Sex, Secrets and South Beach (4 page)

"More!" he continued to
plead.

"Your turn!" Ginger hissed at Desiree.
Desiree stuck her tongue out, closed her eyes, and took a
lick.

"Stick your fingers up my
ass!" Dewante begged. Desiree folded her hands across her
chest.
Hell no!
she mouthed to Ginger.

"Please, I'm about to come. Stick your
fingers up my ass! Now!" Desiree didn't budge. Ginger rolled her
eyes and did as he asked, inserting her finger.

"Another one! Put two more in!" Ginger
obliged, and her eyes nearly bugged out of her head when her
additional fingers slid up his ass with no problem; within seconds
Dewante began to shake and shiver, climaxing. Ginger moved her head
away; and he erupted, his seed landing on his stomach. When it was
over, he nonchalantly got up from the bed, put his clothes on, and
left without uttering a word.

D
esiree awoke feeling disoriented. For the
first night in ages she hadn't dreamed. She wiped the crust
from her eyes and tried to focus. Even through the haze, she could
discern that she was in an unfamiliar place. She frowned as she
looked around the room, trying to assess where she had been and
what she had done. Flashes of bits and pieces of the events from
the night before filtered into her head. Her temples were throbbing
and she craved an aspirin.

Desiree climbed out of the queen-size
bed and padded around the carpeted bedroom decorated in shades of
pink, one of her favorite colors, to the small en suite bathroom.
She looked in the medicine cabinet and found nothing. She looked in
the cabinet underneath the sink and found a bottle of
extra-strength Tylenol next to a jumbo box of tampons and a
six-pack of toilet paper. Desiree popped two tablets into her mouth
and ran the cold water from the faucet. After gulping the pills,
she returned to the bedroom.

The room smelled of
potpourri and was white-glove clean. The canopy bed and furniture
were made of thick, heavy wood and were obviously very expensive.
Desiree ran her hands over the furniture's surfaces and looked
around, impressed. A picture of Ginger in a crystal frame rested on
top of the nightstand.
This must be
Ginger's place,
she thought.

She inspected the drawers
and found them to be empty aside from a large, high-tech remote
control with an LCD screen. After figuring out how to work the
remote, she clicked on a TV that sat on an entertainment stand, and
absent-mindedly surfed through the channels. She finally settled on
a Spanish soap opera,
Maria la del
Barrio,
on Telemundo. Then she thought
about her cash. She grabbed her K-Swiss and lifted the blue inner
sole to count her money. From the looks of the room, Ginger wasn't
hurting for money, but you could never be too sure. She could have
gotten all this stuff because she was a thief!

Desiree had $1,327, mostly in
hundreds, with a few fifties and twenties thrown in. That in
addition to the $3,000 she had managed to stash before she left New
York made her feel rich. It was certainly more money than she'd
ever had in her life.

"This place is laid out," Desiree said
to herself while snuggling under the down comforter on the bed. She
was slightly hungover from the night before, and the A.C. was on
full blast, but oddly, she felt comfortable and at home.

"I see you're up. You okay?" Ginger
was standing in the doorway. Desiree had become so engrossed in the
novela she was watching that she hadn't heard her come
in.

"Yeah. Good morning," Desiree replied,
her voice still scratchy with sleepiness.

"Afternoon." Ginger laughed. "It's
five o'clock!"

"Damn!" Desiree hadn't bothered to
check the time.

"So how do you feel?"

"All right, I guess. I took some
Tylenol. But I still have a little hangover."

"Well, come in the kitchen. I'll make
you something to take that away."

Desiree followed Ginger through
beautiful rooms and into an immaculate kitchen. There was a steel
Sub-Zero refrigerator. Desiree had only seen one on television. The
flattop stove looked like one from a cooking show, and Ginger had
all kinds of pots and pans and appliances that looked like they
belonged in a restaurant rather than in someone's home.

"Your crib is tight!" Desiree
complimented Ginger’s home as she took a seat on a stool at the
breakfast bar. She watched Ginger intently as she milled about the
kitchen, arranging things and rustling through cabinets. Desiree
had to find out how she could afford such a spread. Dancers made
good money, she knew that, but this was the kind of house that
belonged to a businessperson or a doctor or lawyer.

