5 Lolly and Little Lila

Without Lolly Webster’s firm hand to guide them, the three-dozen girls under his control would surely stray from the straight and narrow. They would eat too much Chickin’ Lickin’ and get fat as sows, or else they’d get mixed up with that goddamn meth and grow scary skinny – and no man wanted to dip his wick in a sunken-eyed corpse with bad teeth. Well, not most men anyway.

And here was the main thing: Without Lolly’s business sense, the girls surely wouldn’t make as much money as they did. They made truckloads of money, which is why they worked for him and not at the Chickin’ Lickin’, where they wouldn’t make enough to pay the rent, no less buy all those shoes. None of Lolly’s thirty-six girls wanted for anything in this world.

Lolly Webster was the brains behind Pop Lolly’s Peek-a-Boo, a low-class but well-run strip joint tucked in the back of a warehouse district in downtown Miami, between a small-engine repair shop and a manufacturer of PVC-pipe patio furniture. The entire front of the club was labia pink. A big pink awning shaded the entrance. Above it was an even bigger neon sign that alternately flashed “Pop Lolly’s Peek-a-Boo” with a pair of obviously female legs, first crossed, then opened wide.

Lolly wasn’t like some club owners. He told his girls they could just dance if they wanted to. Of course, he also let them know that the real money was in giving quick blowjobs in the private rooms in the back, which were dark as caves and smelled of sex, perfume, and overturned cocktails.

A girl would have to work a whole hour dancing to make maybe fifty bucks in one-dollar garter tips – and that was on a busy Friday or Saturday night. On the other hand, even if the place was dead she could lead a customer into one of the private rooms and make fifty in ten minutes at the most, five minutes if she really knew what she was doing. Cops were an exception. All of the girls knew whatever the cops wanted was always free, from booze to blowjobs.

Lolly’s girls worked hard. There was no denying that. But so did he. Being a club owner and a pimp wasn’t as glamorous as it seemed at first glance. Pimps were constantly called on to do distasteful things, things no good man enjoys doing. Unholy things. 

More than that, a pimp had to be a serious mind reader. Any pimp who couldn’t tell what a girl was thinking didn’t last long. The thing was, even if you didn’t know for sure a girl was lying, you went with your gut, because usually you were right, and even if you weren’t, it wasn’t bad if word got around that you were crazy and apt to go ape-shit at the slightest provocation.

“A lot of bitches ain’t too honest,” Lolly would say to his friend, Joey Loco, who ran a club on the other side of town. “They look you in the eye and tell you they made two-hundred when they made three. That really makes me sad, and not because of the money. It ain’t the money. I got plenty of money. It’s the disrespect.”

“You got that right, Lolly,” Joey Loco would always say.

Lolly wasn’t happy about what he had to do when a girl disrespected him, but you couldn’t have a club full of girls and not let them know who was boss. If they got the idea they could disrespect you, before long they’d all be disrespecting you, and you might as well go get a job behind the fryer at the Chickin’ Lickin’.

The first time a girl disrespected him, he’d cut her take for a week. The second time, he cut her take and beat her sorry ass. Not enough to damage the merchandise, you understand, just enough to warm her up and let her know she’d been a bad girl. The third time, he’d cut the take of all the other girls. That usually did the trick, except that sometimes the other girls were so mad about losing money they beat the disrespectful girl’s ass so bad that she flew the coop. That just made things worse, because then Lolly had to send security out to track the girl down and bring her back, and they weren’t necessarily gentle about it because Lolly didn’t pay them anything extra.

Every pimp tattooed his own girls like a rancher brands his cattle. The first thing you did when some skinny-assed girl said she wanted to work for you was to tell her to strip, not just so you could check out the merchandise, but so you could look for a competitor’s tattoo. If she was already taken, you were honor-bound to have your security staff return her to her rightful owner, the same as a rancher would return a runaway steer.

The worst thing that could happen was when the parents of a girl tried to take her back. That usually didn’t happen, because a girl usually became one of Lolly’s girls in the first place because her parents didn’t give a fuck or, worse yet, abused her. But sometimes it did happen, and that’s when Lolly hated being a pimp most of all.

