by Aya De León
“Shit, Woof.”
“She handed me the tissue before I even realized I was crying,” he said. “I started working on Melvyn that night. I wrote the whole thing in forty-eight hours.”
“Therapy,” Tyesha said. “Not what I expected.”
“I didn’t mean to lay this all on you, but I know you have counselors and stuff at your job, so I didn’t think you would judge. And I wanted you to know that the change you see in me is real. Not some bullshit good behavior.”
Tyesha smiled. “Duly noted.” She reached out and squeezed his hand.
He smiled back, and for the next fifteen minutes, they ate in a friendly silence. She sopped up the last of the gravy with a biscuit.
“I won’t judge if you lick the plate,” he said.
She laughed. “I didn’t realize I was so hungry.”
“You want dessert?”
“Definitely,” she said.
They got a chocolate bourbon layer cake and a pecan pie à la mode.
The cake arrived, and Tyesha picked up her spoon.
“Wait,” Woof said. “Allow me.”
He dipped the spoon in the tip of the chocolate frosting and placed it on her tongue.
Tyesha pressed the morsel slowly against the roof of her mouth and let the bitter chocolate, rich butter, and sugar unfold in her taste buds.
“Oh my god, that’s so good,” she said.
He took the other spoon, but she caught his hand.
“My turn,” she said. “Close your eyes.”
He did so, and she took a spoonful of the cake and dipped it silently in his whiskey.
“Open your mouth,” she said.
As his full lips parted, she could barely resist the urge to lean over the table and kiss him, but instead, she drizzled the whiskey off the chocolate onto his tongue. Then, as his tongue reached out for the bite, she slid it into his mouth.
His eyes flew open in delighted surprise.
“Damn,” he said, his eyes closing again. “That’s so good with the whiskey.”
They smiled at each other and finished the cake.
“I think I’m getting a little buzzed from the bourbon,” Tyesha said.
“Can I drive you home?” he asked.
“Nope,” she said. “Taking it slow, remember?”
“Okay, then when can I see you again?”
“I’m swamped at work,” she said. “And my one free night, I gotta go to my niece’s basketball game.”
“Your niece is a rapper and a ballplayer?”
“My other niece,” Tyesha said.
“Take me with you,” he said.
Tyesha shook her head. “You’re the number one rapper in the U.S. I can’t just take you to a high school auditorium. Besides, it’s her big game. I can’t let her get upstaged.”
“I’ll go in disguise.”
“That’s crazy,” she said.
“For real, Tyesha,” he said, a begging note in his voice. “I wanna spend more time with you. I wanna meet your family. I’ll use an alias.”
“Melvyn?”
“I think I blew my cover on that one already.”
“I saw you talk about it on the Ellen show, by the way.”
“Why didn’t you call then?”
“I . . . wasn’t ready,” she said.
“You ready now?”
“I’m ready to see if you can fool an auditorium full of teenagers. What’s your new alias?”
“Clarence.”
“And how are you gonna be disguised?”
“Will you disguise me? We can meet up ahead of time, and I’ll wear whatever you say.”
“Anything?”
“Anything,” he said. “With just one rule. It’s got to be something you find sexy. So if you like dudes in tiaras and sequined ball gowns with a train behind them, count me in. But if not . . .”
“Okay,” she said. “Deal.”
* * *
The following night, all the dancers onstage at the One-Eyed King had on thongs that said:
This was written on the triangle at the top of the back, with “nion” in smaller letters disappearing down the crack of their ass.
The girls strutted around with their secret and were particularly enjoying the night, shaking their asses in the clients’ faces extra vigorously. They were jubilant. The next day was the press conference where they would officially announce that they were forming a union.
After the place closed, Lily and three of her girls were on their way out to get a cab. The street was deserted that late, but they were always careful to leave in packs. The four of them had purses and backpacks filled with high heels and sweaty clothes that needed washing.
