by Aya De León
“You fucking left us,” Deza spat, furious. “You knew Mama was crazy and Grandma was no help and Zeus was useless and his ‘like-a-son-to-me’ bodyguard was around all the time, and Auntie Lucille was dead and you left us. How could you leave us? You were the only one. The only one left we could trust.” She threw herself down on the bed and began to sob in earnest.
Tyesha didn’t know what to do. She just sat there for a moment. Did Deza want privacy? Had the crying woken up Amaru? She crept toward the door.
“What?” Deza said. “You bout to leave again?”
“No,” Tyesha said, and sat down on the bed. “I’m sorry I left. I—I’m sorry I didn’t think about how it would affect you. I’m sorry it was so rough.”
Deza curled into Tyesha’s lap and sobbed hard. Tyesha kept expecting Amaru to come knocking on the door, but apparently she slept through all of it: the howling sobs, the hiccupping as Deza caught her breath.
When Tyesha went to get some tissue for Deza to wipe her face, she heard Amaru’s heavy, even breathing from the couch.
“I was nineteen when I left,” Tyesha said. “Your age.”
Deza turned sharply. “No, you weren’t,” she said.
Tyesha nodded. “I had just voted for the first time, but I couldn’t drink legally.”
“You were really just nineteen?” Deza asked, incredulous.
Tyesha nodded. “Do the math.”
For a moment, she could see her niece actually doing the arithmetic in her head.
“Somehow I thought you were older,” Deza said, and blew her nose. “I guess that’s what you mean about us becoming more like peers. Our ages are almost like sisters, even more so than auntie and niece. I mean, there’s less difference between our ages than between you and Mama.”
“Yep,” Tyesha said, stroking Deza’s hair. “Almost like sisters.”
* * *
Two days later, Tyesha stood at the podium in the multipurpose room for another press conference. Marisol, Lily, Kim, Jody, and Eva and the other union reps stood behind her.
The press was assembled in their seats, including Drew. She avoided his eyes. He’d called and left a message congratulating her on the article, but no talk of them going out again. He acted like she was just any other journalism subject. Didn’t even ask her to call back.
Tyesha could feel her whole body shaking, but she planted her feet, gripped the edges of the podium and began.
“My name is Tyesha Couvillier, and I’m the executive director of the Maria de la Vega clinic here. I want to honor my predecessor, Marisol Rivera, who grew up in this very neighborhood and founded this clinic along with Eva Feldman.”
Her throat began to feel tight, so she cleared it and went on. “Our mission is to provide services to sex workers. Mostly that means sexual and emotional health and life skills and career planning. But I wanted to make sure the clinic was the headquarters for this union fight, because this fight is personal to me. Not because I was a stripper, but because I’m an African American woman.”
She looked out past the crowd and pictured her aunt Lucille. “See, I’m not from New York. I’m from Chicago. My grandparents were from Mississippi, and their ancestors were brought from Africa in slavery. They picked cotton on a large plantation. And one day, slavery was over, and they were free. Or were they? They didn’t own land, have any tools, couldn’t read or write—because it had been illegal to teach literacy to any enslaved African people. Plus, if they tried to build businesses, they were lynched. So my family did what so many black folks did, they became sharecroppers. All they had were their bodies and the work they could produce.”
She opened up her briefcase, the lovely leather one Marisol had given her, and pulled out a branch with three bolls of cotton. She set it on the podium and continued. “And the way the Southern sharecropping system worked, my ancestors rented the land and the tools and the landowners set the prices for everything. And they loaned them everything they needed to live—for a price, a price that the landowners set. They set the price of the tools and the seeds, and the little bit of food and letting them live on the land. And at the end of every year, most black families were further in debt to the landowners than the year before. And the only way out was to run away to a big city in the North, which is what my grandparents did. They snuck out in the middle of the night, and they came to Chicago.”
Tyesha reached into her briefcase and pulled out a silver thong and set it on the other side of the podium. “Now if you’re a woman working at a strip club in New York, there is no city to run away to. Did you know that most strip clubs charge the dancers a fee to dance? When the owners own the stage and the lights and the pole and the seats and the bar and they jack up the fees so high, and all you got is your body and the work it can produce. And sex work is work, so sometimes dancers end up doing oral sex or vaginal sex or anal sex . . . I hope I’m not offending anyone, but I’m just reporting the facts. We believe in decriminalization of selling sex between consenting adults, but coercion of any kind, be it trafficking, threats of violence, or predatory working conditions in strip clubs are coercion and they undermine consent.
