“Well, the condom did break —”
“You wouldn’t dare. What about your wife?”
“This doesn’t have anything to do wit her — plus, Molly will forgive me of anything. Can you say the same about Tyrik?”
He knows damn well I can’t. “What the fuck do you want?”
His sly smirk returns. “Do you even have to ask?”
This nigga is a straight-up sex addict. “When?”
He eases up close. “Right now.”
“Now?”
“I never put off tomorrow who I can fuck today.”
“But the party…your wife…the baby.”
He’s already grinding against my hip. “It’s just a quick nut, li’l ma. Ain’t nobody got to know shit.”
I don’t fuckin’ believe this.
“If not,” he threatens, “I guess I’ll have to wait here ’til cuz get back.”
This sex-crazed motherfucker is not blowin’ my chances to get out of Bentley Manor. “Fine,” I snap, hoping this would be the last time and not the beginning of a lifetime of pussy payments.
The next thing I know this nigga crams me into some hall closet and jacks my legs over his hips while he pounds me against coats and jackets. What is it with these Jefferson men liking small confined spaces?
“Junior? Junior?” Molly’s voice floats somewhere near the closet. “Has anyone seen Junior?”
Junior clamps a hand over my mouth and we both go still.
After a while it becomes hard to tell over the music if she is still by the door or has returned downstairs. Junior grows tired of waiting and begins to move inside of me again. I try to remain quiet, but goddamn Junior is a big motherfucker. Thank goodness he’s true to his word. Soon after he busts a nut, we’re out of the closet with a quickness.
Despite not being a religious woman, I’m praying I’m carrying Tyrik’s child and not Junior’s.
That shit will really fuck me up.
21
Lexi
It’s late when we get back from Dixieland. The kids enjoyed the amusement park and Luther and I both agree that a day away from Bentley Manor is a good thing. Especially since Junior’s lying behind promised Trey and Danina he would take them with him to Tyrik’s barbeque. Like always he dropped the ball and left my kids with the sad face.
On top of that he gone have the nerve to call me while he’s there talking about he wish I was there with him. I don’t cuss too often but I blessed his behind out for 1) not even asking to speak to his kids and 2) still begging for pussy after he clearly disrespected me and my kids.
The kids pile out the car while Luther grabs Imani. Just the thirty-minute drive from Fayetteville has her sticky self knocked out.
“Daddy, I had fun,” Imani says, stirring from her sleep as we all walk into the building.
“You did?” Luther asks, kissing her cheek softly.
“I did too, Luther,” Trey adds, as he uses his key to unlock the door of the apartment. He switches on the lights before we all walk in.
Luther reaches forward with his free hand to playfully shake Trey’s head. “I’m glad we was able to get a smile on your face after your daddy pulled another one of his disappearing acts today.”
I see the sadness all of a sudden on Trey’s face and I get pissed. “Trey, put Imani to bed. Luther, can I holla at you for a sec?”
I don’t even look back to see if he is following me into the bedroom. By the time he does step in and close the door I’m already pacing. I whirl on him and step right in his face. “Don’t you ever do that again,” I tell him.
He looks confused and frowns as he starts to undress. “Do what?”
“Throw it in my kids’ face that they Daddy ain’t shit. They know that and they don’t need you or anybody else —”
“Hold up. Hold up.” Luther looks at me like I’m crazy. “If you’re mad at your sorry-ass baby daddy then you need to save this bullshit for him. Don’t fly up in my face like I’m gone cover for his ass when I’m here doing the job he ain’t doing.”
“I don’t care if any of my kids’ fathers are the worst ever —”
“Which they all are,” Luther mumbles, walking away from me to toss his jeans into the hamper with anger.
“I don’t talk shit about my kids’ father in front of them.” I point my finger in my heaving chest as I storm right back in his face. “And you not gone do it either.”
“So you defending these deadbeats to me? Huh? You telling me Junior is too precious for me to talk about him? That’s what you saying, Lexi? Huh? Is that what you saying?”
