God Don't Like Haters

by Jordan Belcher

  I liked how Slim put his words together. Simple but effective. The beat changed up a little after his verse was over, something Gee Beats was known for. This was where I was supposed to lay the chorus. I listened closely to the sounds, getting my thoughts together, vibing, when the next verse suddenly came on. It was Coras rapping. I knew he was going to be on the song—it was his mixtape we were working on—but I thought I was supposed lay a verse second.

  As I listened, my jaw dropped from shock. This verse was about me! He must have recorded it after I saw him yesterday. Quickly, I put my finger back on the touchpad and skipped back to the beginning of his verse.

  You're with the wrong nigga, I think you know it too/ but what you don't realize is the shit I'm going through/ tried to play it cool and almost shot yo man over you/ Ain’t even fucked you yet, Imagine when I do

  I was speechless. The rest of his verse talked about how he wished I felt the same way about him. What he didn't know was that I did love him back. But he had a girlfriend and a side chick. His girlfriend was a jealous female named Monifa Chavis. She was cute and made sure she let social media know it, but she had a habit of exuding negativity and it rubbed off in her status updates. He had been with her for as long as he'd been hustling.

  Coras's other chick was also his manager. Her name was Ashleigh Hedgman. Sad thing was she was my manager too. They'd been sleeping together since the business relationship started.

  So why did Coras write this verse?

  Did he expect me to be girlfriend number three?

  I plugged a set of big headphones in the laptop, put them on and turned the volume up. I wanted to hear his verse again, clearly. For some reason his rhymes always put me in a sexual mood, and this particular song singled me out so I was extra turned on. I closed my eyes, picturing him next to me.

  No one knew, but Coras was the inspiration behind all of my love ballads. His voice was everything to me.

  You're with the wrong nigga, I think you know it too/ but what you don't realize is the shit I'm going through

  My hands crawled inside of my Spandex and I started fingering myself. Words of my own started to tumble around in my head, floating together to form poetry. My moisture is not a choice, I sang in my mind. It's drawn out of me by the sound of your voice.

  I loved playing with words while I was playing with myself.

  You have to make up your mind first, boy/ stop giving them other hoes your time first, boy/ then maybe we could be/ and I can show you what kind of freak I be

  Suddenly, my headphones were snatched from my head and the cord popped out of the laptop. Coras's lyrics now filled the entire living room.

  "What the fuck are you doing?!" Archie hollered.

  I was cold busted. "Nothing," I said in a childish tone.

  "Nothing?"

  Archie was a bear when he got mad. Chest puffed out, fists balled. He only had his boxers on right now—a pair with green martians stamped all over it that I got him for his birthday last year—so it was hard for me to find him threatening. He snatched my laptop and flung it across the room. I heard it crack. Even though I had all of my important stuff backed up in cloud storage, I was still pissed.

  "It looked like you were fingering yourself to the sound of Coras's voice," he said, stepping closer to me. "Is that what you were doing?"

  Deny. Deny. Deny.

  "No, Archie, I was thinking of you."

  He smacked me.

  It wasn't a hard smack, but this was the first time he had put his hands on me so I was stunned. I told him once before that if he ever hit me I would kill him. I had said it jokingly, but I wasn't joking.

  "You deserved that," he said to me. "This is my house. A man is generous enough to let you move in his house at 14, and then you lie to that man in his face? Keep it real wit' me. I already know you wanna fuck that nigga. You think I'm blind? If you knew what was good for you ... Where are you going?"

  I left him standing there talking, went into the bedroom and grabbed my .380 pistol from under the mattress. Right when I cocked it back, Archie appeared in the doorway.

  "You gon' shoot me?" he asked, like he thought I wouldn’t do it.

  I pointed it at his chest. "I told you what I was gonna do if you ever put yo hands on me, didn't I?"

