B-Careful

by Shannon Holmes

  “Where we at?” Sonya wondered.

  “The Block,” Bri replied. “Baltimore Street. I was tryin’ to give Tone a lil tour of the town, but obviously y’all weren’t payin’ attention. Too busy back there lovey-dovey.”

  Bri was right, the couple hadn’t noticed a thing until now. It didn’t matter to them where they were or where they went, as long as they were together.

  “Yo, this shit look like 42nd Street Time Square out here. All I see it bright lights, prostitutes, drug dealers, junkies and perverts. It’s goin’ down out here, huh?” Tone observed.

  “You could say that again. But the food spot is right there,” Bri pointed. “Crazy John’s.”

  Quickly both Tone and Sonya took note of the yellow restaurant sign and began to exit the car.

  “You want somethin’ Bri?” Sonya asked before closing the car door.

  “Yeah, you can get me a large order of fries,” Bri said. “I ate already.”

  Sonya continued, “That’s it? Bitch ya greedy ass don’t want nuttin’ else?”

  “Nah, I’m cool. I got some leftovers in the microwave,” she responded. “I’ll eat my food at home after y’all drop me off.”

  After getting her friend’s order, Sonya closed the car door. She took hold of her boyfriend’s hand and together they walked to the fast food restaurant holding hands. Each time Tone held her hand, images flooded her mind of all the times they went out on dates in high school. Sonya couldn’t help but feel safe in Tone’s presence.

  Men looked lustfully at Sonya as they walked down Baltimore Street. Tone mean mugged a few, those whom he felt stared too hard or too long at his girl. The look on his face said, she’s with me. One by one they got the message and diverted their stares elsewhere.

  They entered Crazy John’s and quickly placed their order and paid for it. Then the couple returned to the car with multiple bags of food. After reclaiming their original seats, they began eating. Sonya handed over the fries to her friend. Slowly, Bri pulled the car back into traffic while enjoying her food.

  As she nibbled on her French Fries, the scent of fast food begins to fill the car, getting Bri’s full attention.

  “Damn, that cheeseburger smells good,” Bri commented. “Who eatin’ that?”

  “Me,” Tone replied between bites of his burger.

  “Don’t start that lemme get a bite shit. Ain’t nobody eatin’ behind ya nasty ass,” Sonya commented. “Bri, I asked you what you wanted and you said some fuckin’ fries.”

  “I did,” Bri stated. “But that was then. I suddenly changed my mind when I smelt that burger.”

  “You the worse, Bri, you can never make up ya mind,” Sonya added.

  “I’ll tell you what. I gotta deal for you Bri,” Tone announced. “If you show me around the town, not downtown, but the hood, I’ll give you one of my burgers. How that sound?”

  “That’s a bet,” Bri assured him. “Gimme my burger.”

  Tone went in the bag and handed over the cheeseburger, but not before Sonya could interrupt.

  “You ain’t gotta give that bitch shit,” Sonya insisted.

  “This an A and B conversation,” Bri replied, “C ya way out.”

  Tone laughed at the childish statement. He hadn’t heard that in a while. The rapport between these two was comical, to say the least.

  Sonya urged, “Please, Tone don’t encourage this heifer. It’ll only get worst.”

  “Ha!” Bri laughed as she took a bite of the burger and drove simultaneously.

  “Anyway, can’t that shit wait till tomorrow?” Sonya asked. “I’ll show you around then.”

  “Nah, I need to see B-more the hood tonite,” Tone insisted. “Need to see what I’m dealin’ wit. I wanna see how different this hood is from mine. You know they say if you ever want to really know about a neighborhood, go around there at night. It’ll tell you everything that you need to know.”

  Truth of the matter was Tone was on a scout mission. He was trying to locate a drug block where he could set up shop and sell his product. What he said out loud was misinformation. He knew he had to conceal his true intentions from her. He didn’t know if Bri knew he was a drug dealer. In case she didn’t know, he wasn’t going to tell her. That was none of her business.

  “Bust that move, Bri,” Tone called out from the backseat. “Take me to the hood.”

  “This nigga,” Sonya complained, rolling her eyes.

  “I got you, kid,” Bri announced.

