Life After Death

by Sister Souljah

  9.

  “Crazy bitch bombed us,” Dat Nigga said. Guess after the six stops he made on the way back here to our firehouse, Bomber Girl had the time to do her thing. Still I played dumb to test him and asked, “Who?” He looked at me sideways with half a smile and replied, “You asked me not to call out any other bitch’s name in your presence.”

  “That’s right,” I said, feeling satisfied that I had reduced the Diamond Rain girl, aka Siddiqah, aka Bomber Girl, aka the young bitch, to being referred to by him simply as “that crazy bitch.”

  The young bitch had blown the sturdy front door of the firehouse right off its hinges. But because down here there is no alternation of day and night, no moon or sunshine, no traffic lights or street lanterns, it was next to impossible to see and measure the damage. Immediately outside where we stood there was only complete blackness. Facing the door that was no longer there, we saw only the blackness of the corridor leading into his place, which remained black every day until he chose to light one of his twelve flame torches that still stood cemented in the floor even after all of the attacks and wind wars that shook the house.

  He picked me up. I loved being carried in his strong arms. Loved that he could do chin-ups lifting both of our body weights at the same time, effortlessly. “I have to unload the trunk. I’ll make sure you are safe inside first,” he said. Soon as his Timbs hit the floor inside of the corridor, I could hear the sound of broken glass beneath each of his steps. He stopped, uttered, “Crazy bitch” again, and walked until he had to dip low to enter in through his monkey bars and toss me onto the bed. “Don’t move.” He lit one torch on the left side, by me.

  “Do you have a flashlight?” I asked before he walked away.

  “I prefer fire. You know that.”

  “I’m gonna clean up every trace of her. I’m asking for the flashlight and a broom so I can do it right. I know you have both because I know you have whatever I need.” I smiled at him nicely.

  I high-beamed the Lumen industrial flashlight, scanning the floor to see just how bad it was. The glass didn’t appear like it resulted from some chaotic explosion. It seemed it had been purposely placed. It was as if someone had one of those salt-spreading machines that spit out thick salt during the winter storms to thoroughly melt the snow and ice. Except it was as though someone had used that type of machine to spread glass everywhere instead. I peeped a pair of his kicks right by our bed. Perfect, I’ll put these on. I didn’t know the whereabouts of my red boots anymore. When I put one of his kicks on my left foot, I expected them to be way too big. I didn’t expect them to have a pair of panties stuffed inside. I removed the sneaker and pulled them out. Knew they wasn’t mine. I don’t wear none. I smelled them. Smelled like pussy and his dick, a mixture. I’ll remove every trace of every bitch, I thought to myself. I wasn’t angry. It was my first time being back here for what felt like at least six months sitting by the sewer with paralyzed legs. As I began to sweep, beginning in the area of the bed that I just got off of, and clearing each way as I moved along, I began to discover all types of shit that belonged to other bitches. I put it all in a heap, lit the bottom of the straw broom with the flame on top of the metal-poled torch, and burned it all. When he walked in finally and saw all of his bitches’ shit on fire, he didn’t react. It was the perfect response to me. Meant he knew I was his top choice and got the respect that he needed to give and show me that I needed to never ever have to ask for or mention.

  “Good job,” he said as he was now able to walk in and around with zero glass crackling. He took back his flashlight and returned with a pair of soft furry slippers, which he slipped onto my feet. “Get in the shower,” he said, “because I know you want to. But remember how I like it. Don’t overdo it.” I didn’t say nothing back. Of course I remembered. Leave the ass half dirty, and he will clean my pussy with his tongue.