“To be honest about it, poverty undermines consent. But these clubs are profitable, so there’s no reason that working dancers should be broke. We’ve looked over the finances at the One-Eyed King, and there’s plenty of money for the dancers and the other workers and the managers and the owners, and even the investors. But profit is not enough for the owners, they want sky-high profits, and that can only come at the expense of the dancers, by having them working below living wages or coercing them into full-service sex work if that’s not what they want to do. And we say no. We demand labor conditions that will allow dancers to make a living dancing, in clean and reasonable conditions, with sick leave and vacation. The managers and owners have shown—over and over again—that they are unwilling to provide those conditions, so our workers formed a union. We are only demanding a right to democracy. Journalists and cartoonists want to laugh at us and parody us, and individuals want to send memes around on the Internet? We don’t care about that. We care about thugs threatening us. We care about cops stopping us and threatening to arrest us for ‘soliciting for the purposes of prostitution,’ stopping any brown woman in certain neighborhoods of New York who ‘fits the profile.’ If you wear tight clothes in Manhattan, you’re sexy. If you wear tight clothes in these over-policed brown neighborhoods, you might end up in court with a case for prostitution. This is our whole agenda: that women not be coerced into selling sex if they don’t want to.
“So for all these reasons, and more, our union met with the owners of the One-Eyed King, and I’m glad to announce that they agreed to all of our demands, including a 401(k) program.”
“That’s right!” Lily yelled from the front row, and the audience erupted in laughter.
When the ruckus died down, Tyesha went on. “As a black woman, I’m still waiting for my forty acres and a mule,” she said. “But I’m glad to know that the exotic dancers of this city have a union shop where they can work, and know that they have this clinic behind them a hundred percent.”
She picked up the twig of cotton and the thong and slid them into the briefcase. On the inside flap, she had put a picture of her aunt Lucille. Tyesha touched the smooth photo paper for a moment before she lifted her face to the audience.
“So on behalf of all the union members and all my African American ancestors, I thank you for coming, and for caring about justice for all.”
As she looked up from the podium, the applause was thunderous. The dancers in the back whistled and some blew noisemakers.
Marisol leaned forward and whispered in her ear.
“Nena, you were fucking fabulous,” she said. “I knew you were the one to take over the clinic. You do us proud.”
Tyesha smiled and turned to the audience. “Any questions?”
* * *
That evening, Tyesha was headed out of the clinic when a homeless blac
k woman asked her for some spare change.
“Yeah, sis,” she said, and dug in her briefcase. She gave the woman five dollars and walked farther up the street.
Just as she was about to turn the corner, a thickset white guy grabbed her and attempted to pull her into a van.
Tyesha screamed and began to struggle against his grip. He had her arms pinned to her sides, but she clawed and kicked at him.
A nearby woman shrieked “Oh my God!” and a man in a suit pulled out his phone to call 911.
Tyesha’s shoe fell off, and she craned her neck to bite the man’s arm.
But before she could sink her teeth in, the homeless woman came around the corner and began shooting. The van screeched away. The man let Tyesha go and took off running.
Bystanders dove out of the way. Tyesha dropped her briefcase and ducked behind a bus shelter, as the woman shot at the thug. He hadn’t gotten far down the block before she hit him in the left leg. He went down, and she ran up to him.
“This is a message to your boss from Zeus,” she said, and reloaded the gun. With each of the next five words, she put another bullet in his leg: “Don’t. Fuck. With. My. Family.” With each shot, the man screamed in pain. Onlookers shrieked and ducked for cover.
Tyesha’s own legs were so weak, she sank to the ground.
A town car pulled up and the woman half lifted Tyesha into it. She retrieved the shoe and briefcase, then gave the driver Tyesha’s address.
“Watch yourself, girl,” she said, and handed Tyesha her five dollars back.
Chapter 22
By the time the town car dropped Tyesha off, she had gone from shaking violently to a persistent low-grade tremor.
The driver turned to her over the back of the front seat. “I have orders from Zeus to stay outside your house,” he said. “Call this number if you need a ride or there’s any trouble, okay?”
Tyesha couldn’t speak. She just nodded, took the card, and gathered her purse.
She stepped out of the car to see Thug Woofer waiting at her front door.
“I’m sorry to just drop by,” he said. “I have Deza’s contract for her to look over. I tried calling but your phone was off all day.”
As Tyesha stepped into the apartment’s exterior light, he could finally see her face.
“Tyesha, are you okay?”
She shook her head as she lifted the keys to the lock. Her hand was shaking so hard, she could barely open the door.
“Let me get that for you,” he said, and unlocked the door.
“Somebody tried to—” she began, but then she started to cry. “He tried to grab me. But then this woman shot him and I got away.”
“What?” Woof asked.
They stepped into the living room, and she collapsed onto the couch.
“It’s this—I’ve made some enemies at work,” she said. “The Ukrainian mob. One of their guys. They tried to kidnap me.”
“And somebody shot the guy?” Woof asked, sitting beside her on the couch.
“It was—I guess”—she couldn’t quite find the words—“I think I told you there’s a big drug dealer from Chicago in my family. I guess one of his people shot the guy to protect me. I don’t know. My whole fucking life is turned upside down.”
“Tyesha,” he said, “I know we’re not together anymore, but I really care about you. What can I do? Are you safe here? Do you want to come over to my place?”
“Just stay with me til the girls get home,” she said.
“I can do that,” he said.
She lay on his lap and cried until her body stopped shaking and she fell asleep.
When she woke up, it was pitch black outside. She was under a blanket with her head in Woof’s lap, and he was reading a paperback novel.
“What time is it?” she asked, sitting up.
“A little after midnight,” he said.
