Hustlin' Divas

by De'nesha Diamond

  He chuckles. “C’mon. Now, I ain’t said nothing about us going all public. Besides, we’ve been able to keep our shit tight for six months, haven’t we?”

  “Yeah, until you fucked up,” I snap, a little harder than I intended.

  A strained silence stretches over the phone.

  I suspect that my secret boo is struggling not to curse me the fuck out. I know him well enough to know that he doesn’t like it when people mouth off at him, and there have been more than a few times when he had to tell me to check my slick mouth when talking to him. He never wilds out or anything; he just has this cool way about handling me without me feeling handled.

  “Are you finished now?” he asks. His deep baritone is like warm honey in my ear. “Have you got all of that shit out of your system?”

  Contrite, I shrug my shoulders with my bottom lip poked out.

  “Good. Now come over here to the window and let me in.”

  I whip my head around and am stunned shitless at seeing Profit’s beautiful dimpled smile beaming back at me. “What the fuck are you doing out there?” I gasp into the phone.

  “What does it look like?” He laughs. “I’m out here risking my neck tryna see your ass.” He taps my window. “Now get over here before your pops catches me out here and starts blasting at a nigga.”

  I blink out of my stupor, toss my phone down on the bed, and then race over to the window. “I don’t fuckin’ believe you.” I turn the silver lock and open the window. “Damn, Profit. What the fuck were you thinking?” I ask as he climbs inside. Once he’s in, I glance back out. “How the fuck did you get up here?”

  Still laughing, Profit wraps his strong arms around my waist and then nuzzles a kiss along the column of my neck. “Now what difference does that make? I’m here now.” His soft lips move to just behind my ear, causing every inch of my womanhood to tingle and throb. “All you need to know is that I miss your fine ass.” His large, basketball player–like hands dip down in between my legs, where he massages my swollen clit through the seam of my jeans. “Did you miss me, too, baby?”

  Since I’m moaning, there’s no point in saying anything other than the truth. “You know I did.” I still have sense enough to reach up and jerk my bedroom curtains closed before we give everyone on my street a good peep show.

  “If you missed me so much, how come you ain’t actin’ like it?” His teeth lightly skimmed my lower earlobe. “How come you ain’t ripping out these clothes, Ma?” His hands move back up but make a beeline toward the top button of my jeans.

  I draw in a shaky breath and then slap the top of his hand as I pull away.

  “Damn, lil ma. What’s up?”

  “Nigga, you know what’s up.” I smack him on the chest. “This shit is serious. What are we going to do?”

  Profit rolls his eyes. “We ain’t gotta do shit…just mind our p’s and q’s. The shit will blow over.”

  “Please say that you’re fucking joking.” I blink at him.

  “What?” He tries to pull me back into his arms.

  “Nigga, this ain’t Atlanta where we play paper gangstas. This is the real shit here in Memphis. Niggas pop out they momma’s pussies wearing colors. Don’t tell me I’m telling you shit you don’t already know.”

  “Shara,” Profit insists, tugging on my white cotton T and smiling directly at my creamy milk-chocolate breasts. “Niggas talk. That’s what the fuck they do. We can’t control that shit.” His hand roams up my flat belly and then cups my shit as if that’s all it takes to calm me down.

  “Puh-lease.” I push him and his octopus arms away from me. “Niggas also shoot—or did you forget that shit?”

  “Tsk.” Profit rolls his pretty-ass eyes and hits me with his large dimples. “You’re taking this shit too serious, Shara. Ain’t nobody sweating what the fuck we’re doing. Neither one of us are in the game. We can do what the fuck we want.” He eases back on me and sucks on my bottom lip. “I done told my brother that shit and you have told your sister. If anybody steps to us sideways, then we’ll handle that shit. End of story.” His hands return to my jeans and snap them open before I can stop him again. “Your problem is that you worry too much.”

  “You don’t worry enough,” I say, mushing him in the head.

  He tugs on my lip again and then dips his tongue inside my warm mouth until I start moaning again and pressing my marble-sized nipples against his chest. His dick quickens and my titties tingle.

