He waved. “See you,
Tiffany.”
A week later, Pierce never
showed up to our meeting place, and instead of staying with Leon
and Devereux, who said they had never heard of me or Pierce, I met
KuJoe who became my pimp, and I started prostituting my body in
order to survive and have a place to live. The money I’d saved up
went quickly. I bought drugs and alcohol to numb the pain of
Pierce’s betrayal, and used the rest to have breast removal
surgery, pec implants, and genital reassignment surgery.
I had been born Tiffany
Timson, but years later, I would become Tyler Simpston.
****
My cheeks were wet with tears, and I
realized I had been crying as my mind relived the moment Pierce…
Dodger… had betrayed me. Looking around, I realized I was in front
of my building. I pulled out the money needed to pay the cab driver
and climbed out. I headed inside, ignoring everyone around me,
feeling as if I were walking through fog as I made my way to the
elevator and upstairs to my place.
It took me a moment to realize that
there were police officers standing around my front door, which
looked as if it had been kicked in, and that my neighbors were all
standing around the hallway, trying to get a peek inside. I rushed
forward, ignoring the whispers and the sneering from the people who
said I deserved it and tried to enter my home.
“
I’m sorry, sir, you can’t
come in. This is a crime scene,” the officer at the door stated,
holding out an arm.
“
But this is my place!” I
huffed out.
“
You’re Mr. Simpston?” a
voice called out from inside. I turned my head to acknowledge the
man speaking and almost cried out from the sight of the damage
within my condo.
“
Y-Yes. I am.”
The man gestured me forward, and the
officer at the door let me pass. I ran inside, coming to a halt
when I saw the way my furniture had been slashed and destroyed. My
clothes were strewn around the room, and the contents of my
refrigerator littered the floor. I covered my mouth with a gasp, as
I took in the sight, but it was the appearance of Stella’s picture
on the wall, circled in red, with a dollar sign spray painted on
her face that filled me with abject horror the most.
I began trembling, knowing, without a
shadow of a doubt, who was behind the vandalism of my home, but
also extremely aware of the fact I could not, under any
circumstances, tell the police.
“
Mr. Simpston? I know this
is upsetting, but from the damage done to your home, this level of
violence suggests an intimate, personal relationship with the
offender. Do you have any enemies? Someone who would want to do you
harm? Someone with a vendetta against you, who knows about the
child in the photo?” the detective asked.
I wrapped an arm around my waist and
swallowed, shaking my head, my eyes affixed on Stella’s
picture.
“
I have many people who
don’t like me, detective,” I answered honestly. “Most of the people
in this building dislike me for one reason or another, staff
included. Any of them could be a suspect.”
But the person you’re looking for doesn’t live here. He’s a
pimp and a drug dealer, and he wants his money, and he probably
wants me hooking for him again or else he’s going to come back for
my daughter… our daughter.
“
Why would so many people
have such a problem with you, Mr. Simpston?” the detective
asked.
I turned to look at him and quirked an
eyebrow. “Because I’m an escort, detective, and they aren’t sure if
their husbands or their wives have paid, are paying, or will pay me
to go on a date with them, or to have sex with them. They have an
issue with me because of my chosen profession.”
The detective’s eyebrows rose, and he
cleared his throat. “Are you saying that you are paid to have sex
with these people?”
I shook my head. “No. I’m paid to be
their companion. To go out to dinner with them, to go to galas,
brunches, catered affairs, etc. That’s what I get paid for. But
people believe what they want to believe.” I may have been in
shock, but I wasn’t stupid. There was no way I was going to let
myself be arrested for prostitution when I was the
victim.
“
Can you make me a list of
all of your
clients
, Mr. Simpston?” the detective asked.
“
No.” I was firm, and I
could tell my answer surprised the man. “There’s a confidentiality
to my business, and I will not break that because someone got upset
and decided to trash my place. Thank you, detective, but please,
let me show you and the rest of the officers the door. I’ll get
this cleaned up myself.”
The detective gave me an intensely
speculative look, and I could tell he was trying to see if I was
hiding something. I could tell him that I was hiding more than he
could ever wrap his pretty little head around, but it would do him
no good, so instead, I just stood there and allowed him to finish
his perusal. When he had finished and realized he would get nothing
else from me, he nodded and gathered the other police officers from
the home. There were bags and bags of “evidence,” fingerprints,
destroyed and broken pieces of my life, and countless mounds of
police tape that they gathered together before leaving, each one of
them giving me a look that meant something different. I was either
looked upon with pity, disgust, sympathy, apathy, compassion, or
judgement, all of which I could handle. I merely squared my
shoulders and kept my gaze trained on the photo of my daughter with
KuJoe’s warning emblazoned across her sweet face.
“
Here’s my card, Mr.
Simpston. I’m Detective Coleman. If you decide you do want to
pursue this matter and find the culprit or culprits and want to
press charges, please give me a call.”
I took the detective’s card, even
though I knew I would be throwing it away as soon as he left, and
nodded. I moved to close the door behind him, but it was stopped by
a large hand, slamming against it.
“
What. The. Fuck.
Happened?”
I stared up into Dodger’s face, and
though I knew he was asking me out of concern, all I could think of
was his betrayal twelve years before and how he had lied to me
about who he really was since we’d reunited. Pulling back my fist,
I slammed it forward into his face, before turning to walk away,
slamming the door behind me.
Chapter
Thirteen
When I heard the door open
and Dodger’s angry voice shouting up the stairs at me, I cursed
myself for not locking it behind me. Then I remembered that the
door was barely on its hinges and wouldn’t have stayed closed in
the first place.