She said her name was Little Lila, no last name, which was fine with Lolly. She said she was eighteen, but didn’t have any proof, so Lolly, being a trusting sort, took her word on it. He knew just looking at her that she’d make a ton of cash. She looked to be about fifteen. She was nice and thin, but had an ass on her and cute little breasts with nipples that pointed up like little birds waiting for their mother to drop in a worm. Better still, she could blow like a pro. Lolly knew this before he hired her because his interview process always included a skills test.

“Any girl can be a ho, but the best hos know how to blow,” Lolly would say.

“You got that right, Lolly,” Joey Loco would always answer.

As for Little Lila, she appeared to have no gag reflex. During her interview, she swallowed Lolly’s nine-inch penis straight down until her nose pressed against his stomach. Then, bless her heart, she stuck out her little tongue and licked his balls.

“Little Lila,” Lolly said, “You’re fucking hired! Congratulations!”

Little Lila smiled.

“Thank you, Lollipop,” she said.

“This is Pop Lolly’s, sugar. I’m Lolly. Just Lolly. No Pop,” Lolly said. “Got it?”

“OK!” Little Lila said. “Lolly! Just Lolly!”

“Right,” Lolly said. “Now get on over to Tattoo You and get yourself a tat. You’re Lolly’s girl now!”

“OK, Lolly. Do I need money?”

“You don’t have any money?”

“I might have five dollars.”

“That’s OK. Just tell Jeanne you’re with me and that you’ll pay her as soon as you can. It’ll cost you about a hundred. But girl, you’re gonna make that in ten minutes once word gets out.”

“Where do I have them put the tattoo?”

“Jeanne knows,” Lolly said. “She’ll put it in the right place.”

“OK,” Little Lila said.

She turned to leave. Lolly folded his arms and waited for her to turn back, but she didn’t.

“Hey,” he said as she grabbed the door knob. “Do you know where Tattoo You is?”

“No,” Little Lila said, “I was going to ask one of the other girls.”

“Good,” Lolly said. “You do that.”

All of the girls inside the club looked busy, so Little Lila walked outside and saw a woman smoking a cigarette in the shade of the big pink awning. She wore regular street clothes, but there was something about the way she carried herself that told Little Lila she was one of Lolly’s girls. Little Lila walked up to her.

“Hey, where’s Tattoo You?” Little Lila said.

“You a new girl?” the woman said.

“Yep,” Little Lila said.

The woman threw her cigarette on the asphalt, crushed it with the toe of her pump, and gave Little Lila a hug.

“Welcome to the girls’ club, honey! My name’s Shirl. Lolly’s a good pimp, but you don’t want to even give him a hint that you’re holding out on him. He’ll beat you like a dirty rug.”

“OK,” Little Lila said. “Where’s Tattoo You?”

“You know Industry Way right out front here?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, walk north up Industry until you get to West Tenth. Tattoo You’s right on the corner.”

Then Shirl saw the tacit plea in Little Lila’s eyes.

“Aw, hell,” she said, “This shit hole is dead this afternoon anyway. Let me walk with you.”

“OK,” Little Lila said. “If you want to.”

Shirl took Little Lila by the hand.

“Come on,” she said, and the two new coworkers started on their way.

“You’re a cute little thing,” Shirl said. “Love those little titties. What brings you to this line of work?”

“I ran away from home.”

“Honey, we all ran away from home. What made you want to be a ho?”

Shirl thought Little Lila looked awfully young to be a prostitute, and she knew only girls who planned to use the rooms in the back needed tattoos.

“I started out dancing at Platinum One,” Little Lila said. “They wanted to see some ID, and I told them I’d get them some. I was hoping they’d forget about it, but they didn’t and the truth is I don’t have any, so they finally fired me.”

“The fools!” Shirl said.

“One of the girls I made friends with told me about Pop Lolly’s. They said Lolly wouldn’t ask for ID, so I came here.”

“You know you can just dance at Lolly’s. You don’t have to be a ho.”

“Yeah, Lolly told me that, but then I gave him a BJ and he said it would be a damn shame if I wasn’t a ho. He said I could make ten times the money.” 

“You must have a special talent, Lila.”

“That’s what Lolly said.”

“What do your parents do?”

