Girls From da Hood 9

by Amaleka McCall

  “Nigga, is you loyal to me or ya washed-up-ass pappy?” I heard Scorpio bark loudly.

  I was upstairs in his bedroom with pain pulsing between my ears like someone was hitting a gong right upside my head. “Mmmm,” I moaned, so hung over I thought I was dreaming.

  “Huh! Answer me, li’l nigga! I ain’t got time for games! I’m hearing in the streets that ya washed-up-ass daddy been trying to step on a nigga toes out there and your soft ass just playing the passive role!” Scorpio yelled some more.

  “Nah, man, you heard wrong,” I heard Li’l Kev’s quivering voice.

  I knew then I wasn’t dreaming. I jumped up so fast that my pounding head threatened to send me right back down on the bed. I stopped for a minute. “Ugh,” I grumbled, feeling like vomit was about to creep up my esophagus. I took a deep breath and powered through the throbbing pain in my head and gut-wrenching nausea in my belly. I grabbed one of Scorpio’s T-shirts to cover my naked body.

  “I think this li’l nigga ain’t got the heart to take care of his pops. This nigga stuntin’ like he wanna be the next Big K out here, yet he letting his old-ass pops fuck up the business!” Scorpio said to the crowd of dudes sitting around watching what he was doing. “I think this li’l nigga might deserve to take this L in the name of his father!”

  When I got to the steps I had a full view. Scorpio had a gun to Li’l Kev’s head, while Li’l Kev sat cowering and crying in one of Scorpio’s white leather chairs. I don’t know what came over me. All I had on was a T-shirt and a thong, but I flew down those steps like a bat out of hell. I didn’t give two shits about my safety. All I knew was that a member of my family was being threatened and I wasn’t having it.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” I boomed as I plowed straight for Scorpio. Even he had to look at me like I had lost my fucking mind. “Take that fucking gun out of his face! You know he is like my fucking little brother!” I growled.

  Scorpio turned his six foot three inch slender frame toward me. When he swept his long dark brown knotty dreads out of his face, I could see that his charcoal black face and big, soup-cooler lips were crumpled into a snarl.

  “Who the fuck is you talkin’ to, bitch?” Scorpio barked.

  When he called me “bitch”—the name Carlene had been calling me since I was eight years old—I just about lost it. I jumped on Scorpio and dug my nails deep into his skin.

  “Leave him alone! He’s a fucking little kid! Leave him alone!” I screamed as I bit down into Scorpio’s shoulder.

  “Get this crazy bitch off of me!” Scorpio belted out.

  Suddenly, I felt my body being hoisted in the air. I felt a few of my ribs crack as I hit a wall.

  “This dumb bitch musta lost her rabbit-ass mind t’day!” Scorpio lifted his Timberland boot and brought it down on my chest.

  Pain rippled through my body like waves on the ocean at high tide.

  “You tryin’a disrespect me in front of all my niggas? Huh, bitch?”

  Another kick from his boot, this time it landed square in my pussy. I felt vomit come up out of my mouth.

  “You staying up in they camp, too. I’m feedin’ your fiend, nasty ass. You probably fuckin’ this nigga right here!” Scorpio barked. This time he grabbed a handful of my hair.

  Even with my body racked with pain I wasn’t going out like a punk bitch. I was still spitting and kicking. A fire raged inside of my chest bigger than those uncontrollable wild fires that happen in California.

  “Get the fuck off me,” I gasped, slobber and vomit spewing from my lips. I swiped at Scorpio again; this time I took five fingernails full of skin off his neck.

  “Ahhh! This bitch cut me,” I heard him growl. I saw the blood on his neck right before he used his gun to hit me across my face. My lights went out. Blackness is all I remember after that.

  I woke up the next day in Cheyenne’s room in the worst pain I’d felt since Took raped me. My head felt like somebody was sitting on top of it hitting it with a hammer. My body felt like a 2,000-pound person was sitting on me. When my eyes fluttered open I immediately snapped them shut. It hurt so badly. My right eye wouldn’t even open all the way, but I felt tears draining out of the side of it. I tried to take a deep breath and even that hurt like hell.