  He had lit a scented candle in the bathroom that normally stayed unlit and in complete blackness. There was a tiny vase with six dead daisy flowers. I appreciated the gesture. I never seen no plants, trees, or flowers down here. He must have went through so much to obtain these. In the shower there was a new bar of soap with the paper still on it. I unwrapped it. I’m happy. Under the warm downpour my mind began to wander. As I instinctively slid my hand between my thighs to suds up my privacy, it occurred to me a lot of shit changed since I was a teen. Niggas used to love the bush. Used to call it the nappy dugout. Now top bitches get their pussies waxed for smooth access and to receive better head, no hairs left between his teeth or caught in his throat. I laughed. I missed having manicures and pedicures. I missed shopping and switching up my hairstyles at the salons of my choice. Even in lockup, I could always get my hair done if I really wanted to. I could get my v-waxed too, believe it or not. But there was no reason to. I didn’t want to look good for a thousand locked-up bitches. Winter Santiaga is strictly dickly. I love to be top looker for the men to lust and the women to envy. Prison deads most of that freedom flow. But on the night before my release, I chose the top, most talented scrub girls, masseuse, hair and nail stylists on lock to doll me up precisely according to the designs in my mind. They knew it was a privilege. They knew it was a first and last golden opportunity. They each did their job as though they wanted to leave an impression on me that might pay off for them big time one day when they step out from the cage. Every inmate in there believed in their heart and bones that I was headed to becoming the realest and the brightest superstar.

  “Don’t you want this dick?” His voice jolted me. I threw back the shower curtain and smiled in great anticipation. “Turn off the water,” he commanded me. I did. “Now, come here,” he said and I could already smell the scent of the weed. He shut the door, closing us both into the small bathroom space. He pulled the lighted blunt from behind him where he was holding it hidden inside of his palm. He turned the lighted blunt around and put the lit-up side in his mouth. He held it with his teeth and blew the weed shotgun smoke into my mouth and I sucked in like a champion. I don’t know if he laced his weed. But here at the Last Stop Before the Drop, the weed was three times more potent than any weed I ever toked.

  Both nude and standing close together, I could feel our feelings as though they were filling up the air, replacing the shower steam that was there moments ago and mixing in with the smell of the soap on my body, the smoke in the air, and the scent of the weed. I felt his erection grazing my skin. He handed me a short glass. I wafted it and swooned on the aroma of Hennessy.

  “Where’s your glass?” I asked him.

  “This is the last glass left in the house,” he said as I swallowed. Ooh, my head was nice. I was feeling more than good. He relieved me of the now-empty glass, set it on the sink. He grabbed my hand, placed it on his dick. I held it gently like a tight leash. He led me this way as he walked out backwards into the blackened corridor without tripping on his steps.

  Back in his playpen, all twelve torches were lit now. He laid me on top of the dinner table. There was no tablecloth or cutlery, plates, or food. I was nude on my back. He placed the linen stirrups, which now hung over the table, onto my ankles. Then he spread my legs eagle, squatted down, and stood back up holding the Hennessy bottle in his left hand. I was like, Hell yeah, that’s my shit! My pussy trembled when he poured the liquor inside of my most intimate space. The shocking coldness caused me not to say nothing. In what seemed like seconds he was lapping up the liquor with his long tongue. Wonderama!!! Oh, what a feeling. He kept the licking coming. His stirrups kept my legs spread all the way open. I came so hard my body jerked up into the sitting position on top of the dinner table. I wanted to thank him, give him head as passionately as he gave me. I leaned further forward to remove the stirrups. He kicked the table out from under me with his powerful legs. I was now hanging upside down. My head was close to the floor. He walked behind where I was hanging and buried his nose into my ass and began whiffing. Whiffing turned to him spreading my cheeks and licking there, which no man had ever
done. I was helpless and overwhelmed and overjoyed. He then slid his body beneath me. Must have sensed that I wanted to please him. It was quite a maneuver to give upside-down head. But, I locked my lips around the tip and my hands around his pole, like how I held onto the moving pole of the merry-go-round horse long ago.

  He spanked my ass six times. Even that felt good. “You were the sexiest with the scar. What happened to it?” he asked. It was the first time I was proud of the scar. And in the momentum of pleasing him, my lips locked around his joint, I even wished I could bring the scar back. He removed the stirrups, broke my fall, and carried me with one arm like I was a beach ball or a basketball he was about to play with. He sat me on his weight bench in the straddle position. He adjusted the back of it to recline partway. He moved a pin to steady it, and it clicked into the locked reclined position. He fucked me in such a way that my back could not move and there was no resistance. When he stroked, he would hit the target each time. It was more than the friction of our flesh or the dimensions of his pipe that thrilled me. It was the choreography of a sexual encounter with him. It meant to me that he knew exactly what he wanted me to feel and how he needed to design it to deliver the highest sexual high.

