“Do you mind if I get dressed?” I smiled at him. I could tell he was thrown off his game when I stepped out of my thong. He didn’t answer, but I could tell by the swelling of his dick that he didn’t have a problem with it. I discarded the stockings for the next set. I wasn’t going to wear anything but the gold thong and bikini top, which barely covered my large titties.
“Damn ma, thank God I have enough sense not to shit where I eat because I’d be tearing that ass up right now.” He grabbed his dick for emphasis.
I wanted to laugh at his arrogance. Although Trent was a handsome older man, he couldn’t afford me. I wasn’t about to give up my goodies for a manager.
“Perhaps another time, another place,” I said suggestively, even though that shit would never happen. Not unless the motherfucker hit the lottery for millions. I looked over to Trent and he appeared to be deep in thought. His brows were knitted together as he combed his goatee with his fingers. Something about his pensive look made me nervous so I edged closer to my knife. I wanted to be ready just in case he lost his fucking mind and tried to take something that didn’t belong to him. My money was laid out on the vanity next to the razor and I wasn’t about to play with my money or my sex.
“You remind me of someone I used to know,” he said. His dark brown eyes, normally clear, appeared to be cloudy.
“I hope that’s not a bad thing,” I flippantly replied.
“No, it’s cool. Look, on the real, I can’t let you back in the main room tonight. The girls are ready to kick both our asses.”
I started laughing. I wished a bitch would try to step at me. I’d slit her throat with my razor and keep it moving.
“What are you saying? You want me to go home?” My heart sank because it was still early and I knew I could triple the money I’d made in just one song.
“Hell no, but I do need things to calm down a little before you go back out there. I want you to do some photos for our newsletter and Web site. We did the special e-mail blast but I think we need to turn up the heat. Maybe even your own personal video greeting. Starting tomorrow, you will be working the executive room.”
I was speechless. I thought I was going to have to fuck my way to the executive rooms but this nigga was giving me the key. My hands trembled as I put the finishing touches on my outfit.
“All this sounds nice, but I came here to make money.”
“How much do you think you’d make if you were out on the floor right now?”
I could only speculate, but I wasn’t going to lowball it.
“Two thousand easily,” I bluffed.
We stood in the middle of the room staring at each other and I could tell he knew I was bluffing. He looked over at the pile of money I had stacked on the vanity and it scared me.
“Okay, I got you. Take the pictures, do the video and I’ll have your money ready for you when you’re done.”
“That’s what I’m talking about.” My clit twitched. Trent didn’t realize just how close he came to getting broken off, but I quickly dismissed the feeling. Screwing Trent could fuck up my money and I was not about to do that.
Chapter Seven
VALENCIA ROBERTS
Reshunda and I started walking. I wasn’t sure we’d ever get back to normal, but I wanted to try.
“We never really talked about what happened to our mothers.” She stumbled and I could tell she was shocked by my statement.
“What is there to talk about?” Reshunda’s whole demeanor changed.
“There’s no need to get mad about it. It’s done and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“Why do you even want to talk about it then?” Reshunda demanded.
We were getting close to our school so we went around back to the outdoor tables we used for the cafeteria eating area. We sat on the benches.
“Because I have so many questions. Don’t you?” I thought she was going to ignore me, because she didn’t answer right away.
“Yeah, I have questions, but who am I going to ask? My mother?” She stared at me with a defiant look in her eyes. She tried not to cry but it was a losing battle. Her shoulders shook as she let it go. We’d been here before. I put my hand around her shoulders as we both cried.
“Did your mom say anything, or was she acting differently?” I asked.
Reshunda’s shoulders shook even more. “No, I wasn’t speaking to her that day, I was in my room with the door locked when she left the house. I’m so mad, she died before I could say I was sorry.”
My heart hurt for my friend. “I think she knows.”
She pulled away and wiped away her tears. “How do you know?”
She was angry again, but I couldn’t blame her. I went through periods of irrational anger myself. There were times I just wanted to hit someone and it took everything in me not to do it.
“Moms know. It’s like they have this maternal instinct that lets them know everything about their kid. You know what I mean, like when you’re in the other room doing something you shouldn’t be doing and they bust you. I think they’re born with that shit, or maybe they even develop it once they have a child. Hell, I don’t know, but I know it’s something like that.”
She looked at me like I were crazy, but it got her laughing and it was good.
“Yeah, she was good at it. Heifer made me sick, I couldn’t get away with shit,” she agreed.
“Tell me about it.” I had been busted on a number of occasions so I knew from firsthand experience.
“Val, did your mom say or do anything that was out of the ordinary?” Reshunda’s voice was so low, I could barely hear it.
“Not really. Your mother called; I answered the phone. She sounded upset, but I assumed she was pissed off at your dad or something. My mom asked her about some dude named Trent and the next thing I knew she was running out the door.”
“Trent, who the fuck is Trent?” Reshunda demanded.
“I ain’t got a friggin’ clue. I was hoping you knew.”
