Believe Like a Child (15 page)
Harlin gave her a hard, assessing stare. “I didn’t steal sex from you and it
was
consensual,” he declared with complete confidence. “You are in the sex business now and that changes everything. As far as Jay goes, I don’t give a fuck what he lets people do or not do at his bar. Listen carefully to what I’m telling you: you need to make as much money as possible and when you do lap dances, the clients need to be satisfied. Find a way to get them off while you’re dancing. The lap dances are done in a private room. Make sure you give them their money’s worth so they keep coming back for more. I will be working the bar to make sure you get plenty of business. Just do what I tell you to and we’ll make serious money. Hell, you are young, tight and white! That’s
exactly
what men want. Now I’m going to bed and I suggest you do the same. By the way, we will be practicing your lap dance again tomorrow night, after we get home. And remember, until you get it right and are ready to start performing for those horny pricks at the bar, we will continue to practice!”
Alessa got off the sofa and headed for her bedroom. She started to take off the few scanty clothes she was still wearing. Before she had even got into her pajamas, the tears started to flow. She replayed what had happened over and over again in her mind. She couldn’t believe that Harlin had actually raped her. What was it with men that they felt they could treat her body with such utter disrespect and snatch sex from her whenever they so desired?
As she lay sleepless in bed, Alessa tried to sort through her emotions in search of an answer. She couldn’t see a way out of the dangerous situation she found herself in. One thing she knew for sure: she hated Harlin more than ever and prayed that she would find a way to be rid of him. She cried herself to sleep, promising herself, before she drifted off, that things would get better. She didn’t know how or when this would happen, but clung to the hope that a change would surely come.
I
t was only nine in the morning when Tasha barged into Alessa’s bedroom.
“What happened last night?” she demanded to know. “I could tell Harlin was mad. And he wouldn’t let me come over. What did you do to make him furious?”
Startled awake, Alessa struggled to take in what her friend was saying. Having slept for only three hours, she tried to wipe the grogginess out of her eyes and sat up. “Harlin was mad because a guy asked me to give him a lap dance and I turned him down,” she explained.
Tasha looked at her sympathetically.
“Apparently, men pay a lot of money for them and Harlin thought I should have said yes,” Alessa explained further.
“So what made him so angry? Why didn’t you just tell him that you weren’t comfortable with the idea of performing lap dances?”
Knowing how devoted Tasha was to her brother, Alessa picked her words very carefully. “Well, I did, but he felt I should learn how to perform them. He sort of insisted. He said it was part of my job.”
Tasha’s face hardened. “Since when is it Harlin’s place to tell you what you can and can’t do? I’m going in there to talk to him.”
Alarmed, Alessa seized her hand and held her back. “No,” she said, “you don’t need to. I appreciate your concern, but he’s right. I talked to one of the girls and she said it wasn’t a big deal. She said she would teach me how to perform lap dances. Harlin just wants me to make as much money as I can while I’m there.”
Tasha hesitated. She had heard the rising panic in her friend’s voice and realized that her brother must have done or said something to frighten her. She loved him, but she loved Alessa no less. She didn’t want to pick a fight with Harlin, but she would, if she found out he had been bullying her. She knew that Alessa couldn’t stand up to someone like him. Hell, she couldn’t stand up to anyone! Not because she was weak, but because she had never stood up to anyone in her life! Besides, Tasha thought, no one ever stood up to Harlin.
Later that afternoon, while Alessa was showering, Tasha found Harlin in the kitchen eating eggs and waffles. Just as he always did when he saw his sister, he flashed her his charming smile. This time, however, things were different. Tasha could tell he was hiding something. So instead of exchanging their usual hug, she gave him a cold, piercing stare. Harlin could tell she was fuming and wondered if that little bitch, Alessa, had told her about the previous night.
Tasha sat down at the table opposite Harlin. “Tonight,” she began with grim determination, “when you drive Alessa down to Doubles, I want you to come back and talk with me. I can tell something is going on here and it ain’t right. I don’t know what it is, but you haven’t been yourself for weeks.”
“I can’t make it tonight, baby,” Harlin said placatingly. “I have things to do. I need to get some business for Alessa at the bar.”
Tasha lashed out at him. “The way I see it, Alessa is doing just fine at the bar without you getting her more business. I don’t know what you’re expecting of her and that’s what we’re going to discuss tonight.”
Harlin looked away. But his quick nod, even as he did so, indicated to Tasha that he would come back to the house to talk with her later that night.
Jake drove Alessa to the bar that night so that Harlin could meet with Tasha. When she arrived at the house, his crew quickly made themselves scarce, clearly under orders to go for a walk. When the two were finally alone, Tasha asked, “Okay, so what’s going on? I could tell you were furious about something when you called me last night and told me not to come over. All Alessa will tell me is that you want her to do lap dances. I need to understand why that is any of your business. I promised her she wouldn’t be forced to do anything that she didn’t want to do. Now
you
seem to be making the decisions about what she should do at the bar.”
