by Roy Glenn
“Yup. It looks a lot better now. Yesterday this whole side of my face was swollen.”
“They say you killed a cop.”
Lorenzo just nodded.
“What happened?”
“Me and Chris were at the crib chillin’ when the cops came to the house with a warrant to search the place. I looked at Chris; he looked at me. I knew I had shit there, so I knew we were goin’ to jail, but we’d talked about this, you know what I’m sayin’? Keep your mouth shut and do what they say; don’t give them no excuses. So we’re sittin’ there on the barstools, like we always do, waitin’ for them to find the stash. While we’re sittin’ there, one of the cops is talkin’ big shit to us, but you know we ain’t payin’ that shit no attention.
“So when they find it and they’re about to arrest us, this cop steps in front of me, points his finger in my face and says, ‘I guess you boys are goin’ to jail.’ Now, you know I hate that shit, so I stood up and said, ‘That’s all right. I’ll be back on the block playin’ stickball before dinnertime.’ Then he hits me in the face. And I don’t know, maybe it was reflex, but I swung back.
“Another cop pulls out his club and hits me in the shins and I drop to my knees. I tried to get up, and then both of them start hittin’ me with their clubs and kickin’ me. All I could think about then was dyin’. I knew they were gonna kill me, Nina. I couldn’t just let them kill me, so I grabbed one cop’s gun and I shot him.”
“Damn, Lorenzo. You killed a cop.”
“It was self-defense. He was gonna kill me, Nina. I know it. After I shot the cop, the other cop pulls his gun and shoots me in the arm.”
“You’re lucky it was just your arm. He coulda aimed for your chest.”
“He did, but I moved, just not quick enough. The bullet caught me in the arm and I dropped the gun. Then it seemed like all the cops started kickin’ me and hittin’ me with them clubs. I heard somebody yell, ‘That’s enough,’ and I blacked out. The next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital.”
“Where was Chris while all this was goin’ on?”
“I don’t know.”
Over the next few months, the government took everything. Yes, everything. I never did get back in the apartment. I was told that it had all been purchased with the proceeds of a criminal enterprise or some shit like that. So now I had nothing—no home, no car, no clothes. It was a good thing that I did leave my old stuff at my parents’ house, ’cause I needed it then. Since my parents wouldn’t let me move back in the house, I had to get a small apartment. It was a dump, but it was all I could afford. I had given just about all the money to the lawyer.
At the trial, the prosecution presented their case and rested. This was when it became apparent what part Chris had played in all this. He became one of the star witnesses for the prosecution. Lorenzo’s lawyer told him that Chris began telling everything he knew as soon as Lorenzo blacked out. Chris didn’t want any part of the murder charge, so he rolled on Lorenzo and did it quick. He wasn’t the only one. Lorenzo had another partner named Bryce, who had seemed to disappear about four months earlier. As it turned out, Bryce had been busted on a possession charge, and he was the one who gave them Lorenzo.
Lorenzo’s lawyer didn’t have much of a defense to mount. He tried to discredit Chris and Bryce on their drug-related testimony, based on their admitted involvement in a criminal enterprise, but the bomb was already dropped when they put Chris on the stand to talk about the murder. He testified that he heard Lorenzo talking shit to the cops, then the next thing he saw was Lorenzo grabbing the cop’s gun and killing him. Not a word about the cops beating Lorenzo. That bitch didn’t say shit about that. I wanted to shoot that nigga myself. How you sellout your boy like that? Lorenzo said he understood, but I could see in his eyes that shit hurt him. Both of your boys rolling on you—you can’t tell me that shit is easy to swallow.
It took the jury less than an hour to find Lorenzo guilty on all charges. I can’t ever remember crying so hard over something, than I did for Lorenzo that day. Inside, I felt like my life was over too. In those two years, I had built my whole life around Lorenzo Copeland. What would my life be without him? Did I even have a life without him?
His lawyer arranged for Lorenzo to see me for a minute before they took him away. I began to cry again, as soon as I saw him.
