STERLING: Woman, you everything a man need. Know how to cook . . .  pay nice attention to yourself . . .  except for those legs. You ought not to have done that. What you do that for anyway?

RISA: You wouldn’t understand, Sterling.

STERLING: You be surprised . . .  I got good understanding. That’s what Aunt Ester told me. She looked at me and say, “I like to work with people like you cause you got good understanding.” She say that before I could say anything to her. She just looked at me and said that. Now why can’t you do that?

RISA: What you looking at my legs for anyway?

STERLING: That’s part of life, woman. You don’t think I’m not gonna look at them? Even if you tried to make them ugly. So you wanted to have ugly legs . . .  you got them. Now what? I done looked at your legs, your hips, your titties, and everything else. Now what? I don’t care if you got scars on your legs.

RISA: That’s why I did it. To make them ugly.

STERLING: You did a good job. You and God both. He made them pretty and you made them ugly. You both got what you wanted. Now why can’t I get what I want?

RISA: That’s what the problem is.

STERLING: I know that’s a problem. I’m trying to solve it.

RISA: You just want what everybody else want.

STERLING: Risa . . .  you in the world, baby. You a woman in the world. You here like everybody else. You got to make the best of it. Quite naturally when men see you with that big ass and them pretty legs they gonna try and talk you into a bed somewhere. That’s common sense. They be less than a man if they didn’t. Ain’t no sense in you getting upset about that. You ought to take it as a compliment. All you got to do is say no and keep on stepping.

RISA: That just what I done.

STERLING: I know that. Been telling me no since I met you. By rights I should be talking to somebody else. I tried that. But I was talking to her and thinking of you. So I come on back.

RISA: You ain’t got no job. You going back to the penitentiary. I don’t want to be tied up with nobody I got to be worrying is they gonna rob another bank or something.