Skin Game

by Lawrence C. Ross

  “That is insane,” Ray said, smiling. “But I like it!”

  “By the time we’re through with her, Keisha Montez will beg us to do films. She won’t have any other options because whatever she does, she’ll always be known as a porn star. The question is whether or not she’ll be our porn star.”

  “Is this man a genius or what?” Steven asked, giggling. “I have a problem and Joseph solves it. Guys, if you ever own a business, find a guy who graduated from Harvard business school and hire him. Joseph is that guy for me.”

  Steven clapped his hands together. “Okay, do we have any questions?”

  “Who is in charge of putting up the posters?” Marty asked.

  “I want you and Ray to put them up at midnight next Sunday. When the students get to campus Monday morning, they’re going to be surprised that one of their own is moonlighting. I want them plastered everywhere.”

  “I’ve got an idea,” Ray said, excitedly. “Why limit this to just UCLA? We could go to all of the campuses and put the posters there. I could hire some guerrilla marketers and we could have her face everywhere.”

  “Good idea, but that is the secondary strategy,” Steven said. “I want to put the squeeze on Keisha gradually, like a boa constrictor. We’ll expand our poster strategy each week so that it’s unescapeable.”

  Steven stopped and rested his arm on a chair.

  “Look, guys, Keisha is a pretty girl and I think she could make us a lot of money, but I want to be clear that this isn’t really about that. I could go out and find another girl just like her in about five minutes. But Keisha is trying to fuck me, and no one fucks with Steven Cox. I need to make sure that she understands that and that any other girl who comes to Pimp understands the example I set with Keisha. When I tell a girl to fuck, I want her to fuck. When I tell a girl to suck, I want her to suck. I invest money—my money—and I don’t want any fucking wishy-washy bitches flaking out on me. And to ensure that, Keisha is going to pay the price. So everyone, let’s get at it.”

  Everyone stood up. “I can’t wait to see the look on that bitch’s face when she walks on campus to see this damn poster! That’s going to be priceless,” Marty said.

  “I may sit in the bushes with a camera just to see her face.” Ray giggled.

  “Nah, that’s not going to be what’s great,” Steven said, as he made his move to leave. “What is going to be great is watching her come back into this office, begging to do another video. I’m going to crush her, and that’s going to be a moment to see.”

  Chapter 24

  No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.

  —Voltaire

  Andre and his mother sat in her living room. Andre had just finished smoking a joint, and his mother was drinking a glass of Wild Turkey. In other words, this was a normal Saturday night at the Montez house, with Andre getting high and his mother getting drunk. But this wasn’t a normal Saturday night. Andre had some things on his mind, and for once, he had something to say.

  “So you went out there and didn’t tell her?” Andre asked. “Goddamn it, Momma, you only had one thing you had to do, and you couldn’t do it.”

  Veronica put down her glass of bourbon and looked at Andre as though she couldn’t believe what she’d heard. Andre sounded like he was challenging her, and that she couldn’t stand.

  “She didn’t want to fucking hear me. Do you understand?” Veronica said, agitated that she had to explain herself. “She didn’t want to hear anything that I had to say. So get off my fucking ass.”

  “Her father is back in town, dying, and you couldn’t get those words out of your mouth? I don’t understand. I simply don’t understand,” Andre said.

  “What the fuck don’t you understand? She doesn’t like me and she didn’t want to listen. Don’t blame me,” Veronica said. “Blame your sister. She’s the hardheaded one. I don’t want to hear it. Fuck her. I wish I’d had an abortion like I was going to back then.”

  Veronica walked into the kitchen, opening and slamming shut cabinet doors.

  “Where are my fucking cigarettes?” Veronica yelled. “Andre!”

  Veronica stormed back into the living room.

  “Where the fuck are my cigarettes?” she shouted, holding an empty carton in her hands. She then threw it at Andre. He didn’t flinch. “I’m tired of your lazy ass sitting in here, eating my shit, and smoking my cigarettes.”

  Andre sat in the dining room chair and stared at his mother. “You know, I’ve stuck by you throughout the years mainly because I was too damn lazy and too fucking scared to do what Keisha did, which was to get on up from this house. For years, you’ve told me that Keisha wasn’t shit and how everyone was against you. But now I know that was some bullshit. You’re the fucking problem. You’re the one who told Keisha that she wasn’t shit, because you were shit. And now I sit here, high as a muthafucka, trying to numb myself to the life you set up for me.”

  Andre stood up and got in his mother’s face for the first time in his life. Normally he would have just retreated to his room rather than confront anyone. But something in him had changed.

  “The only thing you had to do was to tell her that her father, someone she hadn’t seen since she was little, is dying, and you couldn’t even do that. Stop talking about Keisha. She’s braver than you and me combined. You’re not shit and I’m not shit, but at least I can be honest and say it. You’re still delusional.”

  Veronica turned her back and walked over to the empty Wild Turkey bottle and threw it at Andre, but it missed by a mile. It ended up breaking a mirror, shattering glass all over the floor. Andre stood up and looked his mother in the eye.

