by BlaQue
I walked into the house and noticed that the lamp that normally sat on a table by the door was lying broken on the floor. I tiptoed further inside and started inching my way towards the back of the house and that’s when I saw what I didn’t want to see.
Natalie lay behind the couch in a nightie with a knife sticking out of her chest. I moved closer to her and saw some ole horrific shit that you normally only see in movies. Her tongue had been cut out of her mouth and it lay pinned in place on top of her bloody chest. Next to her body was a note written in big black marker. It read: Loose lips sink ships.
I back paddled and almost slipped in the trail of blood that was on the floor. I regained my footing and tried to fight the urge to throw up. I couldn’t hold it anymore and rushed out the front door where I came in and threw up on the steps.
Once I finished letting my dinner loose on the steps I started to panic. I didn’t know if anyone had seen me or if the killer was still there. I knew one thing, I wasn’t going to wait around that mutha’ fucka’ to find out either.
I felt bad just leaving her there, but what was I supposed to do? I wasn’t getting wrapped up in none of this shit. I hopped back into my ride and threw the car into reverse. I backed out watching the entire block. I half expected the police to pop out of any one of the cuts or alleys and bust my ass. It didn’t happen.
I didn’t exhale until I had pulled my car onto the entrance ramp for I-295. I thought about calling the police, but how could I explain that shit to them? How would that play out? I just happen to be stopping past my employee’s house at the wee hours of the morning and I stumbled upon her half-naked body with her tongue detached and pinned to chest with a knife. That shit wasn’t going to fly. They would bust my ass immediately!
My mind was frantically racing. I made it back to Pinky’s house and her car was parked in her assigned space. I whipped my car into the guest space next to hers and killed the engine. I rested my head on the steering wheel and tried to gather my thoughts.
I exited the car and entered the condo. I could hear Pinky in the shower. She was reciting the lyrics to, “Hope You Niggas Sleep,” which I found odd. Or was it because I was already paranoid? I flopped on the pink leather couch and waited for her to exit out of the bathroom.
I couldn’t help but wonder where she had disappeared to in the middle of the night. What had she done that she needed to come back in the house and take a shower and what was with her song choice?
When Pinky came out of the bathroom she jumped as though she were surprised to see me there.
“Oh shit! Hey baby.” she said visibly startled.
She eyed me suspiciously. I knew I must have looked half crazy; but so did she. If she knew what I had just seen she would have understood why I was looking at her like she was a suspect.
“Hey. Where did you disappear to? I woke up in the middle of the night and you were gone.” I asked her trying to be as casual as possible. I was watching her face carefully to see if I could read her expression. Then it dawned on me, Pinky was a paid killer. Her life consisted of taking people out then lying if necessary to cover it up. Reading her expression would prove to be hard.
“Oh, I had some things to handle. You know how that goes. When money is to be made I gotta go and get it.” she said not making eye contact with me.
I felt fear creep up through the pits of my stomach. I had all kinds of crazy shit racing through my mind. Had Pinky found out I was fucking around with Natalie and made her a target? Had she gone over there and made an example out of her? I couldn’t be sure by Pinky’s demeanor.
I nodded at her last statement about her making money and for the first time I didn’t feel safe in the house with her. There was no telling what she would do to me if she had in fact found out about me and Natalie. She might wait until I got comfortable and fell asleep, then killed me.
“You aight Neko? You look like you have seen a ghost.” she asked watching me closely.
“Naw ma’ I ain’t feeling too well. I think I am coming down with something. Maybe I should head on home. I don’t want to be coming down with a cold or something and give it to you.”
I could see the disappointment make its way to the surface of her thoughts.
“I was hoping I could thank you for everything you have done for me over the last three weeks. I know I ain’t been easy to deal with. Losing my baby sister has me all fucked up. Neko you are the only person I got left in my life that I care about and I started thinking about how I would feel if I didn’t have you in my life.” she said.
I couldn’t help but feel like this whole scene was a set up. Pinky was not the clingy, mushy type, yet here she was acting super possessive.
“I hear you baby. I just don’t want to get you sick.” I said. I even threw in a fake cough to throw her off. I didn’t want her to know that I was trying to get away from her. I knew what Pinky was capable of and I didn’t want to end up one of her targets.
I got up and cautiously walked over to her and gave her a weak hug. I left her standing there with hurt and disappointment in her eyes. I walked out the front door and broke out to a full run when I got outside and away from her. I knew I must have looked like a bitch running to my car, but at least I was still alive. There was no way I was going to fall victim to Pinky. I had had enough shit happen to get caught slipping like that. I cranked up my engine and headed for my own home and prayed I was safe from Pinky there.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Familiar Faces
“Party Party”
NiQue
I woke up and my head was pounding. I felt strange. My body was sore like I had been working out. I was stiff and could hardly swing my legs over the edge of the bed. When I finally was able to push myself to my feet I got a good look at my reflection in the mirror and screamed. My arms and upper torso was covered in blood. I stripped out of my clothes frantically. I was searching for the source of the blood. When I got all the way down to my underwear I realized that it wasn’t my blood all over my clothing and body. I fell back on the bed and put my head in my hands and started sobbing. Pajay had done it again! She had done something fucked up! What was scary was I had no idea who had become a victim!
