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champagne,” said Calvin, patting the stranger
     on his back.
He’s so full of shit,
thought Daisy.
Ain’t no Mumms no real champagne. He’s crazy.
Calvin led them through a doorway and into a private champagne room. It had mirrors on the walls and ceilings, huge oversized
     red sofas, and black two-seater lounge chairs, a few end tables and a dancing pole in the middle of the floor. “And Daisy
     here, she’s gonna give you your money’s worth. You don’t have to worry about that. Do they, Daisy?”
    “No, Calvin, they ain’t got nothing to worry about.”
    Calvin moved to the side as Daisy watched the stranger pay him for her adult-rated services. He turned and headed to the door,
     looked at her with his “you better do what you do, dammit” look on his face, and then closed the door behind him leaving her
     alone in the room with Felix and the stranger. Felix looked at her as he began to massage himself and then opened his mouth,
     stuck out his tongue, and wiggled it at her.
    Lord, give me strength.
    Two hours later, tired, hungry, feet all sore from walking around in four-inch stilettos, Daisy stood at the bus stop waiting
     for the number-two bus.
There has to be something better out here for me than this. I know there has to be. Please god send me a good man, someone
     to take care of me and love me. Please, I can’t do this life much more.
Daisy could daydream until the cows came home, but at the end of the day, there wasn’t nothing better out there for her and
     there wouldn’t be nothing better either. She was only twenty-two years old, and her life had been hard, real hard. Nothing
     had ever been given to her and everything she got, she either took it or used her body to get it. Thank god she had that;
     a perfect body, a perfect frame. Other than that, she didn’t have much. Just a two-bedroom apartment she shared with her ailing
     mother and a no-good boyfriend. Well, actually, he wasn’t even a boyfriend, just some guy she had started seeing. Breaking
     her thoughts, her pager went off. It was him, her new guy, Sticks.
Ooh, I wonder if he’s around, maybe he can give me a ride home so I don’t have to take the bus.
She went over to a phone booth and called his car phone.
    “Hello,” said Daisy.
    “Yo, Dais, what the fuck, man, I been calling you all day.”
    “Hey, Sticks, I’m just getting off work. I didn’t even check my pager.” She started looking through her pages.
Damn, he’s been paging me since yesterday morning.
    “Man, I’m at the Honey Dipper looking for you. Where you at?”
    “I’m around the corner, at the bus stop.”
    “Okay, stay there. I need to see you, man, right now.”
    Yes, no long, drawn-out bus ride tonight. And Sticks is coming with his fine ass, this is just perfect.
She couldn’t help thinking about the possibilities of the evening. She was just happy she had a ride home. And a ride from
     one of the city’s most notorious and infamously ghetto fabulous street ballers, couldn’t get no better than that. Sticks was
     every young girl’s daydream. He was light-skinned, handsome, and muscular, with a nice grade of hair, not too curly, but definitely
     not nappy. He was one of them brothers a girl would get pregnant by just in hopes of having a baby with good hair. Sticks
     had a reputation for being a liar and a cheat with the ladies, but he also had a reputation for putting in work. Whatever
     had to be done, he’d do it, with no hesitation. The dudes that knew him and knew his résumé stayed clear of him, and only
     a stranger would be stupid enough to try Sticks and think he’d get away with it.
    Sticks quickly put his 150E Class in drive and made his way to the bus stop where Daisy was. He opened the passenger-side
     door from inside the car and waited for her to get in.
    “I sure am glad to see you. You just don’t know, my feet is killing me.”
    Fuck your feet—I got problems,
Sticks thought to himself, and he did; big, big,