Red Light Wives (35 page)

But things had changed with our little family. We were outgrowing Clyde and the business. It wasn't just because of Rosalee running off and them guys jumping me in that alley.

Things was changing because it was time.

I
had a feeling Ester was up to something that was going to affect us all, one way or the other. But I was not prepared for the information I was able to pry out of Lula.

“Ester's pregnant,” Lula told me when I called her up the morning after Ester had fainted for the third time in three days on my kitchen floor.

“No way? How could she let that happen? Who is the daddy?” I shouted, looking at the yellow kitchen telephone in my hand. I frowned at chocolate smudges on the receiver that had been left by one of my three little pigs. I padded across the floor to dampen a paper towel to wipe the telephone. Clyde was on his way over, and I liked for everything in my place to be spotless when he visited. Even this late in our relationship, I still looked for ways to impress him. And one thing I could say about Clyde Brooks was he liked a clean woman.

“I think I'll let Ester tell you that herself,” Lula insisted, talking in a low voice. “She's comin',” she said, gasping. “Gotta go.” Lula hung up before I could say another word.

Ester was the last person I expected to get pregnant, especially while she was still in the business. Apparently, she had already started using her condition as a reason to refuse or cancel dates. The night before she developed a sudden mysterious backache on her way to visit a bedridden trick in Oakland. Clyde called me while I was in the middle of a trick myself.

“Rocky, what you doin'?”

“If you really must know, I'm sucking dick,” I told him, and I was. The only reason I'd answered my cell phone was because all three of my kids were sick, and I needed to be available if my babysitter had to get in touch with me. My trick, the nervous nineteen-year-old virgin son of another trick, didn't seem to mind the interruption.

“As soon as you finish, call me on my cell. We got an emergency situation with Ester, and I need for you to take over.”

The night before that, Ester had claimed a severe stomachache. Clyde had to dispatch Lula to take care of Ester's trick, who had requested any other woman Clyde had available. I expected a lot more problems with Ester because of her pregnancy, but I didn't have much sympathy for her.

I had already had my kids when I started turning tricks, so I couldn't speak from experience. But I had often run into a lot of pregnant women working the streets. Some of them still dated all the way up to the day or night they delivered. Then, as soon as they were able, it was business as usual.

There was a bowlegged sister from Panama working Capp Street. She went into labor while she was in the middle of turning a trick in the backseat of an Oldsmobile. I knew about it because I was in the front seat with her trick's buddy taking care of my business.

“For me, havin' babies is as easy as ridin' a bicycle,” the Panamanian sister had told me, with so much pain on her face I flinched every time she had a contraction that night. Her trick was so stupid and drunk, he thought that he was the one responsible for all that screaming and moaning she was doing.

After the double trick, my girl and I hopped into my car and made it to the hospital just in time. Her son was born twenty minutes later. A week later, sister-girl was back on the street.

Being pregnant didn't stop a woman from turning a trick if she wanted to. Especially a woman as rough and tough as Ester.

“So, Lady Ester said she was through turning tricks?” I asked Clyde, handing him another shot of tequila, the third in less than twenty minutes. He had arrived immediately after my telephone conversation with Lula. Clyde's business was rapidly going down the tubes. Rosalee's disappearance, Lula hiding most of the time, Ester getting herself pregnant and taking up with a reformed
cholo
—it was all about to push Clyde over the edge. “You cool with Ester's condition, Clyde?”

“Hell no, I ain't cool with that shit!” Clyde roared, looking around my living room for the kids. He trotted to the doorway leading from my living room. “Where them kids at? I don't want them to hear me actin' a fool.”

“I just got them a new PlayStation. They won't come out of the boys' room until I force them,” I said.

He sniffed hard and unzipped the light jacket he had on, revealing the handle of that useless gun he carried all the time.

“She'll regret it,” Clyde predicted. “She ain't never goin' to find another man that'll treat her as good as I did,” he added with a frosty pout. “I guess I didn't give her enough attention,” he complained, sounding more like he was Ester's father.

