by Miasha
Just as I was putting my clothes in my book bag, Butter walked in the dressing room with a husky brown-skinned guy. He was in his mid to late thirties and he dressed like it was the early nineties, in a Fila sweatsuit and Reeboks. He had on a lot of expensive-looking jewelry though. Butter and the guy walked over to me. The other girls played like they were busy but I saw them peeking over at me as the guy extended his hand to me.
“This is Shake,” Butter said, introducing him.
I shook his hand and said, “It’s nice to meet you.”
He must have sensed my fear and discomfort because he said, “Don’t be nervous. Angel, is it?”
I cracked a smile and nodded my head yes.
“See that, you’re a gift from God,” he said.
Butter cut in, “You want her to start now?”
“Hell yeah. They goin’ go crazy for her. Those big-ass titties and that pretty young face. Tell the DJ he goin’ have to do a introduction for this one,” Shake said as he practically fucked me with his eyes. “You’re in good hands, baby girl. Butter’ll take care of you,” he continued as he turned to walk out the dressing room.
Butter rolled her eyes and said, “You ready?”
I felt so violated, but I held back my tears. “I think so,” I said.
“Come on.”
Butter took me over to the bar. She yelled out, “A solution drink,” to the bartender, whose long micro-braids were the only thing covering her nipples. I sat down on the bar stool and peered around the club. Butterflies were having a party in my stomach. I was nervous as hell about getting up on that stage and dancing in front of a bunch of strangers. I didn’t even know how I would dance.
“Here. Drink this. It’ll calm your nerves,” Butter said as she handed me a shot glass filled with brown liquid.
I gulped the alcohol down. It was disgusting. I almost choked. “Oh, my goodness, Butter, what the hell was that?” I asked, unable to keep from frowning.
Butter rolled her eyes for like the tenth time since I’d met her that night and said, “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.” Then she slapped my leg and walked away.
“Here you go,” the bartender said, sliding me a napkin. “Butter is a trip. But she don’t mean no harm. Just try to stay on her good side and you’ll be cool,” she added.
I wiped my mouth with the napkin and grinned at the bartender’s advice. I chatted with her for just enough time to learn that her name was Fiesta and she had been bartending at Shake’s for four months. After that the butterflies were gone and I was up on stage going buck wild. I was winding and twirling and even touching myself. I felt so turned on and so horny. It was like I had turned into a whole other person. It was strange, but it felt good. I had not a care in the world for those moments, and I drove the crowd crazy.
“Well, well, well,” Shake said to me in the dressing room.
It was the end of the night, somewhere around four in the morning. I was putting back on my clothes.
“Somebody ain’t no amateur,” he continued.
“I don’t know what got in me,” I said innocently.
Then one of the other girls in the dressing room mumbled, “That E.”
“Well, whatever it was. I hope it stay up in you. They was lovin’ you, baby girl,” Shake said, seemingly trying to cover up the girl’s comment.
I wanted to ask the girl to repeat what she had said. But I was feeling dizzy and somewhat incoherent, so I let it ride. I just sat in the chair and tied my sneakers. Then I leaned my head back and called myself resting my eyes. The next thing I knew I was in the back of a cab and this strange foreign voice was yelling, “You’re here, Ms.”
I opened my eyes, which felt like they weighed a ton, and looked up at the cab driver.
“How much I owe you?” I asked.
“The guy took care of it already.”
“Okay,” I said, not knowing or caring what guy he was referring to.
I got out the cab and slowly walked up my steps and in my house holding on to the railing and the walls. I laid down on my bed and slept like I had been given anesthesia.
“Angel, Angel!” Naja was calling my name.
“What?!” I jumped out my sleep.
“Where you get all this money from?” Naja asked. From what I could see she was holding two handfuls of ones and fives.
“Naja, what you doin’ in my stuff?” I asked, not knowing how to justify the money. I looked down at myself and noticed I was still in my clothes and coat. My book bag was on my bed in the place of my pillow.
