★ Leonard ★
One night became a week and a week became a month. I have been working as a pimp and getting comfortable with my position. There are eight girls who I need to take care of. It is pretty busy all night long. I need to bring them all over town, mostly to luxury hotels and private mansions. I drop one off and another, then pick one up and drop the next at another hotel. It goes on all night long.
In the meantime, I handle cash from the clients. It usually costs four hundred dollars an hour for a girl. The chocolate beauty is the most expensive and popular one for eight hundred dollars. I hardly have a moment to talk to her in person because the Mercedes is always full of girls.
I feel that she is also curious about my existence. Some Chinese girls talk very loudly, and they try to joke with me, but she is reticent and reserved. After two weeks, I finally find out her name, Sara-Marie. I know that she is not an American from her accent. The way she talks is very feminine and sexy as well. I often wonder where she is from.
One evening, my first chance arrives. After dropping off all the girls, it is time for me to pick up Sara-Marie. When I walk into the five-star hotel, she is already waiting for me in the lobby. I open the back door of the Mercedes and let her in. Once I start to drive to the next destination, she talks to me with her lovely accent.
"So, how do you like your job, Leo?"
I am flattered that she knows my name. I respond casually.
"It's not that bad being a pimp for luxury girls. Money is good, and I can drive a nice car."
She laughs a little. I ask her something I always wanted to ask.
"So Sara-Marie, where are you from? You look very enchanting, and you have such a charming accent!"
She looks at me through the rearview mirror.
"My English is so terrible. But you are so sweet. Can you picture France? At the bottom of France, there is a city called Marseille. My town is about one hour away by car from there. How about you?"
"I am from Texas. A small town near Dallas is where I was born and raised. Have you been to Texas?"
She smiles.
"No. No. I am locked up here in San Francisco. I have been here for almost three years, but I never left the city."
She continues about how her life brought her to San Francisco.
"I left my village and move to Marseille to find a job. I met a man at a bar where I was working. He told me there is a great job in America and I would be a perfect candidate. He told me that the job was as a hostess at a luxury hotel. He asked me to move to San Francisco with him. I was in love with him and trusted him.
He bought me a ticket, and when we are about to leave, he told me there was an emergency job that he needed to take care of, and he promised me that he would join me later. He said his friend would take care of me until his arrival. When I arrived here, I found out that he sold me to Liu."
When she finishes her sentence, the car arrived at a luxury mansion, and one of my girls is already waiting for me in front of the iron gate.
Two weeks pass before I talk to Sara-Marie again. Another opportunity arrives when I drop off the other girls, and we are all alone in the car. She starts as if she has been waiting to say something to me.
"Do you have a girlfriend, Leo?"
It was an unexpected question, so I stutter a little.
"No, no, I don't. I used to have one, but she died right before our wedding."
Sara-Marie touches my shoulders from behind with both of her hands.
"I am so sorry to hear that. I really am."
She keeps her hands on me while she continues to talk.
"Life is painful, isn't it? Sometimes it really sucks! I was raised in a small town called Les-Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer on the Mediterranean Sea. It is a beautiful fishing village with all the houses painted stark white. White horses are roaming free and pink flamingos inhabiting the marsh where the finest salts are produced."
"I was the only black girl in town. All the kids used to bully me and make fun of me. It was so difficult to come to terms with it. One day, a boy moved to a house right next to ours. He was just like you, a blond with blue eyes like the color of the ocean in my town. He was so nice to me and always protected me from all the abuses from our neighborhood kids. You remind me of him so much."
"There was one thing that was great about being a black girl. It was a festival they held once a year on the twenty-fourth of May. Thousands and thousands of gypsies arrived from all over Europe, and they brought out the statue of the Black Madonna from our church at the center of the town."
"They paraded all over town. For only one day, I became a black Madonna dressed in beautiful clothes and was seated on an extravagant chair. They carried me on the chair behind the statue and processioned while they admired me as if I were a living Madonna.
"I don't know when this procession started, but there is an old legend in town. Three Marys, the mothers of Jesus's apostles and those who witnessed the crucifixion and resurrection, were put to sea in a boat from Palestine without oars and a sail."
"They drifted across the Mediterranean and miraculously came ashore where my town was built. Black Sara accompanied Saint Marie-Jacobé. In some accounts, Sara appears as the black Egyptian maid."
While listening to Sara-Marie's story, her words transport me to South France, and I am sitting at the shore overlooking the Mediterranean sea.
YOU ARE READING
ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS
Romance"Remember me." "When I come back to you, please remember me." While Leo is waiting for his bride at the altar, Beth has a car accident on the way to the church and dies whispering some mysterious words. They just graduated from high school in Weath...
