My body aches all over, and I could weep for the loss of the voice.  But I’m too weak to do anything but fall back asleep.

***

I’m not sure how long I sleep. I wake feeling achy and sore, and I moan.

“Are you awake?”

I remember Isaiah being in my room while I slept. Or at least I thought it was Isaiah. Either way, I’m shocked at the sound of my friend Vicki’s voice.

She’s peering over me, her long dark hair almost brushing my face. I want to come back with a snarky reply, but when I open my mouth, all that comes out is another moan.

Her perfectly shaped eyebrows furrow. “Someone slipped a note under my door that you needed help. I used my key and oh my God, who did this?”

She’s genuinely worried, and that freaks me out a bit because I must look like shit. I need to see what I look like, and I struggle to sit up.

“Let me.” Vicki pulls me into a sitting position and passes me a glass of water.

I gulp it down in a matter of seconds, probably not the best decision because I end up choking and almost spew it all out.

“I was going to say small sips, but I guess it’s a bit late for that.”

I give her a weak smile. “Slightly.”

She pours more water and sits on the edge of my bed, watching to make sure I drink this glass slower. We simply sit in silence until I finish and she says one word.

“Mike?”

Vicki is another one of Mike’s girls.  Originally from New York, she started working for Mike shortly after I did.  We’d become close in the last nine years, and her apartment is a few doors down from mine.  She has gorgeous long, black hair and is delicately beautiful. But more than that, she’s my only friend.

I nod in reply to her question. “It was my fault. I provoked him.”

Her sigh is sad. “Girl, you know better. What were you thinking?”

I balance the cup on my knees and run a finger along the rim. “Have I ever told you about Isaiah Martin?”

“Not that I can remember.” She reads my mood too well to ask where in the world I’m going with my question.

“Isaiah and I grew up together. He was my first kiss. We were twelve.”

“You were twelve when you had your first kiss?” she asks as if I’d told her I’d been born to royalty and lived on the moon for my first three years. “And you ended up here at seventeen?”

“Yes,” I say. “It’s really not that late you know.”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean anything by it. Besides.” She kicks off her sandals and tucks her legs underneath her. “This, I gotta hear.”

“Isaiah’s family lived next door to mine,” I say. “We grew up together. Our mothers used to get together and joke about how we’d grow up and get married. I guess they just assumed nothing would ever change. Mama wouldn’t get cancer and die. Dad wouldn’t go off half-crazy and leave me all alone.” I shake my head. “But life happens; things do change.”

“You gonna spill about the kiss, or not?” she asks. “Because I can do depressing all by myself.”

“There’s not much to tell. We were twelve and at some middle school dance.  A slow song came on and he asked me to dance. I remember his hands were so sweaty.  He kept wiping them as he asked me.”

“Ah, sweet. Sweat.”

I roll my eyes. “Anyway, we were dancing. I don’t remember the song.”

“Wait,” he says, when the song comes to an end.  He keeps his hands on my shoulders and looks at me all nervous-like. “I want to kiss you. Can I?” 

Tears spring to my eyes at the sweet memory of a boy asking to kiss me. No one asks me if they can do anything anymore.

“I said yes, of course.” I blink my eyes to keep the tears at bay. The gym had been all stuffy and sticky and smelled like a hundred nervous preteens. “His lips were chapped. Funny, the things you remember.”

“My first kiss was Frankie MacDonald.” Vicki squints her eyes. “He was ten.  I don’t remember his lips.”

“I remember Isaiah’s.” But it’s not Isaiah’s twelve-year old lips I remember, rather his soft smiling ones from days before. “I don’t think they’re chapped anymore.”

“Whoa! Hold up. What do you mean you don’t think they’re chapped anymore?” She looks at me closer. “Have you seen his lips recently?”

I notice my hands are shaking. I only hope Vicki doesn’t see them, or if she does, that she attributes it to my meeting with Mike.

“Yes,” I say. “I saw him the day before yesterday.”

“Oh, no. Was he a job?”

My mind spins at the implication I’d ever do that with Isaiah. That Isaiah would ever do that with me. Then I nearly laugh at the fact that I’ve been a prostitute for nearly ten years and call what I do that.

“No,” I say. “He wasn’t a trick.”

“That’s a relief. ’Cause that would be really awkward. So, what were you doing looking at Isaiah Martin’s lips if he wasn’t a job?”

I blow a long stream of air across the top of my water to watch the waves it makes. “He’s a preacher. Mike’s letting him start a church in Playmakers.”

She almost swallows her gum. “You’re kidding?”

I smile a bit at catching Vicki off guard. She normally hears all the gossip before I do.

“Would I kid about something like that?” I ask.

“No,” she finally agrees. “I don’t think you would.”

“Isaiah’s starting a church,” I explain. “He said Mike was a really nice guy. I went up to Mike’s office to ask him about it and, well, here I am.”

“That was your first mistake. Going up to Mike’s office.”

“That was my third mistake,” I correct her, counting with my fingers. “My first one was talking to Isaiah in the first place. The second was keeping Theo waiting. Going to see Mike was most definitely third.”

She looks over my various bruises. “Mighty big third, though.”

“Agreed.”

Her eyes flicker over to the clock on my nightstand. “I have to go. I’ll come back and check on you tonight, okay?”

I nod. “I imagine I’ll still be here.”

I spend the rest of the day in my apartment. I soak in my tub. Redo my nails. And even read a bit. I think about Isaiah and what I’m going to do about him. Try to decide if I should attempt to see him again. Vicki brings pizza when she comes back to my apartment hours later. We don’t often have enough time to sit and talk, and she has plenty to say about Isaiah and me.

She lets out a low whistle and shakes her head when I bring him up. “Girl, I don’t know what alien’s taken over your mind, but you better find a way to get them out.”

“My body hasn’t been invaded by aliens,” I said. “I just thought I could see him one more time...”

Vicki continues shaking her head. “Oh, no.”

“What?”

“Let me summarize,” she says. “Your old boyfriend comes to town. He’s a pastor. You’re a hooker. That enough for  you?”

“He doesn’t know I’m a hooker.”

“Right,” she says. “Have you given any thought to what this patron saint of All Things Perfect is going to do when he finds out his old childhood friend is a whore?” She’s been talking rather calmly, but as she’s continued, her voice has gotten higher and higher. By the time she gets to the end of her sentence, she’s basically yelling.

I squint. “I’d rather hoped to avoid that issue altogether.”

“And just how did you envision doing that?” She sits with her arms crossed.

I feel like I’m a teenager, getting the third degree from a parent before heading out for a night out. “I don’t know,” I say.

“Listen to me, Athena,” she says, leaning forward. “I love you like the sister I never had, and I’m closer to you than probably any person on earth. I don’t say that just because I’ve seen you naked more times than I care to remember. But this has got to stop.  I don’t know what’s been going on with you the last few days, but snap out of it.”

I stand up. “Thank you so much for your opinion, Sugar, but I think it’s time you left.”

She doesn’t budge. “Don’t pull that Sugar crap with me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”