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Desdemona released a long breath as she eyed the dozen or so girls standing, walking, advertising under the cloak of darkness. The street lights were shot out each time the city repaired them and tried to bring light. There was no hope in that darkness. No shame. And for many, trapped by addictions or pimps, no escape.
I made it out.
But I never should have made it there.
She closed her eyes, surprised for her longing for a cigarette, knowing it wasn’t a craving for the smoke and nicotine to fill her lungs but rather for the release. Any kind of release of the emotions flooding her, taking her back to days of which she knew she should be ashamed, but she wasn’t.
I had no choice. I wasn’t old enough to work. I was left behind in a house filled with hate, afraid that greed would cause my death.
Desdemona took an inhale this time—deep and slow—filling her lungs as she stiffened her spine in the driver’s seat of her car. Bottling her emotions she was well practiced at. How else could she have made it through that house of hell, her days on the streets hungry and homeless, and then selling herself for food and shelter, and making the boldest and most defiant decision in her life to get away from being someone else’s whore?
I did what I had to do.
She shook her head at a secret she would never tell. One she sometimes succeeded in forgetting.
Bzzzzzz . . .
Clearing her throat, she reached for her iPhones sitting on the passenger seat, choosing her personal one. The tip of her nail scratched the screen as she swiped with her thumb and opened the incoming email. “From Loren?” she said, her voice a blend of confusion and surprise, thinking he must be emailing her something to work on before their tutoring session the next night.
Her brows dipped as she read. “I feel you are more than ready for your GED test, but if you are in need of more tutoring I can recommend someone to you,” she finished.
“Wait . . . what?” she asked, rereading the short email.
Loren quit as my tutor.
She rested her hand on her thigh as she held the phone and looked at her rearview mirror. She hadn’t seen him since last week when she had offered him sex lessons and shared a kiss that even she couldn’t forget.
“You’re lying! Where’s my money, yo?”
Desdemona focused her eyes across the street just as a tall and thin man swung and slapped a woman he was gripping around her throat. He slapped her again and again. She gasped with each show of violence. Her eyes dashed left and right, amazed at the people either looking on or looking away. No one helping. Cars slowing down to watch or record video. Someone yelled “Worldstar!” as they zoomed past.
But then amazement faded when she realized she was far removed from this life, but not enough to forget that she too had suffered plenty of hits and kicks.
When he flung the woman to the ground and kicked her like a football he was trying to punt for a long-range field goal, she balled her hand into her fist with her nails digging into the flesh as she wished she had a gun to grip. In her world guns weren’t necessary, but this land of hard-to-ignore harshness was different. She tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and dug inside her tote bag for her baton instead.
“What am I doing?” she asked herself aloud as she put the car in drive and checked for oncoming traffic before she did a U-turn to the other side of the street. Her headlights shone on the man and woman just as he bent down to swing for more punches.
“What am I doing!” she squealed before she hopped out of the vehicle and flicked her wrist to extend the baton.
The woman’s cries filled the air along with the sound of his hits upon her body.
WHAP. WHAP.
Desdemona swung her arm in an arc and brought it against the back of the man’s knees, sending him down to the ground before she whacked him hard against his arms and head as his howls of pain pierced the night air. She eyed his victim. She was a teenager. No more than sixteen or seventeen. “Run!” she yelled, her stomach clenching from the blood and snot running from the girl’s nose.
“I can’t,” she said, shaking her head. Her eyes filled with fear and her pain as she struggled to rise from the ground.
What am I doing?
She stepped over his body in her heels and grabbed the girl by the arm. “I will help you. Do you want it or not?” she asked, impetuously offering the girl the goodwill no one had dared offer to her.
The girl’s eyes frantically shot to him and back to her before she nodded anxiously.
Pushing her roughly toward the passenger door of her car, Desdemona raced around the front of it to get in the driver’s side just as the man began to rise with his hand pressed to the back of his head.
“Does he have a gun?” Desdemona asked.
“Hell, yes,” the girl said, emphatic.