  Since the city of Baltimore wasn’t big, the proximity from downtown to East Baltimore wasn’t far. Before Tone knew it the vehicle he was riding in arrived in the hood. The stark contrast between downtown Baltimore and East Baltimore was like night and day. He went from the clean, well-lit avenues of downtown to the dark, rat-infested streets of the hood. On almost every corner, Tone noticed a cut-rate liquor store or a Chinese carry out. It was like if the powers that be couldn’t kill black people with one form of poison, then they’d kill them with another.

  “Fuck is wit’ all these fuckin’ cut-rate liquor stores? This how they livin’ out here?” he observed.

  No one else in the car bothered to answer. If Tone didn’t know the level of affliction in Baltimore’s inner city, then he was about to see for himself. It was deeper than just liquor stores. Here Heroin was the black peoples’ Achilles Heel.

  Tone didn’t know what to expect when he hit the hood, but this wasn’t how he pictured it. The hood was depressing. He had seen bleak and impoverished neighborhoods before in New York, but it seemed like Baltimore had its own monopoly on urban decay.

  As the vehicle rode from hood to hood, Tone got a good gauge where the money was, which blocks were popping and which ones were dead. The streets of East Baltimore felt so vibrant to him. North Avenue was like a car show. He saw young dudes such as himself driving expensive foreign cars accompanied by some good-looking women. That sight seemed to repeat itself at every light.

  Just a few blocks over on Greenmount Avenue, he had to admit, he never saw such a great disparity of wealth in one place. Tone saw luxury foreign cars parked in front of rundown row houses. Still, he got the idea from the looks of things that there was a lot of money to be made out here.

  The tour of the hood continued, taking Tone pass infamous Baltimore housing projects like Latrobe homes and Lafayette Courts. These projects were much smaller than the one’s he was use to. But from what Bri was saying, they were no less dangerous. From what he was seeing, Tone couldn’t help but think that this might be his kind of town. Danger was like a rush of adrenaline to him. He was far too reckless to be afraid. Tone felt New York City had prepared him for everything and anything. He felt he had seen it all and been through it all.

  In comparison to his hometown, physically the landscape was different. In terms of size, one could fit a few Baltimore City’s inside New York. Yet the hustle and bustle seemed to be the same. The streets of Baltimore were about a dollar. It just so happened that coke and dope were the main commodities on this market.

  Tone’s brief tour of East Baltimore sobered him quickly to the harsh realities of the streets of Baltimore. The sights and sounds got his mind where it should be, into a hustler mode. He could envision himself getting money out here.

  They drove through a few more crime ridden corridors and hotspots, places like Eager Street, Hoffman and Holbrook, Ashland Avenue. On these blocks Tone got to see large congregations of people and open-air drug markets that ran around the clock. He burned all these locations, streets and avenues into his memory bank. The information might be useful to him at a later date. He vowed to return to these blocks soon, next time without his two chaperons.

  Bri continued playing the role of gracious tour guide, driving the vehicle at a moderate enough rate for Tone to scope the scene.

  “I usta date a Baltimore guy from around here,” she admitted.

  “Where’s here?” Tone asked, looking around for a street sign. “What’s the name of this block?”
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  “Federal and Chase,” she told him. “The nigga was major. One of the biggest d-boys in the city. I don’t know where he was gettin’ his shit from, but he was gettin’ it.”

  “What happened?” Tone asked.

  “What happened to what?… Oh, he got like fifteen or twenty years,” she replied nonchalantly. “Feds indicted him. He was under investigation, from what I understand.”

  “Word?” Tone responded.

  “That’s how the story goes out here,” Sonya hinted, as she looked at Tone. “It ends one of two ways, dead or in jail.”

  Tone didn’t care what Sonya said. He had already sold himself on the idea of hustling drugs on the streets of Baltimore. He knew he was going to take that leap again, and dive head first into the drug game out here. Even if he had to launch a small scale drug operation and go hand to hand himself. So be it.

  “Yeah, he got busted wit’ a whole lotta dope A couple of kilos if I remember correctly,” Bri admitted. “Yo, I’m just glad I didn’t get caught in that mess. My parents would have killed me. They didn’t send me way down here to school to become a drug dealer’s girlfriend. Shit, I could save they ass the tuition and did that shit back home.”

