The Business of Lovers

by Eric Jerome Dickey

  “Brick, I need a favor. Hate to ask, but I need you to check something out for me.”

  Music kicked up louder and I could barely make out what he was saying.

  “Brick, check on my son because he told me that the lights and water were cut—”

  “Do what?”

  “My son sent a lot of text messages, freaking out, said his mother hasn’t paid the—”

  It was a struggle to hear Dwayne over a Yemi Alade mix playing. “You have to pay for what?”

  Naija music bumped like a 7.0 earthquake and I couldn’t hear Dwayne.

  Christiana pranced her way over, took the phone from my hand, and hung up. “Dance with me, Brick.”

  She led me back to the party. I showed her some moves to go with the Afrobeats. Her expression told me she was surprised I had skills. Even did that Ethiopian chest-pump thing, the dance called the eskista, for kicks. Salsa came on and she did some Latin moves hotter than the sun. We boogied for thirty, maybe forty-five minutes nonstop, and all the while, Mocha Latte and Penny were burning up the floor next to us. Penny was in the zone, dancing like she wanted to chase the sins she had committed in the name of capitalism from the center of her soul.

  * * *

  —

  TWO HOURS LATER, we sat in Penny’s living room, sipping wine. Her place was always disorganized, every room in a state of confusion. Books on black history and art were stacked unevenly on her two overpacked Ikea bookcases. Still, even though it was disorganized, it was clean.

  Penny was on the sofa, blanket up to her chin, eyes closed. Mocha Latte was cuddled up behind her.

  I shook Penny, told her to go get in her bed; then I stretched and grabbed my coat.

  Penny yawned. “Let me pay you for tonight.”

  I waved her away. “I’ll get it tomorrow. You’ve got your hands full.”

  She shrugged with her inebriation. “Sorry about the things I said about, you know.”

  “Needed to hear those things.”

  “You saw your ex tonight.”

  “Next subject.”

  Penny pulled her lips in. “How are your parents?”

  “They’re good.”

  “Your brothers?”

  “Dwayne’s back in town. André is being André.”

  She nodded, awkward, out of things to say. “I’d better clean my face and shower again.”

  She rose from the sofa, stretched, yawned, and headed down the short hallway, her short dress caught in the crack of her ass.

  Christiana called my name. “Are you going to bed?”

  “Not right away. I have trouble sleeping. Runs in the family.”

  “Penny might shower a long time. May I shower over there?”

  “Sure.”

  She took towels and toiletries from her duffel.

  She told Penny that she was going to my place to take a bath and would be back in a few minutes. We pulled the door up behind us. I picked her up and carried her across the walkway. Twenty steps to my front door. My place was nothing special. Classic sofa. Love seat. Coffee table. Five-year-old flat-screen. Chess set.

  I turned on the ceiling fans in the living room and kitchen, let the cool desert air circulate.

  She saw the chess set in the living room. “Do you play well?”

  “I hold my own against those who have lesser talent.”

  “That’s good to know.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a skill set to be considered.” She went to the kitchen. “What other hobbies?”

  “Jazz. Snow skiing. Protesting injustice that started in the New World back in 1501.”

  “I see a very nice karaoke machine in the corner over by your very nice sofa.”

  “I like to have drinks, call people over, fire it up, and act a fool now and then.”

  “You swim?”

  “Shallow end of the pool. If you find me floating in the deep end, it was murder.”

  “Skydive?”

  “If the airplane was about to crash. But every airplane crash is involuntary skydiving.”

  She drifted into my kitchen. “Dios mío. You have so much wine.”

  “Only the good stuff.”

  She read some of the labels. Gentle Jack Morgan. Haan. Casamigos. Michael Mondavi Red Blend. Château Lynch-Bages Pauillac.

  She asked, “Expensive?”

  “Not all. I have wine ranging from eight dollars a bottle to about seven hundred a bottle.”

  “This is your job?”

  “A side hustle. Do it for fun. Make a few tax-free dollars. And because I like wine. If nobody buys it, then I get to drink it.”

  “Where do you work?”

  “At a widget factory. On leave for a while.”

  “You are a professional.”

  “Yeah. I’m an executive, more or less.”

  “I can tell. You are articulate. And how you carry yourself.”

  “Yeah. White-collar with blue-collar tendencies. Grew up blue-collar. Hard habit to break.”

  She didn’t ask for details. “Well, may I have a glass of the wine that costs eight dollars?”

  I put on music. Opened a bottle that sold at two hundred. We shared a glass of wine without sharing a word. Soon, my tipsy guest danced her way to the shower, used up all the hot water, then came back out, sexy in mikado-colored satin. She was a regular girl. Pretty, but regular, stripped down to the bare minimum.

  She said, “Brick, your phone is buzzing.”

  I picked it up, saw about twenty CALL ME text messages from Dwayne.

  He wanted to know if I had company. He was trying to crash on my sofa.

  Couldn’t deal with him. His anxiety was a bit much at times.

