I called her Bonnie because she was pretty and gentle and compliant. Her eyes were big, brown shoe buttons fringed with sable lashes and they could make your mouth water. She was small in stature and perfectly, delightfully well-formed with Woolfolk's brand on her buttock that looked like a mayapple.

She became my Bonnie and she followed me and did my bidding. Was she free? There wasn’t that much free for colored women. She was free to starve like she was when I found her. 

Inside she found a clerk and asked for Hank, and she waited for him by the coin machine, trading in all her pennies for a flimsy receipt that explained she had earned nine dollars.

Just after Mrs. Dawson jangled open the double padlock, just after she turned the sign in the window from Closed. Please come again to Welcome, Lupita entered the tiny cramped store where the eggs were fresh but the lettuce just shy of wilting.

NORAH:  You don’t have sex when I’m menstruating. Right, maybe that’s
fucking cultural. You remind me of Dele.                

SIMON:  ‘Dele’. Very familiar. If Ayodele’s your standard, maybe you should
enlighten me. You sound like you know him very well, like you’ve been doing
a personal survey on Nigerian men and their sexual hab--