  “Stand up,” he ordered me off the bench after a full stroking, but my legs were still trembling and a bit wobbly from the orgasms and maybe the weed-Henny mixed somewhere in it all. He yanked me up. Pushed his right hand’s pointing finger in my pussy hole and thrust his thumb in my ass. He steadied me this way, held like how a nigga carries a six-pack, while his left hand adjusted the bench. He withdrew both fingers. He pushed me down face-forward on the same weight bench that was now locked into a position where my head was by the floor and my ass was up high. He spread my ass cheeks and plunged between them. “I really like you, bitch,” he said as he stroked. “And your ass is the most comfortable to me. That’s good,” he said as he stroked again. “I’m an ass man,” he added. The whole sexual encounter was perfect, minus those four words, I’m an ass man, which, come to think of it, he said in the heat of his own passion. Still, I didn’t like it.

  It didn’t seem to matter though. The twelve flames that he had lit when I was showering all blacked out at once. The weight of his body was off of me. Somehow now I was on the floor instead of his weight bench. I got immediately worried. I didn’t want to be back crawling on my belly with no legs and no arms. I wasn’t! Whew! I had legs and I could feel and move them, all four of them. My tongue was hanging out and I was panting from the athletic sexual experience. I tried to shake myself into a reality. Clear my weeded-Henny head and figure myself out. I laid on my belly. My front legs extended in front of me and my back legs tucked beneath me. Still panting, I couldn’t seem to close my own mouth or keep my tongue from hanging out. I wagged my tail. After I did, I didn’t need no lights or mirror to confirm it. I felt it. Now I, Winter Santiaga, with my same mind, fully awake and aware, was a real, bona fide bitch! I had turned into a fucking dog.

  10.

  “I heard she’s back,” a woman’s voice said before he even saw her. She was coming through the black hole where the firehouse door used to be. I heard her coming with my dog ears. That’s why I tucked myself behind the huge medicine ball in the far corner.

  “Is that why you broke all six of my mirrors, all of the glasses at my bar, and blew off the front door with your succubus temper?” he asked her in a neutral and calm, manly tone. He obviously already knew the answer. I was listening carefully but a bit confused. She definitely did not sound like that teenaged Bomber. And what the fuck is a succubus? Was that her name? I thought niggas in da hood had wild names. In this realm, the names were even stranger.

  Succubus didn’t answer. She just strolled further indoors. I didn’t peep. I wanted to listen to their convo and have her believe that the two of them were alone. That way she would say whatever was on her mind and fully expose herself. There was only silence between them though. She kicked off her heels. One landed by me. I had an impulse to fetch it. I shut that impulse down immediately. She’s a cheap-shoe bitch, I could tell. Her worn red pleather pump was pitiful. The heel laid to the side like it was too cheap and she was too heavy for it to hold her up on level ground. Then I heard her bare feet on the monkey bars. As she moved from bar to bar, I suddenly saw her peering down at me from the top. I collapsed on my four legs, laid on my belly, and played dumb. She shifted her gaze to the bed, which was now covered by a red silk duvet and red pillows rather than the black ones he had when we first met. She swung down like a monkey. Her feet were big, like bitches who had to special order their shoes because they wore larger than a size twelve. Only bitches who play basketball can be excused from the embarrassment of that. Succubus smelled the silk blankets, then pressed her face into the sheets. I didn’t care that she was inspecting them. Our incredible gymnastic fuck didn’t happen on the bed. She laid down.

