“You like her?” I asked out of curiosity, and then I waited impatiently, as if on the edge of a cliff, for her reply.
“Like her? I mean, she’s cute and all, but what really had me taking a second look is the fact that I heard she knows how to take care of a bitch. I didn’t know how true it all was, but if you’re just her friend and she got you laced like this”—Marlo reached over and touched my shirt—“I know she can definitely take care of a fly bitch like me.”
In that moment, I remembered why I had never liked her. She was a Roxie, a girl whose ambitions rode on her sleeve. She was easy to read, a user, a girl who was out for herself.
“I don’t know, Jamilla. I may just give Niya a try. But, girl, here’s a word of advice. Never do again what you did this morning. It’s cool to let people know that you’re straight, but damn, girl. I think you hurt Niya’s feelings.”
Damn. I hated that girl. I watched her walk out of the bathroom, and after she was gone, I realized that when she’d touched my shirt, she left her shade of lipstick behind on it. For the rest of that day, every time I looked down, I was reminded of her.
Chapter 36
Niya
I saw Jamilla while I was grabbing something to eat between classes, but I stayed pretty quiet. My feelings were crushed. Maybe it was because for that brief moment in time, I had almost felt like she was mine. When we were standing there and people were coming up to us and I was introducing her to them, it had felt good to have her so close, right under my arm, as everyone looked on. It had made me feel like they all saw it, saw everything that I had always seen in her. I could tell that she was nervous, but my touch had seemed to calm her down. I would steal glimpses of her. She’d been smiling, and she’d looked happy finally to be noticed. I had thought that what I was doing for her was a good thing. The whole truth, though, was that what I’d done was also for me. That shit—pretending that she was mine just for that moment—had felt good.
After our first day of classes, we drove home together, and I played the music loud. I didn’t want to talk. I just wanted to get her home and out of my car. I was still upset and hurt, and I didn’t want to go off on her. Once we were in front of my building, I sat in the car and just waited for her to get out. I didn’t look at her or say a word. With me refusing to look at her, she turned down my music.
“Niya—”
“Jamilla, don’t.”
She sat there, and still, I wouldn’t look at her.
“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry.”
“What in the fuck are you sorry for? You’re straight, and you let it be known. No need for apologies.” I just wanted her out of my fucking car. I felt as if I couldn’t breathe with her next to me.
“I know, but I . . . I just—”
“Jamilla, let that shit go. I heard you loud and clear today. Hell, the whole damn campus heard you. The funny thing is, Smiley warned me about this shit. She could see my feelings for you, and she could also see the lack of feelings that you have for me.”
“That’s not true, Niya. You know that I love you.”
I started to laugh, and finally, I looked at her. “Oh yeah? You love me?” I needed a fucking drink. The sight of her was killing me.
“You know that I do, Niya.”
“Nah, I really don’t. Just go on home, Jamilla. I got shit to do.” I was hurt, and now so was she. I knew that she cared for me, but I needed her to love me the way that I loved her.
Without another word, Jamilla climbed out of my car. She stood on the curb, waiting for me to get out and say something, I guessed, but I was all talked out. I didn’t want just to drive off, but I had to. Everything that she was right there on that sidewalk, everything that she represented, all of it hurt like hell. The truth was, I just couldn’t take too much more of the pain I felt when I looked at her.
* * *
I had been in Rodney’s basement for an hour. I had a bottle of feel good, and the weed smoke lingered in the air. I listened to beat after beat until finally, I heard “the one.” It was slow, it was moody, and the drums were just as emotional as I felt. I pulled out my notebook and had him play it over and over again. Twenty-five minutes later I had something I wanted to record.
I got a gay girl problem.
Lost in the land of easy pussy.
I’m hoping stray pussy will solve it.
She said she likes only men,
But when I’m with her,
All that bullshit transcends
The lies she tells as my hands move up her thighs and cause her body to bend.
I can hear her cries, but that shit is all lies.
Don’t she know that I’m a fucking godsend?
The shit I do with just the tip of my tongue . . .
I had her before, and I’ll have her again.
She got straight girl problems,
As her need for pussy is starting to blossom.
A nigga like me is the only one who could solve them.
The song went on for a whole four minutes, and I had Rodney record it. I unleashed my emotions as I sang the lyrics, and by the time I was done, I looked at Rodney for approval.
“Don’t lie to me. Just give it to me straight,” I told him.
“Hold up. Hold up.”
Rodney left the room and came back with his brother June. When he started to replay the the song, I thought that I would die. But as I watched his brother, I saw his head start to bob.
“So, what do you think?” Rodney asked his brother when the song was over.
“I think it’s hot. She went hard on that shit.”
I took in a deep breath and just listened.
“The only thing is . . . I wouldn’t drop that as her first single,” June advised.
“Why not?” I said, jumping in.
“’Cause it’s a slower beat. It’s sexy as hell, but you know what these kids out here want. You got to kill ’em with a club joint first.”
I was kind of disappointed, but from a business standpoint, June was right.