With the long history that Clyde shared with Ester, and as hot as he was for Lula, I never thought that I would end up being the only one of his wives he felt he could turn to when he was as distressed as he was. My sudden new position of power and my plan to get out of the business myself soon, forced me to use the situation to my advantage. I rubbed Clyde's shoulders as he sat down gap-legged and depressed in one of the new plush wing chairs I'd recently purchased along with the new bookcase facing it. A shopping bag full of new books, hard-covers mostly, still sat on the floor waiting for me to stack them on the bookcase.

“You are way too tense, brother,” I told Clyde, kneading his shoulders like he was a pile of biscuit dough. “Let me take care of you.”

To my surprise, Clyde had made love to me for the first time earlier while the kids were at the movies with their babysitter. But it was just as lame for me as it was for him. He couldn't even come, blaming it on his nerves. His fly was still open and I could see that he still had a massive hard-on, but I had no plans to do anything about it. One thing I had in common with the runaway Rosalee was I hadn't enjoyed sex since my husband.

“Yeah, I'm tense!” Clyde yelled, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lip, a harsh look on his face. “I got so much shit on my mind these days, it's a damn shame.” He gave me a thoughtful look as he crushed the cigarette in an ashtray then clasped his hands. “Rockelle, I saw my daughter's mama the other week. Megan. Blond hair, blue eyes, just as White as she can be. And what kinda name is Megan?”

“Hmmm. I didn't know you still kept in touch with her.” I poured more liquor into Clyde's glass and made one for myself, too. I needed it.

“I hadn't seen that heifer since Keisha was born.”

I gave Clyde the most sympathetic look I could afford. I knew the whole story about Clyde and Keisha's mother. From the part about her working the escort services before she got pregnant with Keisha to the part about the hit-and-run accident that had disfigured Keisha for life. Clyde had even told us about the woman's sister hanging out with Charles Manson before his downfall and her death from an overdose of heroin. There was enough to this drama for a movie of the week on the Lifetime channel. Of us all, I had to admit that my history had the least amount of pain. Lula had lost her mother, her son, and her husband; Ester had been abandoned at birth and thrown out with the trash; and Rosalee had buried her daddy and all of her siblings, and left the kind of brother I should have married. I considered myself lucky. I would not have traded places with any one of them.

“Did that Megan woman say something that upset you?”

Clyde grunted as he turned to look at me. “Just seein' her upset me.” An angry look suddenly slid across his face. I didn't know if Megan was a subject I wanted to deal with any further. But it was too late to stop him now. “Her smug White ass is livin' like a queen while I'm livin'
la vida loca
, and strugglin' like a galley slave to take care of Keisha.”

“Well, what are you going to do about it? Is Megan going to be in Keisha's life now? Is she going to help you with some of Keisha's expenses?”

“She sure is. She just doesn't know it yet. You just watch me.”

“I hope everything works out the way you want it to, Clyde. It doesn't sound like it's going to be easy, though. Especially now that Ester's gone and got herself pregnant.”

“That Ester,” Clyde said, chuckling. He leaned back and moaned. I was still massaging his shoulders, but it didn't seem to be doing any good. He was still as stiff and tense as a plank. “And I always thought that she was my girl. She wouldn't have even told me she was pregnant if I hadn't asked her. I ain't stupid. I knew somethin' was up when she threw up on my new shoes the other night,” Clyde snapped. “And, she been lookin' mighty plump around the middle lately.”

“She sure is,” I agreed, hoping Ester's pregnancy would ruin her shape the way mine did to me. It was a mean thought, but I couldn't help myself. I had just read a book written by Mo'Nique called
Skinny Women Are Evil
, and I agreed with everything she said.

I squatted in front of Clyde, looking in his eyes as he squeezed my hand and guided it to his crotch. There was a rare look on his face. He stared straight into my eyes and slid his tongue across his lip. Then he gave me a crooked smile and ran his finger along the side of my face and winked.

“That was real nice what you done for me,” Clyde said in a hoarse voice, motioning with his head toward my bedroom. “You got some pretty good stuff between your legs for a big woman,” he said with affection, not malice.

