by Imani Black
Chapter 20
Kelsi
Kelsi knew when she heard the police radios that they’d come to the apartment for her. She stood up beside the bed and slipped on a shirt and some sweats. Cheyenne had stayed out the night before, so Kelsi was smart enough to understand that her best friend knew exactly what was going to happen to her. Big K was still in the hospital, so he couldn’t help her.
Kelsi put her hands up before Detective Simpson could instruct her to do it. She didn’t cry. She didn’t fight. She didn’t curse. She was actually relieved, and her relaxed stance said as much. The guilt of what she’d done and how it had all gone had been killing her inside. The only thing Kelsi regretted at that moment was that she hadn’t killed herself.
The police carted her out of the building in handcuffs to the shock of everyone in the neighborhood. Her head was pushed down into the police car, and she looked out of the window at the building. She looked out at all the faces. She stared into space, thinking about how she’d gone from the friend to a foe. Kelsi thought back on how she’d gotten to this place.
* * *
The day Cheyenne left for medical school, she left Kelsi with a huge void, a hole in Kelsi’s life so big that nothing or no one could ever fill it. Kelsi moped around the apartment for hours alone. Being alone forced her to look back on her life. She was twenty-one years old, the daughter of a crack whore, a high school dropout, and the sex toy of the local drug dealer, who treated her like a piece of shit under his Prada shoes. Kelsi would do anything for a quick buck, including suck dick, fuck in public places, and let herself be passed around for enjoyment. Kelsi had the stereotypical hood chick’s story, even with the good influence of the Turners.
Kelsi was in Cheyenne’s room on her bed when she heard the apartment door slam. She figured it was Ms. Desiree coming back from the airport from taking Cheyenne. Kelsi had so many questions for Ms. Desi about whether Cheyenne finally broke down at the airport or if Cheyenne had sent her any parting messages. Kelsi wrapped herself in her robe and went toward the front of the apartment.
“Oh, shit!” She had bumped straight into Big K. “You scared the shit out of me,” Kelsi wolfed as she stumbled backward.
“You ran into me, so how I scared you? There you go again, walking with that head down,” he joked.
Kelsi smiled.
“Pretty girls are not supposed to walk with their heads down. I told you that before,” Big K chastised playfully.
Kelsi blushed.
He changed his course, and they both headed into the living room/kitchen area. That was the first time in a long while that Kelsi felt that old tingly feeling again. She felt an overwhelming closeness and tingling inside for Big K that she used to feel when she first was around him as a kid.
“So, how did things go with Cheyenne at the airport?” Kelsi asked, grabbing some orange juice from the refrigerator.
Big K frowned so hard his eyebrows dipped between his eyes.
“I didn’t go with them. I thought you knew that. Cheyenne probably didn’t want me there anyway. She’s her mother’s child. I can’t compete there,” Big K said sadly. “I thought for sure you would go,” he followed up, more like a question than a statement.
Kelsi stopped pouring the juice and gave him an equally strange frown. “I couldn’t even take helping her pack without crying all over the place. No way I was going to make it in the airport. I would’ve been a damn blubbering fool out there,” she answered.
“Yeah, same here,” he said solemnly. “I didn’t want to crowd her mother either. You know? I already feel like the outsider around here. I wanted to give them their space and time before she got on that plane.”
Kelsi heard the hurt in his voice. Something flashed red inside of her. How dare they leave him out of such an important event! They are both selfish bitches for that! She ranted in her head. That was the first time she was angry at Cheyenne and Ms. Desi in defense of Big K. It wouldn’t be the last.
“So, tell me about you. I have been so caught up in getting my family to want me here that I haven’t even had time to find out how you’re really doing... I mean, with Peaches all fucked up and—” Big K started.
Kelsi twisted her lips. He noticed and stopped talking.
“Damn. I never realize how awkward it is when someone asks me how I’m doing. I’m so used to people not really giving a fuck, or either they just know what’s up,” Kelsi replied, pushing the glass away as she’d suddenly lost her desire to drink the juice.
“I always cared, though. Since Cheyenne met you, I’ve always cared about you . . . a lot,” Big K replied.
