The Reason Why

by Vickie M. Stringer

  “I would have chopped the suckers right off.”

  “Then how would we have fertilized your eggs?”

  “Ain’t nothing getting to these eggs, mister. None of your crazy-ass sperm anyway. My eggs will grow up scrambled, just like their daddy!”

  Chino laughed. “Aw, c’mon, Pooh. Come sit down here with your man.”

  Pam dropped down to the ground and sat next to Chino. “You just answered a bunch of questions for me.”

  “Oh yeah, like what?”

  “Like how you would provide for us if you weren’t hustling. I now have the answer.”

  “What answer is that?”

  “You get a crazy check. I know you have to be getting a disability check from the government.”

  Chino placed his finger to his lips and shushed her. “Don’t be telling my business, Pooh.”

  Pam nodded. “Yeah, you’re crazy, and the bad part about it is that our kids are going to love the ground your mentally retarded-ass walks on.”

  Chapter 29

  Loving You

  Pam stepped out of the shower and strolled into the bedroom to find Chino waiting for her with a gift box and rose petals sprinkled on the bed.

  “What’s this?” Pam asked with a smile.

  “I don’t know,” he told her in a singsong voice. “It was here when I came in the room. Open it. Let’s see what it is.” Pam eyed him suspiciously. She knew it was some type of jewelry because it was in a felt box.

  “Open it,” Chino urged.

  “Uh-uh, I ain’t touching that. You said you didn’t know what it was and it was there when you came in the room. I’m sorry, I don’t open boxes just laying there,” Pam called Chino’s bluff, with a smile, and started drying herself off. “Even if it is in a felt box.”

  Chino snatched the towel out of her hands.

  “Chino!” she shouted. “Stop it! What are you doing?”

  “Open your gift, girl!”

  “Oh, so now it’s a gift?” Pam looked at Chino and laughed. She held out her hand. “Give me the towel. I’m soaking wet.”

  Chino nodded toward the box. “After you open that.”

  Pam exhaled and reluctantly sat naked on the bed. She picked up the felt box and pulled off the top.

  A gasp escaped Pam’s lips. “Chino! It’s beautiful!” A gorgeous diamond tennis bracelet sparkled inside.

  A smile shot across Chino’s face. “I knew you would like it, Pooh.”

  “Like it?” Pam leapt to her feet and wrapped her arms around Chino. “I love it!”

  “Here, let me put this on you,” Chino told her.

  Pam handed Chino the bracelet.

  “Not that.” Chino smiled seductively. He picked up a bottle of cocoa butter lotion that was on the nightstand next to the bed. “I meant this. Let me put this on you.”

  Pam laughed. “Silly!” She turned her back to him and rolled her shoulders. “Put it on me, big daddy.”

  Chino squeezed some lotion in his palm, rubbed his hands together, and then gently massaged the lotion into Pam’s back. He deeply rubbed her shoulders, down her back, then walked his fingers up her spine.

  Instinctively, Pam leaned back into Chino’s touches while he leaned forward and placed his lips on her neck. Chino then began to trace just below her earlobe with his tongue. Pam hunched up her shoulders and tried to block his tongue by pressing her shoulder and neck together.

  Breathing heavily in Pam’s ear, Chino asked, “What’s wrong? You can’t take it?”

  “It tickles.”

  “Lay down, Pooh. Let me put some lotion on your legs.”

  Pam did as she was told, lay back on the bed and teasingly lifted her smooth caramel leg into the air. Chino walked his eyes down her legs and swallowed hard. Her firm, muscular legs had him excited. He could feel himself growing larger with each passing second.

  “You wanna put some lotion on these legs, Chino?” Pam asked, rubbing her legs seductively.

  Chino nodded and again swallowed hard. His wide eyes followed her hands up and down her smooth legs.

  “C’mon then.” Pam wiggled her finger, motioning for him to come to her. Chino squeezed more lotion in his hand and rubbed from her thick thighs to her petite, manicured feet.

  “Damn, girl. You got sandpaper feet!”

