Welfare Wifeys

by K'wan

  “Ya new video is so fly, Don B.” A big-breasted girl inched closer to the rapper. Her eyes told the whole story without her having to say a word.

  “You know how we do it on my side, baby, it’s all about eye candy.” He did a little spin so she could check his gear.

  “Candy? You rappers niggaz kill me wit ya silly shit.” Bruiser sucked his teeth and went back to shaking the dice. “What’s good, B., ain’t nobody shooting no more? I know y’all niggaz ain’t scared of this lil five hundred?” Bruiser addressed the crowd but most of them were now focused on Don B.

  “I said I had it stopped, what happened?” Don B. asked.

  “No bet to you, Don,” Bruiser said.

  “What, my money ain’t no good?” Don B. pulled out a large bankroll and began fanning through the bills in front of Bruiser. The look in Bruiser’s eyes was a murderous one, but Don B. knew that he wasn’t stupid enough to try him with Devil hovering so close. Bruiser was a tough guy, but Devil was a seasoned killer.

  “Nah, I ain’t trying to take your money, Don. I hear niggaz who eat outta your hand come up dead?” Bruiser said slyly.

  Devil had finally tired of Bruiser’s mouth and stepped forward but Don B. waved him back. “Yeah, I lost a few homeys but they lived like kings when they were here,” Don B. shot back. “Now, you gonna keep running ya yap or throw them bones? Imma take that bum-ass weed money you stunting with a trick it off at the strip club.” This drew snickers from everybody who was watching.

  Bruiser’s ego finally got the best of him. “Fuck it, superstar, I’ll take ya bet.” He threw the dice and they showed two threes and a four. “Four is always a fighter.”

  Don B. snatched the dice in his jeweled hand and began to shake them. “Blow on these for me, love.” Don B. held the dice out to the big-breasted girl.

  “I’ll blow on anything you need me to,” she said slyly before blowing on the dice.

  Don B. did a funny two-step move and threw the dice underhanded against the stoop. When the dice finally stopped spinning they all came up with the same number, five. “Trips, nigga, you know how them fives ride.” Don B. snatched up the money.

  Bruiser stared angrily at Don B. with murder mounting in his heart. He was so mad that his brown face began to turn a ruddy plum color and thoughts of murdering the smug rapper flooded his mind. “You got that,” Bruiser said barely above a whisper.

  “Oh, you don’t wanna play no more? I got plenty more cake to lose, my G. That change we just shot for ain’t ’bout nothing.” Don B. shook the dice in a taunting manner.

  “Nah, I’m good,” Bruiser said and motioned to his crew that it was time to go.

  “Good?” Don B. laughed. “You looking kinda sour to me, kid. Nigga, I know you sick because you came out here and gambled away your re-up. Maybe you should’ve listened to Hov’s verse about fraudulent Willie’s, son!”

  “Chill, you won so leave it alone,” Devil whispered, but Don B. ignored him. He had an audience so he intended to give them a show.

  “Bruiser, you know you my nigga so stop acting like that,” Don B. said sarcastically. “Check it out”—Don B. peeled off a hundred dollars and dropped it on the ground—“take that so you can get back in the game. It ain’t about me needing your money, it’s more about the thrill of seeing you lose it.”

  “Talk that shit, gangsta. Imma see you on the come around,” Bruiser promised.

  “Whatever, ya bum ass nigga. Just remember that a pup ain’t never gonna be able to fuck with a dawg!” Don B. called after him. “This nigga Bruiser just blew my fucking high, I’m going to the store to get a Dutch.”

  “I’ll walk with you, Don. I got something I need to holla at you about anyway,” the big-breasted groupie said suggestively.

  Don B. pushed his sunglasses down and gave her the once-over. “That might not be a bad idea. Shorty, hold the bank down for me.” Don B. passed the money and dice off to a teenaged boy. “Devil, watch my bread and make sure these niggaz don’t get light-fingered.”

  Don B. walked off with the girl.

  • • •

  Fifteen minutes later Don B. was sitting in the back of his Escalade with the girl working at his zipper. The girl finally managed to retrieve his thick penis and marveled at the curved muscle. “Damn, baby.” She stroked him to an erection.

