The Pink Palace

by Marlon McCaulsky

  “Thanks. Make yourself at home.”

  This guy is definitely different from the other tricks I mess with. Most guys are trying to fuck me on the doorsteps by the time we get to their crib.

  “Do you wanna drink?”

  “No, I’m fine.” I decide to find out a little bit more about this guy. “So, where’s wifey?” I teasingly ask.

  “She left me a long time ago,” he responds.

  I wasn’t really expecting him to give me a real answer to that. He walks into the kitchen, and I walk into his bedroom. This guy is not flashy at all. His bedroom is simple and clean. He has a neatly made king-size bed, a flat screen, 49-inch TV hanging on the wall, and a black dresser. Even though I know this guy is a hustler, he certainly doesn’t live like it.

  Then I feel him gently kiss my neck and caress my breasts. I close my eyes and feel my floodgates open, releasing my sexual juices. I can’t believe I’m feeling this turned on.

  I turn around and undress myself for him. He begins to help me pull off my top. I unzip his pants and find his hard dick. I’m about to give him some head when he stops me. Instead, he gently pushes me back on the bed, pulls off my thong, and softly kisses my stomach all the way up to my breasts, tracing his tongue around my areolas and sucking on my nipples.

  This is the first guy to give me foreplay. He teasingly kisses my neck as he lies between my legs, rubbing up against my privates. My legs wrap around his waist, pulling him closer, rubbing his dick between my pussy lips. I’ve never yearned so much to feel a man inside of me.

  Tommy slips on a condom. His dick parts my fat pussy lips and rubs my clitoris, then he slides inside of me.

  “Ahhhh,” I moan as his rock hard dick deeply penetrates. I lift my head, look down, and watch his thick member push in and out of me. It turns me on even more.

  “Yessss . . .” I shamelessly moan.

  Deeper and deeper he drives his dick as I cum again and again. We change positions, with me on top, then we roll over while continuing to passionately sex each other. He lifts my leg and rests it on his shoulder as he digs deeper inside me.

  His stamina is incredible. Most guys would bust a nut within 10 minutes of being inside my juicy walls, but Tommy stays hard, stroking me. Tommy isn’t a selfish lover like most guys trying to catch a nut. He seems more interested in making sure I am pleased.

  I hate to admit it, but I find myself enjoying the sex even more than he seems to be. I’m beginning to think of this as more of a date than me freaking a trick.

  Tommy pulls out of me, and I turn and bend over for him. He enters me doggy-style. My wetness allows him to slide right back in me with ease. I feel his dick grow bigger inside me. I’ve never been with dick so good. He hits it so deep from the back that I can feel it in my chest. Each stroke in me goes farther, as I enjoy the feeling of his balls slapping against my ass cheeks.

  “Oh, shit!” I yell out as I climax, cumming harder than ever before.

  Tommy keeps on stroking my now-hypersensitive clit as his own orgasm is approaching. I close my eyes and feel like a trapped love slave, unable to move and forced to enjoy this unmanageable sensation that runs through my pussy and down my legs. Then, finally, I feel his penis head swell with a powerful surge of cum into the condom. Tommy collapses on my back, completely drained, enjoying his orgasm.

  I fall asleep and wake up in the morning. Damn, I can’t believe I did that. Most of the time after we’re done cutting, I get my shit together and bounce outta there, but this time I felt so relaxed and drained I couldn’t even move.

  Tommy is already up and dressed. I walk into the kitchen, wrapped in the bed sheet. He has already made me some eggs and toast.

  “Are you hungry?” he asks me.

  “Yeah.” I sit at the table and we eat our breakfast quietly. This is too weird. Why does he treat me like this and why do I want to see him again?

  “Is there somewhere I can drop you off?” he asks.

  “Yeah, I’ll get dressed.”

  “Maybe we can see each other again?”

  Why do I feel so happy to hear him say that? “Yeah, I think that will be all right.”

  2

  Play Your Position

  JAYSON

  I meet up with Quan and Corey at the trap to see if Dre and his boys are still rolling around clockin’ us. Damien brought them down from New York to set up shop with King’s nigga, Horse.