  “Chino, please!” Pam laughed and kicked him. “You know my feet are smooth.”

  Chino kissed each of her toes. “Yeah, Pooh, your shit is on point. They smoother than a baby’s ass.”

  Chino placed her big toe in his mouth, then moved down the line, sucking each toe in turn. Chino’s touches, kisses, and thick tongue were more than Pam could take. She felt like she was about to explode between her legs . . . and then she did.

  “What’s the matter, Pooh?” Chino asked softly. He knew from the look on her face and her heavy breathing that she had an orgasm.

  “Nothing.” She tried to catch her breath.

  Chino laughed. He continued to work his tongue up her feet, past her calf, up her thigh, to her erotic zone. Pam clasped the back of his head in anticipation of what he was going to do next.

  “What you got for me, Pooh?”

  “What do you want?” Pam responded in a whisper.

  “I don’t know.” Chino shrugged. “Tell me what you got for me.”

  Pam placed her hand on her coochie and parted it. “This.”

  “Hot damn,” Chino moaned. “Diamonds and pearls are a man’s best friend.”

  “Diamonds and pearls?”

  Chino grabbed the tennis bracelet and laid the cool strip down the slit of her pussy, alternating his licks on both sides of the tennis bracelet and her pearl tongue. Pam’s body welcomed Chino. She gasped and moaned with each lick, arched her back, and grabbed hold of Chino’s head.

  “Wha . . . what are you doing?” Pam said through tightly clenched teeth.

  “Damn, Pooh.” Chino continued to feast. Instantaneously Pam stretched her legs and cried out in pleasure as she exploded again.

  “Chino, you already know.”

  “Know what?” Chino gently pulled the tennis bracelet across her clit, giving her a heavenly sensation. Chino parted her vagina and stuck his tongue inside, stroking her deeply.

  Pam moaned repeatedly.

  “Chino!” Pam screamed. It was a move that always drove her crazy. She held his head and gyrated her hips. Chino could feel her going stiff and hear her purring. He looked up at her to find her face twisted with one eye open. She was gushing like Old Faithful.

  “You cummin’, baby?” Chino asked.

  Pam couldn’t answer. Chino laughed.

  “I guess that’s my answer.”

  “Why do you do that to me?” Pam asked.

  “Because I love seeing that look on your face when you cummin’,” Chino told her. “You gonna have to be careful, girl.”

  “What do you mean?” Pam asked between heavy breaths.

  “You gonna shoot my baby outta there one of these days.”

  “Ain’t no baby up in here.”

  “Not yet,” Chino said, kissing her belly. He gently licked at her pearl tongue with a soft circular motion. Pam moaned. “But we are going to put a little Christonos up in here one day.”

  “Really?”

  Chino sucked her labia again. “Yeah.”

  Pam moaned and gripped the back of his head. “So is that what this is about, Chino?”

  “What are you talking about?” Chino asked, still licking and sucking.

  “You’re after my eggs?”

  Chino laughed. “Can I get a half a dozen?”

  “A half dozen? Are you crazy?”

  “I can’t get a half dozen eggs?”

  “Do I look like a chicken farm?”

  Chino stuck his tongue deep inside her and licked around. Pam gasped.

  “Can I get at least one good egg then?” Chino asked.

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On whether you’re goin
g to take care of it or not,” Pam told him. “I don’t pass out eggs to just anybody.”

  Chino laughed and nodded. “I promise that I’ll take good care of your egg, Pooh. Are you going to take good care of my seed?”

  “Your seed?”

  “Remember this, Pooh, it’s my seed. The sperm swims to the cell and works its way inside so that it can be safe. The egg don’t swim to the sperm. Life comes from a man, it just comes through a woman.”

  “So, I have to carry your baby for nine months, have swollen feet, an aching back, and be peeing every five minutes, and all I am is a bun warmer?”

  Together they laughed.

  “I’ll be there going through it with you, Pooh.”

  Pam felt herself building to another climax.

  “Are you going to give me an egg, Pooh?”

  “I’ll give it to you, Chino!” Pam said, cumming again. “I’ll give you whatever you want.”

