Lifestyles of the Rich and Shameless

by Noire

  But after her short stint on Rikers, Noble and his little city job would definitely do. Zsa Zsa was done with the drug lords, the gamblers, and the ballers. She didn’t want no dude whose résumé consisted of multiple upstate bids, or a string of street pharmaceutical gigs in three different boroughs. Those types of guys were just short-term solutions to her long-term needs.

  Nah, Zsa Zsa was looking to latch on to somebody legit. Noble had told her he was looking for a wife, and she was damn sure hunting for a husband. She longed for a steady square with a regular paycheck, and maybe some decent health insurance too. A guy who could fuck, and wasn’t gonna start swinging on her whenever his horse got an attitude and ran too slow. Somebody who was mentally stable and wasn’t gonna be jumping outta no bushes tryna get at her. A dude who might not be ballin’ and droppin’ a gwap of money on the races every night, but who would support her in becoming a business owner, and provide her with some real security in these tough economic times.

  A dude like Noble Browne.

  6

  I’m gonna have to start stripping again, Kiki thought as she envisioned the solid grand she used to rack up in titty bars every night. She eased up off the gas and guided her bus toward the curb, then put the gears in park and released the door lever.

  The hydraulics hissed as a gorgeous black girl with straight hair and Asian eyes got on the bus and swiped her Metro card. Dressed in the blue getup of New York City’s uniformed force, and displaying the name Zsa Zsa Flynt on the tag, the girl was so pretty that Kiki smiled at her without thinking. She reminded Kiki of a mixed girl she’d gotten down with in a mé-nage à trois for a rich guy back in her college days, but of course it wasn’t her. This girl was thicker and way cuter, but the cut-throat look she shot Kiki was full of unmistakable hostility.

  “Screw you too,” Kiki muttered as the gorgeous girl rolled her eyes and swung her curvy hips toward the back of the bus. With her hand on the door switch, Kiki waited while a fat old man struggled to climb the three steps as a group of teenagers rushed to get on behind him.

  After closing the doors, Kiki glanced into her side-view mirror, then rotated the heavy steering wheel and swung the city bus out into the crowded lanes of midtown traffic.

  There was a time not too long ago when she wouldn’t have been caught dead riding a city bus, let alone driving one. But things had really changed in her life, and these days, instead of shaking her boobs and stepping out of her silk panties for top dollars, the blond-haired, blue-eyed Kiki Lyons earned her living making the wheels on her bus go around and around.

  Kiki had been a good little white girl from the burbs of Long Island growing up. But during her freshman year at Seton Hall University she was introduced to quick money and horny men, and soon after she’d started stripping for the thrill of it.

  Sweet-natured and gorgeous, Kiki had been a natural on the stage. She had no problem catering to the dark fantasies as she rode the golden poles and touched herself in public three nights a week. She actually got high off the power she felt radiating from her pussy. It made her feel desirable and in control. And the money was damn good too. In fact, Kiki could have stripped for years and stacked mad cream if she hadn’t caught a serious case of jungle fever.

  Like a lot of college dorms, hers was no better than a Forty-second Street ho house. With her long blond hair and an extraordinarily bouncing ass for a white girl, Kiki was known as the white girl with the black body, and she had all the slick brothers in the dorm on rock. She ended up getting with the school’s star running back, but then got left on the sidelines when he dissed her for a Puerto Rican chica with a brighter smile and an even bigger ass.

  But there were plenty more black athletes where that one had come from, and Kiki wasn’t by herself for very long. By the end of the semester she had fallen in love with another football stud, and this one hung around just long enough to get her pregnant.

  She gave birth to her son in the middle of her sophomore year, and she dropped out of school a year and a half later after she delivered her daughter. As a single mom with two kids, Kiki found it tough to make ends meet, so when her father took sick and invited her to move into his small house and help share the bills, she packed up her kids and jumped on it.

  Driving a city bus wasn’t Kiki’s idea of a high-tech career, but it was the only thing she had going on. Sure, she could get another job in a strip club in a hot minute. And she could pull it off too. Her body was still tight and fine after having two kids, and there were no sagging titties or stretch marks to mess up her smooth white skin. Hell, feeding her kids franks and beans three times a week made a few hours of topless dancing look like a great career choice.

  Stripping was a seedy, underbelly job. All those hungry eyes on her body, the countless grasping fingers pinching and groping her all night. Men seemed to worship her body, and Kiki actually got turned on from all the attention.

  But there were a few things holding her in check. For one thing, she lived with her sick father and it would kill him if he found out his darling daughter was creaming in her underwear for strange black dudes every night. And for another thing, Kiki had two kids to think about. As much as she loved being naked and adored, she never wanted to do anything to degrade herself in their eyes, or to set a bad example for her daughter.

  So, with nowhere else to turn, Kiki hauled her tail outta bed every morning, microwaved a bowl of oatmeal for her father, rushed her kids off to day care, and then plopped her ass down in the driver’s seat of the M3 bus like a good little girl.

  And even though she stayed broke, Kiki was very grateful to have a job at all. She got paid on time, had a good retirement plan, and belonged to a city union. But with the responsibility of raising a family resting entirely on her shoulders, her little paycheck just wasn’t enough. The money Kiki brought in the door went flying right back out the window for bills, groceries, and child care.