  What the fuck? I can’t even stay mad at this nigga. I turn my face until my lip pops away from his gentle sucking. “C’mon. You know that shit ain’t true. It’s just a matter of time before LeShelle starts blowing my phone up. Hell, if it wasn’t for some big fuckin’ party they’re throwing tonight, she would be doing the shit right now.”

  “Fuck! Will you stop worrying about your whack-ass sister and start concentrating on your man?”

  My eyes bug, but before I can jump on my high horse, Profit tosses up his hands. “All right, all right. I was out of line,” he says, forcing a smile back onto his face. “I’m sorry.” He kisses me tenderly. “Forgive me?” Another kiss.

  However, I’m hip to his game. “You ain’t foolin’ nobody. You just want some pussy.”

  Profit’s lips broaden. “Nah, nah.” He tugs me toward the bed. “I don’t just want some pussy. I want the best pussy.” With just two fingers, he gives me a little push and watches as I fall backward onto the bed. “You know you got the best, right baby?”

  I laugh as he jumps down on top of me and removes my cotton T-shirt in one swift move.

  “Oooh. There my babies are.” He grins and drops his face and tries to smother himself in between my breasts.

  I start laughing at his foolishness.

  “Ta’Shara?” Tracee’s voice floats from the hallway.

  I clamp my mouth shut just as Profit’s head pops up from between my titties.

  We watch in horror as the doorknob twists and rattles in vain.

  I expel a relieved breath. At least I’d locked the door. Thank God.

  “Ta’Shara, are you in there?” Knock. Knock.

  Scrambling off the bed, Profit loses his balance and falls over the side, hitting the floor with a loud “Ooof!”

  “Ta’Shara, honey? Are you okay?”

  “Umm, yes, ma’am.”

  “What was that noise?” The doorknob rattles again.

  “Uh…uh, I just tripped.” I reach down and pull up the bottom of my comforter before whispering, “Hide.”

  Profit frowns as he peeps under the bed. “Yo, I don’t know what you got under there.”

  “Why is the door locked?” Tracee asks, rattling the door again.

  “Will you stop playing and get under there?” I whap him on the back of the head and then help cram him under the bed with my dust bunnies.

  “Ta’Shara?”

  “I’m coming.” I jump up and grab my T-shirt from the other side of the bed. Clutching it against my chest, I jerk open the door. “Hey!”

  Tracee jumps back and then runs her gaze over me. “What are you doing?” she asks suspiciously.

  “N-nothing. I was just getting ready for bed.”

  “What was that noise?” Tracee glances over my head and peeks into the room. “I thought I heard you laughing with someone.”

  “I, um, was on my cell phone talking to Essence,” I say, thinking quickly. “We were just laughing about something that happened today at school.”

  “Oh.” Tracee’s gaze returns to my open and honest-looking face. “Well, try to keep it down in here. Reggie has a migraine.”

  “Yes, ma’am. ’Nite.”

  Pop! Pop! Pop!

  Tracee and I jump, but then share an awkward smile. The sporadic gunfire usually starts around nine o’clock and is like a soundtrack to the gang violence that’s creeping toward midtown.

  “Well, you better get to bed,” Tracee says after taking a breath. “Good night.” Tracee smiles but casts a final look back into the room
before I shut the door in her face—and lock it.

  Pop! Pop! Pop!

  “Yo, Ma. Your moms be bugging,” Profit says, crawling out from under the bed with a goofy grin.

  “Keep it down,” I say, tossing my T-shirt and hitting him on the head with it. “Trust me, you don’t want Reggie to find you in here.”

  Profit jumps to his feet and quickly draws me back into his arms. “I’ll be quiet if you’ll be quiet.” He unhooks my bra and peels the straps from my shoulders.

  Once upon a time, I vowed that I would wait until I was married before I had sex, but that shit flew out the window when I met Profit. Hell, I didn’t even make his ass wait. On our first date, he flashed those diamond-sized dimples one too many times, and the next thing I knew, I was screaming for Jesus and my pink Wednesday panties were hanging from his car rearview mirror. I don’t have anyone to compare him to, but as far as I’m concerned, our bodies were made for each other.

