by N'Tyse
My Secrets, Your Lies
N’TYSE
www.urbanbooks.net
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Prologue
Sand - September 17, 2000
Sand - May 21, 2003
Sand
Sand
Sand
Rene
Rene
Rene
Sand
Sand
Rene
Sand
Sand
Rene
Rene
Sand
Rene
Rene
Sand
Rene
Sand
Rene
Epilogue
Urban Books, LLC
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My Secrets, Your Lies Copyright © 2016 N’TYSE
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior consent of the Publisher, except brief quotes used in reviews.
ISBN: 978-1-6228-6749-3
This is a work of fiction. Any references or similarities to actual events, real people, living or dead, or to real locales are intended to give the novel a sense of reality. Any similarity in other names, characters, places, and incidents is entirely coincidental.
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Dedicated to those still struggling and learning how to walk and survive in their truth. You are not alone.
Prologue
Present Day
9/24/2016 (Saturday) 1:21 p.m. A.M.V.P Prod. Day 1
BENEATH MY SKIN DOCUMENTARY TAKE 1
INT. STUDIO - DAY
[N’TYSE] “Quiet on set!”
[SAND] “Hold up, hold up. My nerves. I don’t know if I can do this.”
[N’TYSE] “It’s okay. Just try to relax. Remember why you’re here.”
[SAND] Takes a deep breath.
[N’TYSE] “Donyell, will you please bring Sand some water.”
[SAND] Gulps down the water as the makeup artist blots the sweat from her face.
[SAND] “All right. I’m ready. But for the record, I’m here to be the voice for those who can’t find their own.”
* * *
I took a deep breath and drifted far back in time, to when it all started. Before I knew it, I was that confused and afraid little girl again.
Even at the innocent age of eight, I had an attraction to females. I was a straight-up tomboy, and I couldn’t help checking out the pretty girls from across the blacktop as they hula hooped and shook their butts to made-up cheers and dance routines. I would secretly admire them from afar as I played basketball with the guys. It was during the height of my curiosity that those moments stimulated my imagination. I then discovered the ultimate pleasure and rewards of gym time. My immature hormones would allow me only to like what I saw and wonder about the rest as I watched tennis skirts rock from side to side. When I found myself fantasizing almost every night about my first girl crush, that was when I really started questioning if there was something wrong with me.
It wasn’t until I reached high school that the strong attraction and desires that I had always had for girls announced themselves. I was no longer able to control those emotions that tormented my soul and clouded my mind. I went from denying who I was to actually not giving a damn about that box that society tried to force me in, because it was my right to love whom I wanted to love and how I wanted to love. Even after overcoming many struggles, no one could have prepared me for the impact that decision would have on my life forever.
I wasn’t your ordinary kind of guy. I had a few assets that turned women on and a few that turned them off. If I should say so myself, I was one sexy motherfucker. I was mulatto, with flawless sandy-brown skin, hazel-colored eyes, and a tight body. I could finesse the panties off any woman, and I had a pretty boy swagger, which some really couldn’t understand. I had been called all kinds of things in my life, but I didn’t let it bother me, because for once in my life, I was totally comfortable with this body. I no longer sought anyone’s permission to be happy, to be me. I wasn’t constrained by judgment, and I didn’t feel the need to conform to what others believed was “normal.” I rebelled against those idiocies.
My moms and pops kicked me out of the house when I was only sixteen years old, barely a sophomore in high school. I was homeless and left with the responsibility to fend for myself. As if I were not their only child, they made me leave with the clothes on my back, the shoes on my feet, and the “dirty mind” I had shamed them with. I had to beg my homies to let me crash at their spot. I figured out real quick who my real friends were. My homie Tazjuan had my back no matter what. He would sneak me into his crib late at night, after his t-jones fell asleep, and would hook a nigga up with some leftovers.
Taz would even give me some of his clothes, so that I didn’t have to worry about walking around in the same dirty fit every day. I camped out like a fugitive at his spot for about four weeks, until his mom’s jealous and insecure boyfriend popped up one night and blew my cover. Dude had been watching her spot for a whole week, expecting to catch her cheating on him with another man, when all along it was just me crashing for the night. Taz’s mom ripped both of us a new asshole, then told me she wasn’t about to risk her freedom by harboring a minor. She let me stay for the remainder of the night, but the next morning I was back to what I knew best—looking out for my damn self!
It would be a hot minute before I ever spoke to my parents again. While I had made several attempts to reach out to my mom, begging her and my dad to let me come back home, she had told me I was no longer welcome in their house. She’d said that she and my father had been praying that God would have mercy on my soul and that they would continue to pray “the devilish ways” out of me.
