Stealing Candy

by Allison Hobbs

  The girls blushed and giggled, obviously enamored by the physical attractiveness of Khalil’s students.

  Khalil got down to business. “It’s already eighty-four degrees and it’s going to get hotter. I apologize for asking you to work in this heat.”

  “That’s okay,” Amirah murmured, forgetting that she’d been complaining about the weather. Amirah placed her hand on the waistline of her drawstring shorts, and stood in a feminine manner in which Saleema had never seen her stand.

  Chyna’s glistening lips parted, showing off even, white teeth. “We don’t mind.” She flashed the boys with a big, flirtatious smile.

  “I realize that this would be less daunting if we put up the flyers after the sun goes down,” Khalil said. “Unfortunately, we don’t have another second to waste. A young girl…one of your friends… is missing. An eyewitness states that she got in a car with an adult male. She hasn’t been seen since. We believe her life is in danger and want to get her away from her kidnapper and back home safely.”

  There was something about Khalil’s serious attitude and professional demeanor that encouraged the girls to be on their best behavior. Surprisingly, there were no more complaints about the heat or their dislike of Portia.

  Working in pairs, Khalil and Saleema and the group of young adults covered the area with Portia’s image on sheets of paper, headed by the word: MISSING.

  CHAPTER 25

  “How do you like her hair?” Flashy asked Bullet. His devilish grin expressed malicious triumph.

  In the makeshift beauty salon in his basement, Flashy had spitefully tinted Brielle’s hair with streaks of blue, raspberry, and yellow.

  Brielle hadn’t been given a mirror. Her drowsy eyes shifted to Gianna’s face, searching for an answer regarding the status of her hair.

  Unable to meet Brielle’s medicated gaze, Gianna looked away in embarrassment.

  Both Bubbles and Brielle were given an assortment of drugs on a daily basis. Gianna was often given the task of administering the pills.

  Bullet said Bubbles needed medication to keep her from fighting with the customers. And Brielle was drugged because he was sick of hearing her whining and crying about her baby.

  With a squinted eye, Bullet took in the botched dye job. “Where’d you get your beautician’s license? You got her dome looking like a pack of Skittles,” he said, laughing.

  “You told me to fix it so she’d be unrecognizable.”

  “It’s all good. I like the look.”

  “You do?” Flashy asked, shocked and annoyed.

  “Yeah, I wasn’t feeling that name, Tootsie Roll. This bitch is getting a new name. I’m calling her Skittles from now on.”

  Flashy threw up his hands in defeat. “That name is stupid.” He plopped into a chair and sulked because Bullet was pleased with the hairstyle he’d created out of malice.

  “All I need is a few more pieces of candy and my stable’s gon’ be tight,” Bullet bragged.

  “You need to make it happen with the three hoes you already got.” Flashy fanned out the masculine fingers on his left hand and turned up his nose. “I thought you’d have all the fingers on at least one of my hands blinging by now. I’m supposed to be Chester’s version of Kimora Lee Simmons. When is my fabulosity gonna pop off?”

  “I ain’t on your timeframe.”

  “Obviously, you ain’t on no type of timeframe. You slackin’, boo.”

  “I’m not putting these young hoes out on front street right now. They gotta keep working on the low until we can move to the West Coast, Hawaii, or somewhere.”

  “Another pipe dream. Now that you’ve discovered Chester, you ain’t going anywhere. You like the feeling of being a big fish in a small pond.”

  “Fuck Chester. Ain’t nobody trying be lingering in this lil’ hick town.”

  There was some truth in Flashy’s words. Bullet could never be a heavy hitter in Philly. Gianna recalled how Bullet had backed down to the baller dude who was driving the Escalade that day when Bullet had tracked her down, barefoot with his curls wet with shampoo lather.

  Though Bullet was secretive about his sex operation, Gianna knew that in Chester he’d been getting a level of respect that he’d never gotten in Philly. She’d overheard Flashy fussing plenty of times about the way Bullet was drawing unnecessary attention by flashing his knot of money when he bought drinks for strangers and gave out big tips in the local bars.

