by Lexie Ray
~ END of SELFLESS ~
RELENTLESS
Chapter One
“Cops! It’s the cops!”
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been waiting to hear those simple words. I knew they had to come sometime, especially with the way everything had been going.
And, let’s face it. I knew perfectly well that what we were doing was illegal.
Still, it was quite a different matter to know something was coming than to actually have it be there, happening right in front of me.
I was in the kitchen when it happened, getting a pot of coffee brewing for myself and any of the other girls who wanted some. At the time, I’d been alone. And to this day, I wasn’t sure who raised the cry. Daisy, perhaps. Or one of the others. It was hard to be sure.
But I didn’t stand a chance since I was in the kitchen. The cops swept through the first floor, first. An angry, wounded roar told me that they’d found Mama sleeping in her office. I wondered if she was using dollar bills as a pillow. I’d seen her do it before.
I heard more commotion—the sounds of many, many running feet—and small cries of panic.
“Don’t move!” a man shouted.
“Hands up!” another commanded.
I found myself rooting for the other girls, the girls who had become my sisters, hoping that as many of them got out as possible.
Why didn’t I run? Maybe in all the tumult I would’ve had a chance—slip out of the kitchen, get lost in the crowd, vanish on the busy streets of New York City.
Maybe if I’d had something to run for, I would’ve gone.
But, in all honesty, I was tired. Tired of trying, tired of running.
When I heard the kitchen door open with a bang, I turned around with something like relief. Finally. My tenure as one of Mama’s girls was coming to a close. It was past time for it.
“Police!” one of two officers said as they entered the kitchen, guns drawn. I pressed myself up against the countertop, putting my hands up. It looked like Mama had given them enough of a fight that they were now extremely wary.
“Don’t move,” the other officer implored, his request echoing in the cavernous kitchen.
“Don’t worry,” I assured him. “I won’t.” Not with two guns trained on me.
“We need you to come with us,” the first said, lowering his gun but not putting it away.
“I figured as much,” I said. “Is it okay if I get dressed first?”
Even though it was the middle of the afternoon, all I had on was a satiny robe that covered up a tank top and a pair of panties. I hadn’t been awake for very long, either. That was just a part of the life—working until the wee hours at Mama’s nightclub.
The officers glanced at each other.
“I’m not trying to pull anything,” I said. “I just don’t want to be at the police station without any pants.”
“Where’s your clothes?” the first officer asked.
“Upstairs, in the boarding house.”
“Fitch, go with her,” the first officer said, holstering his gun. The second officer did the same, and held his hand out to me.
“Let’s go.”
I left the coffee, still brewing, behind me, and walked out. It became a fitting sort of tribute, being escorted by a cop through the premises, as my last look at Mama’s nightclub.
I’d hoped to leave this place long ago, triumphant and with enough cash to solve all of my problems, but life just hadn’t worked out that way.
The door to the kitchen closed behind us, and I realized I’d never smell the delicious aromas of the chef’s daily specials or our rotating list of tapas. I’d never cook anything in there again, nor come down with some of the girls in the middle of the night to scavenge through the refrigerator.
The door to Mama’s office gaped open like a mouth, and I could see several officers boxing and bagging up whatever items they saw fit to use as evidence. One of them kept setting bricks of money on the desk, one after the other. God only knew how much Mama had been sitting on top of, and how much us girls were entitled to.
That was as much as an ending as anything. I’d never sidle into that office again, asking Mama for a bit of my hard-earned cash so I could go buy a bar of soap or a new color of nail polish. More recently, though, I supposed I’d never tiptoe past the office again, hoping not to wake the drunken, vengeful woman who’d taken to sleeping there. Ever since Cocoa had fled the nightclub, Mama had been in a downward spiral, drinking like a fish and counting her money. All of us girls simply tried to stay out of her way.
On the nightclub floor, cops escorted girls out, all in varying states of dress. These were the unlucky ones who’d tried to run but had been caught instead. I felt for them. I really did. Their shuffling feet on the dance floor in the middle of the nightclub made me realize that I would never dance here again—not with customers or my sisters. My mouth quirked up in the briefest of smiles as I thought about the wild nights we’d had. There were several nights a week when a DJ came as a musical act to entertain at the nightclub, and those were always our favorite nights. We’d get crazy, shaking it on the dance floor with whoever wanted to dance, customers plying us with drinks to make us shake it even harder.
The tables where the customers would regularly sit were empty, chairs on top of them. No customers would ever come in here again. I’d worked nights when every seat at every table was occupied, the place full of paying customers. I’d had hope those nights, hope that I’d earn enough money to get out of here, to do what I needed to do to get my life on track.
It was never enough money, I was starting to understand. And with Mama making us keep our earnings in her office safe, I never knew just how much I was making. My mouth twisted in bitter mirth. I’d never see that money. All of my hard work, everything I’d done for customers I couldn’t even remember, gone. Gone.
Toward the entrance of the nightclub, I noticed that some chairs had toppled from their perches on the tables. Maybe that was where Mama, too, had realized that all of this was at an end. I would’ve liked to see what that looked like—Mama trying to fight the cops, knocking the chairs from the tables.
