The People vs. Cashmere

by Karen P. Williams

  I befriended one of the hoes, Peaches, who had been down with Black for over four years. Ol’ girl was twenty-two but looked like she was in her thirties. They said that’s what the game did, age the hell out of you.

  Black kept her around because, according to him, she could suck a mean dick. And I knew for a fact that he dibbled and dabbled with all the hoes in the building. Once I caught him, Desiree, and Peaches in bed together. I almost vomited at that nasty shit. Peaches was a tow-up looking ho. Just being real. She’d been getting a weave in her hair by some chick named Crystal, who lived in Carson, but was on maternity leave, and some other chick ended up burning her hair out. So she was taking a break from it.

  So I offered to braid her hair for her and had been working on it that whole morning.

  “Girl, you must have some magic fingers,” she exclaimed, touching her hair.

  I just laughed. It felt good to be able to do braids again. I had just finished the first half of her hair when Black slammed into the house. See, we had snuck, ’cause her ass said he was going to be making rounds on the track.

  “Hey, Black,” she said nervously. “Your girl Cashmere here was just doing my hair. Now I know you said we couldn’t hang, but I needed to get my hair right, so I can go out and make them ends for ya. I wasn’t doing too good on that, since the weave come out. You said presentation is everything, right?”

  He stood in the doorway, where we couldn’t see his face, there being no light there.

  I bit my bottom lip, feeling uneasy.

  “Go home, Cashmere.” He walked past me.

  Before I made it to the door. I glanced back and saw him walk up to Peaches. He took one look at her, and hauled off and slapped her in the mouth, and she started crying.

  “Go home, Cashmere,” he repeated.

  I slipped out the doors, but heard him tell her, “Bitch, go out like that and make my dough looking stupid just like that, and if you short, I’m fucking you up!”

  My heart started to pound as I dashed out and went to me and Desiree’s apartment.

  When he came back to the house. I was sitting on the couch.

  “Go in the room.”

  I did, and he followed after me. I was waiting for him to slap me like Peaches, but instead, he told me, “Take off your clothes.”

  I did quickly and stood in front of him. His eyes raked my body. The only real change these past couple months was my titties were bigger and my hips slightly wider.

  “Listen, Cashmere, and listen well. You are a ho. That’s what you do. You are not a hairstylist. You fuck, suck dick and assholes, and even feet, if need be. You get ambitious again, and I will fuck you up.”

  There was fire in his eyes, but not once did he raise his voice above a whisper. But he still scared me so much. I nodded my head over and over again. But instead of fucking me up, he fucked the shit out of me.

  My punishment for getting “ambitious” was being put on the track that night with fat-lipped Peaches. Desiree got my trick, and she couldn’t have been happier about the shit. That night out there, shivering like a damn fool, part of me wanted to take a chance and run away. It wasn’t the first time I thought about doing it. But every ten minutes Black would cruise on by, letting me know not to try it. I didn’t bother to even look at him as he slid down the street past me.

  Another pimp casually approached me talking that dumb shit. “Say, ho, you need to get with a winna, that’s a winna like myself. They broke the mold when they made a pimp like me, ho. I’ll make all your ho wishes come true.”

  Black told me whenever a pimp approached me with that lingo to keep on pushing, so I kept my head down and brushed right past him. But every time I turned around, his silly ass was on my heels.

  He must’ve said, “Say, ho,” at least forty times, until I couldn’t take it anymore and ran in the opposite direction.

  He got the hint and went after another ho. He did it in the nick of time too, ’cause Black sped by me again and hit the corner. He was probably going to check on another ho.

  I took a deep breath and froze when I felt something poke me in the small of my back.

  Whoever had something in my back said, “Walk.”

  I nodded, scared out of my mind. Judging from the prick, I thought it was a knife. I walked slowly and said, “I don’t have any—”

  “Shut the fuck up! It’s not your money I want.” The knife slid up some more, making me stumble. “Keep on walking.” He guided me into the empty parking lot.