  “You know we do everything big on my side,” he told her, before steering her head toward his lap. When the tip of her tongue touched the head of his penis it was like an electrical charge went through his body. She worked the rim of his dick with just her tongue for a few seconds before sliding him into the back of her mouth and flexing her throat muscles around the head of his penis. The two of them exchanged moans as she deep-throated him, while he jammed his fingers in and out of her tight vagina. The girl’s juices dripped down Don B.’s hand and wrists as he explored her. It seemed like the more feverishly he jammed his fingers into her, the more vigorously she sucked him. Just when Don B. felt himself about to cum she stopped and squeezed the head of his dick, holding him back from ejaculating.

  When Don B. felt like he was about to black out he snatched her head away and took a minute to breathe. “Damn, girl, you’ve got the meanest shot of head I’ve ever had!”

  “If you think these lips are the bomb”—she ran her finger across her mouth—“wait until you taste these lips.” She slid her hand into her pants and began fingering herself. The girl scooted back on the last row of the SUV and wiggled out of her jeans and panties, exposing her hairy and unkempt pussy. One after the other she took turns sliding her fingers into herself and then licking them. “Boy, stop playing and come get this pussy.”

  Don B. almost killed himself when he tripped over his jeans trying to get to the girl. His exposed dick was so hard that it dripped pre-cum on his leather seats when he crawled between her legs. Balancing himself with one arm he dug around in his pocket for a box of condoms but came up empty. “Damn.”

  “What’s the matter, baby, you don’t want none of this honey?” she breathed in his ear, reaching between her legs and jerking Don B.’s dick.

  “I ain’t got no jimmys, ma,” he said defeated.

  The girl bit her lip and thought on it for a minute. “Come on, take it anyway. You rich so I know you ain’t got nothing. Just don’t cum inside me, okay?”

  Don B. looked down at her and smiled his devilish smile. “If you like it then I love it,” he said before plunging into her sweetness, and how sweet it was. Missionary was cool, but the Don needed to be in control so he flipped her over and hit it from the back. They started out at slow measured strokes, but it wasn’t long before Don B. lost himself and tore off into it. Wrapping his arms around her waist he lifted the girl partially off the seat and began to thrust deeply into her. Spewing obscenities, he exploded inside the girl and fell back against the opposite door.

  Don B. lay on his back on the opposite end of the row, panting and starting at the girl across the truck, who had soaked her inner thighs as well as the seat beneath her with both their juices. Lying there playing with her dripping pussy she didn’t seem too upset about Don B. cumming inside her, not that he would give a shit anyhow. Just like he could pay to have the sex washed from his seat he could pay to have her washed from his life if she forgot her position. Don B. laughed to himself as he reached for the pack of cigarettes he’d dropped on the floor of the truck and it was then he saw someone standing outside his window.

  It only took a split second for Don B.’s street instincts to kick in and propel him to the opposite door, and it took less time before the bullet shattered the window and pierced his shoulder. Don B.’s shoulder instantly went numb, and left him to fumble with the other door with one hand. He had almost undone the lock when another shooter came to that side of the truck and joined in the shooting, trapping Don B. in the middle. He lunged for the big-breasted girl, who was now screaming, and pulled her on top of him as he fell to the floor of the SUV. Bullets ripped through the girl’s he
lpless body as Don B. held her there like a human shield.

  Don B. stayed huddled beneath the corpse of the girl, bleeding like a stuck pig and begging God to spare his life long after the shooting had stopped. He could hear people outside the truck screaming, and sirens in the distance, but couldn’t will himself to move from beneath the bullet-ridden corpse. Above his head the backseat door was snatched open and a pair of hands tugged at him. Don B. fought with everything he had, but it was useless with him just having one arm available. As Don B. lay on the street corner in front of the bodega he decided that if he was going to die, he would look into the eyes of his killers before he did so. When he opened his eyes he realized that it wasn’t the shooters who had pulled him from the truck, but the police.

  “Sir, are you hurt?” The officer was kneeling over him checking his wounds. The bullet appeared to have gone clean through, but he had several cuts and bruises on his face and lower body from the glass. He was laid out with his pants around his ankles but the embarrassment was a small price to pay for his life.