"Thanks," Ginger replied, modestly.
Apparently, she was accustomed to living large. She accepted the
compliment as if she lived in a shack, not in a
mini-mansion.

"So this is all you?" Desiree asked
her, hoping she'd open up a little.

"Yep, it's all me, the fruit of all my
labor," Ginger replied with a touch of sarcasm rather than pride.
"What about you? Where do you stay?"

"I just got to town, so I checked into
this hotel by the airport." Desiree felt inadequate and insecure
about her response. Hotel was an overstatement. The crappy room was
hot, smelled musty, and was infested with mosquitoes. But it was
only twenty-five bucks a night, so Desiree figured it was just as
good a place as any to rest her head until she got her shit
together. That was until she saw how Ginger was living.

"That's right. You're from New York,"
Ginger remembered.

"Yeah," Desiree answered dryly. She
didn't want to think about New York – too many bad
memories.

Ginger didn't take the hint. "Which
borough?"

"Queens, the Bronx, Mount Vernon...I
moved around a lot. You're from here, right?" Desiree changed the
subject.

"Yeah, pretty much. I was born in
Haiti, but I've been here most of my life. You just here for the
Super Bowl, or do you plan to live here?" Ginger asked.

"I'm here to stay. The weather is
pretty. Plus, the money seems to be real good here," Desiree
said.

"Yeah, it can be. Have you danced
anywhere else?" Ginger continued probing Desiree.

''A coupla spots up top. But Giuliani
kind of threw a monkey wrench in that. I hear it's not what it used
to be." Desiree repeated what she'd heard from other dancers in an
attempt to sound sophisticated. They swore that before Giuliani
became mayor, money practically fell from the sky.

"Really? I've danced at
Score's in Manhattan before. It was
real
good there. I worked at a
couple of spots in Jersey too," Ginger said. Desiree imagined
Ginger twirling around a pole at the Bada Bing, the strip club
from
The Sopranos.

"Well, I'm sure you make money
everywhere you go. Look at you!" Desiree looked at Ginger. She was
really beautiful. Her long hair was pulled up into a bun on top of
her head, and she was wearing a wife-beater and some cutoff jean
shorts, yet she still looked stunning. Without a speck of makeup
aside from some clear lip gloss, her high cheekbones, bright eyes,
and straight, keen nose needed no further accentuation. Ginger
possessed a natural, classic, and fresh beauty.

"Look at
you!"
Ginger replied.
"You're just as pretty as I am. And your eyes are natural. I wear
contacts."

"Yeah. But your body is better. I'm
kind of flat-chested." Desiree looked miserably at her modest 34A
chest. She was definitely not flat-chested, but compared to Ginger,
most women would look underdeveloped.

"Buy some tits. I did!" Ginger poked
out her 36Ds, then shimmied them.

"Wow. Those are fake?" Desiree had
assumed Ginger's endowment was natural.

"Yep. The best five grand I ever
spent!" Ginger admitted proudly. She inspected Desiree curiously.
"Can I tell you something, Desiree?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Look. You've got a lot of potential.
You're really pretty, but you don't play up your features enough.
Don't take this the wrong way, but the tomboy look has got to go! I
mean, I know you're from New York and all, but there's no reason
you should dress so thugged out. That shit ain't gonna fly down
here. But with the right clothes and the right makeup, maybe
lighten your hair...you could be so much prettier. And once you get
your game tight, you can make money anywhere. The world could be
yours, Desiree. You've just gotta know how to hustle."

"I can hustle. I ask everybody for
dances. They just don't like me as much as they like you." Desiree
picked at her fingernails self-consciously. The acrylic was
chipped, and her thumb and pinkie nails were broken to the
nub.