“Don’t cry, baby. We knew this day was coming,” Lorenzo said.
“I know.” I continued to cry and Lorenzo held my hands.
“There’s something that I gotta say to you,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“I want you to know that I love you. I have always loved you, Nina.”
“I love you too.”
“If you ever need anything, you gotta call my cousin, Leon, in Jacksonville.”
“I will,” I said, still not able to stop myself from crying.
“I been thinkin’ about this for a long time, and I know it’s gonna be better for you this way.”
“What are you talkin’ about?”
“I don’t want you to come see me anymore.”
“What do you mean? Why don’t you want me to come see you?”
“I know that I’m never gonna get out of here, and if I do, it won’t be for a long time.”
“What are you sayin’? Lorenzo, I love you. I don’t care how long it takes, I’ll wait for you.”
“Nina, you gotta listen to me. It’s not fair to you. I can’t do that to you. Make you live your life alone, or worse, lying to me.”
“No, Lorenzo, don’t do this. I promise to be faithful to you. I love you. I promise to come see you, and I’ll write to you all the time.”
“I don’t want you to come see me. I don’t want you to write to me. You are a young, beautiful woman. You have the rest of your life in front of you.”
I broke down crying hard. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “I don’t have a life without you. I need you. You’re my whole life.” I couldn’t breathe. How could he be saying this to me?
“I can’t be a part of your life anymore. That life is over for me.”
“No,” I cried. “Your life is not over. Don’t say that.”
“My life is inside now, with my father and my uncles. It’s like this is where I always been goin’ all my life,” Lorenzo said as the deputy opened the door. “I’m dead to you now.”
“That’s it,” the deputy said, as he uncuffed Lorenzo from the table. “Sorry, ma’am, but it’s time to go.”
Lorenzo stood and put his hands behind his back. “Good-bye, Nina,” Lorenzo said as the deputy put him in chains.
“What am I supposed to do now?”
Lorenzo smiled at me and mouthed the words sell drugs.
Five
When Lorenzo was sentenced to life without parole, the reality of my situation finally began to sink in. I was alone, I was about to be broke, and I was depressed about it. I stayed in bed for a few days. When I did get out of bed, I wouldn’t come out of the apartment. Everybody came by to holla; make sure I was all right. I told them all the same thing: I was fine and just needed some time to get myself together.
One afternoon, a friend named Amel came by to see me. She worked as a masseuse at the spa that I used to go to. She had been my masseuse for the last couple of years. I knew she did a little private dancing on the side, but there was a whole other side to her that I never would have even suspected. When an attendant walked in on her while she was having sex with one of her customers, she got fired. And yeah, that customer was a woman.
It took me a minute to come to grips with that fact that the woman who had her hands all over my body was, as she called it, a woman who believed in choices. She said she hated the term bisexual. By the time that happened, we’d become friends. Our relationship had gone beyond her providing me with a service, so I accepted her. We could be cool as long as she never came at me like that, and she never did.
In spite of that, Lorenzo would have freaked if he knew. Althoug
h he’d never admit it to me, gay and bisexual woman intimidated him for some reason. “Maybe it’s because we come at a woman on a level that he could never understand, much less compete with,” Amel told me once, but that shit was too deep for me to even wrap my mind around.
Naturally, I couldn’t afford to pay her for her services now, so she dropped in to gossip and smoke a blunt. “What are you gonna do now, Nina?”
“I don’t know. I’m not ready to sell drugs, and I’m definitely not ready to get a job,” I said, but that was exactly what I should have been ready to do. I had a degree in business administration. I could hear Lorenzo telling me that I was a young, beautiful woman, and that I had the rest of my life in front of me. Still, I wasn’t ready to make that choice.
“Why don’t you dance?” Amel asked me.
“I never even pointed my mind in that direction, but I could damn sure use the money.”
“And it’s good money. You’re a very pretty woman. You’re young, your breasts are big and firm, and your stomach is flat.”
“And I have the kind of ass that makes men follow me around.”