Fucking
KuJoe
. Now there was one bastard I
couldn’t wait to see die.
I walked into my bedroom and froze.
The room was absolutely destroyed. All my clothes were shredded all
over the floor, the mattress looked as if a knife had been taken to
it, and the walls were covered with KuJoe’s hateful warning to
me.
You are so beautiful that
everyone wants you.
But you belong in one
place and you know it.
There’s only one way for
you and Stella to be free.
And you know how to make
that happen.
By the way, BEAUTIFUL,
make the money man stay away.
I shivered and rubbed my palms up and
down my arms. Of course, he’d been following me. I should have
expected it. He’d known about Stella because he’d been tracking me,
so it stood to reason he’d been stalking me. KuJoe wasn’t giving me
any more time; he wanted his money right then. More than that, more
than his usual threats against returning me to twenty dollar
blowjobs and fifty dollar-an-hour fucks, and turning Stella, our
daughter, into a child whore, KuJoe knew about Dodger.
And if the level of destruction in my
home was any indication, he was pissed off about it.
“
What the fuck happened at
the zoo, Tyler? Why did you leave? Who did this? Who’s threatening
you? And why the fuck did you punch me? I’m trying to understand. I
told you I wanted to get to know you. That I wanted us to have a
real relationship, and then you ran from me.” Dodger sounded
frustrated, and I could hear him getting closer to me, but the only
thing that penetrated the haze in my mind was that Dodger was
Pierce. He knew who I was. Had always known who I was. Had probably
told Jack who I was. And because of that, KuJoe was
livid.
“
Tyler?” Dodger called my
name and touched my shoulder.
I spun around and glared at
him. “Don’t you mean, Tiffany, Pierce? Or Tiff? I mean, that is
what you called me twelve years ago, right? Back when I was still a
girl, and you were lying to me by calling yourself Pierce Agustine
and telling me I could trust you? Telling me your friends Leon and
Devereux were expecting me, and you were going to meet up with me
in San Francisco?” I poked him in the chest. “You lied to
me,
Dodger
. You
betrayed me. I trusted you.”
I was mortified when my voice cracked
on that last sentence, and I turned away from him, trying to hide
my tears. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing how much
he’d hurt me all those years ago. I refused.
“
You don’t remember our
conversations, do you?” Dodger said softly. “You always told me you
would change your name to Tyler, so you were always Tyler to me. At
least you were once you told me you were transgender, and growing
up you felt as if you were a boy born into a girl’s body. I called
you Tiffany because you weren’t ready for me to call you Tyler, not
then. You hadn’t come to terms with it. Besides, to you, Tiffany
was the one getting raped and violated by her stepfather. That part
of you, the true part of you,
Tyler
, was untarnished because no
one knew he was there. So Lloyd didn’t say Tyler when he was with
you. He called you Tiffany, and I knew if I started calling you
Tyler, I would confuse you and ruin that wall you had created
around Tyler.”
I didn’t want to listen to him,
especially since everything he was saying was true. No one had
known me quite as well as Pierce, and finding out he and Dodger
were one and the same was wreaking havoc on my heart… I mean my
brain. My heart was reserved for my daughter—no man could ever have
a place there.
I ignored the tiny voice calling me a
liar and turned back to Dodger.
“
What about Leon and
Devereux? What about San Francisco?”
Dodger sighed. “Leon and Devereux
found out that I was working for ICE and my name wasn’t really
Pierce before you showed up. They warned everyone I knew out there
about me and anyone associated with me. They told everyone I knew
out in San Fran I was a snitch and not to be trusted because I
worked with ICE. That was when I found out they weren’t really good
guys. My sending you to stay with them would have been sending you
right back into the same situation you had just left. Although, as
Tiffany you would have been safe. As Tyler, not so
much.”
He ran his fingers through his hair.
“So that was why, when you left, I didn’t immediately come with
you. I had to do damage control. I was trying to find somewhere
else for you to go out there, without blowing my cover. I called
them and asked if they remembered the friend I told them about, and
when they said no, I knew then they were planning something. I
didn’t realize they would let you live out on the streets. I’m
sorry. I’ve spent years trying to find you so I could protect you.
Just like I always told you I would.”
I wanted to be angry with him, but he
was telling me he had been looking out for me. I didn’t exactly
know what to do with that. Memories of Pierce and I together,
hanging out and having fun, filtered through my mind, and I felt
myself about to smile, but then my gaze caught on the destruction
of my bedroom. Pierce—Dodger—may have been searching for me, and he
may have spent years protecting me, but he still didn’t show up in
San Francisco like he promised.
“
Where were you?” I asked
softly.
“
What?” Dodger sounded
confused. “I was at the zoo, and when I finished my dedication
speech, I realized you were gone, and I came straight
here.”
I shook my head. “No. Not today. Where
were you twelve years ago? Why didn’t you come? Why did you leave
me there?”
I looked up into Dodger’s face and
felt my eyes burning with unshed tears. Try as I might to forgive
and forget, I knew I wouldn’t be able to until I had the answers I
needed.
“
Tyler, I’m sorry.” Dodger
glanced away. “I told you my cover had been blown, and because of
that, ICE wanted me to come in out of the field. They showed up at
my place for a debriefing. By the time I was finished with them, I
was running behind. I was just leaving to head to California when I
got word my uncle was sick. So I went to him. It was just supposed
to be for a few hours, maybe a day, but it turned into longer when
he told me he wanted to leave everything to me. I did come out to
San Francisco, but by the time I got to where we were supposed to
meet up, you had disappeared, and you’d left no trace of where
you’d gone.”
I glared. “You told me not
to!”