“Are you okay, ma’am?” someone tapped me on my shoulder.
I looked around and saw it was one of the hotel workers.
“Yes, I’m fine. Thank you.” I shot him a fake smile.
I quickly straightened myself up, wiped the tears from my eyes, and got myself the fuck together. I couldn’t be falling apart out here with all these people around. There was no telling who knew whom, and the last thing that I needed was for the word to get out that I was breaking down and shit in public. And with the way people were recording shit with their phones, it would be nothing for that shit to be recorded and shared all over social media. I could see the caption now: “Probation Officer Has Nervous Breakdown After Catching Husband Cheating At Hotel.” Nope, that wouldn’t be me. I wasn’t about to be the next viral sensation or hashtag ’round here. Especially not looking a mess in my sweatpants, T-shirt, and slippers. Honestly, I had no business out here with this shit on anyway. My career would be over. I would be made a laughingstock. None of my parolees would take me seriously ever again. And all them bitches who knew that I didn’t have a perfect life would have something to gossip about around the water cooler.
Sucking it up, I did what real bitches did when the shit that their intuition told them was right in their faces. I needed to figure out my next move. But instead of taking my ass home and packing my things, my feet seemed to have a mind of their own and led me in the opposite direction of the exit. Without thinking, I made my way down the hall and stood in front of the hotel room. Mind racing, filled with rage, I knocked on the door. At first, no one answered. I knocked on the door again, this time harder.
“Who is it?” a woman yelled.
“It’s room service,” I yelled, changing up my voice.
“We didn’t order any food,” she yelled back.
“The manager asked me to deliver this bottle of Dom Pérignon as an appreciation for you staying with us.”
I guess the mention of champagne piqued her interest because the door flew wide open. A white bitch stood there in her robe, blinking slowly. She looked at me, then past me like she was waiting on someone to come down the hallway with a bucket of iced champagne.
“Who are you, and where is the champagne?” She looked confused.
“I’m Mika, and I’m here for my husband.” I looked dead into her face.
“Your husband? Lady, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m in here with my fiancé—”
I pushed that bitch out of the way and made my way into the room. There my husband was laid out across the bed with his dick in his hand.
“You trifling-ass nigga,” I yelled as I lunged toward him.
He opened his eyes, looked at me, and jumped up off the bed. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I should be asking you that. I’m your fucking wife, and you laid up in a hotel room with this cracker bitch. How could you do this to me?”
“Baby, please explain this to me. Who is this woman, and why is she saying you’re her husband?”
“This is my wife—”
“Your wife? I thought you were divorced. Why did you propose to me?” she asked before she started crying.
“You a lying piece of shit. You left me at home to come to screw this old crackhead-looking bitch.” I looked at him and felt pity.
“Bitch, I ain’t never smoked crack a day in my life. Rasheem, you better get this ho before I stomp a hole in her face.”
“Bitch, how about I get you?” I let all professionalism go at that moment. I ran up on that ho and punched her a few times in her face.
“Stop! You’re not thinking clearly. You have your job to worry about,” Rasheem yelled. This nigga grabbed me and put me in a bear hug.
“I’m pressing charges on you, bitch! You’re going to jail,” that ho yelled.
“Shut the fuck up, Gina,” he yelled in anger.
“Get the fuck off me. Matter of fact, you need to get your shit out of my house. I want a fucking divorce, you hear me? I’m done, Rasheem.” I yelled as I head-butted him with the back of my head, and he dropped me. I caught myself before I fell because the last thing that I needed was this bitch to catch me slipping and try to sneak me on some payback shit. Giving her the look of death, I couldn’t even look at his ass as I made my way out of the room.
I hadn’t had a physical fight in years, but because of this old cheating-ass nigga, I was in here acting a damn fool. I slowly walked and tried to calm myself before I went into the lobby and controlled my temper just enough to walk out the door. I got in my car, and then it came out. I didn’t cry in front of that nigga, but now that I was alone, I let it out.