“You’ll get nothin’ but paid. Believe that.”
“Okay, you talked me into it. Who do I need to talk to?”
“Don’t worry, Nina. I’ll take care of everything.” Amel went on to explain that she worked for an agency that provided dancers for private parties.
“Y’all just dancin’, right?”
“Some of the girls sell pussy; some don’t, if that’s what you’re asking me,” was Amel’s answer. Never saying one way or the other which side she came down on. “I can tell you the money is out there if you want it. I can also tell you that it’s something you’d have to decide on your own.”
Anyway, two days later, Amel called me and told me she was on her way to dance for a private party. She asked me to come along. “You don’t have to dance if you don’t want to. Just come with me and see if it’s something you can do.”
I said cool, so she came to pick me up to go to the Hyatt. When I got in the car, Amel wasn’t alone; some guy was driving. “What’s up, Nina?” Amel said, as the guy drove off. “This is Ricky. He’s my security. Ricky drives me to all of my jobs; stays with me during the show, just to make sure that everybody behaves themselves, then drops me off at home when I’m finished.”
“What up, Nina?” Ricky said. He was a large man with a thick West Indian accent.
“Hi,” was all the greeting that my nervous ass could get out.
“If you decide to get in this business, you better find somebody like Ricky that you can trust,” Amel advised.
When we arrived at the suite, the party had already started. It was a small set: just four men who all looked like business types. Once Amel got her outfits ready, she began her show. I stood in the doorway and watched her as she danced in the middle of the floor, then for each man. While Amel danced, she allowed the men to touch her. But when one got a little too happy with his hands, she would move away or remove his hands. As I watched, I thought I can do this. I was definitely a better dancer than she was. I could shake my ass like a salt shaker.
When she came back to the room to change clothes, she asked me, “Well, what you think?”
“I wanna try.”
“I was hoping you would say that. Take off your clothes.”
“What?”
“No time to get shy on me now. I got an outfit that would be perfect for you. My breasts aren’t big enough to fit it right.”
It was at that moment that I had to decide what I was going to do. If I felt uncomfortable getting undressed in front of a woman who had seen me naked plenty of times, how was I gonna do it in front of a room full of horny-ass men?
I began to undress; then I tried on the outfit she had chosen for me. It was black and lacy and fit me perfectly.
“Perfect. Now pick a name for yourself,” she instructed.
“Simone, no doubt.”
“I’ll never be far away from you. Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
The radio was playing and the only thing that was keeping me from throwing up was the dollar signs I saw when I closed my eyes. I opened my eyes, moving my body seductively to the music as all four men stared at me. Once I made my way to the center of the room, I began my show. I moved my hips in wide circles as I made eye contact with each man in the room. They were hypnotized. I let my ass drop practically to the floor a few times; their eyes and mouths opened wide. They all started throwing money on the floor around me—mostly ones, a few fives, a ten, but no twenties. I guess I had to do more than just bounce my ass a few times to earn a twenty.
I started to pick up the money. “I’ll get it,” Amel said. “You keep dancing.”
While Amel gathered up the money, I began to move around the room. I danced around to each man, just as I had seen Amel do. One of the men grabbed me and tried to pull my bottom off, but Ricky took care of that. “Take it easy, Mon. You get the whole show soon enough,” he said, proving his value immediately.
As I danced, I looked around for Amel. She had changed into a different outfit and was dancing around the room. Once she made her way to me, she said, “Pick out another outfit and get back out here as quick as you can.”
I made my way to the bedroom and closed the door. While I looked for another outfit to put on, I heard the men beginning to get loud as Amel worked her show. Once I had changed, I cracked the door a little to see what was going on. By this time, Amel was butt naked. She was standing on the coffee table; one of the men was lying on the table with his face in perfect position so that every time Amel dropped her body, she had her pussy in his face. I closed the door and went straight to the mini bar. I grabbed the first bottle I got my hands on—Jack Daniel’s—and downed it. “Whoo! That’s some rough stuff.”
