“It’s the truth.”
“If that pussy was on fire and you had to get a nut real quick then just say that. You ain’t gotta lie,” he stated as cool as the other side of the pillow.
I couldn’t believe that nigga. He couldn’t be for real. “Nigga, you are tripping with yourself.”
“Naw, you tripping with yourself. As a matter of fact…” he spat, and then just decided to hang up in my face.
I had to read his ass so I called him back.
“What?” he asked as soon as he picked up.
“Why the hell did you hang up on me?” I snapped.
There was no answer. He hung up again. We did this for about five more calls before I realized that he really wasn’t going to talk to me. I had half the mind to just drive to his damn house and make him listen to me, but he still lived with his mama and I didn’t want go over there and disrespect her house.
Slim had fucked my night up with that shit, so I couldn’t fall back asleep. It was kind of late so I didn’t want to call any of my friends; so I scrolled through my phone looking for someone to talk to. I came across Killah’s number. It had been a while since I’d talked to him. Slim was on some hating shit the last time I spoke to him. We hadn’t even decided if we were a couple by then, but he made his presence known every time I received a call from another dude. I often thought about Killah, but I didn’t want to get attached to somebody like him. Still I didn’t mind hearing his voice so I let my fingers do the thinking. They pressed the send button and his line started ringing.
“Hello,” he answered over the loud music.
“Hey,” I spoke shyly.
“Who is this?” he asked as he lowered the music. I knew that that meant that he’d deleted my number out of his phone.
“This is um…Celebrity.”
“You still won’t tell a nigga your real name, huh?”
“Why should I? You didn’t even bother to save my number.”
“Yes, I did. I still got your number in my phone. I just felt like fucking with you just like you fuck with me.”
“What you mean?” I asked, playing dumb.
“Come on, baby girl. Don’t play crazy. You know how you been doing me. I asked you for a little of your time and you can’t even do that. And then I called you and found out that you been giving some other buster ass nigga my time.”
“It ain’t even like that. I just thought that you weren’t going to care if I fucked with you or not. I know that there are plenty of other chicks you’re dealing with.”
“Nah, you got me confused with them other cats. I’m trying to see you. Fuck these bitches out here.”
I was listening and it sent a chill down my spine to hear him talk like that. It really sounded like he was digging me, but I just didn’t know. Right when I was about to blow caution to the wind and tell him to come see me, my line clicked. It was Slim.
“Hey, Killah can I call you right back?” I asked.
“Man…you ain’t gon call a nigga,” he sucked his teeth, not believing me.
“I am. Just give me like ten minutes.”
“Alright, mama,” he sighed, right before I clicked over.
“Hello,” I answered, hoping that he hadn’t hung up.
“Who the fuck was you on the phone with?” Slim questioned me.
“What are you talking about?”
“You think I’m crazy. Your phone rings a certain way when you’re on the phone, Keirah.”
“Well, I was talking to Kerry,” I lied.
“Oh yeah? Man…that broad is nuts.”
“Why you say that?” I asked him.
“You remember she said that she was on her period the night that we all met?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, you know that her and Boo still fucked.”
“Yeah, I know.” I shook my head.
“Well, now she is calling over here talking about she pregnant.”
“What?” I hadn’t heard that yet. I hadn’t really been talking to Kerry since her dumb ass had gone and married Jay’s sorry ass. They had a charity wedding thrown by Jay’s mama’s church way out in the country somewhere.
“Yeah, then my brother got something from her. He says that it’s a bacterial infection or some shit. I’m not saying that she had a disease cause Boo is uncircumcised and can get a bacterial infection easily; and that can definitely be the case when you fucking a bitch while she’s on her period.”
“No, she hadn’t told me about that shit. And how is she just gon call and tell your brother that she’s pregnant when she got that nigga at home?” I wanted to know. There wasn’t any sense in sugarcoating shit. They already knew the situation first hand.
“That’s the same thing I said. Then I feel like she could have been fucking a couple of niggas, cause every day broads don’t just pull shit like she did.”
I didn’t say shit, because he was absolutely right. She was always sneaking off with different men from the chat line. And nobody was off limits. She even fucked with old, white, serial-killer-looking motherfuckas.
“My name Benet and I ain’t in it,” I sighed.
“Yeah, okay. Now back to your sneaky ass…you probably just like her while you talking. They say birds of a feather flock together.”
“No, I march to the beat of my own drum. She don’t influence me one way or another. If you don’t know that by now then you will soon see.”
“Yeah, okay,” he chuckled. I was glad that he’d finally lightened his mood.
I found myself giggling just cause. He did that to me. We actually talked all night long and got a few things ironed out. We both agreed that living at our parents’ house wasn’t going to cut it. He claimed that he needed to see me after work every night. He wanted to move out right then, but I told him that income tax season was just a month away so it would be smart to just wait until then. He was somewhat frustrated, but it was something that I just wasn’t going to bend on.
I thought about Killah for a brief second. I know that I told him that I would call him back, but I told myself that I’d be wasting my time living in a fantasy world because I could never actually have a future with a man like him, so why even bother?