  “They shot the Don!” someone shouted.

  “I didn’t know he was holding like that,” one girl said of his exposed privates.

  “Is he dead?”

  Don B. heard it all, but none of it moved him. All he could do was stare at the girl he had blazed not two minutes prior. Gone was the cute young dime who had pressed him at the dice game, replaced by a mess of flesh, blood, and stolen dreams. Bullet holes riddled her back, with one even making it through the back of her skull and busting one of her eyes, the other eye stared accusingly at Don B. He knew that if he lived to be a thousand he would never forget the look on the girl’s face.

  “Let me through! I’m the bodyguard!”

  Devil shoved his way through the crowd teary eyed. It was his job to protect Don B. and he’d allowed his charge to get caught up. If Don B. had gotten hurt Devil would’ve never been able to face his uncle, Remo.

  “Don, speak to me, tell me what happened?” He knelt over the shocked rapper.

  Don B. turned and looked at him through his broken sunglasses. There was a look of fear in his eyes that Devil had never seen. Don B. had to swallow before he could build up enough moisture in his mouth to talk.

  “Yo, these niggaz tried to take my head.”

  Chapter 19

  “Yeah, they tried to take my head. These pussy niggaz tried to take my head,” Animal rapped lazily into the microphone. The small booth was so full of smoke that all you could really make out of him was the ruby flooded Muppet bust hanging from his chain. He and the character bore a striking resemblance. He was so at peace wrapped in the comfort of his music that the stress of Lee’s murder, and all the other bodies that would drop before it was all said and done, bled off into nothingness leaving behind only him and the music.

  Manning the control board was Chip, one-third of the group The Left Coast Theory and executive producer on Animal’s album. The Left Coast Theory had been composed of Chip, No Doze, and Fully. Some say that they were the purest hip-hop group to come along in a long time and they seemed destined to win, but destiny sometimes has a way of throwing you curve balls as they would soon learn. No Doze’s heavy drugging had finally caught up to him and one day they found him running down Wilshire BLVD butt ass naked with a crack pipe in his mouth. His family checked him into a treatment facility to get help but that only made things worse with them substituting one drug for another. No Doze had lost his desire to make music and now spent his days staring out the window at his mother’s house. Fully, the resident menace of the group, couldn’t seem to stay out of trouble and eventually ended up getting handed a dime by the state of New York for a bar fight gone horribly wrong. All that remained of one of hip-hop’s most promising groups was Chip.

  The thin Lebanese immigrant looked completely out of place at times with the Big Dawg crew, but he felt right at home among them. Since Animal had come aboard Big Dawg, he and Chip had worked closely together so it wasn’t unusual for him to find himself in a nest of vipers during their studio sessions. Initially it had made him uneasy, but after a while he’d gotten used to it. He and Animal would lock themselves away in various recording studios perfecting a sound that not even Don B. totally understood. The two made quite the odd pair, but no one could deny their chemistry as damn near everything they touched was a hit.

  “A’ight, we’re good,” Chip said into the intercom, but Animal continued rhyming. Even after the music had been shut off he kept going. Chip had to bang on the glass to let him know to stop.

  “That muthafucka be in a zone,” Soda said from the love seat he was lounging on with two big butt young females that he had picked up God only knew where. Soda was to Stacks Green and his Texas crew what Animal was to Big Dawg, a star in the making. Though he didn’t have quite the lyrical finesse that Animal did he had a star power about him that only came along once every few years. Though he was a small young man who couldn’t have weighed more than 120 pounds on a good day, he carried himself with the air of a giant.

  “Yeah, when Animal is in the booth he doesn’t see anything but the beat,” Chip told him while playing with the knobs on the board.

  “What’s with all that see the beat shit you and this nigga Animal always talking?” Soda asked.

  “It is just what it sounds like,” Chip told him, but Soda’s face said that he still didn’t get it. “See, most people hear music, but we can see it, every snare, horn, rift, we see them in big beautiful colors. It’s like tripping acid and looking through a kaleidoscope.”