  “Funny, isn’t it, but that was just like your life,” he said with a smirk. “Everything you do is destructive and full of bad luck. I’m going in my room. Tomorrow I’m going down to the club to tell your daughter what you couldn’t seem to. And then I’m going to make plans to get the fuck out of this place.”

  He picked up the empty cigarette carton from the floor and casually tossed it back to his mother.

  “And from now on,” he said, walking toward his room, “buy your own damn cigarettes.”

  “My name is Jack, Jack Bing, and my manager told me that you’re looking to buy a car. Do you know exactly what you’re looking for?” Jack asked. “We have some really nice ones over here.”

  With her new scholarship in the bag, Keisha could use her money for something other than getting a new apartment. And the first thing she’d thought about was getting off the bus and into a car. Having a car in L.A. was a necessity, and she finally could have the freedom she wanted. So she made her way to Wilshire Automotive, where she made the acquaintance of Mr. Jack Bing, car salesman.

  “I want something simple,” she said. “Show me a used Jeep Liberty.”

  “Good choice,” Jack said, “because we’re actually running a special on 2003 Libertys. I have three to choose from. Follow me.”

  They walked to the center of the car lot, where there were three Libertys.

  “This is what we call our patriotic trio,” Jack said, pointing to the three cars. They were red, white, and blue, respectively. “Do you know which one you’d like? They’re all the same price.”

  “I want the red one,” she said, opening its door and getting inside. “But I want it at fifteen hundred off.”

  “Whoa,” Jack said, as though Keisha had asked for a million dollars. “I don’t know if I can give you fifteen hundred dollars off. Maybe we can talk about another—”

  “I don’t want another car,” she said. “I want this car. And I want it for fifteen hundred off, and I want that fifteen hundred to come off the student discount. If I can’t get that, then I’ll walk.”

  Jack squinted at Keisha as though he was trying to figure her out. And as he calculated his commission versus her resolve, it became very clear.

  “Let’s go draw up the paperwork,” he said.

  As Keisha pulled out of the Wilshire Automo
tive parking lot in her new Jeep, she smiled to herself. She had accomplished a lot in the past few months. She’d gotten out of her mother’s house, school was right on track, and she was getting out of the skin biz. She’d fallen into the trap a lot of girls in her neighborhood had, but she had also pulled herself out. And after finishing her last week at the Chi Chi Room, she could leave all that behind, she thought.

  She arrived back at the apartment, parked the car, and hoped Patra didn’t have a john in there when she opened the door. She was excited about finally moving out, but sad that Sean was trying to move Patra out.

  When she opened the door to the apartment, Patra was sitting on the couch, smoking a joint. She didn’t look up when Keisha walked in.

  “Hey, girl, how are you?” Keisha asked, walking past Patra and into the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator and pulled out a can of soda.

  “Not too good,” she responded, still looking straight ahead.

  “What happened?”

  “This,” Patra said, reaching over and picking up a plastic tube and tossing it to Keisha, “is what happened.” Keisha picked up the tube and looked at it closely.

  “According to that, I’m pregnant,” she said, still looking away from Keisha.

  “Pregnant? How did you get pregnant? Didn’t you use protection?”

  “Of course I used protection! What do you think I am, stupid?”

  “No, I wasn’t saying that,” Keisha said, walking back into the living room. “I just thought—oh, I don’t know what I thought. What are you going to do?”

  “What do you think I’m going to do? I’m going to take care of it.”

  “You’re going to have an abortion?”

  “Goddamn, Keisha, yes, I’m going to have an abortion. I’ve had one before, so I know what to do.”

  “Hey, if you need anyone to be with you when you go, I’ll—”

  “Thanks, but no thanks. I think I’ll handle this myself. I’ve set up an appointment for next Monday. I promised myself that I’d never do this again, but I’ll be damned if I have a baby by a father I don’t know.”

  Patra got off the couch and walked into her room. She closed the door, but Keisha could hear the muffled sounds of crying.

  This was not the time to tell her about Sean’s plans, and she wasn’t going to tell her about her own plans. It was simply a time for Patra to be alone.

  Keisha started on her homework but instead decided to call Donovan.

  “Keisha,” he said. “Hey, babe, how are things? How did school go?”

  “Fine, things are going fine. Hey, what are you doing now?”

  “Nothing, what’s up?”

  “I wanted to show you my new car.”

  “What? You rollin’ now?” he exclaimed.

  “Yeah, wanna see it?”

  “Sure, come on by.”

  “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  “Bet.”

  Keisha hung up the phone, went into the bathroom to freshen up, and then surprised herself by putting on some perfume.

  Perfume for Donovan? she thought. I haven’t done that since we were going together.

  Keisha left the bathroom and thought about telling Patra that she was leaving, but decided against it. She left the apartment, got in her car, and began making her way to Donovan’s.

  When she turned down her old block, she looked to see if her mother’s car was in the driveway. It was about dusk, and she didn’t want her mother to see her.

  Keisha hopped out of the Liberty and walked to Donovan’s door. She took a deep breath and then knocked. She hadn’t done that in more than six months. She heard some shuffling of feet, and then the deadbolt locks turning.

