by Bri Noreen
“Stop, Izzy. Go wash your hands before your food gets cold.” I used my butt to push him off me.
“Keep sticking that thang out like that and I’ma bend you over right on this table full of food.” He remarked before he walked off.
I rolled my eyes and retrieved the napkin from its hiding place. Using my stiletto nail, I scooped a small amount and dumped it into the pitcher of fresh squeezed lemonade that sat near the sink. I took one more nail full of powder and dumped it down in the pot of greens that was simmering on the back eye of the stove. I might have been overdoing it but for what I needed to do, he had to be knocked the fuck out.
“Aight, what you got for a nigga?” Israel sat at the large, farm style dining table and looked at me.
I discreetly pushed the closed napkin full of sedatives towards the backsplash and made my way over to him with a cup of lemonade. I sat it down in front of him and then walked back into the kitchen to grab a plate.
“I made you my famous jambalaya and dirty rice, collard greens and sweet cornbread.” I tossed a smile over my shoulder at him as I continued to heap food onto his plate.
“Shit, girl. You’re a rare find out here. In a world full of cooking for bae plates, I managed to find you. Fucking lucky.”
I laughed to myself at his cooking for bae reference. Those struggle plates that were featured on Instagram showed just how little our generation know about how to keep a man. I was lucky that even though I didn’t have parents to show me, I had enough sense to teach myself what I needed to know about getting down in the kitchen. I walked over to him and sat his plate down.
“You not eating?” he asked as he watched me walk back towards the kitchen.
“I’ve been snacking on this food all day. Plus I’m finishing up this cake for dessert.” I yelled back.
Truth was, I had laced every damn dish on his plate with the sleeping aid that I had stolen from the nosey cat lady next door so I couldn’t eat or I would be knocked out right along with his ass. So I set the timer on the microwave and stayed in the kitchen baking an unnecessary ass cake as I waited for the pills to take effect. About twenty minutes later he called out to me.
“Bae…” he slurred.
I smirked to myself knowing that the pills were starting to take effect. I watched the timer count down its last seconds before I turned it off and headed out to the dining room. He was sitting at the head of the table with a clean plate and half full glass so I knew he was going to knock out soon. I approached him and took his hand, encouraging him to stand. When he did I lead him to the bedroom.
“Damn…a nigga must be tired…,” he expressed.
“Must be,” I mumbled.
He sat on the bed heavily and I hurriedly shimmied out of the sweatshorts I was wearing. Pouncing onto his lap, I grabbed his face in my hands and kissed him with angst. He moaned into the kiss and I could feel his body loosening under mine.
“Baby… I…” he tried to speak.
“Shh… let me take care of you,” I whispered in his ear.
I wiggled my hand under the elastic waistband of his pants, easing them down his hips a little and pulled out his pretty, 9 inch pole. He hardened in my hand and I watched as his eyes rolled to the back of his head. I was pretty sure that it was the pills taking effect and not my touch but I continued anyway. I needed him to wake up and think this pussy had knocked him out so I swiftly hopped on top of his erect dick and slid down onto his lap.
A good ten minutes and one orgasm later, he was knocked out like he had been shot up with horse tranquilizer and I was on to my search of the house. I started in the bedroom, looking in his closet and nightstand then the armoire he normally kept locked. I swiped his keys from his sweatpants and rifled through his clothes, turning pockets inside out and even turning shoes upside down looking for some kind of evidence of wrongdoing on his part.
I struck gold when I went searching in one of his drawers, underneath some socks. I found a folder full of my medical documents. I sifted through them and made some interesting discoveries. There were papers from two different hospitals. There was a stack of papers from the hospital in Atlanta where I had regained consciousness, and there was another stack from a hospital in Arizona with a different name on the ER admission forms. The complete by field had been filled out by someone named Kimani Summers. He had never mentioned that I had been hospitalized anywhere else outside of Atlanta, so that alone raised a red flag.
