Real Wifeys: Get Money

by Mink, Meesha

  “I like to look at the lights and I can’t see them from our apartment,” she said simply with a shrug.

  “Thank you very much,” he said to me, rising to his feet.

  I nodded and gave the little girl one last smile before I turned and made my way to the elevator. I didn’t look back and I was glad when the elevator doors opened.

  I didn’t say shit when he thanked me, because I felt like laying into his ass. I wanted to say . . .

  How can you not know your six-year-old has left your fucking apartment? How can you sleep that hard with a child? Don’t you know little girls need to be protected?

  Didn’t he know little girls needed to be watched over?

  Who didn’t know that?

  I pulled my cell phone from my purse as the elevator slid to a smooth stop on the lobby floor. I called Tek-9’s cell. “I’m on the way,” I said, glad that the wave of nausea had passed.

  “Damn, Luscious,” Tek-9 said as I strolled backstage into his dressing room on the arms of one of his bodyguards. Tek-9 had performed at the NJPAC as part of a four-day hip-hop festival. Backstage was the who’s who of East Coast DJs and up-and-coming hip-hop and R&B acts. Between the press, photographers, entourages, and NJPAC staff, the backstage was crowded.

  I couldn’t lie. This had been my life for almost a year and it felt good to be back in it, even if just for a little bit. Tek-9 invited me to dinner before he went to the after-party—which I declined to attend with him. Dinner only, and that was strictly business.

  “Looking good, Luscious,” Tek-9 said from his seat. He was already shirtless, with three diamond chains around his neck and his pot belly tattooed with his name in large script.

  Tattoos was one trend I never fucked with, even though I didn’t mind them on Make$. I was afraid of needles, and my mother swore that people with tattoos couldn’t give their kids blood in an emergency. Was that shit true? I don’t know, but I never fucked with it. Plus I was dark-skinned and scared my shit would keloid. Make$ wanted me to get his name on me. Thank God I didn’t fuck with it. Right now I’d be branded by a man who treated me like shit.

  Smiling playfully, I spun for him slowly, knowing I looked good and knowing he wanted me. “Thanks for inviting me,” I said, walking over to lean against the wall.

  “I thought maybe you wanted to go over that deal we talked about on the phone last week,” Tek-9 said, eyeing my legs as he motioned for everyone in the room to leave.

  “You mean the deal about discounting your rate for Yummy Entertainment,” I asked, definitely playing crazy.

  He laughed as he stood up to pull on a crisp white oversize T-shirt.

  “What?” I asked, looking innocent.

  Tek-9 looked at me for a good five or six seconds. “I told you how I’d do it for free,” he said, fucking me with his eyes.

  I shook my head. “No, not me. Sorry.”

  He stepped up close to me and I could smell the mix of liquor, cologne, and weed. “You sure?” he asked, pressing his hand to my bare thigh.

  “I fuck for free and for pleasure,” I said in a whisper, looking up into his eyes as I patted his hand twice before I eased it off my thigh.

  Tek-9 was cool, but I wasn’t feeling him or his big pot belly at all. I had to want to fuck someone. Feel an attraction. My pussy wasn’t a drive-through. Much as I hated Goldie, I couldn’t have messed with Has if he wasn’t a fine-ass motherfucker. And I definitely wasn’t feeling Tek-9 with his Cee Lo Green looks. Plus I didn’t want the rep of being that chick—the ex-stripper jumping from one rapper to the next.

  “I’m a big dude, Luscious, but don’t sleep on my skills,” he said, easing his chains from under his shirt.

  I held up my hands, my mind focused on convincing him. “Listen, about the show. How about you lower your fee and take a small percentage of the door instead?”

  Tek-9 laughed. “You’re strictly business, huh?”

  “Nothing but.”

  He stepped back with a laugh and unzipped his pants, pulling out his dick to hang against his zipper. “Your loss,” he said, laughing.

  I looked down. My mouth fell open and my eyes got a little bigger. I never seen a dick so big in person before. That shit was damn near offensive. It was halfway down his thigh and thick as the top of a bat—and it wasn’t hard. I can’t front. I thought about not getting fucked for a year and I started to pounce on that nigga. He had plenty of dick to make up for his big-ass belly. But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. A big dick wasn’t shit but pain for a pussy that wasn’t aroused and wet. Fuck that.

