Moments later the door opened.
“Hi, Ms. Smith,” Portia stammered, running her hand through the tangled lengths of her Pocahontas-styled weave.
Desdemona gave the young woman a look. “Hello, Portia,” she said, taking in the long robe she was holding closed with her hands. “I just came to see how you were doing. Can I come in?”
“Uhmmmm.” She hesitated with a quick look back over her shoulder. “Sure.”
Slick self.
Desdemona walked into the room as Portia stepped back and opened the door wider. There was just a queen-size bed with colorful linens, a modern space-saving desk with a chrome chair in the corner, and the flat-screen television on the wall. It was clean, and for that she was grateful. Teaching the young woman about hygiene and neatness had been an early struggle she thought they would never overcome.
But in the air was the smell of sex.
She walked over and opened the window, thankful for the breeze, even though it was crisp and cold. “You don’t mind, do you?”
Portia shook her head as she sat down on the foot of the bed. “I was just about to call to check on the job applications I put in at the mall—”
Desdemona held up her hand and shook her head. “Boyfriend or trick?” she asked, with a heavy breath.
Portia feigned confusion. “Huh?”
Desdemona arched a brow and turned to lean over and open the bathroom door just as Portia jumped to her feet. Sitting on the commode was a half-naked white man of middle age with balding head, pot belly, and thin legs. “Trick,” she decided. “Get dressed, please.”
She swung the door shut.
WHAP!
Portia slumped back down on the bed. “Ms. Smith, I—”
Desdemona held a gloved finger to her lips demanding silence without saying a word. And they remained silent until the man left the bathroom fully clothed and scurried around the large bed to leave the room.
“I’m disappointed,” she began, tucking her hand inside the leather trench coat she still wore. “My goal that night was to save you from your pimp and yourself. I wanted you to want more for yourself, but if I want it more than you, then I am a fool. I don’t like being a fool. Explain to me why? Free rent not enough. Money every week, not enough? Clothes. Hairdo. Nails. All of it not enough?”
Portia hung her head and bit at her bottom lip as she shivered from the cold breeze tumbling through the open window.
Desdemona turned to close it.
“I am so grateful, Ms. Smith, and I still don’t know why you help me so much after all this time. All of that stuff is enough,” she said.
“Are you on drugs?” she asked, looking at her body and eyes for any telltale signs but seeing none.
“No.”
“So what isn’t enough?”
“It’s all I know,” she admitted, looking up at her. “It’s familiar because everything else for me ain’t.”
Desdemona frowned.
“Maybe it’s like a drug for me,” she said. “It felt good to get his eye, work out the money, and bring him back to my room. It felt so good to me. Not him. Not the sex. I just zone out for that, but all of the rest of it. Maybe tricking is my drug because sometimes, like today, I feel like I can’t stop.”
“You have to find your worth in something else,” she said, saying the right words but feeling like a hypocrite because she sold sex every day.
But she’s not a grown woman making a conscious decision. She’s a kid. She was abused and pimped. I want to save her.
How could she if she no more had the will to walk away from being a madam than Portia did to walk away from prostituting?
The commonality between them and their connection to sex work disturbed her. Desdemona headed for the door.
She paused at the door with her gloved hand on the handle. “I won’t bail you out of jail,” Desdemona repeated her warning from the first night they met.
“I know.”
“Your rent is paid through the month and I’ll give you one more, but then I’m done,” she said, not looking back at her as she spoke. “You continuing to sell yourself wasn’t a part of the deal.”
The bed squealed as Portia jumped to her feet. “No, Ms. Smith. I’ll stop.”
This girl was a liability. Desdemona had never ever been arrested. Not once, and she wasn’t looking to break her track record and ruin the lives of her consorts and courtesans if she was exposed by the decisions made by a reckless little girl in need of—
Help.
Desdemona shook her head. I have too much to lose.
“Ms. Smith, please. I won’t do it again. Please.”
When she looked to her she hated that she saw glimpses of herself. “Find a job, Portia, and an apartment in the price range we discussed. This is my last attempt to help you,” she said and just left the room, quietly closing the door.
* * *
Desdemona was in the bath with the water lapping against her body, her arms splayed and hanging over the sides as she tilted her head back.
“I feel like I can’t stop.”
“I feel like I can’t stop.”
“I feel like I can’t stop.”
“I feel like I can’t stop.”
She winced at the words echoing in her head, before sliding her bottom across the slick floor of the bath until her knees poked above the water’s level and her head dipped down beneath it.
“I feel like I can’t stop.”
She emerged, uncaring of the water that overflowed to the heated marble floor, as she ran her hands back over her head to stop the flow of soapy water into her eyes. She wrapped her arms around her knees and settled her chin in the groove between them.
Pussy runs my life. The desire of it and for it. My mother’s inability to think beyond it. My father’s desire of my mother and his lack of respect for his wife’s. My pimp’s controlling of it. And now my control over others.
“Pussy, pussy, pussy, pussy,” she said aloud softly. “I’m sick of it.”
What was most troubling was not her guilt over no longer helping Portia, or her fear of leaving behind the successful—albeit illegal—business she had grown, it was that she had no one with whom to share her thoughts, her fears, and her guilt. No one who knew Desdemona “Desi” Dean.
