Carl Weber's Kingpins

by Raynesha Pittman

  “Girl, where are you? I just knew you’d be at the house waiting for me.” Tyger’s voice was shaky, and that alone was enough to scare Temper.

  “Putting on my shoes, and I’m on my way.”

  “Okay, hurry up and bring a wrapper with you. I had to get a bag.”

  “I already have a pack in the car.” She ended the call and grabbed the duffle bag she packed.

  When she got into her car, Julio pulled up behind her and blocked her in. He got out and came over to her. “We need to talk.”

  “Yes, we do, but not tonight. My hood-rat ass has a dick to suck for weed. Can you move your car?”

  “It’s about Kei’Lani, Temper.”

  “I don’t give a damn who it’s about. Move your car, or I’m calling the cops. Oh, wait, you are the cops,” she sneered.

  “Your best friend said Khasema sent her to kill you,” he lied. “And then she rammed her head into the wall to cause a seizure. Last I heard, she wasn’t going to make it, and I don’t care. That’s not why I’m telling you. What I do care about is that you’re in danger, baby. Let me protect you,” he said, trying to reason with her. “Let me save Journee from Temper’s mistakes. She doesn’t deserve to suffer because of your past.”

  “‘Baby’? Listen to how crazy you sound. There ain’t no Journee. There’s only Temper, and there will always only be Temper. Calling me by another name is still betrayal to your best friend. I made mistakes—me, Temper. I’m the girl who fucked up your homeboy’s life, and either you can forgive me and let it go or do what you already did and let me go. Can you please move your car, or do I need to call 911?”

  Julio stared into her eyes, and they were as empty as she was forcing his heart to be. He got back into his car and moved out of her way.

  On her way to Tyger’s apartment, she cried as fear came over her. How in the hell would she protect herself when all it took was friendly words from Kei’Lani for her to be foolish enough to let her back in? True, Khasema was in jail, but Kei’Lani mentioned he would be going in front of the review board next year. If she decided to press charges on Kei’Lani, would that keep Khasema in jail, and would him being in prison stop the attempts on her life? How much pull did he have in the streets? She wondered about it, and then she remembered the security blanket she’d given herself years ago. She hit the gas and did a hundred miles per hour until she pulled up at her old apartment. She had to knock because Tyger had had the locks changed.

  “Are you okay?” the girls asked each other in unison as they hugged.

  “I’m fine. What happened at the police station after I left?” Temper blurted out before Tyger could say another word.

  “Please roll that shit up. I’ve been sipping this vodka, but it ain’t doing shit. Paula’s under-the-table, racist ass is dead and gone,” Tyger said, shaking her head.

  With all the other shit on Temper’s mind, she’d completely forgotten about it. “How was she killed? What did they say happened?”

  “They didn’t tell you?”

  “No, Julio didn’t tell me shit. He wanted me to press charges on Kei’Lani. When I refused to, he told me to go fuck off and cleared me as a suspect.”

  “Oh, yeah, Julio,” Tyger said, rolling her eyes. “The second fucking cop you had around me when I told you never to have any around me,” she started up, and Temper shut it down.

  “This isn’t the time for that. I already told you I didn’t know, didn’t mean to, and that I was sorry. What happened with Paula? You must have been cleared as a suspect too, or you wouldn’t be here.”

  “There can’t be any suspect in a damn overdose. The bitch died from a drug overdose. We shouldn’t have been asked to come in anyways. I answered your question. Your turn. Can you please tell me why we had to sit at the station for all those hours and get questioned about everything but the fucking overdose?”

  “She overdosed?” Temper repeated, confused.

  “Why do you sound surprised when we both knew she was addicted to pills?”

  Temper didn’t know if she should answer honestly. Paula had trusted Temper with the information she didn’t want anyone to know. She wanted to have children and told Temper that her husband’s sperm wasn’t up for the job.

  “Nor is your addiction to prescription medicine,” Temper noted.

  “I know,” Paula whispered as the janitor pushed the trash bin past her office door. “That’s why I gave them up.”