Kelsi smiled. She noticed that he never said he cared for Kelsi like a daughter. Kelsi thought maybe he felt the same tingly, man-and-woman love for her that she’d felt for him all of these years. At least that was how she took his statement.
“I know you did. I always felt that you cared. I never stopped feeling that even when you were away,” Kelsi said, her voice going low. She wasn’t able to look him in the eyes. She felt so vulnerable at that moment.
Big K reached over and used his hand to lift Kelsi’s chin. “I already told you... pretty girls don’t walk around with their heads down. No matter what the situation is, you hold your head up high. Always,” Big K said, letting the kind smile she remembered from back in the day spread across his face.
Kelsi hadn’t seen that smile since he’d been home. She felt powerful that the first time she saw it come back was while he was speaking to her and not to Ms. Desiree.
Big K and Kelsi talked for hours that first day Cheyenne was gone. Kelsi bared her soul and told him everything. She held nothing back about her past relationships—who she had fucked in the neighborhood, how many times she had been pregnant and had abortions. Kelsi told him all about her abusive relationship with Scorpio. And, most revealing of all, Kelsi disclosed to Big K all the trouble she still had with sex after what Took had done to her. She talked to Big K that day like he was a licensed professional therapist. Never once did she feel like Big K was judging her. In fact, the way he listened so intently made Kelsi feel a deeper love and respect for him. It wasn’t like a father/daughter love and respect, either. It was that mutual respect that two adults have for one another when both have nothing else to hide.
Big K and Kelsi also joked and recalled their little run-in one time in the house. They spoke about how between Big K and Ms. Desiree, Kelsi had gotten back on her feet in a month after the beating she’d taken from Scorpio. Ms. Desiree had wrapped Kelsi’s ribs so that they could heal, and Big K had sat guard-dog by Kelsi’s side every day when Ms. Desiree had to work. Kelsi heard Carlene had come by once, but it wasn’t to see how Kelsi was doing. She had wanted to borrow some money, as usual. Big K told Kelsi he had run Carlene off with some of his old-school threats. Kelsi and Big K had a good laugh behind that.
* * *
The first full shower Kelsi took took after Scorpio’s assault felt so good. Even the initial painful pinpricks all over her skin from the hot water hurt so good. Kelsi spent more than an hour letting the water beat over her tender body. When she finally turned the water off, she pulled back the shower curtain and—
“Ahh!” she screamed. She was so startled that she almost slipped and busted her ass in the wet tub.
“Oh, shit! Kelsi! I thought that was Desiree in there,” Big K yelled in response, startled himself.
Kelsi was butt naked right in front of him. She couldn’t even reach her towel. It was too far away. Kelsi was too shocked to think to cover her nakedness with the shower curtain. Her heart hammered in her chest. It seemed like everything was going in slow motion.
Big K stood there, seemingly stuck on stupid. Staring at Kelsi, he didn’t turn and run away.
Kelsi was also stuck on stupid, letting him take in an eyeful of her body. It seemed like an eternity before either one of them did anything to fix it.
“Shit! I’m really sorry about this. I’m so sorry,” Big K said over and ov
er as he backed out of the bathroom and slammed the door.
Kelsi stepped out of the tub on wobbly legs. Maybe I need to just take my ass to Carlene’s and stop staying here. Especially because Cheyenne ain’t here and Ms. Desiree is always at work, Kelsi thought. Her brain felt scrambled. She wrapped herself in a thick, plush towel, but she still felt like it wasn’t big enough to cover her.
Kelsi stood in the bathroom an extra twenty minutes, gathering her thoughts. She looked at herself in the mirror that hung over the bathroom sink and touched the remnants of the scars that remained on her forehead and above her lip.
“You need to get your life together, Kelsi,” she whispered to herself. Kelsi didn’t even know where to start when it came to getting her shit together, but she knew the way she had been living was destructive for sure.
Kelsi opened the bathroom door slowly, peeked her head out real quick, and dipped back into the bathroom. Her chest was rising and falling rapidly. She peeked out one more time, then darted for Cheyenne’s room. Kelsi made it into the room without running into Big K again. Once she was in the room, she flopped down on the bed, and oddly enough, Kelsi smiled. Big K had seen her naked. She smiled at the thought. As sick as it sounded, Kelsi smiled and smiled some more.