  Soda shook his head. “Y’all niggaz are weird.”

  “Weird and paid,” Animal said, stepping out of the booth. He was topless and covered in sweat with his hair pulled back into a bushy ponytail. Tattooed across his back was the word “Harlem” with curved wings at each end like quotation marks. “You ready to go in and lay your vocals, Soda?”

  “In a minute, my G. I gotta get my mind right first,” Soda said, lighting the blunt dangling between his lips.

  “Dude, it seems like you spend more time getting your mind right than working. We gotta get this shit done.”

  “Chill out, Animal. I know we’re on the clock, but you can’t rush perfection. Besides, this was just supposed to be a mix session; you’re the one who decided he wanted to add another song to the album at the last minute.”

  “Creativity strikes us where it pleases.” Animal winked at Soda and took the blunt from him.

  “Wow, you’re so ‘prolittic,’ ” the light-skinned girl sitting next to Soda said.

  “So what?” Animal asked, not familiar with the word.

  “Prolittic,” she enunciated. “You know like when you just keep coming up with material.”

  Animal and Chip looked at each other. “The word is prolific.” Chip shook his head. “Soda, where the fuck did you find these broads and why are they even here?”

  “Chill out, Mexico. These is my muses,” Soda told him.

  “I’m not Mexican, I’m Lebanese!” Chip corrected him for what felt like the hundredth time.

  Soda waved him off. “What the fuck ever, Mexico. I don’t know why you all up in my mix instead of doing what the fuck we pay them for which is to work them boards! So what you need to do is keep your nose in that music and outta my business.”

  “And what you need to do is watch how you talk to my friend, Soda,” Animal said with a blank expression on his face. “I think we might be losing perspective here so let’s make this a closed session. Soda, show your company out please.”

  “Come on, Animal, don’t be like that. A’ight you got it, I’m about to go in the booth kill this shit right now,” Soda assured him.

  “That’s dope, but I think it would still be a good idea if the ladies cut out. You can hook up with them after we’re done,” Animal suggested.

  “Uh-uh, how he just gonna try to kick us out when you invited us here, Soda? Who do he think he is?” the dark-skinned girl said indignantly.

/>   “I’m a nigga who respects a lady enough to be polite, but doesn’t mind disciplining a bitch when she gets beside herself. Which category do you fall into, ma?” The temperature dropped ten degrees when Animal posed the question. The girl looked like she was gonna say something fly, but Soda wisely intervened.

  “A’ight, time to go.” Soda ushered the women toward the door, ignoring their complaints.

  “Soda, this is some real crab shit. I’m gonna un-follow your ass on Twitter,” the light-skinned girl threatened.

  “My heart bleeds. Beat it, bitches.” Soda slammed the door in their faces. “My fault, Animal.”

  “No apologies needed among friends, Soda.” Animal gave him dap. “Now, go up in there and get ya murk on so we can wrap this session up.”

  “Bet.” Soda strode into the booth confidently and slipped on the headphones.

  “I swear I wanna slap that kid sometimes,” Chip confessed to Animal after he started the music in Soda’s headphones.

  “Soda is a good dude. He just needs direction sometimes.” Animal expelled smoke from his nose. “Soda’s brah at times, but you could learn to lighten up too, Chip.”

  “Me? I’m the most easygoing dude in the world!” Chip declared.

  “Yeah, you my muthafucking dawg, but you can be very uptight when it comes to making music.”

  Chip ran his hands through his wild hair. “Here we go with this. I want your little buddy to stop trying to make porn clips on the sofa and work like the rest of us and I’m uptight? If I’d been in here eating mushrooms instead of getting the music right you’d be the first one throwing a hissy fit, but I should go easy on him? This is a race thing, right?”

  Animal laughed. “Chip, your ass is shot out.”

  “Yeah and you’re greedy. Pass the weed, dude!”

  Animal gave Chip the blunt and grabbed a towel from the couch to wipe away the sweat on his back and chest. His BlackBerry vibrated on the console with the word unavailable flashing across the screen. He didn’t recognize the number so he started not to pick it up, but something in the pit of his gut told him to answer the call. “Yeah?”