This book takes place in 1917 in Harlem, and the romantic leads are a Black woman who owns a nightclub and an Indian man who is her employee. The power dynamic of their work relationship is not brought up as a serious problem. There is passing mention of the female romantic lead ensuring that bouncers know which men not to let in because they sexually harass her workers. She refers to her late husband as a pimp because he "insisted she wear as little as possible" and was very rough with her in a way she didn't always like but felt she had to accept. One of her clients grabs her waist without warning while she is walking past. She is at first angry at this, but soon feels the need to accept the unwanted touching because he is a powerful man. She reflects on a memory of being forced to perform oral sex. In another memory, she reflects on a situation where a man threw her on the bed "and started trying to get crazy" because he "thought because he was paying for it, he could do whatever he wanted." Someone else intervenes and pulls the man off of her.