  The recent problems with her health just added more drama and uncertainty to her life. And it had Kiki scared like a mutha, too. She just didn’t understand it. Out of nowhere she had started nodding off. Going straight to sleep. She could be sitting down reading, or brushing her daughter’s hair. It didn’t matter. One second she would be minding her business and doing what she did, and the next thing she knew she was opening her eyes. She never even remembered falling asleep. Only waking up.

  At first it had been easy to just brush it off. Kiki knew she was tired and overworked, so she started putting the kids down earlier every night and getting in the bed to cop a few more Zs, but it didn’t help. No matter how long she slept, she’d nod off anyway.

  She had already caused two accidents on the job, and they’d given her a warning and put her on written notice. Kiki couldn’t understand how she had crashed that big old bus, especially twice, but one minute she was sitting at a traffic light with her foot on the brake, and the next minute her bus had gone through an intersection and crunched up a parked car.

  Kiki had thanked God that nobody had been hurt either time, but she’d had to lie to her supervisors to cover her ass. The first accident she blamed on a slippery patch of ice on the street, and after the second one she swore up and down that something had gone wrong with her brakes.

  Kiki had served a thirty-day suspension and been required to go through an intensive driver’s safety course before she could be restored to driving duty and full pay. Those thirty days of no pay had damn near sent her and her kids to the poorhouse. With no savings and only her father’s small disability check coming in, Kiki had been tempted to crawl back on a stage and throw her thong on the floor, but instead she had dragged her kids into food pantries and soup kitchens until her pay came through again.

  Kiki’s supervisors really liked her a lot, and they sympathized over the situation with her father and her kids. But they’d also warned her that if she had one more driving accident—whether they liked her or not—her ass was out the door.

  The thought of not being able to
provide for her kids was terrifying. In desperation, Kiki had gone to see a local doctor who was not affiliated with her job’s insurance plan. She paid him all this money outta pocket just for him to tell her he suspected she was suffering from a disorder called narcolepsy. He urged her to visit her regular physician, who could then order a thorough sleep study and give her a firm diagnosis.

  But Kiki wasn’t about to do nothing like that. City bus drivers were required to stay awake on the job. People’s lives were in their hands, and the public trust was at stake. If Kiki rolled up on her supervisor talking some shit about narco-any-damn-thing, she might as well just pack it up and take it to the crib. Her job would be a wrap, and so would her only source of income.

  Kiki was despondent. Life wasn’t supposed to be this damn hard. Especially for a cute white girl like her. Wasn’t no need in looking to her babies’ daddy for help because his ass had five other kids that he wasn’t taking care of either. The last time Kiki called his mother’s house asking for help, she had gotten straight cursed out.

  “Did I get you pregnant?” his drunken mama had demanded. “Did I climb on top of you and hump them babies up inside you? I didn’t lay down with nary white girl and get me none of her nasty pussy, so all y’all pink-slit tricks betta quit blowing up my damn phone looking for money!”

  That had been the last time Kiki had dialed the only number she had for him, and she had promised herself that she would never get low enough to call her children’s grandmother again.

  Sure, there had been other dudes who she probably coulda gotten with if she put herself out there. Black dudes were suckers for white girls with ass and hips, even ugly ones. But the type of guys that hollered at Kiki were just leeches. They were all looking for a dumb white girl to reach in her purse and upgrade their status. And Kiki wasn’t about that. She couldn’t even take care of herself and her kids, so she wasn’t thinking about taking care of no man.

  Besides, not every dude was good enough to be bringing around her kids. She didn’t need no slouch. Life had already made a slouch out of her. She needed a man who could help her pay some bills.

  All of this had been weighing heavy on her mind as she pulled up at the corner of Fifty-ninth Street one sad day. The intersection was a change point in her route, and Kiki was required to wait for another bus to arrive, and then she and the driver were supposed to switch routes.

  The first time Kiki noticed the traffic cop waving his arms in the intersection she couldn’t take her eyes off him. He was real tall, muscled up, and had pretty brown skin. A few days later, Kiki’s transfer bus was running late, and she had gotten off her bus to wait. She had been leaning up against a light pole lost in her thoughts, and it scared the shit outta her when the traffic dude blew his whistle real loud.

  Kiki’s eyes had opened wide and her mouth fell open too. The traffic guy was looking dead at her. He had stopped cars in both directions, and was motioning with his white-gloved hands for her to cross the street.

  “No, no,” she had stammered, shaking her head and waving her hands. “I’m not crossing!” she had yelled over the noise of the city. “I’m waiting for my bus! For my bus!”

  To Kiki’s surprise the guy had come over to her and struck up a conversation, and almost immediately, Kiki’s imagination had taken off big time. She could actually see the setup. The possibility was there. Dude was a traffic cop. He had a secure, steady job and could hold it down for her while she got her health issues under control.

  Six months later, her and the traffic cop, whose name turned out to be Noble Browne, were still talking. In fact, they were doing a lot more than talking. At first it had been just nightly phone calls and winks and waves during the day as she transferred buses at his intersection, but it had quickly progressed to something more.