  “So take your ass back to Philly; ain’t nobody holding a gun to your head, either. You and these drugged-up bitches ain’t doing nothing for me but tearing up my beautiful house.”

  Bullet’s cell pinged. Body leaning, he checked out the screen with a big, twisted grin. “Money call,” he announced and then put the cell back in his pocket. He clapped his hands together. “Let’s bounce. Lollipop and Skittles…you two hoes about to showcase your talents in a freaky duet.”

  Heading for the front door, Skittles walked unsteadily ahead of Bullet and Gianna. Bullet whispered in Lollipop’s ear, “While the trick is up in that ass, you need to be rustling through his pockets. You know the drill.”

  “Yeah, I know it.”

  Bullet slipped Gianna his knife. “Poke that muthafucka if he tries to rewrite the script.”

  The motel room stank to high heavens, but the trick didn’t seem to notice. His moans of ecstasy filled the room.

  High as a kite, Skittles’ mouth hung open, her tongue lolled, and her eyes were at half-mast as she endured anal penetration without a care in the world.

  Revolted, Gianna looked away. Then forcing herself to focus on the task at hand, she returned her gaze to the trick.

  His wrinkly eyes were squeezed shut as he plowed into Skittles. Normally, this would have been a good time for Gianna to strike. But she couldn’t get near his wallet with his pants hanging around his ankles.

  Shit! The old, crusty trick was making her job harder than it needed to be.

  She hadn’t done her share of the sex work because the gray-haired, white man was so excited about getting between Skittles’ tiny butt cheeks; he seemed to forget that he had paid Bullet for services from both girls.

  Bullet would be heated if she didn’t leave the motel with all dude’s money and valuables. Fuck! She’d started using a lot of profanity lately…out loud and in her head.

  While Gianna tried to come up with a plan, she heard ol’ boy groan. The sound of him climaxing was loud and torturous, as if he were on the verge of a massive heart attack.

  Ol’ boy pulled out and Skittles collapsed on her tummy with a smile on her face. Gianna couldn’t tell if Skittles was glad that the session was over or just blissfully high.

  Gasping and breathing hard, the trick rolled down the feces-spattered condom and flicked it inside the waste bin.

  Ew! She felt like gagging. The room smelled worse than before. She hated doing duets with nasty-ass Skittles. Working with Bubbles was easier on Gianna’s weak stomach.

  “I’ll be ready for you in a minute,” he gasped, his breathing so ragged and uneven, he sounded like he was about to croak.

  Gianna’s eyes scanned the room as she tried to figure out how to separate the trick and his assets without him noticing.

  He reached downward and dug inside a pants pocket. “I know I brought another condom.”

  “What do you need another condom for?”

  His eyes, clouded by glaucoma or some old folk’s disease, lit up like sunshine. “You don’t mind if I go bareback?”

  Gianna turned up her nose. “I’m not doing anything unless you take a shower.” Then it hit her! Get the nasty old geezer in the shower, and then scrounge through his pockets.

  She’d take his money, credit cards, and anything else worth having, and then she’d grab Skittles, and be out.

  But Skittles was naked. Best to get her dressed before she tried to carry out her scheme.

  Her voice turned to honey. “Wanna know what turns me on?”

  “What’s that?”

/>   “Sex in the shower.”

  “Really?”

  “There’s something about the feeling of warm water splashing against my back while I’m on my knees, taking your big dick between my lips. Mmm.” She licked her lips, suggesting that he possessed the key to her own sexual bliss.

  The trick gave a groan of sexual delight. He kicked off his pants, allowing them to fall on the floor. He gave her a wink as he began to unbutton his shirt. Slowly, teasingly, as if he were a male stripper preparing to reveal an oiled and well-sculpted torso. What he revealed was a skeletal frame with ripples of loose, dry skin.

  His dick, now limp, was average size…not big as Gianna had claimed to pump up his ego. At this man’s age…fifty or sixty, Gianna couldn’t tell, she simply had him pegged as an old fool who should have known that it would be next to impossible to get his pecker back up and operating.