  I went and stood in the shower, under cold water. A smack of emotions assaulted me. Coretta was a stranger to me. It was a good thing I saw her. I needed to see them holding hands, laughing like newlyweds. Could’ve been worse. Could’ve been revealed after a wedding, after two kids, and this grief I held on to now would be nothing compared to the pain, heartache, and financial destruction that would have cost. You could be with someone a year or twenty years and realize you didn’t know them. People rarely rose to the level of being beyond intimate strangers.

  * * *

  —

  WHEN I CAME out of the shower, Christiana was already in my bed.

  I asked, “You want the television on?”

  “No. But we can talk some more until we sleep.”

  “Sure.”

  “You have a lot of pills on your dresser. Maybe twelve bottles of this and that.”

  “Vitamins.”

  “‘Vitamins’ with complicated names given by prescription. I recognize one. It is for nausea.”

  I eased into bed next to her. She scooted over, cuddled up against me. I was on my left side. I wrapped my right arm around her, let it rest under her breasts. It felt good to touch a woman. Damn good. The curve of her body was against the firmness of mine. Heat disarmed me. Aroused me. She smelled like heaven. She smelled like love.

  She asked, “What’s on your mind?”

  “This job you and Penny and Mocha Latte do, you know men who do this?”

  She turned and faced me, smiling. “Of course.”

  “What kind of men do women like to rent?”

  “European women love black men. But not to marry, only to have experienced at least once. I have heard women talk. It makes her feel naughty. You are their fantasy. Their forbidden fruit. Some want an adventure.”

  “What about black women?”

  “Most desire exotic men. Some love seeing their skin against a differing skin color in bed. A man’s accent, be it Spanish or French or Moroccan, makes a clitoris dance. Some feel like they are doing something taboo. I am only guessing, only saying it the
way it appears to my eyes and ears. For some, it is how they battle depression.”

  “You know every type.”

  “Sometimes we simply provide love to the unloved or the misunderstood. Imagine no one touches you, no one kisses you, no one wants you in a sexual way. It can be very, very depressing to feel rejected by the rest of the world. So, people like that, they come to people like us to feel what feels like love.”

  All she said, I could imagine. It was my life. I responded, “But you don’t love them.”

  “We make them feel loved. And not always with sex. Many don’t want to have sex.”

  “What do you do with them?”

  “Hold them. Talk. Go to dinner. Go hiking. Go skiing. Pay attention. Some only want to look at me.”

  “Why pay to look at you if they can touch you?”

  “Some men are not capable. The emoji no longer functions. They pay to give me oral.”

  “Never heard it called an emoji.”

  “Not all emojis work.”

  “That’s a win-win situation, I’d guess.”

  “Or some call it bamboo.”

  “And the league of wayward women would want to pay me so they can be bamboozled.”

  “Some clients want it rough; some want sex sensual. I find out as much about them as I can before I meet with them. Some men want sex and they want it the moment you enter the room. No conversation. No drinks. Women are different. They usually want to book far in advance and meet you, see how you get along, see if they like you face-to-face before inviting you into the bedroom. They might want to meet for drinks to feel more relaxed.”

  “You never know what to expect.”

  “Everyone is different. Some orgasm and are done with you, want you to leave right away. Some will feel guilty, ashamed of what they have done, and cry like babies.” She hummed. “Are you intrigued?”

  “You’re busy at night.”

  “Our busiest times are early in the morning. That is when rich men in business suits are supposed to be on their way to work. Or during lunchtime. They have us meet them for a quickie. Evenings, married men go home to their wives and children and pretend to be perfect husbands and fathers and grandfathers. Women, too.”

  I digested, shifted, then asked, “You said you were an attorney?”

  “I was. The best at my firm.”

  “Why do this dangerous work, why risk going to jail, if you were an attorney?”

  “I was a lawyer back home, but I wasn’t able to be one here in the States.”

  “Where are you from, Christiana?”

  “Cuba.”

  “Caribbean girl.”

  “Born in Old Havana.”

  “Hard life?”

  “Day and night. Poverty for breakfast, bribery for lunch, corruption for dinner.”

  “Ah.”

  She yawned. “So Penny never talks to you about what she does?”

  “The most Penny will say is that she is an escort. She is paid for her company, and then whatever happens, happens. She says she has never been paid for sex. That’s the lie she sticks to.”

  Christiana hummed. “Call it what it is. I have no shame. I sell a man his own orgasm.”

  “Sounds messy.”

  “Can be. With my Nigerian client, I should wear goggles, Saran Wrap, and a bib.”

  I asked, “Do you like doing what you do?”

  “I do not always want to go to work and I do not like every customer.”

  “How much time do you actually spend having sex?”

  “Lots of foreplay, but I try to be done with that part in no more than ten minutes.”

  “Really?”

  “You look surprised. I know how to give fake sex, to make a drunk or high man think he’s inside of me, but he is between my thighs. I can hide my face with my hair and use my hands and they think they are in my mouth.”

