by T. Styles
That is until a man walked out of his apartment and into the hallway and said, “Little boy, you better not be caught up with that woman!” The top of his head shined like a marble and gray hair ran across the back of his head from ear to ear. “Her and her pimp are not nice people. Get away from here! Now!”
“Get the fuck in the house, Bert!” He quickly slammed the door leaving them alone. Jayden looked over at her. “Look, I’m not holding you hostage. If you want to listen to a crazy old man, that’s on you. So are you coming with me or not?”
Jayden answered by walking with her to her apartment even though his stomach ached and he sensed danger. It wasn’t until she opened the door, that he found a new source of amusement. The apartment was neat enough, with a large suede coach and matching ottoman in the middle of the floor. But it was the woman in the scantly clad jean shorts, which were close enough to her pussy to be panties, who stole his attention. She was stretched out on the couch, wiggling her fiery red toenails and eating butter pecan ice cream. The soles of her feet were as black as her eyes. She was singing with the TV until she saw Armanii’s bloodied legs.
“Oh my, God, Sweet Licks!” She sat the ice cream down on the table. “Not again!”
“Don’t call me by my street name when I’m home.” The door closed behind them and Armanii plopped to the sofa. “I told you I don’t like that shit. I don’t know why you acting dumb.”
“I’m sorry, Armanii.” She rushed to the kitchen and returned with a damp paper towel. “Can I get you something? A cigarette? A hit?”
“We got company, Myter.” She looked over at Jayden who was entranced. Her voice was soft and sweet so he tugged at his ear.
“Oh I didn’t see him at first.” She smiled at him. “He’s one of your new clients?”
“He’s a kid, Myter.” She responded as if she didn’t offer to suck him like a straw a few moments ago.
“And?”
“Please go sit down somewhere, you giving me a fucking headache.”
Myter threw the paper towel on the table and stomped toward the back stopping short of her exit. “Maybe Joe wouldn’t beat your ass so much if you knew how to talk to people, bitch. I’ll be in the back in case you give a fuck.” She disappeared into her room.
Armanii was enraged but she kept it together. She knew firsthand what she gave up to be with Joseph, only for him to abuse her and never love her in return. She certainly didn’t need it from her sister who ate ice cream and played with her pussy all day long.
“Is she your roommate?”
“She’s my sister. We’re both what you may call ladies of the night.” She paused and focused on Jayden’s eye. “What happened to your face?”
“Same thing that happened to yours I guess.” He said under his breath. “Somebody hit me in it.” He decided not to tell her that his mother was an abusive-stank-hoe-drunk, with nothing else to do with her time but beat her kids.
“Come over here, and sit next to me.” She placed her hand in the position she wanted him to occupy on the couch, and rubbed it softly. Jayden obeyed. “What are you doing out by yourself?”
“Not sure.” He shrugged.
“You know the only thing out here this late at night, is pussy, dick and trouble. Which one you want?”
Jayden had so many questions running through his mind. He wanted to know what a lady of the night was. He wanted to know who she was. Needing to soothe his nervous ticks, he grabbed the damp towel and did his best to clean her wound. He had practice having nursed every bruise Harmony ever developed on her pathetic body, as well as a few of his own.
“How come you gave him your money? After he beat you?”
Armanii snatched the towel from his hand and tended to her own sores. “It’s rude to ask a bitch about her paper. I see the sugar in your walk,” she lashed out, “but if you ever want to have a chance at having a real woman, you’d better learn some manners, faggie!”
She was cold and quick, and Jayden was suddenly nervous. Maybe the old man in the hallway was right. He looked at the door, just to make sure it hadn’t moved. Something about her energy said she was deadly but he was too bored to heed the warning. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Yes you did and sorry ain’t never enough.” She threw the bloodied paper towel on the table. Nursing her wounds was useless. She would be back outside tomorrow night, on her knees again. “If you must know, he offers me stability.”
“What’s stability?”
“I don’t have to worry about my lights going out, getting hurt by another man or not having a place to sleep or eat. As long as I have him, I’ll always be taken care of. Kind of safe.”
Jayden immediately wanted stability too. As a matter of fact, stability would be his new favorite word.
“So tell me about your life.” Armanii continued. “Whatever it is you want to talk about is okay with me.” She rubbed one of her feet. Her feet were callus and looked like white powder was spread over them.
“I’m thirteen years old, my mother doesn’t love me and I don’t know how to make her.” He grew tired of chewing the gum, so he set it on top of the bloody paper towel on the table. “She loves her boyfriends more than me and my twin brother.”
Armanii seemed to come to life with the news. “I’m sure that’s not true.” She stopped massaging her feet.
“It is. The other day I was in the hallway and she pulled me by my hair back into the house. Just cuz I threatened a man who was at the door to see her.”
“You don’t like the man?”
“Not really. My mother is sick and I want her to get better. He was over there to have sex with her and he never gives her nothing nice.”
“Your idea of nice and your mother’s may be two total different things.” She smiled. “What does he bring?”
“Liquor and stuff.”
“Not sure I agree with the way your mother runs her pussy business, but it’s still her business.”
“Pussy Business?” Jayden frowned and tilted his head.