Clyde's frank comment made me uncomfortable, and I didn't like the gleam in his eye. The last thing I wanted this late in my relationship with Clyde was to start sharing a bed with him on a regular basis. Unless money was involved, I had no interest in establishing a physical relationship with another man until I met one for whom I had feelings. I took my hand away from Clyde's crotch.

“Clyde, can you line something up for me this weekend? A few hours with horny old Mr. Bob would be nice, but if he's not interested, whatever you can put together would be fine. Do you think you can do that for me?” I asked, no, I pleaded. Not just with my tone of voice, but with my eyes as well. I blinked at Clyde the way my kids blinked at me when they wanted something. “I'll even do Fat Freddie, with his ugly self,” I added with a chuckle.

Clyde's red eyes stared hard. He twirled his shot glass before he took another sip. He shook his head. “No, baby. I can't do that. I can't hook you up with Fat Freddie no more.”

“But I thought Freddie liked me,” I whined.

“That ain't it, Rocky.” Clyde paused and rubbed his forehead. “You know Cisco? Cisco who comes out from San Jose all the time.” Clyde didn't give me a chance to answer. “One of Cisco's wives fucked Fat Freddie to death. Literally. Dude had a massive heart attack while they was doin' the do.” Clyde shuddered and gave me a pensive look. “Mr. Bob wants to see Lula this weekend, Friday
and
Saturday night. I just hope that lazy-ass heifer don't let me down.”

I wobbled up from the floor and peeked around the corner to make sure the kids were still out of sight. “Oh. Well, what else is going on?” I positioned myself in front of Clyde with my hands on my hips. He had already seen me naked tonight, so I didn't worry about my bathrobe being open. I still received a lot of independent calls from men who'd seen my ad, which I had upgraded a week ago, in
The Spectator
. My new ad showed me in a more revealing outfit—a black leather thong and a see-through bra—and I was in a more provocative pose: one finger in my mouth, my eyes closed, and my other hand massaging my crotch. Since my days in the business were numbered, I figured I would go out with a bang.

I knew that Helen had found out what I was up to when she stumbled across an issue of
The Spectator
with my first ad in it. She'd shared that information with one of the tricks she'd stolen from me, and he told me. Even if her brother, David, had not seen my ad, I was sure that Helen's angry mother would eventually tell him about me, if she hadn't already blabbed.

Clyde shook his head. “I got a urgent call for a blonde from a dude who knows a dude who pays
three thousand
for an all-night date. Dude plays golf with my partner, Lou. His regular chick got drunk and rolled down another trick's spiral staircase and broke her leg in three places. I wouldn't have such a clumsy cow workin' for me,” Clyde said, his lips snapping over his words. “Especially if she gonna cost me a three thousand dollar date.”

“I have a blond wig,” I blurted, half joking, seeing huge dollar signs in front of my hungry eyes. The most I'd ever been paid to do an all-night date was a thousand dollars. To me, that was a lot of money, but not to the wealthy tricks. One particular trick who was in high-level management at a downtown bank told me that the majority of the businessmen who paid for sex were clever enough to incorporate their payments into their business expenses. It was funny knowing that a blow job and a fax machine both fit under “miscellaneous” on an expense report. I often wondered about the uptight men who'd interviewed me for office positions before I contacted Clyde. Those smug suits with their Palm Pilots, e-mails, and conference calls—well, I made more money than some of them now.

“What you smilin' about? What's wrong with you?” Clyde asked, giving me a suspicious look.

“Nothing. I just thought of something funny,” I told him.

Clyde gave me a serious look, and then his eyes lit up like fireflies. A strange smile slid across his face.

“Are
you
all right?” I asked, leaning toward him, my hands back on his shoulders.

“Uh, yeah…where is your telephone book?” Clyde was already moving around my living room, searching. “I need to look up a number, and I need some privacy. Right now!”

I handed Clyde the telephone book and started walking out of the room. I was disappointed, but not surprised to find my daughter, Juliet, hiding outside the doorway.

“What the—girl, what do you call yourself doing?” I hissed, talking in as low a voice as I could manage. Now that I was so important to Clyde, I wanted to keep him happy for as long as he needed me, and for as long as I needed him.