“God will heal you, Cassandra,” she would tell me repeatedly, right before going into heavy prayer, followed by the scripture. “If you don’t stop this foolishness now and ask for God’s forgiveness, you’re going to hell! Do you understand what I’m saying, Cassandra? Hell!” she had once cried. “You are going against everything your father and I believe in!” She had stopped with her condemning me to hell long enough to catch a short breath and to collect herself. I recalled feeling so helpless in that moment as tears continued to pour down my face. “How could you do this to us? To me!” she’d demanded to know. At that time, I hadn’t had all the right words. I hadn’t known what she wanted to hear or what she expected to hear, for that matter.
“Mama, this is who I am.” I tried to express myself. Tried to explain things that even I was still seeking the answer for, but I would not dare admit that so willingly then. It was easier just to pretend like I knew this masculine person I was evolving into. I began reciting the lines I had overheard someone who looked like me tell another in a disagreement. It was the first thing that came to mind. The first thing I had ever heard that I could relate to.
“This is how I identify—”
“Stop right there! Don’t give me that nonsense,” she barked. “You’re too young to know the difference. This here ain’t nothing but a phase, and I rebuke it in the name of the Lord!”
“It’s not a phase!” I snapped. “I am gay, Mama! Please . . . just accept that your daughter is gay.”
“Confused maybe. But you are not one of those lesbians!” she yelled.
I remember s
lapping my tears off my face before the guy who had walked up behind me to use the pay phone could see that I was crying.
“I gotta go now. I’ll call you—”
“Don’t even bother,” she interrupted. “I can’t stand seeing you that way.”
Her words of repulsion and disapproval still echoed in my soul, ripping me to the core. She had made me feel as though I had some contagious disease. And honestly, I had even begun questioning if indeed that was the case. After all, I was different.
She and my father wanted nothing more to do with me, and they had made that perfectly clear. Even had gone as far as telling the rest of our family not to have any dealings with me. I became the pariah. It was my punishment for walking in my truth and being unafraid to love my way. But every now and then I couldn’t help but wonder . . . wonder what would have happened . . . had I denied those feelings . . . had I kept pretending . . . had I just . . . just . . . stop being me. . . .
* * *
Tears began to stream down my face. It felt like I had awakened a beast. My wife ran to my side the second someone hollered, “Cut.” She held me. Held me close, like a new mother would her newborn baby. “Breathe,” she told me. “Let it all out.”
My stomach was in knots, and I knew as much as I needed to get my story out, it wasn’t going to be easy. The more I thought about my mother, the harder the tears fell.
“It’s okay,” N’TYSE said, handing me a tissue. When I finally looked up to accept it, not only was she in tears, but so were several other of the crew members. They were right there reliving my journey with me.
Sand
September 17, 2000
“What’s up, baby?” I asked once I heard my girlfriend’s sexy voice on the other end of the line. I took a pull from the fruity-flavored Black & Mild.
“Hey, boo! Wait, why haven’t you left yet?”
“I’m about to walk out the door now.”
“All right. I’ll see you when you get here.”
“Cool. I love you,” I slid in.
“I love you too, babe!”
I hung up the phone and headed out of the two-bedroom apartment that I and my stud bro Spliff shared. Rene couldn’t stand Spliff. She felt he was a bad influence, but it was my idea to keep our business far away from Rene. Rene knew only as much as I wanted her to know, but on the cool, Spliff and I were both slanging out of that spot. It was known as the trap, but we referred to it as our local office suite. And while my stud bro had no problem with his chick bouncing back and forth between places, Rene was never allowed in there. I wasn’t trying to get her caught up like that.
The way our paths had crossed was pure destiny. We were both sixteen and homeless, doing whatever was necessary to survive. I had gotten kicked out, and she was a runaway. Just looking at her, I wouldn’t have thought she was even capable of a thing. She looked so innocent, but I knew better than anybody that looks were definitely deceiving.
I was stung by Rene’s beauty the moment I laid eyes on her. She was a shortie compared to my five-nine stature. She had smooth amber-colored skin, mesmerizing eyes, silky black hair that fell across her shoulders, and a banging Coke bottle figure. Baby girl had it going on. It didn’t take long for me to win her over. We became close friends, and despite all the disrespectful stares we would always get, Rene never felt ashamed or embarrassed to be around me. When I finally told her what the deal was with me, she admitted that she had always felt there was something different about me. Her instincts had been right.
About two weeks later, I was pleading with her to go back home.
“The streets ain’t for a girl like you,” I told her, trying to get her to understand. “Unlike me, you choose to be out here like this. Look around us . . . ,” I said, pointing to a homeless man pissing in a beer can only a few feet from us, while a nappy-headed base head approached every car that came in our direction, begging for money. That was my reality—not hers. I hated the thought of not being able to see her every day, but I didn’t want to see her in that fucked-up situation.
