“Mu came to the house and I asked him where you were. He told me here, so I threw something on right quick and told him to bring me up here. He said you didn’t come with a girl so I came to hang out with you.” She smiled. I could feel all eyes on me. I knew everyone wanted to know who Trina was.
“You crazy,” I said to her as I took her hand and led her to the dance floor and started dancing.
We danced so much I had to take off my suit jacket ’cause the alcohol we had been drinking before Mu had picked us up began to kick in, and it was making me hot. I even took off my bow tie and unbuttoned a few buttons on my shirt.
After a couple of rap songs, the deejay stopped and made an announcement. “This next cut is for all the couples who made it through the school year!”
All you saw were brothers exiting the dance floor trying to find seats or a place to stand. There were no more than twenty couples paired up on the floor by the time the song came on. I didn’t know why or how, but I found myself amid the group of couples with Trina.
Outside of with my moms I had no real experience in slow dancing, but I could tell Trina did. She stepped in closer and wrapped her arms around my neck. In spite of all the dancing, she still smelled good. Out of instinct, I put my hands around her waist; but she moved them to her butt then laid her head on my shoulder. It felt good dancing with her like this and I thought I was doing pretty good for it to be my first time.
That night, you would have thought I had slow danced with plenty of girls many times. I could feel myself rising from the way Trina was grinding me, and she knew what she was doing, too. With my hardness pressed up against her, she focused solely on gyrating and grinding that specific area with her body. My head was spinning between the music, the alcohol, and Trina’s grinds. I felt like I was floating.
I was caught up in the mood but, out of nowhere, something brought me back to my senses. When I opened my eyes and looked to my left, I regretted opening them. I could see Lisa and her girlfriends on the side watching me and Trina. My heart instantly skipped a beat and a sense of embarrassment swept through my entire body.
Trina must’ve sensed something too because she stopped dancing. “What’s wrong?” she looked up and asked.
I told her to excuse me for a minute, and I began approaching Lisa. By then Lisa and her girls were all walking toward the door. I caught up with them outside.
“What, Kamil?” she asked. “Go back and finish your dance,” she quickly snapped. I’d never seen her like this.
“Nah, it’s not how it looks,” I began to say. “That was just a harmless dance. You the one I really wanted to dance wit’, but you weren’t here.”
She let out a light chuckle. “Kamil, don’t give me that,” she said, as tears began to roll down her face. “It didn’t look like she had on matching colors to me,” she pointed out. “The only thing I seen matching were your two hands on her ass.”
For some reason I felt like my father when he was explaining himself when my mother caught him in the visiting room with another woman. Just standing there seeing Lisa crying made me know that I was wrong and I had hurt her the way my dad had hurt my moms. All I could say was that I was sorry, because I had never been in a situation like that before and no one ever warned me.
I just stood there as Lisa and her friends walked off. I was speechless. When I turned around to head back into the party, Trina was standing in the doorway. From where she stood, I knew she had heard everything that had just taken place. The devilish grin stretched across her face was enough to confirm she had. I followed her back in and enjoyed myself as best I could under the circumstances.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Graduation was over and my family all wanted to meet Lisa, which really made me feel like crap. I didn’t even have the heart to tell them that we hadn’t spoken in a week and a half, and I didn’t think we’d ever speak again. I saw Lisa standing on the other side of the auditorium with her parents and I pointed in the direction as I described to them which one she was. They told me to get her so they could meet her and take a picture of us. Just when I was about to work up the nerve to go over there, I saw Lisa coming toward us.
“Hello, Kamil,” she spoke softly. “I came to meet your family.”
“Hey,” I said back to her. “Ma, Grandma, Nique, Jasmine, this is Lisa Matthews. Lisa this is my moms, my grandmother, my oldest sister Monique, and my little sister Jasmine. You know Kamal already.”
“Hello, Kamal.” She smiled at my brother. “Nice to meet you all,” she then said politely.
“It’s nice to finally meet you too, sugar,” my grandmother said.