They began walking toward the relative light and bustle of the avenue a block down the street when a pair of Ukrainian mob thugs stepped out of the shadows.
“You think you won because you got your job back?” one of them asked, pushing aside his jacket so they could see his gun. “You never win, understand? Nigger and spic bitches like you never win. You shake your big ass for us and stop making trouble. Take what we give you. You’re lucky to have that. Lucky to be alive. So get the fuck out of here, and count your blessings.”
Lily and her girls turned and ran. Lily’s heart was in her throat. Would he shoot them in the back? They rounded the corner onto the bright, busy avenue, and they didn’t hear any running footsteps behind them. Still, they hustled into a pair of cabs. Guys like that, big guys with guns, they didn’t have to run. They knew where she worked, and they had her personnel file, so they knew where she lived.
* * *
At nine the next morning, Lily, Marisol, and Tyesha were in Tyesha’s office.
“Those motherfuckers,” Marisol said. “I hope you’re not gonna let them intimidate you.”
Lily sucked her teeth. “Those badjohns been trying to scare the shit out of me from day one because I’ve been speaking my mind and because I’m black. Fuck them.”
“Good,” Marisol said. “So I’ll do the main speech today, but I’m gonna call on you to read the remarks we prepared, okay?”
“No problem,” Lily said.
A sharp knock on the door, and then Serena walked in.
“Marisol,” Serena said, “I have a long distance call from Cuba for you. It’s Cristina. She says she’s been trying your cell.”
“Take it at my desk,” Tyesha said. It seemed strange to see Marisol back at the desk of what had originally been Marisol’s office. “Do you want privacy?” Tyesha asked.
Marisol shook her head and picked up the phone, while reaching for Tyesha’s hand.
Their fingers gripped tightly as Marisol listened for a moment.
“Who’s Cristina?” Lily whispered to Tyesha.
“Marisol’s little sister,” Tyesha said. “Their mother died, and Marisol practically raised her. She lives in Cuba now, and she’s pregnant.”
Lily nodded.
Marisol’s face hardened as she said something in rapid Spanish and hung up.
“Is everything okay?” Tyesha asked.
“There’s a complication with Cristina’s pregnancy,” Marisol said. “It’s probably fine, but . . .”
“But you need to be there,” Tyesha said. “That’s your baby sister. Having her first baby. You need to go.”
“Are you sure?” Marisol said.
“That girl is your heart,” Tyesha said. “We got plenty of hands on deck. And the speech is already written, right?”
“Oh, thank you,” Marisol said. She gave Tyesha a quick, tight hug before grabbing her purse. “I’ll keep you updated about Cristina. And you need to keep me posted about the press conference.”
“Don’t think about it for one more second,” Tyesha said. “We got this.”
Marisol ran out of the door.
“You seem so calm,” Lily said. “Considering you’re gonna have to give the speech. And you panicked last time.”
“Oh, there’s no way I’m giving the speech,” T
yesha said. “That union organizer chick can do it.”
“The domestic workers’ union organizer who’s been mentoring me?” Lily asked. “She’s fabulous.”
“Unfortunately, no,” Tyesha said. “We got another organizer from a theatrical union. Y’all are dancers, too. No worries.”
* * *
Four hours later, Tyesha stood in the community room with a familiar knot in her stomach. Once again, the room was set up with a podium for a press conference. This time, the seats were all filled. They had also taken the precaution of adjusting the settings on the fire and smoke alarms. They would alert security, but not ring with a piercing sound unless security had checked it out and identified a real threat.
Drew, the Village Voice reporter, approached Tyesha.
“Is it true the girls are going to announce the union today?”
“You’ll need to wait til the press conference like everyone else,” she said.
“Oh, come on,” he said. “I gave you the viral video that even made this whole media campaign possible. Can’t you give me the scoop? Even if I can just tweet it out before anyone else? Just a five-minute head start?”
He lifted his phone to take her picture. She caught his arm to lower the phone.