  We click. We flow. We are soul mates. I know this as well as I know that I need air to breathe. Profit completes me—and this small life I’ve managed to carve out with the Douglases. Now I just need to figure out some way to hold it all together, at least until I can roll the hell up out of Memphis.

  Pop! Pop! Pop!

  Profit enters me with one smooth stroke and stares lovingly into my eyes while I try to control the volume on my moans. He doesn’t make it easy for me either. He hooks my legs over his shoulders and tears up my G-spot, my T-Spot, and my Z-spot.

  “Oh…Profit…”

  Pop! Pop! Pop!

  “Shhh. Shara…baby,” he hisses, trying to handle how hard I’m throwing my pussy back at him. We go at it until our bodies are slick with sweat and words of love are whispered back and forth.

  Pop! Pop! Pop!

  I roam my hands around my man’s waist and then lower to grip his tight ass. The feel of his muscles flexing and relaxing and the intensity of his caramel-colored eyes keep me wetter than a waterfall. Outside my door, I swear I can hear my foster parents climbing the stairs and heading to their bedroom for the night.

  Pop! Pop! Pop!

  “Oh…Oh…”

  “Good night, Ta’Shara,” Reggie and Tracee call from outside my bedroom.

  “Oh!” Pop! “Oh!” Pop! “Oh!” Pop!

  In order to keep me quiet, Profit smothers my mouth with kisses and at the right moment swallows my orgasmic cry while my foster parents close the door to their bedroom.

  I drift down from my cloud and start giggling.

  “You think that shit is funny?” Profit asks, laughing. “Earlier, you were all scared they might come in here and put a cap in my ass. Now that you got your nut, it’s fuck me, is that it?”

  I laugh. That’s something I love doing with Profit as much as having sex. He’s funny and goofy and then can flip the script and can be serious and no-nonsense.

  “Ah, I see how you do a nigga with your selfish ass.” He tickles my sides, but when I start wiggling around, his dick gets harder.

  I smile at the feel of his dick thickening and throbbing. “Oooh. What’s that?” I ask, rolling my hips and watching my man’s face twist with pleasure. “You like that, baby?”

  His mouth sags open. “Damn, baby. Hold up.” He struggles to catch his breath.

  “Nah, nigga.” I pick up the speed. “You were talking all that shit. The truth is you can’t handle this sweet pussy, can you?”

  He tries to laugh it off, but then I hit a particular sweet spot and instead he starts sounding like a man who just caught the Holy Ghost.

  “Uh-huh. I didn’t think so.” I roll him over and take the top position. “You like how I work this dick, baby?” My hips whine, bounce and then roll some more.

  “I fuckin’ love it.” Profit pulls my body close so he can pop an erect nipple into his warm mouth. “I fuckin’ love you, baby,” he rasps.

  I stop. “What?”

  “I don’t stutter and your ears don’t flap.” Profit smiles and rolls me back over. “I said I love you and I mean that shit.” His hips start moving again. This time his strokes are so deep I think his dick is banging against my heart.

  “I love you, too,” I confess. My heart pounds in double time.

  Our eyes lock.

  “Then that’s all the fuck that matters.” Profit cups my face in his hands while he continues his deep stroking. “Promise me that you’ll always remember that, baby.”

  “I…I promise.”

  Pop! Pop! Pop!

  8

  Momma Peaches

  Every time I open my eyes in the morning, I thank the good Lord for blessing me to see another day. As far as I’m concerned, there are a lot of muthafuckas who don’t make it this far in life. For whatever reason, the man upstairs sees it fit for my old ass to still be roaming around in these streets just like he sees it fit to deliver the fine buck snoring next to me to really give me the proper homecoming I needed.

  Now that the cobwebs have been knocked off my pussy and the sun is shining on my new chocolate boy toy, I’m in the mood for some flapjacks. I smile and peel back the white cotton sheets on my big ole cherry poster bed and swing my legs over the side—well, my one good leg and my one half a leg. I reach down and rub the bottom nub of my left leg and then have to remind myself that the ache I feel isn’t real and that I’m still suffering from what the doctors called phantom limb—the sensation that a missing limb is still attached—but it never really works.