  I put on a Maxwell Smart voice. “The old cock-between-the-thighs trick.”

  “Most of the time, I try to make them finish before they get to put it inside of me.”

  I asked, “Then what?”

  “I say to him that I enjoyed my date with him and if he wants me to stay longer, that can be arranged with a cash donation, PayPal, Apple Pay, or verified gift card. But I prefer cash. US dollars or British pounds. Never take Caribbean money, same for African money. It’s worth nothing; no one will change it for American money.”

  “You have it all sorted out.”

  “I like you, Brick.” She laughed. “We will get along very well.”

  “Really. Why?”

  “You don’t judge us. You talk to me like I am a human being.”

  “No, I don’t judge. People are people. We’re all trying to get paid or get laid.”

  She chuckled. “You make women feel safe.”

  “Most of your customers are married men?”

  “Yes, many are married. Women too. Some women want a sewing circle.”

  “Sewing circle?”

  “Code for women desiring lovers of the same sex. Many women want to be with women.”

  “Bisexual?”

  “Some. Others are lesbians and some just like to be with women. It is different than being with a man. Some only do it once.”

  I asked, “Ever have any serious problems with a client?”

  “I was at a bar in South Beach with a man, and his wife walked in and slapped me in the face. She was Dominican. She had followed him there, thought I was the girl he was having an affair with. He had paid in advance, PayPal, and we never even made it out of the bar. So, I just laugh and call that the one-thousand-dollar slap.”

  I said, “You’re funny.”

  “So are you. I like you. You are nice.”

  “Nicer than some, meaner than others.”

  “I’m surprised Penny isn’t your girlfriend.”

  “We’re just friends.”

  “Two times. She will never forget she made love with you two times.”

  I shook my head. “She will forget a lot of things and a lot of people. She will marry, have kids, move to a nice home, and days like this, people like me, people like you . . . she will forget us all. What say you?”

  “She will not forget. Not all the way. We pretend to forget the things we can’t help but remember.”

  “I’m sure you’ve made love twice with someone you had nothing in common with.”

  Her playfulness waned. “Yes, my ex-husband.”

  “You were married?”

  “Until he had sex with my younger sister.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “Like you said, we had nothing in common. I realized my dream was based on many lies, but we were legally married, man and wife, and we stayed married for another year after he and my sister were exposed.”

  “Why stay married after that?”

  “We are Catholic. God gave me that man to be my husband. We didn’t want to divorce, no matter what. That unhappiness tested my faith, made me question my religion. It was the longest year of my life, a century of what the doctor called melancholia. I had so much sadness. After he slept with my sister the first time, after I found out, I slept with him again. Took a while, but I did. Out of obligation. I was still his wife. And he was still my husband. Did it to show my sister that I was better than her, that I was good at being a wife, that he loved me more than he did her, and it was her fault he slept with her. I blamed her for the way she dressed, for how she danced and flirted, blamed everything but my husband’s dick. It was a foolish, emotional thing. It was . . . the phrase . . . the phrase . . . yes . . . it was a territorial fuck. It was the fuck of ownership, to prove I was the queen of my house, not making love for forgiveness. I could not forgive. It was not the same. Hated myself for being with him again. After that, never again. I wish I coul
d take that night back. He became my regret fuck. The lover I despised. And I do not regret what I did to my sister.”

  “What did you do to your sister?”

  “I collected my tears in a coffee cup and splashed it in her face.”

  “You cried that hard?”

  “Well, I said they were tears.”

  “What was in the cup?”

  “Tears from my vagina.”

  “Guess you were pissed off.”

  She wiped her eyes. “She deserved it.”

  “You’ve had quite a journey.”

  Christiana said, “I hated my husband even before he slept with her. He told me I worked too much, but I was an attorney and he did nothing but drink cervezas and party, spent what I earned before I had earned it. Then I had to work even more to pay for his debt. Now he’s divorced from me and married to my little sister. He married her, and my stepchild became my niece on the same day we were granted our annulment by the Catholic Church. So now, in the eyes of God, I have officially never been his true wife. Only had sex with him. He married her, and everyone thinks that something was wrong with me and I was not a woman, not a real woman. And they pity me because I was unable to give him a child. Or they think I was not a capable wife in bed. They blamed me for his affair. They blamed the victim for being victimized. They live with my parents, the same place he lived with me when we were married. No way I could stay in that house. No way could I watch them be husband and wife, sleeping in the bedroom next to mine. I would wake up and he would smell like her; then he would slap my ass and smile. It was too much.”

  “He married her, and then tried to make love to you?”

  “There was no love between us. He would have raped me, and I would have been blamed.”

  “I stand corrected.”

  “At night, I slept with a knife at my side.”

  “You were around selfish and coldhearted people.”

  “He brought out the worst in me. I needed to get away to remove that darkness from my heart. I needed to start over. I told no one I was leaving. Not my mother. Not my father. Only told God. I didn’t expect God to make it easy for me, not when God had never made life nor love easy for no one I have ever met.”

  “How did you end up here in America?”