Read Online Down 'N' Derby by Lila Felix - Free Book Online Page B

and have me sign them.  It was flattering for sure.  But what I really wanted to be doing was attending school like other people my age and skating—always, always skating. 
                  “Hi Missy.  I love your pictures.”  A middle aged man said as he sidled up next to me and snaked his leathery arm around my waist.  Missy Hellcat was my stage name.  I never used my real name for these events.  You were liable to bring home a creeper in your suitcase or one might be waiting for you on the stoop when you got home. 
                  “Thank you.  Straight ahead,” I pointed to the photographer so he would stop staring at my girls.
                  We smiled for the camera and then I started to move through the line one by one for hours at a time.  One man wanted a picture of me in a provocative pose on the hood but thankfully the owner of the car stepped in and claimed it would ruin the paint job.  I could’ve kissed that man.  A teen-aged boy with a fauxhawk was up next and I could see mischief glittering in his eyes.  He looked like Simon.  When he first took his place at the front of the line I did a double take, seriously thinking it was him.  But that was just my fear speaking. 
                  I’m sure he was a nice kid, but looking like Simon gave him an automatic bad mark in my book.  Plus, it made me shudder with a serious case of the heebs.  He slithered up next to me and his hand brushed my backside and judging by the cocky smirk on his face he did it on purpose.  I looked up to the huge clock on the wall and announced, “I need a break.” 
                  The cameraman must’ve gotten adrift of the situation and agreed with me saying his camera battery needed to be changed anyway. I didn’t know if it was my stature or what but usually the photographer and owner protected me from the real creepers.  I pushed through the small crowd and headed to the restroom to get ahold of myself.  There was no cold water splashes to be had with all this makeup on so I climbed atop a chair and opened the tiny window and prayed for a breeze.  A whispery gush of wind came through the rusty opening and I could breathe again-in and out, in and out.  I got down from the chair after I felt normal again and went to wardrobe to change for the rest of the pictures. 
                  I found black stiletto Mary Janes with a leopard print bow on top.  I choose my leopard print halter dress, and topped it with a red corset.  I re-applied my lipstick and went to stand in front of the GTO this time, hoping the Simon lookalike was long gone.  Maybe his attention span was as short as the real Simon’s—and as many times as he cheated on me, it was shorter than a flea’s eyelash. 
                  Not to mention the times that he knocked me around in between the bouts of screwing everything that moved. 
                  I walked back onto the showroom to find him gone but I was rattled to the bone.  I could still feel the imprint of his hand on my backside.  I propped my hip up against the GTO and waited for the signal from the photographer.  He rolled his eyes at me, got behind the camera, and I took that as my cue.  Simon-Lookalike was gone and I calmed down a little but my intestines were still quivering from just the thought of him.  By nine o’clock that night I was dying for a bed and some pancakes.  That was the other kick-ass thing about being a pin-up model.  I could be a little pleasantly plump and you’d think it would push the boys away from the yard but the opposite was true, which drove the toothpick girls insane. If I did gain weight it went to the top and the bottom of the hourglass and not to my waist and that was a blessing and a curse.  A blessing because it gave my curves a boost, a curse because it gave the guys more to gawk at.
                  I took off the sky high