“My mom’s a nurse. She works at Baptist Hospital. My dad’s a computer programmer. He works for some insurance company.”

“I don’t mean to get personal, but did your dad abuse you? The reason I ask is that mine did me, and I know a lot of the other girls left home for the same reason.”

“No,” Little Lila said, but Shirl wasn’t convinced.

Soon, they came to Tattoo You and went inside.

“Hey Jeanne,” Shirl said. “This is Lila. She needs to get branded.”

“Lolly’s mark?” Jeanne said.

“Who else?” 

Jeanne looked at Little Lila.

“That’ll be one-twenty,” she said.

“Lolly said to tell you I was good for it,” Little Lila said.

“I can see that you are,” Jeanne said. “You ever had any work done hon?” 

“Work?”

“A tattoo.”

“No ma’am.”

“Well, I ain’t gonna lie to you. It’s gonna hurt a little.” 

“I’m used to pain,” Little Lila said.

“OK, hop your cute little butt up on this table.”

Little Lila hopped up on the table and Jeanne lifted her skirt up and rolled her panties down an inch or two. Then she snapped on blue latex gloves and used a fresh alcohol wipe to disinfect the area just above where Little Lila’s delicate pubic hair started.

“You’re an adorable little thing, honey,” Jeanne said. “How old are you?”

“Eighteen,” Little Lila said.

“I’m sure Lolly loved you the first time he set eyes on you,” Jeanne said. She handed Little Lila a scrap of paper. “This is what we’re going to do.”

It was a drawing of a lollipop with swirled colors. Red, blue, yellow, green, and white.

“Cute!” Little Lila said.

“You may change your mind about that after we get started,” Jeanne said. 

Jeanne took about a half hour to finish the work. Shirl held Little Lila’s hand the whole time and felt her squeeze once or twice, but the girl never made a sound and only grimaced once. When Jeanne was done, she handed Little Lila a mirror so she could see the work.

“It looks like it’s sunburned,” Little Lila said. “It feels that way, too.”

“Here,” Jeanne said. She gave Little Lila two pills and a glass of water. Lila took the pills without asking what they were.

“Now, listen carefully, because this is important,” Jeanne said. “I’m going to put a bandage on and I want you to keep it there until tomorrow. Then change it with another bandage I’ll give you, and keep that one on for another day. Do not take a bath, but you can take a hot shower. A scab is going to form. Don’t soak the scab or it will fall off too soon. Keep the scab clean, but don’t pick at it or scratch at it or the tat won’t take. Let the scab come off by itself.”

“I’ll make sure she does the right thing,” Shirl said. “I have a feeling she’ll be staying with me for a few days, until she can get set up on her own.”

Little Lila smiled at Shirl and they got up and left.

When they got back to the industrial park, Little Lila noticed her father’s car in the parking lot of Pop Lolly’s Peek-a-Boo.

“Shit!” Little Lila said. “That’s my dad’s car!”

“Come with me, sweetie,” Shirl said. She pulled Lila into the PVC pipe furniture factory. The place smelled of acetone and airplane glue. There was a man stretching vinyl fabric over the frame of a chaise lounge.

“Hey Shirl! What’s going on?” the man said.

“Hey Daniel,” Shirl said. “Meet one of our new girls, Little Lila.”

Daniel dropped what he was doing, wiped his brow with a white handkerchief, and extended his right hand to Lila as he used his left to stuff the handkerchief into a back pocket.

“Hello, Little Lila,” he said.

Lila took Daniel’s hand. “Pleased to meet you,” she said, lowering her gaze.

Daniel gently kissed Lila’s hand.

“Lovely,” he said.

“Daniel, do me a favor and look after Little Lila for a second. I’ll be right back.”

“With pleasure, Shirl,” Daniel said.

“I’ll be right back, honey,” Shirl said to Lila. She kissed her on the forehead. “Sit tight.”

Shirl went to see what was going on. Just as she was about to open the door and go inside, Lolly and another man who was obviously Lila’s father emerged from the club and stopped for a final word beneath the big pink awning.

“If I see her, I’ll let you know,” Lolly said to the man. Shirl saw that Lolly was holding a photograph of Little Lila.

“Please do,” the man said. “I’m very worried about her.”

