by Cash
The summer sun shined down on the SUV, accentuating the new paint job. When Q parked in front of Corlette’s crib and stepped out the driver’s door, he was sporting a Gucci shorts set, customized Gucci Air Force Ones, and a Gucci sunvisor turned to the back. His locks was down to his shoulders and freshly oiled—with the platinum chain and iced, saucer-sized pendant that hung down to his belly, Q was flossing like the hood celebrity he had become.
B-Man was sportin’ baggy Dickie khakis, wifebeater, and a crisp pair of Forces. He left his Desert Eagle under the passenger seat of the Explorer before stepping out. Letting Q go inside to holla at Corlette, B-Man leaned against the whip, just chillin’.
“What’s up, boo?” Q spoke to Corlette as he entered her apartment unit without knocking. He was paying all the bills up in that bitch, so he felt he was entitled to come through like he lived there. Corlette never tripped it; she loved Q’s ass more than he seemed to appreciate.
Q flopped down on the sofa next to where Corlette sat eating hot wings and cheese French fries, watching BET videos on the flat screen. He rubbed her swollen belly, causing the baby inside to shift around. Corlette was due to drop her load in a couple of months.
“How’s my baby doing?” Q inquired.
“Which one?” asked Corlette cuddling in his arms, inhaling the scent of the Gucci for Men cologne he was wearing.
Q gave her some quick tongue, then he replied, “I’m asking about both babies—you and this one, too.” Patting her belly he said.
“The baby is good, me too,” Corlette replied.
Q snatched a handful of her fries and stuffed them in his mouth.
“Q, you know when I have this baby we gon’ have a responsibility for a lifetime,” Corlette said.
“No doubt, shawdy, I’ma handle mine, don’t even worry ‘bout dat. No matter whatever happen between me and you I’ma always take care of my seed.”
“That ain’t what I’m saying, Q. Your name ringing louder than when we first hooked up. I want you to get the money and get out the game so our baby don’t have to grow up without a father.”
Born and bred in the hood, Corlette had seen many hustlaz and ballers living large one minute, cased-up or dead the next. Before getting pregnant she hadn’t really contemplated the many pitfalls in the game Q faced on the daily. Now that she was carrying his unborn, Corlette realized that she had to think beyond the hood glamour and material gifts she received being Q’s side chic. She had to think of what was best for the baby she was about to bring into this world.
“Lil’ Mama,” replied Q pensively, “I know the game spares few. Many better hustlaz than me have crapped out in this shit, so I ain’t tryna make it no lifetime occupation. Two or three more year’s max, and I’m out the game. Just roll with a nigga while I stack a few mil tickets, okay?”
Corlette nodded her head.
“You know I’ma hold you down, nigga,” she vowed.
Quiet as it was kept, Corlette was the most thorough chic Q fucked with, including wifey, Persia. Just last week Corlette had went to court and copped out to a seven year bid for the case she had caught dropping off work for Q. Shawdy had stayed down, refusing to flip on Q, even though she’d faced the possibility of being sent to prison while six months pregnant, having the baby in prison, then being separated from her newborn. An uncharacteristically, sympathetic judge had shown compassion, suspending the prison time in favor of Corlette serving fifteen years on probation. Before dismissing Corlette from her courtroom the judge had stared down and given her a stern warning.
“If you violate your probation in any way, I won’t have mercy on you the next time.”
Now Corlette was playing the bench as far as putting in work for Q. Her willingness to be sent to prison instead of flipping on him should’ve proved to Q that Corlette was a down -ass shawdy. He valued her more now than when he’d first started hittin’ it. But Persia had him too sprung to fully appreciate Corlette.
“Oh, Q, guess who I saw yesterday?” Corlette said.
“Who?”
“My lil’ cousin Lamar. That nigga ridin’ around in a brand new Mustang, acting like he hood rich and shit. He had two lil’ ashy hos wit’ him. He was flashing stacks, tryna impress them.”
“Oh, yeah?” Q’s face was twisted.
“Uh-huh. I told him he need to pay you your money before you catch up with him and do something to his stupid ass,” Corlette relayed.
“What he say?”
“He talkin’ ‘bout you ain’t hurtin’ for nothing. I told him that don’t matter, pay you your money.”
Q’s anger swelled with each word Corlette recounted. Lamar was really testing Q’s gangsta. B-Man had been urging him to ride. Now it was at that point where he was gonna go ahead and knock the lil’ nigga’s head off.
He gave Corlette a grip and promised to swing through later.
When Q got outside, B-Man was already inside the whip. Q got behind the wheel, noticing that his brother had the Desert Eagle in his lap, gripped like he was ready to bust off.
“What’s the business, shawdy?”
“The twins just walked by, mean-mugging and shit. They went up in that apartment over there,” B-Man said, pointing with the sizeable burner.
“Put that shit up!” Q said. “Nigga, you know popo be rollin’ deep over here.”
B-Man lowered his arm.
“I oughta wait on those pussies to come out and body both of ‘em—a real twin killing,” he cracked.
“Fuck them bitch ass niggas; they ain’t worth the lead it’ll take to body ‘em, remarked Q, as he pulled away from the curb.
Boc! Boc! Boc! B-Man squeezed off four shots, up in the air, when they passed by the apartment the twins had gone into. Just to let Deshawn and DeWayne know that they could get it any day of the week.
Khalil was kicked back at the apartment where Rapheal lived with his young, twenty-six year old girlfriend named Elisse. A month ago, Khalil had finally gotten B-Man to admit that he knew where Rapheal was resting his head.