I gave this nigga all these years of my life. Fucked him good, sucked his dick. Washed, cooked, and cleaned for him, and here he was laid up with this white trash. How could he disrespect me like this? How . . . I slammed my hand on my steering wheel to relieve some of the frustration that I was feeling. I sat in the parking lot a good five minutes before I was able to pull off.
“Fuck you, Rasheem. How could you do this to me?” I screamed aloud as I cried all the way to the house. I kept trying to make sense of all the shit that just went down. I knew we had some issues in our relationship. Yes, I thought he was creeping around, but to see it with my own two eyes just ripped my soul into tiny pieces. “I loved you, never cheated on you, and this is how you do me?” I asked the empty seat of my car as if Rasheem were sitting right there beside me.
I pulled into my driveway, got out of the car, and dashed upstairs. I ran into my bedroom and buried my head in my pillow. I was hurting so damn badly. I tried to control the tears, but they just wouldn’t stop.
“Mom, are you okay?” I heard Ky’s voice. I tried my best to wipe the tears away quickly, but I couldn’t. “Mom, you’re crying. What happened?” she rushed over to me and wrapped her arms around me while I sobbed. “Mom, talk to me. What’s wrong? Did Daddy do this to you? Did he hurt you?” I could tell that she was becoming more and more panicked with every question that she asked that I couldn’t compose myself enough to answer. Taking a deep breath, I pulled myself together long enough to answer her questions for her.
“I found your daddy with his mistress,” l let out between sobs.
“You did what? He had a woman here?”
“No, I followed him to the hotel, and I saw him kissing another woman. I can’t believe he did this to me.” I started sobbing harder.
“Are you serious? I’m going to call him. How could he do this to you? How?” She hugged me.
I wished I didn’t bring my baby girl into our shit, but I was hurting, and it felt good talking to someone else.
“Mom, I swear I kept telling you. You need to leave him. We can move up north. I would love to live in New York. I love my daddy and all, but he’s been no good for you. You’re beautiful, you’re strong, and you have your career. What do you really need him for?”
I heard the words coming out of my daughter’s mouth, but it didn’t make my heart hurt any less. I married this man because I loved him and wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. I didn’t plan on divorcing him. But what other option did he leave me?
Chapter Seven
Rasheem
“Hey, baby, I wasn’t expecting you back so—” Lauren said, but I cut her ass off. I wasn’t there for a conversation. I was there to get some stress off my chest.
“Suck my dick, bitch,” I commanded, and just like the good, obedient bitch she was, she dropped to her knees and snatched my joggers down.
I hadn’t even made it all the way in her house, and the door was still wide open. But she ain’t give a damn. She was servicing a nigga like suckin’ my dick was her full-time job. And it was. I paid all the bills in this bitch, just like I did at home. The difference was, I got all the pleasure with none of the fuckin’ naggin’. If she had some class about herself, I would leave Mika’s ass for her. But there was a difference between the bitches you fucked and the ones that you wifed up.
For a while, Mika was enough for me. But when I asked for a threesome on my fiftieth birthday a few years ago, and she said no, I told her that I was gon’ have one with or without her, and I’d meant that shit. Lauren had been with the shit, and she’d brought her friend to make my fantasy a reality. That friend was Gina. And the way that bitch sucked and fucked me had a nigga hooked like a drug. I didn’t do white bitches and never expected to take her ass seriously. But a couple of threesomes later, and we started sneaking and hooking up behind Lauren’s back.
She was everything that Mika wasn’t, and something outside of my norm. Unlike my black bitches, she never talked back—well, not until tonight when Mika’s ass busted up in the hotel room on our asses. She showed me why niggas fucked with white bitches. It was just . . . easy.
I never really intended on marrying her, but after fucking with her as long as I had, she wanted some kinda commitment, so I got her ass a ring and put on the whole romantic scene and shit. It was so easy to sell some of these bitches dreams. But that dream wouldn’t ever become a reality because—well, it couldn’t. They would never take me seriously at work if I came up in there talking about I had a white bitch on my arm. They may have been status symbols in some places, but I was still in the South, and I mean the Deep South. They woulda tanked my whole career behind some shit like that. And a nigga’s reputation was all he had.