Just when I started trying to figure out who she had butchered, I began to panic. I looked around the room to see if she had left behind any evidence of who she had hurt. I looked down on the other side of the bed and the baby was there safe and sound in her big wicker bassinet. She was sleeping and from the looks of it, she hadn’t heard me scream when I first got a look at myself in the mirror and saw that I was drenched in blood.
Seeing the baby safe made me feel much better, but the fear within me kicked into overdrive. I could feel Pajay in the room and I knew she was watching my every move. I flew to the bathroom to get the darkening blood off of my body. I turned the shower on as hot as it would go and got in. The water was so hot that it burned my skin, and yet it wasn’t hot enough to wash away the guilt I felt. I may not have known who I had hurt, but I was almost positive that they didn’t deserve to be hurt or even worse, die.
“You look like the modern day ‘Carrie’ in there washing away the pig’s blood!” Pajay laughed wickedly.
I almost jumped out of my skin. I don’t know why I thought I was alone. Even when I thought I was alone, I never really was. That bitch was always lurking around waiting to turn shit out.
“What the fuck have you done? Whose blood is this all over me?” I asked her knowing it wasn’t going to be easy getting an answer out of her.
I turned off the shower and stepped out. My entire body was red and raw from the combination of scrubbing too hard and the water that was way too hot for anyone to shower in.
“Does it matter whose blood it is? As long as they don’t fuck with us anymore, that is all you should care about!” Pajay said. She was doing just what I knew she would do—dance and skate around my questions.
I was staring at myself in the mirror and I wished I could re
ach inside myself and drag this bitch Pajay out. I was getting tired of playing with her.
I didn’t know who she had fucked around and killed or hurt this time, and she was gonna toy with me before she told me who it was. I needed to know who she had hurt because I needed to make sure I didn’t need to watch my back. Pajay didn’t think out any of the shit she did. She reacted and caused me problems. There was bound to be a mess for me to clean up somewhere. That is exactly what she did—make messes like a toddler and I always had to clean that shit up.
“Why is it every time something fucked up happens, it has something to do with you? You are always causing trouble and I swear this is the last fucking straw!” I screamed.
Pajay just laughed at me because she knew that my threats were falling on deaf ears. She didn’t give a fuck about anything but herself. She didn’t see things like she should have. She didn’t realize that if they locked me up they were going to lock her stupid ass up too!
“I’m going to ask you one more time. Whose blood was that Pajay? I need to know so I can protect us. If I don’t know, what if the police come after me and I say something that incriminates us? I wouldn’t know what to say because you ain’t told me shit!” I said trying to flip the script on her so she would see things my way.
“Let’s just say I got rid of a whiney bitch who was asking for it. She was talking so much I cut her tongue out so she would shut the fuck up forever!” she laughed wickedly as though she had told the best joke ever.
I was stunned and I could feel my body shaking from the thought of taking yet another life. For a long time I used to think I was crazy. It was she who was crazy. Only someone insane would cut out another human beings tongue and think it was a joke.
I couldn’t help but think back to when I was younger and Pajay did crazy shit and everyone thought I was weird.
Summer 1987
“NiQue come down here right fucking now!” I heard my brother Mike yell from the lower level of our home in Trinidad NE.
I knew by the tone of his voice he wasn’t happy. I slowly made my way down the steps. I knew whatever he was yelling about he wasn’t pleased with me. When Mike wasn’t happy he often let me know by spankings and making me say I was sorry in a not so traditional way.
I was notorious for getting in trouble. The only time I seemed to stay out of trouble was when my best friend YaSheema “YaYa” Clayton was around. When she was around my brother would act like a different person. It wasn’t until many years later that I found out why he acted like an innocent saint when YaYa was on the scene. She was my only outlet to the abuse I was getting from who I thought was my brother Mike.
When I reached the bottom of the steps, Mike and his girlfriend Janet were waiting for me. Mike had a look of displeasure on his face and Janet had been crying. Her eyes were red and puffy. I knew whatever I had done was something serious because Janet who was normally as sweet as summer rain, wouldn’t look at me. My presence only made her cry harder. Janet was always kind to me, until that day. She used to save me from Mike when he was mad. She was the closest thing to a mother I had, and I hated for her to be angry or upset with me over my actions. She would braid my hair and read stories to me before bedtime. Janet would always let me play in her makeup and try on her “big girl” clothes as she would call them. I loved Janet and to see her crying pained me.
I stood before them trembling. My eyes darted between the two of them trying to get a feel for what I had done. Mike’s antics caused Janet to sob even louder and it was scaring the shit out of me!
“What the fuck is wrong with you NiQue?” he growled. He pounded his fist into the wall causing both me and Janet to jump.
I wanted to run to Janet and have her protect me, but from the way she was crying, I knew she wouldn’t. I didn’t say anything. There was nothing I could say, so I stood there. I didn’t even know what I had done to make them upset.
“I don’t know what you are talking about Mike. Whatever I did, I am sorry.” I said backing up from the two of them. My eyes begged for forgiveness. I was sorry and I didn’t even know what I was sorry for.