  “Word,” Tone groaned. “I hear you.”

  Bri continued, “I ain’t gonna lie. It really goes down out here. I ain’t just talkin’ about the drugs. I’m talkin’ about the shootings and killings too. These b-more streets are like the wild wild west.”

  To her the streets were wild. To Tone the streets were typical. He was in his element. This was his domain. He spoke the language of the streets fluently, violence.

  “Oh really?” he said aloud. “You think New York is a joke? Ma, it’s goin’ down everywhere. No disrespect, I ain’t worried about none of that shit you talkin’.”

  Bri replied, “No, its cool. I’m not sayin’ you can’t hold ya own. I was just tryin’ to put a bug in ya ear.”

  “Good lookin’ out,” Tone acknowledged her.

  Tone tried not to take her comment personally. After all, she didn’t know him. Bri didn’t know how he got down in the streets. She was just like everyone else, they didn’t know what he did until he did it to them. With that thought, he shook off the irritation that the conversation caused him. There was no need to get mad at Bri for her so-called good intentions.

  Momentarily, Bri took her eyes off the road and glanced into the rearview mirror. Her eyes met Tone’s. He gave her a serious look, which she returned. Neither person said anything. On that subject, what else was there to say?

  That's why God made guns, Tone found himself thinking. It was a saying his deceased friend was fond of saying. God made guns for wild niggas, hot blocks and hostile environments like Baltimore, Maryland.

  He went back to looking out the window and eating his food. Bri’s horror story about her boyfriend had done little, if anything, to deter Tone from hustling on the streets. Instead of being scared off by the danger, he thought the fate that befell her ex-boyfriend wouldn’t happen to him. Tone focused on all the money he could possibly make. He had a vested interest in making this situation work for him.

  “I’m ready to go home now,” Sonya stated, interrupting his thoughts.

  “Me, too,” Tone added. “I seen enough for tonite. Tomorrow’s another day.”

  “Good,” Sonya said, clearly frustrated. “Bri, drive to ya house so we can drop you off.”

  Bri nodded her head in response. The car fell silent for a few minutes as Sonya continued to enjoy Tone’s company in the backseat.

  “Baltimore, the city that reads,” Tone mocked a sign he saw at a nearby bus stop.

  “Niggas out here call it, the city that bleeds, Bri retorted.

  By the time they arrived at Sonya’s off-campus apartment, she was already hot and bothered. Soon as they closed the apartment door, the couple engaged in a long, deep sensual kiss. Sonya’s hands were like an octopus, roaming freely over every inch of his body. She gripped his rock hard dick with one hand, while unfastening his belt buckle with the other. All the touching and kissing was a lead-up to more serious matters.

  “Chill,” Tone cautioned his girlfriend as he felt his pants becoming undone. “Yo, I need to hit dat shower real quick. That bus ride got me sticky.”

  Sonya didn’t like the idea of postponing their sex, not even for a few minutes. But since it was a hygiene issue she understood.

  “Lemme get you a clean washcloth and a towel,” she told him.

  She returned quickly with a big, fluffy white towel and a matching washcloth.

  “The bathroom is in the back, first door on ya right,” she explained, handing the things to Tone.

  “Thanks,” Tone said, with a devious look in his eyes.

  “Don’t take long.” Sonya warned. “I been waitin’ on you all day.”

  “Then a few more minutes won’t kill you,” Tone shot back.

  Although she wanted to join him in the shower, Sonya made no move to follow her lover, instead she watched him disappear down the hallway, into the bathroom. Seductively, she bit her bottom lip with a nasty grin on her face.

  “I won’t,” Tone promised as he closed the bathroom door.

  Sonya entered her bedroom and went to open her top dresser drawer. She put on a t-shirt, minus the bra, and sexy lace hot pink boy shorts on, then returned to the living room and waited for Tone to exit the shower.

  “How was ya shower,” Sonya asked.

  “Good money,” he admitted. “A nigga really needed that. Yo, I was sticky as a motherfucka. Word!”

