by Sa'id Salaam
“Hey, stranger!” Tiffany said, delighted to see the familiar face, known to have the best dope in town.
“Hey, yourself. I’ve been looking for you,” Pony said, extending his arms for a hug.
“Well, you found me,” Tiffany said, accepting the hug. “Wow! I see you missed me,” she teased, feeling an erection rise instantly in his pants.
“Come on. Let’s get outta here,” Pony said, his voice hoarse with desire.
“I can’t go yet. I ain’t made my rent yet,” she whined, stripper talk for “Sure, we can go fuck, but you gotta pay me.”
“Shit, shawty, you ain’t got to worry ‘bout rent or nothing else, long as you wit’ me,” Pony bragged, backing up enough so she could see he was balling.
Tiffany could tell by Pony’s treatment of her that he expected the old, sweet, naïve Tiffany, so she became her. She contracted her vaginal muscles so tight that Pony wondered if she wasnt a virgin.
He lasted about two minutes before slumping over, head-over-heels in love with her. “Do you know how long I wanted to do that to you?” Pony asked between gulps of air.
“Yeah,” Tiffany said with a giggle, going into little girl mode.
“What you mean, ‘yeah’?” Pony said, chuckling and tickling her sides.
Tiffany laughed and squirmed, not because she was actually ticklish, but because “Whatever the customer wants” was her mantra. “I always knew you liked me. I liked you too,” she said coyly. “If I wasn’t with Marcus—”
“That nigga is a fool! You with me now,” he said confidently, then filled her in on Marcus’s latest antics.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Tiffany asked as she fished her shooter out of her purse.
“I do mind,” Pony said bluntly. He was shocked to see she was now smoking out of a pipe. “It’s time to let that shit go!” he said.
“But, baybeee, I like to get high!” Tiffany whined.
Pony pondered in silence for a moment. He had wanted Tiffany since third grade. He waited until he got his weight up before even stepping to her. He figured she was still using, just not actually in the pipe. “Take that shit in the bathroom,” he barked. “If you gon’ be wit’ me, that shit gotta go!”
“Thank you, Daddy! Ima quit,” Tiffany squealed, although she had already made up her mind to bounce if he didn’t let her smoke. “Wait till you see how horny it make me,” she added over her shoulder as she rushed into the bathroom.
Pony’s eyes were glued to her lovely ass as she bounced away. Crack or no crack, he was sprung.
As Tiffany twisted and turned her pipe under the flame, she plotted on how to deal with her new man. The ideal situation was to get him smoking again. Since he was plugged in with P.I.G. and that good dope, they could get high all day. She got a good laugh out of picturing herself as Pony’s Blast, only prettier. If that didn’t work, she resolved that she would ride the Pony Express as long as she could. “No way I’m letting you go,” she said to a piece of cocaine before smoking it. Once she finished her package, she went back into the bedroom and sucked Pony’s brains out through his dick, sealing the deal, she hoped.
* * *
After her attempts to get Pony back on the pipe failed, Tiffany went back to dancing. This allowed her both the money and the time away to get high. Pony kept on her about her drug use, so she hid it from him. At the club, she could smoke as much as she liked, but she also stole a blast or two at home when she could. If Pony was careless enough to leave any drugs unattended, they were smoked.
Almost all the girls at the club were on something. It was a common sight to see someone snorting, smoking, shooting, or popping something. The savvy manager got a cut from the select dealers she allowed to operate inside of the establishment. A skinny, tattooed white boy named Two handled the meth, while a Mexican called Droopy had the weed. There was a smooth black dude who called himself Ali-Rock who had the blow, hard or soft.
All the dealers had carte blanche throughout the club and unlimited access to the private rooms. It wasn’t unusual for them to sometimes trade their wares for sexual favors.
Ali-Rock had taken a liking to the back of Tiffany’s throat, and they bartered daily. It was during one of those bartering sessions that Pony decided to stop by and see his “wifey.”
When Pony stepped into the club, he was greeted by a tiny Asian girl with huge breasts. “Hey, you looking for your girl?” she asked mischievously.