Two nights after the bathroom incident with Big K, Kelsi awoke to another one of Big K and Ms. Desiree’s arguments. They had been arguing way more often since Cheyenne and Lil Kev were gone from the house. Sometimes Kelsi thought her being there when their own kids had left might be awkward for them. Kelsi thought maybe she should just go home and deal with her crackhead mother. Good, bad, or indifferent, Carlene was what God had given her.
After a few minutes of Big K and Ms. Desiree screaming back and forth, Kelsi heard the apartment door slam shut. Either Big K or Ms. Desiree had left.
Kelsi lay there for a little while, wondering who had stayed and who had gone. She looked at the clock. It was 4:42 a.m. Her curiosity finally got the best of her, and she got up and walked to the kitchen, faking like she wanted something to drink.
The entire apartment was dark. Kelsi flipped on the kitchen light. That was when she saw who had stayed.
“Damn, I was trying to be quiet and not wake you up. Could you tell by all of the yelling how hard I tried?” Big K joked, smiling even though Kelsi knew he was really stressed.
She smiled at his little joke. He was at the table, in the dark, with his head down. Kelsi pulled up a chair, set her glass of juice on the table, and joined him.
“I could barely hear anything,” she lied jokingly. They both laughed.
Big K shook his head from side to side like the weight of the world was set on his broad shoulders. He looked at Kelsi and let out a windstorm of breath.
“You know it’s fucked up when a man comes home after what felt like a hundred long years of being locked up with motherfuckers that act like animals every day and feel like he wants to be back in the lockup. All those long-ass years of fighting, clawing, praying, politicking, fighting some more, just to stay in one piece so he could come home to his woman and kids. But when he gets home, he can’t even fit in with his own family. Everybody is a stranger in his own home. He can’t fit in nowhere in their lives at all. You know how fucked up I am behind this? Nah, you wouldn’t know. Nobody knows what it’s like to have your manhood tested by your own flesh and blood,” Big K preached sadly.
Kelsi felt a twinge in her stomach. She felt the pain in his words. She couldn’t even imagine what it must have been like for Big K inside that prison, dying to get home, only to come home to an ungrateful-ass family.
“It might take them some time to adjust. They got so used to living on their own,” Kelsi comforted softly, choosing her words carefully. The truth was, in Kelsi’s opinion, his family members were all resentful that they had to fend for themselves after Big K got locked up. The selfish-ass Turners had been used to being spoiled by the lifestyle they lived when Big K was on the outside. They had no use for him after he came home.
Not Kelsi. She didn’t see things the way Ms. Desiree, Cheyenne, and Lil Kev saw them. In Kelsi’s eyes, Big K was still the man. He had come home, and to her, he was the same motherfucker that used to feed the hood on Thanksgiving. He was the same nigga that would take other people’s kids to get school clothes.
Kelsi was able to hold on to the good deeds Big K had done for her before he got locked up. She was able to hold onto them so tight that she ended up being the only one who really treated him with the respect that the man of the house deserved. Kelsi held tight to every last good deed he’d done for her. She understood that Big K had really risked everything to get revenge on Took for her. With those memories fresh in Kelsi’s mind, she was able to stay loving Big K even after years of missing him.
“Time to adjust! They had years to think about shit. I mean, how is my teenage son so deep in the streets that I can’t say a word to him? How is my daughter so far removed from me that when she calls from Texas, she forgets to ask to speak to me? And my wife... man, listen. Truth be told, she doesn’t even want me to touch her. You know what that’s like for a man? A man like me who always lived and breathed for his family? Every risk I took back then on the come-up was to make shit better for all of them. Not for me, for them!” Big K lamented, hitting his chest with his hands to emphasize his pain.
He spoke so powerfully Kelsi was moved to tears. She touched his arm gently. “If it makes you feel any better, I always have and always will appreciate you. You are the only man who has ever shown me any love,” Kelsi said sincerely.