  “Hello, beautiful,” Donovan said, opening the door.

  “Hello yourself,” she responded. He was wearing a white linen shirt and light green drawstring pants. He looked cute. “Damn, is that your car?” He left the doorway, walked out to the car, and checked it out. “This is sweet,” he said. “Now you know that if you need some rims, I can pull some strings.”

  “Wait a second,” Keisha said. “I thought you were out of the game.”

  Donovan smiled and looked down at the ground. “I didn’t say that I would do the getting, I just said that I could pull some strings. I’m still on the right track.”

  A breeze blew through the block and seemed to drop the temperature ten degrees in five minutes. The palm trees rustled and suddenly, in a place where the seasons all seem to run into each other, it felt like fall.

  “You want to come in?” Donovan asked. “It’s getting too damn cold out here.”

  “Sure,” Keisha said. They walked into the house and something seemed different. Where were all of the knickknacks? His mother used to have tons of glass baubles and doilies around. All they did was collect dust and get on Donovan’s nerves. Now the house looked clean and even modern.

  “My mother decided to buy another house but let me rent this one from her,” Donovan said. “And before you ask, yes, I can pay her rent.”

  “I didn’t say you couldn’t,” Keisha said. “I was just tripping that she moved. I thought your mother was going to die in this house.”

  “So did she, but then she got her pension and said ‘to hell with it, I’m moving to Riverside.’ So I got to keep the house.”

  Keisha casually strolled around the house. Things were definitely different. Donovan went into the kitchen and Keisha could hear the refrigerator open.

  “Are you thirsty?” he asked. “I’ve got apple juice, and red Kool-Aid. Which one do you want?”

  “I’ll take some apple juice,” she said.

  Donovan brought two glasses to the living room. “You like what I did to the place?”

  Keisha took the glass of juice from Donovan. “It’s nice,” she said. “If you had told me that you had a place to yourself, I would have expected a living room filled with black-light posters. But this is tastefully done.”

  “Been watching Home and Garden Television.” Donovan laughed.

  Keisha sat down on the corner of a chair. “So where are you working now?”

  “Oh, I got a job at Western Construction,” he said, crunching a piece of ice in his mouth. “It wasn’t easy getting a job with my, uh, résumé. But they gave me a chance and I’ve been coming in early every day. They’re going to have to pry me off this job.”

  “That sounds great,” she said. “What are you doing down there?”

  “A little bit of everything,” he said. “Want some more?”

  “No, thank you.”

  Donovan took the two glasses and walked back into the kitchen.

  “I’m trying to figure out which skill I want to do, and then train for it so that I can join the union. If I can join the union, then I will make the big bucks. I think I want to do carpentry, and that’s why I’m taking a class in it at Trade Tech.”

  “Okay, this is a bit much to take,” Keisha said incredulously. “What happened to the Donovan I once knew? The one slinging rocks on the corner? The one who used to get up at one P.M. because he had spent most of the night at the club? What got into you?”

  “I told you. I just got tired of the decisions I was making. It was that simple. Once you do that, then you move forward. Speaking of that, are you still at the club?”

  “I put in my notice. This is my last week and then I’m done.”

  “Cool.”

  “But that’s not the news I wanted to tell you. I have even bigger news,” Keisha said. “I just got a full-ride scholarship to UCLA.”

  “You serious?” Donovan said, grinning. “I mean, you are shitting me! A full ride?”

  “Yes, a full ride,” Keisha said excitedly. “And I have to give you credit. You helped me figure things out.”

  “What do you mean, me?”

  “I mean, you talked to me at my lowest time, and for that I thank you.”

  Donovan stood in front of Keisha, looking at her. “I don’t know what I did, but if it
helped, I’m glad.”

  “Well, you did and I thank you,” she said.

  Keisha stood up to leave. “I’ve got to go. I’ve got some reading to do and a couple of papers to write. This is going to be a huge week for me.”

  She walked to the door and Donovan opened it.

  “It was nice seeing you, Keisha,” he said, looking into her eyes.

  “It was great seeing you, too,” she said, giving him a hug. She’d intended the hug to be a friendly hug, but for some reason, all the emotions and feelings she’d had about Donovan suddenly came flooding back.

  She pulled back from Donovan and looked in his face. Then she slowly and gently cradled his face and began kissing him softly. He began kissing her back, with the hunger of a man who’d changed and wanted to prove that he’d changed. But suddenly he stopped.

  “We don’t have to do this,” he said softly. “We can take it slowly if you want.”

  “I do want this,” she responded. “And I want it now.”

  Chapter 25

  Let your love be like the misty rains, coming softly, but flooding the river.

  —Malagasy proverb

  The two began kissing and making their way to Donovan’s bedroom. Keisha fell backward on the bed and Donovan stood over her, as though looking at his prize. Slowly, he began unbuttoning his linen shirt and exposed his ripped six-pack abs. Whatever conversion Donovan has done, Keisha thought, he’s still doing his one thousand crunches a night.