"Mamá"

Dolores Batista dreaded this day for a long time. Dreaded it and actually looked forward to it.

She was scared and excited at the same time, but she had to make it through.

She kissed her daughter and sent her off to school, telling her that she would be at their lofty apartment when she came back home and her little girl was so happy because she was usually still at work when she came home and she never enjoyed her mother’s absence, being an only child.

Dolores was happy too, and nervous, but very determined.

Today, she was quitting the life she had lived for almost fifteen years and was hopeful things were going to work out.

She was a prostitute by the time she was thirteen to support her younger siblings in her native Cuba and also to support herself in the States once she arrived a year later. She had gone three months without a pimp and since she never worked for one, she never thought about ever getting one, but found that once she did, prostitution didn’t seem as scary anymore.

All her tricks had appointments and she made more money and lived in an apartment. It might not have been considered anything special, maybe to you or me, but it was better than living out of an abandoned, broken-down car and it was one step closer to a home, she treated it like one, coming from nothing and finally having something that was hers. She cried on the floor the first night she moved in, she was so happy.

The best part about having a pimp was: No more dangerous encounters with perverts in back alleys or motel rooms. Many a time she had been assaulted or subjected into certain abnormal activities, but now she didn’t have to worry about that. There were still perverts of course, but they weren’t dangerous, Rey would never let them do anything to her he knew she couldn’t handle.

She also had the opportunity to be in the company of important people and attend yacht parties and other soirees, though it still didn’t make her like her job any more.

Every day she woke up, she promised herself this was the last day. Every night she spent on her back, she vowed she would have a better life, come hell or high water. Those goals became more important with she met César and had their darling Beatriz, su pollita.

The goal became a need after César was gone.

The problem was Rey, her pimp. She loved Rey, even after though he had caused the trouble for César, and appreciated everything he had done for her but she hated selling herself as a means to make ends meet.

Rey loved her also, this she knew, but he was a business man first and a friend second. She remembered how angry he became when she told him she was pregnant and how he commanded that she abort the “little bitch” immediately but become less hardened once the baby was born, he even suggested the name Beatriz.

She also remembered that girls that left him never got away clean, but for Beatriz, it was worth the risk.

“Something wrong?”

He sat across from her in his living room in his lavender suit and leather loafers, a gaudy ringed finger stroking his clean shaven chin. A heat consumed her, though she felt cold on the outside.

Well, here goes…

“Rey,” she began in a shaky whisper then cleared her throat and repeated it louder then continued, “I’m done.”

His head tilted and he grinned slightly.

“Done?”

“Sí, done.”

“With?” He asked even though he knew where this was going. He had seen this talk coming.

“This. The life. Everything.”

“So, you’re just going to leave me? Walk away?”

His grin faded a little.

She nods, “I would like to, sí.”

“Dolores, mi amor, why would you ever want to do such a stupid thing like this?”

She sighed.

Stand firm.

“I’m tired of it. I’ve been doing this shit for practically my whole life and I’m tired of it. It’s leading me nowhere.”

“Leading you nowhere?” She touched a nerve; she can tell he’s upset. “Mira, when I found you, you were lower than a wetback, some street chippie who didn’t speak a lick of English, being taken advantage of by those pinches gavachos, and I brought you in and cleaned you up, took damn good care for you, gave you a life many don’t have the opportunity to have, would kill to have. Now you tell me it’s leading you nowhere?”

He speaks with a quiet anger that she tries to soothe by speaking gently.

“I appreciate all you’ve done for me, you know that, but what good is the life you’ve ‘given’ me if I don’t like living it? I don’t want this for my girl; I want her to have a mother, a family.”

The words still sting, no matter how they’re said.

“Hey, what am I? What are we? You have a family for her right here.”

“What family is that?”

He’s insulted.

“I treat that kid like she’s my own.”

Now she’s insulted.

“But she not yours, she’s mine! I won’t let her have this life. I know what you want from her, how you size her up for business, and I’m telling you no!”

“Oh? I can’t?” He can’t help but be smug. “What will you do?”

“Oye, if you come near mija again, te lo juro por Dios that I will kill you, Rey! Don’t try me. I love you, but I will not hesitate.”

He chuckles quietly at her fervor, but she doesn’t care.

“It’s like that, baby?”

“Sí, it is exactly like that, baby.”

He looks at her for awhile and regards her with respect, he will admit. He always liked her, admired her, her fieriness, and in a different life, he believes she would be the perfect wife for him and feels remorseful, just a little, for what he must do to her.

He nods after awhile.

“Ok, you want out, you’re out, but your ass better be on the other side of the country by tonight, entiendes, mi amor?”

“Sí, yo entiendo. Gracias, Rey.”

He smiled at her, but not with his eyes.

“De nada, Lola, now get gone.”