Still Candy Shopping

by Swinson, Kiki

  Back at the apartment I thought about how Denise had seen me at my worst point. I was relieved that she had not said anything to me, but the fact that she smiled at me spoke volumes.

  While I lay there in my bed and replayed the whole scene in my mind, Stacy knocked on my slightly opened bedroom door and asked me if she could come in.

  “Yeah, come on,” I replied. It totally shocked me that she wanted to come into my bedroom, so I was curious to know what she had on her mind. Jennifer was in the shower at the time, and I heard Slim go outside right before Stacy knocked on my door, so she and I were alone.

  “Can I sit down?” she asked.

  I was lying on my side in the fetal position, so I slid backward so she could sit on the edge of my bed.

  “Thank you,” she said, and then she sat down.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “I just came in here to see if you were all right,” she replied

  “My knees are pretty scraped up, but I’m cool,” I assured her. “And thanks for asking.”

  “Oh, you’re welcome.” She smiled and I smiled back.

  “You know what?” she asked. “After I saw Slim hit you all those times, I got really scared. I mean, I didn’t think that he was the type of guy who’d hit a woman.”

  “What made you think that?”

  “When I met him yesterday he was so nice.”

  “Where did you meet him?”

  “He was standing outside talking to two other guys and saw me walking by and stopped me.”

  “You from Huntersville?”

  “No, I’m from Portsmouth. But I got a friend who lives on Bower Street. I was staying there with her and her mama, but her mama got tired of me living there and told her to tell me I had to go. So I packed up my stuff and left.”

  “Do you have any children?”

  “Nope. I don’t want any rug rats.” She smiled. “Do you?”

  “Yes, I have a daughter.”

  “How old?”

  “She just started grade school.”

  “Oh, wow! That’s cool.”

  Before I could throw another question at her, Jennifer walked into the room wrapped up in a bath towel. I could tell she was shocked to see me talking with Stacy.

  “Excuse me,” she said, and then she slid by us and stepped into the closet.

  “Oh, you’re fine,” Stacy assured her.

  “Oh, yeah, we weren’t talking about much,” I added.

  While in the closet, Jennifer peeped her head around the door and said, “Don’t let Slim see y’all talking. You know he’s paranoid and will probably think that you’re trying to corrupt her.”

  “She ain’t got to worry about it. If it got to that point, I’d straighten it out,” Stacy responded.

  Jennifer burst into laughter. “Faith, she sounds like she has it all under control, huh?”

  I chuckled. “Yeah, she does.”

  “Can I ask y’all something?” Stacy asked.

  “Yeah, go ahead.” I encouraged her.

  “Why did that other girl get in that man’s car and leave?”

  Jennifer and I looked at each other to see who would answer the question. And since Jennifer acted a little hesitant, I asked, “What would you do if you didn’t want to stay around any longer?”

  “I’d leave,” she answered.

  “Well there’s your answer.”

  “Well, if she didn’t want to be around anymore, then why did Slim beat you up for it?”

  Jennifer stood there by the closet, facing Stacy and me, and waited for me to answer. Now I wanted to tell her how much of a women-beating asshole he was, but I couldn’t chance her repeating what I said to him. So to play it safe, I was vague with my answer.

  “I’m not sure, Stacy,” I said. “But when I figure it out, you’ll be the first to know.”

  While we were talking Slim came back to the apartment. I thought he would come in the back to check up on us, but it sounded like he went into the kitchen for something, and then he went right back outside.

  Stacy chilled in the room with Jennifer and I for another twenty minutes or so and then she expressed how tired she was and retired to the other room. After she left, Jennifer and I got into our little huddle to express a few things of our own.

  “What do you think about her?” Jennifer whispered.

  “She seems like she’s cool, but I still don’t trust her.”

  “Yeah, me either. There’s just something about her that doesn’t sit right with me.”

  “I sensed that too,” I agreed.

  “Well you know what that means?” Jennifer asked.

  “Yep. That means we gotta keep our eyes on her.”

  Jennifer nodded. We wanted to give Stacy the benefit of the doubt, but we lived with a crazed maniac, so we couldn’t take any chances.

  The Candy Shop part 2 Kiki Swinson

  A Couple Days Later

  Things around the apartment calmed down after Tacora’s unexpected departure. But just as I suspected, very little time passed before Slim returned to his psycho ways. One morning, Jennifer and I were awakened to noises from the other bedroom.

  What’s that sound?” Jennifer asked, her voice still groggy from sleep.

  “That’s Slim in there banging the hell out of Stacy,” I told her.

  “Do they have to be so loud?” Jennifer asked, and then she turned over on her stomach and buried her face underneath her pillow.

  “It’s that old ass mattress they’re on, that’s making all that noise.” I replied.

  Slim banged Stacy’s brains out for at least twenty minutes straight. I had no idea he had that much stamina. When I first came to the apartment, he didn’t have any desire to fuck me, so I didn’t have the slightest idea about how much of a champion he was in bed. Sabrina and Tacora knew what he was made of, though. And now that I thought about it, I was sure Paris and Jennifer knew as well.

