by T. Styles
“Everybody gets high, Passion. Just because you changed your life don’t mean you can expect everybody else too.” I say. “We told you that already. Focus on your money and let people do their own thing.” I’m growing frustrated and I don’t have time to hold her hand through the process. I need surgery on my ears, I have to come up with a lot of money to save this house and my mother is too wretched to help me out. This is the only way I see to save us all. “Tell them I want to talk to them, Passion and I’ll do the rest.”
She nods and smiles. “As long as you ask them, I’ll make the call.”
Weak bitch. I take a deep breath and sigh. “On another note, I have to ask you something I’d been wanting to for awhile. I’m ready for the details.” I rub my hands together to keep them from shaking. “And I want to get it out in the open before we go any further.” I look at both of them. “I’m trusting you guys and I need to make sure you have my back, no matter what.”
“You already know what it is with me,” Olive says, “so I don’t even know why you coming at me like that.”
I turn to Passion and she looks away. “First things first, whenever you talk to me, I want you to look me in my eyes.” I peep Olive. “You too.”
Olive smiles. “I love looking at you, beautiful. So you won’t have that problem from me.” She winks. “Trust me.”
I focus back on Passion. “That night I had Shaggy come find you, did he rape my sister?”
Her flood of tears answers my question. “Oh my God, Jayden, I had no idea he was a girl when I got with him. I loved him so much.” She’s shaking so hard, she looks like she’ll explode. “I wanted to talk to you about this recently but you kept cutting me off. Mad was the first person I truly cared about and I never thought, I mean, I would’ve never thought Shaggy would do that to her. He was so mean and so nasty with it too. I was fucked up for days behind that shit and haven’t been the same since. ”
I feel hot. Plain rage. I’m still counting down the days when I can find him. He showed up at my house on some big and bad shit, when I was with my social worker, but I’ll see him again.
Olive seems disgusted. “I been knowing Shaggy most of my life. We were so fucking cool.” Olive continues. “I should’ve known it was a reason I haven’t heard from him. It’s one thing to be a little mean at times but to rape a bitch is a whole ‘nother problem.”
“But please don’t tell him I told you.” Passion cries harder. Olive moves closer to her and rubs her back. “Mad was the reason I got myself clean.” She looks up at me. “Just knowing that being high was one of the reasons I allowed that to happen fucks me up. But if Shaggy finds out I told anybody, he’d kill me. He told me and I believe him.”
“Passion, the last thing you should be worried about is him. He’s going to get what has his name on it.” I walk closer to her and she tenses up. For some reason a part of me enjoys her fear. Maybe I hate that she loves Mad so much. And if her loyalty is tested who will she choose? “I want you to get the girls together tonight.” I walk behind her and place my hands on her shoulders. I want her to have a level head. “It’s time they start getting paid for what they do best, fuck.” I bend down to speak in her ear. “And this time we playing for keeps.”
I stand in front of her when I notice her mouth is moving. She’s saying something but all I caught was, “…Gucci too?”
Enraged I look at her seriously. “What did I just tell you?” It’s so exhausting when people don’t pay attention. “Don’t talk to me unless I’m standing in front of you. Are we clear, Passion?”
“Yes.” She seems more nervous.
“Good and I’m going to need you to start being a little more loyal. In the past your loyalty lied with Gucci and them but if I even think that’s the case now, I’ll cut you off. For good. I need you to help me keep the girls in line but I don’t want you back on call. You’ll be my eyes and ears in the house. I want you to focus on your shit and to stay clean. All that shit you was fucking with ain’t gonna do shit but fuck your mind up and we’re business partners now. If you serious about walking straight, I want that for you.” I rub her long black hair, “just don’t cross me.” When I can tell she understands I say, “Now, go call the girls and tell them I want them to be here in the next hour. Anybody who can’t come need not waste their time.”
She looks into my eyes. “What about Gucci?”
“You can hit her up too.”