The second thing that I found really sent me reeling. The hospital records from Arizona showed that I’d undergone a dilation and curettage to have an unborn fetus extracted from my womb. So not only had he failed to mention that I was moved from one hospital to another, but he’d also left out the fact that I was carrying a baby when I was shot. My gunshot wound had resulted in me losing my child. Reading those papers was like taking a bullet in the same place when the wound was fresh. I couldn’t help the tears that escaped at the thought of my unborn child, but what was even worse was my inability to remember being pregnant or who the father was. As much as I wanted to crawl up in a corner and cry until my eyes were dry, I knew I didn’t have much time to get more information. So I checked a few other places around the condo and came up empty handed. Then I took the keys to his car and dipped.
For a while I just drove around aimlessly not really sure what my plan was to figure this shit out. When I stopped abruptly at a light, my bottle of pills fell out of my bag and caused a light bulb to turn on inside my head. I turned into the nearest Walgreens and headed straight to the pharmacy. What I learned confirmed my suspicions. What I had believed was a sleeping pill actually turned out to be a drug that caused me to suppress memories. The drowsiness that made it feel like a sleeping pill was just a side effect. For the past few months this mothafucka had been pumping me full of pills to make me forget my life before him so that he could use me to do whatever he needed done. To say that I was mortified and pissed would be an understatement.
While at the store, I bought a Tracfone and some minutes and used it to make a call to Nakami. She was the only person’s whose number I had memorized, but the automated voice told me that the number was disconnected. Armed with that bit of information, I started driving around again, trying to figure out how I was going to get away from him. He was not the man that I’d thought he was. There was no way I was going to just let him continue manipulating me. I drove to Nakami’s office and her apartment, I didn’t find her at either place. Confused, I decided to just continue riding around the city, hoping that an idea or a memory would strike me.
After riding around for a while, I ended up at a large building that reminded me of a warehouse. There was a for sale sign plastered on its door. Familiarity set in as soon as I saw the place, and it was as if a magnet was pulling me toward it. I parked, got out of the car, and just stared at it. I was trying desperately to feel something…anything that would give me a sense of who I was before he had come into my life, but I felt nothing by emptiness. I went to bury my head in my hands from the frustration I was feeling when something caught my eye. Reaching down, I picked up a colorful club flyer from the ground. It read:
Clappers!
New Management, Same Fine-Ass Girls!
Come Visit Your Favorite Fantasy at our New Location!
Now Located next to Club South Beach in Hollywood
There was something so familiar about the place. Even as I looked at the flyer in my hand, I started to feel something. Following my gut instinct, I drove to that address and hoped that pieces of the puzzle would start to come together.
That’s where I saw the green-eyed stunner who’d made my insides spontaneously combust with emotions. I had to know who he was. And now that I knew that the man I had been sharing a bed with didn’t have my best interest at heart, I was going to do everything in my power to find my way back to my old life even if that meant my so-called savior would get bodied in the process.
Karma
August 2015
When I heard my door slam, I wasted no time jogging down the stairs with my burner in my hand. I was going to be pissed if the person using their key to my childhood home wasn’t Roman because I had been in the middle of putting my vibrator to use to visions of he and I fucking that I had stored away in my memory bank. He was a master with that third leg and even though it had only been 24 hours since I last had the D, I was still feening for another hit. He was currently handling some things in Atlanta so I was stuck with BOB, my battery operated boyfriend, until he returned. I let out an angry sigh when I saw Ashlynn or Keaire…whichever name she was going by these days, whip her purse onto my expensive suede couch.
“The fuck is your problem?” I screamed before I ran over to her and knocked her purse to the floor. “That is a custom made couch made from material that cost more than your life is worth. Be careful where and how you set your shit down in my house. Now why the fuck are you here?”
“She fucked everything up! It wasn’t my fault,” she whined.
“Who? Who did what?” She starting pacing the floor and running her fingers through her hair.
“I don’t know. It was some broad,” she mumbled.