  "And I told you what I would do if you ever cheated on me," he countered. "I would beat yo muthafucking ass. You lucky you only got a smack. I don't care if you got that gun, or that you shot somebody before. I ain't her. You know better. Bitch, I raised you—"

  I lowered my aim a bit. Bang!

  He took a step back with his right leg, because I had shot him in his left. He was shocked, and I was shocked that he didn't fall.

  "Kirbie!" He said my name like I was a child that had just been caught scribbling on the walls. "What the fuck, Kirbie?"

  Blood was running down his hairy leg.

  I was thinking about shooting him again until he took another staggering step back and finally lost his balance. His left leg stayed straight as he fell.

  "Put yo hands on me again and I will kill you!" I spat. "You hear me, nigga?"

  "Kirbie, you don't need a gun. You're fucking crazy."

  "Well don't try me!"

  "I'm sorry," he said.

  I grabbed my suitcase and heaved it up on the bed. I packed it full and placed my gun on top and zipped it up.

  "Where you going?" he asked, breathing hard.

  His blood was pooling on the hardwood floor. I didn't want him to die but I wasn't going to help him either.

  Extending the suitcase's handle, I lugged the suitcase past him on wheels.

  "I said I was sorry!" he shouted.

  CHAPTER 6

  Monifa Chavis

  I was laying on my stomach, propped up on my elbows as Coras fucked me from behind. I had my hands clasped together under me as he pulled my hair, forcing me to grit my teeth.

  Even though I felt like I was starting to lose consciousness—in a good, mesmerizing way—I fixed my lips to utter, "Is that all you got, Coras? Harder!"

  This amazing man dug deeper with his barbarous penis, made me scream for him to, Chill okay, sorry, chill, Coras, but he just pushed my face into the pillows, nearly suffocating me.

  It wasn't often he fucked me like this, and I was going to enjoy it. It would have been an even better experience if one of his and Kirbie's songs wasn't playing in the background. It was annoying hearing her sing while he fucked me.

  "Can you turn that down?" I asked.

  "You just told me to turn up," he said back as he long-stroked me.

  "I was talking about your dick, not the music, baby ..."

  "What's wrong with the music? You don't like my raps?"

  "I do. Just not the songs with Kirbie on them."

  "Grin and bear it," he told me.

  I let him keep pounding my backside only because I didn't want to ruin a good fuck session. Over the past few months I felt like I had been losing him to the studio, and the times we did get to spend together I tried to cherish.

  So I'd forgive him for the music today, as long as he continued to make my pussy queef and hiss like it was now. But tomorrow, I was hiding any and all CDs that featured Kirbie.

  My qualm with Kirbie was less about jealousy and more about proximity. This bitch was around my man more than me! Maybe I needed to start singing; maybe I'd get more Coras time. The only problem was I couldn't sing. At least not good enough to get signed to Swope Records, apparently.

  Another thing that pissed me off about Kirbie was how she always felt the need to tag Coras in almost all of her status updates. Bitch, you got a man! Tag Archie! Every other day she was posting a selfie with him in the studio, or at the local record store 7th Heaven dropping off discs, selfies with him pouring her drinks or laughing together. I was waiting for her to post the selfie of them fucking so I could post the selfie of me killing them both! I wouldn't be surprised if people on The Site thought Kirbie was his girl and not me.
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br />   There was Ashleigh Hedgman too. Coras's manager. She was on my watch-list too. She wasn't as crowding as Kirbie, but I was still suspicious of her. I never trusted light-skinned bitches, and Ashleigh was near white. Every time she came to the house she'd look at me like I was beneath her. Just because you could speak better than somebody didn't mean you were better than that person.

  "Yo booty is my bae," Coras said, snapping me out of my negative thoughts.

  I smiled. Coras always said something stupid whenever he was in the middle of cumming inside of me. I just hoped this time his cum found a home. I should have been pregnant by now. And I didn't know if it was his biology or mine that was holding us up.

