Camila’s tongue clicks in her mouth, her eyelashes big and heavy. “I got a john waiting on me.”
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.