by Aya De León
“I gotta open up the door and air out the passive-aggressiveness,” Eva said, wearing the frown of concentration that went with her therapist face. “Was that really the last thing she said to you? ‘Bitch, get out of my house?’”
“I was home for the holidays a few years ago,” Tyesha said. “I had confronted her about going off with Zeus for days at a time and leaving my nieces to fend for themselves. Deza was maybe fifteen at the time. Amaru was ten.”
“Who the fuck is Zeus?” Jody asked.
“Jenisse’s man,” Tyesha said. She noticed she’d been unconsciously running her hand back and forth along the soft leather of the briefcase. “They been together twenty-five years.”
“So he’s the girls’ father?” Eva asked.
“I don’t know for sure,” Tyesha said. “They’re not married, but he supports all of them. He’s a big drug dealer in Chicago. My two nephews, Jenisse’s oldest, both ended up in jail trying to go into the family business.”
“Damn,” Kim said. “And this family drama show has set up shop in New York?”
“Indefinitely,” Tyesha said, shaking her head.
* * *
“How she gon’ just walk up on yuh job like dat?” Lily asked, sucking her teeth. Tyesha’s first real friend from New York always broke into West Indian patois in expressing outrage or disgust.
When Lily had come up from the subway, her phone was ringing with a call from Tyesha and the tale about Jenisse’s visit.
“Older sisters,” Lily scoffed. “So much attitude, so little time. You gonna be up later?”
“Yeah,” Tyesha’s voice came through the phone. “I got a date with some guy from Tinder. I’ll probably have fucked him, kicked him out, and be ready to talk by eleven thirty.”
It was nearly seven thirty in the evening and still light, although dim with the summer storm cloud cover. Lily strode purposefully down the busy avenue near Wall Street, a dark brown Amazon towering over both men and women in her stilettos. She and Tyesha had diverged in their careers, but their friendship stayed strong.
“I’ll call you,” Lily said. “My shift ends at midnight. Now let me go clock in before these barbarians try to take it out my hide.”
Lily put away her phone and walked up to the brightly lit sign of the One-Eyed King. The strip club had the image of the same winking cartoon monarch from a playing card, but he was surrounded by nearly naked women of various races.
Lily looked like the dark brown girl in the picture, tall, hourglass-shaped, and chocolate-skinned.
She was back to the One-Eyed King after a three-year run on Broadway. The production of Lap Dance had promised “real strippers” and had put out a call for women who had worked in strip clubs to audition. Lily had been selected from among hundreds of dancers and had gotten her Actors’ Equity membership. Those three Broadway years were a time of consistent income, paid breaks, and health insurance. She finally got blood work, cavity fillings, and contact lenses.
Unfortunately, the touring company dropped the “real strippers” commitment, as the show’s brand had already earned its street cred. So in Cleveland and Dallas and Denver, classically trained ballerinas and modern dancers did the choreography that Lily and others had helped develop, while the “real strippers” went back to stripping.
After the show closed in New York, Lily had gone to some other auditions, courtesy of her Actors’ Equity card, but she didn’t have what most of the shows were looking for. As a six-foot, dark-skinned woman, she didn’t fit in with most chorus lines, and dancing in carnival back home and stripping in the U.S. didn’t prepare her for the chorus of most Broadway shows.
She would have taken the work if she could have gotten it. Working in a union show got her a consistent living wage. The Broadway dancers had been a mix: some friendly, some snobby, some with a lurid curiosity about what it was like to actually strip. The director even had the exotic dancers share some of their experiences with one of the principals so she could get “into character.” She took copious notes on a yellow pad.
The One-Eyed King had some dancers with classical training, but it was completely lacking in pretense. The working conditions, however, were decidedly less worker-friendly.
As Lily hustled in the door, the bodyguard blocked her way with a grin. “What?” he asked. “No hug hello?”
“Get out of my way. I can’t be late to check in.” She shoved him aside with her shoulder and looked for the assistant manager with the clipboard who should have been sitting on the tall stool by the dressing room.