Yet, regardless of how I said it, Rene wasn’t trying to hear it. The pain in her eyes was all too familiar. She had begun to really open up to me. Her birth mother had abandoned her when she was only four years old, and her father was an even further distant memory. She had shared how she had been living with her fourth set of foster parents. She had been with them for only six months, but she hadn’t been happy there, and she’d become tired of being recycled in the foster system. She had told me that with her seventeenth birthday right around the corner, she would be out of the system and finally free. So it had become even more apparent that we were more alike than different—we were conquerors.
Rene and I were laying our head at different spots every night, but that was about to change. I was already pocket-change hustling, meaning I was barely making enough in a day to feed myself, but now I had to hustle twice as hard to take care of both of us. I started out selling nickel bags of weed, but that wasn’t raking in enough ends, not even enough to pay the weekly rate at one of the cheapest, most disgusting motel dumps in the roughest hood in Dallas. That was when I decided to upgrade the product. My supplier fronted me my first major piece of work. The rest, as they say, was history.
* * *
I used my key to unlock the door of her apartment. It was technically ours since I paid all the bills, but we had gotten the lease in her name. I lowered my shades to check out how she’d rearranged the furniture since the last time I was over. Rene had great taste and always kept the place nice and tidy. And with the pink fancy curtains peeled back, the sun lit up the living room. I slid my bag off my right shoulder and tossed it onto the couch. I followed that sweet smell of cucumber melon, her favorite lotion, into the kitchen. She was busting suds in her birthday suit. It was a beautiful sight. I crept up from behind, wrapped my hands around her waist, and pulled her closer to me. As I stroked the hardened chocolate of her perky D breasts, I planted tender kisses along the edge of her neck, licking the morning dew from her skin. She moaned seductively, quivering in response to the art of my stroke. She nestled in my embrace before turning around and greeting me with her smile. She knew exactly what I wanted.
“You’ll have your pussy,” she reassured me, “after we finish this homework.” She smiled lovingly. Rene kissed me on the lips and led me by the hand to the dining room table, where she had laid out an assortment of snacks. She picked up a long oversize shirt of mine that was hanging over one of the chairs and put it on. “This way you can concentrate.” She chuckled.
“Very funny,” I said, grabbing my bag off the couch. I pulled out my textbooks and binder and placed them on the table, beside hers. “I’ll be glad when we finish, man.”
“Damn, babe. Get a grip. We just started.” She laughed, eyeing me strangely.
“Naw, not like that. I’m sayin’ look at us. We doing this shit together.” I held her with my eyes as I took her hand in mine. “My folks thought I wasn’t going to amount to anything. But with this . . .” I pointed to the printouts she had superglued to the front of both of our binders. They were homemade GED certificates, and they served as our motivation and a reminder. She had even gone as far as writing our names on them. “With this,” I continued, “I get to prove everybody wrong.”
She came closer. So close I could feel my jimmy jumping in my pants.
“This ain’t about them, Sand. This”—she put her index finger where mine had just been—“is about proving yourself right.” We allowed her words to marinate for a moment.
I nodded my head and relinquished a smile. “I hear ya, li’l mama.”
“Good! Now, let’s get to work.”
Sand
May 21, 2003
There I stood, trying on my graduation cap and robe. I had accomplished something in my life that I had never thought I would in this life. I had gone from being a high school dropout to actually getting my GED, and now to graduating from community college with an associate of
science degree. I was floating on cloud nine.
I removed the cap from my head, fiddling with the braids that dangled across my shoulders. Rene had braided my hair into sectioned cornrows. She normally would do something creative, like have them crisscross or have them in Iversons, and sometimes she’d throw in twists. She’d freak it out real tight, doing whatever came to mind. I couldn’t believe I’d let her talk me into letting my hair grow back out. She was determined to see me rock a different look. She parted and greased my scalp every week, conditioning my hair and giving me hot oil treatments to speed up the process.
Rene bought me ten-carat gold diamond studs for my graduation present. She decided to give them to me early so we could go and have pictures taken, something that I had vowed never to do again. She had to beg me and throw in a little something extra for me to finally give in.
Once we arrived at the picture place, I escorted my woman inside. I had avoided this moment so many times after Rene had mentioned it, afraid of how the pictures would come out. I was afraid of what hidden secrets they might reveal or what lies they might tell. I paid the lady for the portrait package that Rene selected. She insisted on having a big-ass picture to hang over the fireplace. I agreed but really didn’t care for the idea too much. The Asian gentleman posed us and snapped at the same time. I knew we were dealing with a professional, but I was still leery about how the pictures might turn out.
The last time I had had my picture taken was back in the first grade. The school sent the students home with picture information, including details about dates and purchase prices. My mom was so happy that her baby would finally have some professional pictures taken, that she’d have something more than the snapshots she and Dad had taken of me running around the house, hiding from them and their camera. She had me all dressed up and looking so cute for the big day. I remember her folding a crisp twenty-dollar bill and placing it inside of a yellow envelope.
