by Lexie Ray
“I’m sorry, sweetie,” I said. “I thought you wanted to sleep with me. I was just setting the wheels in motion. Nothing unless it goes through Mama. That’s the rule, I’m afraid.”
“No,” he said. “The rule is that I get to do whatever I want now.”
He snagged my wrist and yanked me down to sit next to him, his fingers bruising me. I went down gracefully, trying to make it look like I’d chosen to sit down. I had to make an attempt to get this situation under control. If I couldn’t, I at least had to fake control.
“The customer’s always right, sweetie,” I soothed. “Of course you get whatever you want. You just let Cocoa know what you want, and I’ll get it for you.”
“I want my wife back,” he slurred.
I frowned. “Is she here?” I asked. “Where can I find her for you?”
“She’s gone!” Mike shouted. “She’s gone because of you!”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand. I’ve never met your wife before.”
My mind and heart racing, I tried to figure out where this was going. Had I met this woman before? Was there a chance that I was somehow at fault?
“She found out about the night I spent with you,” Mike said. “She divorced me. She took everything from me.” He was silent for several long moments before sneering at me. “You took everything from me.”
I shook my head. “What happens here, stays here,” I argued. “Your wife didn’t find out from me. Maybe one of your friends —”
Mike cut me off with the fist he brought down on the table, rattling the cutlery. I tried not to look at the customers around me even though I was hyperaware of their eyes on us. I focused on maintaining control in this situation — even if it was only an illusion for their benefit.
“It was you, in a roundabout way,” he said. “I was fucking pissed when I figured out that it was you who deleted my photos.”
“You were told no photos,” I put in, “twice.”
Mike shrugged away this annoyance of a fact. “You didn’t delete the photos from the cloud.”
“The cloud?” I repeated, puzzled. It sounded almost mythical. “I have no idea what that is.” Once the photos were deleted from the phone, they were gone forever, weren’t they?
“That’s because you’re a stupid whore,” Mike said. “The cloud is an online storage system. My phone’s defaults send all my data there so I can retrieve it if my phone crashes. If you delete the photos, they’re gone from the phone. But they stay in the cloud otherwise, and my wife likes to look at them via her own phone to see what I’m doing.”
I thought I understood the concept of the cloud, but I was still having trouble understanding why this was my fault. I hadn’t forced Mike to take the pictures. I’d even deleted them — or tried to, anyway. However, I didn’t want to be combative. I had to defuse this situation.
“I’m sorry your wife saw us together,” I whispered.
“Not as sorry as you can be,” he said. “I’ve been living in a shitty apartment, barely able to scrape the rent together in this fucking city with my paycheck alone. My wife took our kids, my car — everything — and kicked me out of the house. She had the photos. She had the proof. And now I have nothing.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said again. “I know this must be a tough time for you.”
“Save your sympathies for the bedroom,” Mike said. “I’m going to fuck you until I think we’re even.”
“If that’s what you feel like you need to do,” I purred. Maybe all he did need was a good lay. Many of my customers were like that, coming in here to blow off some steam — or to have someone blow it off for them. “I’ll get Mama and she’ll give you the best price. We’ll make this happen right now.”
“Yes, we will,” Mike said. He lunged at me and tore at my shirt, popping buttons off of it as I scrambled back to get out of his reach. Everyone around us gasped at this new development of violence.
“Please stop,” I said. This situation was reminding me too much of Tito. I wasn’t going to be able to play it cool for much longer. “Let me go get Mama so we can go upstairs.”
“Upstairs?” Mike echoed. “No. I’m going to have you right here and now. If it doesn’t bring my wife back, I’ll try again. Still nothing? Again. And again.”
I didn’t like the crazed tone in his voice. It told me that I was in danger. How could I get away?
I stood up and tried to dart away. I was well aware that everyone knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had lost control of the situation. Now all I cared about was escape. I didn’t give a shit who knew about it.
With stunning quickness, Mike punched me on the jaw, sending me to the floor. I saw stars as I tried to crawl away, people shouting all around. My vision cleared just as Mike fell on top of me, his weight making me feel like I was suffocating. He grabbed at my breasts with bruising force, pushing my legs apart with his knees.
It was Tito all over again, this time with an audience, even though I’d promised myself it would never happen again.
“Get off me, motherfucker!” I screamed, punching him in the face. “Get the fuck off me!”
He bit one of my breasts before the two bouncers at the door could pull him off me. Mama was right there behind them, her eyes blazing with a cold fire I’d seen once before — the night my old roommate Jazz was attacked. I felt chilled to the bone even though I knew she was there to help me.
“Get out,” Mama hissed, her teeth gritted as she glared at Mike. “You’re blacklisted.”
“I never want to come back anyway!” he shouted as the bouncers hauled him away. “Fuck this place and all you whores! You took everything from me! Everything!”
