Briefly, I tried stealing: With a couple older comrades, I would swipe books from one store, exchange them for CDs at another, then sell the CDs as used at third stop for $5 a pop. Given the risk and the time commitment, it was hardly worth it. So I started turning tricks. It was quite a leap—I’d only had sex with a guy once at that point, and only a few times with a woman. Both were still awkward and new. But that changed after some scruffy teenager at the Pit introduced me to Mary Jane, a skinny white female pimp with a crack problem. She was just a few years older than me, and we had an
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