by Styles, T.
He was turned off by the display of unsafe group sex and not the least bit interested in joining in. But Butch wouldn’t have participated in such festivities anyhow, because he wasn’t that hard up. He was just cold. He was the type of nigga to pimp on a bitch stone cold in chilly blood. Calling him icy was a real understatement. The only reason he was allowing Taj a shower was because he couldn’t stand looking at her cum-drenched body.
Taj was grateful, but she cried her heart out in the shower. She scrubbed her skin so hard; she almost took a layer off. She vowed to kill that bitch Cherry one day for violating her like that. The tears streaming down her face were immediately washed away by the much-welcomed hot shower water, but she would wear the scars from that brutal gang rape the rest of her life.
After Taj got cleaned up, Butch ordered his driver to take her home. Before releasing her, he again warned her not to try anything funny. He said he was letting her call it, but a bad choice would end in Jill and her baby’s murder. Taj could tell from the steel look in eyes that he meant it.
Butch walked Taj over to the room Jill was in, and told Jill what it was. He said, “I’m letting your homegirl go so she could get my fuckin’ money. She has to point me to that nigga Bless within twenty-four hours. If she doesn’t, you and your baby are dead.”
He grabbed Taj and hurried her along. Taj would never forget the look on Jill’s face as she watched her leave. Her eyes had pleaded with her to save her and her child.
After Taj got away, she was torn. She wanted to go back and save Jill, but she knew that if she returned empty-handed they would both be dead. Taj’s heart ached for her dear friend. She knew what would become of her. The thought was sad, but it was something she would have to live with. Jill was like her sister.
Hours later, after making 287 unsuccessful attempts to contact Bless, Taj sat in her bedroom crying. That nigga was not picking up, no matter what number she called him from. She tried to be strong, but knew what a fucked-up predicament she had left Jill in.
Taj had to face reality. She couldn’t help retrieve Butch’s money, so she couldn’t go back for Jill. She had to get out of town. There was no sense in both of them being killed. Taj shook her head in disbelief. Jill’s life was in danger, and there was nothing she could do.
A surge of resilience hit Taj. Fuck that. Jill was her best friend. Taj tried to formulate a plan. As she sat there pondering, she turned on the TV and flipped to the news. The news footage she saw about the church funeral shooting of Jeff’s mother, grandmother, and another elderly gentleman ended any second thoughts she had about going back for Jill.
Taj was no fool. She had to hurry up and make moves. It was only a matter of time before Butch sent his goons over to put a bullet in her head as well.
Taj packed as many clothes as she could stuff into an overnight bag and small suitcase and then hopped in her Jeep and pulled off into the night. She hated to leave, but she knew that her days were numbered if she stayed. There was nothing she could do about the guilt that was eating at her. She would be forced to take it to her grave.
The next day, it didn’t take Butch long to figure out that he had been burned again. He was totally remorseless in his decision to do away with Jill’s pregnant ass. Jeff had fucked him, so he would pay for generations to come. He would kill his unborn seed, and he hoped it was a boy. Butch had to send the message that he would take out nigga’s namesakes if they crossed and violated him.
He glanced at his watch for the umpteenth time. Time was up. Butch mentally counted to ten. That was it. Taj hadn’t called him or made any contact. That bitch must have thought he was joking or something. Did she think his threats were idle? She must have been out of her mothafuckin’ mind! He mused, scratching his chin and staring out the window with his arms folded.
Anyone who had dealt wrongly with Butch knew that wasn’t a good sign. The pondering, the crossed-arm stance, and the chin scratch usually meant that he was contemplating the way a person was going to die. This particular time it was Jill’s fate he was sealing. He already knew she had to go, but it was just a matter of how. Butch decided to make it quick. From what he had seen on the cameras, she had been tortured enough.
Butch looked at Loco and Fuck-You-Phil and said two words, “Kill Jill.” The grimy pair was delighted they were given the honors. They hurried to retrieve her.
