Camila’s breath is thick, full of all her loud. I can see it puff into the air and I know she been in this so long that her numb has transformed into a buzz, her body generating heat out of nothing. She’s been in this game for so many years that I think she might just have the key, might just own it. Nobody shouts out to her. They all know she is not for their commenting, for their tongues or their teeth. Camila would cut anybody who is stupid enough to mess with her, leave them bleeding.
Her weave is adorned in blue extensions and her makeup is its own costume; she is ready for the runway, her voice coarse and magical. Camila waves those pointy fingers at me, says she’ll see me around and, just like that, I’m alone again, except for the eyes: Tony, strangers, billboards advertising casinos I don’t believe exist. I wish she’d return, make this feel like it is just another night, and I can still walk Trevor to the bus stop and eat stale chips with Alé on the swings.
Ever since the club a couple days ago, I’ve been avoiding Alé, dodging her texts and calls. I think she might look at me and see it, see this, and we’ll never be able to smoke the same joint, look out over the city and see the same thing. Still, I wish she was here to make me laugh. Make the chill a little less sharp.
When the man appears in the street like he has materialized just for me, I wonder if I am being reckless, if I should go home, but then I think of the bill Vernon has drawn up. And I’ve got Tony here with me, so I’ll be fine. It’s just a body.
The man in front of me is small, barely my height with these shoes, and his mustache reeks of gasoline, which makes me believe he has been working on cars all day, somewhere oiled up and dirty. When Camila told me I needed a pimp, or at least some protection, I thought that meant I’d be picking up big men, ones with more muscles and cash than I ever knew existed in this city, on this boulevard. But, staring at this man, his eyes shallow, I think my body might make small men feel big. They grow an ego out their necks when they have me, spit out cash that probably should go to rent or their baby mama’s diaper fund.
I try to collect myself, tell myself I am meant to stand in this street and this man is meant to pay me. I tell him a version of my name, Kia, and he asks how old I am.
Camila says the number one rule is don’t reveal nothing about yourself.
“As old as you want me to be.”
He doesn’t ask more and I take note of this, how he doesn’t want to know. Camila told me some of them would want to know my age, build up their little-girl fetish, that I could make more money if they knew. These are the men who sprout tears at the height of their pleasure, the ones who got flesh just soft enough to rip open.
“What you want me to call you?” I ask him. This is the first step. Camila says it tells you more than any of the other questions, so you know what you about to do.
The small man’s shoulders drop, his throat stretching. He stumbles a little, coming up with a name. He tells me to call him Davon and I’m a little surprised, mostly because I expected something that reeks of acid and sex, something he’d be ashamed to say anywhere else.
“This your first time?” I ask him, taking his hand like I really got any idea what I’m doing. I glance across the street at Tony’s shadow and I can almost trace the tense in his muscles, forming an outline from his body.
Davon shrugs, says he’s got a car parked a block away, off Thirty-Seventh. I let him lead me, flit my eyes from him to Tony, who ambles in our direction from across the street, making sure everything is visible.
I don’t know much about cars, but I know that Davon’s is old and crumbling, probably has an engine that groans. He opens the back door for me and I crawl in. I’m hit again with this scent of oil, but now it’s mixed with a sweetness, like vanilla has found its way into his car and made love to the machinery. He climbs in after me and we are sitting beside each other, two strangers waiting.
My chest starts to feel tight in the silence, so I speak. “Tell me what you want.”
He hesitates, does not breathe a word, and takes my hand.
We continue to sit, only our hands intertwined, and I think I must have mistaken his loneliness for hunger. My panic is mounting and I’m not sure if I made a mistake, if I could exit this car and run back to Tony even if I wanted to. Before I have a chance to do anything, Davon’s other hand creeps over to my waist and he pulls me closer to him, close enough that now I can smell the vanilla traced in his skin. I lean forward and kiss him almost like it means something. But he begins to move his hands quick, ripping and tearing at me. Skin to skin to the inside of skin and the slowness dissolves into the creaking of the car. I can feel the ripped leather of the seats on my back and his sweat, dripping.
There are no words, barely any sounds from either of us, but the car is talking. It squeaks and rumbles, like it is coming alive in the face of our bodies and I almost wish it would begin to drive itself, take me to the top of the hills and let me see the bay spread out farther than my eyes will ever be able to travel. The car stays in its spot, rocking slightly. Tony is a shadow out the window and I am a mass of limbs.
Davon hasn’t looked at me since he let go of my hand. When he finishes, he stares back at me, but his eyes are a slick gloss, a floating body. He doesn’t see me.
Climbing out of the car, I stumble, forgetting the height of these heels. I lean back into the car and he hands me a bundle of cash, sets it right into my palm, just like Polka Dot. I count it. It’s only fifty bucks, not even close to what Polka Dot paid me.
“Where’s the rest?”
“You ain’t worth no more than that.” He doesn’t look at me, just gives a small grunt. “But you was good. I can give you some of my cousins’ numbers, get you some more business.”
Davon inputs new numbers into my phone and I straighten up, begin walking back to International. I tell myself I’ll ask for the money up front next time, make sure I’m not getting ripped off. Now that it is over, everything feels muted. The windchill a little less cold, my heartbeat barely audible, my skin numb, asleep. Just a body. Just sex.
I cross the street to Tony’s side and stop. He walks out of the shadows of a maple tree and his hands are stuffed into the pockets of his hoodie like a frustrated child. I take the cash out of my bra and hand it to Tony, knowing he loves me enough to watch me survive, to give him my everything without worrying about him running. If that ain’t some shit my uncle would be ashamed of.
“Kiara, can I ask you something?” Tony’s voice is a shudder in a tornado of quiet. His hoodie has the name of a college I’ve never heard of in blocked letters and I realize I don’t even know if Tony been to college.
I nod to him because no is not an answer to this question.
His bottom lip moves side to side.
“If I, uh, got me a job—a real one, you know—and saved up for a while, would you let me take care of you? Like real talk take care of you, like a man takes care of a woman?”
He drifts into a mumble and I wobble on one of my heels, trying to balance, trying to find an escape. It don’t make sense to me why he’s asking this now, when I am still tender from Davon’s thrusts, barely clothed and vulnerable.
“We both know it ain’t like that. It ain’t that simple. I got Marcus to think about.” Marcus doesn’t even realize how his life would dissolve without me paying for rent, his phone bill.
“Just ’cause it ain’t simple don’t mean it gotta be complicated.”
“We talking blood, Tony.”
“That ain’t everything.” His fingers start to grasp for mine and then still.
“When everything else goes to shit, he’s all I got. And me and you can’t never be that, you know?”
Tony don’t even nod this time, don’t say a word. Instead, he reaches into the pocket of his hoodie and pulls out the cash, pushes it back into the creases of my palms. He shadows himself until he’s nothing but dark and I know he’s not even there no more but I can’t help thinking that he’s watching, waiting. If Tony don’t wait for me, then no one will.
I spin around, back to International, solo walking. And, God almighty, when it all goes to shit, Marcus better be my shadow. He better be my everything.