That’s why Mika was so necessary. She fit the whole mold for my success in my career and life. And it wasn’t like she wasn’t bad in bed, either. She just wasn’t down for all the shit that a nigga wanted to do. And being my wife, there wasn’t shit she should’ve denied me. I took damn good care of her. She only worked because she wanted to. She upgraded her car every fuckin’ year. She had more name-brand shit in her closet than them Kardashian bitches, and she wasn’t even fuckin’ me like I knew they were fuckin’ their niggas. I mean, hell, they had to be doin’ something special, ’cause them niggas lost their minds. And that’s what I needed from Mika—that mind-mushing fuck. But she wasn’t with the shit. And that’s why her prudish ass had to spend some nights at home alone.
I never woulda thought she woulda gone all secret agent on a nigga. I thought she was too classy for that. But I should’ve seen it coming with the way that she had been on a nigga lately. I should’ve just laid this pipe on her ass, and that would’ve got some get right in her. But instead, I’d left Gina’s crying ass at the hotel and came over here to Lauren’s house. I knew I should’ve gone home, but the way that Mika was, I didn’t want to give her grounds to kill my ass. If I went home right now, it could be considered a crime of passion, and I wasn’t tryin’a go out like that.
“Ooooh shit! Hum on them balls, baby! Just like that, Mika,” I moaned out, grinding harder into her face.
Pop! The sound of my dick aggressively exiting her mouth made me look at her like she’d lost her damn mind.
“I know I don’t look like no damn Mika to you!” she snapped, rolling her eyes and getting up off her knees. It wasn’t until then that it registered on me what I’d said. Now I knew that my wife was the woman for me. Why it took another bitch’s throat to be massaging my dick for me to get it, I had no idea. But I got it now, and I knew that I had to make shit right with Mika. “Do I look like some old-ass bitch who can’t keep her man satisfied?” Lauren kept saying, and it was pissing me off the more she talked.
Was this what people thought about my wife? I guess I had never considered how this shit would make her look to these bitches out here. All I was tryin’a do was get my dick wet from time to time. But the words that Lauren had just spat at me made me realize what I’d really done—to Mika, to our marriage. I had her out here looking like she wasn’t shit when she was really my backbone. She was the reason that I woke up every morning. She was the mother of my child. Well, my first one anyway.
“Did you hear me, Sheem? Or you over here fantasizing about that bitch?” she was in full ratchet mode at this point, rolling her neck, popping her lips, and pointing them long-ass nails in my face.
“You better simmer the hell down, Lauren. You still need to realize who the fuck you talkin’ to. I get it. What I just did was disrespectful as fuck, and I’m sorry. My head just ain’t where it’s supposed to be. But you’re talking about the mother of my child,” I said, and as soon as the words came outta my mouth, I wished they hadn’t.
“Just get out, Sheem,” she said, her attitude fully gone, and her eyes starting to brim with tears. What the hell was it with me making all my bitches cry tonight? I was really slippin’, and that wasn’t like me. I knew that I had to make it right with Mika. Once shit was good with us, then the rest of them would be easy to get back on track.
“I’m sorry, Lauren,” I said, pulling my joggers up and finally closing the door. The last thing that I needed was these messy-ass folks out here all in my business.
“Just go home, Rasheem. To the mother of your child,” she repeated, the words choking her, and the tears finally pouring from her eyes.
“You knew what I meant—”
“No, actually, I don’t know what you meant, nigga. I’m the mother of your child too. And why are you here, anyway? Ain’t this your time with Gina?” she asked, laughing and crying at the same time, looking like a madwoman. I guess the look of shock on my face was funny to her. “What? You didn’t think I knew about you and her? About the proposal that she couldn’t wait to throw in my face? Nah, nigga, I been knew. But you pay the bills over here, and you keep a bitch real comfortable, so I let you do what the fuck you wanted to do. I knew you wasn’t gonna leave Mika’s ass, so if Gina wanted to be happy with that delusion, I let her ass. I tried to tell her you had a wife, but she told me that I was just mad that you chose her. Guess her ass gotta humblin’ tonight, huh?”