  “Sure you did.”

  “I swear I haven’t popped any pills or taken anything, not even cough syrup, for the past six months to get my system clean enough to conceive a child.”

  “Who’s helping you beat the addiction? I sat in one too many Narcotics Anonymous classes at the shelter I used to work for to know support is key in kicking any habit. Is your husband helping you with this?”

  Paula closed and locked her door. “He’s never home to pay attention to me. I started drinking wine to deal with his absence, and then this long infomercial came on about depression and a drug that did away with it. I visited my aunt, and she had a bottle. I’ve been stuck on pills since. One night, when I wasn’t expecting him home, I took two pills with a glass of wine. I wasn’t thinking straight. I just wanted to relax. Brad walked in and found me on the kitchen floor, mumbling. He saw the bottle and blamed it on the wine. He doesn’t know about my addiction, and if he did, I don’t think he’d care.”

  “Sad story,” Temper said, facing her. “If you’re not sure if he cares, then why are you trying to have a baby? Y’all need counseling, which makes beating the addiction that much harder. Are you attending meetings?”

  Eventually, in secrecy, Temper attended a handful of NA meetings with her. She was the first person Paula called when the pregnancy test returned positive. Marriage counseling was working, and she and her husband started having a date night once a week. It wasn’t impossible for her to relapse. It just wasn’t probable.

  “I’m not surprised, just confused why we were brought in for questioning on a drug overdose too,” Temper answered, deciding it was best to lie.

  “Then you should ask your boo. He had Kei-Kei and me in the same waiting room while he talked to you, and to be real with you, I don’t trust him or her. She seemed like she was still holding whatever happened in the past against you, and it was driving her crazy to get it out. Your boo called her in for questioning, and the next thing I know, the paramedics were rushing in to get her because she had a huge seizure that she brought on herself. Are you going to fire that blunt up or just keep standing there holding it?”

  Temper lit the blunt, hit it once, and then passed it to her. “Is that all that happened?”

  “Do you think I’d be this amped up if that were all? Hell no, that was just the beginning. Your boo came back like he was ready to kill my lawyer and me. He started asking me about our past and how did we meet. He wanted to know why you left Las Vegas and what happened to Isabel.”

  “Why would Isabel come up?” Temper asked, reaching for the blunt.

  “I don’t know, but I do know something is up, and your past seems to be the cause of it. Are you sure you told me everything about your past? All I heard was fight, fuck, and get fucked up.”

  “I’m sure, but now it’s your turn, don’t you think?”

  “Um, no. I didn’t ask you to tell me any of that shit. You wanted to. You needed a therapy session, and I gave an ear. I don’t have a past. My parents died and then we met, that’s it.”

  “Save that shit. You just said that you think my past might be after me. Well, what if it is? What if there’s bullshit going on I don’t know about? Is there something in your past that could help me, or somebody you can get to look into all of this?”

  “Oh, no you didn’t, bitch. You’re trying to use me. There’s that fucking perk I knew your ass was after way back when. Here we are, years later, and now you want me to pull a card out that I threw away at sixteen for a new life. Ho, you’re not my friend. You ain’t nobody’s
friend. It’s just like Kei-Kei said. It’s always all about you. Get the fuck out!”

  “I’ve been thrown out of better places by better people. I’m not leaving.” Temper was so firm and straight to the point that Tyger wasn’t sure how to respond. She’d told Kei-Kei that she had never met this version of Temper she was introduced to today, and she wasn’t sure how to feel about her.

  “That’s the only version of Tee I know—cutthroat, heartless, and selfish. She doesn’t give a fuck about you. Y’all have been friends for a long time, and that’s why you probably don’t believe me. Just wait until she gets a man. You’ll get to see where you stand with her,” Kei-Kei had warned.

  Tyger didn’t agree with her verbally, yet she did agree. She had witnessed the switch up when she met Julio. She didn’t know precisely how far Temper’s change in attitude could go, but the little she noticed was enough to know that dick had the power to make her best friend do flips.