“You know what you did! You’re just gonna stand there and act like you ain’t have nothing to do with this shit?”
I was so confused. He was talking in circles making my head hurt, and I just wished he would tell me what I had done so I could get the punishment part over with.
Mike grabbed my wrist and yanked me to the living room and pushed me on the couch. He turned on the VCR and popped in a tape. I still didn’t know what was going on. I tried again to look to Janet for help and she avoided making eye contact with me.
When the tape started to play I saw why they were beyond upset. In the tape, I was totally naked, wearing nothing but a huge grin. There were several boys of all ages in the room with me. As the tape continued to play, it showed the boys taking turns having their way with me. They were putting me in positions that the inventors of Karma Sutra would have been ashamed of.
Not only was I being gang banged on the tape, but I was doing so as a willing participant for boys in a rival drug crew that my brother and YaYa’s father had a beef with. I didn’t know how any of it happened or how I got there. I didn’t know why I had done the things I was doing on that tape.
What baffled me more than anything else about the video was that after I allowed my body to be used for the gang bang, I walked over to the front of the camera, licked my lips and blew a kiss at the camera as though I were proud of humiliating not only myself, but the family too.
I looked away from the screen trying not to watch the horror of it all as it unfolded on the screen. Janet had long since stopped watching the spectacle I was making of myself. Mike was totally engrossed in the madness and I could have sworn that while the tape played he would rub his hand up and down the shaft of his dick as though the whole scene was exciting him.
“What do you have to say for yourself? You ain’t shit but a whore NiQue and you ain’t gonna be shit but a whore when you get older!” Mike screamed.
He was putting on a show for Janet and I knew it. The whole thing on the tape had turned him on and I knew once Janet had gone about her merry way he would be making me say, “sorry” in the way that Mike had taught me so many years before.
Whenever I got into trouble Mike would make me do things to prove that I was sorry for the bad shit I had done. He would force me on my knees and shove his dick down my throat and tell me hum the words, “I’m sorry” until he came in my mouth. That wasn’t the worst part of it. He would force me to swallow every drop of his baby batter and would laugh at me when I would gag and throw up.
I knew after the incident with the boys on the tape I would be doing way more than humming my “sorry” this time. Mike was going to make sure I paid for embarrassing him! I didn’t know what to expect, and I sure wasn’t looking forward to the punishment either. I knew what he was doing to me was wrong but what was I supposed to do about it?
Finally, Mike dismissed me to my room. I sat on my bed and waited in silence. I knew once Janet was gone it was going to be on.
“You shouldn’t let him control you like that!” I heard the voice say.
“Well, what am I supposed to do? You know he is really mad and he is gonna make me pay for what you’ve done! He always blames me for the stuff you do!” I whined through mountains of tears.
When I first heard Pajay speaking to me she sounded muffled like she was speaking to me through a closed door or from under water. I didn’t know if she were real like the others who had come before her. I used to think that someone was playing a trick on me when the voices began. I would hear my name being called and there would be no one there. As time went on, her voice became crisp and clear and I knew there was something sinister about her. She wasn’t nice and she was always willing to do shit just to get a rise out of people. She always claimed that she was doing the horrible things she was doing to protect me.
I dozed off and I woke up when I heard t
he door to my bedroom creak. I knew there was no way for me to pretend that I was asleep. It was time for my punishment. The others who had dwelled in the corners of my mind used to help me get through the punishment Mike dished up. They taught me how to shut down and feel no pain. Pajay acted like she loved the shit he was doing to me and I couldn’t figure out why. I knew what Mike was doing to me was wrong and no man should force himself on a woman, but Pajay reveled in it. Anything sexual sent her into frenzy.
I could feel Mike’s presence standing over me.
“Just fall back NiQue. I got this. Don’t worry we will make his ass pay for this shit one day.” Pajay said.
She was almost excited for the punishment to take place. I didn’t question her. I just lay there and let her take over my mind and body and when I woke up, it was all over. The sun had risen and it was a new day. I was alone in my room. There was no Mike and no Pajay. The only clue I had that something had happened that shouldn’t have, was that my body hurt. My pussy ached and I could smell Mike’s Joop cologne and funk all over my body and bed. Something had happened. I didn’t know if I had been a willing participant or not but something had gone down! Knowing that Pajay had been there through it all meant that there was no telling if I had let him do horrible things to me willingly, or if he punished me by force. I could never be sure, and I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know anyway.
Winter 1997
I was glad I was getting older and Mike had slacked up on the punishment shit. I think because he knew I was old enough to tell, he wasn’t into it as much. But when I would get caught breaking curfew, then on my knees I would go, head bobbing back and forth bringing my twisted brother to ecstasy.
Pajay always promised that one day she would make him suffer for the shit he was doing to me. My only escape was spending time with my best friend YaYa. Her family welcomed me with open arms. I had longed to have a family like theirs. They were rich and powerful. Don’t get me wrong, Mike had money because he worked for YaYa’s family, but they had something Mike and I definitely didn’t have for one another—love. I hated his ass and he acted like I was a burden.