A Street Girl Named Desire: A Novel (16 page)

As her reputation grew, so did her clientele. So much so, the club began to attract some of the biggest rappers and ballers from all over the city just to get at her. This was just about the time that she met the infamous rapper Lil Dollar, who was from Brooklyn. Though Lil Dollar was only nineteen, he'd been on lockdown since he was twelve, after he killed his stepfather on Christmas Day by putting rat poison in his collard greens for not buying Lil Dollar the bike that he wanted. He was an evil motherfucker. He was a seasoned “Razor Tag” vet on Rikers Island by the time he was sixteen, and had a record of 22-1: he slashed twenty-two men and boys in their face or neck, and got stuck only once. That one time left a scar down the side of his face, which he displayed proudly. He had such an unpredictable and moody personality that he would flip and set it off at a moment's notice on anyone at anytime. He and his band of young wolves were banned from two major hotel chains for trashing rooms and beating down the staff. He once kidnapped and hung a room-service waiter out the window for mistakenly bringing him a club sandwich with bacon. Lil Dollar was both famous and infamous. And he had heard of Desire.

On this evening, the club was full to capacity, but twenty minutes after Lil Dollar and his pack of young wolves rolled up, it emptied, because everyone mysteriously opted to call it an early night. Word among the dancers spread fast that the rapper was in the house. In addition to his thuggish reputation, he was equally known for being a notorious trick, spending tens of thousands in one sitting at a strip club. Thongs and G-strings flew everywhere
as the dancers threw on the nastiest, sluttish wear they had, almost knocking down one another as they rushed to where Lil Dollar and his wolves sat.

Desire was unfazed by the competition. She showered and dressed slowly and waited for all the other dancers to play themselves out. When Desire finally emerged, she wore her Cat Woman outfit—a shiny black patent-leather G-string with a matching top, complete with mask and whip. When she reached the platform, she walked with the stealth and swath of a feline. She thought she had to grab Lil Dollar's attention. She didn't know she already had it. As soon as Desire saw Lil Dollar glance at her, with perfect timing Jay-Z's “I Just Wanna Love You” came bursting through the loudspeakers, and she worked hers and popped that coochie to the bass.

Lil Dollar and all his wolves caught notice of Desire, the Cat Woman, onstage, and pushed whatever girls were on their laps out of the way to get a better look. Desire knew she had the spotlight and really began to work it. She took one of her long legs and lifted it parallel to her head. The dancers looked at the expression on Dollar's face and knew it was a wrap. They wouldn't be fucking him that night after they saw his dick harden, as Desire was now on her back with both her legs behind her neck, giving him a clear view of the camel's toe. When she finished her dance, she slipped backstage. She wanted Lil Dollar to request to see her. She didn't want to give it to him easy. Desire knew she had a voice that was both powerful and radio-friendly; Lil Dollar could be her ticket into the singing career she had fantasized about since the day she took over the choir in church. It was Tiah who
came and announced that Lil Dollar wanted a more personal visit at the bar.

Desire walked to the bar cool, calm and collected. She didn't want him to know just how impressed she was with his fame. The other dancers in the club glared at her as she made her way to where Dollar was waiting. A sparkling glass of champagne sat beside an ice bucket spilling over with cubes. A bottle of Cristal jutted out of the ice bucket, the steam still circling the lid, as Dollar had popped the cork only when Desire appeared.

“You wanted to see me?” she asked him. She let the champagne glass dangle between her fingers. She looked away as she sipped.

“You already know that,” Lil Dollar said, running his hands along her creamy thigh without her permission. “That's why you guzzling the champagne I just bought for your sweet, sexy ass.”

Desire immediately stopped sipping. If he thought she was about to be just another ho standing in line for one night, he was wrong. She smiled at Lil Dollar slyly, then slapped his hand away from her thigh. What happened next surprised even her. She quickly threw the glass of champagne in his face. Lil Dollar was too stunned to move. His entourage got up from their bar stools as Desire slowly walked away. But Lil Dollar waved them back.

“Keep your hands off that one,” he told them, wiping the champagne from his face. “She's mine, and mine alone, to handle.”

Desire fucked Lil Dollar that night—mentally—as they spent the evening talking about all the men she knew who wanted her. She made sure to let him know she was a highly sought-after prize.
Her tales continued as they ate breakfast at M&G Diner on 125th Street the next morning, after she had spent the night in his huge loft facing the most famous black street in the world. Desire wanted to first separate herself from all the chicken heads and hoes that he was used to fucking. She decided she could work with Lil Dollar, use him to get closer to the fame and fortune she craved, so she pulled out all the weapons to hook him and make him believe that he needed her like humans need air. Desire intrigued him and he wanted to know everything about her: where she was from, who she be with, why she was stripping. Desire was masterful in manipulating Dollar as she flipped the game on him. She knew that if you can get a man to talk about their deep dark secrets, it put the chick in a class by herself. By the time they left the diner, Dollar had broken down and told her everything from killing his stepfather when he was a kid to how many other people he had fucked over in his life.

He was even more intrigued and impressed when their food came to their table and Desire said, “Excuse me,” and spit a razor out of her mouth. He looked at Desire with amazement. Desire saw him staring and asked, “What?”