  Chino began to lick slowly.

  “But you better be there for him, Chino!” Pam said breathing heavily. “You better take care of us.”

  “I will, Pooh. Don’t I take care of you now? I won’t leave his side, from the day he’s born, till the day I die. I’ll always be there for him and for you, Pooh.”

  Pam nodded.

  “I guess I’ll have to go and buy one of those video cameras, so I can tape the delivery.”

  “You going to be in the delivery room with me?” Pam asked.

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world, Pooh!”

  Chapter 30

  Untouchables

  Ricardo and Jesús were two of Dragos’s most reliable soldiers. He used them for really important jobs, and for jobs that were too complicated or too messy for his ordinary soldiers. He used them this time to deliver a special ticket to Ohio. Instead of the usual twenty keys this week, he sent Chino forty. He was doubling everyone’s ticket, because two of his major clients in North Carolina and Virginia had gotten popped. That had left him holding an unusual amount of product. His clients in Virginia and North Carolina had enormous tickets, and now those two tickets had to be divided among the remaining clients in order to get rid of the enormous stockpile of cocaine that he had been left with.

  “Damn! What y’all doin?” Chino said, as he watched Ricardo and Jesús unload kilo after kilo. “I only move twenty.”

  Ricardo shrugged. “The boss’s orders. Everyone gets double.”

  “I ain’t never moved this much in a week!” Chino complained. “And then next week, he’s gonna want us to move the same?”

  “Probably,” Jesús said, nodding. “The boss has a major problem right now.”

  “Damn,” Chino declared. Normally he wouldn’t complain about getting so much dope; no one would. It was just that he had no idea how he could move so much stuff in such a short amount of time. He was already pushing his max right now at twenty. He would have to move into other people’s territory, start stealing clients, start pushing his crew to do more. He was already pushing two keys a week off on them, some were moving three, and he was pushing Chris J and Infa to move even more. But that would mean that they would be stealing other people’s clients too. And if they were all stealing other people’s clients and moving in on other people’s turf, that could spark a drug war. Crew against crew, if they were lucky. But crews ran deep, and if they were working for niggas from another city, that could spark a city-against-city war. The last time Columbus went to war against Cleveland, the body count was crazy. No one wanted one of those again. Wars fucked up everybody’s business and ruined way too many people’s lives, but Chino could see no other way to expand. Was he truly the Prince of Columbus, or was he just bull-shitting?

  Chino knew that he had dreams, big ones, but he also knew where he wanted to be a year or two from now. He wanted to be done, and if pushing this much weight until Dragos got out of his jam was how he had to accomplish that, then so be it. He had to keep his connect happy. Besides, things would probably go back to normal after a couple of enormous shipments. It would mean more work for him, but it would also mean a lot more money. Who couldn’t use more money? It would bring him to his goal just that much faster. But then again, it would also bring more attention.

  Chino weighed the good and the bad. More bread, good. More attention, bad. More attention would bring more jackers and more haters out of the woodwork, bad. It would also expose him to greater danger, because he would be fucking with more people, even worse. And everyone in the game knew that the more people you fucked with, the greater the chance of one of them being a snitch, and getting caught up in a conspiracy wasn’t something that he wanted to do. Columbus had its share of people working for the man, just like any other major city. People snitched because they were haters, people snitched to get rid of the competition, people snitched just because they wanted to be good citizens, and they snitched because they wanted to be the police. The majority of muthafuckas who snitched were trying to save their own rotten skins. Muthafucka snitched for a variety of reasons. And then there were the undercovers.

  There were many of those and they came in all shapes, colors, and sizes. The fattest, stinkiest, most grimy-looking muthafuckas turned out to be narcotics detectives. Chino had seen one fool with a giant scraggly beard that looked like it had lice in it, and who had slept on the street for a week, turn out to be a detective. The scariest fool he had run into was a cat that looked like he was an eighteen-year-old baller. The cat had fat gold chains, rolled in a Benz, and was always in the club hollering at bitches. That fool wound up as the officer testifying at his partner’s drug trial. You had to really watch your ass in Columbus, ’cause the police had taken out all stops in their war on drugs.