The more she talked, the harder she laughed. She was giving me the business, and that shit was hitting me in the gut. Every word was a lick to my ego. I realized that how I was seen was worse than they could ever see my wife. I was just a cash cow, an old nigga who was willing to pay for some young pussy, and they passed my ass around like the collection plate on Sunday mornings. I stood there speechless, feeling like I was the one who had been played, all the while thinking that I was the one doing the playing. Nobody wanted to be my wife for real, but Mika. Nobody would put up with me and my shit the way that she did. Nobody knew me, matched my grind, and shared dreams of a real future but her. And here I was, out here playing the fuck outta her and myself. And for what?
“You ain’t got shit to say now, huh?” Lauren kept on with the verbal abuse. “That’s a’ight. You can go home to your wife and not come back here ever again. My real baby daddy is out now, so you ain’t gotta buy that lie no more,” she said, and that made me close the space between us in a few steps and pick her ass up by her throat. I squeezed tight enough to stop her ass from talking, but it didn’t make her stop laughing.
Did this bitch just say that the child I had been taking care of for the past seven years wasn’t mine? I knew I couldn’t have heard her right.
“You . . . might . . . wanna . . . put me down. I own you, Sheem,” she eeked out, with a smile on her face. I dropped her ass on the floor and turned to leave the house. “And I still expect my checks to come every week in the same amount too, boo. Or it’s over—for more than your fuckin’ marriage,” she yelled at my back, laughing again.
I didn’t respond—I just opened the door, walked out, and slammed that bitch behind me. I didn’t wanna hear her voice or see her face, or I might’ve done some shit that
I would regret. I knew before this was all over, I was gonna have to murder Lauren’s ass. And Gina’s ass too. Those bitches really could ruin a nigga, and I knew that, now, they had no reason not to.
My shit was falling apart, and the only person who could make it better, I had betrayed in a way that I might not be able to come back from. Mika didn’t know this, but a nigga was willing to kill to keep her. And I damned sure planned to kill her ass too before I lost her and let another nigga have the great woman that she was . . . the woman that I’d been taking for granted.
As I got in my car driving as fast as hell to get home before Mika left for work, the words that stood out most of the shit that Lauren was spitting at me replayed in my mind. My real baby daddy is out now . . . I didn’t know that nigga was free. I was gonna have to take care of his ass too, before Lauren got to him and told him that I was the reason he’d lost seven years of his freedom.
Chapter Eight
Mika
I must’ve fallen asleep last night when Ky’Imani was talking to me. I woke up, still dressed in my clothes, looked over beside me, and noticed Rasheem was not in bed. Everything that happened last night flashed back in my head. I felt the tears forming, but I tried my best not to let them out. I was hurting and disappointed, but I wasn’t no weak bitch and wasn’t going to sit around here crying over this man. God knows I’m a good woman, and I deserved better than what he was dishing out. The face of the white bitch flashed in my head. The bitch wasn’t no model-type bitch. She looked more like white trash—the kind that will suck your dick for twenty bucks. He was a stupid-ass nigga. How you go from classy to trashy?
The alarm started going off. This was my cue to get my ass up and take a shower. I hated going in today, but I had a job to do. There’s no way I was going to sit at home, moping around.
After my shower, I dried off and took a glance at myself in the mirror. For me to be this age, I had to admit that I was still a baddie. After having my daughter, I had a breast implant, so my breasts were sitting up lovely. These squats over the years definitely gave me a plump ass. My stomach was flat, even though I had a few stretchy marks. Looking at me, you couldn’t tell that I was 45. Numerous times, I got compliments from men telling me I looked like I was in my twenties. I would just look at them, smile, and walk off, all along, smiling inside.
Finessed a Dope Boy's Heart Page 6