Beyond the entrance, through the heavily tinted front windows, I could see the circus outside. There were dozens of squad cars, their red and blue lights wheeling. Yellow tape cordoned off the area of sidewalk and street directly in front of the building, but a sea of media and curious onlookers waited just on the other side.
This was probably going to turn out to be one salacious story.
I led Fitch upstairs, to the boarding house. A team of cops worked up and down the hall, opening doors and going through the contents of each room. This part made my breath catch in my throat, made tears spring to my eyes.
Don’t, I wanted to tell them. This is all we have, I wanted to scream, pulling them from each room and securing the door.
But I didn’t. I was sure the only reason I wasn’t being hustled out the door and into the back of a squad car, pants or not, was because I didn’t try to run or cause any trouble. I had to stay calm.
It was the hardest thing to simply walk calmly to my room as cops rooted through dresser drawers, bagging up handfuls of pretty lingerie sets, finding little stores of money girls had been hiding from Mama, browsing through DVDs and beauty products and magazines and other personal items.
It would seem pathetic if I tried to defend any of this, tried to keep the officers’ hands off of my sisters’ precious possessions. Each item meant so much, even the seemingly meaningless ephemera posted on the doors. Every door represented the girls who lived behind it, our names in cutout letters or artful collages or printed nicely on posters. After Blue had left, she’d given us all caricatures she’d drawn of us. Most everyone had posters of Hollywood’s hottest on our doors. Pumpkin and Daisy had photos of kittens and puppies. They were simple representations of our souls, and the cops were invading them.
This part wasn’t illegal, I wanted to rage. This was our lives, our homes. There’s nothing
to see up here.
Instead, I clamped my jaw shut and continued to walk.
When we got to my room, I cringed. The door had been kicked in, the magazine clippings of ballerinas and runway models torn and fluttering in the breeze of my open window. A cop was going through my dresser drawer.
“This is my room,” I said, my voice shaking with emotions I was having trouble defining—anger, shock, fear, and a fierce protectiveness.
“Can you give us a minute?” Fitch asked the other officer. “This woman is cooperating, and she wants to get changed before she comes with us.”
“Trying to get a final taste of Mama’s nightclub?” the officer ribbed, but left.
I looked at the mess he’d made of my things, my neatly folded shirts and pants scattered.
My jewelry box had been upturned over the top of my dresser, but I was relieved to find nothing missing. I probably would’ve come unhinged if I couldn’t find my necklace.
I lifted the fine gold chain up and fastened it around my neck, the little gold heart settling just between my breasts.
For now, this was my prized possession, even if it only represented my true treasure.
The treasure I couldn’t have yet.
“Ma’am?”
I’d almost forgotten about Fitch and jumped at the sound of his voice.
“Sir?”
“I don’t mean to rush you,” he said, averting his eyes from the line they’d been traveling to see the heart pendant—and my breasts. “But the longer we’re in here, the more flack I’m going to get from the rest of the guys.”
“This isn’t where we sleep with the customers,” I said. “This is the boarding house. Where we lived.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Fitch said sadly.
I looked back helplessly at all my clothes. What did I wear when my life was ending? Was there anything appropriate?
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Fitch said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
I realized a little belatedly that I was crying.
“I just don’t know what to wear,” I said, though that was the least of my problems. The nightclub getting raided wasn’t even the worst of my problems.
“Whatever you’ll be comfortable in,” Fitch said. “I don’t know how long you’ll be at the station.”
He walked past me and stared purposefully out the window, giving me the privacy he thought I needed to get changed.
So many people had seen me naked already that I was pretty sure a cop wouldn’t matter. Still, it was a nice gesture and gave me the focus I needed to start doing what had to be done. I started going through my decimated dresser drawers, looking for the right outfit.
I settled on my favorite pair of jeans—a light wash of denim that had been worn down by so much wear that it was soft to the touch—and a jersey knit teal blazer atop a plain black T-shirt. The blazer looked nice and professional, but it was as comfy as wearing a hoodie. I slipped a pair of matching ballet flats on and looked at myself in the mirror, hanging on the back of the door.
My kinky hair stood out in a very hip afro all around my head. It’d taken ages for me to develop enough confidence to wear my hair naturally, but there it was—my curls in all their glory. The blazer was enormously flattering, and I fastened one of the buttons to further emphasize my tiny waist. The bottom of the blazer flared out, mirroring the way my hips jutted. I slipped my gold heart pendant beneath the black T-shirt so that just a bit of gold chain could be seen on either side of my neck.
I needed that heart to hang right over my heart.
I turned back to my dresser and smeared on some light makeup. My eyelashes were already long, but I liked to play up their almond shape with mascara on both the upper and lower lashes. A little bit of shimmery eye shadow helped bring out the depths of my deep brown eyes, and a sweep of lipstick outlined my full lips. I never wore concealer or powder. I’d been blessed with smooth, mahogany-colored skin. Even throughout puberty, I’d never seen a zit.
“Ma’am?” Fitch was still turned dutifully toward the window.