  “Damn, kinfolk, what are we going to do with all of this?” Chris J asked.

  Chino shook his head. “I need for you to take six keys and move ’em.”

  “What?” Chris asked.

  Chino nodded. “Rock, I need for you to move six, and Infa, I need for you to move about six or seven. Ant, I need for you to move six, and Corey, I need for you to move four.”

  “Man, kinfolk, give me ten of them hoes, and I get them off!” Young Mike told him confidently.

  “Ten?” Rock asked.

  “Nigga, you can’t move no ten birds in a week!” Infa told him.

  “Watch me, fool!”

  “Man, don’t you give that youngster no ten birds!” Rock told Chino.

  “I can move them hoes, kinfolk!” Young Mike reiterated.

  Chino looked into the youngster’s eyes. There was straight confidence and no fear in them. He nodded. “You got that.”

  “Bet!” Young Mike told him.

  “Chino, Dragos knows that he’s asking a lot of you to move this much product, but he still ain’t taking no shorts,” Ricardo said, after hearing the conversation.

  Chino looked at Young Mike, and then back at Ricardo. “He’s like my little brother. He lives with me.”

  Ricardo nodded.

  Chino knew what Young Mike was going to do. It was basically the same thing that they all were going to have to do, which was beat the streets. They were going to have to push dope in uncharted territory. Other people’s territory. Young Mike was going to grind in other people’s hood and be all up in the projects. And he was going to get the job done. He just hoped that the kid didn’t get himself killed in the process.

  Chino pulled out a gym bag filled with money and handed it to Ricardo. “Give this to Dragos. This is last week’s ticket, and for what I thought was going to be this week’s ticket. I was just going to pay him in advance, but now it appears that I owe him for another twenty.”

  “This is going to make him real happy,” Ricardo said, holding up the gym bag.

  “Chino, how in the hell are we all gonna move this much shit?” Rock asked.

  “We gonna have to do the best that we can,” Chino told him. “We can move it. Besides, I already gave him half the money for this ticket, so if we come up a little short,
then that’s okay. If it takes us an extra day or two to finish up, then so be it.”

  “And then another major ticket?” Chris J asked.

  “By then, we’ll have built up enough clientele,” Ant said.

  “Man, this is a dream, niggas!” Infa told them. “Most niggas only dream about getting this much yayo, but we got it! You niggas is acting like it’s a funeral. Let’s ball till we fall, niggas!”

  Infa got a point, Chino thought. They were acting like it was the end of the world, but they should have been celebrating instead. They finally got a major ticket, and they were acting scared. It was do or die. Time to see what they really were about.

  Chapter 31

  Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

  “Fuck me, daddy! Fuck me!”

  Corey pulled her hair as he pounded her doggy style. He had her on the couch in his parents’ den, going at her like I-95 going south. Tish was a crack addict he picked up in the hood. He gave her two twenty-dollar rocks in exchange for unbridled sex. It wasn’t his first time, nor hers. In fact, she was one of his favorites, and he was one of hers. Corey always paid well, had a nice thick dick, and he never beat her or tried to cheat her. She even found herself liking Corey and looking forward to their twice-weekly rendezvous.

  Corey liked Tish because she was discreet and didn’t put his business in the streets. He didn’t want all the homeys to know that he was regularly dicking down a dope fiend. They wouldn’t let him hear the end of it if they found out. The only one that knew was Chris J, and he was lying back on the couch while Tish sucked his dick.

  “Oh, Corey! Oh! Oh!” Tish cried out.

  Corey was rock hard and giving her all that he had. He was pounding her as hard as he could, trying to get his rocks off. Chris J pushed her head down on his dick to silence her.

  Tish gagged. “Chris, stop it!”

  “Shut up, ho!” Chris J told her. “Suck this meat.”

  “It’s too big,” she whined. “When you push my head all the way down like that you choke me.”

  “Well, stop hollering, bitch!” Chris said. “Don’t nobody want to hear that shit!”