  Coras pulled out of me, ever so slow. This was the worst part for me, feeling Mr. Pete’s weight exit my moist womb. It felt like theft.

  Don't go, Pete. Stay a little longer ...

  "Can we go see a movie today?" I asked.

  Coras was pulling on his jeans. "What movie?"

  "I don't know. Any one. I just wanna see it with you."

  "Just tell me what movie you wanna see. I can get it on DVD from Gee Beats's cousin. He always got the new releases, even the ones still in the theatre."

  "I don't wanna sit here and watch a bootleg movie in the house. I wanna go out on the town with you and experience Kansas City. I wanna tag us outdoors together on The Site, show people we're still in love. They have a new theatre in Overland Park."

  "I'd love to go out with you tonight, but I gotta go to the studio. Successful people do what they have to do whether they want to or not. I got a company to build."

  Fuck that company, I thought. You've been rapping for years and haven't been on nobody's Billboard list yet.

  "Find out what movie you wanna watch and text it to me," he said on his way to the bathroom. "We'll watch it when I get back."

  The problem was I would be sleep by the time he got back. He stayed in the studio till two and three in the morning, regularly. Then expected me to wake up and suck his dick.

  Sometimes I felt like he was tolerating me because he was buying dope from my big brother.

  "That better not be the case," I mumbled to myself.

  My phone chimed, letting me know I had a notification from The Site. I rolled over onto my back so I could reach my phone on the nighstand, and in doing so I felt Coras's cum shift inside of me. I bent my knees so it didn't escape, then brought my phone up and swiped the screen.

  Kirbie had made a new status update. I had my Site page set up to notify me whenever she posted online. Why would I track somebody I hated? Simple: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Her status read:

  Kirbie Amor: Be Careful of the ones you love. They'll turn on you in a snap. When they do, make sure you're prepared to keep it moving. #NewSongAboutBetrayal #ComingSoon #NeverLetAManPutHisHandsOnYou

  The first thing that came to my mind after reading her status was, Her and Archie must be having problems. Smiling, I went to Archie's profile page to confirm my suspicions. His latest update read:

  ArchieGotSkittles36: I wanna let everybody know what really happened but I know it’s not appropriate for the internet. But I will say this: Why am I the one bleeding? You act like a man so take yo lick like one. Weren’t you in the wrong first? #ThingsThatMakeYouGoHmm #iMightNeedCrutches #KindnessForWeakness

  Drama! I loved it when two people in a relationship had accessible Site pages. It was a soap opera. As far as my own situation, I liked to post my feelings about my love life a lot but my man, Coras, barely used social media at all so Site users only got my side of the story. With Kirbie and Archie, their relationship was an open book.

  I clicked Like on Archie's post, then logged off of the Site—only to log in as Coras. What I was about to do was wrong, but I didn't care.

  I went back to Kirbie's profile page to leave a comment in Coras's name. Coras would be none the wiser because, like I said, he rarely ever used social media. He hadn't caught me posting stats in his name yet and if he ever did suspect me of tampering with his Site page I would just deny it and blame it on a hacker.

  Under Kirbie's latest post, I typed:

  Coras Bane: Good thing I don't have to worry about a loved one turning they back on me. @MonifaChavis always got my back.

  As soon as saw that the post updated successfully, I turned my phone off and set it back down on the nightstand. I hugged my knees to my nude chest, smiling like a little girl. Some people would call what I just did hating. But when it was your man involved, it was called strategizing to protect what's yours.

  CHAPTER 7

  Kirbie Amor Capelton

  I was at my father's house in my old room, laying in my old bed. It hadn't changed much since I left the house at 14 years old—all the furniture was in the same place and there were no posters on the wall because my daddy never let me pin up any. The room remained neutral. You couldn't tell if this was a boy or girl's room.