  Quan is 19, a smart dude that gets shit done. Not just street smart but school smart, too. Every time I see him he’s got his nose in a book. I think he’s reading The Da Vinci Code again. We debate different topics all the time. Honestly, it makes no sense for him to be hustling with these career thugs.

  Corey, on the other hand, is a dumb ass. He’s 20 and hotheaded. King wanted to get Corey out of his hair, so he sent him down to Atlanta with Damien. He’s the type of nigga you can’t tell nothing to, ’cause he thinks he knows it all when he really don’t know shit. This cat thinks he’s the new Nino Brown of the hood or some shit. If the Flip Set has a weakness, it’s this nigga. He’s always trying to prove himself to Damien, but the truth is, Damien is more impressed with Quan, because he knows how to play his position.

  Horse is the muscle of the group, an old hood nigga King was locked up with back in ’96. Horse began serving jail time in ’91 for robbing a grocery store up in Yonkers. The two became friends at Rikers. King promised Horse that if he watched his back inside, he would set him up with both some paper and a position in his set when he got out. When Horse was released in 2005, King kept his word. Horse is down to ride on anybody and got no problem getting locked up again.

  “Yo, Quan, what it do?” I ask him.

  “Same old shit, man,” Quan replies. “The fiends keep on coming back for more.”

  “So in other words, business is good.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” Quan picks up his book and continues to read.

  Just then Corey walks by, acting hard.

  “What up, nigga?” Corey says to me, dressed in a wife-beater and baggy jeans. He keeps his strap in his waist at all times. Sometimes I think he’s going to fuck around and shoot his dick off.

  “What up?” I say to him.

  “Nothing, nigga. . . . You reading another book, nigga?” Corey says to Quan.

  “Yeah, so?” Quan replies.

  “Man, you think a fucking book is gonna teach you something? Fuck a book! You need to watch how I do this shit. Get this money,” Corey says to him.

  “Maybe if you picked up a book every now and then you might learn something.”

  “No thick, dusty-ass book gonna teach me shit, son. You need to get your paper up,” Corey says.

  Quan shakes his head.

  “And you need to stop being so damn ignorant, nigga,” I say.

  “Whatever, man.” Corey walks to the door. A fiend comes up to the house and Corey sells him two rocks of crack for $10.

  “Let me ask you something, Q, if you don’t mind,” I say to Quan.

  “Naw, man, go ahead.”

  “What are you doing here, man?” I ask.

  “What do you mean?” he says as I sit down on the couch.

  “I mean, I see why Corey hustles. He’s a fucking dumbass. But you, you should be in college doing something with your life.”

  “Well, you know . . . sometimes shit happens. Where I’m from, you either sell rock or get shot. College isn’t much of an option. Besides, I got my mom and little sister up in Marcy Projects that I gotta take care of. I can’t do that in college.”

  I guess even the smart kids fall through the cracks.

  For the past couple of days, I’ve been thinking about Mo’Nique. I guess I’ve been trying to get over this divorce shit for the past year and a half. I haven’t been dating anybody. A woman can’t deal with the shit that goes down in my line of work.

  I can tell Mo’Nique is surprised I’m treating her like a woman instead of a ho. Maybe I should, seeing that I’m undercover. I should
stay in character, but a girl that fine shouldn’t be swinging around poles all night. She’s not a genuine gold-digger like her cousin, Nikki—not yet, anyway. Even though she’s a stripper, I can see a bit of innocence in her eyes. She could make a good wife someday. Not that I’m a good man who deserves a good wife. I already fucked up my own marriage.

  Mo’Nique’s fine ass is just the thing I need to put Lauren out of my mind. Mo’Nique’s using me to come up, and I’m using her to get off. Damn, the sex is good, and honey got a body on her to kill for: butter-soft skin, long, thick legs, and a pussy a man could drown in. Must be why I’ve been thinking about her since the other day.

  I pick up my cell and call her number.

  “Hello?” Mo’Nique answers.

  “Mo’Nique?”

  “Yeah . . . Tommy?” she asks.

  “Yeah, what’s up?”

  “Nothing, I’m just at the house, chilling. What are you doing?”

  “Nothing, just thinking about you. Do you wanna do something?” I ask her.