“It was all on the floor. It must have fell out ya pocket,” Naja explained.
I took the money from her and came up with a lie. “I was gambling with Stacey and them at the store last night.”
Naja ate it up. “For real. Oooh. Let me go with you next time. I’m tryna come up, too.”
“I’ll see,” I said as I put the money in my book bag. I sat up in the bed and started to take my clothes off. It was ten o’clock in the morning, but I was still tired. I had every intention of putting on some pajamas and going back to sleep.
“Is they my jeans?” Naja asked as she watched me undress.
“Yeah. I borrowed them,” I said.
“You goin’ stretch ’em out of shape,” she whined.
“Girl, please. Ya butt is ’bout as big as mine.”
“Whatever. You owe me a pair of jeans. Shoot, with all that money you can buy me some new ones today.”
That reminded me, I hadn’t counted the money yet. After I changed my clothes, I took the money out of the book bag.
“Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four, fifty-
four, seventy-four, seventy-nine, eighty, eighty-one, eighty-two, eighty-three, eighty-eight,” I counted.
“Oooh. You won eighty somethin’? Oooh, Angel, can I have some money? Can you buy me some sneaks? Can you get us some Boston Market tonight? Oooh, can we go shoppin’?” Naja asked.
“Pipe down,” I said to my little sister. She sounded so money hungry, it made me worry. I didn’t want her to end up doin’ what I was doin’ for a quick buck. Then the incident with Marvin popped in my head. I looked at my sister. She looked so innocent with her dimples and her baby hair. I couldn’t imagine how she felt in that room like that. I had to ask her.
“Naja,” I started.
“What? I can have some money?”
I sucked my teeth and said, “No, stupid. I wanna talk.”
“About what? You goin’ take us to Boston Market?”
“Naja! I’m bein’ serious,” I stressed.
“What?”
“What did Marvin do to you?”
Naja looked away and rolled her eyes up in her head.
“What are you talkin’ about?”
“Yesterday morning. Did he do it to you?” I asked reluctantly.
“No! Is you crazy? I would have cut his thing off! Ill!”
“Well what did he have you in there doin’?”
“Nothin’.”
“Naja, don’t lie.”
Her eyes went in her head again, and that time she didn’t say anything.
“Naja, tell the truth.”
“He tried,” she said with an attitude.
My heart sank. I knew it, but didn’t want it to be true. Tears formed in my eyes.
“And what happened?” I asked.
“He couldn’t get it in.” Naja went into tears.
I got up from my bed and went to hers. I put my arms around my sister and told her, “We’re gonna have to put Boston Market on hold. I’m saving this money to get us out of this hellhole.”
Home for the Holidays
It had been two weeks since I started at Shake’s and it hadn’t been half bad. It had actually been working out okay. Between the solution drinks Fiesta made me every time before I performed and the money that was waving in the air, stripping became bearable.
I managed to save
six hundred dollars. That was after I bought food for the house and a couple new outfits for work. I even bought Naja some sneakers and a pair of jeans. I didn’t know that stripping would be that profitable. I just expected to eat decent meals, but I was happy I was able to do more because I was determined to get a place for me, Naja, and Kindle. Even if I had to rent out a room somewhere, just as long as we were out of Marvin’s reach.
My mom and I were on the bus on our way home from the welfare office. She had to straighten some things out with her Access card and wanted me to go with her. Thanksgiving was days away and I could taste the food. But I knew my mom hadn’t planned to cook because she wouldn’t have any more money until the first of December. So I decided to make her a deal.
“Mom, if I buy the food, can you cook for Thanksgiving?” I asked.
“I don’t care, Angel. But do you know how much a turkey goin’ cost? Then you got the stuffin’ and the macaroni and the candy yams. Then dessert, like banana pudding and sweet potato pie. That shit is expensive,” my mom broke it down.
“I know. But I been saving some money. I want us to sit down and have a family dinner like we used to.” I was excited just thinking about it.
