In the summer of 1997, I was propositioned for sex. A college student named “Blake” approached me and a friend at a club called the Blue Room. He told us that he was a co-owner, and due to a large increase in customers he needed some extra people to be bouncers (making sure people paid their $4 entrance fee, and did not get out of hand). In the beginning, the conversation was fairly short: we exchanged telephone numbers with him and set up a time to meet. My friend didn’t have a job, so I was pleased about his proposal considering that she was not paying rent in our new apartment. We were both finished with high school and living on our own.
We met him the next day. At first, he told us that he wanted to give us one of his cars to use (we had no money and walked everywhere). I thought this was creepy; saying nothing, I let my friend do the talking. She insisted that she do all the talking. The conversation grew more and more suspicious, as the night, and my pack of cigarettes, dwindled. He offered us ten thousand dollars to do three months of work for him (not at his club), but in Chicago. Blake had drugs to sell and there was money in it for us, if, we used sex to sell them. WHAT! So, in other words, we would be his whores? Bailey seemed thrilled at the attention and even reassured him that she could sell his drugs in Detroit. She loved bragging, that was just her personality. I said nothing. The entire scenario was sinister, but my naïve, young mind was not experienced in the matters of drugs, criminality, or sex.
Time went by, and Blake called Bailey every day. She did work at the Blue Room a couple nights. Soon he appeared at our apartment, we would see him drive past us when we were on our daily walks downtown, frequently driving a different car. I felt as though he was stalking us, watching our every move. We found out that his partner Frank, was the owner of our apartment building. So in other words he could get our keys? I could not talk to my parents because there were some troubling family problems. Bailey was going through a rough time with her folks, and she was the only friend I had. I could not think of anyone to call that would help us. If she wanted to work for Blake, it was her decision. She made all of the decisions anyway. I just kept my eye on her, hoping she would be okay, trying to be nonchalant.
Blake did not agree with my stance. He wanted both of us, not just one or the other. He picked up on my unwillingness of his offer, and mentioned “breaking me in.” In the beginning he had told us of his gang connections in New York and Chicago, and as time went by he acted as if he had possession of me because I knew so much about him. We were also told he had guns and would use them. We knew that he could not get into any trouble with the law because he had with a lawyer that could get him out of anything, and if we worked for him we would have the same “protection”. I was in constant fear of my life and Bailey’s, but . . . she loved all the attention. She was in control.
After about a month of pressure from him, he demanded that I “change my attitude about sex,” giving me two weeks to rethink his “generous” offer. He told us to come over to his house because he had some clothing for us to try on, because our clothes weren’t sexy enough. Now that I think back, Bailey was not given this ultimatum, only I was. He could see she was “ready.” I was stuck in a battle of a no win situation... I should have never talked to the man in the first place... It was too late. Whatever Bailey did, I did… so I followed her to his house like a little, obedient puppy dog. His living room was in disarray with clothes piled on chairs and hanging from hangers--it appeared as if he raided his wife’s panty drawer. I remember he held up a g-string nightie and demanded that I take off my clothes. With repulsion, I ran out of his house shaking and crying, begging Bailey to come with me. She angrily refused and insisted that I stay.
It was shocking. At that moment in time, I lost my best friend.
That summer was the summer of hell for me. Bailey eventually returned to our apartment two hours later. She wouldn’t talk. Then after a night she confessed that he raped her, at gunpoint, while telling her he was going to kill me for not cooperating. After we took him to court, life went like this. RING! RING! “Hello?” I would ask answering the phone. “YOU’RE GONNA DIE!” was the reply. She dropped the lawsuit and ran back to Michigan…
Some of my friends at the time were into the drug scene and wanted to know why the biggest dope dealer in town was in trouble. Some did not believe that he could have done such a terrible deed. Others asked me why we didn’t just work for him and make a little extra “summer money.” The question I have for you is . . . would you have taken his ten grand?