Jill was untied and taken from the room. She began to panic because she knew where they were taking her. It became harder and harder for her to breathe with each step. Her stomach was cramping severely. She could feel her baby balling up inside of her. It was as if he sensed danger and was trying to find a corner to hide.
Jill was walked down two flights of stairs to the basement. She was pleading for her life along the way, but to no avail. Loco was heartless. He silenced her desperate pleas with a bullet to her womb.
Jill stared down at her belly in horror. She placed her hand over the gunshot wound like she was trying to stop her baby’s life from draining through it. She kept praying that God was with her.
Jill had carried that fetus inside her for nearly nine months. She had developed a real connection to her son. She didn’t feel her baby moving anymore, so she knew he was gone. Her eyes watered up at the thought. Her heart was broken.
Jill looked in the eyes of her baby’s killer, fearless at that point. There was nothing worse they could do to her. She used what she knew were the last few precious seconds of her life to pray for her soul to get into heaven with her baby’s, and then she spit in his face.
Loco just wiped the spit off with his sleeve and laughed coldly, and then he squeezed his hammer. He nailed Jill in the forehead, right between the eyes. Her lifeless, naked body slumped to the floor. After she dropped, Loco returned the rude gesture and spit on her.
They stuffed her body into a heavy-duty black construction bag, and then she was taken to a dark alley. Her naked corpse was dumped in a garbage dumpster.
A short time later, a miracle happened in that dumpster. It was as if an angel flew over Jill. She could actually feel the breeze from the flapping of wings. God had smiled down on her, and by His grace, she was still alive. But Jill was fighting for her life. She had taken a bullet in her forehead.
Luckily, it wasn’t long before she was discovered by sanitation workers during their routine early morning garbage pickup. They immediately notified the paramedics. Jill arrived at the hospital naked, battered, and covered in crusty, dried semen. Her heartbeat was extremely faint. She was weak, but she was holding on.
The dead fetus was removed from her belly through a caesarean incision, and then Jill lay unconscious for eleven days. When she finally regained consciousness, she could remember her traumatic ordeal like it was yesterday.
When the authorities questioned Jill, she just played dumb and acted like she didn’t know who the perpetrators were. She didn’t give anybody up because she didn’t plan on going to court to testify against them. She didn’t want to face TBG. Not that way. She wanted them to believe she was really dead. That way, when she initiated her revenge on them for killing her unborn child, they wouldn’t know where the heat was coming from.
While Jill lay in the hospital healing, she thought about Taj a lot. Her best friend had left her for dead. And that bitch was part of the reason her baby was murdered. The thought was enough to make Jill want to kill Taj too. Their paths would eventually cross again, and when they did, there would be hell to pay.
But the way they had both suffered at the hands of TBG would bind them forever. No amount of therapy would erase those scars. The things she and Taj had been subjected to and forced to do to each other, Jill would never tell a soul. That was something she would pray about for years to come. She would never forget. She would wear the scars forever, but the memories she would take to her grave.
Smooth as Silk
by J.M. Benjamin
Chapter 1
“Yooo!” was the cheer that could be heard coming from one of the cr
aps tables at the Bally’s Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The body-infested gamblers surrounding the oval-shaped table roared in unison as the numbers five and six appeared on the two ice cube–sized dice for the tenth time within the past fifteen minutes that evening since Rasheed Phillups aka Big Sheed had been rolling them. Those amongst the fortunate who had placed bets on the number eleven, which paid thirty-to-one or fifteen-to-one odds—depending what bet they had made—collected their payouts with smiles. Other men and women from all over the globe—young and old—of all shapes, sizes, and colors excitedly and thankfully egged Big Sheed on while exchanging high fives around the table as he continued to contribute to their winnings with each roll. Some of them were more grateful than others. They were the ones who had lost every dime they had come to the casino with and nearly all of what the nearest ATM would allow them to withdraw for the day. They were the ones that had just about given up all hope of at least winning back a portion of what they had so rapidly squandered—if not being able to break even for the night.