She thought of calling Loren, but that would just be a diversion from her reality, and with Denzin discussions of her even thinking of quitting might lead to a power move on his part. She trusted no one.
No, I trust Lo. It’s me that he shouldn’t trust. Plus, he’s studying tonight.
She climbed from the tub and selected one of the dozen white towels neatly rolled and stacked on the counter beside the Jacuzzi tub. She wrapped it around her nudity and grabbed another to twist around her damp hair like a turban.
For the rest of the night, Desdemona kept busy. She called and checked on Portia, who was working at a retail store in the Manhattan Mall. She rescheduled her GED test for April. Got the receipts for the dress boutique together to take to her accountant to file her taxes. She checked on the new stock Patrice wanted to order for the boutique and checked on the status of a dozen orders in queue. She ordered room service and picked over her meal of seared tuna with Asian slaw but devoured the dessert of New York cheesecake with raspberries, even raising the plate to lick at the sweet glaze. She depleted her supply of her favorite wine and turned up the music as she flung her towels away and danced around her apartment naked and carefree.
“Living my best life!” she sang along with Lil Duval as she ran down the length of her couch from one end to the other.
When Whitney Houston’s song “I Will Always Love You” came on, she grabbed a lighter and sang along with her. “Oh, Nippy!” she wailed in drink-induced grief before the heat of the lighter singed her thumb.
“Shit!” she swore emphatically, dropping it and then furiously kicking it away to spin across the smooth hardwood floor.
It was Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing” that
led her to call Loren.
“Whatchu doing, Lo?” she asked, her words slurring.
“I’m studying, remember. I have a quiz in the morning.”
“I got that feeling. I want sex-u-al heal-ing,” she sang with a body roll. “Come heal me, Lo. Heal me.”
“Alisha?”
“Who’s that?” she asked with a twisted facial expression.
Oh, that’s right, he thinks that’s my first name. Hell, everyone does. I’m Desi. Desdemona Dean. Thankyouverymuch.
“You okay?”
“Sex-u-al,” she said, slowly winding her hips as she stood in front of the window.
“Are you drunk?”
“No! Are you?” she snapped, looking down at her phone as if he could see her as she frowned. “Come. Heal. Me.”
“This is hilarious and sad all at once,” he drawled.
“Your ass,” she snapped before dropping the phone onto the floor and walking away in a haphazard pattern until she fell face-first onto her couch with her limbs spread.
* * *
Knock-knock-knock-knock.
Desdemona jerked her head up from the sofa and winced as every part of her body ached as she turned over.
Knock-knock-knock-knock.
Her mouth tasted sour, and the brightness of the overhead lighting hurt her eyes. Clear signs of sleep. “How long?” she asked, her throat dry and her voice raspy.
“I feel like I can’t stop.”
“Not that again,” she said, sitting up on the sofa.
“I feel like I can’t stop.”
Desdemona sighed, running her hands through her hair. It was already dry. That surprised her.
Knock-knock-knock-knock.
She looked over her shoulder at her front door before rising and walking over to it, feeling weighed down by a thousand pounds. She opened the door wide.
“Hey! Ho! Hey! Hold up,” Loren said, stepping inside to cover her nudity as he closed the door. “You naked little drunk.”
He swung her up in his arms.
“Loooo,” she sighed breathily.
He frowned and turned his head. “Whoo. That breath on fiyah!” he said.
She covered her mouth with her hands and then giggled. “My bad,” she mumbled from behind her fingers.
He carried her down the hall to her bedroom and laid her down atop the bed before covering her with the soft cashmere throw at the foot of the bed.
She snuggled down under it and clutched a few soft pillows. “Lo, I love your hair braided like that,” she said, opening one eye to look up at him.
“We’ll talk about that later,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed and smoothing her hair back from her face. “Sober up.”
She nodded, enjoying the feel of his hand and not knowing when she again slipped into slumber.
* * *
Desdemona opened her eyes, and the darkness of her bedroom startled her. She flung back the covers and sat up in bed, swinging her legs over the side. She remembered Lo carrying her to bed after she overindulged in wine. Everything before that was a blur.
Still cloaked by darkness, she remained still and enjoyed the quiet.
“I feel like I can’t stop.”
“So do I,” she whispered into the ebony. “So do I.”
The halls light turned on, and she looked to the door just as Loren leaned against the frame. “You’re up,” he said.
She reached over and turned on the bedside lamp, casting the room in a soft glow of light. “Just thinking through some things,” she said. “I have a lot of decisions to make.”
He stepped into the room, pausing to pick up her robe from the bench at the foot of the bed. “Is that what the drunkfest was about?” he asked, opening the robe to drape over her shoulders.
Giving him a smile of thanks, she eased her arms into the robe but let it hang open on either side of her body.
“You want to talk about it?”
She leaned over to lightly knock her shoulder against his. “I’m thinking about leaving my business behind,” she admitted.
“Wow,” Loren said in surprise. “Why? It provides you a good living.”