My mom gave me a nasty look and said, “You sure been poppin’ up with a lot of money lately. Let me find out you doin’ somethin’ you ain’t got no business.”
“Please. Like what?” I challenged my mom.
“Any fuckin’ thing you ain’t got no business doin’,” my mom challenged me back.
“I told you already I got a job at a hotel.”
“Yeah, well, all I know is it bet not get around, ‘cause I heard they cut ya stamps off if they find out you got other money comin’ in the house.”
“Naw, it’s under the table,” I explained to my mom.
My mom reached up to pull on the wire that alerts the bus driver to stop. We got off and started walking toward our house. When we got to the corner my mom stopped.
“Oh, wait. I gotta go past Jackie’s house. Walk me around the corner,” she said.
My mom and I walked side by side around the corner to Stuyvesant Street. When we got to Aunt Jackie’s I sat on the sofa that was on her porch while we waited for somebody to answer the door.
“Heyyy,” Aunt Jackie sang as she hugged my mom.
I was next. “Hey, Angel,” she said, hugging me and kissing me and leaving a lipstick stain on my cheek.
“Hi, Aunt Jackie,” I said, unenthused.
I didn’t like Aunt Jackie. Then again, I didn’t like any of the friends my mom made when she started getting high, and Aunt Jackie was one of them. My mom and her met through one of Aunt Jackie’s sons. He was my mom’s dealer.
“Ya daughter downstairs,” Aunt Jackie told my mom.
“Who, Naja?” my mom asked, sitting down on the futon in Aunt Jackie’s living room.
“Sit down, Angel,” Aunt Jackie said as she sipped her Colt 45.
I moved some covers and a pillow to the side and sat next to my mom. Aunt Jackie sat in a wicker chair across from us.
“Yeah, she came over here straight from school, talkin’ ‘bout she was bored. I told her to go on down there and play that game with Kareem and them.”
My mom rolled her eyes and said, “She don’t need to be down there with them grown boys. She already fresh as it is.”
“Oh, please. Shit, the girl said she was bored, so I told her to come in. What should I done, told her to go back home and sit up under Marvin and Kindle?” Aunt Jackie, said sipping her beer. “I’m glad I got four boys, geez.”
“Jackie, shut ya drunk ass up and give me a cigarette,” my mom said.
I got tired of sitting up there listening to my mom and Aunt Jackie talk trash to each other.
“I’m goin’ downstairs with Naja,” I said.
“Go ’head,” Aunt Jackie said. “Give ya mom a heart attack. Both of her girls down there with my boys. Oh, Lord, y’all tryna kill the old lady.”
I went in the basement, and Naja jumped up off Aunt Jackie’s oldest son Kareem’s lap.
“Angel, what you doin’ here?” she asked, surprised.
I frowned up my face and said, “I should be askin’ you that.”
Naja positioned herself on the arm of the chair she was just sharing with Kareem, and they both picked up the Xbox joysticks as if they were playing all along.
“What’s up, Angel, my buddy,” Kareem said, trying to make light of the fact that his twenty-two-
year-old self had my twelve-year-old sister on his lap.
“Don’t what’s-up-Angel me,” I said as I sat down in a chair. “Where everybody at? Ya mom made it seem like y’all was down here playing the game.” I picked up a Source magazine off the floor.
“Nasir and Sherif up at PAL and Hasaan over his baby mom house,” Kareem told me.
“What, they up there playin’ basketball?” I asked of Aunt Jackie’s two younger sons, Nasir and Sherif.
“Yeah.”
“Naja, you should’ve went with them. You need to be around guys ya own age,” I said to my sister, still upset that she was down there on that old nigga’s lap.
Naja sucked her teeth and smiled. “Shut up, Angel.”
“Ain’t no shut up, Angel. What if Mommy would have came down here and saw that. You know she would have drawed.”
“Oh, please, she don’t care.” Naja rolled her eyes.