  After their little rendezvous, Slim and Stacy went into the bathroom and took a shower together. They acted like they were newlyweds. The sound of their voices literally got on my nerves. And when I felt like I heard enough, I got up and went into the kitchen to get a bowl of cereal. I needed something on my stomach before I got my early morning fix. While I was minding my business, someone knocked on the front door. Usually no one was allowed to open the front door, but Slim was in the shower with Stacy, probably going for round two, so I didn’t want to disturb him. He’d probably bite off my fucking head if I interrupted him while he was trying to bust another nut.

  Whoever was knocking on the door had to be one of Slim’s lookout buddies, because they were the only ones who ever knocked on the door. I took the liberty to make sure that was who it was by looking through the peephole. When I saw that it was indeed one of his flunkies, I yelled through the door and asked him what he wanted.

  “Where’s Slim?” he yelled back.

  “He’s in the shower,” I said.

  “Tell ’im Big Rob needs to holler at him when he gets out.”

  “OK,” I replied and backed away from the door.

  I went back to the kitchen to eat my bowl of cereal. Right around the time I was done, Slim brought his dusty ass out of the bathroom and walked in the kitchen with his fucking boxer shorts on like he was the king around here.

  “Was somebody knocking on the front door?” he asked.

  I swallowed the cereal I had in my mouth, and then I said, “Yeah, it was a guy named Big Rob. He told me to tell you to come holler at him.”

  “Did you open my front door?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “You better not have,” he warned me, and then he walked back into the living room. It didn’t take him long to change into a pair of shorts and one of his regular white T-shirts. After he slipped on a pair of sneakers, he left the apartment.

  Before Stacy had a chance to come out of the bedroom, I had already gone back into my room and closed the door. I got in my bed and prayed that she wouldn’t w
ant to come in the room to talk, because I wasn’t in the mood to chitchat.

  I heard her roaming around in the kitchen, so I assumed she was getting herself a bite to eat. I also heard Slim reenter the apartment. His voice was more upbeat than it was before he left. I thought it was because of Stacy’s presence, but then I found out it had something to do with him stacking a few more coins.

  “We ain’t going on the street tonight,” I heard him say.

  “What’s wrong?” Stacy asked.

  “Ain’t nothing wrong. I just decided to have a strip party here at the house,” he told her.

  “You want me to dance?”

  “Yeah. But cha got to get naked.”

  “OK,” she said as if she had no problem with this arrangement.

  I, on the other hand, was furious. I wasn’t in the fucking mood to dance my old ass in front of a room filled with a bunch of niggas. Not to mention I’d never done anything like that before. I did not know the first thing about stripping to a fucking song. That wasn’t my forte. And not only that, I figured what man would want to pay to see me strip? I used to look good, but now my body was all bruised up from track marks, so I knew I would be making a spectacle of myself.

  “Did Faith go back to her room?” Slim asked Stacy.

  “I haven’t seen her. She wasn’t in here when I came out,” she told him.

  Hearing my name made me realize that Slim was coming into the room to look for me. The moment he entered the room, our eyes connected. He looked at me for a brief second, and then he turned his focus toward Jennifer, who was still asleep.

  “Jennifer, wake up. I got something to tell y’all,” he yelled.

  Jennifer turned over in the bed and tried to adjust her eyes so she’d be able to see what was going on. She looked directly at Slim and then she looked at me. But once he started talking, she put her focus right back on him.

  “I came in here to let both of y’all know that we ain’t working the streets tonight, because we gon’ have a strip party for a couple niggas I know,” he said.

  “We having it here?” Jennifer asked.

  “Yeah. And it’s gon’ start about nine o’clock, so find something sexy to wear, ’cause you gon’ be dancing with Stacy.”

  “I ain’t no stripper,” Jennifer said, trying to protest. But Slim made her turn down her volume.

  “Look, I don’t give a fuck if you’re a stripper or not. You gon’ get your ass in that living room and you gon’ take off your motherfucking clothes. So please don’t give me no more lip about this, because it’s gon’ really make me angry.”

  Jennifer sucked her teeth and threw her blanket back over her face.. When he was done talking to her, he looked directly at me and said, “I ain’t gon’ have you dancing because your body don’t look all that hot. You got too many of them nasty ass track marks and shit, so I’ma have you back here doing jobs if one of them niggas wanna fuck or get their dick sucked.”

  “OK. I’m fine with that,” I told him. And when he turned his back to leave, I stuck my middle finger up at him as he left the room. When he closed the door, Jennifer burst into laughter.

  “You crack me up.”

  “Girl, fuck him and his strip party!”

  “Exactly. He’s a fucking maroon.”

  I chuckled. “So what are you going to put on?” I asked.

  “Nothing sexy!” She gritted her teeth. “I mean who the fuck he thinks he is inviting some local ass niggas over here so we can take off our clothes and dance around them? I ain’t into that type of shit. It’s bad enough I gotta fuck them niggas on the streets and then give all my money away.”