“Yes, all girls have a pussy. Some profit from it by charging straight out and making a few dollars, some hold out in the hopes that they’ll get married and others just like to fuck. Maybe the latter is your mother.”
Jayden was missing the jewels she was dropping. All he cared about was the men trying to get her bottle sick. “But they don’t care about her. They want to see her die. How come she let them do that?”
When Jayden looked at Armanii, for some reason she was crying. “Jayden, in order to get a bitch to do whatever you want, all you gotta do is get into her head.” She returned to the question Jayden asked regarding why she gave Joseph her money when he assaulted her. “Your mother favors the liquor, some favor love.”
“I don’t understand.”
Frustrated Armanii continued. “To capture a mind, find out what she wants and provide that for her. You’ll have everything she owns, including her pussy and heart.”
“What if a person wants more? Like money?”
Armanii saw the twinkle in his eyes. “You’re straight to the point, I like that. Well, if you’re really good, you can get all she has left, even her money. Make her dependent on you and you’ll have her soul.” Her words seemed heavy and when Jayden investigated her arms, he noticed raised holes in her flesh. Armanii was a world class heroin addict.
“But how do I do that? I mean, get their souls and stuff.”
“You gotta observe people. Not by how they move but by what they try to hide. Nobody is ever really good at hiding their intentions, desires and dreams. People are needy. They need love. They need acceptance and they need to feel wanted. Observe more, talk less, and the rest is easy.”
Jayden didn’t know why he was so interested but he wanted more, although he wouldn’t dare push. Instead he dropped to his knees and massaged her feet, hoping she’d offer more. They stank to high heaven, like boiled bologna, eggs and old cheese, but he was use to this level of wretchedness.
She looked down at him and grinned. “You catch on quick.” She wiggled her toes. “I like you.” She was thrown off at how good he was. His fingers were magic and she wondered what else he could do with them. “I also see something else in you, I just don’t know what it is.”
Stroking her toes he asked, “Can I come back over here?”
“Sure, kid. Why not?”
“When?”
Before she could reply, Myter came out of the back of the apartment with a loaded .45. “They back, Sweet Licks,” she said disrespecting the request to call her by her name, “They pulling up in the parking lot right now.”
Armanii jumped up and fear took over her disposition. “Jayden, you have to go. I’ll get in contact with you when I can.”
Selfishly he asked, “But how? You don’t have my number. And when can I come back?”
Armanii hooked her hand under his pit and pulled him toward the door. When he didn’t seem to be leaving on his own, she opened the door and pushed him in the back of the head sending him flying down the stairs. When he turned around the door was slammed in his face.
DIRTY JAYDEN
When Jayden woke up, the gum he kept in his mouth overnight was broken up and felt like rubbery strings all over his tongue. Madjesty didn’t wake him up again and wasn’t in the room. He was hungry, frustrated and lonely.
He eased out of bed and stood in front of the cracked mirror inside of his bedroom, with the best clothes in his wardrobe on the chair behind him. His life was dogged, yet he tried to make the best of it each day. It was hard being the butt of everyone’s joke at school. It was difficult waking up hungry and without a meal. Jayden wasn’t smart by a long shot, but if he learned nothing else, he grasped the fact that he never wanted to live life like this again. Then there was something else going on with him, something that he battled with everyday…his identity. A few of his features told him he was a boy but his body longed to be a girl. Why? He couldn’t share his feelings with anybody because Harmony would crack the glass in his eye and Madjesty was so masculine, that the thought of being anything other than a boy was unfathomable to him.
He stared at his reflection. His cornrows were now transformed into a thick mane of untamed, curly hair which fell at his shoulders. He ran his fingers over his bare chest and could’ve sworn he felt two bulbs sprouting beneath his skin. When he squatted, he looked down at the hairy softness between his legs. Was his dick big enough if he were to have a girlfriend? He didn’t think so. Although he was ignorant in the ways of the body, he wondered why he had to be a boy.
With time running out, he decided to get dressed and brush his hair into a smooth ponytail. In his opinion he resembled a girl more than ever now. What he wouldn’t give to wear tight jeans like the girls at his school, or carry the latest designer purses. Instead he was resigned to filthy jeans that did nothing for his figure and swallowed up his hips.
School was in two hours, and although he didn’t want to go, he didn’t want to be home either. So many things were circling around in his head. He wondered if his new friend Armanii was okay and if Sandy was still interested in starting a bonfire in his hair.
When he looked out the window, he saw Madjesty in the front of the building, talking with his new friends. He always met people more easily than Jayden, and he wondered how. They were twins so what made them so different? He tried to play ball and catch with them, but his limp wrist always ended up being the topic of discussion.
Jayden was about to meet him outside, when he heard heavy pants within the house. He placed his blue book bag over his shoulders and eased toward the front of the apartment. On the way out, inches away from his mother’s room, he heard a man’s heavy moan. When he sniffed the air he could smell Dooway’s cologne. It was the only time the house smelled fresh. He was his mother’s ex-boyfriend’s son yet they carried on like long lost lovers.
