by Styles, Toy
But Miss Parade needs no help. Hell, she once beat two girls back to back in school.
~~~~
That day, she started out fighting one person when another girl decided she would stop it by holding Miss Parade. When she did that, it gave the other girl a chance to hit Miss Parade in her face.
Miss Parade waited until after school for the girl who stole her. She whipped that girl's ass like she stole her man and then knocked on the other girl's door to beat her mercilessly. When I asked her why the girl who held her back got beat worse, she said she hates when somebody holds her back but loves a good fight.
~~~~
People are crowding around now and we see the mall cops comin'. We snatch Miss Parade up off the girl, who is now on the ground, and get the fuck out of Dodge. It really is pitiful to see somebody getting stomped out like that but we warned her. Me, Miss Sky and Miss Daffany are laughing and talking about the fight all the way home.
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I look at Miss Parade in the passenger seat and she ain't laughin' at all. She has her hands on her face in preparation to pick her skin again. I think, in her mind, there is nothing funny about having another scar. Poor thang.
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4
Daffany Stans
MY LIFE IS DIFFERENT THAN it was five months ago. I used to laugh at all the money I was getting from these dudes back then, turning tricks and believing they were dumb for payin' for sex while I wasn't for sup-plying their needs. I was simply making cash off their weaknesses. The thing is, most of them don't even have to pay for sex but they do anyway. They have wives and girlfriends who are more than willing to do everything I do if they just ask. Hell, most of their women are bigger freaks than me.
But they don't want them to fulfill their sexual fan-tasies, they want me to. My price was high because I realized that they don't pay for the sex as much as they pay for the ability to leave without emotion, without feelings attached. I stacked their cash and laughed with my friends about the things they wanted me to do while never naming names.
Yeah, five months ago was definitely different. I used to look forward to days and spending time with 36
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my friends, the only real family I have. Now, I have no real purpose and there's not much to laugh about. My stash is low and I don't care what I do or about making money anymore. All I ever succeeded at was making a real fuck-up of my life. Even if I want to get out now, I can't. So, I still turn tricks.
I moved out of the apartment I shared with my moms and got my own in the same development two years ago, but she stays at my place more than she does her own, bummin' all the time and borrowin' shit that she never gives back. She pawned five of my vacuum cleaners I continued to let her borrow, and that was one of the main reasons I moved. My mother smokes so much crack that I wonder how she even pays her bills, but then I remember we're in the same line of work. As a matter of fact, we have some of the same customers.
In the back of my mind, I wonder if she gave it to me.
Hell, she gave me the game by always telling me that if I wanted or needed anything, there's some sucka out here who would give it to me, and that I better get mine like she gets hers. She lived by the rule fuck you, pay me, which she'll tell a nigga in a heartbeat. I don't know any other way of getting money. But I ain't tied to these no-good-ass niggas so I have the best of both worlds - money and dick with no one to report to.
Five months ago, my world shattered. I wonder if the doctor told my mother the same thing that he told me.
"Daffany Stans, you're HIV positive," Doctor Scott said. I screamed and cried for fifteen minutes in his T. Styles
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office, trying to convince him to change the results.
"Take it back! Take it back," I pleaded with him. I was so delusional that I thought he could change my life by simply sayin' it wasn't true or that he made a mistake, as opposed to thinking about all the men I sucked or fucked without a condom 'cuz they was willing to pay a few more dollars.
I told him there was no way I was positive. I wasn't even sick. After he told me over and over that he couldn't lie to me and threatened to call security, I decided he must've gotten my results mixed up with someone else's. "Look at the name over again," I demanded. But then he handed me the paper with the name I've known all my life on it. Damn! It was definitely Daffany Stans.
I've always been quiet, but more so over the last few months. Sky says that when you're quiet, people think you're sneaky. Maybe it's true. But lately, I feel like there's even less shit to talk about. I can't laugh knowing that, in the end, nothing is funny. I will always have fuckin' HIV. The little things that are important to everybody else are not important to me anymore. I'm a walking zombie just waitin' for my number. And if it wasn't for my friends, I'd be gone already.
Parade thinks she has troubles because she isn't the most attractive person in the world. I would trade shoes with her in a heartbeat. She's not even unattractive. She makes herself ugly because she doesn't take care of her skin or have the slightest idea what to do with her hair. She has pretty eyes, a pretty smile and a 38
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beautiful complexion, but every time me and Miss Wayne tell her, she just rolls her eyes at us. So I don't tell her anymore. I got problems of my fuckin' own now and that's all I can think about.
~~~~
"Oooooh, Miss Daffany. Girl, that outfit is lookin'
fierce. I don't know if I can let you get in here with us, wearing that. Miss Sky, pull off, girl." Miss Wayne laughs from the inside of the car.
I get in and everybody is smellin' and looking good.
Sky took Parade to her salon she goes to in DC and even she looks nice. The short curls in her hair soften her features and bring out her beauty. She has makeup on and everything.