“If she wants to dance at bars where she can really make money,” Harlin answered, on the defensive now, “she needs to learn how to do a lap dance and stop being such a fucking prude! She’s in the sex business now, Tasha. That’s what this is about. If she’s going to flaunt herself up on stage like she does, then she better deliver the goods. Get it?”
“Oh, I fucking get it!” Tasha exclaimed, her temper flaring. “You want Alessa to
whore
out for you. That’s what you’re telling me, right?”
Harlin thought hard before speaking. “C’mon, Tasha,” he said, trying to sound breezily casual. “It’s not like I’m telling her she needs to walk the streets. All I’m saying is that if she wants to move from Doubles to a bar that will let her make more money doing other things, she needs to get some practice beforehand.”
Tasha was screaming at him now. “I told you this girl has been through some really bad shit in her life! She doesn’t want to be a hooker, Harlin! Not on the streets or in a bar. When you suggested that she work at Doubles, you said it was just dancing. And now you want her to be your prostitute? What are you now, a fucking pimp?”
At that, Harlin sprang to his feet, towering over Tasha, but the menacing figure didn’t so much as elicit a blink from his sister. In fact, she was so mad at him now that she wouldn’t have cared if he were eight feet tall. Placing her hands firmly on her hips, she stared right back at him, not giving an inch.
Finally, he said, “This shit is beyond you, Tasha. This is between me and Alessa. We have a business deal. She agreed to the terms and now she needs to start fulfilling her part of the bargain. I’m not a fucking babysit-ter, you know! If that bitch wants to live here under my protection, she’s gonna have to pay. And you need to step off and just let the two of us work this out. Alessa doesn’t need you mothering her. She’s a big girl who can make her own decisions.”
“Fuck you, Harlin!” Tasha snarled. “You know she won’t stand up to you. You’ll get her to do whatever you want and she doesn’t stand a chance of getting in a word about how things should be. So I’m
not
stepping off and I
won’t
let you hurt her! You’re just being a bully. Mom always said you were never intentionally mean to people, only to those who provoked you. What has Alessa done to provoke you? Or wait, that’s right, this is just business! You get half of everything she earns. So the more she earns, the more money you make. I didn’t think money was so important that you’d be willing to betray your family and hurt Alessa—just so you could turn a profit.”
“When you turn a profit in the streets selling weed, you hurt people,” Harlin countered. “You think when you sell weed to the teenagers around here, you ain’t hurting them? You are, baby sister! But you’re doing it so you can make money. You see, sometimes you need to just go with the flow. You make money and they get high. Ain’t no different with Alessa. She and I both make money and the customer gets what he wants.”
Tasha turned to leave, but stopped in the doorway. “The difference between you and me is that I would never force anyone to smoke weed. They do it without me ever suggesting it to them. You, on the other hand, are forcing Alessa into prostitution. I want you to think about what you are doing, because it’s not something the Harlin I know would do.”
Growing tired of the argument, Tasha’s brother withdrew a small bag of white powder from his pocket. He put some on the table in front of him, chopped at it, rolled a bill up and snorted it.
Tasha looked on, aghast. Then she exploded. “What the fuck are you doing?” she exclaimed, outraged. “Since when have you been snorting that shit? You never did hard drugs, Harlin. What’s going on?”
“It ain’t no big deal,” he said, looking up at her. “It’s just a different high. That’s all. I only do it once in a while. One of my boys turned me on to it and now that I have more cash flowing, I can afford to dabble in it a little. You want to try some?” Harlin held out the rolled-up dollar bill.
Tasha stepped back, as though stung. “No!” she screamed, “I
don’t
want to try some! Then her voice steadied. “Now I’m starting to see what this is all about. It all makes sense why you are acting so weird. You need to stop doing this shit now, before it’s too late. Harlin, this isn’t you! You’ve always been the strong one. This shit will screw up your head. Please promise me you’ll stop! Please?”
Harlin laughed at her. “I’m fine. If you really want me to stop, kill the ragging, okay? I’m no different just because I’m doing a little dope.”
Tasha left shortly afterward, telling him she would be back when Alessa got home from the bar. He looked at her scornfully.
“Alessa and I have business to discuss when she gets back here,” he announced. “I can’t have you here later in the evening, because it will only distract us from getting our jobs done. You stay home tonight and she will see you in the morning.”
Tasha spun around and stared at her brother. “I don’t think so,” she said slowly. “With you putting that powder up your nose, it’s more of a reason for me to be around. You better think long and hard about how you want this to play out, Harlin. You have a lot to lose and so does our family.”
