Still Candy Shopping

by Swinson, Kiki

“Who the fuck is she?” she asked.

  Ignoring Tacora, Slim closed the front door and pointed the young girl toward the bathroom. Immediately after she closed the door behind herself, Slim rushed toward Tacora and gabbed her around her neck. I could tell that he was squeezing the hell out of her windpipe because she was gasping for air like her life depended on it. Well, I guess her life did depend on it.

  “Bitch, don’t you ever question me about who the fuck I bring in this house!” Slim said. “Do you understand?”

  Tacora wasn’t able to respond verbally, but she was able to make some type of eye signal to him, I guess, because he ended up letting her go. Several minutes later the young girl came out of the bathroom and noticed that Tacora was massaging her neck. She gave Tacora a really goofy expression. I spoke to the young girl and she spoke back to me, but Tacora wouldn’t open her mouth. She focused her attention on the TV, ignoring the new chick.

  Slim finally introduced the new girl. “This is Stacy,” he said. “She will be staying with us until she can get back on her feet.”

  I nodded, because I didn’t care one way or the other. I already knew that whatever he told her to get her to come here was a lie. And to say that she was going to be here until she could get on her feet was definitely some bullshit. I couldn’t wait to see her face when he removed the blinders from her naïve eyes.

  Like I said earlier, Stacy was a very pretty girl. I could tell that she wasn’t over the age of twenty-one. Her body was nice and ripe for this line of work, so I knew Slim had major plans for her. She reminded me of the R&B singer Rihanna. She had that innocent girl look and she was petite like Rihanna as well. As I watched how Slim interacted with her, I knew that he had no intentions on springing Sabrina from jail. As far as he was concerned, she was a distant memory. She was just another young and gullible streetwalker that could be replaced at the drop of a hat. That was how he rolled.

  “Where do you want me to put my stuff?” she asked him in her childlike voice.

  “Come here and let me show you where you gon’ be sleeping,” he replied, and then he escorted her to Tacora’s room. Right after he entered the bedroom, he called Tacora’s name and told her to come into the room to help Stacy put away her things. I laughed softly, but Tacora heard me anyway. She sucked her teeth, jumped up from the couch, and stomped her way into the bedroom where Slim and Stacy were. Stacy’s arrival had become so comical that I needed to share, so I got up from the sofa and snuck into my bedroom.

  “Hey, Jennifer, wake up,” I whispered as I nudged her on the arm.

  She turned over and looked at me. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Shhhh! Don’t talk so loud,” I told her.

  “Why? What’s the matter?” she asked, and then she turned her body around to face me.

  “You were right,” I said.

  “About what?”

  “Slim doesn’t have any plans to bail Sabrina out of jail.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because he just brought this new girl in the house and told Tacora she was going to be sharing the room with her.”

  Jennifer’s eyes bulged. “You lying?” she whispered.

  “No, I’m not. He got the girl and Tacora in the other room now.”

  “You fucking kidding me? ” Jennifer asked and then chuckled.

  “No, I’m not. Go in there and check for yourself,” I said. So she got out of bed and walked toward the door. “Don’t be so obvious. Act like you’re going to the bathroom,” I told her.

  Jennifer fixed her shirt and shorts and then she opened the door. I followed her and acted like I was heading to the kitchen, just to see the reaction on her face. After she got an eyeful she marched back into the bedroom and I joined her about five seconds later.

  “Oh my God! You weren’t lying,” she whispered as she took a seat on the edge of her bed. “She’s cute too.”

  “Yeah, she is, and Tacora hates her already.”

  Jennifer chuckled. “Boy, I would have given up my last dime to see her expression when that girl first came in the house.”

  “Trust me, you would’ve died from laughter.”

  “I believe it,” she replied, and then she asked, “Did he say what her name was?”

  “Yeah, her name is Stacy.”

  “How old is she?”

  “He didn’t tell us that. But she’s probably around twenty or twenty-one.”

  “You’re probably right, because she looks young.”

  “I wonder what they’re in there talking about now,” I said.

  “Probably not much of anything. But I betcha Tacora is kicking herself in the ass now.”

  “Girl, you know she is. You should’ve been in the living room earlier when Slim first walked into the house with her.”

  “What happened?”

  “Tacora got really bold and asked him who the fuck she was.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He ignored her at first, but as soon as he showed his new moneymaker where the bathroom was, he ran up on Tacora and damn neared choked the life out of her.”

  “Oh, so she got the same treatment that I got, huh?”

  “You better bet it. And she didn’t like it either.”

  “That’s good for the bitch! Now I bet she feels really fucking stupid.”

  “I’m sure she does, especially now that she knows he isn’t springing Sabrina from jail.”

  “Wow! Unfucking believable!” Jennifer commented, and then we both shook our heads.

  We stayed in the room for about another hour and chitchatted. We got quiet a few times when we heard Slim making conversation with Stacy. She giggled the entire time they were talking. I made a bet with Jennifer that Slim was going to fuck her by nightfall. Jennifer’s bet was that he was going to get her before nightfall. So we sat back and waited to see who would win the bet. The loser had to spend ten dollars on the drug of the winner’s choice.

