Good to us.

Aunty Mummy let me stop servicing Uncle Dozie because I told her his movements went too deep, and when he was done with me, it felt like he had left something inside my thing. He wrapped his hands too tight around my neck, squeezing the tears from my eyes and the breath from my lungs when he poured.

I said all this to her, and she said I did not have to go back anymore. Aunty Mummy was good to us. She did not send us to men who were mean, who did whatever they wanted without care. She liked her girls up to standard because what use was a bad prostitute?

She did not let any of the men call us prostitutes either, we were her faugh and for these reasons, she was good to us. She was not bad, as people would say. She took care of all twenty of us; she provided clothes, food, a roof over our heads, and some of her makeup so the men would find us more appealing. She taught us how to lay, moan, and grind our hips to create pleasure. She did not even send us to these men until we were twelve or thirteen, for the girls whose chests refused to rise like mine.

For all these reasons, she was good to us and she would continue to be good to us for as long as we worked for her. Most of us would retire at twenty because the men would grow tired of us, and Aunty Mummy wanted us as fresh as possible. I, however, would continue to work for her until I was twenty-three, as I had inherited my mother’s never-aging face.

She was my Aunty Mummy for ten years, and for each of those years, she was good to us.