“Excuse me?” Pony said, startled by both the question and the size of her breasts.
“You’re Pony, right? Tiffy’s man?” she said, drawing his attention back to her face. Like most of the other girls, Angel hated Tiffany. She had been the star attraction until Tiffany came along, playing with herself. Her outrageous masturbation show stole the show.
“Um, yeah…where she at?” Pony said, scanning the stages.
“Follow me,” Angel said, leading him by the arm. She led him into the private room that Tiffany and Ali-Rock had just excused her from. When they arrived, Angel pushed the door open and stepped aside.
“Uh huh! Suck that dick, you nasty bitch!” Ali-Rock demanded as Tiffany worked her head furiously. She was ass naked in full slut mode, the way Ali-Rock liked her. Tiffany was literally gagging herself trying to please him.
“Hey, Tiffy, ya man’s here,” Angel sang before walking off.
Pony stood there in shock, unable to move or speak. If the music hadn’t been so loud, they all could have heard his heart break.
When Tiffany looked up from Ali-Rock’s throbbing crotch, she was so surprised that she tried to speak before removing his dick from her throat. The resulting gargling, gagging sound caused Ali-Rock to crack up laughing. “Ayo, ma, don’t talk with your mouth full.”
As he laughed, Pony turned his head to leave.
“Hold up, yo! It’s not what it looks like!” Ali-Rock laughed again, adding insult to injury. His laughter reverberated in Pony’s ears as he left.
Tiffany, knowing full well what a burnt bridge looked like, kept on bobbing her weave.
A single tear escaped Pony’s eye as he climbed back into his truck. In truth, he knew he could only blame himself. He had broken the cardinal rule: You can’t turn a ho into a housewife. It was his bad, and he knew it.
CHAPTER 22
Marcus and Wanda finished polishing off an ounce, not even a full twenty-four hours after receiving it. He was expected to pay $500 for every ounce Pony fronted him. Marcus always came up short, but this time he didn’t even sell one crumb. They tricked off with some and smoked the rest. “Ain’t the first package I fucked up.” Marcus laughed. The way he figured it, Pony owed him; they were partners. It was his lick that got them started, and he was the one who had put him on with P.I.G. Last but not least, he knew Tiffany had moved in with Pony months earlier and hadn’t tripped about it. With all that in mind, he dialed Pony’s number.
Pony was in a foul mood after just seeing the love of his life with some dude’s cock in her mouth. He was busy putting her belongings (minus what he’d bought her) by the curb. He was tearing up pictures, trying not to cry, when his phone rang. His first thought was to ignore the call, thinking it was Tiffany with some lame excuse like “Baby, I don’t know how his dick got in my mouth.” Still, Pony picked up the phone, eager to hear whatever she had to say. He hoped and prayed he had somehow misunderstood what he saw. Damn, he coulda been raping my girl! his pussy-whipped mind screamed. “This nigga here,” Pony fumed when he saw Marcus’s name on the ID screen. He was eager to vent his frustration on someone, so he took the call. “Yeah?” Pony barked.
“What’s good, play?” Marcus sang playfully. “I need to get witcha.”
“You got my money for the last one? Ain’t shit if you ain’t got my money,” Pony shot back.
“Money?” Marcus chuckled. “I know you ain’t trippin’ ‘bout no money.” He actually pulled the phone back to look at it and make sure he had the right number. He couldn’t believe his ace from th
e first place was fronting on him.
“Nigga, I sell blow. I can’t come up giving you all my work!” Pony yelled.
“What you tripping on?” Marcus whined.
The pleading in his voice caused Wanda to take notice.
“Trippin’!? You junkie-ass nigga! I got ya tripping!” Pony shouted. He was feeling better with every insult he hurled at his former friend. “Get my money up, fuck nigga!” he said, taking it too far.
Marcus looked at his phone again, hearing the game-changing insult. He knew he was a junkie, but a fuck nigga? Dem’s fighting words, he thought. “’Fuck nigga’?” Marcus asked, daring Pony to say it again.
