Bonded by Blood

by Cash

  “Nothing less than three.”

  “Well, ho you better turn that whip around and go get my other two! And don’t bring yo dumb ass nowhere around me until you have my trap right!” Khalil gritted and pressed the END button.

  When he looked up he realized that he had an audience. He glanced at his bejeweled Jacob and quipped, “Pimpin’ ain’t easy.”

  “I’ll always make it easy for you, daddy,” chimed Sinnamon.

  “I know you will, baby,” he replied, taking a seat to wait for her to get her hair done.

  Khalil closed his eyes in deep thought. If every ho in his stable was cut from the same cloth as Sinnamon, pimpin’ would be as easy as toasting bread. That wasn’t the case, though. So the game was as complicated as the evolution of man.

  Khalil was doing the damn thing, putting the “P” back in pimping. A couple of months ago he was checking out different strip clubs, trying see if he could come up with a new addition to his stable. These days it was rare to find a girl in the strip clubs who was being “managed” by a pimp. Most strippers were in the clubs on their own. Their men were usually dopeboys who were like rest havens for a ho. But a few girls in the clubs were the property of macks.

  One of the bouncers at the Blue Flame, a cat Khalil knew from the joint, put Khalil on Cha Cha. He told Khalil that Cha Cha’s man was a pimp named Roco a big, brolic nigga from over the old Eastlake Meadows way.

  “What’s up with the ho?” Khalil had inquired, watching her shake her phat ass on stage.

  “The bitch a million-dollar ho, homeboy,” said the bouncer. “And she ain’t happy with that nigga she wit’.”

  “Why she with him then?”

  “Cause she scared to leave him. He’s one of them gorilla pimps. Niggas wanna fuck wit’ Cha Cha, but they fear Roco.”

  “The nigga a killa or somethin’?” asked Khalil.

  “They say he’ll go all out about that ho.”

  Any nigga could see that Cha Cha was a potential gold mine. She was a tall mocha-skinned stallion, the type of phat ass and build that Dirty South tricks loved. The girl had a cute face, too. So with the right nigga macking her, Cha Cha could definitely get paid. The only drawback was trying to bag her without having to slump Roco, or without him slumping you. Khalil wasn’t pussy, but there were too many hos choosing him for him to have to go through that. Rapheal told him, “You gotta be willing to kill to protect your women, but you don’t ever wanna kill a nigga about his. The game is finesse, baby.”

  Cha Cha approached Khalil one night at the club.

  “I hear you know how to treat your ladies,” she began.

  “Well, hi to you, too,” Khalil smiled.

  “Hi, Khalil,” she retracked. “They call me Cha Cha.”

  Khalil nodded.

  “Girl, I know who you are. I would have to be blind not to. You’re the finest thing up in here, and I been checking you out for weeks.”

  “I’ve been checking you out, too.”

  “Now why would you be checking me out?” he asked with a wink. “Other than the fact that my swag is way up there. What? You looking to make some changes in your life?”

  “Maybe,” Cha Cha admitted.

  “Now I have the answer to a question that’s had me puzzled since I first laid eyes on you,” said Khalil, throwing her off balance.

  “Huh?”

  “Nah, see, I’ve been wondering why a boss bitch like yourself ain’t already got the world at her feet. At first I figured it had to be bad management. No disrespect to Roco, but sometimes a nigga is simply out of his element. I still believe that’s part of it. But now I see that the other thing that’s holding you back is indecisiveness. You know how it is in these streets, baby. You hesitate and you miss out on your blessings.”

  “Is that right?” Cha Cha tested him.

  “Rule number one, baby girl: never hesitate. Me? I came home from the joint and hit the ground running full speed. I just needed me some thorough hos to help me exploit these tricks. My stable is real small right now, but it’s solid. If you wanna make some changes in your life, I would love to have you in mine. You’re a top-notch ho, no doubt. And I’m a top-notch nigga. What gon’ stop us if we hook up? We can play these streets and these trick-ass niggas for a couple of years. Then we can ride off into the sunset—you and me. ‘Cause that’s what it’s all about, baby girl. In the end, I wouldn’t just wanna end up with the riches. I’d wanna end up with you, too.”

  “Do you tell all your ladies that?” Cha Cha asked.