  “Don’t let me catch her. I know she’s around here somewhere. Iblis saw you speeding through his block in your father’s whip with her riding shotgun. He told me she was the same bitch he saw you with who was wearing the white mink. He said you been supposed to deliver her to your father. So what’s the deal? You turning soft all of a sudden?” she asked, but it was like a jab, not a question. My tail started wagging. I had to think really hard to control it. I was happy that I was the topic. I was now confirmed that his love for me was real. The streets be watching. Tongues start talking whenever a nigga gets a top bitch. Her presence cancels out all the other bitches who were getting dick from him here and there but were never allowed to be a live-in or definitely not a wife. A wife, I thought to myself. This nigga needs to queen me. When I get back to my normal self, I’m gonna make him feel so good that he’ll cough up a ring for my married finger without me having to suggest it. Top bitches ain’t ever gotta suggest anything. And no bitch could claim top status if she ever-ever had to ask her nigga to marry her instead of him asking her based on his thoughts and feelings that sharing or losing her to any other man was completely unbearable to him. Real men ask that top bitch to marry him because she is who she is. At least I am.

  “Stop messing with those tools and come lay beside me,” she said in her bossy tone. I thought she was too ugly to be bossy. She should’ve been begging.

  “I’m ’bout to fix the door you blew down. Get up and you’ll pass me the tools when I tell you.”

  She leaped up. They walked down the corridor together. I stayed put.

  When they finally got around to fucking, which she actually had to ask for more than a few times, I didn’t mind. He didn’t set a shower for her, no scented candle or soaps or blunts or Henny, and not even dead daisies. He butt-f’d her on his floor and that was that. There was no choreography, passion, or concern. I saw him glance at me when he collapsed on top of her back. I wondered if he was saying sorry, or more like, “She’s nothing to me.” He didn’t need to reassure me, though. I observed, and I could tell through his actions and inaction. The residue from her stinky ass clouded the room. Made me wanna pass out. When he was done, she wouldn’t leave. He locked himself in his bathroom for what seemed like a long time. When he came out fully dressed he gave her numerous hints.

  “I got shit to do. I gotta make my runs. No! You know you can’t ride with me.” She wouldn’t give up and leave and go back to wherever she came from. So he left her bare butt right there on the floor. He slammed the front door. I heard the G wagon turn on and pull out. She was staring at me. I turned away. I must have fooled her. She got up. The stinky bitch didn’t even take one step towards the bathroom. She never showered. Instead she searched around, went all through his belongings until she discovered a set of keys. She stuffed them between her tits and climbed all the way up the monkey bars. Once she was up top, she glared down at me and said, “What the fuck you looking at?” I turned away, walked a few steps, and sat looking in the other direction. Then I heard keys turning in a lock. I heard the sound of her disappear. When I turned back and looked up
towards the high ceiling direction over the monkey bars where she had just been, she was gone.

  Since I could not distinguish night from day, I could only count the amount of times I saw Succubus. When she wasn’t around, there would be random bitches coming to play in his playpen. I was the only permanent one. He petted me quite often. It felt good too. Then I would lay on my back and he would stroke my underside. Oh, how exciting. One time when she saw him petting me, she became jealous.

  “What’s with that fucking mutt?” she asked him.

  “Easy, she’s a full-breed Lhasa Apso. Isn’t she beautiful?” he asked, but I thought he shouldn’t have said the last part. “And look how clean I keep her white fur.” He rubbed salt in Succubus’s anger.

  “You’re rubbing her. You should be rubbing me,” she said, and left in a hissy fit.

  After she left, some young pretty chick arrived. “Ooh, you have a pretty dog. When did you get her?” She approached me. I gave a low-grade growl. She squatted and petted me. Then she picked me up. Right away, I bit her. She screamed and let go. My forever nigga looked at me and smiled. “You think that’s funny?” the pretty bitch asked, all pissy.

  He answered back, “Nobody told you to touch her. It’s good that you have blood. It’s nice to bleed every now and then.” He said it casually and didn’t tend to her wound. He fucked the pretty one out of her anger. It was athletic and thorough. I felt excited because I was watching and could clearly recall how incredible each movement felt. It aroused me and mixed with a jealousy. I am unaccustomed to feeling any jealousy ever. I ran and jumped on the bed and wiggled in between where they lay after their sex. “Do you normally let her onto your bed?” she asked. He didn’t answer back. “Once you do it becomes a habit. You should train your dog,” she said. But the torch lights all blacked out at once. I could not see or feel him or her anymore. I leaped off the bed and searched around but in the dark, found nothing except the bone he left me in the corner and the dish of chicken chunks.