“Look, think about it, and if you come up with something hot, let me know. If I like it, I will call a few of the homies over and some bitches, and we gonna shoot a video,” June said.
My eyes got big. I didn’t think that I was ready to have anyone hear my music yet, let alone to shoot a video.
June looked hard at me. “Why are you all bug-eyed? Your shit is hot. If you can come up with a club joint, you are gonna blow them away.”
I looked at Rodney, and he only confirmed what his brother had just said.
“Niya, just think about it. We could have a song and a video out this week. That shit is gonna be crazy,” Rodney said with a big smile on his face.
So I said, “Fuck it.” Rodney played more beats, and I found one that would be sure to have the girls rolling their hips and popping their ass, and I gave it my best. I knew it had to be cocky, I knew that I had to come off strong, and I knew that by the end of the song, I needed to have not only the gay girls on my shit, but the straight ones too.
Team take yo’ bitch.
Thought she was straight.
Till I took yo’ bitch.
Lesbuns give the best head, hon.
And this shit right here isn’t just for fun.
Thought that dick would keep her,
Thought that dick would please her,
But I’ma pussy eater.
I’ma pussy killer.
Legs high, got her head high,
Spread-eagle, no longer eye to eye.
I’ma lick it up. I’ma beat it up.
Her nigga’s name
Now a distant thought.
Team take yo’ bitch.
We wrapped up the song in under an hour. By the time June came back downstairs, we had doubled over the song and had added the ad-libs of me talking shit, and this time, I knew we had a hit.
“Yo, this shit is fuckin’ hot. I’m about to make some calls, and we gonna film this shit tonight,” June told us aft
er he heard the song.
I was excited. I wasn’t sure where these songs were going to take me, but I couldn’t wait to see.
Chapter 37
Jamilla
I must have texted Niya over twenty times, but she never answered. My heart felt as if it was being ripped out of my chest at the thought of losing her. She was my world, my everything. How could I have been so insecure, so insensitive? All I wanted to do was apologize to her. I wanted to tell her that honestly, she was making me crazy. I was stuck in the unknown. I was afraid, petrified that maybe I had feelings for her that went beyond our friendship. I wanted to tell her that the thought of loving a woman was a foreign thing to me and that this in itself was enough to make me pull away from her. I needed her to understand that my nights were filled with thoughts of her and that my days were no different.
She had to be told that I needed no one else but her, but how could I tell her these things and have her understand that I just didn’t think that I was gay? Or was I? Oh my God, I didn’t even know who or what I was anymore. There were so many aspects to our friendship that had me fucked up. I loved her, I needed her, I wanted her—even sexually at times—but she was a woman.
I called Niya throughout the evening, with no response. Soon day turned into night, and I was barely breathing, or so it seemed. I hadn’t eaten anything, nor had I had a drink of water, since I came home. I couldn’t, not until I spoke to her or saw her. So I sat at the window of my room, chewing one piece of gum after the other, and waited for her. I didn’t care how long it took. I was going to wait for her and speak to her before she went into her apartment.
Chapter 38
Niya
People were everywhere. We were in Rodney’s backyard, and there had to be about a hundred people out there, if not more. I was pretty fucked up and wasn’t as nervous as I should have been. I just sat in one of the chairs and totally leaned back, as the liquor in my system had me ready for whatever. June was a true director and was telling people what they should be doing in the scene that was about to take place.
“How in the hell did he get so many people here so fast and so damn late?” I asked Rodney as he handed me the blunt. It was going on eleven o’clock.
“Social media. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. That shit is crazy. You are gonna have to be on them way more after this. Get you a fan page going. You need to start posting pictures and—”
“Posting pictures of what? I don’t really do nothing special.”
Rodney laughed at how naive I was before answering me. “Once you build your fan base, you can post a picture of what you’re eating, and they are going to eat that shit up. Like, now go ahead and post a picture of the people here. You do have an Instagram, right?”
“Nah. Just a Facebook.”
I kind of felt out of the loop as Rodney took my phone and said that he was going to set up an Instagram account for me. Twenty minutes later, it was all set up and I already had five pictures up.
“Hey, Niya. You pick out a lead for the video yet?” said a female voice.
When I looked up to see who was speaking, I smiled at the sight of her. She wasn’t in the same outfit from school. Although her clothes were always short and tight, she seemed to be dressed even more scandalously.
“Marlo, damn. I mean, nah, not yet.”
The shorts she had on might as well have been left at home, as they were so small. And her cut-up tank top left nothing to the imagination. Her body was fucking perfect. Nothing too big, nothing too small, and she was tall and plump in all the right places. She pushed my hand out of my lap and sat on it. I couldn’t put together what was happening. Was Marlo even into girls?
“Well, there ain’t a bitch out here that looks better than me. I’ll be the lead, if you ask me to be,” she said.
Man, as I was sitting in that chair with her in my lap, looking into her eyes, and smelling her sweet scent, truth was, I didn’t see any other girl but her. I looked at Rodney, and he just gave me a nod, as if to say, “She’s the one.”
“Why don’t you go ahead and get yourself a drink? While you’re at it, fill me up too,” I told her.