  “Of course,” admitted Khalil. “But I only mean it to the thoroughest one. Can you be the best? If so, you’re the one I’m being honest with.”

  Cha Cha indeed envisioned herself as the best ho to ever put on a thong. She also envisioned how much sweeter life would be if she had a man who had a goddamn plan; one who’d stack their chips and plan for tomorrow. She desperately wanted to make changes in her life, but she was deathly afraid of Roco. He had made it clear to her that he’d see her dead before he’d see her with another nigga.

  “When you’re no longer so indecisive, baby girl, I’d love to have you as mine,” Khalil told her.

  Some hatin’ ass bitch told Roco that Cha Cha had spent more than an hour kicking it with Khalil. Roco beat her so bad she couldn’t work for a week. When she was able to return to work, her mind was already made up, she wasn’t returning to Roco.

  Khalil told her, “I’ma keep the nigga off ya ass, as long as you keep him off your mind.”

  “He ain’t on my mind, daddy,” Cha Cha promised that first night as they left The Blue Flame together.

  The next day Khalil had Cha Cha to call Roco up and tell him that shit had changed. That was the code of the game. If you’re thorough enough to take a nigga’s ho, you had to be thorough enough to tell him. That way he wouldn’t waste time looking for the ho. Time is money.

  Also, once you took a nigga’s ho, and had paid him the courtesy call, you then had to be thorough enough to face the nigga, which was inevitable. Khalil had faced Roco, flanked by B-Man and Q. The nigga saw that Khalil was ‘bout his business, ready to bust his guns if need be. Roco could punk a ho, or a weak ass nigga, but he peeped that Khalil was of a different breed. The night they bumped heads at the club, Roco folded like a lawn chair.

  Cha Cha became Khalil’s third ho; he let her crib with Sinnamon at first, so that his top money maker could hip shawdy to the way shit was done in their “family.” Now, he was changing arrangements for Cha Cha to move in with Khalil for two months.

  Shit was going lovely for Khalil. Shortly after Cha Cha hooked up with the family he had pulled a snow, a white girl named Emily. That gave him four prize hos in his stable. They each had a four thousand-dollar a week quota to fill, and Khalil took no shorts.

  After leaving the beauty salon Khalil and Sinnamon went shopping. He bought her gifts reflective of her title in his stable. When he suggested that she take the night off,

  Sinnamon replied, “If it’s okay with you, daddy, I’ma go to work. I’ll rest when we accomplish our goals.” Khalil had sold her that pie-in-the-sky dream, too.

  Sinnamon was dumb, but she wasn’t plumb dumb. She knew that Khalil had spat the same game to his other women. He professed to love Rayne and ‘em just as he professed to love her. And she was sure that the others believed, just as she did, that at the end of the day it would be them walking down that aisle, in a beautiful wedding gown on Khalil’s arm. But she was his top ho, the one who never failed to fulfill her weekly four thousand dollar quota and more. If an all-nighter was supposed to bring in three stacks, she got at least four out of the trick, knowing that she earned extra points with Khalil by bringing home extra dough. Every week Sinnamon made sure she out-hustled her wife-in-laws. Largely due to the money she brought home, Khalil had been able to order a customized Humvee that was due to be picked up in a week.

  After dropping Sinnamon off at work Khalil whipped out to Riverdale to spend some time with Rayne, wh
om he’d given the night off. It was a Tuesday night, one of the slowest nights of the week at the club, so Rayne wasn’t missing out on many dollars. Tonight, she was in sexy lingerie cuddled up in bed with Khalil. Such moments made everything else bearable to her.

  “Do you love me?” Khalil whispered in her ear, while easing a hand under the sheer nightie she was wearing and caressing a nipple.

  “More than life itself,” Rayne moaned. Khalil’s gentle touch always sent tingles through her body, heating up her pussy instantly.

  “For always?”

  He sucked her nipple as his hand moved slowly down her smooth body to the center of her growing moistness.

  “For . . . eternity . . . daddy.”

  He lightly traced the soft, wet lips of her pussy, feeling sticky deliciousness of her passion on his long, gentle fingers. As Rayne’s breathing announced her desire, Khalil eased a finger into her steaming valley, while his tongue danced around her nipples. His finger found her clitoris, and gently he rubbed the center of her, causing her thighs to quiver.

