in the late afternoon. At that, she had only wandered into the actual house from her add-on room just to snag a diet cola from the fridge and had disappeared again. It was a Thursday and tips would be better on a weekend night, so maybe she hadn’t gone in.

The visitor, whoever it was, would likely be looking for Jenny, but was standing too close to the front door to be seen as more than a man-shaped shadow cast by the yellow bug light on the porch.

Stretching my nearly 5’7” length across the kitchen sink to get a glimpse of the visitor was getting painful, so I sighed and pulled back. There was a peephole in the actual door and I would be able to see who it was before opening up, anyway.

When I peeked, I saw a young man in the khaki uniform of the nearby US Army base and sighed. I couldn’t read his name tag in the poor light but his stripes identified him as a sergeant, and his insignia meant he was with the 25th Mechanized Infantry.

“Hello?” The young man called. “Is there anyone home?”

I sighed again. I opened the door on the chain and called through the crack. “Look left. See that door at the end of the porch? That’s Jenny’s door.”

“I already knocked there,” the uniformed man said. “No answer.”

“Huh,” I grunted. I tried closing the door but the man outside was leaning on it, straining the chain. He was also moving his head back and forth, trying to see me through the narrow gap.

“Who are you? I didn’t know Jenny had a sister,” he said.

“Get off!” I tried to make that come out a snarl but knew my kittenish voice could not manage a credible threat. “Stop leaning on the door and I’ll go tell Jenny you’re here!”

But the man put his eye near the door crack, peering at me from only inches away. “You’re cute, too. What’s your name? If Jenny’s asleep, no need to wake her. Let me in and you and I can have some fun.”

I couldn’t close the door against his weight and if he kept pushing, he might rip the chain out of the flimsy wood of the wall. I turned the little lever that would cause the door to lock if I could get it closed, then I took two steps back and hurled all of my not quite 100 pounds against the door. I heard the click as the door closed, and a yelp from the other side. I quickly turned the dead bolt for extra protection.

From outside, I heard cursing. “Bitch!” he added but then he laughed. He knew as well as I did that he could probably kick the door in if he wanted to.

I ground my teeth in frustration. “I’ll call the police!” I threatened.

“Go ahead,” he responded. “Better, go wake up your sister. She owes me some party time.”

I backed away from the door. He’d reminded me that Sis had not answered her door. I really needed to go check on her. I went through the kitchen, catching a glimpse of our visitor peering through the window at me. The metal-clad door in the hallway opened out into Jenny’s add-on room. It wasn’t locked from either side, so I pushed it open and saw Jenny lying on her side in her bed, pillows wedged to keep her in place.

Her works were on the night table and from the look of them, she had done a skin-pop, not a spike in a vein.

“Jenny!” I screamed and she stirred.

I stepped in, took one of her pillows and slapped her across the face with it.

“What the hell?” she murmured, but she opened one eye.

“Hey, Garry-Larry,” she said mildly. “What’s the hap?” My name is Garth Laurence and I’ve been Garry-Larry since I started school.

“You got a john, a customer,” I said motioning toward her door to the porch.

“Oh?” She tried to sit up but instead closed her eyes again, not really moving more than just an indication.

The john outside knocked politely. “Jenny, it’s me. Milo. Let me in,” he called. “I’ve got money,” he added.

Jenny answered with a tiny doper snore. She would sleep for hours if left alone. I pummeled her with the pillow again but she only made noises to indicate she didn’t like that and didn’t really seem to be waking up. “Summun a’ th’door? See hoodis,” she muttered indistinctly.

I knew Sergeant Milo wouldn’t be going away. He probably had an overnight pass and money in his pocket, and he knew what he wanted. I could call the cops but I knew how that would end up, with Sis in jail and me with Social Services which amounted to jail for kids.

I could call the M.P.s but they would not be in any hurry to get here. They knew what went on at this address.

I went to the door. “She doesn’t want to see you, Milo,” I said loud enough he could hear me.

He laughed. “Sleeping one off?” He snorted. “Well, I still have money, Little Sister.”

“I’m not…” I began but stopped.

He made another amused noise. “You’re not in the family business? About time you joined.”

“I’m only fifteen,” I pleaded.

“Gotta start some time,” he said in a harder voice. “I’ve got an extra hundred for a virgin.”

I knew I was crying but I couldn’t stop. I tried one more thing. “I’m a boy,” I said.

He laughed out loud. “I seen your tits,” he said. “You’ll do.”

I glanced down. The A/C was broken and the monsoon was working fine, so I had taken off my outer shirt. The little pointy nibs I had on my chest from what the doctor said was called some twelve-syllable word, and was perfectly normal for teen-age boys did show through my white t-shirt. I had on a pair of cutoff jeans, too and no shoes.

From what he had seen, I might be Jenny’s kid sister, but I wasn’t.

I sobbed.

“You one of those transgenders?” Milo asked through the door.

I shook my head, not that he could see that.

“Hey,” he said. “Your sister really out of it?”

This time I nodded but he still couldn’t see so I said, “Yes, she’s on the junk.”

“Christ,” he muttered. “Lazy junkie whoring trailer trash.”

“Hey!” I protested.

“Open up, baby girl, or I will kick it in.” He thumped the flimsy hollow core interior-style door, probably with his foot. Two real kicks and he would be inside.

I unlocked the door and stepped back, crossing my arms in an X across my chest. “Don’t hurt me,” I sobbed.

He stepped in, reaching for me. I tried to back away. “Stop right there and let me look at you,” he demanded.

I stopped, looking down at his feet in their black Army-style Oxfords. Tears ran down my face and I tasted salt.

He reached out and tipped my chin up, looking me full in the face. “Jesus,” he whispered. “You’re a beauty, ain’t you?” He let me pull back a bit and looked me up and down. “Yes, you are,” he assured me.

I shook my head no but he smiled, nodding.

“You got a dick?” he asked, surprising me.

“I’m a boy,” I confirmed. My lips trembled and my voice quivered.

“Fucking underage tranny whore,” he commented. “How am I so lucky?”

I closed my eyes, put my chin on my chest and burst into tears. My legs wouldn’t hold me up and I collapsed into a puddle on the floor.

I heard noises, but I didn’t look up. Something was placed on the floor near my head then I heard the light switch click, the lights went off and I heard the door close with the sound it made when it locked.

I tried to stop crying and look up. The room was dimly lit by the bug light on the porch through the tiny window beside the door. I stopped weeping and pushed myself up to a sitting position. My sister still breathed heavily in her bed, sleeping off the skin pop.

I didn’t see anyone else in the room. Sniffling, I reached up, found the light switch and turned the lights back on.

No one else in the room or visible through the window. I looked around and spotted a little paper bundle on the floor. I picked it up. It held four hundred-dollar bills and a note.

The note read. “Don’t let no one else have this money. It is yours. Buy yourself something pretty and wear it tomorrow. Meet me outside Liu’s Seafood Buffet at 8 p.m. if you want to see me and get more money.”

It was signed, “M”.

I went to my room to hide the note and the money and cry myself into an exhausted sleep, the homework I had been doing at the kitchen table forgotten.