"You should've worn the dress."
Jol looked at her distorted reflection in the elevator doors. Kina had loaned Jol some dresses yesterday for her first night out, but Jol couldn't bring herself to wear any of them. In the elevator, Jol glanced at the too tight black fabric binding Layla's thighs and breasts. Her skin was bulging in desperate escape from the suffocating dress. Her attempt to be sexy looked ridiculous. Before their eyes met, Jol looked away from the lines of flesh and felt her face redden.
"Deal's already made, who cares?" Kina did not share Jol's attitude and her arched eyebrows told her so. Jol stammered, "I wanted to look... nice."
"Who cares?! Do not fuck this up, girl," Kina replied with stained red lips pursed with attitude. "I want a happy client, Jol. And he might wan a white girl tonight, but he still wants a whore." Layla let out a high pitched laugh. Jol's eyes get hot.
"Kina, it'll be fine. I can do this," she promised trying to relax the tension. The three women waited in silence, watching the arrow turn towards the metal eight. "This is all wrong," she told herself. Her black jeans were Guess and the heels were BCBG, leftover from the old days, and Jol thought they made her butt look round. At home, she had twisted around in front of the mirror, checking out her butt, she had figured he would want a woman with a nice ass. But looking at her reflection now, she felt stupid as if she knew nothing about what a man wants. She was relieved when the elevator rang and the doors split the women's reflection.
Kina pushed the bell. Then, she cupped her hands on Jol's breasts, rubbing her thumb over her nipples. They were small like pencil erasers, but pushed out from under her low cut white blouse. Before Jol could stop her or say anything a man opened the door.
"TJ," Kina cooed. Jol didn't hide her surprise at his bulk. His white t-shirt clung to each muscle in his arm. A cell phone ear piece was wrapped into his ear. He looked the two other women up and down, "Barbie?"
"Uh-huh. She is just what he needs." Jol didn't say anything as TJ and Kina eyed her. Kina had on her saleswoman smile, white teeth glinted.
TJ didn't look pleased, "I don't think he's going to like this." Jol's face got hot and she stared around at the apartment as if she couldn't hear him, while Kina backed her up, for her own sake.
"Him and I, we worked it out. That's what's what."
Jol fazed them out as she scanned the room. The place was completely done in light oak wood and there were bright white lights hanging from the second floor ceilings. From where she stood, she could see a flat screen TV and a home entertainment system with speakers as tall as her; there was a full bar in the corner of the room with a black marble countertop. A few bamboo plants were set in corners of the room. Everything was luxurious, but it felt like a home, loved. Jol liked it. TJ brought Jol's attention back to the other people in the room.
"Well, she needs to change, for real. He has big plans and
that
, uh-uh."Without losing face, Kina agreed, "They can change." It wasn't so much a comment to TJ, but an order for the women.
Jol looked back and forth between them, waiting for either of them to do one of two things: realize that Layla and Jol's clothes were not ideal fitting on the other and two, tell them where the bathroom is. No one made mention of anything, only the soft bass from a room upstairs could be heard. With her acrylic gold nails, Layla artfully grabbed the little zipper at the front of her dress. The whir broke the silence and left Layla's bosom (heaved up in a magenta bra) and stomach exposed. She let it fall from either side of her shoulders. She was bare from the waist down.
TJ smacked his lips, "Yeah, girl." Layla gave him an eye that no one in the room missed.
