Author's Notes

I know I have tons of stuff to update and they'll be updated, when I cannot say. I'll be honest with you. Just adding another one to the list. Enjoy.

Note: violence, racial slurs, rape, etc are in this fic. Be advised.

1

Survival. That is what it means to be a negro woman in this world. To ensure you lived to tell the tales of your life. Some don't even know what it means to survive. But I did. From the moment my parents abandoned on the steps The Colored Orphan Asylum in New York City, I knew my tears would fall on deaf ears. I knew they loved me, my parents. I was three when my mother caressed my cheeks and kissed them all over.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." I remember. She put a charred-up piece of paper in my hands, knocked on the doors and continued to kiss me again until my father forced her away screaming and crying.

I was so scared and confused, my hands reaching out to her as they hurried off into the night.

Before this asylum even existed, colored children were housed in jail sails and became beggars or chimney sweeps since white orphanages wouldn't allow us in. I was allowed an education up until I was ten. The age to stop was seven, but one of the Quaker women in charge, Anna Shotwell, always saw something in me that she did not see in the other children. In secret she taught me to read and write. By the time I reached fourteen I was moved into indentured servitude for the upper class. By then I was already taught how to serve without question. I served many homes in return they paid fees to the orphanage to keep it running.

I was a pleasure for some families and a disgusting sight to others.

"You get that black bitch out of this house!"

"She does her job very well and makes our lives easier why on earth would I do that!"

"You see the way your company looks at her she needs to be out of this house!"

By the time I was sixteen one family paid extra to the asylum to have me stay over nights usually the excuse was it was easier for me to work faster if I was already in the home. Of course, the ladies of the asylum agreed if they were getting more money.

The first night I stayed with the Bridgeport's, I was awakened to a hand over my mouth and another between my legs. Master Bridgeport's eldest son, Aaron Bridgeport had looked at me one too many times and has succumbed to his lust of something he should never lust for. He took me that night and every night after. That was when the need for survival grew inside me. Aaron Bridgeport was not the only man who lusted after me in his home. The more the men of the home pawed at me, the more bitter the wives grew. I managed to survive the minimal abuse. But it took one woman's word that I stole her necklace to have me out on the street by the time I was nineteen.

I didn't know what to do and I had no family to turn to. No whites would take me in and no Negro families would look my way since word got out that I was a thief from other colored servants at the houses I worked for. I was a beggar for five months until she found me. Shauna O'Sullivan. She was a big breasted woman with thick arms and legs to match. Her pale red hair was in a tight bun and her dress was tight.

"What's a pretty girl like you doing out on the streets wasting away?" she asked. Like I had an answer. She eyed me quickly.

"What's your name girl?" she asked.

"Minnie… Minerva." I said lowly. Her eyes popped.

"My that's quite a name for a Negro. you're a pretty thing. I'd like to add you to my collection. Tell me girl… do you want to be a whore?"

I remember being too hungry and tired from fighting off other beggars to reject the offer.

"I gotta sleep with someone?" I asked. She snorted.

"You're gonna sleep with a lot of someone's. But you'll make money, have a roof over your head, and a full stomach. No one will bother you as long as I am around." she informed. She was beautiful in her own light and to me she was my savior. I nodded quickly.

Shauna O'Sullivan was the first white wealthy business woman I had ever met. She owned a very popular brothel in what was called The Five Points filled with the lowest of the low, but also those wanting to survive.

"In this brothel you are not white, colored, Irish, Catholic, Protestant none of it! You are one thing and one thing only: Whores! In this brothel we do not fight each other for we have one goal and it is to survive! You will watch out for each other because outside of this brothel it doesn't matter what you are you are still women and to the working man women are nothing except for what's between our legs! In this brothel you are all my girls and I will do what I must to protect you as long as you remain truthful and loyal and not just to me but to yourselves and your sisters! You get one day off and that is the holy day to do what you want with your time and your money."

It was an adjustment not just to the women with judgmental eyes, but to the men who came through here as well. At first not many people wanted a colored girl. Who would ever touch a Negro? Well when you show them you're willing to either cut loose or be totally submissive, word gets around. O'Sullivan's got a nigga girl who will let you do anything to her. But if I wasn't desired, I was allowed to stand with Shauna on the first floor and watch her serve drinks. Since I could read and write, which only she knew, she would ask me to read newspaper to her when not many around. She too could read and write, but she wanted to know how much I could read.

When business was low to none, many of the girls would hang around and we would talk in one of the two dining rooms where we would be lined up and chosen by men, and just talk about our lives- dreams if we had any. I still always had to be on guard, but in the end in all of our eyes we were whores, not enemies against each other.

I lived with at the whore house going on three years now. The women who came and gone, I embraced as my family because they were all I knew. I was wiping down the tables now as Shauna was speaking to an associate of hers talking about how she wanted to make this current room a bar to serve alcohol to her patrons.

"I want it to be grand and big. Maybe a small band can play, with music yeah?" she stated to her associate who nodded taking notes. The front doors opened letting light in as multiple footsteps were heard marching in. Immediately a group of white men were entering he room led by a tall, slim man with a curved mustache and black hair that didn't reach his chin. What I did notice was one of his eyes were pale. I didn't get a good look because he looked directly at me and you don't look a white man in the face if you're colored. Feeling too close, I kept my head down and back away from the group of men moving to stand behind Shauna who looked at the man with disapproval.

"William Cutting." she said sourly. William Cutting. That name I knew, but only as Bill the Butcher. He owned a small meat business but also was the leader of a deadly gang, the Nativist Protestants. This man was dangerous. The man smirked removing his tall hat and moving it over his stomach as he bowed.

"Shauna O'Sullivan," he said mockingly, "You're looking well fed to day." Shauna snorted placing her thick arms on her hips.

"Wow you see that with your good eye huh?" she asked. Bill smirked looking around at the ceilings of the place.

"Your "establishment" seems to be growing quite nicely." he noted looking back at Shauna leaning his head just an inch over to look at me. Immediately looked further down to hide myself from him. Shauna frowned.

"Bet that compliment left a sour taste in your mouth. What is it you want?" she asked. He shrugged looking around.

"Well this is a whore house isn't it? I'm treating my men to your finest women, we did just slaughter a few Dead Rabbits. Figured we'd celebrate." he said. I could feel Shauna's body tensing and Bill reached into his jacket and pulled out a medium sized brown bag. He jiggled it a bit and tossed it at Shauna's feet. Bill continued to smile.

"Round up your girls." he said lowly. Shauna let out a big breath of air before leaning back to halfway face me.

"Minnie. Get the girls." she said and I nodded and quickly moved around her toward the stairs moving up quickly to get those who weren't working.