by Nicole Falls
Started from a Selfie
Nicole Falls
Copyright © 2018 Nicole Falls
Cover art by Voldemort
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to real locations, people, or events is coincidental, and unintentional.
I was running late. I absolutely hated running late, but when I went out to my car this morning and it wouldn't turn on? And my sis and bruhbruh were MIA? I had to make a quick decision. So, I left the car and walked the ten minutes to the train station, so I wouldn't be later than I already was. I shot a quick text to Joey to let her know that I was running behind.
Real people behind or Juju behind? - Joey the Great
I giggled at her response because she always teased me about my need to be super on time for everything to the point of arriving up to thirty minutes in advance of a meeting. One of the things my mother ingrained in me and my sisters was the importance of timeliness. She always said that being late was a form of disrespect. The lack of attention to other people's time showed that you held them in low regard, and it's something I've carried with me from a very young age. Having to reroute my morning would have me getting to the client's house just before our appointed meeting time, but to me that was still late.
I texted back to let Joey know that I was behind by my own standards, but perfectly on time by anyone else's. She just laughed and agreed to pick me up from the train stop for the quick ride over to our client's house. The little side hustle that my best friend Jonique and I started on a whim was starting to pick up steam. What began as a silly throwaway joke at a Jojo's monthly girls night had evolved into a website, blog, and workshops on demand. We were hanging out with some college friends and one was complaining about never being able to cum via penetration. It was causing a bit of strain within her relationship and she was legitimately put out about it. I, of course, immediately began asking all sorts of questions to see if this was an onset with this partner or if it had always been this way for her. And that led to all the women in the group talking about hardly ever being satisfied when engaging in sexual intercourse, which made me hella sad.
Sex is amazing, but if not done right can seem like a chore. These women, myself and Joey withstanding, were going on and on about their lack of fulfillment by their men (and women, in one case) in the sack. A quick poll of these women brought the shocking result that none of them owned sex toys and only three of the seven had masturbated before. I finally blurted out, "You hoes need to mind your own pussies! How are you supposed to know what brings you pleasure if even you don’t know your pussy intimately?" After a stunned silence and the uproarious laughter that followed, we went from sitting around shooting the shit to having an impromptu conversation about sexual expectations, pleasure zones, and body exploration. Many of these women's first sexual experiences were at the hands of inexperienced teen boys who were undoubtedly more concerned with getting theirs than making sure anyone else in the room was satisfied.
After chastising them for not knowing themselves enough to know what they liked, I gave each of them homework to spend some time exploring their bodies and after that, to initiate sex with their partners taking what they'd learned from their self-exploration into consideration. Within a week all of them had reported back with positive results and many of them suggested that I share what I'd told them with the masses. I told them that there were more than enough sex bloggers out here, but they all insisted that I brought something to the table that was unique. All of them kept bringing it up to Joey, insistently and Jonique—practical planner that she is, hit me with a full-on PowerPoint presentation outlining the pros and cons of doing this thing. I'd never been one to back down from a challenge and Joey presented sound logic, so "Mind Your Own Pussy" was born.
Today we were on our way to facilitate one of my favorite workshops, "Rockin the Mic" at a private home. The woman who coordinated the workshop was a friend of one of Jojo's friends and had been reading the blog. She thought it would be a fun diversion for her and her girlfriends as well as a means of getting more education on ways to please her man. Celena had been comfortable enough to express to me, while setting up the workshop appointment, that while she felt her man was adequately satisfied, she was looking for tips and tricks to blow his mind—no pun intended. I assured her that once we were done today, she'd be armed with everything she needed to make her nigga say uhhhn na na na na, like Percy Miller n'em.
About halfway through the train ride, something in the air shifted. Suddenly, I was keyed up and didn't know why. I looked around the train, slightly on alert, trying to figure out where this charge in energy came from when my gaze landed on the finest brotha I'd seen in a while. He was the possessor of smooth skin that looked like whipped peanut butter, shoulder length, jet black locs, and a beard so lush that it looked like a soft place to lay all of your burdens down. Gahdamn, I muttered to myself, garnering a "mmmhmmm girl" from the older woman who was sitting next to me. I giggled at her reaction and sent a quick text to Joey.
My future baby daddy is on this train, bih. I might not make it.
IKYFL. - Joey the Great
Remember that IG personal trainer nigga we were stalking that was posted on wreckmyuterusplz? Think him, but like...finer.
Pics or it didn't happen. - Joey the Great
I laughed again, louder this time because Joey swore that whenever I was describing something to her that she wasn't there to witness that I was exaggerating. This was no exaggeration though. The way that the cutie and I were positioned, it would be mad obvious if I aimed my camera in his direction to try to snap a shot, so instead I turned my phone into selfie mode, pretended to be searching for the right light and snapped a shot that had him perfectly framed between the edges of my hair and one of those poles for standing on the train.
OH BIH. - Joey the Great
Told. You. Finer, right?