“I’m saying my kids don’t understand shit like we do so all they know is what they feel. Me telling them that they daddy ain’t good for a damn thing but a good fuck is hurting them, not him.”
Luther gets quiet and tilts his head a bit to the side to look at me for a long time. A really long time. So long that it makes me pause.
“What?” I snap.
“You still fuckin’ that nigga?” he asks me, his voice so low that I barely hear him.
Now I look confused. “What?”
“Since he such a good fuck maybe you still giving up the ass to that nigga.”
I replay my own words in my head. Ain’t good for a damn thing but a good fuck. Damn. In my anger I didn’t even realize what I said. “Don’t be stupid, Luther,” I say, a piece of me feeling guilty at the times I imagined sex with Junior while Luther tries his best between my thighs to make me cum.
“Maybe if you wasn’t stupid enough to have kids for motherfuckers who ain’t worth nothing but a good fuck we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” Luther snatches a pillow and blanket from the bed before he slams out the room.
A long time later I walk out the bedroom and see the TV light flashing in the darkness of the living room. I peek my head into Danina and Monique’s room. They both are knocked out in their bunk beds. I check on Imani in her room next. I think she’s sleeping too until she calls out to me.
“Momma.”
Imani. My baby girl.
“Why you still up?” I whisper.
“You and Daddy mad?” she asks. A little light shows on her face from the Dora the Explorer nightlight by her bed.
I walk into the room to sit on the edge of the bed and pull her into my arms. Her room is closest to our bedroom and I should have known she wouldn’t rest easy. She hates for people to fight and argue.
“No, girl, please. We just fine,” I tell her, kissing her forehead.
“Good,” she says, her voice already getting heavy with sleep.
I sit there and rock her like I can take back the reason for her fears.
Two-thousand two. I was just twenty-four and life was good — at least financially. Raq, my boyfriend and the father of my one-year-old Imani, made my life pretty good. I didn’t work. I was the good little housewife home all day cooking and cleaning while my older kids went to school, the babies went to day care, and my man left every day like clockwork to sling dope.
Raq had come into my life at just the right time. My nana had just passed away and I was feeling low. WooWoo actually introduced us after the funeral. He was shorter than I usually liked my men and had the hard face of a thug, but something about him turned me on. Maybe because he was different from any other man I messed with. Maybe a little thug love was what I needed.
He asked me to give up my apartment for good and move in with him, but Nana didn’t raise that kind of fool. With my luck with men a part of me was waiting for the other shoe to fall. So we split our time either at my apartment or in the sparsely furnished double-wide trailer he owned in Decatur.
He came home at nights. I didn’t hear anything in the streets about him running around on me. He didn’t have a wife (I was his wifey) or a separate life. He sold dope and he didn’t smoke it. Sex wasn’t half bad. Money was flowing all right. So I was good to go.
I had packed the kids up and came down to Raq’s place for the weekend like he asked. We w
ere grilling the next day and filled this big-ass pool he bought for the kids. After I put the kids down for the night I took a long bath and waited for him to get home. Fridays was his busiest night because he would collect from all his customers who got paid and owed him money.
It was about one when I finally heard his key in the door. My cycle had just passed a few days ago and I was more than ready for some of that thug love. I just loved the way he would climb his little self damn near on my back as we did it doggy-style like he was trying to win a race or something.
“Lexi, you up?” he asked in the darkness. I could hear him removing his jewelry and setting it on the dresser.
I reached over and turned on the lamp. “Is that dick up?”
He looked over his shoulder and dropped his link bracelet to the floor when he saw me lying there in nothing but a pair of stilettos with my legs bent and open and oh so ready.
I moved to sit on the foot of the bed teasing my clit as he yanked his wifebeater over his head and flexed his muscles. I circled my hips and slipped my middle finger inside my throbbing walls as he dropped his jeans and boxers. He walked over to the bed with his hard dick swinging before him. The words PLEASURE and PAIN were tattooed on his hands. Raq said the choice was also yours if his hands pleased you or fucked you up. I was ready to be pleased.