  Just my luck. I was crying and holding my breath at the same time, not knowing what this man planned to do to me.

  I finally looked at him when he shoved me further into the lot and paused between two cars. He was tall as hell with a cap on his head. It was so dark, I could barely make out his features. And I only got a second’s worth of a glance.

  “Get them pants down.”

  “No, please.” Then I sobbed and felt my shoulders moving up and down with my crying.

  He reached over and slapped me in my face. Blood trickled down my lip, as he held the knife to my neck. “I’m gonna repeat myself just one more time—Get them pants down.”

  My fingers were shaking, but I managed to do as he told me to, crying the whole time and begging him with my eyes not to hurt me. Once my pants and panties were around my ankles, he shoved roughly me on the concrete, making me skin one of my knees.

  I cried but couldn’t fight him because he had the knife pressed against my throat and an arm pressed around my neck.

  “Bitch, don’t move.”

  “Okay,” I said in a weak voice, still crying.

  He kneeled behind me. “Where you want me to fuck you?

  “Huh?”

  He slapped me again, and heat filled my face.

  “You want it here?” He slid the knife to my pussy. “Or here?” He slid it to my asshole.

  “The first place, please.”

  “Naw, your pussy probably run-through.” And without reprieve, he pressed his dick in my asshole.

  My screams were muffled as he had one hand over my mouth, the other around my neck, the knife clutched in his fingers, and he kept on jamming.

  When it wouldn’t go in, he yelled, “Fuck!” and repositioned himself, leaning back and jamming himself all the way into me, making a growling sound.

  He slipped out of me, and right back in, hard and fast, breathing harshly and gripping my neck harder. I screamed as heat and burning spread throughout my body. I could feel my skin tearing.

  He heaved in loudly and jammed me and started moaning as he rocked behind me. Then he pulled out and went in, out, and in, shoving me forward each time, pressing my kneecaps into the concrete and making them chafe.

  I couldn’t describe how the pain felt, except to say that I felt like I was being stabbed. I sobbed and kept my eyes closed and prayed it would be over soon, as he gripped a tighter hold on me, slid it in my pussy, then back into my ass, moaning loudly and busting into my ass.

  I was sure I was bleeding now, and it was my blood mixed with his cum that was leaking down my legs.

  Then he left me out there.

  If I was never the same and lost touch with reality and who I was, it was in that moment.

  Desiree was acting real weird. She couldn’t stop bragging about getting one of my clients, and the fact that for once I had to be on the cold-ass track. She claimed she was able to stay warm with the dude, who spoiled the hell out of her on their date, and that he had requested her again and again, which pleased Black.

  I told her, “Kiss my ass. I don’t care how many times he requests you.” Any reminder of that night brought back to mind what happened to me with that dude who raped me on that cold-ass concrete.

  My butt bled for three days straight, and I couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t shake the feelings of wanting to die, so I took a pill to help me forget, and when that didn’t help, I went back to digging in my skin.

  Then I worked on getting back into Black’s goo
d graces, so I never had to be out there again. But for a whole week Black had me out there.

  Desiree wasn’t on Black’s jock anymore and kept bugging him to see if the trick named Raphael had requested her again. If Black said yes, she’d nod coolly, but once he left the room, she couldn’t stop cheesing. I just assumed he paid her well.

  Chapter 18

  couple weeks later I found out what the deal was. I was knocked out when Desiree woke me up with a kick in my ass. I ignored her and turned my back to her. “Cash, get up. This is serious. God, this shit is serious.”

  I sucked my teeth and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. “What?” I narrowed my eyes at her as I sat up in the bed and saw her fidgeting and tapping on something behind her back.

  She cleared her throat and bit her lip. “Ummm, I need you to help me do this.”

  I slid out of the bed. “Do what?”

  She shoved a box in my hands so quick, I didn’t have time to grasp it before it fell. When I bent over to retrieve it and read the label, my eyes widened. It was a pregnancy test.

