Uptown Thief

by Aya De León

  Throughout midtown, passengers embarked and disembarked, an inhalation and exhalation of humanity. Somewhere around Harlem, the crowd thinned, and Marisol hung her dry cleaning on the upper handrail. She got off at Washington Heights, and walked several blocks to a quiet watering hole.

  Marisol didn’t have a significant other. She was married to her work. But she couldn’t fuck her work. At least, not anymore.

  She sat at the end of the bar and ordered a shot of tequila. While she waited for her drink, she slipped the locket with the picture of her sister into the change purse of her wallet. Someone was playing a tortured bolero on the jukebox. The tenor’s voice crooned heartbreak, as Marisol savored the taste of lime and salt on her lips and the cool touch of ice on her tongue.

  A man walked in and looked her up and down. He was a little shorter than her, but with gorgeous tawny skin, hazel eyes, long, hard limbs, and a devious smile.

  She smiled back, but with no teeth, feeling a tingle of excitement. She offered him only the briefest of glances, and a shadow of a shrug.

  He nodded to the bartender, and then walked to the other side of the room to watch a large flat-screen TV. The Knicks were down by fifteen, but he turned away just as they scored a three-pointer.

  He hitched up his jeans and slid onto the bar stool next to her.

  “Quieres otra?” he asked.

  “No thanks,” she said in Spanish. “But I’ll buy you one.”

  He raised his eyebrows, but then leaned back and smiled. “Como no?”

  She told the bartender in Spanish, “A rum and Coke.”

  “How do you know what I want?” he asked.

  “I know exactly what you want,” she said, leaning back on her own stool, tossing her head, and arching her back. “Does the drink really matter?”

  “Maybe not,” he said, downing half the drink.

  “Boricua?” he asked.

  “Sí.” She was Puerto Rican. From his accent, she could tell that he was Dominican.

  “De aquí o de allá?” he asked.

  “Los dos,” she said, having grown up both in Puerto Rico and in the United States.

  “I don’t know about you Puerto Rican girls,” he said, swirling the dark liquid in his glass. “My brother married a Puerto Rican. Beautiful but too independent.”

  Marisol put a hand on his arm. “No need to worry about that with me.”

  “You’re not independent?” he asked, skeptically.

  She laughed. “I’m never getting married.”

  “Don’t say that.” He took another sip of his drink. “Maybe later you will. Maybe now you just want to have a good time.”

  He used his index finger to move a stray lock of her hair off her shoulder. He didn’t touch her skin, just moved the hair in a slow arc, so that it teased along her collarbone. “Maybe now you want company after a long day at your job.” He spoke in a murmur, as the lock of hair slipped off the edge of her arm. “Maybe you just want somebody to make you feel really good.” He traced his hand down her arm and onto her knee.

  “I like to feel really good,” she said. “But there’s a problem.”

  “Really?” he asked. “What’s the problem?”

  “Los hombres,” she said.

  He laughed, tracing circles on the tip of her quadriceps. “Men are the problem?”

  “Not exactly,” Marisol said. “But condoms. Sometimes men have a problem with condoms.”

  “Condones?” he asked, sliding his hand farther up her thigh.

  “Do you have that problem?” she asked.

  “No,” he said, walking his fingers gently up to the meeting of her thighs. “I think I have one.”

  She pulled his hand from between her legs and held it. “No need for that,” she said. “I bring my own.”

  “You live nearby?” he asked. “I’m staying with family. I can’t really—”

  “I know a place,” Marisol said, dropping a twenty on the bar and leading him out the door.

  At a nearby hotel in Harlem, she paid cash. She grabbed him in the elevator, and they tangled. Her tongue in his mouth, his hands groping her breasts through her blouse, pressing her hand to his hardness.

  “Any other problemas I might need to know about?” he asked, hot rum breath on her neck.

  “Me being on the bottom would be a problem,” she said. “I like it like this. I like it standing.”

  “I bet you like it on top, too,” he said, his hips grinding against hers.

  “And I like it from behind,” she said, twisting quickly so his hips pressed against her ass.

