Plot
Liz is a Los Angeles street prostitute who is first seen attempting to get a customer on a busy downtown street near a tunnel. She addresses the audience directly on her life and problems throughout the film. One man stops and demands anal sex, and she crassly declines him. When a van stops by, she also brushes the driver off, recalling the last time she serviced a man in a van: It turned out there were several other men inside who gang-raped her, beat her, and left her for dead. An elderly man passing by gave her his handkerchief and offered to take her to a hospital. She refused, instead asking the older man for money. Later, Liz sends him the money back with a thank-you note and a new handkerchief.
Weary of her life as a prostitute, Liz is also attempting to escape her pimp, Blake, a well-dressed, businesslike and extremely controlling man. As Liz stops at a strip club for a drink, she explains how she ended up as she did: She was a small-town girl who married a violent drunk named Bill. Though they had a son together, Liz could no longer cope with his alcoholism and abuse, so she left with their infant child. Liz took a nightly shift at a diner and lived in poverty until one night, a customer offered her money to have sex with him. Desperate for money, Liz agreed and began prostituting herself independently for a time until meeting Blake, who takes her to Los Angeles. Though Blake does do some things for her (including getting her tattooed), he is ultimately as cruel as her husband.
While working the street downtown, Liz finds a fellow prostitute who has just been viciously stabbed in the stomach by a john. Liz brings the woman into a movie theater bathroom and attempts to stop her bleeding wound. She is helped by a patron in the theater, Katie, with whom Liz becomes good friends. Katie is an intellectual, and loans Liz the novel Animal Farm, the first book Liz has ever finished reading. The women's friendship, however, ends after Blake intimidates Liz and accuses Katie of being a lesbian.
A homeless street performer named Rasta decides to treat Liz to a film. Though Rasta initially frightens Liz (his act involves walking on broken glass), Liz agrees. At this point, the scenes of Liz and Rasta at the film are intercut with Blake explaining his life to the audience, giving the impression that Liz and Rasta are watching Blake's soliloquy. Liz recounts some of her prostitution stories, including her encounter with a male client with a shoe fetish who demanded that Liz merely insult him while he masturbated with her stiletto in his mouth.
After the film, Liz addresses the audience about her son, whom she clearly loves, though he is now in foster care. Later that night, Liz secures an elderly dapper client, who brings her to a parking garage in his vintage car. While the two have sex, the man suffers a heart attack, and Liz panics, trying to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, without success. Blake happens along then. He takes Liz's money and tries to rob the dead customer before getting into a physical altercation with Liz, breaking one of her fingers. When Liz tries to stop him, Blake tries to strangle Liz and threatens to force her son into gay prostitution, with Liz retorting, "I'll kill you first!" Rasta comes to the rescue, killing Blake by slitting his throat. Liz thanks Rasta for the film and walks away.
