by CJ Hudson
“Leave? You always wanna hurry up and go when we’re having a good time,” Ivory said as she folded her arms and pouted.
“Please! I have to be at work at ten o’clock in the morning! I’m not trying to get fucked up all night with you and miss my damn money!”
“Oh, okay,” Ivory said, shrugging her shoulders.
After smoking two blunts and downing half a bottle of Hennessy with Tammy, Ivory was extremely horny. She laughed when she thought back to how Tammy had played her once again.
“That bitch only drank one glass of this shit,” she said as she looked at the bottle and laughed. Tammy had always been a light drinker. Every time they got together, it would take her three times the amount of time to drink one glass of liquor as it took Ivory to drink three. Ivory never noticed until after Tammy was long gone.
Ivory walked over to the kitchen table and picked up her cell phone. Heat radiated through her body as she thought about her boyfriend, Darnell, and how she wanted to slobber him down. Ivory and Darnell had been together for the past two years. Their on-again, off-again relationship had its share of ups and downs, but through it all, she had his back, and he had hers.
Darnell was a high school basketball star who dropped out when he injured his knee and it was obvious that no one was going to offer him a scholarship. His grades were already subpar, and the fact that he’d torn the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee all but snuffed out the free ride he was counting on. Darnell knew that he wasn’t going to get to college on his grades alone, and with a baby already on the way, he decided that he needed to make some money, and fast.
When the job he had wasn’t paying enough for him to take care of his seed, Darnell turned to selling drugs as a way to make ends meet. He wasn’t a kingpin by any means, but he did make enough bread to live comfortably and break off to his baby mama to stay out of the courthouse. He only kept his job to make it look good.
Feeling especially naughty tonight, Ivory hung up the phone before Darnell could answer. Then she went to her closet and took out the black trench coat that Darnell had bought her for her birthday. With a devilish grin on her face, Ivory stripped down to her birthday suit, ran to the bathroom, and jumped in the shower. After getting herself cleaned up, Ivory rubbed coconut-scented lotion all over her body, splashed some perfume on, and wrapped the trench coat around her naked body. Ivory grabbed the keys to her 2005 Ford Taurus and headed out the door on a mission to get her freak on.
When Ivory pulled up in Darnell’s driveway, she was surprised to find it empty. She had talked to him earlier in the day before she’d hooked up with Tammy. He assured her that he was tired from making moves all day and he was just looking to relax. That was one of the reasons she’d chosen not to bother him for the day.
Shrugging her shoulders, Ivory backed out of his driveway, drove down the street until she found an empty spot and parked. She reached into her glove compartment and took out the key to Darnell’s apartment. She’d secretly had it made a year ago and would go over and snoop around from time to time when she knew that Darnell would be out of town. He may have been good to her, but he was still a man, and Ivory didn’t trust any men.
Ivory let herself in and glanced around the house. Except for a few things moved around, everything looked like it did the last time she was over at Darnell’s house. Even though she had consumed a large amount of liquor throughout the day, Ivory still felt the urge to sip more alcohol. She didn’t want to drink too much and end up passing out before she got a chance to get her some dick, so she made sure to fix herself a light drink.
After mixing the Hennessy and Coke, Ivory took off her trench coat, sat down on Darnell’s couch, and crossed her legs. She sat there for a full ten minutes, sipping her drink before deciding that she could set the mood better in the bedroom. The three-inch heels that she had on click-clacked across the floor, making a loud echoing sound as she entered Darnell’s sleeping quarters. Once inside, she sniffed twice, just to see if there was a hint of sex in the air.
I’m being silly, she thought, shaking her head. Hell, if I did smell sex, it’s probably the lingering scent from Darnell blowing my back out a couple of days ago.
As she sashayed her way over to the bed, the liquor kicked in even more. Her pussy was on fire as she lay back onto the bed and fingered herself. She was so hot that it didn’t take long for her to reach her first orgasm. But masturbating only gave her a small sense of satisfaction. Ivory craved to feel Darnell inside of her. She thought about calling him again but resisted the urge. She wanted this to be a total surprise.