  The hotel room was a small but clean mass of pale corners with a blond wooden desk and crisp white linens.

  They tossed their dark clothes on the white woven rug. She rolled the condom onto him, and he knelt on the pile of clothes. She had him enter her while she sat, open-thighed, on the blond wooden chair.

  She could see that he was well-endowed, but she couldn’t really feel him inside her, even with him pounding so hard that the chair thudded against the desk. She thrust her hips forward and toppled him back onto the floor, riding him atop the pile of clothes. She tossed aside a stiletto heel as it dug into her knee.

  She swiveled around so that she had her back to him, and he moaned with the deeper angle. She still couldn’t quite feel him, so she stepped abruptly off of him.

  “Que pasó?” he asked, startled.

  “Aquí.” She led him to the dresser, grabbing a pillow off the bed. She guided him to enter her from behind, sliding the pillow between her hips and the edge of the dresser.

  “Te gusta?” he asked.

  He gripped the dresser with one hand and lifted the other one to caress her shoulder.

  She brushed his hand off. “Don’t touch. Just fuck me.”

  “Okei,” he said, putting the other hand on the dresser to get better leverage.

  “Da me más!” she said.

  He pumped furiously, and she focused all her attention on the spot between her legs. She blocked out the rest of his body, the room, the sound of his breath in her ear. She tried to inhabit only a center of pleasure, ride him like a horse to the finish line. She was almost there.

  Suddenly, she heard him gasp and spasm. “Coño!” he said.

  She slid her fingers between her lips and masturbated herself to a climax, and the two of them slumped forward onto the dresser.

  After the last wave of the orgasm subsided, he was too sweaty, too hot, too much on top of her. She slid out from under him, holding the top of the condom so it wouldn’t slip.

  “You should go,” she said in Spanish.

  He nodded, a bit taken aback, and he disentangled his clothes from the pile on the rug.

  She stood, naked, just watching him dress.

  “Adiós, Boricua,” he said.

  After she closed the door behind him and put on the safety lock, she climbed into bed and let her body unwind, sex-drunk, into the still-fresh sheets, and relaxed for the first time since she’d laid eyes on the pimp in front of the clinic.

  * * *

  The next morning, she woke up looking at her dress. Weak sunlight filtered around it through the clear plastic bag that hung in the window.

  Marisol put on yesterday’s outfit and swung the dry-cleaned dress over her shoulder. She didn’t really feel like emerald silk this morning, more like crumpled black lace.

  She rode the train home, surrounded by commuters running late. She wouldn’t feel right until she showered and put on clothes that didn’t smell like a stranger. And tonight, she’d bathe again then put on the dress.

  Chapter 7

  Manhattan offered hundreds of choices for a gala fund-raising event, but Marisol had always planned on using La Fleur Hotel in midtown. The hotel had loomed in her memory since she was little. That autumn afternoon, she and her mother had just run an errand when Marisol had to pee.

  “Wait til we get home,” her mother had said. She was pregnant with Cristina, and just starting to show. />
  “They gotta have a toilet in there.” Marisol had pointed to La Fleur. Such a big building, with people going in and out, certainly there would be a baño inside.

  “It’s for rich people,” her mother had told her in Spanish.

  “I can’t hold it,” Marisol had said.

  “Coño, mija,” her mother had cursed, but then had taken a deep breath.

  Her mother took off her head scarf and shook out her hair. Then she removed her shabby coat and folded it over her arm. She put a hand under Marisol’s chin and tilted the child’s head back so their eyes met. “Stand up straight. Stay by me, and don’t look around.”

  “I have to go really bad,” Marisol said, on the verge of tears.

  “I know, corazón,” her mother said. “So we’re going to pretend we live here. And pretend we know where the bathroom is.” She ran her fingers through Marisol’s unruly hair. “We can’t ask anyone, because we don’t want to make them mad, okay?”

  “Okay,” Marisol said. “They’ll be mad because they only have one bathroom?”

