Imogen had been in Hunts Point since the tender age of fourteen. She had run away from her foster home, where she had landed at the age of nine due to her mother's drug addiction. She didn't remember her father, but he was alive and well, living in the suburbs of some unknown town upstate. She was headed there when she ran away, but at fourteen with $26 in her pocket, she didn't get too far. It was then that she met Lady, a working girl from LA, that introduced her to the game. Her first time was awful, it was in the back of a white Buick sedan with a man named Lefty. He choked her and beat her, and she cried the entire time. It was the type of experience you could never forget. That night, when she went back to the hooker's apartment, Lady found her crying in the bathroom, washing the blood off the inside of her thigh. She helped Imogen and offered her version of comforting and motherly words. "It gets better in time, honey," she explained. "After a while they stop havin' a face. They just become a stack of bills." She washed her hair and gave her pajamas that were two sizes too big and put her to sleep. Even now, she didn't know whether to thank Lady, or resent her. 

As she stood at her usual spot under the bridge in Hunts Point, she watched the other girls in their leopard spandex with slits on the side, heels six or seven inches high and the tiniest shirts she had ever seen. She laughed softly, disdain dripping with each note of her voice. She was dressed in a leather jacket, jeans, and her favorite pair of Jordan sneakers. The retro '86, that she had purchased with the money from her last trick the night before. Her kinky hair was loose and framed her angular face and her eyes, the color of jade in moonlight looked like they knew every secret in the world. She leaned against a 'No Parking' sign for just a second, when her pimp, Lefty walked over. 

"Girl, whatchu doin' all covered up like that?" Imogen resisted the urge to roll her eyes, that would just earn her a smack in the face. Johns didn't pick up girls with marks on their face, so she'd end up paying for her sass twice. "Left, it's cold. I still get Johns," she said with eyes cast down. He walked over to her in one fluid stride and pushed her, hard. "Look at all these other bitches!" He grabbed her arm forcefully, definitely leaving bruises on her caramel skin. "They wearin' nothin' and you here covered up like a polar bear! Take that shit off!" He ripped the sleeve of her floral Bellfield jacket. She decided it wasn't worth the trouble and took it off. Underneath wasn’t much better. She had a plain gray long sleeved henley tee. "The hell is that?" Thwack! He back handed her across her left cheek, and it immediately began to swell. She swayed a bit from the impact but regained her footing. "I'm talkin' to you!" She didn't respond, if he hit her again, she could go home. "Who the hell you think you are, defyin' me like this?" Thwack! Same cheek. This time he hit her real hard and knocked her to the floor. She didn't bother getting up, a single tear making its way down her cheek and onto the dirty concrete beneath her. It was then she realized that what she felt for Lady, was actually resentment.