I officially give you permission to blow this workshop off and blow that young man's mind. Report back with details. - Joey the Great
I cackled once again, garnering the fine dude's attention. Our eyes locked for a quick second and I smiled, hoping that looked like invitation for him to follow up. You see...for as much bravado as I possessed when it came to talking with my home girls or the MYOP clients and followers, I never actually approached men. Call it old fashioned—or cowardly—but I was typically very lucky in that when I showed the littlest chance of being open, men generally took advantage and made their way to me. Mr. Fine offered a smile in return and nothing more. Quickly my eyes shot downward to his hands, making sure that my first cursory overview didn't miss a ring, but nope there was nothing there. Oh well, probably somebody else's guy, so that little fantasy was ruined.
No dice. I'll see you at the Cottage Ave stop, sis.
Did you even try? - Joey the Great
I smiled at him.
Seriously, Juju? SMH. I am disappointed in you. *eye roll emoji* Do better! - Joey the Great
Joey knew my deal and her teasing was all in good fun. She did have a point though, maybe I needed to hop out of my comfort zone and approach him. I could do this—had done this for several friends in the past, so it shouldn't be anything for me to conquer for myself. I blew out a breath, rolled my shoulders a few times and steeled myself to get up and move in his direction. When I looked up, however, he was gone. I whipped my head back and forth looking around the train and it was almost as if I made him up because he was nowhere to be
found. I navigated back to my Photos app to make sure he wasn't a complete apparition. I looked at the photo, zooming in on him and grinning like a loon. But I also noticed that I looked cute as hell in the pic, so I decided to upload it to the gram with the caption "out here looking cute and mah future baby zaddy in the back zont eem notice...". My stop was the next one, so I put my phone away, gathered my supplies and prepared to disembark the train.
"Ok ladies," I said, clapping my hands to get their attention as I addressed the group, "you should have been given some homework from Celena prior to us gathering here today. Who wants to go first?"
"Cel, baby girl, did you really think this through when you decided to put this together? Do you realize how often we see each other and our significant others? I don't need to remember that every time time I see Reem that he's especially fond of you lapping at his dick head like a dog in a water bowl, like, really boo?" a woman whose name I think was Raquel said.
The entire room fell into laughter, Joey and I included. This wasn't the first time this concern had arisen in one of our workshops, but I wanted to quickly set everyone at ease.
"Ladies, we won't be sharing these things aloud from the source," I started before holding up a pad of paper and a hat, "You're going to write down the answers to that question I told you to ask your men and then we'll go through these anonymously and talk through any tips and tricks that anyone in the group has to offer before going into the hands-on portion of this workshop. So, don’t worry, you won't have to avert your gaze too hard because you won't know who likes what...but hell depending on how freaky these answers get, you might be unable to even look your home girls in the eyes at the end of today."
That set off more laughter and let me know that we would be working with a good group here. None of the women seemed uptight or uncomfortable, which was always key to ensure a successful workshop. Having even one woman who wasn't with the program could sway the mood of the entire room and had, in the past, led to some very tense workshop sessions.
Joey went around passing out the slips of paper and pens for the women to write on, while I went about setting up my computer for the presentation portion of the workshop. It was surprising to me the number of people who were grossly misinformed about the basic anatomy of the male and female sex organs, so every workshop started off like those "how your body is changing" seminars that everyone attended in elementary school when puberty was jumping off. I tried not to drag out the anatomy lesson for too long, but always found it helpful as we segued into the meat and potatoes of the workshop.
So far, we had three workshops that we offered: Rocking the Mic—our male oral sex workshop, Snack Chat—our female oral sex workshop and P in V—our co-ed intercourse workshop. Rocking the Mic was our most popular, by far, mostly put together for groups of friends or family or sorority sisters as a part of their bachelorette festivities.
"All right ladies, let's get the boring part over with, so we can get into why y'all really wanted us here today," I said, launching into the first slide of the presentation.
There was a moment of tension midway through when the neighbor of the hostess, Miss Rita, abruptly interrupted Joey explaining how that whole grapefruiting thing from Girls Trip wasn’t something they came up with on their own.
“Little girl, I’ve probably been sucking dicks longer than you’ve been alive, why are you giving us an oral history, no pun intended, of dick sucking? Let’s get to the good part!”
You could have knocked Joey over with a feather after that interruption and the rest of us were honestly no good for the rest of the session. A couple of hours later, my abdomen hurt from laughing so much. This session had definitely been one of our liveliest, with the ladies having no filters and little regard for boundaries as we discussed tips, tricks, and techniques for sucking dick. Joey and I even learned a couple of new things that we would be incorporating into future workshops thanks to Miss Rita. As we wrapped up, I shared business cards and our social media information with the ladies so that if they had referrals, they could easily pass them our contact information.