* * * * *
2005
The New Year flew by, and before I knew it, I was preparing to move out with Chantez. Everything was falling right into place for me. I received my tax return that ended up being $5,500. After I paid my cousin for carrying her two kids, I had $4,500 left. I’d just finished paying off my 2000 Toyota Camry and I paid the deposit for our apartment. The deposit was just $100 and there was a move-in special with the first month free. Of course there were two ways to take advantage of the offer. The first was taking a free month then pay like $500 a month. The second option was to pay the rent up front and pay like $400 a month. I took the second option. I handled everything as if the apartment was mine alone. I didn’t want things to be anything like the first time when I got the apartment with Ken. I had to be in control of everything.
By the time the day came for us to move in, I had everything handled. I purchased furniture for $1,500 dollars and it was all set to be delivered. I spent about $200 at Walmart buying a microwave, vacuum, and the rest of my household items. After thinking about it a little further, I decided to pay my rent two months in advance. I didn’t share any of that with Slim. He didn’t even know how much my tax return was and that’s the way I wanted to keep it. After all of my business was handled and I got my paycheck a couple of times, I still had a nice amount of money put up so I decided to take a chance with Chantez. I wanted to invest $1,000 into him to see what he could really do. He’d just recently bought himself a hooptie, so I knew that his funds were looking funny. I told him about my plans on our first night in the apartment.
We were lying in the bed that I’d taken from my mama’s crib when I brought the conversation up. “So, how much money do you have to re-up?” I asked him.
“Why?” he asked as he looked at me strangely.
/> “Baby, just answer the question,” I sighed
“About five, why?”
“Cause I was thinking about giving you some money to flip. It would kind of be like you borrowing it. I can give you $1,000 and then you can rescore. And once you’ve flipped your money at least twice, you can pay me my money back.”
“No shit? You believe in a nigga like that?” he spoke with a grin.
“Yeah,” I nodded. I mean…I kind of believed in him, but this was really a test. $1,000 ain’t shit if it can show you what kind of man you have. I go to work every day so that $1,000 ain’t gon kill me if I never see it again. It was just that I was beginning to notice the dynamics of our relationship. I was always the person paying for everything but that wasn’t entirely his fault. I called myself trying to be fair because I knew that his money wasn’t that long, but a dumb man might mistake that for me trying to take care of him. That ain’t my style. I was just waiting for him to get on his feet so that he could really wear the pants in the relationship. So if I gave him $1,000 and he hustled the way that he was supposed to he could pay my money back and start paying some bills on the regular. But if he decided to fuck me, I would take that lost and get rid of his ass with the quickness.
Slim took me up on my offer. I waited patiently to see what he was made of. He was hardly ever at home. While I was at work, he usually got his rest and would hit the streets just a couple of hours after I’d get in. I was starting to think that he was fucking somebody else because he was barely touching me when he was home.
Finally, after little over a month, he came home with my $1,000. I ain’t gon lie, I was really thinking that he had fucked me over. But for once, I was glad that I was wrong. I was grinning from ear to ear as we went out to Walmart to buy a 55-inch flat screen TV. Chantez paid for that himself while my money stayed right in my purse. I couldn’t even explain the feeling. My man was being a man.
Chantez’s hustling never slowed down and I was cool with that. I had learned from Ken that you can’t change a man or preach to them about the pitfalls of the streets. I would have preferred that Slim had a legit job, but it was what it was. I was down either way it went. So I just sat back and watched my man make it happen.
After just two months of us being in our apartment, Slim’s cliental had changed. He went from scoring some stones to getting his work by the ounces. I knew that if he kept going in the right direction he’d get some kilos in no time. He’d bought himself another car and it was kind of old but he claimed that it was fixer-upper. He said that he didn’t want to spend a whole lot of money on a car until he had his money right. Eventually he started giving me money to put away or use for the bills if necessary. Shit, little did he know, but he had damn near paid the rent for the duration of the lease agreement.
Even though we were in a better place financially, I was bored out of my damn mind. I had gotten used to going out with my friends, but I’d been so busy trying to get situated in my apartment that it took me a minute to realize that I was turning into a bore. My girls were constantly calling me trying to get me to take them out, but I always had an excuse when it came to going out. In all honesty, I hadn’t been to the club since I’d gotten with Slim. In the beginning, I told him how I club hopped and he said that he was cool with it. He claimed that he’d grown out of the club scene. He was just twenty-six, but acted like a damn old man sometimes.
After Tameka called me for the tenth time begging me to go out, I gave in. Since she’d been back at her mama’s house she was like this party animal; exactly how I was when I first left Ken. I called Winter and she said that she was game for the club and we were set. I didn’t even bother calling Angel or Kerry because I did not feel like having to drive them around while they searched for babysitters and shit.
I walked into my closet and sifted through my clothes. I had been buying clothes like crazy and hadn’t worn them anywhere. Since I liked to keep it sexy, I grabbed a black mini skirt with a black halter top. I figured that I would gold accessorize my outfit out.