The clock said 7:24. The stool was empty.
She turned to the security guard. “Where’s the clipboard? I need to sign in.”
He shrugged. “I just watch the door.”
“But you can vouch for me that I’m here on time,” Lily insisted.
“Sorry, I don’t have a watch,” he said with a shrug.
“Bastard,” Lily muttered. Management didn’t like her because she was mouthy. Sometimes they pulled this kind of thing, hoping she’d check in late. They had recently changed their policy. Previously, they had just charged a late fee. But now, one tardy could mean probation. Two could mean demotion. Three could mean fired.
Behind her she could hear the clacking footsteps of other girls coming in.
“Who’s on tonight?” a girl named Giselle asked. She was a brown-skinned Latina. “Where’s the clipboard?”
“Ah can’t find it,” Lily said. Her Trinidadian lilt was strongest when she was upset.
“Girls, the assistant manager is AWOL. Let’s make our own sign-in sheet,” Giselle called to the other dancers. Suddenly five sets of hands were searching for a piece of paper. Everyone except another Trinidadian girl named Hibiscus. She and Lily didn’t get along. “I signed in already,” she said, and hurried past the pandemonium muttering at Lily under her breath. “Yuh look fuh dat.”
A long-legged Asian girl ripped a flyer from the Maria de la Vega health center off the bulletin board. “Let’s use this,” she said.
They flipped it over to the back, which was blank. Lily and the other girls wrote their names and signed.
“But how do we prove that we were here on time?” Giselle asked. Not only was the assistant manager still missing, but the security guard had disappeared, as well.
“Our word against his?” the Asian girl suggested.
“I know,” Lily said. “Giselle, gimme your phone.”
Lily took Giselle’s smart phone and laid it on the stool beside the sign-in sheet. She lit up the display and took a picture of it. Giselle’s phone said 7:30. A few seconds after she snapped the photo, the dial said 7:31.
“What did that other West Indian girl say to you?” Giselle asked Lily.
“Just that this is my own fault for making trouble,” Lily muttered.
“Bullshit,” Giselle said, but she closed her mouth as the assistant manager strolled in with the clipboard.
He was in his thirties with pale skin and a scruffy beard. “You girls are late,” he said. “I was here at seven thirty.”
“Your watch must be off,” Giselle said. “All of us were here at seven thirty. We made our own sign-in sheet.”
She showed him the photo.
“I emailed that to your boss,” Lily said.
“Oh, shit! Oh. shit!” A young blonde woman rushed in, and the manager handed her the clipboard.
“I dunno what she worried for,” Lily muttered to Giselle. “Blonde, double D, and barely legal looking. She not gon’ get no demotion up in here.”
“White girl rules,” Giselle muttered back.
“She not white,” Lily said. “She moved here from Guadeloupe when she was little.”
“But she looks white,” Giselle said. “They might dock her just to make her work harder. Lotta appetite for that type in the private rooms. So far, she only been dancing.”
* * *
Tyesha felt restless. Ever since she could remember, she had been waiting for her life to s
ettle down into a stable adult groove. And yet now that it had, she felt flat somehow, underwhelmed. No more heists with Marisol and the crew. No more escort dates. She was nine-to-fiving it every day. The hours of her day were full, and there was a never-ending set of crises at the clinic, yet she still felt understimulated.
Her family was a jolt of the wrong kind of stimulation. All the anxiety and none of the excitement. Maybe dating could fill the void a little?
The guy had looked cute enough on Tinder. Tyesha swiped right, and they had good, flirty banter, but something was missing. He had lovely broad shoulders and his ass held up his jeans nicely, but his conversation was doing nothing for her. Some stupid stockbroker chat.
The last few guys she’d dated were too street. Hot dudes in hoodies who’d gotten her number on the subway. They could fuck but wanted to play stupid games with her by not texting her back for days. What? Like she was gonna get too attached? The dick wasn’t that good. She thought maybe a more professional type would be to her liking, but no. This guy acted like the black wannabe-wolf of Wall Street.
