Streetlife

4 - Lena's Home

LENA POV

As I brush my teeth for a quick nap before I take my aunt to her appointment this afternoon, I yawn widely as I'm exhausted as all get out. Last night I had worked a very long, and very tedious shift for a high-class party in Upper Manhattan with a bunch of lawyers and business men, and then went back to the Palace Motel with Warbucks to have a quick fuck and turn in my money.

I am damn happy to be home in my two bedroom apartment in Jamaica, Queens if only for a few hours, that I used to share with my Aunt Reba and cousin, Rae. To say I miss my aunt is an understatement and I wasn't even sure if she realized that I rarely slept here, if ever anymore.

Living the life I was now living was never something I ever planned. And even if I told my pimp that I loved being with him, that I loved being his main girl, part of me hated it. It was conflicting and confusing, because it wasn't who I was. At all.

And even more confusing was the fact that I hated what he was, I did, but then Warbucks could be so kind to me. A handful of times he had paid the rent, and gotten my aunts medicine when insurance wouldn't cover it. Or given me extra money like he did last night to take her out or buy her something, and offered to stock her fridge. What could I do? I owed him a great deal, and I'd never admit to anyone that I thought he was sexy and that I was quite taken by him. What did that say about me now, because when I was in his presence I'd forget about who I really was.

But, I guess it said many things like I had gotten sucked into this life pretty badly even if I hated being a hooker, and hated every damn minute of it, and hated those damn parties filled with entitled men who wanted me to do any and everything knowing they had wives and children at home.

Truthfully I had no choice and I needed to provide for my family, and when my Uncle Charles had passed away just six years prior when I was 15 , I felt like it was my job to pick up the slack and to help my Aunt Reba as much as I could. Her and my uncle had both raised me since I was only 4 years old, and I owed them everything in the world. Literally everything, so how could I not give my all.

Plus with my aunts failing health, which only declined even more since my uncles passing, that alone racked up medical bills a mile high and collections had been calling daily threatening to sue.  A woman I never saw shed a tear once in my life, not even at Uncle Charles funeral  had cried her eyes out over possibly loosing her home and I just couldn't have that. I couldn't and my cousin Rae could care less and I put my college dreams on hold along with everything else.

Initially I worked at a few fast food joints during my last two years of high school, two or three at a time but still managed to keep up with my school work. It was VERY difficult causing me to have absolutely no social life but I had managed to prevent our home from being taken away with the little paychecks I did get. Once I graduated I worked as a clerk, and a secretary even at a phone company. But as Aunt Reba's medical needs increased it wasn't enough to cover all our bills and I often had to make the choice between keeping the power on or having no phone.

It was never easy and even though my cousin Rae, who is seven years older then me, worked as a nurse at New York Hospital on 68th street for the past six years and had a VERY good salary she contributed nothing financially. Not one penny and she did nothing leaving it all up to me.

Infact she would often use the excuse that she was too tired and needed her rest after her thirty-six hour shifts at the hospital. I felt that it was just an excuse to be lazy, for on the days she was off, she'd do nothing but sleep the day away, paint her nails, get her hair done, which seemed to be every single week, and watch her soap operas and not give two shits about her own mother. It was something I just didn't understand and never would.