  “Kiss . . . me . . . daddy,” she moaned, needing to taste his tongue deep inside her mouth.

  Giving her what she wanted, Khalil traced her sensuous lips with his tongue, which she desperately craved to taste. Rayne loved deep kissing Khalil; it was the one thing she associated with sacredness between the two of them; she never kissed the tricks.

  Rayne sucked her man’s tongue as she climaxed from the manipulations of his fingers. Khalil let her ride out the pleasure, then he removed her teddy and eased her down on top of the silk sheets, all the while looking deep into her light-brown eyes. He stared down at her and drank in her total nakedness. He understood why niggas spent their hard-earned or hustled money to sleep with her.

  Khalil removed his Coogi robe, tossing it across the headboard. Now it was time for Rayne to drink up his nakedness. Involuntarily her tongue ran across her lips in anticipation. Though they’d seen and shared each other’s bodies many times, they were both always impressed by what the other possessed.

  Shawdy fine as hell. No wonder them trick niggaz be fiendin’ for her. Khalil was thinking.

  Damn, this nigga make me wanna eat him up, thought Rayne, running her hands across his muscular chest and well defined six pack.

  Just for a brief second Khalil felt a twinge of remorse at having turned the sweet, naïve, country girl out. Here she was wifey material and he had her stripping and tricking. He could not envision keeping her in the life too much longer. He just needed to get his bank proper and figure out something else to do for a living, with Rayne by his side.

  Quickly his thoughts went back to the task at hand. He knew that the first orgasm he gave her had left her aching to feel him deep and hard inside her honey walls. She was a junkie for his dick. He teasingly kissed her body, from head to toe, spending more time on those spots that drove her crazy with desire. By the time he kissed her neatly trimmed vulva, Rayne was crying out, “Please, Khalil. Don’t…tease…me!”

  When he sucked her throbbing clit, Rayne knew that heaven had to be here on earth. Khalil took her to her peak, then a little bit higher, again and again. Finally, she cried, “Ahhh…ahh…oh…god…damn! Here…it…comes, daddy!”

  The intense orgasm left Rayne as limp as a rag doll. Khalil let her rest in his arms for a while then began kissing her breasts again. The fuck if he wasn’t driving her out of her mind! Now she was dying to feel his dick deep inside of her, filling her up as it always did. She coaxed him on top of her after he’d slid a condom over his hardness, then guided him into her sweet center, wrapping her legs around his waist and kissing him deep.

  An hour later they were still at it. Finally, Khalil released his ecstasy. Rayne had wanted to feel her man’s hot seeds splashing up inside of her, but Khalil didn’t roll like that. He always wrapped it up, and he vehemently demanded that his hoes require their tricks to do the same. He’d be damned if AIDS was gonna blow his spot up.

  After pleasing Rayne, Khalil sat on the edge of the bed feeding her grapes.

  A short while later, after they had showered together and were back in bed, chillin Khalil said, “Baby Love, there’s this chick named Cha Cha who’s been putting in work for me. You know, adding to the stash I’ma need to do all the things I got planned for me and you. Anyway, I was letting her stay with Sinnamon, but I need to move her in with us. I need you to keep an eye on her and make sure she don’t play games with our guap.”

  “Move her in with us? Here with me and you?” Rayne asked, alarmed.

  “Yeah, baby girl.”

  “I don’t think I’m going to like that, Khalil. Why do you need her?”

  “Because, baby I got big dreams. Me and you going into some legit business. I’m talking real estate and chain stores. But first we gotta hustle up enough cake to get started. At the rate shit is going—with just you, Sinnamon and Emily—we’ll be forever tryna get start-up money. Most of the money coming in is going toward paying off that gambling debt. I still ain’t cleared that all the way up, yet.”

  In a moment of contemplation Rayne asked, “Don’t you think we’re going about this the wrong way? What pleasure will we be able to take from life if we gotta sell our souls in order to achieve our dreams?”

  “Rayne, don’t be so naïve, girl. The end justifies the means. Fuck what you heard, baby. If we get to the top, ain’t nobody gonna care how we got there.”