  She pauses for a moment. “Yeah, that’s cool.”

  “All right, I’ll be at your place in 10 minutes,” I say as I turn onto 75 South.

  “Okay.”

  I hang up and head to her house. She’s staying in Morrow with Nikki, another dancer called Penny, and Penny’s baby. When I pull up to the house, I notice the ghetto-ass hood they stay in. Some kids playing outside stop and stare at my car as I get out with my $200 Oakleys on.

  I knock and Penny opens the door.

  “You must be here to see Mo,” Penny says to me. She’s dressed in a bikini top that can barely hold her luscious D-cup titties, and some hot pants that expose her fat ass.

  “Yeah.”

  “Come in.”

  As I walk in, I see clothes and baby bottles on the living room floor. It’s as if the floor is one big laundry basket.

  “Her room’s down the hall.”

  “Thanks.”

  Penny eyes me up and down and presses her big-ass titties on my chest as I walk by her down the narrow hallway.

  I knock on Mo’Nique’s door. She opens it up, and it’s like night and day. Her room is spotless and tidy. She’s dressed in a red fitted T-shirt that stops just above her belly button, showing off the tattoo on her lower back. She’s got on some Baby Phat jeans that conform to her incredible ass.

  “Hey,” she says.

  “Hey, girl, you ready?”

  “Yeah, let’s go.”

  We walk out of the house and get in my car.

  “Where are we going?” she asks me.

  “You hungry?”

  “Yeah, a little,” she says with a smile.

  I smile back at her. Damn, there’s something about her pretty brown eyes. I can’t help but stare, and she knows I can’t help it. She blushes.

  “Why do you look at me like that?” she asks me.

  “Because it don’t take a whole day to recognize sunshine,” I reply.

  She smiles and shakes her head. Man, I just wanna kiss her soft body again.

  I pull off and drive to Southlake Mall. We walk inside, and it’s packed with black people walking and talking to each other. A group of brothers seated at a nearby table stare and point at Mo’Nique as we walk by. She is the type of girl that demands attention. We go to the Japanese restaurant in the food court, and I order some rice and teriyaki chicken for us. We sit at a table and eat.

  “Do you always go out with men you meet at the club?”

  She looks up at me as if deciding whether or not she should answer the question. “No, not always, but I guess I did sleep with you that night. I can see why you would think that.”

  “I didn’t ask you that to insult you. I just wanna know if you really wanna be with me or if Damien put you up to it.”

  “He didn’t. Nikki told me about you and said that you were cute. If I didn’t think so, I wouldn’t have left with you.”

  “Oh.”

  A moment of awkward silence goes by. “So, why did your wife leave you?”

  Now I decide whether I should tell her the truth or not.

  “She didn’t like my day job,” I answer, keeping my response short and purposely vague.

  “I don’t like my night job either,” she says.

  “Then why do you do it?” I ask her.

  “Because it pays better than working at Taco Bell.”

  I chuckle and so does she. We continue to eat. The three brothers sitting at the table get up and walk over to us. They stop and stand behind Mo’Nique.

  “I knew I knew that tattoo from somewhere. You be freak dancing at The Pink Palace, don’t ya?”

  Mo’Nique turns around and looks at them. “So? Who the fuck are you?” she snaps back.

  “Whoa, don’t trip. My niggas just wanted to know could you work a little something right here for us? We got plenty of singles,” he says as they laugh.

  Mo’Nique stares at them, humiliated and not knowing what to say, so I cut in.

  “She’s off the clock, but I’ll be happy to take your money.”

  “Oh, sorry, partner. I ain’t mean to be rude, but you got a real freak here. You a real lucky man. Bend over to the front and touch ya toes!” he sings.

  “What you say, nigga?” I growl as I get up from my chair. His two punk-ass friends look me up and down.

  “Tommy, it’s all right. Let’s just go,” Mo’Nique says, sensing my anger.

  “Yeah, Tommy, this ain’t the time to play Captain Save-a-Ho.” They laugh again.

  I chuckle and look at Mo’Nique then grab the punk by his shirt, slamming his head down on the table. He doesn’t know what hits him. His boys start to come at me, and I raise my shirt and show them my heat.