  Nightfall finally seeped through the mini blinds of the living room windows. And since Slim had not yet christened Sabrina’s bed with Stacy, I was the winner of the bet. Jennifer assured me that she would happily pay her debt as soon as we got on the block.

  “Y’all need to get ready because we gon’ be heading over to Goff Street in the next thirty minutes,” Slim announced.

  “I’m ready now,” Tacora replied as she sat on the living room sofa.

  “Well, I’m not, so just chill out until I tell you we’re leaving,” he replied sarcastically.

  Jennifer and I were in the bedroom with the bedroom door cracked, so we heard everything.

  “She better step back before he fucks around and hurts her really bad,” I said.

  “I don’t think she believes that he’ll hurt her,” Jennifer said.

  “I don’t see why not, especially after the way he choked her earlier.”

  “Well all I’m gonna say is that she’s either stupid or she’s a glutton for punishment.”

  “At this point it doesn’t matter to me. Because whatever she gets from him is what she deserves,” I said and then I grabbed my purse and headed to the living room.

  Jennifer followed me a few minutes later. She had already introduced herself to Stacy earlier, but they hadn’t had a chance to really talk. As a matter of fact, Stacy and I had not had a chance to get acquainted either since she had been trying to get her living area situated. Once she had taken care of that, she accompanied us into the living room. The sight of her made Slim smile from ear to ear. He lit up like a fucking Christmas tree. And she had a glow as well. I saw them looking at each other through my peripheral vision. I was sure that Jennifer and Tacora saw the way they were acting too, but no one dared to make mention of it. I had a feeling we wouldn’t be able to ignore Stacy for too long, though.

  The Candy Shop part 2 Kiki Swinson

  Let the Games Begin

  When it was time to head outside Slim made the announcement that he was splitting up me and Jennifer. He wanted
someone who had been with him the longest to show Stacy the ropes, and since Jennifer was that person, she was appointed that job. Now I was left with Tacora’s silly ass, and I was not at all happy about it. Jennifer looked at me and shook her head to indicate that she was disgusted too. I responded by nodding so she knew I shared her sentiment.

  As Slim had planned, we all headed over to the corner of Goff Street and Okeefe. As soon as we arrived at our spot, which was in front of the Huntersville Recreation Center, Slim pointed out where he wanted me and Tacora to stand. He told Jennifer and Stacy he wanted them to stay close to him. Our post was right at the corner where the playground was located.

  “Get ready! Here comes a car!” Slim yelled, which of course brought me back to reality.

  The car approached the side of the street where Jennifer and Stacy were located, so Tacora and I just stood around and waited for our turn. As we waited Tacora sparked up a conversation with me. At first I had no intentions of entertaining her. But she started saying some very interesting shit. And while she was talking, she gawked at Slim the entire time.

  “I swear, I hate him,” she said. “That punk ass nigga left my best friend in jail so he could go out and find another bitch to take her place.”

  “Yep, that’s what it looks like,” I said.

  “And look at that bitch! She thinks she’s pretty, but she ain’t all that to me, especially with that big ass nose she’s got.”

  “Well I think she’s pretty,” I said in an effort to piss her off. And it worked.

  “Please, she ain’t pretty nowhere. I look better than her.”

  “If you say so,” I replied as I laughed to myself.

  Tacora was being really pathetic. She was all broken up because Slim had used her dumb ass like he’d done to everyone else. She finally saw that he was the dirt bag that everyone had pegged him out to be.

  “The first chance I get, I’m leaving,” she blurted out.

  “You’re gonna do what?” I asked her. I knew what she’d said, but I just wanted to hear it again. I had to make sure I’d heard what I believed I’d heard.

  “I said I’m leaving,” she repeated.

  Stunned by her boldness, I looked at her with a newfound respect. I sensed that this young girl wasn’t so dumb after all.

  “And how do you think you’re gonna do that?” I asked her. It was important for me to know what her plans were, because Jennifer and I had been trying to figure out an escape plan of our own. Unfortunately we hadn’t been able to devise one. But hopefully Tacora could help us out. I figured she must know something we didn’t, and I was ready to hear what she had to say. I stood there and waited for her to divulge her plan.

  “I haven’t figured it out yet, but it’s coming,” she assured me, and then she fell silent.

  Well that just dashed all my hopes. She had me thinking that I could use her to get away from Slim. But then something inside me ignited the possibility that she could have been lying to me. I mean why would she tell me how she planned to escape Slim? She and I weren’t on the best of terms. She knew she was on my shit list. And she knew that I did not care for her, so why would she tell me?

  Looking at it from her perspective, she would have been really stupid to do that. I could very easily have dropped the ball and told Slim her intentions. Now that was not something I would do, because that wasn’t how I did things, but she wasn’t aware of that. So if I were in her shoes, I would be leery too.

  After about five minutes of complete silence between Tacora and me, a car pulled up. She insisted that I take the first customer, so I didn’t argue with her and accepted the offer. Her generosity took me aback for a minute, but I bounced back quickly.