“. . . to make your money make money,” he said. “But of course if you—”
“It’s not true,” Tyesha said.
“Excuse me?” he asked.
“That money makes money,” she said. “It doesn’t.”
“That’s the whole principle of investment,” he said.
“No,” Tyesha said. “Money doesn’t make money. Labor makes money. People put money in a bank, and the bank invests it. Usually in industries in other countries where the workers get paid shit. That’s how the profits are so high, and the returns are big. Which is why the greatest accumulation of capital happened during slavery in the U.S. The profit margin of the labor was so extreme.”
He blinked. “Okay, so maybe you’re right. But then what do we do? Go live off the grid in a cave? Everything about the current economy is connected to something shady. I’m not taking a vow of poverty for political correctness.”
“Me neither,” Tyesha said. “But at least acknowledge it, you know? Don’t go around acting like money is just fucking and making little money babies without anyone getting fucked over.”
He grinned. “That’s what I like about you, Tyesha. You can use ‘fuck’ in two different ways in an analogy about socially responsible investing. You’re so hood but you’re also such a brainiac. Where did you go to school?”
“Columbia,” she said.
“Business?”
“Public health.”
“And what do you do again?”
“I run a women’s health clinic.”
“Like I said,”—he smiled—“socially responsible. So you make sure women get taken care of. Who takes care of you?”
It was the first insightful thing he’d said all night. “Are you offering to take care of me some kind of way?” Tyesha asked.
“Maybe,” he said.
Tyesha smiled. “What did you have in mind?” she asked.
* * *
When Lily went to the dressing room in the One-Eyed King, it was locked.
“What bullshit is this?” she asked.
“They’re converting it to a champagne room,” said one of the security guards.
Lily groaned, along with several of the other women, and they piled into the second dressing room. It was maybe eight by ten feet, with a small coat rack just inside the door. There was a large mirror on one wall, with lighting above and below, and a shelf that had black plastic buckets of cosmetics. On the adjacent wall was a bank of battered gray lockers. They were twelve-inch cubes, just large enough for a pair of shoes, a small purse, and a costume—assuming the costume had as much fabric as a bathing suit. In the other dressing room, they’d had a proper coat rack, and much larger lockers.
As the dozen or so girls tried to change in the cramped quarters, the low murmur of complaint was punctuated by exclamations when they accidentally elbowed and bumped each other.
One of the managers walked in without knocking. “Quiet down, girls,” he said. “As you can see, we’ve consolidated dressing rooms, but that’s not the only change. House fees are gonna go up by twenty-five percent, because dance time is increasing. Everyone does two songs per set on stage.”
“How we gonna make any money?” Lily asked. While media myths imagined that strippers made money from the singles placed in their G-strings, the more lucrative part was lap dancing in the champagne rooms.
“That’s what champagne is for,” he said. “Think of your time on stage as an extended commercial.”
“So we have two champagne rooms now?” Giselle asked.
The manager shook his head. “We’re turning the old champagne room into a VIP lounge for special guests of the owner. It’s a new social space within the club.”
“Social space?” Lily said, her voice thick with sarcasm. “I don’t come here for my social life, I come here to make money. But if our dance sets are twice as long, and our champagne room is only half as big, we’ll make half as much.”
“Less than half,” Giselle said. “House fees are going up.”
It was one of the few industries where the labor force had to pay in order to work.
One girl stood up. “Oh, hell no. I’m going back to the club I used to work at in Queens.”
“It’ll be the same there,” the manager said. “This policy is going into effect in all the clubs in the chain.”
“Which girls get to work in the VIP lounge?” the young blonde asked.
“The girls don’t work in there,” the manager said. “Participation is optional. It’s just a social environment where you can get to know friends of the owner. You know, network.”
“You’re pimps now?” Lily said, her voice rising. “Pimping us out to friends of the owner? Who I fuck or if I fuck them for money is my business. Ya tryna make it your business. With this new setup, no girl can make money unless she goes in your new VIP room and ‘socializes’ by sucking a few guys off.”
