Page 74 of Madam, May I
Desdemona frowned at the muffled sounds coming through the door and leaned in to listen more closely. She knocked again. Her room was no larger than a walk-in closet and there was no way to miss a knock.
Moments later the door opened.
“Hi, Ms. Smith,” Portia stammered, running her hand through the tangled lengths of her Pocahontas-styled weave.
Desdemona gave the young woman a look. “Hello, Portia,” she said, taking in the long robe she was holding closed with her hands. “I just came to see how you were doing. Can I come in?”
“Uhmmmm.” She hesitated with a quick look back over her shoulder. “Sure.”
Slick self.
Desdemona walked into the room as Portia stepped back and opened the door wider. There was just a queen-size bed with colorful linens, a modern space-saving desk with a chrome chair in the corner, and the flat-screen television on the wall. It was clean, and for that she was grateful. Teaching the young woman about hygiene and neatness had been an early struggle she thought they would never overcome.
But in the air was the smell of sex.
She walked over and opened the window, thankful for the breeze, even though it was crisp and cold. “You don’t mind, do you?”
Portia shook her head as she sat down on the foot of the bed. “I was just about to call to check on the job applications I put in at the mall—”
Desdemona held up her hand and shook her head. “Boyfriend or trick?” she asked, with a heavy breath.
Portia feigned confusion. “Huh?”
Desdemona arched a brow and turned to lean over and open the bathroom door just as Portia jumped to her feet. Sitting on the commode was a half-naked white man of middle age with balding head, pot belly, and thin legs. “Trick,” she decided. “Get dressed, please.”
She swung the door shut.
WHAP!
Portia slumped back down on the bed. “Ms. Smith, I—”
Desdemona held a gloved finger to her lips demanding silence without saying a word. And they remained silent until the man left the bathroom fully clothed and scurried around the large bed to leave the room.
“I’m disappointed,” she began, tucking her hand inside the leather trench coat she still wore. “My goal that night was to save you from your pimp and yourself. I wanted you to want more for yourself, but if I want it more than you, then I am a fool. I don’t like being a fool. Explain to me why? Free rent not enough. Money every week, not enough? Clothes. Hairdo. Nails. All of it not enough?”
Portia hung her head and bit at her bottom lip as she shivered from the cold breeze tumbling through the open window.
Desdemona turned to close it.
“I am so grateful, Ms. Smith, and I still don’t know why you help me so much after all this time. All ofthatstuff is enough,” she said.
“Are you on drugs?” she asked, looking at her body and eyes for any telltale signs but seeing none.
“No.”
“So what isn’t enough?”
“It’s all I know,” she admitted, looking up at her. “It’s familiar because everything else for me ain’t.”
Desdemona frowned.
“Maybe it’s like a drug for me,” she said. “It felt good to get his eye, work out the money, and bring him back to my room. It felt so good to me. Not him. Not the sex. I just zone out for that, but all of the rest of it. Maybe tricking is my drug because sometimes, like today, I feel like I can’t stop.”
“You have to find your worth in something else,” she said, saying the right words but feeling like a hypocrite because she sold sex every day.
But she’s not a grown woman making a conscious decision. She’s a kid. She was abused and pimped. I want to save her.
How could she if she no more had the will to walk away from being a madam than Portia did to walk away from prostituting?