  “Is it Black’s?”

  She gave me a long stare and picked at her nails. “If it was, do you think I would be tripping? But we always use condoms.” She looked down and offered a weak smile.

  “Desiree, don’t tell me.”

  “I love him, Cashmere. Finally I found someone to love me for me.”

  Desiree was a sucker for chances. Fucking with the trick, like she was doing, was suicide, but obviously she didn’t care. She went on and on about how good he treated her, but I was half-listening.

  Desiree was eighteen now, but the bitch read at a third-grade level, so I was reading the instructions on how to do the pregnancy test. And it turned out that she was very, very pregnant.

  She screamed and kicked the laundry basket. “I’m not prepared for this!”

  “You stupid.”

  She paced around in a circle. “Shit, Black don’t show me no love. All he ever has his mind on is you. Now he showing me some attention ’cause he mad at you. But I didn’t care anymore ’cause I was getting caught up in ol’ boy. And he has some good dick. But it’s not just that.” She had a dreamy smile on her face as she continued to pace.

  I waved a hand at that bullshit she was talking. “What are you going to do?”

  She stopped pacing and gave me a dumb look. “Whatchu think? The man loves me. He was begging me to leave Black for him, and now that I’m pregnant, I have a reason to. But, to be quite honest, the last thing I need is a snotnosed muthafucka to take care of, but hell, like I always tell you sometimes, you got to do what you got to do. So I’ll go on and ride this baby thing out to get my man, ’cause I love my boo-boo, and I think he’ll make a good daddy.”

  I shook my head at her, as she made the decision for us to leave Black.

  How Desiree got the money up to get us the bus tickets, I don’t know, since Black pretty much controlled the dough we made. But she was sure able to get up enough for us to take the Greyhound to Oakland, and enough for us to get us both burger specials at some café. I was happy though. I didn’t want to be with Black, or to hook, anymore than she did.

  When we got there with our backpacks and a few clothes, Desiree and I walked about three blocks until we made it to a Motel 6.

  “This where we always meet,” she said excitedly. “He’ll probably call a cab to come scoop us up.”

  I shrugged, not sharing her excitement. I just had a funny feeling the whole way there. I stared down at the crisscross cuts all over the back of my hands and wrists while she made her phone call at a booth. Whenever Black saw them, he told me I needed to stop doing that to myself, but he didn’t know what was going on in my head, and he damn sure couldn’t take the pain away. He was partly the cause of it.

  My thought was interrupted by Desiree’s yelling, “But I thought you said—”

  He must have cut her off, because she paused her loud-ass voice and started tapping her foot on the ground, frowning like our mother used to.

  “But, baby, we out here and we—”

  I chuckled when he cut her off again.

  Suddenly she yelled into the phone at the top of her lungs, “You lying muthafucka!” Then she took the earpiece and beat it against the base of the phone over and over again, yelling, “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Then she crumbled to the ground and started crying.

  My sister wasn’t very smart or resourceful, but when something became an issue of bodily harm and possible death, she knew what moves to make. Case in point, we ended up selling drugs yet again in Oakland for some dude named Rocco, out of this abandoned house. In all honesty, we were only lookouts for the dude, Desiree on one side, me on the other. We sat outside and alerted them whenever we saw the po-po coming, so it wasn’t as risky as it was before. Since there was nothing but dudes there, we didn’t have to worry about nobody fucking with us. Plus, Desiree was fucking Rocco. Since she was now eighteen, we stayed in a pretty cool hotel, and she was even talking about me going back to school.

  That shit didn’t last long, though. We showed up one day to find the place abandoned. None of the usual dudes were there, and the next thing we knew, cluckers were crowding the room for shit we didn’t have.

  “Where Rocco? Where Rocco?”

  “He ain’t here. We don’t know where the fuck he is,” Desiree snapped.

  That’s when Black walked in the room.