“Yes, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Lisa. My son has nothing but good things to say about you,” my moms chimed in.
“Kamil, she’s pretty,” my little sister said.
“Let me know if my brother gets out of line. I’ll straighten him out for you,” Monique said.
Each time one of my family members spoke, it was like someone was sticking me with pins and needles, because I knew that I messed up. Lisa just stood there smiling and saying thank you as my family gave her one compliment after the other.
“Kamil, put your arm around her so we can take your picture,” my grandmother said.
“Actin’ like he all scared of girls,” Nique joked.
“Is it all right?” I asked.
“Aw, look at my baby, he’s a gentleman. Asking can he put his arm around her,” my moms teased.
“Come on, Ma!” I said, feeling both embarrassed and guilty from a week and a half ago.
Kamal was standing next to my mother laughing to himself, because besides me and Lisa he was the only one there who knew what was going on since I’d told him about it when we got home.
“Again, it was nice meeting you,” Lisa said. “Kamil, enjoy your summer,” she told me in a way that let me know we wouldn’t be seeing each other.
“You too,” I replied dryly.
And then she left.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
It had been a month since I had spoken to Lisa. I tried to give her a call on her birthday, but her moms said she wasn’t home. After that, I just stopped calling.
Ever since the night of the dance, I had been seeing more and more of Trina. While Kamal would be over at Ant’s or Trevor’s crib, I was over at Trina and Reecie’s with Mustafa. A few times we all went out to eat or to the movies. Mu would give me like a hundred dollars so it would look like I was paying my and Trina’s way all the time. No matter where we were, Trina was always all over me kissing and hugging me, or just up under me period. I didn’t know if Reecie was Mu’s girl, but I knew I had never seen her with anybody else. She was always up under him like Trina was with me, only more, but it seem like Mu didn’t mind so neither did I. I was going to ask Mu if Reecie his girl, but I figured if he wanted me to know, he would’ve told me, so I left it alone. Every time I got around Mal and them, they always asked me if I was having sex with Trina. No matter how many times I told them no they never believed me.
One particular day I went over to Trina’s and she took awhile before she let me in. At first, I thought she had some other guy in there until she opened the door and told me Mu was in the back room with Reecie. I knew Mu wouldn’t allow any other guy up in there to see Trina knowing that she talked to me. She was acting kind of weird and said she’d be back in a minute after she finished doing something, so I just sat in the living room, flicking through the channels on the TV. About an hour and a half had gone by and she still was in the back. So, I got up and went back there, not really to check on her, but to say what’s up to Mu.
The door was slightly cracked, so I pushed it opened. I started to say, “What’s up,” to Mu until I saw what he, Reecie, and Trina were doing. I didn’t know what to do or say. I was frozen in my tracks. I drew everyone’s attention to me seeing that the door had opened.
“Yo, my bad, Mu. I ain’t mean to—”
He cut me off. “Nah, kid, you a�
�ight, it’s cool. Come on in,” he said. “You were bound to find out anyway, being over here all the time.”
In the middle of the room was a table. Reecie was on one side with a plate in front of her and a razor in her hand, while Trina was on the other side bottling up what Reecie was cutting up. Mu was by the bed counting the bottles and wrapping a rubber band around them. I noticed he had a white mask around his face, which covered his nose and mouth like the ones doctors and nurses used in the hospital. They all did. If I had to take a guess, I would have had to say that there were at least 3,000 bottles lying on the bed, and another few hundred by Trina on the table. Plus there were chunks of white rocks on the side of the plate Reecie was cutting up on, while she dug into a nice chunk on the plate.
“Yo, I know I don’t gotta tell you this is between us, ’cause I know you already know that,” Mu said to me.
“Mu, you know I’d never tell anybody your business or anything that we talk about,” I said back. “I don’t see nothing, I don’t know nothing,”
“I know that, kid.” Mu smiled at me. “That’s why I fucks wit’ you. Reecie, you and Trina can handle this, right? ’Cause I need to kick it to my man for a minute and then I’m gonna shoot this shit out to them li’l niggas outside waitin’ on me.”