The nightclub had fallen into a hush, even the pianist stopping his playing. Mama turned to the stage and swirled her finger in a circle, indicating he should be playing right now. The music started back up, but I had a feeling that he wouldn’t be hired again. Mama was like that — anyone who contributed to a problem she cut loose.
“Meet me in my office,” she muttered before pasting on her smile. I took a deep breath and gathered my ruined shirt around myself, going quickly so I wouldn’t become even more of a spectacle.
As I left, I heard Mama schmoozing with the customers. “Please let me buy you all a round of drinks because you had to see that nasty little incident,” she was saying. “Oh, just a lovers’ quarrel. Jealousy’s a hell of a thing. No, totally under control.”
I winced as I went. The punch Mike had landed on my jaw had jarred me, all right, and the place where he’d bit me was tender, a nasty, mouth-shaped bruise already making itself known. What was even worse was that we were losing money on the incident with Mama buying drinks to smooth feathers. She was treating this as an investment she had to make. Invest now, keep them coming later.
When I got to the office, I had a little cry, allowing myself just a few minutes of tears. The situation with Mike had been scary — downright terrifying. It had been just like Tito, when I hadn’t been able to defend myself. I dabbed at my eyes and blew my nose. Not much harm done, I told myself, looking in the mirror. I could borrow needle and thread from one of the girls and sew some buttons right back on my uniform. The buttons were the only damage to the shirt, which was lucky.
I examined my jaw, which was swelling up. I cursed Mike, but figured it could’ve been worse. I’d seen kids back in the old neighborhood knocked out cold with similar punches.
My makeup was running, I realized, wiping the eyeliner off with another tissue. I tucked some of the strands of my hair back into some semblance of order and reapplied my red lipstick out of habit. I put on more every spare moment I got.
There were two beads of blood on my breast, I noticed, on the bite mark. They made me feel sick, like I’d been attacked by an animal. Taking a shuddering breath, I cleaned the blood up and found the first aid kit Mama always kept in here. The antiseptic burned the tiny cuts on the blackening bruise, but it gave me comfort that I was getting any germs out. I cou
ld even go to the nearby clinic and get it looked at tomorrow, I told myself, for even more peace of mind. Yes, that’s what I would do.
I jumped as the door burst open.
“Cocoa, what the hell was that?” Mama demanded. “I’m dropping about four-hundred bucks on alcohol right now to smooth over that incident. That’s the worst thing that’s ever happened on the floor! What did that motherfucker want?”
I tried not to cringe in the face of Mama’s withering anger. She wanted the best for the nightclub, I knew, and this incident wasn’t best for it.
“He was a repeat customer,” I said. “But I caught him taking pictures on his phone up in the room last time.”
Mama inhaled sharply. “There are to be no photos,” she hissed.
“And that’s what I said,” I told her. “So when he went to the bathroom afterwards, I deleted everything from his phone.”
“Smart girl,” Mama congratulated me. “Now tell me why his sloppy ass was back here, making trouble.”
I hesitated, knowing I’d likely face Mama’s full wrath, my fault or no.
“The photos were also stored on this thing called the cloud,” I said. “Meaning I didn’t delete them totally. Just from his phone.”
Mama covered her eyes, silent, so I pressed forward.
“He said his wife saw them and divorced him. She took everything, and he was back to try to regain what he’d lost. He was going to fuck me right there in front of everyone.”
Mama still wasn’t looking at me, still wasn’t talking.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice breaking. “I was trying to control the situation, but when he got on top of me, I lost it. I — I’ve been raped before.”
I hated saying that word, but it was said. I had to tell Mama the whole situation. I don’t know how much more control I could’ve exerted after Mike had punched me onto the floor, but I had lost my shit when he’d climbed on top of me.
“This is very bad, Cocoa,” Mama said. “Very bad.”
“I didn’t ask for this,” I said, shaking my head. “I know it’s very bad. But I didn’t ask for this. I did everything I could think of to keep control of the situation, but he made a scene every time I tried to leave to get you.”
Mama shook her head. “You didn’t think of everything,” she said. “You should have hauled his ass upstairs and dealt with him up there, away from the eyes of everyone trying to enjoy their night in my club.”
“Dealt with him?” I asked, dumbfounded. “It would’ve been worse if he’d lost his shit upstairs like he lost it on the nightclub floor. Did you even see this?”
I pulled my shirt apart and pointed at the mouth mark on my breast. Despite the antiseptic, it was bleeding again, the iron-red liquid coating my skin like some kind of vicious war paint.
Mama stared at the wound, shaking her head. There was a knock on the door.
“Come in!” Mama barked, back to all business.
The door pushed open. It was Blue. “The cops are here, Mama,” she said, her face ashen. “They’re asking to talk to you.”
“Motherfuckers,” Mama growled. She eyed me balefully. “Blue, take Cocoa upstairs and out of sight. I’ll distract the cops. She’s not to be seen.”