I
n the weeks that followed, Harlin’s addiction to cocaine grew alarmingly. He was using so much now that it was costing him all the money that Alessa brought in. As a result, his demands on her increased by leaps and bounds. He continued to “teach” her how to do lap dances and the pressure on her to get into prostitution at the bar was unrelenting. He did not hesitate to demean and degrade her at every opportunity. He declared her useless, a failure, so dumb she couldn’t even follow simple instructions on how to perform a lap dance. Even his crew noticed the distinct change in him and became guarded of his erratic behavior.
Harlin finally decided to take matters into his own hands. If Alessa wasn’t going to do things his way, he would force her hand and arrange everything himself. And so he did on Saturday night at Doubles. Alessa had just finished her last set on stage and changed into a new outfit, before heading out to mingle with some of her regulars at the bar, when Harlin stopped her.
“I have five guys lined up for a lap dance,” he told her. “They expect to get what they pay for. When you get in that room with them, you will do what I taught you. If you don’t, there will be a price to pay when we get back home. Be sure you don’t end up embarrassing me.”
Alessa’s eyes immediately welled up with tears. His words stung, reminding her of why she had ended up on Dauphin Street in the first place. She had run away from the prospect of servicing her Uncle Danny’s friends. And here she stood, before a man whom she had once idolized for saving her life. He had now been reduced to a pimp, searching for an easy way to score enough cash for a hit of crack.
Harlin gripped her viciously by the arm and brought his face so close that his nose rubbed up against hers. “What did I tell you about crying?” he hissed. “Pull yourself together and get in there and do what I said. Right now!”
Alessa was tempted to complain to Jay or Shiver, but resisted the impulse. She was terrified of what Harlin would do to her later. He was a loose cannon and no one, not even his crew, knew when he was going to detonate. Everyone he knew had started shying away from him and she was aware that he was becoming more desperate for money to support his habit.
When she went back into the room where lap dances were performed, Alessa was shaking. The first client was already waiting there. He was a tall, handsome man with broad shoulders. The muscles on his arms rippled and as he sat on the sofa, she noticed he had unzipped his pants. Alessa turned on the music and began the dance moves Shiver had taught her. The man watching her started panting, but was careful not to be too openly aggressive with her. She continued with the dance, grinding herself on his lap. Then just as Harlin had done, the man wrenched her thong aside and pressed himself inside of her. At the same time, he slapped her ass with one hand and caressed one of her breasts with the other. All through the thirty minutes he spent with her before he finally came, he would stop her from time to time so that he could maintain his erection for as long as possible. When he finally finished, the client looked up at her and said,
“That
was good! Are you here tomorrow?”
Feeling defeated and miserable, Alessa told him she would.
Just before he left the room, he turned to her and said, “That guy of yours is going to be good for your business. He sure was right about you. That was worth the fifty bucks I paid him!”
Stunned, she gasped, “You paid him fifty bucks!”
The man nodded and with a big smile, left the room. Alessa returned to the bar. Within minutes, another client had come up to her for a lap dance. This man was short and forty pounds overweight. Tattoos crawled over his flabby arms and his teeth were yellow with decay from the overuse of tobacco. The stench of stale whiskey on his breath was so overpowering, she feared she might get drunk on it, if she had to kiss him. His fingernails were encrusted with dirt and a pungent odor hung about him as she began to perform her lap dance. The extra weight on his belly made it impossible for him to get his penis inside her. She was secretly relieved at this, until he told her to turn around and face away from him. It was a blessing, however, not to have to look at his disgusting face anymore as she continued to dance in his lap. He began to grunt and groan and the most revolting noises escaped from his twisted lips. Alessa had to resist the urge to scratch his eyes out, as he pulled her down on him and she felt him enter her. The fat fuck had turned her around so that his penis could penetrate her without his blubbery stomach getting in the way. Suddenly, he sounded like he might explode. When he came, it sounded to her ears like a freight train was rushing past. Alessa couldn’t wait to get away from him. All she wanted to do was shrivel up and die.
The man smiled his yellow tobacco smile at her. “Baby, that was hot!” he declared. “I like that sugar pussy you got there. Did it turn you on too?”
Alessa looked at him, shocked, but remembered Harlin’s warning. “Yeah, sure,” she answered mechanically, “it was a real turn-on.”
He winked at her and left the room.
Alessa serviced three more men that night. She was numb and exhausted by the time she went back to the dressing room to change out of her costume and into regular clothes before going home.
Shiver noticed that Alessa looked tired. “You doing okay?” she asked, concerned. “You had a lot of lap dances tonight.”
Alessa said, “Yeah, I’m fine. Like you said, the lap dances are pretty easy. I’m just tired. I haven’t been sleeping well lately.”
The other girl took her at her word. “Well, you go home and rest up. Drink warm milk before you go to bed. That should help you sleep better.”
It’s going to take a lot more than warm milk to help me sleep,
Alessa thought to herself. She smiled weakly and went off to find Harlin, the big asshole, in the bar.