“You have my word, sir,” Lolly said. He looked at Shirl with eyes that said Where the hell is Lila? and walked Lila’s father to his car. Shirl went inside.

When Little Lila’s father had gone, Shirl told Lolly that Little Lila was over at Daniel’s place.

“Go get her,” he said.

Shirl went to fetch Little Lila and brought her back to Lolly’s office.

“Here she is,” Shirl said. She sat down so she’d be there to cool things down if Lolly got too hot. Lolly ignored her and stared at Little Lila, who was standing on the other side of his desk.

“Hi, Lolly,” Little Lila said. She could see that he was angry.

“Tell me again how old you are,” Lolly said. “And don’t you disrespect me by lying to me.”

Little Lila paused. She looked at Shirl, who had one eyebrow raised.

“Fifteen and a half,” Little Lila said.

“You know your pops was just here.”

“Yes. What did he want? How did he find me?”

“He doesn’t know you’re here. He’s looking for you, though. I told him I would call him if I saw you. Should I call him?”

“No!”

“Why not?”

Little Lila looked at Shirl, who nodded yes and then looked at Lolly.

“I can’t tell you.”

“We have no secrets in this family, Lila.”

“I still can’t tell you.”

“OK, then,” Lolly said. He picked up the telephone, looked at the phone number printed on the photograph of Lila, and began dialing.

“He beats me!” Lila blurted out. She started to cry.

Lolly stopped dialing and hung up the phone. He still doubted she was telling the truth. Getting a beating was no reason to run away from home. Shit, his father had beaten him plenty of times, and his brothers, too. The old man had never laid a hand on Lolly’s little sister, but that might have been because, seeing what the boys got, she never gave him reason to.

“Why?” Lolly said. “Why does he beat you?”

“One time it was for smoking pot. The last time it was because he found out I was giving BJs to my friends.”

“He seemed like a nice man to me, not the kind of man who would beat his daughter. You have any marks?”

Lila walked around the desk to Lolly, turned her back to him, lifted the hem of her dress and pulled her panties down on the right side. There, on the top of her right cheek, Lolly could see a fading bruise in the shape of a belt buckle. (He’d somehow missed it during his initial inspection.)

“He used the buckle side of his belt on you?” Lolly said.

“The last time he did, yeah. He might not have done it on purpose. He was angry. That’s when I ran away.”

“That doesn’t sound like the man I met today.”

“He’s two different people. He gets angry when he gets drunk, and when my mom calls him at work and tells him I’ve been bad, he always comes home drunk.”

“Give me some time to think about this,” Lolly said. “Get outta here until I call for you.”

An hour later, Lolly called Little Lila back into his office. Shirl came back, too.

“OK, here’s what we’re going to do,” Lolly said. “I figure if I send you back to your father, you’ll just run away again, and maybe you won’t wind up with someone as nice as Lolly. So you can stay.”

Little Lila ran to Lolly and started kissing him all over his face and crying, “Thank you! Thank you!”

“Wait, Lila. That’s not all.”

Lila backed off.

Lolly said, “We’ll get you an ID showing that you’re eighteen, so if there’s any trouble I can just say you showed me proof of your age. I don’t expect that there will be any trouble. We take good care of our law enforcement friends, and I’m sure plenty of them will grow to like you. Better safe than sorry, though. And you’ll have to pay for the ID. I don’t care what last name you use, but you gotta pick one.”

“OK, Lolly,” Little Lila said, wiping her tears.

“The other thing is, I want you to study so that you can get a GED. There’s other girls that have done it. There’s no reason you can’t. The other girls can help you if you get stuck on something. They might even have some old books you can use, but you’ll be responsible for buying whatever you need that they don’t have. I’ll have Shirl here keep track of your progress. She tells me you’ll be living with her, at least for awhile. The first time she tells me you’re not on track, your pop gets a call. You ain’t gonna have that cute little body forever, so it won’t hurt to have a brain to fall back on.”

“OK, Lolly,” Lila said.

Lolly spanked Little Lila on her cute butt and said, “Now get on out of here. I’ve got work to do.”

Little Lila and Shirl left Lolly’s office.

Outside, the club was just starting to get busy.

“Time to go to work, sweetie,” Shirl said. “Put on your sexy.”