  Marisol’s mother laughed. “No, mi amor. Because . . . because they’re rich. They have more bathrooms than they need, but they don’t like to be close to anyone.”

  Her mother crossed herself. She never went to church, but she genuflected when she was worried. “It’ll be okay, nena. It’s an adventure.”

  Marisol’s first midtown theft. Unauthorized use of a four-star-hotel toilet at age six. She was dying to gaze at the marble floors and chandeliers and velvet couches. In her peripheral vision, she glimpsed flower arrangements taller than she was.

  The toilet had felt exactly the same as the one in her apartment. She didn’t understand the big deal. Afterward, they giggled all the way to the F train.

  Nearly twenty years later, she had stayed at the hotel as the guest of a wealthy media mogul from Barcelona. While he was in his business meeting, she sat in the lobby for over three hours, gazing at the delicious, once-forbidden sights.

  * * *

  The sun was setting when Marisol walked into La Fleur Hotel for the gala. Under her winter coat, she wore the emerald gown that had been altered to fit her perfectly. A fifties-starlet style in raw silk that flattered her hourglass figure, with spaghetti straps, a low neckline, and a narrow skirt that flared below the knee. Her invincibility shoes were hidden beneath the skirt’s tulle. Her hair was swept up in a French twist, and the pearls at her wrist and ears flattered her dark hair and light brown skin.

  The sign in the lobby read:

  Gala Fund-Raiser

  María de la Vega Health Clinic

  7 PM Grand Ballroom

  “We finally made it to the big time,” Eva said to Marisol. They looked through the open double doors into the Grand Ballroom, with its high ceiling, chandeliers, velvet walls, and plush carpet.

  “Ms. Rivera,” the director of special events greeted her with an outstretched hand. “Let’s do a quick walk-through to make sure everything is to your specifications.”

  The two of them surveyed the event from the mezzanine level. White tables made a polka-dot pattern on the ballroom’s dark carpeting.

  The gala was the first in a series of fund-raisers for a clinic endowment. They aimed for fifty million in ten years. Then, after they paid off the clinic’s mortgage, they could use endowment interest for operations—making them independent of grants and donors.

  The sign at the front table said: “Give now. Give big. And your money will keep giving for you.” All funds donated tonight would go directly into an endowment account and couldn’t be used for current expenses.

  All of Loisaida Talent Agency’s “models” were hostesses for the evening. They padded around prepping the tables and champagne glasses in low-cut surplice neck blouses and snug slacks. When the event began, they slipped on high-heeled pumps and circulated trays with flutes of champagne and canapés, while they collected donations.

  * * *

  By 8 p.m. the room was filled with enthusiastic patrons, and the sounds of a jazz trio.

  “Marisol,” her assistant Serena’s voice crackled in her earpiece. “The deputy mayor just walked in.”

  Serena was a petite, fine-boned girl, with brown flyaway hair and intense hazel eyes—a former clinic client. Serena was transgender, and had been thrown out of the house as a teen by her Greek immigrant parents.

  There was still a line at the registration table. At $500 per person, they would have at least a quarter million walking in the door. With any luck, they would raise half a million for their endowment.

  The coup for the evening was having celebrity Delia Borbón signing exclusive preview copies of her rags-to-riches autobiography. Borbón’s memoir promised to include her exploits as a stripper before her movie career and marriage to a New York congressman.

  * * *

  “Marisol,” Serena’s voice warned through her earpiece. “The blonde has arrived and is headed your way.”

  Marisol spotted a woman in a pink dress that barely covered her huge breasts. She hung on the arm of a strapping young man.

  “Vixela!” Marisol bit back her rage at the strip club owner.

  From a distance, Vixela looked like a pinup girl from some bygone era. Even in a room filled with glamorous women, she turned heads as she strutted over to embrace Marisol.

  Up close, Vixela’s seams showed. The arms embracing Marisol were tense and ropy. The breasts pressing against her were stiff, synthetic. Vixela’s face had a taut, pulled look. She air-kissed Marisol with overplumped lips.