"Not that kind of hustle. The kind of
hustle where if there is only one man in the club, you can make him
want you, you can turn him into a human ATM. You can make him do
whatever you want, whatever you need. It's all a mind game." Ginger
pointed at her temple for emphasis. "Real hustle is working
smarter, not harder. You're obviously in this game for the money.
We're all in this for the money. I don't think that the majority of
us dreamed of being strippers when we were little girls. Just
having money isn't enough, though; it's what you do with it that
counts. By working smarter I mean once you make that money, you
gotta flip it. Invest it. Don't blow it all on material shit to
floss before you've got any real assets. I bought this house
because I knew it would be a good investment. I bought my car for
four thousand at an auction; I don't have a car note. Matter of
fact, every now and then I buy a car at an auction, fix it up, and
sell it. I usually double my money. And I run a Web site that pays
my mortgage. See, that's the difference between working for money
and making money work for you. I can teach you this stuff if you
want to learn. It's not all about college. I didn't learn how to do
this in college; I read it in books and went to seminars. You're
young. If you start now, by the time you're my age you could be
very well off. You could have more than this!" Ginger waved her arm
like a game show hostess.

"There you go with that age shit
again," Desiree joked nervously to cover the fact that the
conversation was slightly over her head. She wouldn't begin to know
anything about investing or assets and was surprised to hear Ginger
speak like she was some kind of Wall Street big shot. Desiree
couldn't imagine doing the kinds of things Ginger described. That
was for white people and people with money. Desiree used to think
that she was smart but had stopped believing that smarts gave her
an edge in life some time ago.

There was another reason Desiree had
reservations about what Ginger was telling her. Ginger was
practically a stranger, even though they'd been "together." Was
Ginger telling her all of this because she was expecting some kind
of relationship? Desiree had enjoyed what went down, but she had no
intention of becoming a lesbian.

"I'm serious," Ginger
stated. She went into the freezer and pulled out a Tupperware
container of soup and put it in the
microwave. She reached in the dishwasher and pulled out a
bowl and a spoon for Desiree to eat with. She poured her a huge
glass of Coca-Cola. "Drink this Coke. I know it's kind of flat, but
that's how it's supposed to be. It sounds crazy, but I guarantee
that it will settle your stomach."

"Can I ask you a question?" Desiree
stared at Ginger with her piercing topaz eyes.

"Shoot." Ginger sat on a
countertop.

"Why are you being so nice to me? I
mean, why do you care? What's in it for you?"

Ginger grinned sheepishly "I'm not so
nice. Here." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a wad of
bills. "What's that for?" Desiree accepted the money but was
confused.

"Dewante paid us twenty-five hundred
each last night. I kept this and told you he was paying us a
g."

"So why are you telling me this now?"
Desiree asked her, quickly putting her money in her bra.

"You seem like you need a little help.
I can tell you need money, and I can help you. And I don't know if
it's because we favor or what. But I feel like I already know you.
I guess it's like, if I had a little sister, she'd be a lot like
you. Maybe I see a little of myself in you, me from a long time
ago. Besides, when you put positive vibes into the universe, that's
what you're going to get back." Ginger transferred the soup from
the Tupperware container to a bowl and placed it in front of
Desiree, who sat at a stool. Desiree didn't know anything about
positive vibes and the universe, but whatever Ginger had been doing
was obviously working.

"This is so good." Desiree greedily
devoured the soup.

"Isn't it? I got that soup last month
in St. Thomas. I had them put the soup in this huge-ass container
and froze it as soon as I got home. Luckily, the flight was only an
hour."

"Wow! It's weird, but I swear my
hangover is gone." Desiree wiped her mouth. Ginger refilled her
bowl.

"I know. I got real fucked-up when I
was there, and one of the locals told me to go to this spot called
Walter's and get the island chicken soup, guaranteed to cure a
hangover," Ginger told her.

"Damn. There's a whole potato in
here."

"There's all kind of shit in there:
carrots, celery, and potato and in real pieces, not all smushed up
like in a can. It's natural. That's why it works."

Desiree smiled at Ginger. Ginger
smiled back. An awkward silence.

"Do you feel weird about last night?"
Ginger asked her.

"Yeah," Desiree admitted. "That was
some wild shit. I mean, nobody could have told me that a star like
Dewante would pay to get his ass licked. What is that? Is he gay or
what? I mean, he really liked the fingers up his ass and what-not,"
Desiree chattered.

"I meant about what happened with
us."

Desiree smiled sheepishly "It was
weird. But it was weird in a nice way I mean, it felt good and
everything. But I'm not gay or anything. . ." Desiree's voice
trailed off.