  “Are you listening to me?” Temper snapped, hoping she wasn’t being ignored. “I said you can beat my ass, but I’m not going anywhere. I don’t have a clue what’s going on. I was only asking you if you had your sister’s back at all costs, and you just made it clear that you don’t. I’m okay with that. Everything that I said to you earlier today, I meant. I’m fucked up on the inside, and I’ve done a lot of terrible shit in my past, and the more I try to let it go, the bigger my problems get.” She hit the blunt Tyger was holding and then snatched the bottle out of her hand.

  “Then I should kick your ass for questioning my loyalty since you’re going to let Kei-Kei off the damn hook for trying to kill you. I was locked in the room for an hour with that bitch, and I hate to tell you, but she ain’t your friend. I don’t know about how you hoes were in the past, but she was trying to team up with me to pin whatever came our way on you. Both of y’all bitches ain’t shit.”

  “If she weren’t about to die anyway, I would press charges to prove the relationship we have is more than I ever had with her.”

  Tyger shot her hands up to her mouth. “She’s not going to make it?”

  “Not from what Julio said.”

  “Ahh, Temper. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  “Not my loss. She ain’t you.” She shrugged. “Do you know why I never told you about my lesbian experiences with her?”

  “Yeah. You a secret-holding-ass bitch, and that’s what your kind does.”

  “Wrong. I didn’t tell you because that day you spoke up for me on our way to court, I wanted to fuck you so bad to show my appreciation. Nobody had ever done that for me, and in less than three hours, you did it again with those Blood bitches. You would have thought I was crazy if I had said what I wanted to say. That’s why I settled for that best friend shit, because asking you to be my woman would have killed the opportunity you gave me to get to know you. Getting to know your super-smart ass is why I could let go of a lot of shit I did. So telling you that I love pussy would have led on to me asking to taste you.”

  “Bitch, I should swell up your muthafucking eye for trying that weak-ass shit on me. First off, I’m straight. That ‘fuck her to get what you want out of her’ bullshit you’re trying to run ain’t gon’ ever work. Put your dick back in your mouth, pimp. It’s going to take more than hot words and a wet tongue to get me to fold. Next, I have your back to the fullest. You shouldn’t have to question my loyalty, but protecting your ass comes at my discretion, not your recommended methods. Lastly, I lied.”

  “About what?” Temper’s heart felt like it would explode in her chest while she waited for Tyger to answer the question. It never crossed Temper’s mind that Tyger lied about who her father was, or that it wasn’t Tyger’s quick wit that saved her at the courthouse. There was a rich man Tyger visited in Arizona, but that could have been anybody. Thinking back, that was the only time Temper had witnessed Tyger act in that manner or talk that way. She had to know. “What did you lie to me about?”

  “About that damn experience. I ain’t never licked no pussy. When I was writing you back, my roommate was standing over me reading my shit, and I wanted her to think I was bisexual so she’d mess with me. Instead, she saw me as a player like her and didn’t try to do shit with me.”

  Temper tried to hold it in, knowing Tyger was pouring her soul out, but it was too funny not to laugh, and the liquor and weed thought it was too.

  “Then why did you let me hold on to it for all that time? You could have come clean years ago,” she said, flopping down on the couch next to her.

  “I thought about it but couldn’t decide which was more embarrassing: lying about eating pussy to get my pussy eaten or lying about eating pussy and not eating any at all. I don’t know, girl.” She joined in on the laugh. “I just needed you to know the truth, so you can stop trying to play me with that ‘I wanted to fuck you’ shit. You sound like one of those weak-ass niggas I went to school with. They used to throw eggs at my head for being a nerd, and now when they see me all grown up, they want to throw their tongues at me and give me more head than my pussy can handle.” She laughed, but Temper did not.

  “I love you, Tyger, you already know that, but you’re going to have to whoop my ass. I wasn’t joking. I wish I were, I really do, but why would I want a husband when I felt like I met my wife before I was eighteen? I only did that shit with Julio because I got tired of hoping things would pop off between us. I decided years ago that I would never initiate it, and you never did. I was like fuck it, let me go find love.”