  “You don’t want none of that, do you?” They both back off. “Now, say you’re sorry, bitch.”

  “Tommy, let him go,” Mo’Nique says, looking around to see if mall security is coming.

  “As soon as I hear what I’m waiting for.” I push his face into my food.

  “Sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” he pleads. I let him go and his face is covered with rice and sauce.

  “Let’s go,” I say to Mo’Nique. “Y’all be good, boys.” We walk out of the mall.

  “I’m sorry that happened,” Mo’Nique utters after we’re in the parking lot.

  “You don’t have to apologize. You didn’t do anything.”

  “That’s why I hate my job,” she says in a regretful tone.

  “Maybe you should start looking in the AJC classifieds,” I joke.

  She smiles and we get in my car.

  MO’NIQUE

  As we drive down the street, I can’t help but think about what Tommy did for me in the mall. No man has ever stood up for me like that. Did he lose his cool because he felt like they were dissin’ him for being with a stripper or because he genuinely cares for me? Stop that, I tell myself. He’s not trying to turn a ho like me into a housewife. I just gotta stay focused and remember that he’s just another trick. This is business.

  We head back to his place. The area looks more familiar in the daytime than it did the other night. I used to drive through College Park with Nikki when she was messing with Dre two years ago. Some of his homeboys were trying to holla at me, but I wasn’t trying to mess with a nigga who was a do-boy for another nigga. Besides, that was Nikki’s hustle.

  Dre used to give her fat rolls of cash, and we would go to the mall and buy all kinds of Gucci bags and Versace dresses. She had Dre’s nose wide open. Nikki was a pro, and I was just soaking up the game from her. Even at The Pink Palace she would tell me not to fuck around with those small-time hustlers, that if I was going to give a nigga some ass, make sure he was ballin’ with mad cash.

  We get to Tommy’s place, and I sit out on the balcony, admiring the view. Tommy comes outside and sits next to me and gives me a Coke.

  “So, how did you start dancing?” he asks me.

  “Nikki put me on.”

  “Oh. It
just surprises me when I see a girl as beautiful as you stripping for a living,” he says.

  “You don’t know how many times I’ve heard a man say that to me. I guess I’m just waiting for something better to come along.”

  “Why wait? Why don’t you find something else?” he asks.

  Once again he surprises me. Most tricks tell me that they can take care of me and all I have to do is be by their side.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why not go to college? There are plenty of schools in Atlanta.”

  “You sure you ain’t Captain Save-a-Ho?” I ask him.

  “Naw, I was just asking.”

  I didn’t have to say that to him. It was just a question.

  “Well, I never graduated from high school, so college was out,” I admit.

  “What happened?”

  I look out at the view from the balcony and tell him the truth. “When I was twelve, my mom got remarried to a cop named James, but then two years later she passed away from breast cancer. So it was just James, his sixteen-year-old son, Tony, and me. James wasn’t exactly the best parent. Tony and me pretty much came and went as we pleased. James was hurt really bad by my mom’s death and drowned himself in E&J and weed. He used to let us drink and smoke with him in the house.

  “This one night, I got so high I couldn’t even get up off the couch. I guess James carried me to my room and put me in bed. He then started to undress me. I was so blown I could barely move. By the time I knew where I was, James already took off my bra and panties and was groping me and shit. The next thing I felt was him ramming his dick in between my legs. All I could do was lie there and let him do what he wanted to me.

  “After he was done, he got a towel and cleaned me up and took a shower. Then he told me nobody would believe the word of a high and drunk sixteen-year-old girl over a respected cop. Muthafucka . . . I was so scared and ashamed that I believed him.

  “I ran away a week later and dropped outta school. For about two years, I bounced around Atlanta and crashed at different friends’ houses. Then I met up with Nikki at my aunt’s house and she took me in.”

  I don’t know why I told him all that. I’ve never told anybody, except Nikki, about what happened to me. Tommy didn’t say anything. He just took my hand and stood up and walked me to the bedroom. I guess he didn’t bring me here to play Dr. Phil. Nikki said that in this game, nobody is gonna feel sorry for you, so don’t expect to get sympathy. Tommy just wants to fuck me, and I just want his cash, so let’s just get to it.