“It’s Shimmy,” I said, blotting my lips with a tissue. “And I’m ready.”
Fitch turned and looked at me.
“You look very pretty,” he said politely.
“Thank you,” I said. “Is it okay if I pack a bag?”
He shook his head. “This is all evidence, for now,” he said. “Just take your purse.”
I swallowed and grabbed it before he escorted me out of my room.
I wondered if that would be the last time I’d see it. It would more than likely be the last time I lived in it. Walking back up the hallway and toward the stairs, I thought about all the fun I’d had with all the girls. When we weren’t working, it sometimes felt like a big slumber party. We gossiped about our customers, talked about movies and music, danced like there was no tomorrow, did makeovers on one another, and genuinely had a good time. With so many girls living in the same place, you’d think that drama ran high.
Besides the normal tiffs of who was borrowing what clothes or shoes, it was virtually non-existent. There was so much potential for drama while we worked downstairs in the nightclub—and in the other upstairs—that the boarding house was like a haven. It was the place where we could relax and be ourselves instead of the oversexed versions of us that we donned when we worked.
All that was gone, now—the sisterhood of the boarding house, the work in the nightclub, all of it.
Cops still milled around downstairs, hauling boxes and bags from Mama’s office, taking photos of the nightclub, examining the bar and stage. I glanced at another doorway, located behind the bar. That led to the other upstairs, where we’d go with customers to do the illegal business of Mama’s nightclub.
All customers had to do was pick one of us and agree to a price that Mama set, and they were free to do what they’d like with us upstairs.
Tips we made from waiting the tables in the nightclub were decent, but the sexual element was what made the real money.
It was also the reason the nightclub was getting raided. Prostitution simply wasn’t legal in New York.
Maybe selling my body was one of the things I wouldn’t miss about this place. I’d had my reasons for doing it, as I was sure so many of the other girls had, too.
I’d led many, many a customer up those stairs, to that long hallway that mirrored the one in the boarding house, opening one of the doors into a sumptuous bedroom and bathroom, turning the lights down low, stripping down to the fine lingerie set we always wore beneath our uniforms, and using my body as a means to an end.
All that was over, now, but so was the method I was using to get what I really wanted.
My treasure. My heart.
“Do you want to put your jacket over your head?” Fitch asked, glancing at me as we approached the entrance. There was still a sizeable crowd outside.
“That’s okay,” I said, giving him a small smile. “I guess I don’t really have anything to hide anymore. You don’t have to put cuffs on me, do you?”
“No, ma’am,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s my understanding that you’re the victim here.”
I puzzled over that statement as we walked outside, and into the mess. Shutters whirred and clicked as photographers documented my entrance into the fray. Reporters jostled each other just beyond the police tape, shouting questions at me. All I could notice was that the pavement was wet, as if it’d recently rained. I couldn’t make myself peer into the windows of other squad cars, trying to see how many of Mama’s girls were waiting in them. What if I locked eyes with Mama herself? I hesitated in my fear, stumbling to a stop, clutching my purse as if it were a shield. Fitch took my elbow gently and maneuvered me to a squad car.
“You’re not in trouble,” he said again, “but I am going to have to ask you to get in the back of the squad car. Standard procedure.”
“I understand,” I said, even if I didn’t. How was I not in trouble? I’d willingly sold my body. It was, at the
time, my only option, the only way to work toward my end goal. I could name a couple of girls who had genuinely been victims, if anyone asked me.
Cocoa, who’d been forced to jump from the second-story window of her room to escape Mama, who was shooting at her.
Jazz, who hadn’t wanted to do anything but survive, forced to give herself to whomever Mama chose.
Many of us were just victims of our own circumstances, unable to land on our feet, having to use Mama’s nightclub as a crutch to keep hobbling along. It wasn’t a natural way to live, but we all got used to it, selling our sex. If a person spent enough time in a place, doing the same thing over and over again, she’d get used to anything.
I settled into the back of the squad car and Fitch shut the door behind me. He got in, up front, and started the car.
“A lot of people have a lot of questions,” he said. “You can, of course, choose what you want to answer. You’ll meet guys from the vice squad, guys from internal investigations. Most of them aren’t going to be nice guys.”
“I have a lot of experience with not-nice guys,” I assured him, looking out the window at the outside of Mama’s nightclub. In the daytime, it wasn’t much to look at. The windows were darkened, and there wasn’t even a sign designating what it was. Our business had been dependent on discreet word of mouth.
But at night, the place lit up. Bouncers manned the door, and a long velvet rope separated the line of people waiting to get in the nightclub. There was always a line, always people trying to get in.
Maybe I’d never lay eyes on the place again. It was hard to know how I felt about that. I knew that I would miss the other girls, but I couldn’t imagine I’d miss the work.
I supposed I’d miss the money that I was supposedly earning, even if Mama sat on it all. She’d been obsessed with it, there at the end, which was why she took to sleeping in her office. That’s where the safe was, where she kept all of our money for us. For a time, all we had to do to get money was ask for it. But recently, she’d been more and more wary of letting any go.