  Kiki really liked Noble, and she wasn’t tryna come across as no jump-off, so she let him chase her for a good minute before she gave up the booty. But when it finally happened, she had been shocked out of her mind! Noble was fine and had a rock-hard body and a nice, heavy package and everything, but he also had a stump where his right leg should have been.

  She had absolutely not seen that one coming, and immediately, Kiki’s heart had gone out to him. She’d felt so bad for what he’d endured that she had wanted to plant comforting kisses all over his body.

  But Noble’s missing leg didn’t stop him from handling his love thang in the sheets. He was good for a nice, strong dick down, and by the time they were done fucking like bunnies their first night together, Kiki was practically in love with everything about the dude.

  It wasn’t just that Kiki had a thing for black men, even though she did, but this one-legged black man was a good-ass catch. He had told her he was looking for a wife to marry, and the fact that he’d warned her he was seeing other women didn’t even mess with Kiki’s head. She already knew she was the one. Noble had been sent to save her. She just needed him to hurry up and realize it before she lost her job and her kids starved.

  Over the past few months Kiki had been dreaming about how straight her shit could be if only she had a good man to help her out. On the real, her father was so sick he wasn’t gonna live much longer. And when he died, his little check was gonna die right with him. On top of that, Kiki knew her days were numbered with the transit authority. It was only a matter of time before she fucked around and nodded off again behind the wheel, and as much as they liked her, Kiki knew they would fire her ass on the spot.

  She also knew she should probably give up her license and stop driving altogether. The last thing she wanted to do was run over some innocent pedestrian with that big-ass bus. But what was she supposed to do? She had kids to feed and a father to take care of. She had to put food on the table and keep the damn lights on.

  It seemed like the weight of the whole world was leaning on Kiki, and she didn’t know how much longer she could handle it. If shit didn’t change in a hurry, she was definitely gonna have to go back to stripping.

  What Kiki needed was a man to help her out. Somebody to step up to the plate and take charge. A man who could hold it down for her and her kids until she could get her shit together and her medical condition straightened out.

  What Kiki needed was a savior. A man who wasn’t tryna find the fantasy dumb blond chick, and who wasn’t scared to get with somebody who already had kids. A man who was capable of shouldering some of her responsibilities so she could catch her breath and rest for a minute.

  A man like Noble Browne.

  7

  Malisha Chambers didn’t know a damn thing about baseball until the doctor pulled her into his office and told her that her man was about to die real young.

  For months nobody could figure out what the hell was wrong with her husband, Jamel. He had been shaking and bumping into walls and falling down left and right, but nobody could ever tell Malisha why.

  “It’s called Lou Gehrig’s disease,” a specialist finally told her. “Jamel has a disease that’s named after a famous baseball player. There’s no cure for it, and it’s gonna kill him fast.”

  But like the old folks always said, doctors weren’t God and they didn’t know every damn thing. And as it turned out, baseball wasn’t what took Jamel out after all.

  Malisha did.

  It had been raining, and she’d been rushing Jamel and their young son home from a birthday party when she ran a red light and wrapped her BMW around a telephone pole. Jamel had been killed instantly. Their son, Trey, had been critically injured, and Malisha?

  Oh, Malisha had walked away without a scratch.

  In a matter of moments every single dream Malisha had shared with her man had been shattered. The cute little house they’d bought in Queens, the white picket fence, the brand new luxury whip ... none of that shit meant a damn thing without Jamel by her side.

  All Malisha had ever wanted was a family, and her husband had been everything she could have asked for in a man. Jamel had been a dependable provider, a dedicated fathe
r, and a delicious lover. But when she buried him on that cloudy morning in June, she had put her life right in that hole along with him. Everybody kept telling her that Jamel probably would have died from his disease soon anyway, but Malisha knew it was her act of stupidity, not no damn baseball disease, that had sent her husband to an early grave.

  So it was their boy Trey who Malisha lived for now. Her smart, active baby had suffered brain damage in the crash, and was now just a whisper of the kid he should have been. Trey had been discharged from a rehabilitative facility a year earlier, and he required around the clock care. Malisha wanted to stay home and take care of all his needs, but unfortunately, she had to work and earn a living to support the two of them.

  The home health aids that were paid for by the city had been trifling as hell, and Malisha had to stay on them to make sure they did the simplest shit right, like cleaning his breathing tube and changing his position in the bed every few hours.

  Trey’s doctors had urged Malisha to put the boy into a long-term care facility, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She didn’t give a damn what they said about Trey’s brain damage being too severe for him to know who she was. Her son knew her! And despite the accident being her fault, he loved her too. Why the doctors couldn’t see this, Malisha didn’t know. All she knew was that when she looked into her boy’s eyes she saw all the love he had for her shining back at her.

  It was true that Trey didn’t talk, play, or dress himself like other kids his age did, but one thing her baby did was smile. That boy smiled! Malisha lived for that smile. And the only thing that was guaranteed to penetrate the fog in her son’s brain and put a big smile on his face was music. Classical music. But not just listening to it. Playing it.