“You know what you gotta do, right?”
“Yeah, I know. It’s getting dark. Let’s go home.”
I had put off going to visit my mother for as long as I could. My conversation with Reshunda convinced me to put aside my fears and swallow the bitter pill I’d been holding in my mouth, that my mother was behind bars. Guilt tormented me because I felt bad about not visiting her sooner, but part of me was ashamed of her. She spent so much time telling me to do the right thing, and there she was knee deep in shit and facing life in prison.
“I’m going to see my mom today.” I announced to Gerry, my stepfather. He grunted. We didn’t have too much to say to each other, but it wasn’t a new thing. He never talked to me. If he wanted to tell me something, he always told my mother, which made her the bad guy. I understood this and kind of respected it, since he wasn’t my father. However, ever since my mom was gone, he didn’t have anyone to speak for him so we just coexisted in silence.
When he didn’t answer, it made me mad. “Have you seen her?”
He looked at me like I sprouted another head. “For what?” he barked at me and it caught me off guard.
“For starters, she’s your wife.” I could’ve listed a lot of other reasons, like till death do us part, in sickness and in health, blah, blah, blah, but it shouldn’t have been necessary.
“She didn’t act like my wife.”
I didn’t know what to say. Something was obviously wrong between them, but as far as I was concerned he should’ve at least visited her. He got up from the table, letting me know the conversation was over.
“What about an attorney? Did you get one for her?” I didn’t give a shit about what was going on before she went to jail, all I was concerned about was the here and now.
“With what? I don’t have that kind of money to throw around. Your mother should’ve thought about it before she got involved with the bullshit she was in.” Instead of going into his room, he went out the front door. He didn’t even have a shirt on, only a w
ife beater with a hole over his right tit. He was livid, but so was I.
Chapter Eight
RESHUNDA WYLDE
Valencia got me thinking again. She also made me realize that it was okay to feel the loss, but I had to push past it to get better. I’d been keeping a lot of emotions and resentment inside and it was hindering my growth. I needed more out of life and the only way I was going to get it was to improve my situation. I looked around my room and immediately felt disgusted. Ebony was a pig, and it was clear she must have had a maid or someone else cleaning up behind her.
I pulled the laundry basket out of the closet and picked up my clothes Ebony had either worn or tried on and discarded. It didn’t make any sense. She changed clothes more than me and she didn’t even go to school.
“I wonder what she does all day? It damn sure ain’t cleaning up after herself,” I said out loud. She was asleep when I left for school and most days was gone when I got back. On the weekdays, she shopped and it was another thing that troubled me. I wondered where she got all the money she flashed.
“Where the hell have you been?” I asked Ebony when she stumbled into my room. She startled me because I’d been sleeping when I heard her come in. I glanced at the clock—it was well after three in the morning.
“Girl, you scared the shit out of me.” I turned on the light so I could see her. Her words were slurred and her makeup smeared. She dropped her heels in the middle of the floor and pulled a short dress I’d never seen before over her head and deposited it on the floor as well. She didn’t have on any underwear either and didn’t seem to mind standing in front of me naked as a fucking jaybird. I couldn’t help but to notice how nice her body looked.
“You didn’t answer the question.” I folded my arms across my chest, annoyed she’d already started junking up the room I’d just cleaned. I drew the line with washing her clothes but I did lump her clothes into a pile in the closet.
“Where’s all my stuff?” Ebony complained as she flopped down on the bed.
My eyes were drawn to her large breasts. I wondered how she managed to get them in my small tops without ripping the seams.
“In the closet. You had so much shit on the floor I couldn’t even walk in here.”
She laid back on the bed, closed her eyes and basically ignored me.
“Turn off the damn light.”
Oh no, she didn’t come in and start barking off orders like she was the boss of me.
“You need to pick your stankin’-ass clothes up off the floor. The maid quit.”
She chuckled like I was joking but I was dead serious. I was done playing nice with my cousin.
“What the hell you got stuck up your ass?” She attempted to rise up on her elbows but failed miserably. She fell back across the bed, turning her face away from the light.
“The only thing up my ass is you. You’ve worn all my clothes—without asking, I might add—and then you tossed them on the floor; you come in here at all hours of the night and don’t say shit to nobody, and you walk around here like your shit don’t stink.” I had worked myself up to a good mad, but even though I touched on a lot of things, I hadn’t said half the things that were really on my mind.
I’d been walking around on eggshells with Ebony because she had lost her mother, but the bitch didn’t give a rat’s ass about me and my feelings. Never once did she acknowledge that I’d lost my mother as well. Everything was about Ebony, and something in my gut told me this wasn’t new behavior for her. She probably treated my aunt the same way, but it was going to stop tonight as far as I was concerned.
“You are not my mother!” she hissed at me and rolled over, placing a pillow over her head.
“Thank God for small favors.”
Drunk or not, she lunged from the bed.