“Where are the girls?” Tyesha asked, suddenly panicked.
“In your bed,” Woof said. “We didn’t want to wake you.”
“You didn’t have to stay,” she said.
“You looked like you needed the sleep,” he said.
“You been right here this whole time?” she asked.
“Yes, and I really need to pay the water bill,” he said, dashing for the bathroom.
“I can’t thank you enough,” she said when he came back, but he waved it away.
“By the way, you were right,” she said. “About Drew—the reporter.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I mean, guys like him—bourgie types—they don’t know what it is to struggle. To have to use everything you got. They get things handed to them. You scrap for everything you have. I admire you for being ambitious and doing what you had to do. I know it seemed like I judged you for your past, but I was just threatened. You’re an independent woman, and a guy like me is used to always having the upper hand. Always getting his way. And I had feelings for you, so I tried to take you down a notch by taking a jab at what I thought was your weak spot. But it’s actually where you’re strong. I mean, I been following you in the news, ‘sex worker advocate Tyesha Couvillier.’ You been fighting for justice for your folks.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I didn’t know you were keeping up with me like that.”
“I been following you on Twitter,” he said. “With my secret identity account.”
She laughed. “What’s your secret identity?”
“If I told you it wouldn’t be a secret,” he said. “So, on a different subject, now that I’m about to be mentoring Deza, we’re gonna cross paths. I know I’m lucky to get as many chances with you as I already got. But if there’s any way you can forgive me—”
“Woof—”
“Let me just finish,” he said. “You walked away from me the morning after I met you because I was an ass. Then you walked away again because I was a dick. And with the Car Willis thing, you walked away because I was just—totally insensitive. And guess what. I’m not gonna promise you that I’m perfect now. Because I’m not, and I’m gonna fuck up sometimes. But with you I keep getting better. And I keep striving to be better. And I just want to get serious with you, Tyesha.”
“Serious like what?” she asked.
“Like exclusive girlfriend and monogamy and all that,” he said.
Tyesha took a deep breath. “In your first album, you vowed never to get married. Is that still how you feel?”
“You want me to propose?” he asked. “Cuz I dunno if I’m ready for—”
“No,” she said. “I’m not ready, either. I just want to know that something as serious as marriage is on the table. I eventually want a husband and a family. I don’t just want to be your self-improvement plan, where I help you become a better person, then we both move on. We gotta be building something. Do you wanna build something with me?”
“Oh, hell yeah, Tyesha,” he said. “Just draw me the blueprints.”
This time when they made love, it was different. There was no sign of Woof the showman. He just kept his eyes on hers, as they each took off their clothes.
Before he touched any particular part of her body, he just pulled her close, pressing their skin together from neck to ankle.
The kisses started with a tenderness that reminded her a bit of their first kiss. Nothing to prove. Nothing to accomplish. No rush. No pressure.
They lay there and kissed for nearly half an hour. His hands in her hair, fingers tracing soft lines down her back.
And then, at some point, things heated up. His hands were on her ass, her breasts, sliding down between her legs.
He rolled on the condom, but didn’t enter her yet. He kissed her pubic mound, then slid down further, using his tongue.
She moaned and then caught herself.
Woof put a finger to his lips. “Shhhh!” he said. “We don’t want to wake the children.”
Tyesha blinked. Like a flash forward. This might actually be them someday, making love in a stolen moment, with kids to keep from waking.
She pulled him into her, almost regretting the condom. She wanted so much with this man. But there would be time for that later. Now, there was only pleasure and feeling him inside her and against her and kissing her and whimpering into his mouth, trying to muffle the noise of her orgasm from the girls in the next room.
“Do you think they heard anything?” she asked.
“No, I thought we were pretty quiet,” Woof said.
In the morning, she asked how the girls had slept.
“Great,” they said.
But later, after Amaru and Woof had both left, Tyesha smiled to herself as she caught Deza stripping the sheets off the couch to wash them.
* * *
That night, after work, Zeus’s driver dropped Tyesha off at the house.
“No need for you to stay,” she told him. She expected Thug Woofer to come over for dinner with her and the girls. He would either stay the night or take her to his place.
She was setting up the kitchen for the four of them. She pulled the small table out from the wall and was taking a frozen pizza out of the oven when she heard a knock at the door. She was expecting Woof, but through the peephole she saw Reagan, Zeus’s bodyguard.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“I got a message from Zeus,” he said. He had on the gray trench coat and wore a dark cap.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “He wouldn’t let me read it.” He held a thick envelope up to the peephole. “Can I come in?”
“Slip it under the door,” she said.
He leaned down, and she heard the scrape of paper against wood. “It won’t fit,” he said.
She wished she had gotten that chain. “Okay, fine,” she said and opened the door a crack.
He reached the envelope in. It was plain white paper with her name on it. As she reached for it, he grabbed her wrist and swung the door open.
For a second, time slowed down. There he was, with that hateful look on his face.
With a jolt of adrenaline, she kicked him and tore her arm free, running toward the back of the apartment, hoping to lock herself in the bathroom or bedroom. But he was too fast: he cut her off, cornering her in the kitchen behind the small kitchen table.