Now here it was—moments ago, the young, six foot one inch, bronze-complexioned, well-dressed man, looking like someone straight out of GQ, with a beautiful deep-chocolate woman in tow, who had matched him in height and could have easily been mistaken for a model herself, emerged on the scene with a hot hand and had been saving the day since. Twenty minutes prior, Big Sheed appeared out of nowhere, approached the table, pulled out his Seven Stars Total Rewards Card—which meant he was a high-roller and considered to be amongst the elite of gamblers who frequented the casino and any other casinos under the Harrah’s umbrella—along with a stack of one hundred dollar bills wrapped with a ten thousand dollar bank wrapper, and confidently tossed it onto the table and asked for change.
Five minutes later, Big Sheed received the dice after the elderly Caucasian man beside him crapped out instead of rolling his intended point. Big Sheed raised what was to be his fourth glass of Rémy VSOP—containing a double shot—threw it back, then chased it with a Corona and lime, and then chose the two dice he felt would make him some money for the evening. Having had the dice for what seemed like an eternity, Big Sheed not only had his initial ten thousand dollars in casino chips in front of him, he also had an additional thirty thousand–plus profit in chips thanks to what he considered to be his latest lucky charm.
“Press my six and eight hard—five hundred each.” He tossed two purple chips on the table to increase his bets on the numbers he most favored. Ever since he started coming down to AC from Plainfield—where he was from—he’d been hooked on the numbers: double three and double four that paid nine-to-one odds if they were rolled. Those numbers had contributed to his financial rise and fall over the years since he had climbed the criminal ladder in the drug game. On many nights he had jumped in his ride and hopped on the parkway with his entire stash consisting of just enough money to purchase two ounces of coke—which back then valued at five hundred a pop—and within an hour and ten minutes he’d exit the AC Expressway at thirty-eight, placing him at a craps table in fifteen minutes. Within three hours he’d make enough paper to purchase a quarter kilo. Then there were those nights when he had made his way up to buying a whole kilo of cocaine when the prices ranged from eighteen to twenty-one grand, and he was seeing more money than he knew what to do with. He would often take both his profit and re-up money down to the gambling casino and lose it all within an hour’s time. But that was long ago, when he was in his twenties and didn’t have the coke connect he had now. Although his wins and loses still fluctuated, Big Sheed generally came out on top; and tonight he was proving that as the dice continued to work in his favor.
He now had fifteen hundred on the hard six and the same on the hard eight. In addition, he had five hundred dollars on the numbers five and nine as he placed bets; and six hundred dollars on the easy six and eight.
“No more bets,” the stickman called out as he pushed the dice in front of Big Sheed.
“Drinks, cocktails,” the waitress announced in passing.
“Yeah, right here, sweetheart.” Big Sheed waved her over as the stickman pulled the dice back.
“Yes, sir?” the waitress smiled.
“Yeah, lemme get another double shot of Rémy and Corona with a lime, please,” he ordered. Normally, other gamblers would be murmuring derogatory comments and sighing in frustration when someone held up the flow of the game and momentum of the table, but not so much as a peep was made against Big Sheed. Instead, everyone surrounding the table waited, keeping their thoughts and comments to themselves.
“Anything for the lady?” she politely asked.
“Just water,” Silk answered.
“And a Grey Goose and cranberry,” Big Sheed added for her.
“Okay, here’s your water. I’ll be right back with your drinks,” she replied before leaving the table.
“I don’t know why you’re try’na get me drunk,” Silk said playfully.
“You know why.” Big Sheed matched her tone. The stickman and male gamblers within range all smiled in envy.
“I don’t have to be drunk for that,” she shot back in a seductive tone.
“Here, blow on these.” Big Sheed grinned. He then held the dice up to Silk’s lips, careful not to violate the casino’s strict policy by moving the dice away from the table. The last thing he wanted was to be accused of being one of those who made failed attempts in switching casino dice and have his high roller privileges revoked.