  “Don’t worry about it! It could be worse.”

  “I know, Faith. But I’m just tired of all this shit that goes on around here. And not only that, I miss Paris so much. At least when she was here, me and her made the best of this fucked up situation.”

  “Yes, I’ve got to admit that she was definitely cool.”

  “You damn right. That chick always had my back. And you know what, it bothers me that Slim didn’t give a fuck about her and just left her lying dead on them streets,” Jennifer said as her eyes filled with tears.

  “Don’t get yourself all worked up. Something is going to happen for us and we’re gonna be all right,” I tried to assure her, but in all honesty, I didn’t believe what I was saying myself. Jennifer lay there in her bed as if she was in deep thought. She was silent for at least five minutes as she looked up at the ceiling. I grew concerned and had to say to say something.

  “You all right?” I asked.

  “I gotta get out of here before I kill him,” she said, and when she said it, I could see the chilling look in her eyes. Looking into her eyes made the hair on my arms stand up. I knew she wasn’t just talking. She was serious.

  She scared me when she hopped out of bed. I had no idea what she was about to do. I got out of my bed and followed her to the bedroom door until I saw her go into the bathroom. I honestly thought she was going to pick up something and try to attack Slim. But after I witnessed her close the bathroom door, I calmed my nervousness and got back into the bed. I left the bedroom door open to see straight down the hallway. As a matter of fact, I could see the front door from my bed, so I was in a good position to stop Jennifer from doing anything that she and I would both regret.

  The Candy Shop part 2 Kiki Swinson

  Dropping it Like it’s Hot

  The strip party was about to start and Slim had the men lining up to come inside the apartment. He was charging twenty dollars at the door, plus he was charging for drinks. He had this whole thing figured out. Jennifer and I were in our bedroom when Stacy joined us. She was dressed and ready to flaunt her stuff. I looked at her see-through black lace top and hot pink booty shorts with her ass cheeks bursting out underneath. It looked disgusting to me, but I knew the men would love it.

  “Jennifer, you ready?” Stacy asked. “Because I was thinking about a dance move me and you could do together while we’re stripping.” She smiled as if she was excited.

  Jennifer gave Stacy a nonchalant look and asked, “Do I look ready? And, anyway, what made you think I would do a stupid ass dance move?”

  “Jennifer, what’s wrong?” Stacy asked.

  Jennifer ignored her and continued to buckle her stilettos. I knew she didn’t want to talk about anything dealing with Slim for fear that Stacy would go back and tell him, so I jumped in for Jennifer and answered Stacy’s question.

  “She’s not feeling that dancing stuff,” I said.

  “Why? It’s gonna be fun!” Stacy insisted. But Jennifer wasn’t trying to hear her.

  “Look, Stacy, don’t come in here with all that giddy shit, because I am not in the mood!” Jennifer snapped.

  Stacy was shocked at Jennifer’s outburst. I could tell that she did not know how to respond, because she just stood there with an odd expression on her face. Again I had to step in and save the day. I stood and embraced Stacy. She was stiff as a board, so I tried to warm her up a bit.

  “Look, Stacy, don’t mind Jennifer right now,” I said. “She’s just not feeling this strip party stuff, so she’s upset with the world. Don’t take what she said personally.”

  “OK. That’s cool,” she replied, and then she stepped away from me and headed toward the door.

  “Why you leaving?” I asked. “You don’t have to go back out there with all the guys.”

  “I’m a’ight. I’m gonna go into my room until Slim tells me he’s ready,” Stacy said.

  “OK. Suit yourself.”

  Stacy backed out of the room and closed the door behind her. When I heard her step away from the door, I turned to Jennifer and asked, “Why you had to bite off her head?”

  “Fuck her! I don’t care about her feelings. She’s his little flunky, so let her carry her dumb ass right back in there with him.”

  I chuckled at Jennifer because I understood her frustration. She was tired of walking on eggshells around here, and so wa
s I. But until we were out of this apartment and out of Slim’s life for good, then we had to tolerate all this bullshit.

  Jennifer and I weren’t able to dwell on the Stacy situation, because five minutes after she left the room, Slim came in.

  “Jennifer, you ready?” he asked her.

  Jennifer looked up at him with the most disgusted expression she could muster and replied by asking, “Do I have a choice?”

  Slim laughed. “Bitch, getcha ass up and be out there in that living room in the next two minutes or suffer the consequences!” he threatened, and then he stepped out of the room and slammed the door.

  “Come on now, Jennifer, let’s be on our best behavior,” I said. “Let’s not give that monster any reason to put his hands on us tonight.”

  “Fuck him!” she whispered bitterly. “I wanna see if he’ll put his hands on me in front of all them niggas in there.”

  “Jennifer, don’t test him. You know he’s not dealing with a full deck of cards. Let’s just let it go and move on.” Not only was I tired of seeing Slim beating on me, I was tired of him beating Jennifer.