  “Hmmm,” I moaned. The small vibration from my moan sent pain through my throat and neck.

  “Hey, Kels. I’m glad to see you awake.” I heard Ms. Desiree’s soothing voice coming from somewhere on my right, but I couldn’t see her. “I have something you can take for the pain, but it’s going to knock you right back out.”

  I swallowed hard. That hurt too. I slowly shook my head up and down. I needed the pills right away. I didn’t care if that shit knocked me out for sixty days; I could not take the pain all over my body.

  “Okay. Let me go grab you some water,” Ms. Desiree said.

  I closed my eyes again for a few minutes before I felt the presence of someone else in the room. I forced my one good eye open. Pulsating stabs of pain shot through my forehead again. I winced.

  “Don’t try to open your eyes for me. I’m here.” Big K’s voice filtered into my ears.

  I let out a painful sigh. I shut my good eye. I was embarrassed for him to see me like this.

  “Who did this to you, Kelsi?” he asked.

  I thought the question was strange. Didn’t he know? Hadn’t Li’l Kev been the one to bring me home after the fight with Scorpio? Who had finally saved me from Scorpio’s wrath? How many days had passed? My mind raced, which intensified my headache.

  “They just left you for dead in front of the door. Desi found you on her way out to work . . . in this condition. You could’ve died out there like that. You’re pretty banged up. I wanna know who did this shit to you,” Big K whispered harshly. I could tell without looking at him that he was flexing that strong jaw.

  “Where’s Li’l Kev? Is he okay?” I mumbled through my swollen jaw, the smell of my own breath making me want to gag.

  “We haven’t seen him. Rumor in the building is he knows who did this shit. They sayin’ Li’l Kev might have been there when this happened to you and ain’t do shit to protect you. I’m looking for that little punk, too. Now I’ma asked you again: who did this shit to you?” Big K responded. I closed my one good eye. I had to because tears were running out of both eyes now. Not again! I was thinking.

  Chapter 13

  Between Big K and Ms. Desiree, I was up and on my feet in a month. She had wrapped my ribs so that they could heal and he had sat guard dog by my side every day when Ms. Desiree had to work. I heard Carlene came by once, but it wasn’t to see how I was doing; she just wanted to borrow some money, as usual. Big K told me he had run her off with some of his old-school threats. We had a good laugh behind that.

  The first full shower I took after Scorpio’s assault felt so good. Even the initial painful pinpricks all over my skin from the hot water hurt so good. I spent more than an hour letting the water beat over my tender body. When I finally turned the water off, I pulled back the shower curtain and just as I did . . .

  “Ahh!” I screamed. I was so startled I almost slipped and bust my ass in the wet tub.

  “Oh shit! Kelsi! I thought that was Desiree in there,” Big K yelled in response.

  I was buck-naked right in front of him. I couldn’t even reach my towel; it was too far away. I was too shocked to think to cover my nakedness with the shower curtain. My heart hammered in my chest. It seemed like everything was happening in slow motion.

  He was stuck on stupid staring at me, but he didn’t turn and run away. I was stuck on stupid letting him take in an eyeful of my body. It seemed like an eternity before either one of us did anything.

  “Shit! I’m really sorry about this. I’m so sorry,” he kept saying as he backed out of the bathroom and slammed the door.

  I stepped out of the tub on wobbly legs. Maybe I need to just take my ass to Carlene’s and stop staying here. Especially because Cheyenne ain’t here and Ms. Desir
ee is always at work, I thought. My brain felt scrambled. I wrapped myself in a thick, plush towel, but I still felt like it wasn’t big enough to cover me. I stood in the bathroom an extra twenty minutes gathering my thoughts. I looked at myself in the mirror that hung over the bathroom sink. I touched the remnants of the scars that remained on my forehead and above my lip.

  “You need to get your life together, Kelsi,” I whispered to myself. I didn’t even know where to start when it came to getting my shit together, but I knew the way I was living was destructive for sure.

