Gather Together in My Name - Maya Angelou [18]
I decided to dance for my hostesses. The music dipped and swayed, pulling and pushing. I let my body rest on the sound and turned and bowed in the tiny room. The shapes and forms melted until I felt I was in a charcoal sketch, or a sepia watercolor.
When the record finished I stopped. The two women sat on the sofa. Made solemn.
“That was good. Wasn't it, baby?”
“Sure was.”
“Dance with Beatrice. I don't mind. Go on. Beatrice, dance with Rita.”
Again, order was in her voice. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was dance with another woman. Johnnie Mae got up and started the Lil Green song again and Beatrice moved up close to me. She put her arm around my waist and took my left hand as if we were going to waltz. It was crushing. Not only was she fat and soft and a head shorter than I, her big breasts rubbed against my stomach. She stuck her thigh between my knees and we wobbled around the room.
This was the ultimate insult. I would vent my spleen on those thick-headed lecherous old hags. They couldn't do me this way and get away with it.
“That's right, Beatrice, do the dip.” The woman did a fancy step and bent back, pulling me with her. I nearly toppled over. Mercifully the record finished after what seemed one thousand hours and I was allowed to return to the sofa.
“You all look good together. Beatrice can sure dance, can't she? Come here, baby, and give me a kiss.”
I got up and made room for Beatrice.
“No. You can stay.” She encircled Beatrice, whose face was heavy with submission.
“Have to go to the toilet again.” Let the mental machine do its work. In the bathroom an idea bloomed. They were whores. Why not encourage them in their chosen profession? From what I understood, whores can never get enough money, and since they had so little, I dressed my newborn creation carefully and took it back to the living room. I asked if we could turn down the music because I wanted to talk.
“Rita wants to talk.” They broke out of their embrace. Nasty things.
“I just thought I might be able to help you keep this place. You like it so much and you've made it so cute, it'd be a shame if you lost it.”
They nearly became maudlin in their agreement.
“Well, I could rent it, and you could continue to stay.”
“You mean you pay the rent and we pay you back.”
“No. I'll rent the place in my name, I'll have the lights and gas put in my name. And pay everything. And three nights a week or four nights a week, you all stay here and turn tricks.”
Beatrice's silly little voice complained: “You mean to turn our home into a whorehouse?”
Well, whores lived in it and it was a house. “Do you realize if the trade builds up, you can buy a place of your own and fix it just like this?” And they probably would.
“Where would we get the tricks?” Ever-practical Johnnie Mae.
“We'd get white taxi drivers and give them a percentage.” My brain was clicking along like a Santa Fe train. A-hooting and a-howling. “They could be told the hours, like between ten and two. Then if every trick is twenty dollars, they get five and we split the fifteen. Seven-fifty for you. Seven-fifty for me.”
“We don't want to be whores. I mean, full time.” Old big little Beatrice already scared. What did she do in the WACs? Seduce young girls?
“Tricking four days a week isn't full time,” I said. “And anyway, if you're successful, you can quit it in six months. Go and buy you a little place. Fact is, you could even get a bigger house.” And get even more junk in it.
Johnnie Mae looked at me with suspicion. “When