Feeling my heart rate begin to slow, I feel pressured to ask the tall dark man his name.
"Emmm.....em.. what's your name. I mean you don't have to answer if you don't want to."
"It's alright, my name is Daniel." I chuckle softly. "I use to go to Rouge High with a boy named Daniel, but he was a shy nerd that never dressed out in gym. I think it could've been from when he was molested as a child", I said to myself thinking out loud. The man or Daniel begin to raise an eyebrow.
"That's odd, I went to Rogue High and I never meet anybody named Coco."
"Coco isn't my real name, its a play name my brother calls me."
"Brother? I was friends with a boy that used to call his sister Coco, but her real name was Ke'Asia. She was on the path of becoming valedictorian before she moved a couple months after her mother's death. That was the last time I saw her and Ike, until I seen Ike to day at the strip club. He saw me watching you and when you bit that twenty out of my hands I knew I had to have you. He told me that he could arrange for us to be together, but I would have to pay him for the favor."
"I am Ke'Asia, which means you are Daniel from Rouge High."
"Ke'Asia. How did this happen to you? You were one the smartest person in the school."
"After my mother died, Ike dropped out of school to help pay the bills. He was fired a couple weeks later and we were kicked out the house. We moved to a different town, thinking we might be able to find work there. After months on the streets and nearly starving to death, a man picked us up and gave us jobs. That's when I started stripping and Ike became a bar tender." I told all this while tears formed in my eyes. "What about you? How did you come to paying for random strippers?"
Daniel turned his head away and said, "I'm a sex addict." " After I was molested by my mom as a kid I've been struggling to control my urges. I figured it would be easier if I just kept my heart to myself. Who could ever love a broken man like me?"
I reached out and grabbed his chin, turning his face towards me. "Maybe a broken girl like me", I said with tears flowing down my face.