From the cracked doorway, Jayden observed the arch in his mother’s back and the sheen left from the sweat on her skin. She illuminated. She moved her body like a wave, as Dooway pushed deeper into her mound from behind. Her plump round ass slapped against his dick filling the room with rhythmic sounds. He surveyed Harmony’s moves and the look of admiration, which held Dooway’s face. Nina Simone was a prolific lyricist and Di Vinci was a great artist, but Harmony Phillips was the ultimate lover. The ultimate seducer. A Siren.
As if Dooway couldn’t get enough, he ran his tongue from her neck to the musty spot between her legs. Harmony pulled his head closer to her spot and maneuvered her waist like a belly dancer. The slurpy sound of her wet pussy and the lapping of his tongue filled the bedroom.
Jayden hated to admit but a familiar tingly sensation attacked the softness between his legs. Usually the feeling confused him, so he never explored it because it made him feel dirty. But now, with the stress of the day ahead of him, he reached into his pants and massaged his space. He wanted to feel good. Feel a little better.
After a few swipes between his legs from left to right, as he observed the scene through the cracked door, he was overcome with a feeling so sensual that he knew he would pleasure himself this way on a regular. He bit down on his bottom lip and worked himself harder before finally climaxing on his fingers. But when he came down, and the feeling was over, he was ashamed. He reached his first orgasm in the throws of his mother’s love making session and that made him feel naughty.
When he dropped his head, he saw her yellow panties on the floor. They were balled up in a pile. Soiled. And in the middle of the doorway. With his foot, Jayden eased them into the hallway and stuffed them into his pocket. Walking backwards slowly, when he was further enough away, he dashed into his bedroom and closed the door.
Quickly he removed his jeans and dirty boxers. Naked from the waist down, he held the laced panties in his hand. His heart danced happily in his chest as he slid them onto his body. They looked so right against his skin. His dampness pushed against the seat of the underwear and he loved every minute. His fantasy came to a crashing halt when he heard footsteps moving in his direction. He didn’t want his mother to find out that he was the one who’d been stealing her underwear all along, simply because he had a need to be feminine.
Quickly he removed them, opened the bottom drawer of his dresser and stuffed them into a white grocery bag filled with the rest of Harmony’s panties that he’d stolen over the years. When he was done, he got dressed and went outside to meet his brother.
****
Jayden followed behind Madjesty and his friends on their way to school. In the past they would be heavy in conversation, talking about life and their mother’s drunken bullshit. Now that he had them, it was as if he didn’t need him anymore.
When they reached a crossroad, Madjesty turned and addressed his brother. “We ‘bout to cut school and go to Mrs. Brookes’ house.” He paused and stuffed his hands into his pocket. “You rolling with us?”
“Why you not going to school?”
“Because I know enough.” Madjesty said tugging on his cap. He was dumber than a doll but you couldn’t tell him shit. “So you going or not?”
Jayden walked closer to him and whispered. “Can you walk with me instead?” He looked at his friends. “Alone? I kind of want to talk to you about some stuff.”
A worried expression covered his face. “Is everything okay? Ma hit you again when you were upstairs?” He shook his head. “I told you to leave out the house when I do but you act like you never wanna go. Like you like being around that bitch.”
“Naw, it ain’t nothing like that.”
“Well talk to me about it later then, unless you want to skip with us.”
Jayden’s head hung. “Naw, I’m cool. I guess I’ll see you later.” His heart ached and it was starting to feel like there was no one in the world in his corner. Madjesty went in the opposite direction, while Jayden went on to school.
When he trudged through the school’s doors, he observed his project quietly from afar. She didn’t k
now he was watching because she was involved in a heavy conversation with her friends. But once she was alone, he approached silently. He walked up behind her at the lockers. “Can I talk to you for a moment?”
She turned around and smiled until she saw who it was. “Ugh, what you doing in my face, boy?” Sandy yelled, smacking Jayden in the nose. The pain felt more like an itch and rushed to the middle of his forehead. “You stole my money and now you got the nerve to say something to me? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Jayden rubbed his face. “I wanted to say I’m sorry and that I think you’re the prettiest girl in school.” He backed away, keeping his eyes on her the entire time. “That’s all.” Embarrassed he turned and walked away.
“Jayden,” she yelled, stopping his motions, “I don’t know what the fuck is up with you, but we not friends. Don’t walk up to me like that again at school. If you do, I’ma get my brother to fight you. He’s a Blood.” She slammed her locker closed. “Remember that shit.”
****
Everyday after their encounter, Jayden would approach her at the same place anyway. Even though she would reject him, over time, her responses were less violent. Besides, Jayden was a cute boy with smooth hair and wild eyes, even if he didn’t wear designer clothes. Sandy started to secretly look forward to his attention as long as her friends didn’t see her with him. Not only was he a looker, he was bold and that alone was a turn on. It was obvious that he was determined to win her over whether she wanted him to or not. On the fourth day, which happened to be a Friday, Jayden saw Sandy fussing at her boyfriend in the hallway.
“Why you do that, Derrick?” She sobbed, her nose as red as a hickey. “Everybody saw you two together! You made me look so stupid.”
He frowned. “What the fuck are you talking about, baby? It wasn’t even that deep. We were just playing.”