As the effects of drinking half the night finally caught up with her, Ivory hurried to the bathroom and sat down on the toilet just in time. Relief surged through her body as piss shot out of her bladder. After wiping herself, Ivory was just about to flush the toilet when she heard the front door slam.
Knowing that she would not be able to get back to the bedroom in time to lie back down on the bed, Ivory jumped in the shower and pulled the curtain closed. She knew from past experience that Darnell almost always went to take a leak as soon as he came in the house, so the only way for her to keep the surprise alive was to hide.
Right on cue, Darnell walked in, unzipped his pants, and emptied his bladder. Feeling the urge to sneeze, Ivory started to panic. Before she could get her fingers to her nose . . .
“Achoo!”
Darnell’s head snapped around so fast he almost caught whiplash. With his eyes trained on the shower curtain, Darnell reached behind his back and took out his 9 mm pistol. With one hand, he aimed. With the other one, he pulled back the shower curtain. Surprise and shock registered on his face as Ivory stood there, looking like a sex goddess.
“Surprise, baby,” she said, seductively licking her lips. “I see somebody’s glad to see me.” Ivory’s eyes were now glued to Darnell’s dick. Things had happened so fast that Darnell had forgotten to put his penis back inside his pants. Nervously, Darnell started to put his tool back into his pants.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Ivory said. With the grace of a ballerina, Ivory leaped out of the shower and got down on her knees. Before Darnell could protest, Ivory grabbed his meat and stuffed it into her mouth.
“Oh, shit,” Darnell moaned in pleasure. It felt so good to him that he forgot all about the company waiting for him in his bedroom.
“Darnell, baby, hurry up,” a voice called from the bedroom.
Ivory stopped in mid-suck. “Who the fuck is that?” she yelled.
“Huh? Who?”
“Don’t play with me! Who the fuck is that calling you?” Ivory asked as she got up from her knees. When Darnell didn’t answer, Ivory bolted through the bathroom door and sped toward the bedroom.
“Ivory, wait! Hold up! You said that we were through after our last fight,” Darnell yelled to her as he ran after her.
“I always say that shit,” she yelled back to him. When Ivory reached the bedroom, she found a light-skinned girl with short, spiked blond hair sitting Indian-style on Darnell’s bed.
“Bitch, what the fuck you doing in my man’s bedroom?”
“Excuse me? Who the fuck you think you talking to?”
“I’m talking to yo’ ass! What the fuck you doing in my man’s bedroom?”
“Yo’ man? Please! He wasn’t yo’ man when he was finger fucking me at the movies tonight!”
A slick smile crossed Darnell’s lips as Ivory’s mouth hung open. Before Darnell could stop her, Ivory stormed across the room and grabbed the smaller woman by the throat. The woman responded by scratching Ivory on the face. This only served to piss Ivory off even more. While squeezing her neck with her left hand, Ivory drew back and punched her in the face with her right. The girl’s arms went limp as the force of Ivory’s blow dazed her. Ivory got off two more punches before Darnell ran over and pulled her off the girl.
“Get off me! Get the fuck off of me! I’m gonna beat the brakes off that bitch!”
“Nah, ma, what you gonna do
is take yo’ ass home!”
“What? You kicking me out over some bum-ass bitch you just met?”
“Fuck you,” the girl screamed from across the room. The way she flinched when Ivory lunged at her was a clear indication that she didn’t want any more of Ivory.
Darnell grabbed Ivory by the waist, picked her up, and carried her into the hallway. “You need to calm the fuck down!”
“Fuck that! How could you do this shit to me?”
“What the fuck are you talking about? As I recall, the last words you said to me were, ‘Nigga, we through,’” he said, imitating her. “Was I supposed to just brush that shit off like it didn’t fucking happen?”
“I’m just saying,” she said with tears running down her face, “we break up all the time.”