****
An hour later, everybody I wanted to be present was there. Foxie showed up wearing a blue jean skirt so tight, the juice from her pussy stained the back of her skirt. The short gold hairstyle she sported looked over bleached and I knew right away she needed work. The good thing was her body was in tact and she was eager to get paid. Foxie’s real name is Fantasia and I never understood why she wanted to be called anything else because her name is so cool. I guess if both my mother and father were selling ass on the streets to men, I would want a change too. The moment she gets there she sits in the chair closest to me.
Na-Na who was both Asian and African American walked in my house looking exhausted. Her eyes were mostly slanted and her skin was an even brown. She was quiet, never said too much but I knew from experience that she loved to fuck. Her preference? Fat black men with thick dicks. And although she didn’t have to sell her pussy because her mother and father owned several 7-Eleven stores, she loved the excitement more than anything and felt she needed to do it to be down. The washed out black dress she wore didn’t do her beauty justice because with the right clothes, baby face Na-Na was a goldmine. Her best friend out of all of the girls was Queen and where you saw one, no doubt you’d see the other.
Queen sat on the floor and leaned against the front of the couch. Every time she scratched her scrunchy black bob, it moved. I never saw her without it, which is why when she took it off, and I saw some of the prettiest brown dreads I’d ever seen in my life underneath, I was confused. Why was she wearing that hot mess when she was off the clock?
Queen came up hard because she was in the foster care system so long, she had no idea where her real family was or if they were alive. It was Na-Na and her parents who finally let her stay in there home, to give her some stability. What Na-Na didn’t know was that Queen was fucking her father on a daily basis for cash. But she was stuck so far up Queen’s ass that even if she found out she probably wouldn’t have cared anyway.
As usual Gucci strolled in last. Her stringy black weave was missing a few too many strands and she smelled like somebody just pissed on her. But she was strikingly beautiful. The funny thing was, when these bitches was fucking with me they were making paper and stayed fresh. Now that I cut them off they looked like wrecks. Leave it to me to save a hoe. Or two.
I swore I would never fuck with Gucci again after she tried to turn everybody against me, when we all went to meet a trick one night. The trick had Foxie suck his dick and the rest of us fight each other naked, so he could get his rocks off. But the moment he bust his nut, he wasn’t trying to pay us. Instead of giving us the money he owed, he kicked us out on the streets. We barely had enough time to get dressed. I exposed my weakness that night and it can’t happen again. I will make whoever pay and I would be creative too.
Everybody was mad but Gucci convinced them that since I couldn’t protect them, they didn’t need me. The girls went for her schemes even though I gave them their money later. Secretly I also know Gucci blamed me for Passion being on heroin but it wasn’t my fault. She was fucking with that shit way before me, Shaggy put me on to it. She used any excuse to go against me which is why I was trying to figure out what she was doing in my house. I must be a glutton for punishment. After all, Harmony Phillips is my mother.
“What’s going on, Jayden? You got us here so are we about to get this money again or what?” Foxie asks looking directly at me. “Because we been trying to hit you up but you wouldn’t answer the phone.”
“Or give nobody the cell to make the calls on our own.” Gu
cci adds, wrapping her hair around her middle finger. “For real for real, we were about to go at it alone. It’s a good thing you called us when you did.”
“Why didn’t you?” I walk up to Gucci. “Let’s be real, you look like you haven’t had your hair done in ten years and ya’ll clothes look like you just pulled them out of the donation box in front of Safeway.” I turn around to look at all of them. “So if everybody could get paper on they own, why are you here?”
Silence.
I focus back on Gucci. “Listen, bitch, I’m not playing games with you no more. The Jayden you use to know vanished when my father died and my sister raped me.” Their mouths drop. I didn’t even share that information with Olive or Passion. I guess they know now. “I’m about getting money but I’m not about the small talk. This is my reality show and there’s only one star.” I look at Olive and she’s smiling. “Now are you with me or not?” They all nod. Including Gucci’s hating ass. “Good now before we go on, there are a few things you need to know, I don’t want anybody talking to me unless you’re looking directly into my eyes. Also, we not working off of the phone no more we moving on the blocks.”