“Talk in complete sentences! What the hell happened at that club? According to the plan, you’re supposed to be at Kimani’s apartment pop, locking and dropping your twat on his eggplant and installing the cameras we gave you. So what happened?”
“I don’t know!” she flopped down on the couch. “Everything was going good. I had his attention, and he seemed happy that I had shown up. He was practically foaming at the mouth when he saw me walk in. He walked away to put in an order for our food and the next thing I knew, he was running out of the club behind some chick. He never came back. He just fucking left me there.”
I looked at her with confusion etched across my face. That didn’t even sound like Kimani. And based on what I remembered, there were only three bitches in his life that he had ever cared about: Ginae, who was dead, Vicious, who he now couldn’t stand, and Blu, who was also dead. Who was he chasing out the club?
“Who was the girl? You ever seen her before?” I asked using the barrel of the gun to scratch my temple.
“No. Never. But she was pretty. She kind of puts you in the mind of that chick who dates Gucci Mane. You know, the one with the lipstick line.”
My heart leapt out of my chest when she said that. The fuck? There was only one broad that I knew who fit that description that would’ve made Kimani react that way. But she was six feet under. I had made sure of that. So who the hell was she talking about?
“What else can you tell me about this woman?” I asked anxiously.
“Um…I don’t know.” She threw her hands up in the air.
“Come on, you fucking retard! Tell me her height, weight, hair color, eye color! Shit, you have to remember something!” I was beginning to lose my patience with this simple broad.
“She uh, she was about my height I guess. I couldn’t see her eyes in the dark, but her hair looked like it was jet black. She was dumb thick, though. She could have been up on the stage making guap with her body shape. Other than that, the only thing I remembered was that she had a large tattoo on her thigh. I couldn’t really make it out, but it looked like flowers or butterflies,” she concluded.
Anger filled my body like a syringe. I could feel myself shaking like a fiend with her hand out, and I could literally feel the foam bubbling from my mouth like a rabid dog. There was no way. I shot her! I saw the blood pour from her body with my own two eyes! This bitch couldn’t fucking be alive! She just couldn’t!
Pow! Pow!
My chest heaved up and down as I fought to regain control of my breathing. My anger had bubbled over and consumed me, and my actions unfortunately had caused me to end the life of Ashlynn on impulse. I glanced down at her lifeless body and her wide eyes. Blood and brain matter had splattered all over the floor and the couch that I had just caused such a fuss over. I had killed her with a perfect shot to the head and another one straight through her heart and I hadn’t even looked in her direction when I’d aimed. Too bad, so sad. But I had bigger problems to worry about.
Sinking into the loveseat, I tapped the gun against my forehead feverishly. What the fuck was I going to do now? For one, I had just done away with an integral part of our plan, and I’m sure that Roman was going to be livid. Not only was Roman going to be an issue but Blu, the bitch that had already ruined my life once, was alive. She could cause more damage than she already had if she found out I was alive too. With my plan for revenge unraveling, I was seeing red. I sat on the loveseat, muttering to myself for two hours, until a name flashed in my mind. Elated, I hopped up from my seat and ran to shower and change clothes. I had one ace in the hole left, and I hoped it would be what I needed to get my plan back on track.
Grey
August 2015
I was still sick without Blaze, but I had a plan. A plan that I was sure that would get me back in her good graces and make up for whatever I had done to piss her off. I couldn’t believe a chick had me gone like this. Never in my twenty-eight years of life had I loved someone outside of Kimani, as much as I’d loved Blaze. I was a pretty nigga with hella swag, so women were never a problem for the kid, but love always had been.
My mom had her own version of love, and that was to make sure that she provided for us. She was never affectionate like a mother should be, but she worked hard to make sure that we didn’t go without much. We surely didn’t grow up with designer clothes or gourmet meals, but she made sure we were decent and fed. I knew that she cared about us, but I was never sure that she loved us. Her actions seemed obligatory like she was just doing what she knew a mother was supposed to do. But I never felt love in her actions, and I damn sure never heard the words come out of her mouth.