  Before he could even look me in the eye, I was running and yelling for Desiree to do the same, but he easily reached out and snatched me up by the back of my neck and held me so I couldn’t move. Hell, I could barely breathe, because of the pressure. Then he grabbed De-siree by her ponytail, yanking her back.

  Desiree did all the talking. “Black, I’m—”

  He ignored her and turned to the three cluck-heads. “I’m sorry y’all didn’t get what y’all needed. Maybe I can accommodate y’all with something just as good.”

  The three cluckers turned to Black curiously.

  “Black!” Desiree screamed.

  “Shut the fuck up, ho.” Black’s hold on me tightened.

  “Y’all can have a go with her, and the shit is for free.”

  I struggled against him as he held me firmly, giving me no choice but to scream at the top of my lungs. He shoved Desiree so hard, she fell on the ground, and the crackheads were given the opportunity to get a free fuck from her.

  I tried to pull away from Black, but this time he twisted my arm, making me cry out. I closed my eyes but couldn’t help but hear her crying, slapping sounds, and the cluckers’ moans.

  Black said, “You wanna run away from me?”

  Somebody roared, “Yeah!”

  My sister was bawling like a baby. “I’m sorry!”

  I just wanted the shit to be over.

  I peeked at Desiree laid out on the ground, the dude over her. When he finished, he didn’t even bother wiping his dick. He shoved it in his pants and ran out the warehouse.

  She had one dude to go. As he fucked her, there was no expression in her eyes. After that dude busted quickly and vanished as well, Desiree struggled to put on her clothes.

  I thought I was next, but I wasn’t.

  We were both shoved in his car. I was still nervous as hell ’cause I knew my punishment was far from over.

  Chapter 19

  Once we got back to LA, Black dropped Desiree off on the track. “You got tonight to make up for the dough I lost, ho, or I’m fucking you up.” In the rearview mirror, I watched her sadly limp away to the corner.

  Once we made it home, Black hissed for me to go straight to my room, like he was my Daddy. I did it though. He was behind me and closed the door softly. When he pulled the belt from his pants, my eyes widened.

  “No, Daddy. I’m sorry.”

  He pulled me in his arms and said gently, “I have to, baby. You can’t be running away from me.”

  Instead of hitting me, he sat me on the bed, and pulled off his pants and shirt so he was in a
wife-beater and boxers, and walked into the bathroom. A few moments later I heard water running.

  Black came back and began stripping me of my clothes. Then he shoved me on the bed. He walked back in the bathroom.

  I dug my hands in my flesh again. The shit was really starting to be a habit. It went from every once in a while to all the time. After each trick I always ended up with a new mark, and ended up with five more after the dude raped me.

  “Cashmere.”

  I walked naked in the bathroom, expecting to be burnt with an iron or a cigarette. I met him there sitting on the edge on the tub, his head in his hands. There was water and suds filled to the rim of the tub.

  He raised his head and looked at me. “I was losing my mind thinking I lost you.”

  I lowered my lashes.

  “Get in the tub.”

  I slipped in with the quickness. Even though the water was warm. I was shivering.

  Black kneeled down and grabbed a wash towel, and began washing my body with it. “Do I make it real hard for you, Cashmere?”

  I didn’t reply.

  “I took you and your sister in. Gave you a home. I pay for yo Daddy. I’m more than fair to you.” He clutched the washrag and soap so hard, the bar of soap slipped from his fingers.

  “You treat me and my sister like shit,” I wanted to say, but instead asked, “Why I’m not out there with Desiree? I ran away too.”

  “Desiree don’t have what you have, Cashmere. I can’t just treat you like you generic. Like I said before, you got the potential to be my bottom bitch.” He poured some shampoo in my hair and lathered it up. “You know you’re special to me.”

  Maybe if it wasn’t coming from a pimp, it would have been nice to hear.

  “Niggas been blowing my Sidekick up for you. I can probably let the other hoes go and live off of you alone.

  You really think I’m giving that up?” He tilted my head back and rinsed the soap out of my hair, which hung down my back.