by Styles, T.
“No, I really do,” she shot back. “Do you mind if I use your bathroom?” she then asked, already heading toward it.
“Nah, I don’t mind.”
After a couple of minutes, Silk came out of the bathroom in her lace thong, fastening her bra. She retrieved her hairbrush out of her big Coach bag and stroked her hair to the back then took the hair tie out of her mouth and wrapped it in a bun.
“Okay, sweetheart, see you around. I gotta go.” She waved and smiled, making her way to the door.
“But I don’t want you to go, though,” Smooth announced. His words were strong. They were enough to get her to stop in her tracks. She braced herself for the game she felt he was about to come at her with. She put her hands on her hips and turned to face him.
“And why is that?” She gave him attitude.
Smooth grinned. He cleared his throat and then placed his hands behind his head the way he had when she was going down on him.
“I’m sayin’.” He paused. “After damn near losing about a hundred stacks in an hour on that fuckin’ craps table, I was just beginning to shake that shit off with you being here,” Smooth openly and honestly admitted. He had just about lost all of the hundred thousand dollars he had to his name, besides the five thousand he had unintentionally left in his glove compartment. Had it not been for him retrieving his gun to place it in his lap while he drove home, he would have never known it was in there.
The discovery of the money and the fact that his mind was made up to go home caused him to weigh his options. Rather return to the table and risk contributing to his losing streak for the night, he decided to contact his host, reserve a suite, have a few drinks, then take it down for the evening and start fresh in the morning. His plans were altered when he saw Silk sitting at the bar. Now he was down to his last forty-seven hundred dollars after paying her.
Silk couldn’t believe her ears. Although she was a hustler, she was not a gambler, at least not when it came to her money, so the amount Smooth had lost surprised her. She knew people gambled and lost thousands. even millions, but she seldom came across guys who looked as young as Smooth gambling and losing the way he had.
“Wow,” she managed to let out. She had an idea he had lost, but had he not told her, she would have never imagined him losing as much. His eyes nor his demeanor gave off that impression. Although she felt for him, she was impressed by how he was handling the situation.
“It’s cool,” he said. “I’ll get it back,” he added matter-of-factly.
Silk noticed his eyes glowed as he spoke. His statement turned her on. It made her want to stay, not because she believed he would get the money back, but because he believed he would.
She had never met a man with so much belief in himself before. His words were spoken with confidence, as opposed to the arrogance so many other men with money had whose paths she had crossed. Smooth reminded her of herself. She thought about all the times she had started out her day with no money in her pockets, but was confident that before the day was out she would not go hungry or go to sleep broke.
Her brief trip down memory lane was cut short by the raspy sound of Smooth’s voice.
“So, are you gonna chill with a brother for a li’l bit longer?” he asked.
Silk removed her hands from her hips and slid them down to her side.
“I’ll stay for a few,” she replied, taking a quick glance at her watch for a second time, as if she had somewhere else to be.
A pleased look appeared on Smooth’s face.
Silk made her way back over to the king-sized bed and sat on the edge.
“So what’s your story?” Smooth asked.
Silk let out a deep sigh and smiled. “Well,” she began.
For the next thirty minutes, Smooth listened attentively as Silk shared with him how she’d been through hell and back. When she was done, Smooth revealed a great deal of what life was like for him coming up and how he’d gotten to where he was at that very moment. Over an hour had gone by now. Smooth knew he had held her up longer than his money had paid for, and he was sure it was time for her to go, but he was still not ready for her to leave.
“How much will it cost me to have you chill with me for the rest of the night?” he asked out of nowhere.
Silk chuckled. “Are you serious?”
“Dead-ass,” Smooth replied with a straight face.
Silk stared at him for a moment then checked the time. It was after two in the morning. She knew this was the time the casinos would be jumping with tricks. She also knew it was the time where she had to settle for less because this was the time when the “bargain hoes” as she called them, would be out turning tricks for a hundred or lower. She thought for a second.