Afterward, she’d lowered her head and stared down at the table. That was the damn truth as raw as she could’ve ever delivered it. It was the first time Kelsi told Big K how she’d always felt about him.
Big K grabbed Kelsi’s hand. The warmth of his skin against hers sent stabs of heated sparks up her arm and down her spine. Something jumped inside of her. Right at the core of her being, his touch let her know there was something between them. There had always been something between them. He was old enough to be her father, but the connection could not be denied. It was immediate, magnetic, and undeniable right from that moment.
There was an awkward, silent pause. Kelsi couldn’t say for sure who made the first move after that, but one of them certainly did. The next thing she knew, Big K’s tongue parted her lips. Kelsi gladly opened her mouth to welcome his tongue inside. It was warm and tasted like Big Red cinnamon gum.
Their tongues did a wicked dance with one another. Heat engulfed Kelsi’s entire body. Her sore ribs ached, but Big K’s touch hurt so good. The achy feeling that throbbed through Kelsi’s torso intensified her desire for Big K.
His hands moved all over her so fast she wasn’t able to tell what he was touching at any given moment. Kelsi didn’t feel like herself. She felt ravenous. Wild. Freaky.
Kelsi reached down and grabbed a handful of his manhood. He’s your best friend’s father. The thought flitted through her mind, but she ignored it. He was the man Kelsi had loved from the time she could feel the emotion.
She clamped down on his swollen member. Big K let out a gasp. Kelsi moved her mouth to his bottom lip and sucked on it as she massaged his throbbing bulge.
“Oh, shit!” he gasped. “What are we doing?” he whispered as he pulled Kelsi’s T-shirt over her head, exposing her bouncy C-cup breasts.
Big K hoisted Kelsi onto the table. The glass of juice she had poured earlier shattered to the floor. Neither one of them cared. Kelsi eased back, her entire body trembling. Big K leaned in and took a mouthful of her left areola.
“Oh God!” Kelsi huffed out, panting. Her breasts had always been her weak spot.
Big K suckled both of her breasts until she was ready to explode. Kelsi’s head fell back as he moved his mouth down to her navel. Her body quaked all over, and her pussy got soaking wet. As Big K removed Kelsi’s panties, she felt her own juices leaking down her butt crack.
“You okay?” he whispered as he continued his j
ourney downward.
They were really doing this! Kelsi was more than okay with it.
“Oh God! Yes! Yes!” Kelsi wolfed, barely able to get her words out. Her mind had gone blank. Nothing registered, except that pure feeling of ecstasy that had come over her.
Next, Big K put his warm mouth over her clit. Kelsi let her thighs fall open and invited him to taste her, lick her, and suck her. Big K flicked his tongue over her dripping hot box rapidly. Then, in and out. In and out.
“Ahh! Ahh!” Kelsi panted. She had never been handled like that.
“Please! I want you! I want you so bad!” Kelsi groaned out, her words labored like she’d been running on a treadmill.
Big K lifted his head from between Kelsi’s legs. She heard the elastic on his boxers snap and knew what it meant. Kelsi shut her eyes tighter, waiting. Big K grabbed her with his strong, muscular arms and pulled her toward him. She wrapped her legs around him.
“Agghh!” Kelsi belted out.
Big K entered her, and his dick immediately filled her up. She felt a little bit of pain shoot through her pussy, but it quickly subsided into pleasure.
“Huh! Huh! Huh!” Big K wheezed as he rammed his body into her pelvis with the vigor of a jackhammer. Big K moved so fast Kelsi started slipping off the table. She tightened her legs around him, which forced him deeper into her. Kelsi could’ve sworn his dick was touching her cervix.
“Oh God!” she gasped as he grinded into her. Kelsi bit into his neck. She didn’t mean to, but she couldn’t help it.
Big K hoisted her up and moved her over to the couch without taking his dick out of her. He moved carefully with his boxers around his ankles.
“Your shit it so good! So good!” he wolfed through labored breaths.
They made it to the couch without falling. He laid Kelsi down on the couch and kneeled in front of her. He pulled her closer, which caused her to feel his thickness way up inside.