The manager shrugged. “New York state law prohibits sex for money exchanges. It’s just a social environment.”
A dancer named Tara strolled to the dressing room area from inside the club. She was a curly-haired white girl with a tattoo on her chest. “How come there’s a bed in that new room?”
“A bed?” Lily asked.
“A king-size bed,” Tara said.
“What are we gonna do in there in that social environment with a bed?” Lily asked, eyes blazing. “Huh? Are we supposed to take a nap with friends of the owner?”
“If you and a friend want to take a nap, that’s your private decision between consenting adults. Now hurry up and get dressed. You all go on stage for a preview in fifteen minutes.”
As he ducked back out of the dressing room, Lily slammed the door behind him.
She fumed and paced as Giselle got Tara caught up on the changes.
“This is out of the fucking question,” Lily said. “We need to go on strike is what we need to do.”
Tara agreed.
Giselle stood with her jaw clenched. “You’re right, Lily, but my rent is already late. You know I got two kids.”
The young blonde from Guadeloupe shrugged. “I can’t walk out tonight. Tuition is due.”
Several of the girls didn’t say anything either way. But everybody who spoke up agreed that the situation was fucked up, but it was too close to the end of the month, and everybody had bills to pay.
Hibiscus spoke up: “Some of us don’t want any trouble. We just wanna dance and get our money.”
“I don’t want trouble either,” Lily said. “I hope we can make it work, but I have a bad feeling that they’re gonna make it impossible before long.”
* * *
Tyesha could feel the last strains of the orgasm fading away in her body. The stockbroker was a good fuck, even though he was corny.
She rolled to the edge of the bed and put her underwear back on.
“What’s next?” he asked. “We never di
d get to that bubble bath.”
Corny, she thought. She looked at him, sprawled on her four-poster bed, the rich brown of his skin against the burnt orange of her sheets.
“I’ve gotta get up early for work,” she said.
“Okay, Executive Director,” he said. “Can I call you?”
“Sure,” she said, and wrote her number across the cover of his Forbes with a Sharpie marker, right across billionaire Jeremy Van Dyke’s face.
“You got something against Jeremy Van Dyke?” he asked.
“Nope,” Tyesha said, smiling. “I even met him once. He was a donor to the clinic where I work.”
After he went home she texted Lily: I’d rate him a 6.5. Got the job done. But nothing special.
Lily was her best friend—her only friend in New York from before she started working at the clinic. None of her student friends from pre–sex work had made the cut. She’d carefully brought up sex work issues with them, and they would start out by saying things like they thought “sex workers deserved support,” but eventually they all ended up offering pity or scorn, and sometimes both. After she graduated, she stopped calling or returning calls.
Lily was actually the one who got her started in the world of sex work. They’d met as waitresses at a dive bar near Columbia when Tyesha was an undergraduate. Lily wasn’t a student and had been in New York longer. When Lily quit to waitress downtown at a “gentlemen’s club”—with bigger tips and chances to meet men who weren’t broke students—Tyesha had followed her. Lily had also gotten Tyesha her first date for money.
But a couple of years ago, Marisol, Tyesha, Kim, and Jody had stumbled into the CEO heists: the unwitting benefactors who provided her job and her condo. So even though she could tell Lily anything about her years in sex work, her life as a thief was still a secret between them.
* * *
Lily was in the champagne room, giving lap dances. In the dim light, she could see men sitting in all of the chairs against the walls, each with a dancer gliding above and over him. Their club didn’t allow touching, but it was so cramped that it was harder to work.
She was with Pierre, one of her regular customers. He was in his fifties, and she could never tell if he was white or just light-skinned. He was obsessed with her ass, which didn’t particularly settle the question, but she was currently shaking it in his face, a slow, winding motion. She gently brushed a thigh against the front of his pants as she turned around, feeling his erection. She leaned forward, shimmying down over him, then gazing into his eyes.