  I had lost the leg in ’73, fucking around with Leroy, a small-time hustler who thought his ass was Priest from Super Fly. Hell, everybody blew his head up about that shit, just because he was lightskinned and could rock out a hot-comb press better than most. I don’t know why I was attracted to bad boys. I just was. Their swagger, their danger, their fuck-the-world attitude would get me and keep me wet better than any nigga working a nine-to-five with full benefits.

  It was the same summer my baby sister, Alice, was sent up to Nana Maybelle’s place since our momma kept spitting out babies every nine months like clockwork. When Alice showed up, the whole Manny affair was six years in my rearview mirror, and I was trying to trick niggas before they could trick me. What love had to do with shit was my anthem long before Tina Turner got some sense knocked into her screaming ass.

  Momma Maybelle was still in the game but was starting to show less heart about staying in it. Niggas were starting to get too wild, weren’t respecting long-held codes of honor on the street, and snitching became a new pastime down at the precinct. Still, Nana played the game smart and kept those Irish muthafuckas off her doorstep by contributing to the right people’s retirement funds.

  In ’73, I slipped up one more ’gin by catching feelings with Leroy’s pretty ass. And it had a lot to do with his ass rocking double digits in the dick department and introducing me to white people’s favorite drug of choice: cocaine.

  For a while, I just let him have that. After years of fighting that heroin habit Manny had left me with, the last thing I wanted was to get hooked on some new shit. But I had to admit, Leroy’s ass was a lot of fun whenever he was on that shit. He played more, laughed harder, and just downright tore my pussy up in the bedroom like his tight ass had batteries in it. Back in those days, drugs had a certain hierarchy. Any ole nigga could get their hands on some weed and heroin, but cocaine meant your ass had some dough.

  It first started at a red light in the basement party over at my best friend Josie’s crib. Everybody and anybody was bumping and grooving in that muthafucka that night. The women were rocking big-ass afros and equally big hoop earrings and ridiculous high-platform shoes while every man in there wore their baddest pimp gear, Leroy included.

  “I don’t understand why it got to go up in my nose?” I had naïvely said after watching people do lines or just scoop the shit up with their own private stock with tiny gold spoons that they wore around their necks.

  “Why ask why?” Leroy snickered as he chopped up his shit with a razor and made two disti
nct lines. “All that matters is that the shit works.” He then rolled a twenty-dollar bill and snorted a good six-inch line into each nostril. When his head sprung up, his golden eyes looked as if they were suddenly made of glass. The smile that came over his face was both sexy and contagious.

  “Hey, girl.” Josie slapped me on the back and cheesed in my face. “Glad to see you made it out.” Josie was decked the fuck out in a bright red Jersey dress with a halter top that gave every nigga in there a good view of her full D cups. “At least there are two hot-looking bitches up in this piece.” She laughed.

  “You ain’t lyin’,” Leroy said, his lustful gaze raking Josie up and down.

  I popped him on the back of his head. “No, you ain’t, nigga.”

  “What?” He cheesed. “I was just fuckin’ with you. I wanted to see what your ass was going to do.” He squeezed my leg playfully and gave me the I-want-to-fuck look.

  “Uh-huh.” I couldn’t hate on my girl because she looked just like Diahann Carroll from that TV show Julia. She had her pick of niggas despite her ass being married to one who had a real j-o-b down at the post office.

  “Hey, Leroy. How about giving me a whiff of that shit? I can hook you up later,” Josie said.

  Leroy laughed in her face. “Bitch, please. This ain’t Give Me, Tennessee.”

  “Humph!” She rolled her eyes and twitched her legs. “Peaches, can you talk to your man? This is supposed to be a party and shit, and his ass is being stingy.”

  “Go on, girl. I ain’t in that shit. That’s between y’all.”

  “All right, then. You want me to break him off some pussy payments?” She raised her pencil-thin brows as if to say that she was serious.

  “Get cut if you want to, bitch,” I sassed.

  “All right. All right.” Josie reached in underneath her left breast and pulled out the small roll of bills she had taped under there. “Take the last of my allowance money, muthafucka.”

  Leroy smiled and handed over a few packets of white powder. “Nice doing business with you.”

  “Whatever, muthafucka.” Josie rolled her eyes. “I’ll catch you later, Peaches.”