  Gianna looked worriedly at the bedside clock.

  “What’s wrong?” the trick asked.

  “I only have a half-hour left to spend with you.” She poked out her lips, pouting as if a mere half-hour would deprive her of quality dick-sucking time.

  “I can pay you more,” he said eagerly, reaching inside a pants pocket and extracting a worn leather wallet.

  “Okay.” She didn’t set a price. She held out her hand and accepted the extra fifty-dollar bill that he placed inside her palm. Her eyes, however, were set on the bulk of the wallet as he folded it and returned it to his pocket.

  “Ready for the shower?” the trick wanted to know.

  “Um…we should get her dressed. When my boyfriend calls, I have to be ready to go.”

  “Does he beat you?” he asked, his voice a mixture of excitement and repugnance.

  “All the time.”

  “How old are you?”

  “I’ll get in trouble if I give out my age.”

  “Okay, I don’t want to cause you any problems.”

  “Help me get her dressed.” Gianna nodded her head toward Skittles, who was sprawled out and snoring.

  “I guess I gave her a real workout?” he said, taking credit for Skittles’ state of exhaustion.

  “Yup, you sure did.” Gianna put Skittles’ bra and panties in her bag. No point in wasting time trying to get her into her underwear.

  Holding Skittles by her shoulders, the trick held her upright while Gianna worked her tank top over her head. But getting Skittles into her skintight jeans proved to be a difficult task.

  “Why don’t we finish getting her dressed after you take care of me?” the man suggested, his tone changing from patient to agitated as he pushed strands of gray hair from his sweaty face.

  “No, I have to get her dressed and ready to roll. I can’t be late. My boyfriend…well, he’s more like my manager, but he’ll get mad if I’m not on time for my next appointment.”

  “Oh, yeah? This manager of yours…Does he slap you around when you’re late?” The trick’s eyes widened with interest.

  “I wish.”

  “Really? You wish he’d slap you around?”

  “No. What I meant was, I wish that was the worst of what he does to me.”

  “Wanna talk about it? You can be honest with me. This manager guy sets up your appointments. Do you get to keep any of the profits?”

  “No.”

  “So he’s actually your pimp?”

  If there wasn’t so much freaky excitement in his eyes, she might have thought she could trust the man with the big secret—that she was not turning tricks on her own free will. But it was apparent that her status of unwitting flesh peddler would simply be another turn-on for this pervert.

  “Yeah, he’s my pimp.”

  He shook his head at the shame of it all. “Does this pimp of yours beat you with a wire hanger?”

  She zippered Skittles’ jeans. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Okay. That’s understandable.” Fondling his dick, the trick sprang up from the bed, wielding a full-blown hard-on.

  Viagra, Gianna told herself.

  “That pimp of yours told me you were a very experienced young woman. I guess you inner city girls start giving blow jobs from the crib,” he said, and then chuckled at his wit.

  His comment had Gianna steaming on the inside, but she smiled at him as if she had taken the slur as a big compliment.

  “Get the water ready while I get undressed,” she said, using her best interpretation of a sexy voice. “Make it nice and warm for me.”

  He didn’t have to be told twice. The trick took off his watch and raced to the bathroom, leaving Gianna alone with his pants and his bulging wallet.

  The first thing she did was inspect the watch. It was a worthless Timex. Fuck! She clipped his wallet and stuck it in her bag. She should have grabbed up Skittles next and quickly yanked her out of the motel room. But Gianna was too mad to let the trick’s comment go unpunished. She strolled into the bathroom with Bullet’s shank in her hand.

  Like the famous scene from the old movie, Psycho, Gianna yanked back the shower curtain.

  Startled, the trick wiped water from his eyes. “Why didn’t you take your clothes off?”

  Gianna didn’t answer. She swiftly attacked him with the knife, poking his left hip, and then his thigh.

  “Ahh!” he yelled. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he screamed when she stepped inside the shower and punctured both his arms with amazingly rapid speed.

  “I should disembowel you, you pervert bastard,” she spat, leaving him hanging onto the shower curtains, cut in several places, but not seriously injured.