"Don't hold back, bitches," I say as I get in the car and smell the weed. "Pass that shit around." Weed and E-pills are the only things that make me feel normal. On E, I don't have a care in the world. I popped before I left the house and I'm starting to feel a little better. I don't tell them that I fuck with E
because they act all bourgeois and shit when it comes to Ecstasy, talkin' about people be lunchin' out on that shit. What Sky doesn't know is that I buy all my pills from Jay and depending on how much money I have and what he wants, I don't have to pay. Every now and again, he'll pop one with me.
"Here you go, girl," Miss Wayne says as he passes the bob. "So, what time does it start, Miss Sky? I can't be cooped up too long with this outfit on. This thing's made for watchin'."
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"It started at ten thirty, so we're about an hour late.
We don't wanna be the first ones there, anyway. We gotta make an entrance," Sky adds.
"Who givin' it?" Parade questions.
"Donna. She throwin' it at her mom's house in DC," Sky answers.
"Uuuggh. You know she fucks with Silver's cousin, right?" I ask Sky. "I can't stand them crooks."
"I was thinking the same thing, girl," Parade says.
"I hope Silver and them ain't comin' either. They start too much shit."
"Girl, who gives a fuck if Silver and them comin' or not?" Sky says. "Silver and them are caked up. And somebody in your position shouldn't be choosy anyway, Parade. If you were smart you'd be tryin' to fuck with one of them. You always hatin,' throwin' monkey wrenches in shit," Sky continues.
She comes down on Parade hard as cold dog shit all the time. If me or Miss Wayne said something about it every time she did it, we'd never get along. Plus, Sky doesn't have to hang with any of us, but she does.
Besides, she's the only one in the group with a car. I m
ean, everybody knows that I fuck for money, Miss Wayne is a faggy and Parade ain't the cutest thing, but she never cuts us off.
"Well, I hope they don't come in and fuck shit up either," Miss Wayne interjects. "At least not before I meet my new baby daddy. Plus, I'm still mad at them for robbin' me."
"You ain't got no proof they did it," Sky says.
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"No proof?" Miss Wayne repeats as he moves his hands back and forth in disbelief. He is so extra, but it's always funny to see. "No proof? Bitch, Markee's young ass dropped his school ID on my living room floor. What more proof I need, chile? I woulda called the cops if all that shit wasn't stolen anyway." Girlfriend is so funny. That is his way of takin' some of the heat off Parade and puttin' it on himself. He's always there for her. Car or not, Sky don't give us half of the shit she gives Parade. And you can get Miss Wayne wrong if you want to, but he's liable to stab you.
He's the only faggy in the neighborhood the niggas tolerate.
Miss Wayne once slashed a nigga's face for calling him a faggy in front of his mamma after he sucked his dick the day before. Once he did that shit, he gained respect from the dudes around the way. He did it because he thinks faggies are stupid, and he'll tell you quick, "I'm far from stupid, darling." But try askin' him what's the difference between being gay and being a faggy and you'll be even more confused. Although he hates outsiders to call him a faggy, I've heard him use it with the few gay guys he hangs around. I guess it's like the word nigga among blacks. Some people simply can't use it. Miss Wayne ain't no small dude either. He's real light-skinned and looks more like a body builder than anything else.
Sound okay? Well, imagine a body builder in pumps and a spandex dress with a purse. Exactly! But I fucks with him 'cuz he keeps it real.
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~~~~
The party is crowded and you can barely move while the stereo rattles the windows throughout the house. People are poppin' and I am tryin' to scope the room to see who I can get mine from.
"Girl, this shit is terrible. We shoulda went to club Love," Parade says.
"I hate Love. This all right, girl. You gotta get some liquor up in you, that's all." I'm kickin' it with Parade when just as I suspected, Silver and his friends walk in and they are already startin' shit.
"You see 'em, right?" Parade asks.
"Yeah, girl. Damn, we can't neva go nowhere without them being around," I cosign.
"It's these neighborhood shindigs. We gotta branch out and stop hangin' with people 'round our way." Parade is talking but I am not listening because I'm tryin' to see who came in with Silver and them. They are already spread out and lookin' for shit to get into.
I hate them stupid-ass niggas with a passion. They do everything from stickin' people up to raping girls. The only reason people deal with them is so they'll leave
'em alone.
They haven't been at the party five minutes and already Markee, the youngest, smacks a girl because she doesn't wanna give him her number. That's how they are, and that's how they act all the time. Jackie, one of the brothers, came to me a month ago and wanted a blowjob. After I spent thirty minutes on this moth-42
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afucka, he jetted out without payin' me my money.
And then he had the nerve to speak to me the next day.
But you can't do nothin' about it because when you fuck wit' one, you fuck wit' all of 'em. So, instead of pressing him about my money, I took it as a L.
"Girl, that dude over there wanna holla at you," Sky says as she walks over to me.
It's the first time she came back since we got here an hour ago. She has two sets of friends, and although we've known her the longest, she sometimes treats us like we are charity cases. If Jewel, her other friend who owns a beauty salon, is anywhere we are together, she'll leave us until it's time to go home.
Sky can be real shady when she wants to. So, as usual, I'm with Parade holding up the food table and Miss Wayne is somewhere probably blowin' some trade off. Now that Sky wants something, she's come back.