“So does that mean that I got the part?”
When I told her yes, she screamed as if she had gotten the lead in a Jay Z video and gave me a tight hug. I hugged her back and wasn’t shy when it came to letting my hands slip down to her ass.
“Hold up. Let me get a pic of you with your leading lady,” Rodney said as he grabbed my phone out of my hand. I pulled Marlo close, and he snapped a few shots.
* * *
Shooting the video was fun. It was your typical hood video, with street dudes, beautiful girls, and hood locations. It took us three hours to film in five different close locations in the city that birthed all my creativity. The crazy part was, wherever we went, the crowd followed, which only caused more people to join us. Everyone wanted to be in a frame, but the scenes I liked the most were left for last. By then most of the crowd had gone home, and it was just me, Rodney, June, and Marlo. We were filming in June’s bedroom since it was a dope-ass room. The furniture was black, and the background colors, in the form of throw pillows, wall art, and the comforter, were gold and red. It looked like something straight out of a rap video.
As we filmed, with Marlo playing the perfect lead, I told myself just to be free. I wanted it to come off as real, as if she was mine and I could do what I wanted to her. She didn’t stop my hands as they traveled her body, and when we kissed, that shit felt real to me. She was fucking beautiful, and when I rapped about turning a bitch out, in my mind, I pictured her. If she had a boyfriend, it only made me think that the song was fitting for the situation. She was going to be batting for my team—team take yo’ bitch—’cause she was going to be mine.
By the time we wrapped and I came up for air, it was almost four in the morning. I was beyond fucked up, so June said he would take me home in my car and would just stay at his girl’s house since she lived only a few buildings down from me. He offered to take Marlo home, and when she said yes, I was happy that I would have a bit more time with her, even if it was just for a short ride. When we got to her place, I staggered out of the car, helped her out, and had to lean against the car for support. I lit one of June’s cigarettes and just waited for her to speak.
“You fucked up, huh?”
I smiled as I noticed how nervous she was. That would have been me if I didn’t have liquid courage. I pulled her closer to me by her belt loop and answered her question before asking one of my own.
“Yeah, I’m really fucked up. So what about you? Are you not fucked up enough to let me do it?”
I watched her lips curl into a smile and waited.
“Let you do—”
“What do you think?” I asked, and then I leaned into her and covered her mouth with my lips. It didn’t take her long to fall in line. I was not sure how long we were out there, but by the time I heard June calling my name, I was moments away from lifting her up and fucking her right there on the hood of the car. I loved how easygoing she was about my roaming hands. No matter where I touched her, she let me.
“Niya, it’s late. Hit her up tomorrow,” June said through the car window.
I kissed her lips one more time and pushed her away. I asked her to put her number in my phone before I got back in the car.
“You need to watch out for that girl. I heard some of the girls talking about her. They were calling her all types of thirsty bitches,” June advised as he drove away from the curb.
“I bet they were. Did you see her?” I asked June.
“Yeah, I saw her. Just be careful. You’re about to blow up, Niya. Once I drop this shit on the Net, your life is going to change. There are going to be a whole lot of folks out there who will wanna jump on for the ride. I’ve seen it a million times, and a bitch like that, they never change the formula. She’s cool and all, but I can feel the thirst jumping off her ass.”
We shared a laugh, but as we made sma
ll talk, I really thought about what he had said and decided that this whole Marlo thing was just going to be for fun. That is, if it turned out to be anything at all. When we got to my building, I looked at my phone and noticed another message from Jamilla. I didn’t read it. I just didn’t feel like dealing with everything that came with her in that moment. I had had one hell of a day, and I wanted to end it with just the feeling of satisfaction.
Chapter 39
Jamilla
I was out the door before her car came to a stop. I ran down the stairs and met her at the entrance.
“That’s not happiness to see me,” I said, borrowing a line from A Perfect Murder, which was one of my favorite movies.
“What are you doing out here so late?” Niya asked as she tried to walk without falling over.
“I need to talk to you. I have been calling you and texting you all day. Please, stop walking,” I said as I tugged at her hand.
Once she got to the set of steps that were on her side of the building, she stopped and sat on the third one.
“I didn’t really feel like talking to you,” she confessed.
Damn. Her words kind of stung.
“Niya. This is not us. This is not what we do.” I waited to see if my words would have any impact.
“Yeah, well, this is what we’re about to do, ’cause I can’t be chasing after no one.”
I wasn’t sure if it was the liquor talking, so I was going to try to ignore her harsh words. “Look, Niya, I . . . I love you. I need you in this moment, as I have always needed you since the day on the stoop.” I was about to cry, so I stopped talking, hoping that silence would stop my tears from falling.
“See, there’s the problem right there, Jamilla. You love me, but you need me more, and that’s fucked up. The difference between us is that my love for you comes before my own selfish needs. Do you know how fucking hard it is to be around you, to see you, to even just be in the same fucking room with you, knowing that I can’t have you? Well, I could have you, but you just won’t let me. You’re so hung up on not being gay that you just won’t let yourself love the person.”
Niya Page 12