“Okay, but no photo,” she said. His skin felt warm to her touch; she could feel the pulse in his wrist.
He switched the phone into recorder mode and put it in front of her mouth.
“Sex work is work,” Tyesha said. “And workers deserve justice. But like most workers, they don’t get it unless they fight for it. That’s what unions are for. Exotic dancers are no different.”
“Nice!” he said. “Can I tweet that?”
“Wait three minutes,” Tyesha said.
“So, when can I do a full-on interview with you and ask all about your connection to the Couvillier legacy in Chicago? I’ve already got the historical image for the article.”
He flipped through his phone and pulled up a photograph of her aunt standing in front of the Urban Peace Accord Center in Chicago.
Suddenly, Tyesha felt foggy, slightly disembodied.
Kim grabbed her arm and pulled her away to the side of the room.
“I’ll email you to set up the interview,” Drew called after her.
But Tyesha couldn’t hear him from the ringing in her ears. A few minutes later, she heard Kim’s voice.
“Tyesha, are you listening to a damn thing I’m saying?” Kim asked.
“Yeah, sure.” Tyesha blinked and turned to focus on her friend’s words. Kim stood beside Jody, off to the side of the podium.
“There’s been a mix-up,” Kim said. “The woman from the theatrical union is stuck in Denver. Her plane had mechanical problems.”
“Then who did I just meet?” Tyesha asked. She had a vague recollection of shaking a woman’s hand and confirming that she was ready to make the speech. She was a white woman in her fifties. She had an asymmetrical gray haircut, a dress made of Van Gogh’s night sky fabric, and character shoes.
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Kim said. “This is not the union organizer. This is a friend of hers who’s a former theatrical union member.”
“Okay,” Tyesha said. “Close enough.”
“Absolutely not,” Kim said.
“What’s wrong with her?” Tyesha asked.
“First of all, she’s like a hundred years old,” Kim said.
“It’s not about age,” Jody insisted. “Eva might be even older than her, but Eva gets it.”
“She referred to Lily as a striptease dancer,” Kim said. “She talked about friends of hers who used to do burlesque in the seventies.”
“Okay, so she’s a little out of date,” Tyesha said. “But the connection came through Marisol.”
“No,” Jody said. “If Marisol was here, she’d have figured out right away that she’s not the one. Did she agree to do the speech Marisol wrote? I have an extra copy if she needs it.”
Tyesha waved off their concerns. “She took it, and she said she said she would use it as a guide.”
“You need to take control of this,” Kim said. “Marisol worked on that speech all last night. She knows just what to say.”
“Well, Marisol isn’t here, is she?” Tyesha said. “And I’m not good at giving speeches, so we’re stuck with this old school chick, and I don’t want to hear any more about it.”
Tyesha stalked across the room to Eva. She felt her phone buzz in her blazer pocket. She pulled it out and there was an alert from Drew: BREAKING: 1-Eyed King strippers unionize. “Sex work is work. Workers deserve justice. Exotic dancers no diff.” @TyeshaCouvillier @Vega_Clinic
She turned off her phone and approached Eva. “It’s time to start,” she said. “Give the welcome and introduce the woman from the union.”
“Are you sure—?”
“Eva, will you please just get this fucking press conference started?”
Eva pursed her lips. “I do so under protest,” she murmured to Tyesha, then turned to the crowd.
“Welcome, everyone, to the Maria de la Vega health clinic. My name is Dr. Eva Feldman, and I’m the clinical director here. As you all know, some unfair labor practices have been affecting the workers of the One-Eyed King franchise.” She introduced the woman from the union.
The woman smiled at the crowd and ignored the paper on the podium.
“Young girls come to New York every day,” she began. “With a dream in their heart and a few dollars in their pocket. They dream of Broadway stages and end up on poles. And there are men who prey on these girls’ dreams.”
“Thank you,” Eva said, and swooped the union woman away from the podium before she even knew what was happening.