“Just too many burdens to keep it going,” she said truthfully, and feeling such sweet relief to say it. “It feels like it’s weighing me down.”
“Are you secure enough—moneywise—to leave it or sell it?”
Sell it? I wish.
“Yes,” she said, thinking of all the money she had squirreled away over the years.
“Then take the money you’ve made and run toward some kind of happiness,” he said as if it were all that easy.
Is it?
“What time is it?” Desdemona asked.
“Two.”
“In the morning?”
He chuckled. “You went down the first time for an hour. I came over after you dropped your phone when I wouldn’t come to give you some sexual healing.”
She grimaced, remembering it now. “Come heal me, Lo,” she mimicked herself, shaking her head and hiding her face in her hands.
“So that was an hour you lost by the time I got here, and you opened the door butt-ass naked.”
“And you’ve been here all this time.”
“Studying . . . and cooking dinner, or is early breakfast now?” Lo asked, rising to his feet and holding out his hand to her.
He looked good in a navy blue V-neck sweater and distressed denims. Something in her, deep in her, that she didn’t want to face caused her soul to warm as she slid her hand into his and let him pull her to her feet to follow behind him.
“You do know that robe open on you like that is sexy as hell, right?” he asked without looking back.
“Absolutely,” she stressed with a laugh.
Chapter Eleven
Thursday, February 14, 2019
Drugs are and will always be the devil . . .
“A’ight. All done. Whatchu think?”
Her hairstylist turned the chair, and Desdemona looked at her hair in a bob that flowed above her shoulders when she turned her head left and right. “Love it, MiMi,” she said, running her fingers through the silk-pressed strands.
The tall and full-figured beauty with a shaven head and beautiful lips coated in red matte gave her a wink as she removed the embroidered cape. “You needed a good cut, and this fits the shape of your face so well,” MiMi said, still running her fingers through the layers.
It was MiMi who had revitalized Desdemona’s hair after the damage she had done to it when Zena gave up on fixing it for her. And that’s why years later, wealthy or not, Desdemona still made the trek to the small Harlem salon. MiMi’s skills, the soul music playing in the background, and the abundance of sisterhood and good conversation were addictive.
“Did y’all see the Grammys?” someone asked.
“Girl, did I?” someone else answered.
Desdemona smiled as she stood and played with her own hair in the mirror as she eyed the women laughing together. “I saw it, too,” she said, reaching into her leopard print Yves Saint Laurent crossbody bag to remove the cash to pay and tip MiMi.
“See you next week,” MiMi said with a smile, sliding the money into the black cape she wore before motioning for her next customer to sit in her chair.
Cha-ching. Cha-ching. Cha-ching.
Desdemona was laughing at one of the customers imitating a performer from the awards show, but she stopped as she reached in for her phone. Number thirteen. He was supposed to be having an afternoon delight with Plum at the Riverdale mansion. “Hello,” she said, grabbing her wool cape and rushing from the shop, leaving behind the smell of sweet-scented spritzes, chemicals, and hot curling irons pressed to curling wax on hair.
“She’s dead.”
She paused on the street, causing the crowd of people to bypass her as they continued at a fast pace. “What?” she snapped, her heart hammering.
“I’m out of here. Leave me out of it.”
Boop.
He hung up.
<
br /> “Shit,” she swore, rushing down the street, dodging people and street vendors selling everything from food to books and artwork—even surrounded by the frigid air of winter.
Desdemona reached the side street where she had parked, hating that her hands were shaking in fright as she climbed behind the wheel and started her keyless ignition. “Shit,” she swore again.
She dialed Denzin, hating the tremble that caused her to miss and hit the wrong number and have to back up and start again.
Keep it cool, Desi. Calm down. Gather yourself and keep it cool.
She released long, steadying breaths and continued to do so as she dialed him successfully.
“Hey, boss.”
“I need you to go up and check on Plum. I got a call that’s she’s dead in the house,” she said, putting the phone on speaker and setting it on her lap.
“What?!” he exclaimed.
“Go check,” she said, surprised by her calm voice even as her heart pounded fast and hard.
“She’s dead.”
“I’m getting too old for this,” she muttered as she turned the corner and eased into traffic, gripping the wheel to help steady her hands.
“Plum!” Denzin shouted. “Plum!”
She heard slapping noises.
“Come on, Plum, Wake up. Wake up,” he said, his voice frantic.
“Denzin,” she called out.
He didn’t respond.
He must have put the phone down.
Desdemona heard a commotion and then a splash of water. She bit her bottom lip as she drove in and out of traffic trying to get to Riverdale as soon as possible, feeling helpless and hopeless.
“Boss,” he said into the phone suddenly. “She’s alive.”
“Oh, thank God.”
“She almost overdosed.”
“Plum?” she asked in disbelief, thinking of the young Latina with the brightest and most infectious smile and warm disposition that made you love her on the spot. To Plum, everyone was “love” or “mama” or “baby.” Everyone.
“There’s heroin in the room, boss.”
Desdemona came to a red light and was thankful for the chance to close her eyes and let her heart ache. Drugs. Addiction was tough. It was an illness. It was hard to kick. It was a whole new pimp. A different master.
Madam, May I Page 17