  Slipping around inside the shower stall, the trick tried to assess the damage.

  Meanwhile, Gianna, angry at the world, smacked the shit out of Skittles. “Get up, girl. We gotta bounce.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Tired of living out of storage spaces, and sick of listening to Flashy bitch about the invasion of his privacy, Bullet moved the three kidnapped girls into a rented house in a remote section of Chester.

  The ramshackle single house was a two-story residence that needed exterior and interior repairs. Not wanting to draw any unnecessary attention to his trio of young captives, Bullet did not request that the landlord make any of the badly needed repairs.

  No one in the town of Chester seemed interested in how Bullet earned his livelihood. No one had inquired about the young girls who were seen riding around in his car. The residents who lived nearby, ravished by drugs and poverty, were either too high or too preoccupied with their own daily survival to be concerned about Bullet’s association with the girls.

  He had felt vulnerable and paranoid in Philadelphia, a city with an assortment of missing kids’ posters stapled to telephone polls. All eyes cast in his direction seemed filled with suspicion. Fingers appeared positioned to point at him with accusation.

  It was hard to transport the girls back and forth in a city where there was a strong law enforcement presence. Avoiding the cops in Philly was impossible. Too many cops. Squad cars cruising on damn near every city block.

  Inside Chester, Bullet felt cocooned in apathy. The people appeared to move about with blinders on their eyes…unseeing and uncaring of what was taking place around them. The small police department, challenged by the steadily escalating drug war and plagued by a high murder rate, was too busy to notice Bullet and his captives.

  Chester became a safe haven from the law. It was the perfect place for the girls to hustle.

  Right now, he was excited to be in close proximity to the casino where he’d uncovered a large amount of out-of-town clientele. Men just passing through, who didn’t want trouble and who wouldn’t seek justice when their wallets or other goods turned up missing after a tryst with Lollipop and the other two girls. Lollipop, trained to stick and move, was becoming an experienced bandit while Bubbles and Skittles were sexual decoys. Human props.

  Gianna was asleep in Bullet’s bedroom. The oversized, decrepit air conditioner set in the window was turned on high, sending o
ut blasts of frigid air and creating a loud squeal. She snuggled deeper beneath the blue comforter.

  Skittles and Bubbles were in the second bedroom, handcuffed to the metal headboard of the bed they shared.

  “Yo, Lollipop,” Bullet called from the living room where he was smoking a blunt and watching a rerun of MTV Cribs. Overpowered by the blaring TV and the loud air conditioner, his voice wasn’t heard. He called her again.

  He stomped to the bedroom, yanked her arm. He leaned down and bellowed in her ear. “Get the fuck up!”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, bolting upright, unaware of what she was apologizing for.

  “Get up! Wake them bitches up and take ’em to the bathroom before one of ’em pisses the fuckin’ bed!”

  Gianna scrambled out of bed. “You want me to give ’em some more pills before I put ’em back on lockdown?”

  Face scrunched, Bullet searched the ceiling for an answer, and then shook his head. “Nah. I’m sick of seeing them dragging around all doped up. I could be making a helluva lot more dough if you didn’t have to babysit their asses.”

  “I know,” she agreed, hoping that if she went along with his tirade, she could speed things along and get back in bed. She was trying her best to stay focused, but she was sleepy as hell.

  “If I had three bitches working in three different locations, I’d have my new truck by now,” he complained.

  Naked and cold, Gianna hugged herself. She’d worked until six in the morning, and according to the bedside clock, it wasn’t even noon yet. What the hell is he doing up so early in the morning? Snorting that stuff.

  Her feelings for Bullet fluctuated all the time. There were times when she thought she loved him. Believed that he was her man… her daddy who looked out for her best interests.

  Then there were times like now, when he was high as a damn kite. During moments like this, she despised his ass. She imagined herself holding his gun and making him kneel while she fired the weapon at close range, killing the muthafucka, execution-style.

  Though she was extremely sleepy, she knew better than to yawn or even lower her eyes to rest them. Bullet expected her undivided attention. Without protest, she waited for him to come to a conclusion.