But despite growing up not really knowing what love was or felt like from the hands of a woman, I was sure of what I felt for Blaze. She was the only person that I had ever felt deeply for, and I could see in her eyes that she felt that same way about a nigga. That’s why I would stop at nothing to get her back in my arms. But I had some quick business to handle first.
Finally, all my Detroit niggas had made it out west, and today was the first meeting to explain why I had brought them out. I was meeting with the fam at After Midnight, which was almost complete and ready for the grand opening. I arrived first and made sure Logan had everything squared away with food and drinks. These niggas I was meeting with were truly like family, and I wanted to make sure that I extended a warm welcome. Fifteen minutes later, the back door to the restaurant opened.
“My nigga!” I heard from behind me.
I turned around and saw Jah and his sister, Mhizani. Jah and I had met playing little league football when I was eight. He was a hard-headed nigga with a mean streak like nothing I had seen before. He was tall and solid like a fucking brick wall, and his hands were lethal. His sister, Mhizani, was two years younger than us, but she was ex-military and had skills that would be crucial to what I had planned. I smiled at the pair, dapped up Jah, and hugged Mhizani. I had Logan show them to their seats, and I went and took a phone call in the back office as we waited for the others to arrive. A few minutes later, I walked back out to see that the table was damn near full, and niggas were clowning already.
“So you tryna tell me that even though you’ve been hanging around us damn near all your life, you still be catching snow bunnies?” Seven looked at Martine with wide eyes.
“Man, look, it’s not just white girls. I’ve had a few Maria’s and Selena’s on my team too.” Martine laughed.
“Oh, but no Shaquana’s or Tiana’s, huh?” Brandin spoke up.
“Naw, man.” Martine shook his head and laughed.
I watched as Mhizani sauntered up behind him and ran her hands down his chest. “If you ain’t too scared you could def add a Mhizani to your team.” Walking around to the side of his chair, she took his hands and planted them on her ass with a hard smack. “Th
at is if you think you can handle all this.”
When I tell you this dude, Martine, turned a shade of red that you’ve ever only seen on a classic car, I’m not lying. I couldn’t hold my laughter in anymore. Everybody else in the room laughed out loud too, including Martine. Mhizani kissed him on the cheek and winked before she switched off in the direction of the bathroom. We clowned around for another twenty minutes until everyone else showed up, and then I called the meeting to order at ten o’clock on the dot.
I looked around at the team that I had assembled, confident that I was making a smart move. Martine had already been moved to the west coast. He was a white boy who had grown up in our hood, and he was as solid as they come. Even though he was raised in the hood, Martine was still a blue-eyed, Henley-wearing, Vans-sporting, snowboarding, bushy-haired white boy. He was my Bill Nye, the science guy. He could break a product down to its comprising scientific elements, and he knew what to tweak to make it worth double or triple what we paid for it. I swear if Martine had applied himself in high school, he would’ve graduated from one of the Ivey Leagues’ best and be working on curing cancer by now.
Brandin also had already come to L.A. a few months ago and was one of my top lieutenants. He was as smart as he was deadly. He had helped me outline my operation so that we were damn near invisible to the pigs, and he had everything running seamlessly. I rarely had to even go to the trap to make sure shit was straight because Brandin always had a handle on things.
Keem and Treach were my weapons connect. Their Haitian bloodline was going to be vital to pushing the new drugs that we’d been testing and clearing out any opposition that stood in our way. When they ran with my team in Detroit, their people back in Haiti supplied us with all the artillery that we needed. Outside of Simba, the last three rounding out the team were Ryan, Bailey, and Erika. They were my cleaners. Yeah, two of them were chicks, but they were more thorough than half the niggas I had on my team in Cali. They made sure that whenever I had a problem, they got it solved quickly and quietly. I trusted them implicitly, and I knew that by having them in Cali, I would be able handle any mothafuckas that wanted to try me. Plus I was trying to remove myself from the dirty work. I was now a public figure, and having my hands clean was going to be imperative moving forward.