[ON HOLD] LOVE ME LIKE ART

4

— IMANI "BAMBI"
L. CRAWFORD 🫦

"I'M AN ESCORT." As it leaves my lips and swims into his, it feels like I've unfastened the vault of all my secrets.

Willingly.

I am in front of him to appraise.

To dissect like an organism under a microscope.

And I end up sitting uncomfortably as I trace the rim of my glass with my index and thumb. I chew the inside of the cheek, slammed by this new spate of silence. I don't know what I expect but it certainly isn't this.

What is worse is that... he hasn't said a damn word. Not a throwaway quip along the lines of: 'Wait... you're serious?' or even a tensioned sigh: 'So you sleep with niggas for money?' I don't think he would say that verbatim, but you get the point. His ill fitting silence is worse, because it leaves me to build all these implausible assumptions because what is he thinking?

He's probably repulsed, seeing me as a blotch of black on a white cloth that can't be wrung out.  I don't mind if he thinks the worst, given that I'm more used to denigration than understanding. I sit in the stands with the scoffers because the righteous are unironically unforgiving.

Is he struck with shock? If he is, how do I get him down?

Maybe he doesn't care? Maybe he has seen and heard worse? But as soon as that thought darts in, I refute it.

And so I'm rooted as this spate of silence continues whilst the bar noise envelops us. This is no longer a conversation without any steak knives to drive, I feel like I might need to over-explain myself and it's something I'm unwilling to do. Because, it implies that I'm doing the wrong thing.

That I represent my gender in a way that's jarring.

For as long as this is my truth, I don't come with apologies. I won't tip-toe to try and make room.

You think I'm nasty because I do what I do? Tough, I don't care.

You think I'll never find a man that is both emotionally and physically invested in me? I'm not looking for a nigga to do that or be that so it's water under the bridge.

But, Zach's eyes dart back to me and I still can't pinpoint what he's thinking but he's strumming something. Something I'm struggling to understand. Something that feels littered with sincerity. Something that feels like it is carved with understanding in a world full of ignorant people. I'm expecting a slew of insults, for his brown orbs to cut across and look at me like I'm a woman he's gravely disgusted by.

I expect that he'll take up space and leave me adrift. And whilst it rocks me, knowing that I expect this—in a world as transactional as mine, it is the order.

It is the law. A law imposed by cruel dichotomy. There isn't any space for some of us that don't cleave. I've had to come to the realisation, the uncomfortable truth, that there will never be an audience rapping in applause, when I talk about what I do. They'll either try to understand or refuse to and even if they do, their tongues will still be sharp and wicked.

I used to want, crave, be desperate for understanding. To understand is to know me and all that other bullshit. But, the tide always returns.

That is why where we are, with Zach, renders me motionless. There is no judgment, no cynicism, no feature of his that is curled in tension.

His eyes look at me, differently, with beautiful hope. It is so far from what I expect that I wonder if he's trying to appease me to open up my back door. His orbs are warm, like peaches in bloom and his lips part with a moist, attentive purr. I wish I could guard the sweet colour of understanding shaded on his face and show every corner of the world that goodness still exists.