He stood between my thighs and took my fingers from my clit to suck the juices. I shivered with a moan. I loved a freaky fuck. I leaned forward and took the tip of his dick in my mouth. He smelled faintly of cologne and sweat but I didn’t care. I slowly sucked the tip before tracing the smoothness with my tongue. His knees buckled.
“You know just how to welcome a motherfucka home,” he said, flinging his head back as he twisted his fingers in my microbraids.
I reached up to grasp his hard ass with both my hands as I took nearly all of him into my mouth. “Mmmmmmmmmmm,” I moaned as I felt the pulse of his dick against my tongue.
“Damn,” he swore, pumping his hips a little.
“Good?” I asked, looking up at him as my lips surrounded his dick like a vice grip.
“Damn right,” he said, his eyes meeting mine.
My whole body was hot. My nipples were taut and aching. My pussy was wet and sticky. My clit was throbbing.
I sucked harder. Faster. Deeper.
He twisted my hair harder and pumped his hips faster and deeper.
Sweat started to coat both our bodies.
“FREEZE! PUT YOUR HANDS UP!”
I opened my eyes and looked right into the barrels of about twenty guns as the police came busting into the bedroom. I froze. My naked body was exposed to their eyes. My lips still surrounded Raq’s dick.
Seconds later more cops than I could count tackled Raq to the floor. Another one grabbed me and made me sit on the floor. I hollered out as they began tossing the mattresses and pulling the drawers from the dressers. They had Raq lying on his stomach with his hands cuffed behind his back.
I heard the kids holler out and I jumped to my feet. A beefy hand pressed down roughly on my shoulder to sit me right back down. I tried again to get up. “I wanna see my kids.”
“Sit your ass down before I arrest you,” was the gruff reply of the Fed who was faceless to me.
I couldn’t stop my tears as I tried my best to hide my naked body with my arms and legs. I don’t know how long I sat there because my fears and my questions kept me occupied.
Was I going to jail?
What was going to happen to my kids?
Would they let me call WooWoo to come get the kids if they did take me in?
Did Raq have the drugs they were looking for in the house?
What the fuck was I gone do?
No matter how much I pleaded no one let me at least go to my kids. They asked me questions about Raq and I played stupid. It seemed like forever before the police hauled Raq’s naked body to his feet. They threw a blanket around him and shuffled him out the room before he could even say anything to me.
“She’s clear.”
Those were the sweetest damn words I ever heard. Moments later someone handed me a sheet and I hurried to wrap it around my body. When they led me into the living room I found more police. My kids were huddled on the lone leather sofa in the living room. I rushed to them and they all surrounded me as I took Imani in my arms to soothe her crying.
“Momma, why the police look in Imani’s Pamper?” Monique asked.
“Sshh.” I sat on the couch and tried to hug them all as Imani continued to cry.
Me nor Imani seen him since that night. They shipped him to Pennsylvania after his trial and soon the collect calls from him just stopped. I heard he got out like two years ago and moved to New York. Luther been in her life since she was two so he was the only daddy she knew. She’s the only one who calls him Daddy and I don’t stop her.
I hear her little snores and hold her just a little while longer before I ease her back into her bed.
Sighing at my life and my own jacked-up choice in men, I checked on Trey last. I open the door and peep my head inside his room. He’s lying across his bed playing the Gameboy he got for Christmas. I clear my throat and he looks up with a sheepish smile. “Go to bed, right?”
“Right. ’Night,” I say, smiling as I close the door.
“Ma.”
I open the door and stick my head back in. “What, Trey?”
“I ain’t mad at Luther for what he said about Junior.”
I step into the room and lean back against the wall. “What I tell you about calling your daddy by his first name?”
“Then maybe he should act like a daddy, Ma.”
What can I say?
“Me and Danina gettin’ older. We see stuff for ourselves, ya know?”
“I’m sorry for that,” I tell him, tears already building up in my throat. I could just beat Junior’s ass.