“Give me five and you got me until the sun comes up,” she presented, knowing she had taken it light on him. Normally she would shoot for a thousand, but she actually liked Smooth’s company.
Smooth reached for his pants and pulled out a stack of bills. He counted out five one hundred–dollar bills and gave them to Silk. He put his money back in his pocket and retrieved a small plastic baggie from the other one. “Get dressed,” he stated just before opening up the plastic baggie containing his nose candy.
Silk gave him a puzzled look, but her eyes sparkled from the sight of the baggie. She was confused by his statement, but interested in what he had in his possession. She watched as he dumped the white powder onto the back of his hand.
In an instant, the powder vanished. Smooth wiped his nose then wiped the residue from the back of his hand on his teeth. He saw Silk standing there watching him intensely. He recognized her look immediately.
“You want some?”
“What is it, boy or girl?” she asked, wanting to know whether the drug was coke or heroin. She only used coke and nothing else.
“Straight raw, baby,” Smooth announced, informing her that it was in fact her drug of choice.
Silk lit up like the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center. She had gone all day without getting high after not being able to score any good product from her normal supplier. Now here it was, she had walked right into some.
Silk moved in closer and held out her fist. Smooth poured a small mountain onto the back of her hand. Wasting no time, Silk devoured the drug. Instantly she realized the potency of the drug. Her entire left side became numb and it was as if her brain had been frozen. She shook her head and blinked a few times while wiping her nose as Smooth had done. She then rubbed the residue on her teeth with her pointer finger. “Thank you,” she said. “I needed that.”
Smooth smiled. “No problem.” He knew the feeling all too well. It was a feeling he’d been getting since the first time he started using coke socially six years ago.
“So where are we going?” she asked, slipping back into her outfit.
“I wanna take you downstairs to the table,” Smooth told her. Ever since their talk, something in his mind was telling him he could win with Silk by his side. He was a firm believer in following his gut instincts, and that’s exactly what he intended to do.
“You sure you’re ready to go back down there?” she genuinely asked.
“Definitely,” was his response.
“I’m with you then, sweetheart.”
Within minutes, the two of them were standing around a craps table and Smooth had thrown four thousand dollars in hundreds onto the table. Within forty-five minutes, Smooth was smiling from ear to ear and the two of them were returning to his room with all that he had lost and then some.
Smooth’s reminiscing time was interrupted by a knock on the passenger side window just as he was about to revisit how Silk had sprinkled coke around the helmet of his dick and sucked and sexed him until the sun came up. When he looked over, he saw Silk standing there with her arms stretched out. He hit the unlock button on the side panel.
“Damn, nigga. What, you were daydreaming?” she said as she hopped in the car.
“Something like that.” He smiled. He noticed how f
ull her pocketbook looked.
“I got it all,” she said as if to read his mind.
“That’s what the fuck I’m talkin’ about. Now let’s go get the rest of that shit.”
Smooth cautiously pulled off and headed for the Atlantic City Expressway.
Chapter 3
“Smooth, come to bed.” Silk yawned as she rubbed her right eye. She had awakened and rolled over only to find that Smooth was not lying next to her. “It’s almost one o’clock.” She glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. She herself had taken it down a little after ten P.M. after she grew tired of watching Smooth prepare the drugs.
“You can finish this later. You need to take you a power nap.” Silk lugged her way over to Smooth and began massaging his broad shoulders. She could feel the tenseness they’d possessed. She knew how hard he had been running—they had been running—which was why she was not surprised at how tight they were.
“You need to get some rest, baby, or you ain’t gonna be no good for your trip.” She continued to try to reason with Smooth. Ever since he’d gotten the call from his peoples in North Carolina, who had placed an order for ten kilos and specified that they needed them like yesterday, Smooth had been working like a slave to complete the order.
