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This story is based on true experiences I witnessed while living in Italy.
The other stories feature people I have met along the way. JP
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Sade has lived in many of the Italian cities mentioned in popular travel guides since arriving from Nigeria. Now in Torino (known as Turin in English), she and the local fireflies (a euphemism for prostitutes) struggle to survive in an openly hostile world.
* * *
“It is so hot I could fry an egg on my arm,” Sade says.
The other girls do not look up. They don’t need no skinny Nigerian bitch telling them how hot it is.
What does she expect? It is July in Torino, Italy. Of course, the humid air stinks of car fumes, trash, and the filth of ages.
“Move along,” the tall one says to Sade. “You don’t belong here.”
“You mean this spot or your country?” she replies.
“You know what I mean, bitch,” she says.
The Tacky Torino Trio are local girls, and this median is their turf. They are very good at giving their ‘regulars’ what they want, and many of them want these things often.
Sade, like thousands of Nigerian girls, came to Italy believing they had legal work visas. It didn’t take long for them to realize that they were indebted to their sponsors and had certain obligations to meet. carnal duties to satisfy those debts. In short, they were prostitutes, call girls or, in the local vernacular, luccioles or fireflies.
Sade began ‘squatting’ at this corner a few months ago, and now The Tacky Trio spend each night gleefully imagining how they might orchestrate her demise, both professionally and otherwise.
Sade’s ‘husband’ and the rest of her people work near the Cinema UGC Trofarello. It’s safer than Corso Vigevano, but why travel so far when she can pick up a few tricks closer to home?
She ties her hair back and sticks her ass out at a car filled with drunken white high school boys. They slow down and yell obscenities, but they are only window shopping. They are likely on their way to harass the trannies at Via Ormea. What the fuck are they playing at? They don’t like black or brown girls, but they will gladly pay to explore the shemales?
“Molasses,” she says out loud.
“Who?” the shorter Italian girl says.
Sade does not reply. She flaps her summer dress as though sending a Morse code message: Take me, take me, and I’ll give you a little something you can’t get at home.
Message received. A dirty Fiat stops in front of her. The other girls groan. No one wants local white girls tonight?
She sizes him up. He is a creep, but he is too old to be dangerous. Old newspapers and fast food garbage cover the seats and floors. Imagine what his house must look like?
“Are you legal?” he asks in Italian.
“You mean am I old enough to vote?” she says with a laugh.
“Oh fuck,” his face says. The last thing he wants in this heat is to be dicked around by a live-wire lucciole.
He hands her the cash with some reluctance.
“Over this way,” she says nervously at the very first intersection.
“I wanna fuck you, not kill you,” he says in Italian.
She waits for the laugh. It is not forthcoming.