“Yeah, we got this, Mu,” she said, speaking for both her and Trina.
“Mil, you stayin’ when Mu leave, right?” Trina asked me.
“Yeah.”
“Okay, I won’t be too much longer,” she said, and then Mu and I stepped out of the room.
“Now you know why I be over here so much, Mil,” he started out saying. “Those two are some good chicks and they know the game. That’s why I dig you fuckin’ wit’ Trina, ’cause I know she ain’t gonna shit on you like some of these other chicks will. She a ridah and she diggin’ you and you ain’t even out there getting paper. When you ain’t here all she do is talk about you, kid. If I ain’t know no better, I would’ve thought you were hittin’ that, but she already told Reecie you ain’t. Why? I don’t know, but that’s on you, kid. All I know is that you can hit that any time you want, it’s up to you.” He paused and then asked me, “You ain’t no virgin, are you?”
I had been waiting for him to ask me that for the longest. “I been wit’ girls before,” I said. “But I never go all the way and stick my joint in something.”
“Well, that means you’re a virgin then, nigga,” he said with a grin on his face. “I should’ve known that already, but don’t even worry about that ’cause, check, I know how we gonna change that. Trina’s birthday is next weekend and me and Reecie had already planned to take her out, but this is what I’ma do. I’m gonna cop two rooms at the Loop Inn. We gonna go to New York for a little bit and get something to eat, chill, and then come back to Jersey and have a couple of drinks up in my room. When I kick you two out and tell you I want some privacy, that’s when the ball is gonna be in your court, and you just gonna have to take it from there, ’cause I can’t put it in for you. You gots to do that part on your own,” he said, smiling. “You should be all right, though, ’cause Trina ain’t no virgin anyway, but she ain’t no ho, either, so she gonna know what she doin’. Just go with the flow, a’ight?”
I nodded in agreement. Mu shook his head as he continued to grin. “A’ight, I’ll catch you later.” He hugged me before he glided out the door.
* * *
It seemed like the weekend had come around so quick. I told Mal where I was going and he helped me convince our moms to let us spend the night over at Ant’s crib as an excuse to get out of the house. It was times like this I loved having a brother who had my back. Mal wasn’t a virgin, but he still wanted me to give him full details whenever I got back. Like Reecie, when it came to beauty and body, Trina was bad, and everybody either fantasized about her or wanted a piece of her.
This was my first time ever going to Sylvia’s to eat in Harlem, but I heard about how good the food was supposed to be, and how a lot of actors, entertainers, rappers, and celebrities would be up in there, so not only was I looking forward to the food, but also seeing someone famous.
Mu already had reservations for us, so we were seated as soon as we got there. There were pictures all over the walls of famous African Americans, and when I looked around I noticed a few celebrities, but I wasn’t all excited like I thought I would be, because they looked like ordinary people out having dinner. In fact, the way Mu was dressed he actually stood out more than they did, and some people probably thought he was some type of rapper or something.
I had to give it to Ms. Sylvia, she ran a classy place and the food was excellent. It was almost as good as my grandmother’s.
I knew Trina was enjoying herself, because it was written all over her face. When I looked over at Mu, he just gave me a wink.
After we finished eating, we walked to 125th, down by the legendary Apollo, to take pictures. 125th Street was like another world within itself. Everywhere you looked or turned there was some type of hustle going on, from selling clothes to music. It was a street that was real busy and loud. At that moment, I understood why they called the borough the city that never sleeps.
There were different picture backdrops to choose from. We all took one together in front of the black background, then Trina and I took one in front of Mickey and Minnie Mouse hugging. So did Mu and Reecie. Mu and I took one with the background that had two aces of spades that read, TWO OF A KIND, and then one in front of the one that had a Benz with a guy and three girls leaning on it. Trina and I took another one with me sitting in a straw chair, and her on my lap.