Silk puckered her lips and seductively blew onto the dice. Big Sheed then leaned in and embraced Silk’s luscious lips. He was into lips and Silk’s were full sized. The lip gloss she wore illuminated her lips and turned Big Sheed on. The thought of where Silk’s lips would be later and how they would make him feel excited Sheed and boosted his confidence even more. A mixture of envious and lust-filled eyes zeroed in on the intimate exchange. Big Sheed loved the attention he and Silk were receiving and the fact that he was responsible for all the happy faces and smiles around the table with stacks of chips in front of them.
Even the on-lookers cheered him, wishing they were amongst the lucky ones that benefitted from his time on the dice. Big Sheed knew that if he rolled the number four, pandemonium would break loose at the table, and that’s exactly what he wanted. With that intention, Big Sheed released the dice.
“Nine,” the stickman called out as the dice came to a halt. Everyone who had placed bets on number nine were paid, including Big Sheed, whose payout was seven hundred dollars.
“Press my five and nine up a hundred and up my six and eight inside, ninety each.” He increased his inside bets. The stickman took four black hundred-dollar chips and gave Big Sheed three blacks and four red five-dollar chips then pressed his bets.
The stickman on the right, in the middle of the table, scooped up the dice then pushed them back in Big Sheed’s direction to roll again.
“Ma’am, no cell phones at the table.” The stickman directed his words to Silk, who was text messaging, while pulling the dice back toward him.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she replied apologetically before putting away her BlackBerry Curve.
“She didn’t know, my dude.” Big Sheed immediately came to her defense. “Here, put the dealers on hard six and eight.” He then tossed two black chips, valued at a hundred dollars each, to place bets for the table workers. “And a hundred on the six and eight hard—for my baby,” he added, pulling Silk closer in to him.
“Thank you, sir,” they all chimed together.
Silk smiled and rubbed the lower part of Big Sheed’s back.
“Now, let’s get this money,” he barked as he released the dice onto the table. One of the dice immediately stopped on the number three, while the other hopped off the table.
“Damn, that was my hard six,” he cursed under his breath, convinced the die that flew off the table would have been another three. Although he was not superstitious, there were certain things about gambling Big Sheed believed in, and a die flying off th
e table while one remained on a number that could potentially be a number he bet on was one of them.
“Same die, Mr. Phillips?” the pit boss asked.
“It don’t matter,” Big Sheed answered, but the table felt different.
“Same dice, same dice,” they all sang in unison.
Big Sheed changed his mind and chuckled. “Give the people what they want.”
The pit boss was handed the die that was retrieved from the floor. After examining it, he allowed the stickman to place it with the other die remaining on the table.
Big Sheed scooped up the dice. “I feel it, babe.” He turned to Silk.
“I feel it too,” she cooed, inconspicuously rubbing the front of his linen pants.
Big Sheed cut his eyes over at her. It took all his will power to maintain his composure despite Silk’s soft hand on his semi-hardness getting him aroused. Big Sheed had to tell himself right now it was about money. As a gambler, he knew he had to stay focused. He slightly slid to the left to derail Silk’s distractive hand.
“Later,” he said in a low tone. The waitress then returned with their drinks.
“Here you go, sir. And for you, ma’am.”
“Thank you. Here you go.” Big Sheed tipped the waitress the four five dollar chips he had in front of him. He then threw the double shot straight back, chased it with a swig of Corona, then shot the dice. Again, the first number he saw was the number three, but the other dice was hidden behind a stack of chips. He waited for the dealer to call out the point. The dealer peered behind the stack of chips, looked at the pit boss then Big Sheed, and yelled, “Six—the hard way. Six hard.”
“I told you,” Big Sheed roared as he turned and pulled Silk in tightly. His words could be heard throughout the entire casino. Between his excitement and the other gamblers at the table, one would have thought a million dollars had just been won. Other gamblers and game workers were distracted by the commotion and drew their attention to the table where Big Sheed was located. Those who had benefitted from the double three number Big Sheed had just rolled offered their appreciation by way of gestures and a wave of hands as the dealers from both ends of the table began paying everyone who had bet on both the easy and hard six.