  I opened the bathroom door slowly. I peeked my head out real quick and dipped back into the bathroom. My chest was rising and falling. I peeked out one more time, then darted for Cheyenne’s room. I made it into the room without running into Big K.

  Once I was in the room, I flopped down on the bed and, oddly enough, I smiled. Big K had seen me naked. I smiled at the thought. As sick as it sounds, I smiled and smiled some more.

  Two nights after the bathroom incident with Big K, I awoke to another one of Big K and Ms. Desiree’s arguments. They had been arguing way more often since Cheyenne and Li’l Kev were gone from the house. Sometimes I thought me being there when their own kids had left might be awkward for them. I thought maybe I should just go home and deal with my crackhead mother . . . Good, bad, or indifferent, Carlene was what God had given me.

  After a few minutes of Big K and Ms. Desiree screaming back and forth I heard the apartment door slam shut. Either Big K or Ms. Desiree was gone.

  I lay there for a little while, wondering who had stayed and who had gone. I looked at the clock. It was 4:42 a.m. My curiosity finally got the best of me. I got up and walked to the kitchen faking like I wanted something to drink. The entire apartment was dark. I flipped on the kitchen light. That’s when I saw who had stayed.

  “Damn, I was trying to be quiet and not wake you up. Could you tell by all of the yelling how hard I tried?” Big K joked, smiling even though I knew he was really stressed.

  I smiled at his little joke. He had been at the table, in the dark, with his head down. I pulled up a chair, set my glass of juice on the table, and joined him.

  “I could barely hear anything,” I lied jokingly. We both laughed.

  Big K was shaking his head from side to side like the weight of the world was on his broad shoulders. He looked at me and let out a windstorm of breath. “You know it’s fucked up when a man comes home after twelve long years of being locked up with motherfuckers who act like animals every day, and feel like he wants to be back in the lockup. Twelve long-ass years of fighting, clawing, praying, politicking, fighting some more, just to stay in one piece so he could come home to his woman and kids. But when he gets home, he can’t even fit in with his own family. Everybody is a stranger in their own home. He can’t fit nowhere in their lives at all. You know how fucked up I am behind this? Nah, you wouldn’t know. Nobody knows what it’s like to have your manhood tested by your own flesh and blood,” Big K said sadly.

  I felt a twinge in my stomach. I could feel the pain in his words. I couldn’t even imagine what it must’ve been like for him inside that prison, dying to get home, only to come home to an ungrateful-ass family.

  “It might take them some time to adjust. They got so used to living on their own,” I comforted him softly, choosing my words carefully.

  The truth was his family members were all resentful that they had to fend for themselves after Big K got locked up. The selfish-ass Turners had been used to being spoiled by the lifestyle they lived when Big K was on the outside. They had no use for him now. Not me. I didn’t see things the way Ms. Desiree, Cheyenne, and Li’l Kev saw things. In my eyes, Big K was still the man. He was the same motherfucker who used to feed the hood on Thanksgiving. He was the same nigga who would take other people’s kids to get school clothes.

  I was able to hold on to the good deeds Big K had done for me before he got locked up. I was able to hold on to them so tight that I was the only one who really treated him with the respect that the man of the house deserves. I held tight to every last good deed he’d done for me. I mean, he had really risked everything to get revenge on Took for me. With those memories fresh in my mind, I was able to stay loving Big K even after twelve years of missing him.

  “Time to adjust! They had twelve years to think about shit. I mean, how is my fifteen-year-old son so deep in the streets that I can’t say a word to him? How is my daughter so far removed from me that when she calls from Texas she forgets to ask to speak to me? And, my wife . . . Man, listen, truth be told, she doesn’t even want me to touch her. You know what that’s like for a man? A man like me who always lived and breathed for his family? Every risk I took back then on the come up was to make shit better for all of them. Not for me . . . for them!” Big K lamented, hitting his chest with his hands. He spoke so powerfully I was moved to tears.