“I’m good.” Smooth leaned forward, never looking up or back at Silk. His slight change in movement was enough to release Silk’s grip. She sucked her teeth with attitude, but it went unnoticed by Smooth. He was too busy and too focused on the reading of the balance beam scale he was using to weigh up another portion of the product he had just finished converting from powdered cocaine to rock.
“I’m a muthafuckin’ chemist,” Smooth chimed, seeing the rock substance read the same exact 250 grams the others he’d cooked up previously had weighed.
Silk shook her head and smiled. She knew Smooth was like a kid in a candy store or like a proud father whenever he accomplished something he set out to do when it came to drugs or any criminal behavior. She was used to seeing him like this, especially when he was on a mission.
Before she had gone off to bed, Smooth had one kilo brick of coke busted open and four stacked up. Now, there was only one partial brick of raw coke remaining, while the others had been stretched and transformed into rock.
“How many you used this time to make the quarters?” she asked him, wondering how many extra grams of coke he had stretched out of the four and a half kilos he’d cut already.
Since she had been around Smooth, she had learned so much about drugs. Prior to him, all she knew was where to buy it and how to use it and enjoy it. Now, she knew how to determine good from bad coke, break it down, cut it, cook and re-cook it, stretch, weigh, and bag it up—thanks to Smooth.
“This batch I got from them jokers down in Florida is some strong shit,” he started out saying. “Basically, I’ve been getting seven-fifty off of every three-fifty.” He glowed as he spoke.
“Damn,” Silk said in disbelief.
“Exactly,” Smooth retorted.
“Baby, you sure that’s not overdoing it?” Silk then asked. She knew normally it would take Smooth at least a hundred and fifty grams more, along with the baking soda, to bring back an additional two hundred and fifty grams, just to ensure that the product was potent enough for the hustlers who copped from him at wholesale cost to break it down and repackage it for the users or small-time hustlers in the streets.
Smooth disregarded her question. “This gonna put us over the top,” he said instead, thinking about the two hundred eighty grand he looked to make on his trip to North Carolina.
Ever since they had gotten away with their Atlantic City caper and found the three hundred plus grand and eight bricks of coke back at Big Sheed’s house in Plainfield, he and Silk had been stacking their paper. Now, almost four months later, they had nearly three quarters of a million dollars in cash, compliments of Big Sheed.
The thought of being a millionaire excited Smooth. Due to his extracurricular habit of gambling, the closest he’d ever come was being a half-millionaire, but after he returned to New Jersey from the South, he knew he’d officially be a million dollar man. Smooth was so engrossed with the thought that he hadn’t heard a word Silk had said.
“Smooth?” She called his name for the second time.
“Huh?” He snapped out of his trance.
“You didn’t hear shit I said,” she stated. “I said, and then what?” she repeated.
“Whatchu mean, and then what?”
“Like I said . . .” She paused. “And then what?” She pulled his chair out from under the table from behind, just enough for her to fit, and then straddled him.
“Boo,” she started, “we can’t keep doing this shit forever. Right now we damn near got more money than we know what to do with. Hell, I ain’t never seen the type of money you’ve exposed me to, and I’ve been around the block a few times and back. You showed me so much love from day one and had my back no matter what. I’ll never forget that.” She cleared her throat before she continued as Smooth sat and listened.
“I knew when I first met you there was something about you, Smooth.” Her words caused Smooth to raise an eyebrow and flash a half grin.
“I never thought I could trust a man the way I trust you.” Her tone came out somewhat shaky. Smooth noticed the creases of her eyes beginning to fill with liquid.
“Yo, what’s good? What are you talkin’ about?” he asked, puzzled. She was making him feel a little uneasy.
“If you listen, you’ll hear what’s good and what I’m talking about,” Silk replied. The tone of her voice now became evident to Smooth, and he did not like what he was hearing.
“Yo, you buggin’. Get up.” Smooth made an attempt to remove Silk from his lap, but she wrapped her legs around the chair’s legs to prevent him from doing so.
“No, I’m not. Just listen to me for a minute.” Her pitch heightened. Silk clasped Smooth’s face with both hands. “Just listen to me,” she repeated.