Sky's tried to trick me off to dudes before, and at first I didn't mind. But then she started doing it like I worked for her or something, saying shit like, "I got a job for you tomorrow, be ready." She had a lot of fuckin' nerve. So I put an end to that shit quick. If we as tight as she say we are, she shouldn't be doin' that shit. I learned from it quick, not to mix business with friendship, so I told her the last time that I wasn't wit'
that shit and she ain't talk to me for a month. I know she knows better than to run game on me tonight.
"Naw. I think he with Silver, and you know I ain't fuckin' with them stupid-ass niggas," I respond.
"No, he ain't, Daffany. You think everybody in here T. Styles
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wit' them. I told him I know you, and he wants to holla. Now you gonna make me look like I don't know what I'm talking about," Sky says. "He seems real nice."
"Nice, huh?" I ask, looking her over.
"Yeah."
"Well, I don't want to be bothered, Sky." I ain't sure, but I think her sneaky ass is up to something.
"Tell him I got a boyfriend or somethin'."
"I already told him you didn't. And just 'cuz he talk to Silver don't mean he hang with him. Why don't you like them anyway?"
"Does it really matter? Silver and them is not as cool with everybody like they are with you. I don't got no boyfriend they're scared of."
"Just like I thought, you ain't got no reason," Sky says.
"I have my reasons but mainly 'cuz they act stupid."
I didn't tell her that one of them stiffed me for my dough after I sucked his dick. My friends know what I do, but don't know who I do it with. With me finding out I got HIV, I'm glad I never opened my mouth to anybody, including my friends. All I need is one of these niggas lookin' for me every time they get a cough and shit.
"Yeah, she's right, Sky. Silver's boys act too stupid.
Markee just hit that girl over there 'cuz she ain't wanna give him her number. What is he even doin' here? He's like a kid," Parade says as she sips on her drink.
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"First off, Parade, I'm not talkin' to you," Sky snaps, pointing her finger in her face. "You wouldn't be sayin' shit if somebody was tryin' to holla at your tired black ass," she continues.
Parade is taking deep breaths. I've seen her stomp bitches out for pointing a finger in her face. So letting Sky slide proves she takes a lot from her.
"Sky ... get your fuckin' finger out my face." Sky must know Parade ain't playin' because she quickly withdraws her finger.
"You just jealous, Parade," she responds in a lower tone. "And that don't make no damn sense."
"Whatever. Just because I don't look a certain way don't mean I'm jealous of you. And there are plenty of dudes who still want me, no matter how you think I look. Trust me," Parade says. "You don't even know the half."
"And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
"It's supposed to mean exactly what I said!" Parade yells.
Aw shit. Parade is finally getting buck with Sky. She never, ever talked back to her that way. For one, Sky would threaten not to do stuff for her anymore and two, Sky is the flyest friend Parade has.
I'm ordinary and I'm cool with it. I know about the labels, but I prefer to wear Express and spend more money on my shoes and purses than anything else. I'm brown-skinned and I wear my hair in ponytails most of the time. I got really big breasts and a flat ass. I think there's Chinese somewhere in my family 'cuz I have T. Styles
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chinky eyes, although my moms keep sayin' it ain't true. She's slept with too many men to count and probably don't kno
w who my father is anyway.
"You know what, you little bitch, see the next time I do anything for you," Sky yells to Parade over the music.
To say Parade looks up to Sky is an understatement, but eventually everybody gets tired of being shit-ted on. All she's gonna do now is carry Parade and not answer the phone when she calls. Parade can't handle the heat from Sky when she throws her shade. She'll call me or Miss Wayne and beg us to talk to Sky for her.
But Sky won't come around until she gets ready.
"Look, it's not that serious," I say as I grab Sky's hand. "She was takin' up for me, that's all. I'll talk to him real quick, Sky. It's not a problem."
"First off, you don't need nobody takin' up for you.
We ain't kids. We grown-ass women," Sky says as she looks at Parade.
"Well, maybe you should act like it," Parade responds with most of her mouth in her drink.
"I'm coming, Sky, dang. Just leave it alone."
"Okay," she says with an attitude. "Anyway, he's been asking about you all night, and I think you'll like him," she adds as she play hits me on my arm. "I'm trynna find you a man so you don't have to trick no more."
"Why you gotta say dumb shit, Sky? I don't need no man, and I'm not gonna stop trickin' till the fuck I get ready to."
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"Unless you a dyke, we all need a man." Sky laughs. "Well, he's feeling you. He's asked me about you all night," she resumes as we approach him while he's kickin' it with one of his boys.
"Excuse me," Sky interrupts his conversation.
"Here she is."
"A'ight, yo. I'll get up wit' you lada, man," he says to his friend. "Good lookin' out, shawty," he continues as he turns to Sky. "And don't worry, she gonna be a'ight wit' me."
"No problem, boy. Just do my friend right," Sky replies as she switches away.
I'm alone with him and nervous. I ain't the go-hard bitch I used to be and tonight I don't feel like no shit.