“Okay, Mama,” Blue said.
I knew this was bad. Mama’s tenuous agreement with the cops was that she could operate happily as long as she stayed off the radar. That was the deal with the higher ups that we often serviced ourselves. But when street-level patrolmen came calling, it attracted too much attention. The media would perk up when they heard something like this on a scanner. The nightclub — Mama and all the girls included — could find themselves in the center of a huge firestorm if the wrong details came out. She would have to pull all of the strings she grasped in her hand to get out of this, likely padding pockets along the way.
This incident was going to cost the club, but the price wasn’t clear yet. I regretted it a lot, but I hated that Mama was blaming me for it. I had done everything to avoid the scene that had taken place, and I disagreed with Mama’s view that I should’ve “dealt” with Mike out of the sight of other customers. What did she want me to do? Let him rape me?
“That’s it,” Blue said. “Their backs are turned. Let’s go, baby.”
We left the office, skirting along the wall as Mama laughed and patted a patrolman’s arm. Both of us dashed up the stairs, me grunting at a pain in my ribs. Had Mike bruised or broken one of them when he fell on top of me? Another thing to get checked out at the clinic tomorrow, I decided. They never asked questions, particularly in this neighborhood.
“Are you okay?” Blue asked once we got to the hallway. Her eyebrows were knitted together in concern.
“I’m fine,” I said, laughing. “I’ll just go to my room and wait till this all blows over. You can go on back downstairs. Make some money.”
That was always our rallying cry: “Make some money.”
Blue walked me to my room anyway, taking the key from my quaking hand to open the door.
“Thanks, Blue,” I said. I started to walk in the dark room, the only light coming from the orange street lamp that did a poor job of illuminating the alley.
“Cocoa, wait.” I turned, and she enveloped me in a hug, crushing me to her chest. I didn’t care that it hurt my ribs and the bite on my breast. I clung onto Blue like she was a life preserver floating in the middle of a stormy sea.
“Everything’s going to be okay,” she said. “I know it is.”
“It is,” I agreed. “It’ll be fine.”
Reluctantly, I pulled away, smiling for Blue’s benefit.
“Now, get back down there and make some money,” I urged.
“I’ll be back up to check on you,” she promised.
“Don’t bother,” I laughed, shaking my head. “I’m not going anywhere. You’re going to be busy, anyway.”
As soon as Blue left, the full magnitude of the situation hit me. Mama was furious with me; the cops were here, asking questions, and there were photos proving that prostitution was taking place in the nightclub. The situation was very bad, indeed.
I took my uniform off and pulled on my kimono. The silky fabric of the robe soothed me a little bit. I turned the television on just for some background noise and tried to relax, tried to forget about how Mike had made me feel, tried to forget about the old fear of not being in control. I curled up in bed with a magazine in an attempt to distract myself. Maybe I’d fall asleep. The nothingness of my dreamless slumber would be a welcome break from everything that had happened.
A knock on my door sent me to my feet again. I opened it and was surprised to see Mama. She rarely left the floor of the nightclub while it was opening, looking to impart a personal experience to each and every customer.
“Is everything okay?” I asked, almost dreading the answer.
“It will be,” Mama said. “I have some pigs to grease, but that’s par for the course.”
“I’m sorry about everything,” I said, feeling the tears threatening to fall. “I never wanted this.”
“Neither did I,” Mama said, her face devoid of emotion. “You’re my best and most senior girl, Cocoa, and the situation I find us in is inexcusable.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, feeling confused. “None of this was on purpose. This just happened. I had no control over it.”
“That’s a sad fact,” Mama said. “The cops were here and described you pretty accurately. Whichever customer called this in got a good gander at you and could probably pick you out of a police lineup. We have photos of you again, engaging in prostitution on my premises. Now, what would you do if you were me? What would you have to do?”
I knew the answer even as I shook my head no. “You can’t,” I said. “I don’t have anywhere to go. I can’t go back to my old neighborhood. It’s bad there. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. You have to give me another chance.”
I hated myself for begging, but there wasn’t any other choice. Mam
a was about to turn me out onto the streets.
She shook her head, her emotionless mask still in place. “I’d give you another chance if you dropped a tray of dinners on the nightclub floor,” she said. “Hell, I’d give you another chance if you were bad in bed. But your very presence here now is damning. All the media has to do is get a hold of those photos — who’s to say they don’t already have them? Then they put two and two together: the photos, the police responding to a call of male on female violence here at this club.”
Mama shook her head, the thought of it the only thing that was making her tear up.
“With the connections I have, with the people that come in here, I’d get thrown under the bus, along with all the girls,” she said. “I can’t have you here anymore. It’s too big of a risk. I can’t take it. Leave for the sake of the nightclub — for the sake of the other girls. Hardly any of them have a place to go, just like you.”