  I touched his arm gently. “If it makes you feel any better, I always have and always will appreciate you. You are the only man who has ever shown me any love,” I said sincerely. I lowered my head and stared down at the table. That was the damn truth as raw as I could deliver it. It was the first time I had told Big K how I felt about him.

  Big K grabbed my hand. The warmth of his skin against mine sent stabs of heated sparks up my arm and down my spine. Something jumped inside of me. Right at the core of my being, his touch let me know there was something between us. There always had been something between us. He was old enough to be my father, but the connection could not be denied. It was immediate. It was magnetic. It was undeniable right from that moment.

  There was an awkward, silent pause. I can’t say for sure who made the first move after that, but one of us certainly did. The next thing I remember, Big K’s tongue was parting my lips. I gladly opened my mouth to welcome his tongue inside. It was warm and tasted like Big Red cinnamon gum.

  Our tongues did a wicked dance with one another. Heat engulfed my entire body. My sore ribs ached, but Big K’s touch hurt so good. The achy feeling throbbing through my torso intensified my desire for Big K. His hands were moving all over me so fast I couldn’t tell what he was touching at any given moment. I didn’t feel like myself. I felt ravenous. Wild. Freaky.

  I reached down and grabbed a handful of his manhood. He’s your best friend’s father. The thought flitted through my mind. I ignored it. He was the man I’d always loved from the time I could feel that emotion. I clamped down on his swollen member.

  Big K let out a gasp. I moved my mouth to his bottom lip and sucked on it as I massaged his throbbing bulge.

  “Oh shit!” he gasped. “What are we doing?” he whispered as he pulled my T-shirt over my head, exposing my bouncy C-cup breasts. He hoisted me onto the table. The glass of juice I had poured earlier shattered to the floor. Neither one of us cared. I eased back, my entire body trembling. Big K leaned in and took a mouthful of my left areola.

  “Oh God!” I huffed. My breasts were my weak spot.

  Big K suckled both of my breasts until I was ready to explode.

  My head fell back as he moved his mouth down to my navel. My body quaked all over. My pussy was soaking wet. As he removed my panties, I could feel my own juices leaking down my butt crack.

  “You okay?” he whispered as he continued his journey downward. We were really doing this! I was more than okay; I was in fucking la-la land!

  “Oh God! Yes! Yes!” I huffed barely able to get my words out. My mind was blank. Nothing was registering except that pure feeling of ecstasy that had come over me.

  Big K put his warm mouth over my clit. My thighs fell apart, inviting him to taste me, lick me, and suck me. He flicked his tongue over my dripping hot box rapidly. Then, in and out. In and out.

  “Ahh! Ahh!” I panted. I had never been handled like that. He was moaning too.

  “Please! I want you! I want you so bad!” I groaned out, my words labored like I’d been running on a treadmill.

  Big K lifted his head from between my legs.
<
br />   I heard the elastic on his boxer snap. I knew he was exposed. I shut my eyes tighter.

  Big K grabbed me with his strong, muscular arms and slid me toward him.

  I wrapped my legs around him. “Agghh!” I belted out. He had entered me. His dick immediately filled me up. I felt a little bit of pain shoot through my pussy, but it quickly subsided into pleasure.

  “Huh! Huh! Huh!” he wheezed as he rammed his body into my pelvis with the vigor of a jackhammer. Big K moved so fast I was slipping off of the table. I tightened my legs around him. That forced him deeper into me. I could swear his dick was touching my cervix.

  “Oh God!” I gasped as he ground into me.

  I bit into his neck. I didn’t mean to, but I couldn’t help it.

  Big K hoisted me up and moved me over to the couch without taking his dick out of me. He moved carefully with his boxers around his ankles.

  “Your shit it so good! So good!” he wolfed through labored breaths.

  We made it to the couch without falling. He laid me down on the couch and kneeled in front of me. He pulled me closer, which caused me to feel his thickness way up inside of me. Big K moved his hips in circular motions as he held on to my hips. He wanted to make sure I felt every bit of him. I wanted to make sure I pleased him. I wanted to do what Ms. Desiree couldn’t do. I wanted to be the best woman. After all, the best woman wins ... right?