“I just need to sleep. I’m sick, just let me sleep it off and I’ll go out tomorrow, I promise,” Ciarra said, trying to pull Aston past him. “Plus, I got no one to watch him right now. My dad’s supposed to be here, but he isn’t.” She kept her eyes averted just like he expected, but waited for him to grant her permission.

“You know what I’m gon’ have to do? I’m gon’ trade you down,” DeShawn said bluntly. “I can’t have no bitches actin’ this unprofessional. Fuck you. I don’t need you, don’t no one need a low bitch like you.” He expected his threat to trade her to another pimp to motivate her to comply. But instead she managed to get by him.

He yelled out after her. “You know dat money you need for the abortion? You ain’t gon’ get it now. Not from me and not from nobody. I’m gonna give it to another girl in the stable. I’m gonna give it to Carley. You out on your own now, you a renegade … You out of pocket. Watch and see how far ya get wit’out me! You wanna be a lot lizard or you gonna get the fuck back out on the track?”

DeShawn was the only person Ciarra had told that she was pregnant. Though DeShawn made sure his “bottom” took all his girls to a clinic to get on birth control pills, he couldn’t be there to make sure each one of them remembered to take them every day. Even though he expected the men hiring his women to use a condom, he couldn’t take any chances. Sometimes, due to the irregular hours she worked, Ciarra had taken the pills randomly. With a few of her johns, she had allowed them to pay her more to fuck her without a condom.

It was a decision that had come back to haunt her. She was just over two months’ pregnant, a reality that threatened her livelihood. Out of the money Ciarra made, DeShawn had allowed her a smaller share, with the understanding that he was saving up that money until she had earned enough for the bottom to take her to an abortion clinic and deal with her “little problem.” It was just another one of the little problems Ciarra had tried to forget by freebasing or shooting cocaine.

Ciarra had shot cocaine several times that day before picking Aston up from school. All day, as always, she had been trying to chase the feeling she’d got from the first injection. Not able to get it from a reputable source, she had bought it from a stranger out of desperation and had only realized, when stirring it with water didn’t make it go clear, that it was cut with something else. She shot it anyway.