  “Let’s go get something to eat,” Tek-9 said, balling all that dick up in his hand and pushing it back inside his zipper.

  “Dayum, Tek,” I finally said, definitely feeling some kind of way by his little show as we made our way out the dressing room. His security team, all dressed in black, immediately surrounded us to escort us through the crowd.

  When Ursula Stevens stepped in front of us all of a sudden, I slid on my shades. She was the same blogger who called my phone for an exclusive on Make$ after his arrest. I never did call her back. Sometimes Ursula Stevens’s ish hit mainstream media. My parents would really bug if I sat up on a blog and told ALL my business.

  A lot of entertainment folks considered Ursula reckless with her posts, but here she was, brash as hell, floating among them and looking for a scoop.

  The bitch was bold, I thought, as I eyed her: tall, skinny, and all fake boobs, with about five packs of curly blonde weave floating down her back. Looking like the Cowardly Lion or some shit.

  “No interviews, Ursula,” one of the bodyguards said.

  She leaned back and pressed a hand to her massive chest. “Actually, I wanted to talk to Make$’s ex and get her take on him starting his two-year sentence for his role in trying to help his friends get away with the rape?”

  I pressed my lips together and said nothing. I was happy as hell when we finally reached the exit and stepped out into the hot summer night.

  “I can’t stand that bitch,” Tek-9 said once we had climbed into the back of his SUV.

  “She serious as hell about her blog,” I said, crossing my legs in the huge amount of space since the second row was gone, giving the SUV more of a limo feel on the inside, with its TV and minibar.

  “I should slap her across the mouth with my dick,” Tek-9 joked.

  My eyes darted down to his crotch. “Now that would be a blackout,” I shot back at his ass.

  Tek-9 blazed a blunt as soon as the door closed behind us. He offered it to me. I shook my head, already planning to put my dress in the dry cleaner’s to get rid of the smell of kush.

  “You used to smoke with us,” he said, releasing enough smoke from his lungs to fog up the interior.

  I coughed. “I don’t do a lot of shit I used to do,” I said honestly, glad to have cocaine out of my life. I couldn’t believe I did that shit just to keep Make$ happy. Thank God I didn’t become a head.

  “Well, if you looking for some new shit . . . I got you,” he said, the tip of the blunt turning bright red as he inhaled deeply while he looked down at his dick.

  “If you would keep your mind off my pussy . . . I got you too,” I said.

  Tek-9 laughed so hard he choked on the weed.

  I looked out the window as the driver sped us through the streets. In the distance I could see the top of my apartment building. All I could think of was making the money Goldie made so that I could completely annihilate the bitch.

  The next morning, I woke up to all hell breaking loose. Kinda.

  My house phone was ringing nonstop. My cell phone was lit up with voice mail messages, missed calls, and text messages. E-mail alerts were going off in my office.

  “What? Somebody fucking died?” I asked myself as I flung back the silk covers and sat up on the side of the bed, digging under my satin scarf to scratch my scalp.

  I was just about to open a text when Eve called. The phone vibrated in my hand. I answered the call a
nd put her on speakerphone. “What’s up?”

  “Girl, you coulda told me you fucking with Tek-9’s big juicy ass,” Eve said, her voice hyped over some possible scandal.

  I froze.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked her.

  “Girl, that shit is all over Ursula Stevens. Pictures and all of y’all backstage at that concert and then out eating dinner,” Eve said.

  In that moment, as I dropped my head in my hand, I wished Tek-9 had slapped that bitch with his dick across her mouth. It definitely woulda been lights out for the assuming bitch.

  “That ain’t all. Peaches made a video going in on your ass, and that shit is all over WorldStarHipHop, Bossip, the YBF, and Necole Bitchie. Shit is crazy!”

  “Let me call you back,” I said, hanging up on Eve and letting the phone drop on the bed. It started vibrating like a dildo doing overtime.

  My house phone kept ringing and I turned off the ringer before I grabbed my iPad from my nightstand drawer.