“Yeah, fuck nigga! Bitch nigga, ho nigga, dick-in-the-booty-ass nigga!” Pony yelled.
There was a deadly silence on the line as Marcus digested what he heard. The insults had awakened the murderous demons in his head. They had been subdued by the mind-numbing amount of drugs Marcus had been consuming, as well as his offing of Mike and the ho he was fucking, but now that the pipeline had been cut off, they were stirring.
“Hello? You there?” Pony asked when no reply came.
“Yeah, I’m here. I’ll be to see you,” Marcus said in a dangerous tone before hanging up.
It was at that moment that Pony realized he’d gone too far. He knew firsthand that Marcus was a killer. He wasn’t someone who just marked a nigga; he was an actual killer. There was a difference.
Pony knew his life would be over if he didn’t act fast. His first call went to the Homicide Unit, where he anonymously dropped a dime about Mike’s murder.
The next call was one he’d been contemplating for months, and now the time was ripe for it. “Say, shawty. Dis Pony. I know who kilt y’all daddy,” Pony told one of Red’s still-grieving sons. With that one phone call, Pony killed Marcus without busing a shot, and he made up a scenario to excluded his own role in the crime. He finished the call with the address where Marcus could be found.
Pony’s next call went to Jasmine, seeking refuge in the back of her throat—not to mention he needed someone there to give him strength if Tiffany came home.
* * *
Wanda was able to glean from Marcus’s side of the conversation that he’d blown his connect. She still had most of the money she had stolen from Tiffany, but she had no intention of supporting both of their habits. It had been a great ride, but the Marcus train was at the end of the line. It was time to move on.
She convinced Marcus to sit tight while she made a run to P.I.G.’s to cop. She even wrote down his order for a supreme fish sandwich before she left.
Wanda pulled on Tiffany’s Coogi dress that now fit like a glove due to her weight loss and pushed off to the next chapter in the drama that was her life.
* * *
It was well after midnight when Marcus finally accepted the fat that Wanda was not coming back. She had turned off her phone, and according to the regulars at P.I.G.’s, she had come and gone hours earlier. “Bitch ain’t even bring me my fish sandwich!” Marcus fumed as he tucked his pistol into his waistband. He intended to go make some collections on some of the credit he’d been doling out over the last few months.
His luck was still holding up as two of Red’s sons kicked in the front door only minutes after he left. He drove around town, pulling his gun on people he knew and taking whatever money or drugs they had. Finally, once his hate was boiling, he headed to settle a score.
It was just past three in the morning when Marcus pulled in front of Pony’s condo. He sat there for a while smoking the cocaine he’d robbed from some kid at a gas station. “Fuckin’ garbage!” he exclaimed as he exhaled the low-quality dope. “I’m smoking dis bullshit while dat fuck nigga got dat glass!” he growled, further amping himself up. He mentally whipped himself into a frenzy, then headed up the stairs.
The noise of the front door being kicked in woke Pony and Jasmine from their slumber, but Marcus was in the room before they could react. “What it do?” Marcus asked with a devilish smile.
“Shawty, what the hell you doing?” Pony asked, noticing the gun in Marcus’s hand.
“Don’t ack like you don’t know,” Marcus shot back. “Fuck nigga.”
“Man, I know you ain’t tripping ‘bout that shit!” Pony laughed nervously.
“Um, excuse me, fellas…” Jasmine said, getting out of the bed. “I’m finna go so y’all can handle y’all bizness,” she said, bending over to pick her panties off the floor.
The sight of Jasmine’s naked ass caused Marcus to pause.
Pony took advantage of the distraction and reached for the nine-millimeter pistol on his nightstand. He didn’t make it. A well-placed shot put his brains on the headboard as he went to meet his maker.
Jasmine, being the hoodrat she was, was no stranger to violence. She fully understood that the next words out of her mouth meant the difference between life and death. “Come on, pimp. Lemme show you where the stash at,” she said, dropping the panties back on the floor. She was grateful that Pony liked to show off his goods. Actually, she had planned to send some of the goons from her projects to rob him anyway. “You gon’ hafta break me off tho’,” Jasmine said as she led Marcus to another room.