If she meant to scare me she had picked the wrong bitch this morning. “What? I’m supposed to be scared?” Her eyes narrowed to tiny slits but I didn’t know if that was from anger or if it were due to her inebriation. My bet was on inebriation, since she was rocking on her feet.
“You might want to sit your drunk ass down before you fall down.”
She weaved back and forth.
I wanted to fuck with her so badly and dance around the room but I was too upset to play games. Ebony needed to get her shit together.
“Why the hell are you fucking with me? I ain’t do nothing.” She stumbled back to her bed.
I shook my head in disgust. Although Ebony and I needed to talk, it would be fruitless to try and do it tonight. I wanted her to remember what the fuck we talked about. I turned out the light and tried to go back to sleep.
“I thought so,” she said with false bravado before the telltale sounds of snoring filled the room.
This only aggravated me more. I wanted to get up and go someplace else but there wasn’t anywhere else to sleep in our tiny apartment. “Shit,” I mumbled as I turned over.
“What time is it?” Ebony asked when she finally woke up.
I ignored her. I normally slept late on Saturday but I’d been up since Ebony’s early-morning arrival.
“Did you hear what I said?”
“I heard you.” I continued to sip the coffee I had brewed. My father and I shared a cup before he went to work. It was the first time we’d done something together in a long time, and I decided to make it a weekly ritual for us.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” She went over to the teapot but it was empty. She slammed the pot down but picked it up again, irritated.
My smile was hidden behind my cup. “Ain’t nothing wrong with me. There is a big-ass clock on the wall, why can’t you look for yourself, or must I do that for you too?” I hoped she didn’t miss the sarcasm dripping from my voice.
“Reshunda, I don’t feel like no shit this morning.” She walked over to the kitchen sink and ran some water into the pot.
“In case you haven’t noticed, the sun doesn’t rise and set around Ebony.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? You’ve been ragging on my ass since last night.”
“Oh, you remember that?” I was surprised, especially since she fell asleep so quickly.
“Yeah, ain’t nothing wrong with my memory.”
“Good, then remember this: Do not wear my clothes again without asking and keep your shit off the floor. If you want to sleep in filth, that’s on you, but the next time I come into my room, and I stress the my room part, and find shit on the floor, it’s going in the trash.”
“I wish you would throw my motherfucking clothes away.”
I felt like we just went full circle. She obviously didn’t get anything I was trying to tell her.
“Whatever—throw something else on the floor.” I got up and went back in the bedroom and slammed the door behind me. Her dress from the night before was still on the floor and I promptly tossed it in the trash can. Once I finished the laundry, I hung all my things in the closet. I pushed all of her things to the far right side, away from mine. Most, if not all of her things still had price tags on them, which annoyed me even more.
“Why the hell is she wearing my shit when she has all this new shit!”
Ebony came in the bedroom waving a paper towel like a flag, but I was still heated. I tried to ignore her as she removed her dress from the trash and hung it in the closet. If she was pissed, she didn’t let on, but I think she got my point.
“You got plans for the day?”
“No.” I turned up the volume on the television. I knew where this was going. Ebony would talk me into going to the mall, she’d buy me some trinket and we’d put off talking until the next time I got sick of her shit.
“I waved the white flag, damn it.”
It was hard to stay mad at Ebony because we looked so much alike. I gave her my undivided attention. “Where were you last night and all those other nights?” If she wanted to talk, I was ready to listen. She remained silent so I returned my attention to the television.
“I didn’t want to tell you
because I knew you weren’t going to approve.”
“Tell me what?” I was all ears, especially if it meant I could be ballin’ out of control like she was.
“You promise you won’t tell Uncle Leon?”
I needed to think about that for a minute. I wasn’t a snitch, or anything like that, but I’d be damned if I was going to sit back and be quiet if Ebony was into some stupid shit.
“Are you fucking around with drugs?” In our neighborhood, slinging dope was nothing new. If Ebony chose that path to fortune, she was on her own.
“Hell no, I ain’t stupid.”
The jury was still out on that one as far as I was concerned. I waited for her to continue.
“I’m not telling you unless you promise to keep my secret a little longer.”
“Okay, I promise, heifer, but if you’re lying to me and it’s drugs, I’m singing like Beyoncé.”
Chapter Nine
VALENCIA ROBERTS
DeKalb County’s jail wasn’t far from our apartment complex, but it felt like it was light-years away as I walked through those doors. Guilt for taking so long to visit my mother seemed to weigh down all my limbs. I almost gave in and went home but I needed to see her; I had too many unanswered questions. I loved my mother, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d abandoned me at a time when I needed her most. I was so ashamed of myself for forsaking her regardless of the reason, because I knew she would never have done that to me.
Even though I had seen many reality shows about the lives of inmates, nothing I’d seen prepared me to witness it firsthand. The lines were ridiculous. Mothers with their young children stood in the hot sun for hours waiting for a thirty-minute visit; cranky children, crying because they weren’t being allowed to play. But that wasn’t the worst part of it. The worst part was seeing my mother shackled behind a plate of glass.
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