We left Celena’s house, grabbed a quick bite to eat and had a debrief session before Joey, saint that she is, drove me home so I wouldn’t have to make the trek on the train again. It wasn’t an enormous imposition, but the time saved by getting a ride home as opposed to having to take the train gave me a bit more time to decompress before joining my sisters for dinner at Ginger’s. I loved all of my sisters, but Gigi definitely tried my patience of them all. She was such a control freak and it drove me insane. She tried to act like my mother instead of my older sister as she criticized my career choices, lack of a stable mate, and the fact that I still lived with our oldest sister in our childhood home. Gigi tended to mind everyone’s business but her own which drove me batty. Nono and Lolo usually ignored her when she got into high drama mode, but for some reason I didn’t have that ability. Every comment, no matter how innocuous, always set me on edge. I’d been working to not let her take me there, but not even an hour-long session with What’s Going Om? before heading to her house was good enough to keep me centered.
I walked into the house to see my sister Noelle and her guy Jay all cuddled up on the sofa.
“Hey, Junie B.,” Noelle called out as I shut the door behind me.
“Hey, No. Hey, Bruhbruh.”
“How’d your session go today?” Noelle asked.
Noelle was the only one of my sisters that knew about Mind Your Own Pussy. She was amused when I told her about Joey and me going into business together with this idea. Lolo likely would have been amused as well, but I could just see Ginger’s face screwing up with that “I just ate a lemon” look before she launched into a speech of condemnation.
“It went really well, actually. One of the girls who was there knew you. Said y’all went to West together. Her name was Patty, I think?” I said, pulling out my phone to pull up the group pic so I could show Noelle who I was talking about.
My sister was great with faces, but terrible with names. As soon as I showed her the photograph, she recognized her immediately. Patty had recognized my last name and asked if I had a sister named Noelle and launched into reminiscing about their days on the tennis team in high school. She said they were like the Bring It On squad, a cadre of black and brown girls rolling up, playing predominantly white schools and, racking up Ws left and right. I’d completely forgotten that Noelle played tennis in high school because she did so many other things in addition to that. That was my big sis though, Miss Popularity, a definite hard act to follow.
All of my sisters were hard acts to follow, really. It was hard growing up as Baby Girl Holliday because almost every school official and teacher I came into contact with expected me to be super gregarious like Noelle or quietly brilliant like Lolo or take charge and decisive like Gigi. Meanwhile, I just wanted to be Juju. In trying to make a name for myself beyond their shadows I became a hodgepodge of the previous three. Eventually, though, I figured out who Juju was and was currently having fun being irreverent, but not belligerent me.
I sat talking about the workshop with Noelle and Jay for a few minutes more before retreating to my room with Noelle’s promise to wake me up in ninety minutes, so we could drive over to Ginger’s together. Also got Jay to promise to have my car towed to his homeboy’s shop for the freeski so they could check it out and hopefully not charge me too much to get it back running.
“Daddy, are you listening to me?” my daughter whined.
“Yes, Junie, I am, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to get your way,” I responded knowing damn well that she was going to get her way.
We were in the mall, at her insistence. In Finish Line, also at her insistence. We were allegedly just coming in here to see how this pair of rose gold 11s looked on her feet, not for her to try to talk me into spending damn near $200 on a pair of shoes for the second time in a few months. She’d already gotten me for a pair of the Season of Her Js that she just had to have. B
ecause I was a sucker and her mother was immune to her charms, she knew this little trip would end up working out in her favor.
“I thought we were supposed to be bonding, babygirl,” I said before signaling to the kid hovering not too far away that he could ring me up for the shoes.
His eyes lit up at the thought of the commission as I ran my fingers through my locs on a sigh. This little girl had gotten me once again. I was just glad she was actually willing to hang out with her old man, even if it was under the guise of bonding that was clear manipulation. I’d heard of most little girls becoming nightmares for their parents as soon as the clock struck twelve on the year in which their ages ended with teen, but so far—three years in—Junie was still my darlin’ babygirl.
She turned to me wearing the sweetest smile and replied, “We are bonding, daddy. And rather splendidly if I do say so myself. I mean my love language is receiving gifts and you just bought these for me, so I’d say we are killing the daddy daughter bonding thang in these streets.”
I couldn’t do anything but laugh as she removed the shoes from her feet, placed them in the box and we walked toward the cash wrap. The aforementioned salesman already had us all rung up and he was just waiting for me to insert my card and sign to complete the transaction. After we finished ringing out, and that lil nigga had the audacity to try to flirt with my babygirl in front of me, we headed over to Junie aka Quincey Junior’s favorite restaurant, Wildfire. She was clearly all about going deep into my pockets tonight, but I wasn’t fazed. We were celebrating because for the sixth semester in a row, my girl had brought home an all As high honor roll report card. As long as she kept working hard and bringing home all As, I had zero problem spoiling her, much to her mother’s chagrin. But Charity had learned to stop trying to regulate how Junie and I bonded pretty early on. She insisted that I spoiled Junie, but I countered that I was just rewarding excellent behavior. The problem was that money was no object when it came to my baby, but Charity was so damn frugal that trying to get something extra outta her was like squeezing blood from a turnip. Since Charity was the full-time custodial parent, Quincey Junior to had to deal with her tightfisted ways for a long while until she learned that she had me wrapped around her baby finger and started using her powers of manipulation for good.