  Not being able to personalize my space was one of many things that made me run away so young and never come back. But the number one thing was the physical abuse. My father beat me for the smallest shit back then. And sometimes he hit me for no reason at all. He had been suffering from alcoholism, which intensified whenever he thought of my mother who left him—who left us—shortly after I was born.

  I remember the single horrific incident that made me run away like my mother had. He used the iron instead of the belt. The first swing was the worst. The iron was still hot; it stamped me in my ribs, breaking them. I hadn't even known what I'd done.

  "Daddy, please!" I had screamed as I scrambled to the edge of my bed, rolling off of it onto the floor. It was the worst thing I could have done. I had boxed myself into a corner. "Daddy, what did I do?!"

  "You snore like your mother," he had slurred. "You're doing it on purpose ..."

  It was at that point, as he winded up the iron by its cord again, I realized that as much as I tried not to be like my mother—a mother I had never met and knew nothing about—there was no way I could undo his comparisons. I wasn't even safe in my sleep.

  But after I found Archie and I'd been away from home for a few years, my father sunk deeper into depression and finally found God. He started going to church faithfully. He changed his life around, stopped drinking cold turkey, and we were able to repair our relationship. I could come here whenever I was having problems with Archie.

  This was the first time Archie hit me, and I was still surprised that I had shot him. How did I have the courage to put a bullet in Archie, who barely left a scratch on me, and not ever even attempted to fight my father back? I guess it was maturity. I was older now. No man better not ever put his hands on me.

  My phone twinkled. It was another Site notification from my subliminal post about Archie. I was surprised to see that Coras, Mr. Sometimey-Internet-User, had commented on something so personal.

  Coras Bane: Good thing I don't have to worry about a loved one turning they back on me. @MonifaChavis always got my back.

  Completely uncalled for! Why would he post that under my status? Where everyone else was leaving me comments of encouragement, he felt the need to throw it in my face that he had his relationship under control. Was this some kind of evil get-back from me being late to the studio yesterday? Sometimes I didn't understand Coras. One minute he was all up under Monifa and Ashleigh, the next minute he was sending me subliminal messages in songs. He needed to make up his mind. I loved Coras, but I'd rather take a little bit of physical abuse from Archie than the mental abuse of Coras's cheating ways.

  "What are you doing here, Kirbie?"

  I looked up from my phone. It was my dad at the door. Benjamin Capelton. He was a short man with a large belly who loved wearing flannel jackets. The one he had on now was brown and black. He had a nice set of hair on his head, but it had long went gray. So had his beard. His eyes were worn, but he still looked a lot more lively than he had when he used to be a heavy drinker.

  "I knew you were here bec
ause I smelled your feet as soon as I walked out of my room," he smiled.

  I had my socks off. I brought a foot up close to my face as far as I could stretch—I used to be able to make my big toe touch my nose—and I sniffed. I didn't smell a thing. My dad thought he was a part-time comedian now. This was the father I wished I had grown up with as a child.

  "Your mother's feet smelled the same way," he said, sitting down beside me. I sat up and gave him a hug. As I pulled away, he suddenly looked at me strangely, as if I had something on my face. "What happened? Archie hit you?"

  I hadn't known the smack left a mark. I touched my face and felt light pain, so I got up to look in the mirror.

  My jawline was bruised.

  "Do you want me to get something for that?" my father asked.

  "No, I'm fine. It was an accident. It's not that bad."

  "I insist, Kirbie."

  "I said I'm fine, Daddy."

  He got up and left. I was waiting for him to come back with a pack of ice when I suddenly heard a click-clack, and then I saw him walking past my room with his shotgun. I ran out and grabbed him by the arm.

  "Daddy, go put that back!"

  "No, Kirbie. Let me take care of it."

  I took the shotgun from him. "I thought you were a man of God now?"

  "I'm only human, Kirbie. I can't sit by and let that nigga do you ..." He stopped himself.

  I knew what he was about to say. I can't sit by and let that nigga do you like I used to do you.