love him, but I can’t be with him.
She turned over, reached under the bed, and pulled out a shoebox. She lifted the lid of the box, put in her dollar bills, and then pulled out a white envelope. Inside was a single piece of rumpled paper.
Congratulations, Keisha Montez! You have been accepted into the 2007–08 freshman class of the University of California at Los Angeles. In the coming weeks, we will be sending you more information, including the academic schedule and orientation period. Please send us a confirmation that you will be enrolling at the university by September 1. Total tuition for the year is $7,700. Thank you, and we look forward to having you as a member of the UCLA community!
Keisha slowly put the paper back into the envelope, then put the box back under her bed. September 1 was weeks away and her mother hadn’t been any help.
“Fuck that shit,” she said, puffing on. She then took a final drag of her joint and lay down, wondering how she was going to make $7,700 for school and still get out of Veronica’s house. “I ain’t filling out no financial aid forms or taking out any loans. You want some money, then go back to that club and shake your ass some more,” Veronica had said.
Chapter 4
The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action.
—John Dewey
The Pimp magazine headquarters was in a nondescript building in Inglewood, so Steven always had to rent out a place for photo shoots. When Steven thought about his hopes and dreams, he saw himself living in a Playboy mansion as the black Hugh Hefner. But that was his dream. Right now, he was conducting a photo shoot with a man holding a ten-inch dick and an uncooperative model with size 38F titties. His photographer Jeff straddled them both and clicked away with his camera.
“All right, Gabrielle, now I want you to lie on your stomach while Mr. Bigg is on top of you.”
“Okay, but make sure that he doesn’t mess with my hair,” Gabrielle said, turning her naked body over.
“Mr. Bigg, please make sure to not mess with her hair,” Steven said with a smirk.
“Right,” said Mr. Bigg, yawning.
“She doesn’t mind having a strange ten-inch dick laying on her ass but is tripping off her fucking hair,” Steven whispered to Marty.
“That’s the business you’re in.” Marty laughed.
“Okay, Jeff, let’s get the shots,” Steven said, motioning to the photographer.
This photo shoot was taking place at the Studio. The Studio was in the San Fernando Valley, and almost every nude magazine used it from time to time. About ten years before, a porn director, tired of trying to find locations for his shoots, had built an all-purpose studio. The studio was divided into five sets. You could have your models use the kitchen set, the living room set, the office set, the pool room set, or the bedroom set. Steven liked to use it because his readers weren’t that discerning when it came to what the background looked like. They just wanted to see the ass in the photo. And that’s where Gabrielle came in.
This shoot was in the bedroom set, and Mr. Bigg and Gabrielle were on the bed. Jeff had to climb on top of the bed to get the shots for the magazine. Things had been rocky because Gabrielle didn’t follow instructions well, and when a model didn’t follow instructions, it made for long hours of shooting. They were now into hour four of a two-hour shoot.
“Goddammit, Gabrielle!” Steven shouted. “How many times do I have to tell you to keep your face to the camera? I mean, what the fuck is going on? You’re fucking wasting my time when you can’t follow even the simplest instructions.”
Gabrielle was not moved by Steven’s histrionics.
“If you think it’s so damn easy, then why don’t you put your ass in the air with a dick on it and then turn your head? I’ll bet you that you’d find a way to keep your head down.”
“But I’m putting the money in your pocket,” he reminded her. “And if you can’t do what the fuck I say, then get up and I can keep my money. Just let me know.”
“Well, if you just shut up, maybe we can get this damn shoot done and I can get the fuck out of here,” she said sharply.
Jeff kept shooting, even through the conversation. He wasn’t paid by the shot, but he did like to give Pimp a bit of an artistic touch, even if Steven always deleted it. Maybe the argument could be used as a theme. It would have helped if Mr. Bigg was a bit more animated in his facial expressions, but he always had the same dull look.
“All right, enough of that,” Jeff said, climbing down from the bed. He changed the lens on the camera.
“Let’s have you guys lie on your side,” he said. “Gabrielle, raise your leg just so.”
Jeff moved Gabrielle’s leg so that it was high over her head. Mr. Bigg was behind her.
“Mr. Bigg, take your dick and put it on her leg so that it straddles it.”
“Just like this?” Mr. Bigg asked. He picked up his dick like it wasn’t even part of his body and tossed it on Gabrielle’s leg. “Do you want it soft or hard?” Mr. Bigg was just trying to help.
“What do you think, Steven?” Jeff asked, leaning back and looking through his camera lens at the scene.
“Uh, let’s go with hard.”
“Okay,” Jeff said, looking around. “Where’s Kevin? Kevin!”
Kevin came running into the room.
“What?”
Jeff pointed at Mr. Bigg. “He needs some oil.”
Kevin pulled a white bottle of oil out of his pocket and handed it to Mr. Bigg. After sprinkling some oil on his dick, Mr. Bigg immediately began jacking off, like there was nothing wrong with masturbating in front of a crew of photographers and staff. And for him, there wasn’t.
Suddenly the ten-incher turned hard, and he gently laid it down on Gabrielle.
“Damn, nigga, that dick is hot!” Gabrielle said. “And oily too.”
She looked at his penis as though it was an alien.
“It can get hotter,” he responded with a smirk.
“Yeah, in your wet dreams,” she said. Gabrielle raised her head like Steven wanted and held the pose.
“Let’s get this shit over with,” she said.
Jeff took more shots, and in about five minutes, it was all over.
“That’s a wrap, everybody,” Jeff said. “Thank you, everyone.”
Gabrielle and Mr. Bigg hopped up off the bed, and Kevin handed them a towel.
Steven and Marty walked off the set, not even bothering to thank Gabrielle and Mr. Bigg. For Steven, once a shoot was done, then the people in it didn’t matter to him. They had worth to him only when they made him money.
The Studio had a room for viewing photographs, so Steven and Marty started looking at the day’s shoot.
“Sit down, Marty, while I take a look at these photos,” Steven said.
Steven Cox looked over Mr. Bigg and Gabrielle’s photos in his office, and he was pleased. They gave him that simulated porn look that he wanted, and Gabrielle actually looked like she had been enjoying herself, even though he knew she hadn’t been. And that was all he wanted—to give the reader what he wanted to see. Nothing more, and nothing less.
Steven had bought Pimp magazine after having lost his job as a lawyer. He’d gotten into a fistfight with another lawyer at the first law firm he worked for, and that didn’t help his career track being subsequently blackballed from every other law firm. That was because he’d taken a kickback from Sean, and had manipulated