“What you mean? We selling pussy off 16th street or something?” Foxie inquires.
I cross my arms against my body. “Exactly.”
“Jayden, that shit is dangerous!” Gucci says. “You can’t just be going out there and taking over blocks. You have to have protection. We can get killed out there. Why can’t we work off the phone?”
I couldn’t tell them I threw it out and couldn’t find it. “Gucci, I said I got you. Now if the blocks ain’t for you try the door instead.” A few of them move but nobody leaves. “But if you stay, unlike the girls on the blocks, you’ll stand to make a lot of money with me. I’m talking about we split everything down the middle.” My eyes settle on Olive and she doesn’t seem happy. We discussed this part of the plan when we were alone and she said not to give the bitches shit but food and shelter. But it was my decision and I was standing by it. Plus I needed to do anything I could to convince them to stay. “Not only that, you get to live out of my house.” I know where they all live and to stay in a mansion was a major come up. Even Na-Na whose parents were paid didn’t own their home. They were too busy saving every penny to stuff in their graves when they died.
“So if we work with you, we get to be partners and live here for real?” Foxie asks.
“You got it, baby.”
Foxie, Na-Na and Queen’s faces light up. I even see a trace of a smile on Gucci’s face.
“I actually get to call this home?” Queen looks into my eyes. I nod again. “Well what will your mother say?”
“What the fuck can she say?” I pause. “We making money. Anybody who can’t live here, can’t work with me. I can’t count on everybody to be on time unless we’re under the same roof. I’m not going there with ya’ll again. Shit is real this time.”
“Jayden, why can’t we just work out of the house?” Gucci asks. “I can see this place being the hoe house of all hoe houses.
“Because I live here. Do you sell pussy out of your shoebox?”
She frowns. “No.”
“Exactly.” It’s a bad idea to fuck with her again but it’s too late now. I put her on the winning team already and throwing her out my cause the others to leave with her. “I’m going to need nine more girls because what we have right now is not enough. Any suggestions?”
Queen looks back at Na-Na but because I can’t read her lips and she’s talking low, I don’t make out what’s being said. “Maybe you didn’t understand the house rules, Queen. No speaking to me or around me unless I’m looking into your eyes. No holding group conversations about my business and no betraying me.” Even Olive and Passion didn’t know about my hearing problem. And I was going to keep it that way. “Do we have an understanding?” Everyone nods. “With that said, Queen what did you just say?”
“I was just saying that it’s about time you came back, Jayden. I was about to get up with Mr. Grover who runs them funeral Homes in DC. Good thing I didn’t though, I hear he kills his girls.”
GUCCI
I NEVER
Gucci is sitting on the carpet in the middle of the living room floor, naked from the waist down. Her legs are spread wide open and the members of Thirteen Flavors are staring at her laughing. She’s this raunchy all the time so this type of behavior is not unusual. Everyone with exception of Passion is drunk out of their minds.
“I’m telling you right now I got the biggest clit. That’s why I can cum in my pants without even touching myself.” Gucci says. Jayden is jealous of the idea alone.
“Bitch, that shit is the same size as everybody’s.” Foxie says as she eyed her slick cave. “You ain’t hardly special.”
“If you got a bigger clit than me, I bet you money and I’ll fuck your nastiest john.”
“Gucci, go ‘head with that shit.” Jayden says, “Ain’t nobody trying to see all of that.” It was okay for the girls to have a good time but this sort of ratchet behavior made her stomach ache. The idea of sitting around looking at her girls’ kitties wasn’t something she wanted to do in her spare time. Jayden’s tight white t-shirt was wet with perspiration and the red jeans that wrapped her body like Saran wrap was stained with the wetness from her vodka glass. This shit was too much for the second night of their living together.
“Speak for yourself,” Olive says, “let the girls have their fun for the first nights in the house.” She could do this type of thing all day. And although she didn’t initiate the game, she wouldn’t be a party blower either. She rolls the silver balls around her fingers as usual.
