He thinks he’s clever with his sick analogy, but he has no idea how hurtful his comments are. Yes, I’ve had a lot of sex with a lot of different guys. Not all of my experiences have been like this one. Sometimes I’m too weak and don’t have the physical strength or size to stop it. Other times, I feel tricked, bribed, trapped…sweet-talked. When I was younger, I let guys touch me in my stupid desperation for affection, but I eventually learned there isn’t anything affectionate about a swollen penis. Still, there are moments when I wonder, Will this time be different? Maybe this one will hold me close and love me. Maybe it will feel good, and I fall back into the trap.
But after Prescott’s hateful remarks, I don’t even want his fucking money. I stride away, hooking the strap of the satchel over my shoulder. The projects of Central City stretch out around me, but I know the way, having walked this road every time Prescott fucked me in that lot. Five blocks from here, I can catch a bus home.
The Cadillac’s engine starts, and a moment later, it rolls up beside me.
He extends an arm out the window, his hand filled with a wad of bills.
I stare at it, needing it, hating myself. “How often do I have to do this?”
“As often as I want.” A strand of blond hair falls over his eyes. “My first assignment is due on Monday, so we’ll meet again this week. Next time, I’ll make you come.”
A surge of anger scorches through my veins. I hate him. But I need him.
I swallow my pride and snatch the money from his hand.
He flashes me a sated smile and drives off, leaving me standing on the side of the road like the whore that I am.
With the address from Ivory’s file mapped on my phone, I turn my old GTO onto her street. This doesn’t feel stalkery, but it doesn’t seem completely sane, either. What can I say? I’ve never needed an excuse to beat someone’s ass. I just didn’t imagine the ass I’d be beating tonight would belong to her brother. Yet here I am.
I don’t have a plan, only that Ivory can’t know I’m here. I should’ve reported her swollen lip. I damn sure shouldn’t have searched her body for bruises. But this? Showing up at her house? Definitely crossing into what-the-fuck-am-I-doing territory.
Dusk grays out the horizon, and there aren’t any street lamps. Maybe I can coax her brother outside without her seeing me and punch his lights out before he has a chance to memorize my face. Of course, if she glimpses my car, she’ll know. The 1970 Pontiac GTO is too recognizable. If she didn’t see it in the school parking lot tonight, she will before the year’s over.
I should’ve taken a cab, but I wasn’t exactly thinking when I left the classroom and drove straight here.
Following the GPS, I sneak along a row of sagging houses. No, not sneaking. The American muscle under the hood is a 455 V8, and its thundering dirty rumble has residents leaning forward on their porches. Pedestrians stop walking and gawk. It occurs to me that I won’t be able to leave the car on her street. It would be jacked within minutes.
Just a couple blocks north of the French Quarter, Treme is the place tourists are warned not to go, not in daylight and definitely not at night. I haven’t visited this area since I was a rebellious teen. I forgot about all the graffiti, boarded-up windows, and huddles of men on the street corners looking around like they’re hiding something. How does she live here and not get mugged every day?
She has nothing of value to steal.
Except her innocence. Though I’m certain that was stolen long ago. The niggling question is, how much damage was done? I understand her reactions to me, the looks of both fear and desire to please. They’re her natural reflexes to a dominant man. But layers of obscurity lie beneath her expressions, experiences that strengthened her and tolls that warped her. Not just an abusive brother or a dead father, but something else. Something traumatically sexual.
Anger plunges through my veins, spurring me toward her house and the unknowns that wait there.
I spot her street number on the weathered siding of a narrow shotgun building. The peeling white paint gives way to rotten wood, and the drooping roof over the porch doesn’t look safe enough to stand beneath. The houses are too crammed together to accommodate driveways, and there are no cars parked out front. No lights on inside. No movement in the windows. Unless she’s sitting in the dark, she’s not home.
On my way here, I envisioned the worst. But one could argue the house next to hers is much worse, the exterior veneered in scraps of plywood and the entire structure slanting on its foundation. Someone even spray-painted on the neighbor’s door: Home is a fleeting feeling I’m trying to fix.
As I idle in front of her house, imagining the dilapidated conditions within, a knot of unease forms in my gut. Maybe she doesn’t have electricity? If her mother’s unemployed, who pays the bills? Her brother?
I don’t linger, afraid Ivory will come home and notice my car. A few blocks away, I pull into a crowded parking lot, operating on a hunch and a perverse sense of curiosity.
The bluesy notes of a solo trumpeter vibrate through me as I amble into Willy’s Piano Bar. I’ve never been here, but it’s not unlike the other seedy New Orleans bars I’ve frequented over the years. Grungy and cave-like, the scarce lighting and exposed brick walls give it a basement tavern feel. The kind of tavern men get shot in.