Before I could continue to drill Naja, my mom called me from upstairs.
“Give me that money for the turkey and stuff. Aunt Jackie goin’ run me to the market,” my mom said.
“What about me and Naja?”
“Y’all stay here ’til I get back.”
I pulled my money from my jeans pocket. I counted out fifty dollars and gave it to my mom. I put the other twenty back in my pocket.
“That should be enough, right?” I asked.
“Yeah. We be back,” my mom said.
After my mom left with Aunt Jackie I went back in the basement. I sat down there with Naja and Kareem for a while. Hours had went by since my mom had left to go to the market. I wanted to stay there and keep an eye on my sister, but I was getting bored.
“How can y’all sit here and play this game all day?”
“If you wanna leave you can leave,” Naja said.
“I’m tryin’ to wait for Mommy to come back.”
“Her and my mom runnin’ the streets. They ain’t comin back no time soon,” Kareem said.
“Won’t you go around Jamal’s house,” Naja suggested.
I thought about it. I would have liked to be with my baby.
“Kareem, pass me the phone.” I dialed Jamal’s number.
“Hello,” he answered on the first ring.
“What you doin?” I asked, putting on my soft and sexy voice.
“Chillin’. Watchin’ this TGIF shit,” he said. “Where you at?”
“I’m around the corner. I’m ’bout to come over ya house.”
“My mom just left for work, too,” Jamal said.
“Oh, what, she workin’ the night shift?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, that’s what’s up. Ima walk around there.”
“Which way you comin’? From Ms. Jackie house or the store?”
“My Aunt Jackie house,” I answered.
“All right. I’ll meet you at the corner.”
“All right. Bye.”
I picked up my coat off the back of the chair and told Naja and Kareem I would holler. I didn’t really want to leave Naja there by herself with Kareem. But I had rather her be with him than that damn Marvin.
It was almost dark outside. The streets were empty, with the exception of a few fiends scattered about and one or two hustlers on the Chinese store steps. By the time I got halfway up the block Jamal was on the corner standing there shivering his ass off. He didn’t have on a coat or boots. Just some jeans, a white T, and some shower shoes with socks.
“Boy, you crazy comin’ out the h
ouse like that. I know you is freezin’ ya balls off,” I told him when I reached the corner.
“I rushed out. I ain’t want you walkin’ around here by yaself,” he said with his teeth chattering.
“All, ain’t you sweet,” I said as I wrapped my arm around his skinny waist.
Jamal’s house was nice and toasty. It was like the heat gave me a big hug as soon as I walked through the door. He took my coat and we went in his room in the basement.
“This was right on time,” he said as he hung my coat in his closet. “I was wondering when you was goin’ call or come over.”
“I was with my mom all day, takin’ care of business,” I said as I sat down on the sofa bed.
“I don’t get that much time with you since you got that job. I ain’t used to not hearing from you for days at a time,” Jamal said as he sat beside me and started kissing my neck.
“I know. I know. I miss you, too,” I said, closing my eyes. I was enjoying the feel of his lips on me. My whole body was enjoying his slightest touch.
He started unbuttoning my shirt and caressing my breasts with his hands. Then he started using his tongue on my nipples, bringing them to attention. I opened my legs, anticipating he would touch me there, and he did. I started moaning as I rubbed his body parts. We both reached for each other’s pants button at the same time. Jamal laid me on my back and pulled my jeans off. He pulled my panties down and took one of my legs out, leaving the other in. He propped my legs up on his shoulders and started licking my private. It felt so good. I moaned and begged him not to stop. He got me so wet I could have flooded his basement. Then he slid his erect penis inside me. He laid on top of me, pumping and thrusting. After about twenty minutes we were both catching our breath on our way to sleep.
Jamal’s alarm clock was supposed to go off at six thirty but it didn’t. Instead his mother woke us up when she got in from working overnight.
“Jamal!” the hefty, light-skinned woman shouted.