  Tone headed straight toward Sonya, bare-chested and naked, except for the white towel that donned his waist. This was the first time today that Sonya could fully admire his chiseled physique. His well-defined upper torso glistened with small beads of water. Walking straight into Sonya’s arms, the lovers picked up where they had left off.

  Their lips locked in a kiss as their tongues swirled inside each other’s mouths. After a few passionate minutes of that, Tone maneuvered his lips from her mouth to her neck area. She trembled as the hot, wet, tingling sensation of his tongue traveled down her spine. Sonya threw her head back, exposing more of her neck. The good feeling was going directly to her head. Her body hadn’t felt this aroused in months. All she wanted was for Tone to continue to touch her, keeping up the foreplay. Sexually she was his for the taking.

  Tone placed his hand near Sonya’s private area. Her legs quickly spread to give him full access to her vagina. He rubbed her clit through the thin material, discovering just how wet Sonya was at the moment. Slowly, Tone began to nibble on her earlobe before shoving his tongue into her ear. He receive his own sense of enjoyment from just the thought of knowing what he was doing was pleasing her.

  “Damn, ya pussy is so fuckin’ wet,” he whispered.

  Suddenly Sonya ripped off Tone’s towel, flinging it to the floor and grabbed a handful of his manhood. In one motion she pulled away from Tone and dropped to her knees. Sonya began sucking Tone’s penis, using both hands. She bobbed her head back and forth with such ferocity Tone’s toes curled. He had to do everything in his power to keep from cummin’. The anticipation was driving him crazy.

  “Yyyyeeeeaaaahhhhh…..” he moaned. “That’s what I’m talkin’ bout. Suck that dick like you love me.”

  Placing his hand on the top of her head, Tone help guide his dick deeper and deeper into her mouth. He forced so much of himself into her mouth that Sonya gagged a few times, forcing her to stop temporarily. He pulled Sonya to her feet and tongue kissed her deeply as he removed her panties, then her t-shirt. After that, Tone dragged her to the living room floor and immediately began eating Sonya’s pussy. He had done this a million times, performing oral sex on her wasn’t just standard practice, it was mandatory. Sonya really got off that way.

  “Oh, you shaved this pussy, huh?” Tone stated as he came up for air.

  “Just for you,” Sonya confessed.

  Like a madman Tone went back to eating So
nya’s pussy, with the intent on making her cum. At this pace it didn’t take long to make that happen. Sonya’s body began to twitch violently as she clamped her legs around his head.

  “I’mmmmm ccccuuuuummmmiiiinnnn’,” she cried out.

  Hearing those words made Tone go harder. Sonya desperately tried to pry his head from in between her legs as she climaxed. Successful, she moved her vagina away from Tone’s mouth as she savored the moment.

  “Good, huh,” Tone bragged, looking up at her.

  “Yyyyyaaaassss!” she raved.

  Sonya may have gotten hers, but Tone had yet to get his. Earlier in the car, he had whispered in her ear that he was going to fuck the shit out of her, now he was going to make good on that promise.

  Tone got on top of Sonya and slid right inside her. He began fucking her missionary style. As their bodies pressed together, the heat and friction that they were producing caused the couple to sweat profusely. Perspiration came with the territory as they ignored it and continued having sex.

  “Turn over!” he commanded her.

  Sonya followed his orders and flipped into doggy style position on all fours on the floor. Immediately Tone inserted his penis back inside her vagina and began jamming away. Loud sounds of skin smacking together, combined with the sight of Sonya’s round ass, sent Tone into a sexual frenzy. A few seconds later, he busted a nut and collapsed on top of her.

  That first night together they had sex all over the house; the living room, bathroom, kitchen, and finally the bedroom. There was no limit on what they did sexually or where they did it.

  After taking a shower together, the couple called it a night and went to bed. They were both sexually satisfied and physically exhausted. Sonya lay in the bed underneath the down comforter, spooning with Tone. This was the happiest she had been in a long time. Her mind, body and soul were in a good place. She began to drift off to sleep.

  “Yo, what’s up with ya cousin Stew?” Tone suddenly inquired. “Wasn’t you suppose to call him for me? Huh?”

  “Yeah,” she mumbled. “I’ll call him tomorrow. It’s late right now. His ass not home. He probably out runnin’ the streets.”