  Vixela must be about the same age as Eva—early sixties. Yet Eva wore her wrinkles and her love handles with grace. And wasn’t that handsome Bronx Alderman always asking Eva out? He had to be fifteen years her junior. Eva had a face that made you want to get closer, get to know her.

  “You belong up on a pole,” Marisol said. “I bet you could show these young girls how it’s done.”

  “Sometimes I have to hold myself back,” Vixela said.

  “The customers’ loss,” Marisol said. “Will you walk with me over to the stage?”

  “Of course, darling,” Vixela said.

  “I need your help,” Marisol said. “I thought my staff was lying when they said they had problems parking behind your club. You know how lazy these girls can be. So I followed them in a cab last night. I was surprised that your security guys stopped them from parking in the alley.”

  “Must be a misunderstanding,” Vixela said. “You can park right in front, just don’t block the loading zone.”

  “I knew it,” Marisol said. “Of course you would want the girls to get checked out if they needed it.”

  “I’m all about helping my girls,” Vixela said.

  Marisol took a glass of champagne from a hostess and handed it to Vixela. “Don’t be surprised if I give you a little shout-out during my intro.”

  She unhooked the velvet rope, and gathered up the hem of her dress as she stepped up onto the platform.

  “Good evening, everyone,” Marisol said into the microphone. “Buenas noches.”

  Serena cued the jazz trio to end the song, and the clamor in the room dropped.

  “In these tough economic times, it’s good to see that New York cares for its own,” Marisol began. “That the gorgeous, the fabulous, and the prosperous give a damn about the marginal, the vulnerable, and the so-called expendable. Everybody deserves health care. No matter what it is they choose to do with their bodies. Delia Borbón knows how hard it is out there. That’s why she’s here tonight. Because she remembers the tightrope young brown women have to walk. And she remembers all the sisters who don’t ever write the book, attend the gala event, or even live to tell the tale. And that’s where our clinic comes in. We insist on a real chance for the lives of our young women, and the occasional young man. Every cent we collect tonight will go into our endowment, ensuring that our services will be available for generations to come.”

  The audience erupted in applause.


  “This is a magical night,” Marisol said. “Just a few minutes ago, I sealed the deal for a new health initiative in the Financial District.” Marisol searched the audience, and easily found the bright pink dress. “Our outreach van is going to be parked at Vixela’s every night to offer services to her fabulous girls.”

  Vixela’s mouth grimaced, but her forehead and eyes remained immobile.

  “Please, everyone,” Marisol said, an open hand indicating Vixela’s location. “A round of applause for our own sensational Vixela!”

  Vixela smiled and waved.

  “And thank you all for your incredibly generous donations tonight,” Marisol said. “But not everyone is so pleased with how we protect and support women. We need security volunteers over the next few weeks. Male or female. We’ll take anyone who’s ready to defend the women who come to our clinic.”

  The DJ spun a quick sample of a current club song: “Don’t worry,” a tenor voice sang over thudding bass. “We gonna work it out, girl. Work it! Work it!”

  “Haaaaaayyy!” various voices in the audience chorused the next line of the song.

  Marisol laughed. “Thanks, DJ. I need to remember this is a party. And I think some of you might have come out to hear our special guest, right? Well, prepare to be inspired, and dáme un gran aplauso for Ms. Delia Borbón!”

  Borbón swept onto the stage in a flash of gold sequins and a cloud of her own signature perfume.

  * * *

  Later, Marisol counted the people in the book-signing line. With a donation profit margin of seventy-five dollars per book, the evening’s financials looked good.

  “Marisol!”

  She turned and looked closely at a thirty-something Latino man. He wore a well-cut suit and a wide smile on his square-jawed face.

  Was he an uptown hookup who’d managed to find her? He was just the type of guy she liked to help her blow off steam. And there was an intimacy with which he’d called her name. She felt a flush of heat.

  She never told those guys her name, didn’t even bother with a fake name. While she remembered all her former sex work clients, she immediately forgot the faces of the hookups, remembering only the notable physical quirks: a dick that curved left or a pair of bullet scars in a bicep.