I burst through the door and got back to it. The men started yelling “Take it off! Take it off!” I turned my back to them and came out of my top. With one arm covering my breasts, I turned around, swung the top over my head, and threw it to one of the men. He put it on his head as I lowered my arm and moved around the room quickly, shaking my tits in everybody’s face. Once I reclaimed my spot in the middle of the floor, the music changed. One of my favorite old-school slow jams came on: the live version of “Reason” by Earth, Wind & Fire.
At that point, I closed my eyes and tried to forget the fact that I was in a room dancing naked, for a bunch of strangers who, before that day, I would have never let near me, much less let touch me. I thought about Lorenzo. I missed him so much and wanted desperately to feel him. In my mind I was dancing just for him. With my eyes still closed, I slowly and very seductively wiggled my way out of the bottom of the outfit. When I opened my eyes, every eye in the room, including Ricky’s and Amel’s, were on me. Once again, I swung my outfit over my head and threw it. It landed on the floor and two of them dove for it. One grabbed it, immediately smelled it, put it in his mouth, and let it hang from his teeth.
I moved closer to one man and turned my back to him. I slowly bent over and allowed him to slip a twenty-dollar bill into my garter. He got so close and was looking at my ass so hard, I thought he was going to try to crawl inside me. As a thank you, I softly clapped my butt cheeks together and moved on to the next one.
One down, three to go, I thought as I slithered to my next stunned victim. He was hard, rock hard. I could tell by the print that was lying parallel to his thigh.
“Damn, baby,” he whispered.
“You want to talk to me?” I purred. I couldn’t believe I said that, but I might as well have some fun with this. “That’s right. I can be your ho tonight if the price is right,” I started to say, but thought better.
“Yes,” he answered, then started slinging curse words at me. “You’re getting me hard as a rock. Bring it a little closer.”
I obeyed his command and moved closer to him. They were all drunk, but he had passed drunk and moved to fucked up. He unzipped his pants
and began to masturbate. No he didn’t take that little dick out of his pants. On the inside, I was laughing all over myself until he said, “That’s it, you nasty black bitch of a whore.”
Oh, no he didn’t. I thought, but I guess that’s what I am today. I quickly dismissed the thought of cursing him out.
I crept onto the floor and onto my back; I spread my legs and allowed him to talk dirty to me as he slipped another twenty into my garter. I thanked him by pulsating my pussy before rolling over to the next man. He was already there, shirt unbuttoned, tie loosened, pants down to his ankles, choking his limp dick. “Go, go, go!” he shouted as he finally reached his climax.
Gross.
One move from me sent him over the top, and he threw his wallet at me. Amel grabbed it, emptied all the bills that were in it, and handed it to me. I took it between my breasts. I let him slide his wallet from between them, then gently pushed him at arms length, until his back was against the wall. I was shaking the twins at him along the way as I prepared to make my exit.
The last man was sitting in a chair, so I danced my way behind him. I leaned over and pushed him out of the chair. “Turn around and look at me,” I demanded as I took his seat. I was really getting into the spirit of this now. He stumbled to his feet and turned around. He loosened his tie as I pulled my legs back, practically behind my head. He stood there mesmerized as the others looked on. He started rubbing his head, and before I knew what was happening, he was on the floor. I guess he was so drunk that he passed out.
We were there for an hour. After we left, Amel handed me two hundred dollars, and I had made another two hundred in tips. I became a private dancer, and the money got nothing but better. Amel took me along on all of her jobs, and every time she called me I got no less than two-fifty plus tips. Most nights I came away with five hundred dollars. I had quite a few customers who tried to proposition me, but I would tell them I was just there to dance, get my money, and leave.
Then I got lucky.
Amel called me and said she had an easy gig that night. “It’s just one guy and he said he would pay big-time for two, so come on and get paid. We’ll pick you up in an hour.” When we got there, though, the guy said he would only pay if he got to watch us take a shower together. “I wanna watch the two of you do each other, and then I wanna join in. How much would that cost me?” the guy asked.