“Yeah, we do! And that’s the fucking problem! This ‘break up to make up’ shit is getting old! That’s high school shit, and my prom has long been over with! I ain’t got time for these little punk-ass games! I’m out here every day throwing rocks at the penitentiary, trying to get it in not only for myself, but for yo’ ass too! So unless you stop actin’ so fucking juvenile, I suggest you find you a new nigga, ya feel me?”
Just then, the girl who was in the bedroom stormed past them. “You know what? I ain’t got time for this love triangle bullshit! Call me when you get rid of this ho!” She made it out the door just in time as Ivory’s shoe crashed up against the door.
Darnell just smiled slightly and shook his head. All of a sudden, his smile faded. “Wait a minute. How the fuck did you get in here? I know damn well I locked that damn door,” he said, looking at Ivory sideways.
“I climbed in through the window,” she said, spitting out the rehearsed lie with no problem. “As you can see, I was trying to surprise you.”
Ivory twirled around to give Darnell a good look at her body. Amid the confusion, Darnell had stopped noticing that Ivory was naked. Darnell then scooped her up and carried her into the bedroom, where he made love to her well into the next day.
* * *
The constant beeping of Tammy’s alarm clock sounded like fireworks going off in her head. Finally, after not being able to take it anymore, she reached over and hit the snooze button. She had just drifted back off to sleep when it started beeping again. This time she turned it completely off. Fifteen minutes later, it went off again.
“What the fuck? I know I turned that damn thing off.”
“You did. I turned it back on and reset it . . . and watch your mouth in my house, young lady,” Tammy’s mother chided her.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Ma. I didn’t even know that you were in the room.”
“Mm-hmm. Don’t you have to be at work at ten o’clock?”
“Yeah. I’m going to get up in a minute,” she said as she lay back down and covered her head with the pillow.
“You betta get yo’ behind up, come downstairs, and eat this food I cooked.”
Even though she didn’t feel like it, Tammy knew better than to question her mother when she said something. Janice Green was old school when it came to child-rearing. She wouldn’t hesitate to slap Tammy or Hakim in the mouth if they ever made the mistake of disrespecting her.
Tammy rolled out of her bed and staggered down the hall toward the bathroom. Hakim bumped her as he walked past her on his way to the kitchen.
“Watch it, asshole.”
Hakim gave her the finger and kept walking. He was obviously still upset that she wouldn’t lend him $5.
After getting washed up, Tammy headed downstairs and sat at the opposite end of the table from her brother.
“Hakim, do you have to work today?” his mother asked as she set the table.
“Yeah, unfortunately.”
“What do you mean, unfortunately? In these hard times, you’re lucky to even have a job.”
“This job ain’t paying me nothing. I can’t even buy a pair of tennis shoes with the little bit of money they paying me there.”
Janice waved her hand at her son’s complaints and walked back to the stove. She always made sure that her children ate before she did.
“Yo, sis, you should’ve seen the shoes Mike had on when he came into the store two weeks ago. Then he bought two more pair that was just as nice.”
“I guess you’ve forgotten what Mike does to get the money to buy those nice shoes,” Janice reminded her son.
“Maybe I should be doing what that nigga doing then. That way, I can keep some money in my pocket.”
Crack!
The last word had barely made it out of his mouth when his bell was rung from a spatula upside the head. The one thing in this world Janice hated was drug dealers. In her mind, if a drug dealer could spend all that time hanging out on the corner selling drugs, he could just as easily be holding down a job. “Have you lost your damn mind talking about selling drugs in my house?”
Hakim jumped up with his fists clenched at his sides. Janice responded by grabbing a butcher knife off the counter. Afraid that she was about to lose her only sibling, Tammy jumped between Hakim and her mother.
“I wish yo’ ass would hit me! I’ll bury your ass right next to your father!”
As soon as the words left her mouth, Janice instantly regretted it. Although she was still bitter about her husband leaving her, she knew that it was wrong to talk about her kids’ father that way. Hakim slammed his fist down on the table and stormed out the door.