He smiled and spit his razor out of his mouth, and they both laughed. Desire found out that he also kept a razor in his mouth at all times, a habit from being in jail. Within days, they began having contests to see who could spit the razor in their hands and put it up to the other's throat the quickest. Lil Dollar was an expert spitter and always beat Desire to the draw. They had a sick, twisted attraction to each other. In the other, each saw themselves, as if they were looking into a mirror. They were two people who had survived the worst, and for whatever reason kept
being drawn back to it. But what made Desire most like him, and so different from the other girls, was the focus with which she carried out her plans. She was the type who didn't just talk about what she wanted, she was dead-set on making some of them happen … and actually already had. He'd never met a girl like Desire, and he was hooked before he knew it.

Desire's patience with her seduction paid off big-time, in less than a year.

Within weeks, Lil Dollar began buying her expensive furs and jewelry. Then he started giving her unlimited spending money just so she didn't have to work at the strip club. It was clear that he was in love for the first time in his life. He no longer rolled with his wolf pack, no longer got himself into trouble, and rarely did he go out clubbing anymore. All he wanted to do now was concentrate on his career and spend time with Desire. Desire didn't want Tiah left out of the equation. Whenever they traveled, she made sure that he paid for Tiah to come along so she herself would feel comfortable. Dollar took them everywhere with him—from LA to Atlanta, to attend music award shows, or if he was on tour performing. He introduced them to everyone in the music industry, and they jet-setted and hung out with other millionaire rappers and executives. Desire and Tiah fit in like they were millionaire chicks themselves. This was the first time they saw how the other half lived, and the lavish living made their heads spin. She and Tiah were no longer the little girls who had traded secrets about expensive handbags in the middle of Macy's while they were broke. They now had the power to buy those
handbags—and more—from not only the street, but also the real stores. In their minds, money meant power, and now they had it. They had to be a part of that world. It was mental insurance that they would never go back to being who they had been.

Hattie Mae was helpless to stop the change that became obvious in both of them. They came and went as they pleased, until finally taking up full-time residence with Lil Dollar. Hattie Mae's constant questions and preaching had started to get on their nerves. Not to mention they no longer saw church as a necessity or even a priority. Hattie Mae watched them pack for the last time, begging them to stay, knowing that if they walked onto the streets this time, they might never come back.

“Who is this Lil Dollar?” she asked Tiah and Desire after they had gathered a few of their belongings. They didn't take much from the apartment. Lil Dollar had replaced almost everything they owned with items that were much more luxurious and expensive. They ignored Hattie Mae as they continued to get their things and place them into Louis Vuitton luggage. Desire was convinced that Hattie Mae had previously sold them on a lie.

“Who is this man that y'all running to living with?” Hattie Mae repeated.

Desire sighed. “I told you, Grandma, he's my boyfriend.”

“What kind of boyfriend can't even stop by here and introduce himself?” Hattie Mae's hands were on her hips as she followed the girls through the apartment, telling them everything they didn't want to hear. “He dragging you out of town but he can't drag himself to the front door to say, ‘Hello, m'am’? That don't sound to me like somebody you need to running to live with. You almost
eighteen. He can't wait till then to marry you? Valentine's Day We could have something big at the church.”

“Grandma, don't nobody want to get married in that broke-down church,” Tiah snapped. The girls had gotten bored with all of it. They had tasted the fabulous life with just the tip of their tongues, they believed. They were ready to taste it all, and swallow it whole.

“Oh, so it's broke-down now?” Hattie Mae fought back tears. “It's broke-down now? This the same church saved yo life. This the same church saved mine.”

Desire didn't want to hear it.

“Did it, Grandma?” she shouted. “Did it really save your life? Far as I'm concerned, sitting up in a tiny apartment in Harlem, with hypes and screaming babies everywhere, till it's time for my funeral ain't a life worth saving.”

Hattie Mae ran up on her and snatched her arm. Desire buckled under the pain as Hattie Mae twisted it. Tiah knew not to get involved. She just stared. They had never seen Hattie Mae this angry. The feelings that had made Hattie Mae ready to fight Desire's mother if necessary, so that the demon would leave her house, were the same feelings that had her ready to fight Desire and Tiah so they would stay.

“This little apartment saved yo life!” Hattie Mae bellowed. She couldn't fight back the tears any longer. She had known the girls would grow up and leave, but she hadn't expected it to happen this way. “You wasn't even one foot long and half a foot wide when you had to come live here. You woulda died if I hadn't pulled you outta that snow, right out there in front of this window
in this kitchen where you done fed your face for all these years!”

Desire wrenched her arm away

“If I ain't careful, I'm gonna die in front of this window,” she said. “Let's go, Tiah.”

Tiah was torn. Her devotion to Desire was strong, but she knew they both had a debt to Hattie Mae.

“We just go'n be on 125th. We gonna come by here every day,” she promised.

“Let's
go
, Tiah,” Desire said, pulling open the front door. “Make up your damn mind. You can come with me and live the good life, or you can stay your ass here and be in church next Sunday. And the Sunday after that. Till you can't even walk to church no more. Then the van can come and pick you up, and take you to church in your wheelchair. That's what you waiting for, ain't that right, Grandma?”

Hattie Mae ran to the door. She raised her hand, and saw the devil himself in Desire's eyes when the girl didn't even cower.