  “But Khalil—“

  “No ‘buts’, he cut her off. “Either you with me or not. Do you believe in me?” he held her hands in his and looked into her eyes.

  “Yes.”

  “Now that’s my Baby Love,” smiled Khalil. “See, I can’t make it if you don’t believe in me. Baby, I can be happy hustling in these streets. But I know it’s your wish for us to be legit. So I wanna make that happen. Just hold me down.”

  A moment of silence passed, then Rayne asked, “How many, Khalil?”

  “Come again?” he replied.

  “How many women will you have to use this way for us to get what you’re after?

  “As many as it takes. ‘Cause it’s all about you and me, baby. You think I like having you strip? You think I enjoy having you lay with other niggaz?”

  “I hope not.”

  “I don’t, shawdy. That’s why I’m recruiting other girls to put in work. I wanna get my baby out of the business as soon as I can.”

  “Two questions, Khalil. One, will you have to sleep with Cha Cha when she moves in with me? Two, did you have this whole, uh…lifestyle, uh…planned before you left prison? Give me honest answers, Khalil.”

  Khalil admitted that he would have to sex Cha Cha occasionally; otherwise he’d have a hard time keeping her.

  “She’s important to what we’re tryna do, baby. But me fucking her is nothing but business. You’re the only one I make love to—so don’t trip the small shit.”

  Does he tell Cha Cha and them the same thing? Wondered Rayne. But she didn’t voice her thoughts; she had decided to roll with Khalil for better or for worse. Though, an inner voice was warning her that she was being gamed.

  Khalil said, “As to your second question—see, I’m not even gonna respond to that. If you think I planned all this while locked up, then you don’t trust in me like you claim.”

  “I trust you, Khalil,” Rayne backed down.

  Two days passed before Khalil heard from Cha Cha; he’d begun to wonder if the ho hadn’t gone back to Roco, a nigga who accepted whatever coins she brought home. Khalil was’t built like that, he’d rather have no hoes at all than let one reduce him to chili pimpin’.

  Khalil was having lunch alone at Justin’s when his Blackberry chirped, displaying Cha Cha’s number.

  “Hi, daddy,” she said when he answered his phone.

  “What’s crackin’?”

  “Can I come home?”

  “You got my trap proper?”

  “Proper and then some.”

  “C’mon home to daddy, then.
I’ll meet you at the spot in Riverdale. You remember the apartment number don’t you?”

  “Yeah, daddy.”

  Khalil was already there when Cha Cha arrived. He helped her bring her things inside then introduced her to Rayne. The two spoke, then Cha Cha handed Khalil five stacks and an iced-out platinum Rolex.

  “Is this watch hot?” he asked, inspecting the piece.

  “No, daddy. I know better than to bring my man some stolen jewels without putting you up on it.”

  Cha Cha had spent the past two days with a rich lawyer down in Miami. The lawyer was a well-known criminal defense attorney, with high-end clients all throughout the South and Southeast. She’d represented some of Miami’s biggest drug kingpins, and she was paid out the ass.

  Eva Padevoni was one of Florida’s most-esteemed in her profession. She was of Italian and Spanish descent, married, with two adult children. Her husband was a judge, who didn’t know that Eva was a closet lesbian. Cha Cha had met her while in Florida several months ago. They had exchanged numbers and calls a few times, but their schedules hadn’t allowed them to hook up until two days ago.

  Eva paid for Cha Cha’s round trip airline tickets to MIA, put her up in a suite at the Inter-Continental Hotel, in Coconut Grove, and spent two whole days sucking Cha Cha’s chocolate pussy, pampering her, and buying her things. Cha Cha had explained to Eva that she was in desperate need of five thousand dollars. No sooner had she asked she was given the money.

  In addition to the five thousand dollars and the clothes the attorney bought her, the Rolex had been a bonus.

  “Something to hold on to for hard times,” Eva said when presenting Cha Cha with the man’s timepiece. “It was given to me by one of my clients, who’s on trial for trafficking two hundred kilos of cocaine. He had to use the watch as a part of his retainer because he’s short of money. The government seized over five million dollars worth of his assets in Fort Lauderdale.”

  Cha Cha smiled as she explained all this to Khalil, who was appraising the Rolex.

  “Did I do good, daddy?”