“Oh, Ima break you off a’ight,” he replied, getting an erection from her swagger.
When Jasmine heard the lust in his voice, she knew she was out of the woods. “I ain’t stingy with the pussy.” She chuckled. “So don’t be stingy with the dope.”
“Fuck!” Marcus gasped as he entered a room where several kilos sat in various stages of preparation. He knew Pony was getting to the money, but he didn’t know he was doing it like that. “And dis nigga spoon-feeding me onions!” he said as he loaded up the dope.
“Don’t forget about me,” Jasmine reminded as he put it in the bag.
He started to say something fly, but the sarcastic remark disappeared into thin air when he turned back to Jasmine. She was spread eagle on the ground, fingering herself. Two minutes later, he was on his way out of the house with the dope, minus the couple of ounces he threw Jasmine. She put it on him so well that he left without any of the money.
As soon as Marcus left, Jasmine went about the task of removing all traces of herself ever being there. She wiped down every surface from everything she ever touched. Next, she pulled the pillowcase containing her DNA off the bed. It was a lot of work, but the $130 she left with was compensation.
By the time Tiffany pulled up, the trash collector had come and gone with her belongings that Pony had set on the curb. An anonymous call had the complex swarming with police. Tiffany joined the crowd of curious onlookers just in time to watch Pony being removed in a body bag.
CHAPTER 23
As Wanda sat in the lobby of the free clinic, her emotions ran the gamut. She vacillated between wanting to cry and wanting to laugh. “I know I am not pregnant.” She chuckled. “Probably got the flu or something.” It had been months since she had her last period, but it was the nagging flu symptoms that had sent her to the clinic.
Wanda had been selling her body one way or another since she was thirteen and had never gotten pregnant. Now she was twenty-nine, and she certainly didn’t think it possible. She and Marcus had been having unprotected sex for months, not to mention all the guys she’d tricked with or without him.
If I am pregnant, Ima slide right back in there, she thought enthusiastically at the prospect of hooking back up with Marcus. Word on the street had him doing it real big lately.
When Marcus killed Pony, he absorbed a little of his personality and began selling some of the blow instead of smoking it all. He was able to recoup from P.I.G. and keep it going…for now.
Wanda laid her head back in the chair in hopes of getting a little rest. Being banned from all the clubs and cut off from her gravy train, she had to go hard with the sex game to support herself. She had lost quite a bit of weight but was still fine, and the head was the stuff of legend.
Just as she drifted off to sleep, she heard
her name being called. She looked up to see a pretty young nursing assistant scanning the room, repeating her name.
A twinge of regret overcame Wanda as she watched the young woman. She reminisced as to what could have been. She had once aspired to be a nurse when she grew up. However, she traded her future for boys and drugs before she had the chance to grow up.
“Wanda Creedmore?” the assistant called again, breaking Wanda from her spell just as the tears came.
“Right here, lil mama!” Wanda said, raising a hand. She got up and followed the girl into an examination room and took a seat.
“You can change into this. The doctor will be in, in a minute,” the assistant said sweetly while handing Wanda a gown.
“Ms. Creedmore?” the doctor said when he walked in. He appeared to be as young as the assistant.
“Yeah, that’s me,” Wanda said, hoarse from having been asleep. A glance at the clock told her it had been almost two hours since the nurse took her blood and urine sample. Wanda was instantly antsy at the realization that she had been there so long without a blast. “Say, Doc, lemme get a quick smoke,” she said, visualizing the large rock in her car.
“Huh?” the doctor questioned the strange request. He flashed a brilliant smile as he spoke, which made Wanda change her mind.
“Nothing, honey. I’m cool,” she said flirtatiously.
The doctor’s smile turned into a grimace as he read the results fro the battery of tests she had undergone. “How long have you had, uh…the flu?” the doctor asked without looking up.
“Off and on for a couple months. Probably that bird flu or whatever y’all got going ‘round,” she replied with a chuckle.
“Aches, pains, night sweats?” the doctor asked as he scribbled.