Jody pressed the speech into Tyesha’s hand and stepped up to the mic. “I’m one of the young women who came to New York with other dreams and then ended up stripping. But it’s a job like any other, and it’s fine as long as the working conditions are reasonable. But sometimes management takes advantage of the fact that this labor force doesn’t always know our rights. Here to tell us more about it . . .” Jody turned to Tyesha.
Tyesha pressed the speech to Kim’s chest and pushed her forward.
Jody’s eyebrows went up. “Here to tell us more about it is Kim Chng,” Jody said.
Kim stepped up to the podium, and Jody had to lower the mic nearly a foot.
Kim smoothed out the crumpled paper and blinked at it. “I grew up in this neighborhood. Or one a lot like it. In Queens. And I lived with my immigrant single mom. Until she got deported. Anyway in my time as the . . . as . . . someone who volunteers in this clinic, I’ve seen girls come through who have been mistreated in every conceivable way. Sometimes by fathers, stepfathers, and uncles. Sometimes by boyfriends and husbands. Other times by pimps and clients. And a lot of times by police and other authorities. But the one thing that never changes: women and men who work in the sex industries have a right to health, safety, and livable working conditions. This should be true for these women and men, regardless of the work they choose to do in these industries. Let me be very clear, anyone who is being forced to sell sex for someone else’s benefit isn’t a sex worker, she or he is a victim of sexual trafficking. That is a crime, and those exploiters should be punished. Some work in these industries includes exchanging sex between consenting adults, and we believe that should be decriminalized. But I am particularly outraged that this most recent outrageous mistreatment of sex workers comes not from a shadowy pimp or an abusive partner, but a fully legal, licensed business in the state of New York. And these workers have a right to organize themselves to fight this mistreatment, and so it is my great honor to announce that the Five Borough Exotic Dancer’s Alliance has been formed, and has begun its union drive.”
The supporters in the room burst into applause.
Eva stepped up to the podium. “We won’t be taking questions, but there are press releases on the table, which include this statement and some background inform
ation. Thank you for coming today.”
Half an hour later, the five of them were in Eva’s office: Tyesha, Kim, Jody, Eva, and Lily.
“What the fuck?” Kim fumed at Jody. “Why’d you pull me up front? You could have given the speech yourself.”
“Three white women talking?” Jody said. “I don’t think so. This is a movement being led by women of color. I never even danced at the One-Eyed King.”
“What made you think that woman would understand sex work issues just because she happened to be in a theatrical union thirty years ago?” Kim asked Tyesha.
“What the fuck,” Jody said. “It was some cliché sob story like Gypsy Rose Lee meets Annie. I was ready for a bunch of tweens to come out and start a ‘Hard Knock Life’ dance number any minute.”
Lily sucked her teeth. “You needed to just read the damn speech, Tyesha. Or next time let me do it.”
“You’re hired,” Tyesha said, her jaw tight. “And now that the press has finally left, I need to get back to running this clinic. Which is my actual job, not giving speeches.”
She glared at the rest of the women, daring them to say anything more.
None of them spoke as she stalked out of the room.
* * *
Later that afternoon, Tyesha had Woof meet her at a costume store in the Village.
It was a bright but cloudy day, not too warm and not too humid, so she walked from the clinic on the Lower East Side. It felt good to let her legs stretch out for the dozens of blocks, not just the usual rush-sit-rush of her days in the office.
Along the way, she ran into a man with an ice cream cart, and she bought a mango Popsicle. “Gracias, bella,” he said, handing her the change.
She strode up to the Village, feeling the warm air on her skin and the cool mango juice melting in her mouth. She could feel the stress of the conference melting away, as well.
As she came around the corner to where she was meeting Thug Woofer, she saw him standing outside the store. He had on a hoodie and dark glasses. In spite of his particularly camouflaged appearance, she could tell it was him from the silhouette of his body. The upright posture, broad shoulders, and long legs. He had headphones on. She couldn’t see them, but the slight bounce of his head indicated music.