  “That lying bitch,” I said, as I read Ursula Stevens’s post with a picture of me and Make$ that was so old, next to a picture of me and Tek-9, next to a picture of Make$ and Tek-9 posted up.

  EX-WIFEY OF IMPRISONED MAKE$ NOW BOO’ED UP WITH HIS BEST FRIEND, RAPPER TEK-9. ***UPDATE***

  Looks like the wifeys of the hip-hop stars aren’t sitting back and just taking these fellas dogging them out and making fools out of them. Case in point: Harriet Jordan, better known as Luscious, the ex-stripper turned party promoter whose relationship with rap star Make$ ended when she caught him giving one of his dancers head . . . in the head. (Click here for the original post.) Of course we all remember that Make$ pled out to two years’ jail time for assisting members of his entourage in trying to get away with the dancer’s rape.

  We all know Make$ was well-known for his groupie shenanigans while he was out on the streets—I just hope his sexual appetite has cooled off in prison or he might be tossing some cookies up in there. (Sshhhh!)

  Last night I spotted his ex, Luscious, backstage with Tek-9 before they were hustled into a custom Tahoe and taken to New York for a cozy and romantic dinner. . . .

  I couldn’t even read the rest of her lies, but she had updated her post with Peaches’ video. Did I even want to see this shit? I pushed play on the embedded video and Peaches’ face filled the screen. She was sitting in her living room with micro braids and her signature, nasty-ass long nails. Her neck was already in action.

  “I just read the story on Ursula Stevens about my son’s ex and I just want to take a minute and say I knew the bitch wasn’t shit. I knew she was just out for money. I knew it wouldn’t take long for her to grab another platinum-selling rap artist. But for her to be so scandalous and so low-down and dirty as to mess with my son’s friend, someone he grew up with and made music with, is just disgusting, and I’m glad she is out of my son’s life. Now she a problem for Tek-9’s mama. I let my son know all about it and he’s pissed but I told him, better he know now before he upgraded that trick from wifey to wife. For Luscious, Lame-Ass, Loser—whatever the fuck your name is—deuces, you no-good bitch!”

  If I really had kept that damn DVD of her getting that girl jumped I woulda sent it to the police and been done with her ass for a good year or so. Fuck that crazy bitch.

  I called Tek-9’s number but his shit went straight to voice mail. “Tek-9, you need to handle this. Issue a statement. Put out a video. Whatever. But handle this. Come on, dude. Back me up on this bullshit,” I said, dropping my head into my hand. “Just call me.”

  I just couldn’t believe after all the shit Make$ put me through, now people was side-eyeing me and talking reckless, when I was never anything but loyal to his little whack gherkin-dick ass. Life stayed a bitch. Damn!

  10

  Over the next two weeks, shit got even crazier with the rumors flying about me and Tek-9. We both released statements that the rumors weren’t true, but shit got even more crucial when the bloggers made it seem like Tek-9 and Make$ was getting into a war of words—and maybe more—over me. They were on some re-creation of the whole Biggie, Faith, and Tupac drama.

  Bullshit.

  These mofos were completely clueless. Regardless of Peaches’ lies trying to be relevant, I knew Make$ didn’t give a fuck about me, my pussy, or what I did with it. If he did, he wouldn’t have risked losing it by fucking around.

  It’s just that this rumor shit was fucking with my business. I was trying to ride it out and wait for someone else’s life to take over the gossip sites, but my plans to keep fucking with Tek-9 until he cut his fee to perform for us was so dead. I did not need them saying I was out fucking the talent to perform for Yummy Entertainment.

  And Tek-9 still bragging on his gorilla-size dick every time we spoke was getting on my nerves anyway. He really wanted this pussy. Pause. Double pause.

  “’Cuse me?”

  I turned away from the racks of ribs I was checking out in the Pathmark on Lyons Avenue. Three teenage girls stood there eyeing me. And they missed not one detail. My hair in a side ponytail. My jewelry. My army-green short-sleeve romper with an off-the-shoulder neckline and ruched hem just below my knees. Bronze, copper, and green stilettos. Skin gleaming. Makeup on point. Yes, banging . . . even in the grocery store.

  No lie? They made me nervous and I clutched my Gucci signature tote a little tighter. There was plenty of good and some bad in the hood. Sometimes the bad could be male or female. Fuck what you heard, there was little gansta boos out there.