Smooth’s face scowled. “What the fuck’s wrong with you? You high or somethin’? Get off of me.” Smooth pulled his face back and grabbed hold of Silk’s wrists. He then used his lower body strength to push the kitchen chair further back, raise up, and break hold of Silk’s lock.
Silk caught her balance just in time not to hit the floor. “Why are you acting like that?” she exclaimed.
“You the one buggin’ and shit, talkin’ all crazy,” Smooth rebutted.
“How am I talking crazy, Smooth? Huh? Tell me.” Her voice had become stronger as she spoke. “All I’m saying is we’ve been lucky and let’s get out while we still can. What’s the point of having all this fucking money if we can’t enjoy it. Let’s enjoy it, Smooth. Let’s enjoy life.”
Smooth found humor in her demeanor. They had had disagreements and minor fights over some of the dumbest and most irrelevant things, especially when they were both coked up, and Smooth had never taken her seriously even when she was trying to be, so this was just another one of those cases to him. He couldn’t help but snicker.
“I’m not laughing. I’m for real,” Silk chimed. “Let’s get the fuck out of beat-ass Plainfield and travel, just me and you. Let’s do some adventurous and wild shit like go to Vegas, get drunk and high, and wake up married,” she rambled.
Smooth shook his head. “Ma, you are fuckin’ trippin’, word up. You talkin’ and actin’ like one of them silly-ass broads who be catchin’ feelings or somethin’,” he teased.
He could have never known how his words had stung Silk, which is why he could not have predicted her reaction to them.
“Muthafucka, whatchu mean I’m actin’ like I caught feelings? I—” She paused briefly, until she couldn’t hold her tongue any longer. She closed her eyes and let the words spill out. “I’m in love with your dumb ass!” she cried out. Her heart could not withstand the pressure any more. The feelings had been balled up in her chest like a tied knot for over a year now. Revealing her true feelings was as though a thousand po
unds had been lifted from Silk’s heart. She let her words linger in the air.
“Whoa!” Smooth threw his hands up in the air. “You definitely gots to be trippin’ off somethin’ now, ma.” He chuckled. “What you do, pop a e-pill or somethin’?” Smooth was convinced Silk had to be high off of something other than their choice of drug. There were times when the two of them were high out of their minds, floating on cloud nine, and not once had he ever heard her express any feelings toward him, let alone speak the L-word. He was sure something had her talking what he believed to be nonsense.
“Fuck you, Smooth!” she screamed. She was unable to prevent the tears that appeared out of nowhere. This was the first time since she was a little girl that Silk had shed any tears or showed any emotions, especially in front of, or over, a man. She became angry with herself for showing what she felt to be her vulnerability and weakness.
Her tears were enough to make Smooth realize he had misread her behavior, but rather than be sympathetic toward the situation, he chose a different approach.
“You can’t be serious,” he retorted. “I know you not fo’ real, ma.” He sighed.
“How the fuck we get to this? Huh?” he stated rather than asking. “All this time we been gettin’ it in, gettin’ this paper, ridin’ on some Bonnie and Clyde shit, livin’ the life, comin’ and goin’ as we please, and now you comin’ out the woodworks with some love shit. That’s crazy, yo,” Smooth pointed out in disbelief as he shook his head.
Silk was about to speak, but Smooth continued before she got the chance.
“From day one, this shit was business. That’s what it’s always been about. Look how we met. I believe if shit ain’t broke then don’t try to fix it, and shit was good the way it is. Or at least that’s what I thought. But you on some new shit.” Smooth frowned. “Besides . . .” he said then paused. “Come on, ma. You think if you was my wifey I’d let you be out here suckin’ and fuckin’ dudes the way you do? Psst! You can’t believe that. There’s no way in hell,” he went on. “You do you and I do me—that works for us. No strings attached, feel me? I mean, you my bitch and all, but all that other shit is extra. I could nev—”