  After I hopped into the car with my customer, I did my regular routine of giving out the prices of my services and waited for him to tell me what he wanted. I knew I was supposed to ask the customer whether he was a police officer, because Slim had drilled it into our heads all last night and the entire walk over here, but I didn’t care. I wanted to run into a cop so he could take me away from this mess. And if it meant I had to get a prostitution charge to be free of that maniac, then so be it.

  “I think I’d just like to get my dick sucked,” my customer said. So I took his money and assumed the position. It took me no time to make him cum. He was definitely what one would call a minuteman. I was in his car and done with serving him in less than seven minutes flat. I was literally fifty dollars richer for doing a seven-minute job. Shit, if I could perform six blow jobs an hour and keep going for eight hours straight, I would make more money than I did as an assistant principal, and I didn’t need a fucking six-year degree to do it.

  Immediately after I finished my job, I used one of the tissues I had stuffed in my purse to wipe my mouth, and then I grabbed the door handle to open the passenger door. The moment I put one foot outside the car, I saw another car pull up behind the car I was in. Tacora didn’t hesitate to approach the next customer. By the time I removed myself from the car and closed the door, Tacora had already said a few words and was in the passenger seat ready to handle her business. I stepped away from the curb in order to give them some privacy. The last thing I wanted to do was watch them fuck, so I made sure I backed away enough to give them all the space they needed.

  As I waited for another car to pull up, suddenly the car Tacora was in took off at full speed. I couldn’t believe my fucking eyes. Slim couldn’t believe it either. It definitely caught him off guard, because he had a delayed reaction. He didn’t start running behind the car until the car was already halfway down the block. By then it was too late.

  I just stood there and watched the whole thing unfold. Slim cursed out the driver of that car out like he knew him personally. It was funny seeing him run down behind a car driving at forty miles per hour. When the car drove up to the traffic light, it made a sharp right turn onto Tidewater Drive and kept going. After Slim saw that happen, he’d just stood there in amazement.

  Jennifer rushed across the street to where I was standing. Her mouth was wide open. “Oh my God! What the fuck just happened?” she asked and then burst into laughter.

  I was still in shock and didn’t know how to answer her question. I stood there and watched Slim as his face turned red. “I can’t believe that bitch had the balls to hop in a car and leave just like that,” Jennifer said.

  “Me either. I mean she had just told me that she was going to dip on him, but I didn’t know she was going to do it so soon.”

  “Get the fuck out of here! She told you that?” Jennifer whispered.

  “Yeah. She and I were just standing here and she told me that she was tired of Slim’s shit and that she wasn’t taking it no more, especially since he let Sabrina stay in jail.”

  “Girl, Slim is going to hit the motherfucking ceiling when he finds out this shit!” she said, and then when she noticed he had started walking towards us, she said, “Oh, shit! Look at his face. He looks mad as hell! And it looks like he’s coming over to you, so let me carry my ass back on the other side of the street.” And then Jennifer left me standing there alone.

  As soon as he got within arm’s reach of me, he lunged back and punched the shit out of my face. I never saw that one coming. He didn’t give me any warning that he was going to hit me.

  “Why the fuck did you let that bitch get away from me like that?” he screamed. Spit flew out of his mouth with every word he uttered.

  “I didn’t know she was gonna get in that man’s car and get him to pull off,” I finally said as I pressed my left hand against the left side of my face.

  “I don’t give a fuck if you didn’t know. When you saw him drive off, you were supposed to stop them.” He continued yelling as he got closer to my face. Spit continued to fly out of his mouth with every word.

  “Stop them how? You saw how fast that car sped off,” I pointed out.

  I guess that was the wrong thing to say, because Slim lunged back and hit me two more times. I saw stars when th
e first blow hit me. By the time the second blow hit me, the impact of it caught me off guard and I fell to the ground. Before I could gather my thoughts, he started kicking me. I knew all this aggression he was taking out on me wasn’t all about Tacora leaving.

  Thank God a car started rolling our way, because if it hadn’t, Slim would still be kicking me while I was down on the ground. As the car drove by, the driver slowed down, I guess to see if I was all right. Slim noticed and demanded that I get up from the ground. While I tried to gain the strength to get back on my feet, something told me to look up, and when I did my heart dropped.

  Riding by in a gray Nissan Altima was Denise. She was the driver of this car. I couldn’t believe it. She was approximately six to seven feet away from, and when our eyes connected, she chuckled as if she was laughing at me.

  By the time I picked myself up from the ground and brushed myself off, Denise was long gone. She got her chance to see me reap what I had sown, so I figured she was satisfied.

  The Candy Shop part 2 Kiki Swinson

  Easy Come Easy Go

  Whoever said that life was what you made it, lied. I knew that I had made a lot of wrong choices in my life, but I had also made some good ones and still came out on the losing end. I literally sucked dick and allowed men to either fuck me in my pussy or my ass for money that I didn’t get to spend. Not only that, I had a fucking dope habit and Slim refused to give me part of the money I made to support my addiction. Was he fucking nuts or what?