“I learned,” she began. “It took me a while but I learned. Da name of da game iz adapt and adopt. You gotta adapt certain ways. And adopt certain things …. I started datin’ and gettin’ regular customers and on slow days I’d call ’em up. They’d come thru … Come thru like da Wu … deeper than da Wu-Tang Clan in dis bitch. Shit!”

“Wish you call ’em now,” Tender stated. “Dis place could use da cash flow. Dis shit iz ridiculous ….”

“Now you know I can’t turn you on ta my people,” she joked. “Dey might fall in love wit dat young tight pussy you got …. Then dey won’t wanna fuck wit a old hag like me … and you know dat’s right!”

“Yeah, tell about it! Don’t I know it!” Tender admitted. “I already been there and done that. I got da shirt and I ain’t goin’ back …”

“What you talkin’ ’bout, young gurl?” she said playfully. “You don’t know nuttin’ ’bout dat …”

“Long story, you know. Drama! Sssoooo much drama,” Tender replied. “Strippin’ and bullshit … Who you callin’ young girl anyway? Age ain’t nuttin’ butta number. I’m wise beyond my years—”

“I don’t care whatcha say. You still my young buck!” she commented.

“And you my oldhead,” Tender shot back.

“You jus’ make it ta my age. You jus’ make it there, …” she said confidently. “Shit, look at me. I’m damn near forty years old. Wit da body and face of a twenty-year-old …”

Tender was surprised by this admission. She knew her counterpart was older, but not that much older. What was she still doing in the game? Even with a hell of a body. Shouldn’t she be already situated in her life? Shouldn’t she have already settled down? she mused.

“Damn, Luscious,” she said. “I didn’t know you was dat old, girl.”

“Why, ’cause I talk dat talk, huh? …” she commented.

“Naw, ’cause you don’t look a day over twenty-five,” Tender said, stroking her ego.

“Thanks … but look at me … I’m still doin’ da same ole shit afta all these years … I been doin’ dis shit fa so long … I think I’m fuckin’ soma my customers’ son’s … No bullshittin’ … I ’member when I wuz a wide-eye rookie like you. I wuz green as grass …”

Her voice began to crack and Tender swore she saw a tear in her eye. Her mood had switched from jolly to sad. She looked at Tender; she saw herself. She saw all the potential she once possessed. She never finished school. She never did anything she said she was going to do. Luscious had gotten sidetracked and now she was stuck. She was an old woman in a young woman’s game. She was growing more desperate by the day.

“How did you start strippin’?” Tender asked. “I mean why? …”