I was in a chipper mood as I unwrapped my hair. My hair had grown a little and was now hanging past the middle of my back. I was also noticing that my complexion had brightened up like two tones. I didn’t know if I was tripping, but it looked like I was glowing. The blonde streaks in my hair were matching my complexion to the T. The false eye lashes that I wore on my eyes had me looking like I had a hint of Asian in me. I put on my outfit on and was feeling more confident than I had in years.
I was about to put on my heels when I heard a knock at the door. I went to the living room and realized that I had the top lock preventing Slim from getting in. So, I unlocked the door and opened it.
“Why the fuck you had that top lock locked?” he asked as he walked in and stared down at me. Then he took a look around the room as if he expecting someone else to be in there with me. I was so caught up in him that I didn’t realize that he had somebody with him. A short, light-skinned dude walked in.
“Close the door, Red,” Chantez said to his company before he focused back on me. “What the fuck do you have on?”
“This is just a skirt and a halter,” I shrugged, as I switched back to our room. I thought that I was in the room alone until I turned to find that he was right behind me. “Boy, you scared the shit out of me,” I gasped, as I held my chest.
“You supposed to be going somewhere?” he asked me with a scowl on his face.
“Yeah, me and my friends supposed to be going to the club.”
“What? When were you going to tell me?”
“I’m telling you now, Chantez. Don’t tell me you tripping? I can’t hang with the girls?”
“For what?”
“What you mean? You leave here and do whatever you want to do and not once have I complained.”
“I leave here to get money. Fuck the club; I’d rather count a million bucks.”
“Okay that’s all good for you, but I like going out. All I do is go to work and sit at home.”
“So, you want to hang out? Okay, hang out with me. Let’s go get something to eat or some shit.”
“No, no. That’s not what I’m trying to do. I just want to hang out with my friends.”
“Keirah, fuck a club.”
“I’m serious, boy. I’m going out,” I asserted, as I sat on the bed to put on my stilettos.
He nodded his head and ran his tongue across the gold in his mouth. “Okay, so you going out, huh?”
“Yeah. You cool, right?” I glanced up at him.
“Yeah, I’m good. But wait…let me make sure that you have everything that you need. You need some money?” he asked.
I perked up thinking that he was cool. “Yeah, I could use some.”
“Alright. How much you wanna blow?” he pulled out a knot. He peeled back a hundred-dollar bill. “Is this enough?” he dropped the bill on the floor. “Is that enough?” he questioned as he peeled back another bill, then another after another. Each time, the money fell to the floor. “No, no wait. I know what you really need,” he left the room. “Say my nigga…you got a condom?” I heard him ask. Then this nigga came back to the room with a Latex condom. “This is what you need right here,” he revealed, as he tossed the condom in my lap.
“Chantez, you are really tripping,” I frowned, as I placed my head in my palms. He was giving me a headache.
“No, you tripping!” he yelled as he stood over me.
“Get the fuck from over my head!” I roared at him.
“Make me,” he gritted.
I tried to stand up and he drew his hand back and slapped me back down. It took me a second to even comprehend what had just taken place. I felt my bleeding lip and was ready to kill his ass.
“Motherfucka!” I screamed as I swung wildly. Then I felt his hands wrap around my neck. As I struggled, he tightened his grip. “Let me go,” I barely got out as I struggled to breathe.
Right when I thought that I was about to pass out, he released me. I was gasping for
air while rubbing my neck. I was so damn mad that I couldn’t even cry. That nigga had taken shit way too far.
“Get the fuck out my house!” I blurted, after I finally caught my breath.
“Get out? Is that what you just said? Give me all of the money I gave you and I’ll leave.”
“Oh, you can have it all! That money ain’t shit!” I barked.
“No, I want the money that you spent too,” he spoke calmly.
“You are really crazy. That money is gone,” I laughed cynically.
“Well, when you can pay me back, then I’ll leave.”
“No, you’re leaving right now!” I screamed as I headed for the living room. I was about to call the police because he was getting out of my house; one way or another. I felt him shove me and I fell face first onto the floor. I hit the floor so hard that the wind was knocked out of me. My midsection was killing me and my headache intensified. I didn’t even attempt to stand as I rolled around in pain.
“Baby, get up,” he panicked, as he tried to grab my arm and lift me up.
I pulled away from him. “Don’t fucking touch me,” I cried.
“Is she okay?” Slim’s company asked.
“Yeah, she gon be alright,” Slim waved him off. “Come on, Keirah baby, let me help you up.”
“No,” I groaned, as I attempted to stand on my own. It was a little harder than I expected; but after a few failed attempts, I was finally able to stand. But then I felt something dripping down my legs. At first, I thought that I was peeing on myself until I looked down and noticed that it was blood.
“Damn, little mama is bleeding!” Red screamed out.
I wasn’t just bleeding; I had blood clots falling out of me. Since I didn’t have on any panties there was nothing to catch that gross shit. I tried to move, but I could feel my ovaries becoming backed up, kind of like how your stomach feels just before you have to take a shit. I took one step and more blood clots feel out. Then my head was really fucked up when I felt something heavy fall out of me. Then it was there dangling between my legs. I squeezed my eyes tight and was afraid to look down as this cold thing swung between my thighs.
Can I Talk to You (G Street Chronicles Presents) Page 5