From there, we crossed over to the other side and went inside of the 125 Mart. We walked around for a little bit. The whole time Trina had her arm hooked around mine. While she was enjoying being with me I was enjoying the New York scenery. The night was winding down so we made our way back to the parking garage and headed back to Jersey.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The sign read LOOP INN as we pulled into the hotel. Mu stopped in front of the door where you check in and told me to come with him. I slid up from under Trina and followed him.
“Yeah, I called you earlier about two honeymoon suites,” Mu said to the man behind the Plexiglas.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Ali. Mustafa Ali.”
“Oh, yeah, I got you set up right here,” the man said.
“Let me get four bubble baths and two logs with that,” Mu told him, pulling out his money.
“With the logs, the bubble bath, and the rooms, that’ll be $266.60,” the man said back.
Mu peeled off three hundred-dollar bills and paid him. As we pulled to the back on the left side, I was wondering what made these rooms so special that it almost cost $300, because from the outside it didn’t look like much; but when we stepped in Mu’s room, my question was answered.
“Ooh, this is nice!” Trina was the first to say as Mu turned on the dimmer lights a little more than halfway. Her reaction led me to believe she had never been there before, unless she was trying to play it off. The room was fly, though. It was apparent that Reecie had been there before because like Mu, she had no reaction.
Right in the middle of the room there was a heart-shaped Jacuzzi with mirrors on the ceiling. There was a leather sofa to the right, with a marble table in front of it. To the left of that was a fireplace built inside the wall. You had to step down some steps to get to the bed, which was also shaped like a heart, with mirrors over it. To top it off, it was a waterbed. In front of the bed was a big-screen TV. I had never seen one that big before in person so I didn’t know what size it was.
Mu picked up the remote and turned on the TV, or so I thought; but, instead, the radio came on. “Reecie, did you bring my tapes out the car like I asked you?” Mu asked her.
“I got ’em right here.”
“Gimme them and go put some ice in that white bucket right there,” he instructed. Reecie snatched up the bucket as Mu popped in a cassette tap
e. “Y’all too young to know about this. This is a classic right here,” he said as he sang with the song.
“Who’s that, Mu?” I asked.
“That’s the Stylistics, the shit ya moms and pops made you off of,” he told me, turning it up louder. I remembered my dad playing music like that in the house and in the car when I was little. But it bugged me out to hear Mu listening to it, even though it sounded good.
Reecie came back with the ice. “Mil, put that bottle up in there,” Mu said, pointing to the bottle of Dom P.
Reecie was over at the Jacuzzi running water and putting bubble bath in. Mu went and lit the log in the fireplace while the champagne chilled. Trina and I were on the leather sofa just kicking it.
“Thank you for showing me a good time for my birthday, Kamil.” Trina leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. “No other guy ever spent time with me the way you do. They just try to get what they can get and be out, but you’re different,” she said smoothly.
I just sat there and listened. “I’m just glad that you’re enjoyin’ your birthday, ’cause you deserve to have a nice time. I like being around you and spending time with you too. You’re fun to be around.”
She leaned over and kissed me again, only this time it was on the lips. She pushed her tongue into my mouth. I had kissed her plenty of times, but never like this. This kiss was different. It made me a little warm on the inside.
“Okay, birthday girl, you and Mil come over here and take these glasses so we can toast your born day,” Mu said to us.
We all held our flute glasses in the air as we wished Trina a happy birthday and then we toasted. The champagne was smooth. There was a big difference from what I had ever tasted before. I knew it was expensive by the look of the bottle. Besides, knowing Mu, I knew he wouldn’t buy anything cheap.
Once the bottle was empty, Mu popped open another one that he had put on ice earlier. What happened next took me by surprise. Out of nowhere, Reecie started taking off her clothes. She stripped down to her bra and panties. At first, I thought I was seeing things, until Trina started covering my eyes just as Reecie took off her top and was pulling her panties off.
Memoirs of an Accidental Hustler Page 14