  “You Luscious?” the thick one asked, with her medium-length hair up in one of those firecracker ponytails that I hated. Every hair stood on end like someone blew that shit up. The style didn’t do shit but showcase split ends.

  I eyed each one. “Yes. Why?”

  The skinny one with a bob smacked her tongue like she was trying to clean it. “Can we have your autograph?”

  I smiled. “Y’all must have heard about Yummy Entertainment parties . . . but you’re not old enough to get in,” I said, taking the thin notebook the dark-skinned one gave me. She reminded me of myself at that age.

  “Your parties?” the mouth smacker asked, looking confused. She made parties sound more like “paw-tees.”

  “No, we want your autograph because you got busy with Make$ and Tek-9. Girl, you the shit!”

  I paused in signing my name to cut my eyes up to them. “That wasn’t true about Tek-9. I was trying to line him up to . . . perform at a event,” I told them.

  “No, no, uh-uh uh-uh. I read it on Ursula Stevens and there was pictures and everything,” the mouth smacker said, like she was referring to a legitimate news source and not a gossip blog.

  Okay. Fuck it. I signed their notebook and wished them well, just wanting their young, naïve, and gullible asses out of my face. But then hell, there was grown people—grown, educated people—who took the shit on those blogs for truth like it was the Bible.

  Sliding on my shades, I finished getting the rest of the things my moms would need to make two big pans of her honey-and-orange-glazed ribs for the all-female comedy showcase we were having that night. This Pathmark was always crunk—especially the first of the month—but I knew where everything was and I could get in and out quicker.

  Soon I was pulling up before my parents’ house and my father stepped out onto the porch. I eyed him, tall and slender, with a short salt-and-pepper ’fro that reminded me way too much of that squared-up bullshit the daddy on Moesha wore. He looked every bit the nerdy professor, with his Malcom X spectacles and chinos on. “Harriet,” he said, his voice deep. “Take the bottles of apple juice and orange juice over to Victor. Your mother wanted those for him. He’s not feeling well.”

  I frowned as I looked over at Mr. Alvarez’s white house with red shutters and brick steps. Fuck I look like? “Why didn’t his perfect daughter go to the store for him?” I snapped.

  Umph. Those lines of disapproval deepened across my father’s forehead. I just knuckled up and did it bec
ause I was not in the mood for an “I have a dream of a perfect daughter” speech. I slammed the juices into their own plastic bag and made my way up onto the lightly cracked sidewalk and the brick steps to Mr. Alvarez’s door.

  I knocked and the door opened a little bit. This section of Weequahic was filled with working people and all, but who left their door open? This was some shit straight out of a crime scene on The First 48 or Law & Order. What if Mr. Alvarez was stretched out in the motherfucker with a knife in his guts?

  “Come in, Naomi,” he called out suddenly.

  Okay, so he’s alive. I stepped inside and closed the front door, but that made me feel claustrophobic as hell. I left the door wide open as I looked around the house. Even though I hadn’t been in there for over a decade it looked just the same as it did when me and Sophie were the best of friends growing up. Ain’t shit changed at all. Same old floral furniture. Same mismatched rug. Same dust. Same smell of old food and a house that needed its windows opened with a quickness.

  Each step that took me closer to Mr. Alvarez sitting in the same brown recliner in front of his TV made me feel like I was six years old again. I looked down and saw a vision of me and Sophie playing with naked baby dolls. I smiled at my huge Afro puffs and Sophie’s lopsided ponytail done by a father without a wife.

  “Oh, it’s you, Harriet,” Mr. Alvarez said, looking over his shoulder as he coughed, hacked, and brought up phlegm in a dingy handkerchief.

  Damn, like that? Just, “Fuck it. I’m a hawk spit like it ain’t nasty as hell?” I looked away as he opened the rag to study his shit. My eyes landed on a teapot setting on a tray in the center of the coffee table. I noticed the crack along the side. It was glued back together, but the crack was clear as hell.

  I heard a loud crash and I thought I could almost see the teapot on the floor, broken in half. I felt loopy, like I had took an E or popped a hydrocodone. I felt nauseous.

  “Shit!”