Trey gets up out of bed, wraps his arm around me and kisses my cheek. “You ain’t got nothing to be sorry for, Ma.”
My little man. He doesn’t know the half and I guess I’m lucky with all the men that came in and out of their lives that they still respected me, because time after time I put a man before my kids and even though it’s in my past I am sorry as hell for that.
I leave his room and fight the urge to go to Luther. I go into the bathroom and take a quick shower, wrapping a towel around my damp body before I dash back into our bedroom.
I paused at the door to see Luther sitting on the edge of the bed. We never spent one night apart since we were married. I’m happy to see him but I pretend to ignore him as he flips through the TV channels. I dry off with the towel and climb between the sheets naked.
Luther turns around and looks at me with those sexy brown eyes.
I pat his side of the bed and pull back the covers. He climbs into bed and pulls me right against his warm body.
“I love you, Lexi.”
“I know. And I love you, too.”
Yeah, our marriage is worth swallowing pride.
22
Aisha
Life is good as hell.
My money is stacked like hell.
My clothes are bossy as hell.
Sometimes I get naked and finger-fuck myself on top of all my money spread across my thousand-count cashmere sheets.
It’s going on six months since Maleek got locked up. His trial’s scheduled for July and although my husband and I speak of nothing but the best I am not stupid. The most I can hope for is him getting a reduced sentence. The lawyers are hoping for no more than a couple of years. Fucking hoping.
I love my husband. I do. But some of that undying love and devotion died when I was about two weeks away from working at McDonald’s to pay my bills while he’s enjoying three hots and a fucking cot. Having a man is cool; but in the end, a bitch has to take care of her damn self.
So I accept my nightly collect calls — another fucking bill he running up — before I head to the Ritz to make my money.
I ain�
�t no street ho looking to give some man an “around the world” for a ten-dollar crack hit. My rules are clear. Only at the Ritz-Carlton (the lobby bar is swimming with marks whose ass is looking for a little evening diversion). Only one trick a night (I’m not tearing up my pussy) — $500 minimum. Cash only. No more than thirty minutes. No weird shit. No dick sucking. No kissing. No raw dog. Only corporate suit-wearing motherfuckers (I’m trying to keep this shit on the lowest low). Junior suites or better with a bottle of Dom chilling on ice.
In the last couple of months I even have a few regulars who make it their business to meet me at the Ritz for a Diamond special (Diamond is the name I use. I am these men’s best friend. Hey!).
There’s Roger. Every Monday while his sweet little wife is in East Cobb doing whatever suburban housewives do he’s paying me to lamp up in the suite with his ass. I like Roger because he’s the quickest fuck ever. Sometimes I blink and it’s over.
And Stuart is my Wednesday nights. He actually gets the executive suite and has room service bring up dinner. The majority of his thirty minutes is spent playing like we on a date or some shit. Sometimes he even brings me gifts. Whateva.
I recognized Reverend Arnez from his Sunday morning televangelist show and was surprised when he pushed up on me. He was just as surprised when I laid my price on the line without blinking an eye. After his church service he likes for me to spank him while he jacks off and at twenty dollars a lick I’m more than willing to whup dat ass.
And business is good. Damn good. I’m clearing at least three to four grand a week by my damn self. Imagine if I get some more hos working for me. Just two or three girls to pick up my slack. Give them half and I’ll be clearing much more without so much as a sore ass. But for now I’m handling mine and nobody in the hood is hip to my shit.
“Aisha, this feels so good. Thank you.”
I look over at my mother lying on her stomach as the masseuse works her magic. I’m treating her to a full spa day at N’Seya Salon & Spa. These ladies know how to keep my hair laid, my body massaged, my senses relaxed, and my mani-pedi on point. It’s gonna cost me close to seven hundred dollars to get the works but it’s worth it. We’ll be here all day so as a part of the package the salon even provided a continental breakfast and a catered lunch.
Desperate hoodwives: an urban tale Page 14