“Hakim, wait,” Tammy said, running after him. Catching him just before he reached the curb, Tammy put her hand on his shoulder. “She didn’t mean it.”
“Get the hell off of me,” he screamed.
Tammy just stood there feeling helpless as her brother headed off down the street. She prayed to God that he was going to work.
* * *
Tammy sat on the bus quietly, thinking to herself. She was in her own world as thoughts of her younger brother dominated her mind. The last thing she wanted was for him to get tangled up in the web of the streets. They were cold, ruthless, and above all, heartless. The streets didn’t care that her only sibling was only 17 years old. They didn’t care that he had a bright future ahead of him. The streets had no pity for the innocent. They had even less for the African American male. And then, when the street’s cousin, crack, entered the neighborhood, it was a wrap.
Death became the street’s not-so-silent partner as young black after young black suffered violent deaths. Tammy struggled to fight back the tears that threatened to fall from her eyes. It split her heart in half to see the direction her brother was headed in. She’d known all along that he was unhappy at the amount of money he made at Foot Locker. Since his grades were in decent shape, she had hoped that she could talk him into following in her footsteps and attending college. But seeing the anger in his eyes and hearing it in his voice about being broke led her to the conclusion that he was leaning more toward learning lessons in crack than learning lessons in the classroom.
Although Tammy knew her brother was wrong for coming sideways at his mother, she wished like hell that her mother hadn’t hit him. Hakim was going to hold that against her, and Tammy was going to have to find some way to smooth things over with her brother and mother.
Tammy stepped off the bus at Richmond and Monticello and made her way into Richmond Town Square Mall. After a brief stop at the food court to grab a few napkins, Tammy headed to her job at the JCPenney department store.
She took the napkins and dabbed the corners of her eyes. The last thing she wanted was for her nosy coworkers to start asking a bunch of questions. After clocking in, Tammy walked to her assigned work area and took a deep breath. She knew that she had to put her game face on in order to do her job competently.
Besides, she still wanted to do her job to the best of her ability. She owed them that much. She’d learned through the grapevine that they had been planning on laying her off, but Tammy begged them to let her stay on the job, at least part-time. She explained to the manager that, since she was going to b
e going to school, she needed this job to keep a few dollars in her pocket. By the time she got to the part about how she had saved for a year to be able to go to school, he told her that she could stay there as long as she wanted. It didn’t hurt that he was also a product of the inner city, so he sympathized with young black kids trying to make something of themselves. Tammy had quit her other job two weeks ago, so she desperately needed to keep this one.
Tammy looked around at all the clothes that she was responsible for sorting. Only after she started working did she realize how tired she really was. Staying out until one in the morning was taking its toll on her. Wait a minute. She paused as a sudden thought occurred to her. Where the hell is Nancy? She’s supposed to be helping me sort through this shit.
Tammy grabbed the phone off the wall. She had every intention of dialing the supervisor’s extension and inquiring about Nancy’s whereabouts. But before she could dial the number, Nancy walked in looking like death warmed over. Her normally bouncy curls were scattered all over her head. Her eyes were red and slightly sunken into the back of her head. Her skin, which was usually smooth and vibrant, was ashy. Tammy started to go off on her until she looked at Nancy a little more closely.
“What the hell happened to you?”
“Don’t even ask,” Nancy said, holding up her hand. “I had a long-ass night.”
“Well, I’m glad your ass finally decided to show the fuck up for work. Separating all this shit is a fucking headache.”
“Shit, I barely made it in here. I started to call the hell off,” Nancy responded. “I’d rather be anywhere but here today.”
Tammy looked at her watch and noticed that Nancy was over an hour late. The more she thought about it, it dawned on her that Nancy had started being late more and more often. She had also been calling off quite a bit, so if she felt as bad as she said she did, Tammy didn’t know why she just didn’t call off today as well.