  Tyger hurried over to the arm of the couch, leaving a vast space between them. “Yo, I think you might need help, Temper.”

  “I think we both do. Why did you map out your entire life with me and not a husband? I had time to think about all of that on my way over here. You made a plan for us that involved no serious relationships and us being attached for life. Why is that?”

  “Because you’re my sister and my best friend. What do I need a man for besides dick and head when I got you for everything else? I don’t want no damn kids, and I’m not about to share a bed with nobody.” She snatched her drink. “Give me my damn bottle back. I got you one. It’s in the refrigerator. This shit is starting to creep me out. We need to change the subject back to the important shit and try to figure all that out. This lesbian heart-to-heart stuff is too much.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. Grab my bottle for me. I’m going to roll another blunt.”

  They smoked and talked, drank, and talked a little more, and since Tyger already announced the museum would be closed for days because of the many events of the day, they planned out their moves for tomorrow.

  “You need to call Julio and play the role with him and see what all he knows. When his chief found out he knew us, they took him off the case. He stabbed Kei’Lani and shouldn’t have been on it in the first damn place. I don’t know what happened in that office between him and her, but I know that whatever did got his ass suspended,” Tyger announced, way past drunk.

  “What do I say to his punk ass? I hate him.”

  Temper laid her head in Tyger’s lap like she had always done when frustration took over, and Tyger began to scratch her scalp with her nails.

  “I don’t know, but we will come up with the exact words in the morning. You will have to play that shit cool. You can’t be over there talking crazy and . . .” Temper took Tyger’s words away as she sucked on Tyger’s braless nipple through her spaghetti-strap shirt. “Um, what the fuck are you doing?”

  “Getting these cravings out of my system,” Temper said as she lifted the top to reveal two beautiful seedless watermelon–sized breasts. She hurriedly stuffed the nipple in her mouth before Tyger told her to stop.

  “But I’m not gay,” Tyger moaned as she slowly resumed running her nails through Temper’s hair.

  “Neither am I. You cured me.”

  Her mouth was replaced with her fingers as she pinched Tyger’s nipples slowly and moved up to her mouth. She kissed Tyger like she’d never been kissed before.<
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  “I’m not gay. I’m just high. Okay? I’m only letting you do this because I’m fucked up, and my pussy thinks you’re a man.”

  “Whatever your sexy ass says, that’s what it is. We’re both fucked up for all I care. Come up out of those shorts. I’ve waited for years to taste you.”

  Tyger almost ripped the shorts off as she moved faster than light traveled to take them off. When they hit the ground by Temper’s foot, she grabbed a handful of Tyger’s pussy and cupped it tightly until she could feel the juices mist in her palm.

  “Damn, that pussy is fat. Man, I’ve wanted you,” Temper moaned, and the grip she had on her pussy made Tyger shake.

  Temper wasn’t lying. She’d wanted to fuck Tyger for a long time, though the desire to do it didn’t start until recently. She’d had a wild night in bed with Julio and thought it would have been better if she could have shared the taste and feel of another beautiful woman with him. It was the first time that the lesbian beast within had shown its face in years, and she blamed the unwanted visit from her old chum on the new wine Julio wanted them to try. It made her feel 16 again. It made her feel alive, sexy, and fuckable by either sex.

  She’d wanted to fuck all night, but she only experienced the pleasure of sex all night with a woman, and then Julio changed that. He fucked her so good that she wished she had a pretty pussy in her face to lick while she enjoyed the dick he repeatedly rammed in her, and that was when she saw Tyger’s face. It was beautiful, but the titties she knew she owned from watching her get dressed in front of her turned her on. As Julio pounded her from the back as if she were a random bitch he’d wanted to fuck, she shoved her face into the pillows until she was sure he couldn’t see it and pretended she was licking Tyger’s pussy. From her clit to her asshole and back, she was on Temper’s menu but was imaginarily being served. What was taking place between the women was a dream come true for Temper, even if it was only for this one night. She’d enjoy the moment like it was hers to have forever.