“Yeah, Jayden,” Gucci adds with her legs still spread open and the lips to her box pulled back allowing her button to pop out, “you can’t be so uptight this time around. In the past you were so dry but all that has changed. Right? We partners now remember?” She looks at Foxie and Na-Na. “Ya’ll get down here and show me yours since you claim it’s bigger than mine.”
Foxie and Na-Na couldn’t wait to hop out of their clothes like they were about to jump in a warm pool. Bare from the waist down, they flop on the floor like good little fish and spread their legs too. Olive examines all three and shakes her head. “Sorry, Foxie and Na-Na, but she got ya’ll beat.”
Gucci laughs hysterically. “That’s what I thought, bitches.” She gets dressed. Thank God. Jayden thought. The living room was starting to smell musty.
“Now both of you bitches gotta drink Tequila.” They all put on their clothes and Foxie and Na-Na down their portion in the shot glasses. “I keep trying to tell you bitches, ain’t none of ya’ll got a more magnificent pussy than me!”
The girls were loud and boisterous and Jayden was trying to relax and go with the flow. But her teeth grinded. She knew she was being tested and that the girls of Thirteen Flavors thought she was a square. Although she was no longer a virgin, she had a class about her that was different from them. That’s why she sought them in the beginning. They were whores, sluts and eager to do anything for a buck. Just like Harmony and Armanii.
“Let’s play I Never,” Gucci says tossing another shot of tequila. “It’s a drinking game.”
“I know what it is, bitch. I’m with that shit.” Foxie adds. She looks at Jayden. “You playing?”
“Naw, I’m gonna watch.”
Gucci stands up and pushes her arm harder than what is normally friendly. “Oh my, God! I wish you lighten the fuck up already! Damn, you always so uptight and you get mad when people don’t fuck with you like that. I know you the boss and all and I respect that shit, but we about having fun too, Jayden.”
Jayden observes the disappointed expression on her girls’ faces. She would have to show she was part of them or else they would walk out and she’d be forced to find another way to come up with the money. “Okay, how is the game played?”
Olive shakes her head that Jayden gave in to the peer pressure so easily. She foresees the business relat
ionship not ending well and she makes mental notes to talk to her homie about it later. In private. To run a good whorehouse the girls need to fear and respect the pimp, but Jayden was forgetting code…maybe because she didn’t know it.
Gucci explains that the object of the drinking game is to say I Never followed by something that you never did. If somebody at the table has actually done that, they have to take a drink. The game works with close friends because they know their personal business and are able to call someone out who doesn’t drink or who is trying to lie.
When they are all seated in the living room Gucci starts first, “I never…got fucked with a toe.”
Passion who is standing over everyone turns a shade of pink. Her friends all knew for a fact she let this white man fuck her with his big toe when she didn’t have money to get her car out of the tow shop. Everyone looks at her and waits for her to toss it up. “Ya’ll know I can’t drink. I’m clean.”
Foxie shakes her head. “Then what the fuck are you doing down here then? You blowing the rest of us.”
“Right, Passion,” Na-Na continues, “I didn’t think you were serious about that shit. You bringing my high down too.” She shakes her head. “This game is not for lames. Even Jayden playing now.” She points to the staircase. “Why don’t you go upstairs somewhere and get the fuck out of my face?” It was clear they didn’t want her to do the right thing in her life.
Passion doesn’t move. Instead she starts crying. “Are you fucking serious?” Gucci laughs. “Bitch, just ‘cause you clean means you turned weak too? What did you do to my girl, Jayden?” She shakes her head. “Jayden, please send her upstairs, she’s irritating the rest of us. And you already know how important it is to keep your girls happy. Don’t you?”
Jayden looks at her friend. She wasn’t trying to rock the boat and if sending Passion away would make things cool, she was with it. “Passion, go upstairs, you don’t need to be around all of this. Get some rest.”