Accompanied by Q, Khalil had shown up at Rapheal’s door, hoping he wouldn’t find their pop tore the fuck up from the ravages of crack. He’d guessed that Rapheal couldn’t be doing too bad if he had a roof over his head and it wasn’t a crackhouse. Rapheal had been surprised to see his sons being led into the front room by Elisse.
“What’s up, pop?” Khalil had been the first to speak; his smile was genuine.
“Goddamn!” Rapheal exclaimed, standing up to bear hug his sons. “I been wanting to see y’all for a long time! Where B-Man?”
“He ain’t wanna come,” admitted Q. Keeping it real was how they were taught to be with fam.
“He still salty wit’ me, huh?” asked Rapheal. “Well, anyway, it’s good to see you two.”
That first day they spent hours reminiscing about Black Girl and catching up on each other’s lives. Rapheal didn’t front he admitted that he still got high occasionally.
“I’m ready to leave it alone, though,” he’d said with conviction. “It’s just a matter of doing it.”
Since that day, a month ago, Khalil had visited his pop two or three times a week, being schooled by Rapheal on all the complexities of macking bitches. The game had changed since Rapheal’s heyday, but the fundamentals of macking remained the same. Each day they spent together, riding around the city or chillin’ at a Bar & Grill, where they’d go to grab a bite to eat and discuss Khalil’s ambition. When they drove around the “A” with old school jams, by artists like The Isley Brothers or the OJay’s, crooning in the Yukon, Rapheal recounted many of his days in the game when Atlanta’s ho strolls were where his women plied their trade. He recalled his years pimping hos up and down the legendary Auburn Avenue so that Khalil could digest the morals of those stories and apply them to his game.
Rapheal told Khalil that ‘cop and blow’ was a given in the profession, as surely as night follows day. “Son, there’s not a playa alive that has never lost a ho. That’s just
part of the game. So when it happens, don’t lose no sleep over it. Go out and cop another one. Now ya first ho, she’ll set the tone for your entire stable so work that bitch hard and never accept short trap from her,” he advised. Khalil sponged up the wisdom so that he could apply it to Sinnamon.
“What about this Rayne chick you been tellin’ me about? What you got planned for her?” asked Rapheal as Elisse passed through the living room, rolling her eyes.
“Man, I don’t know,” Khalil wavered.
“You gon’ mack the bitch or what?”
“Real talk, I don’t want to. Rayne is something special. I know I sound like a square but I’m just keeping it real.”
“Boy, you ain’t no pimp. Not when you start catchin feelings for a ho.” Rapheal schooled him.
By the time Khalil left a few hours later, he had soaked up some boss game, but he was still having trouble shaking what he felt for Rayne.
Chapter Fifthteen
Driving away from Raphael’s apartment, Khalil wondered if he should just let Rayne go. Raphael had warned him that he was going to lose Sinnamon catching feelings for Rayne. “A ho ain’t gonna sell pussy and bring you trap for you to blow it on another bitch.”
Khalil understood his pop’s warning but Rayne was hard to let go of. Every week on her off days she drove up to Atlanta and they spent time together, doing everything from going to the movies and visiting the Martin Luther King Jr. Center to making love out on the balcony of the penthouse apartment Khalil had recently leased. They talked about their childhoods and shared their dreams with one another.
Khalil’s cell phone rang, interrupting his reverie.
“Hello.”
“I’m at the apartment waitng for you and I’m in my birthday suit,” said Rayne in a sultry tone. Khalil had given her a key to his crib but it had slipped his mind that she was coming today.
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” he promised.
Two days of blissful love-making, shopping sprees and dining at different upscale restaurants is how Khalil and Rayne spent the weekend. For both of them time went too fast and before they knew Monday’s morning sun peeked through the venetian blinds. Rayne groaned in protest, she absolutely hated to remove herself from Khalil’s embrace.
“Is it time for you to go already?” he asked, stirring awake.
“Unfortunately.” She kissed him quickly and crawled out of bed.
“Hold up I need to ask you to do a favor for me,” said Khalil sitting up and reaching in the drawer of the nightstand by the bed.
“I want you to give this to my nigga Onion Head.” He was holding a plastic Ziplock bag containing two ounces of purp.
Rayne didn’t know that it was exotic but she recognized that it was weed. Why would he compromise me like that? She wondered. She would lose her job and more than likely be arrested if caught smuggling drugs to an inmate in prison.
Khalil correctly read Rayne’s apprehension.
“Baby Love, if it wasn’t important I wouldn’t ask you to do it. My homie got an ass of time to serve unless he can get his conviction reversed on appeal. To even have a chance, he needs to hire a top notch lawyer to file the appeal. He’ll be able to flip this purp and get himself a good attorney, so handle this for me.”
“Okay, Khalil, but just this once,” agreed Rayne, sympathizing with Onion Head’s predicament.
“Just this once,” promised Khalil. “And thank you, baby.” He handed her the purp and told her to be careful.
Awhile later after Rayne had showered, she stood in the bathroom mirror, wrapped in only a towel, fussing with her long bangs. Khalil, wearing only boxers, came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her and began sucking on Rayne’s collarbone. She felt his dick pressed up against her ass and it made her whole body heat up. It was pitiful, she thought, how she had become a nympho for his touch.
“Damn, I hate when you have to leave me,” he whispered. His bass voice moistened her pussy.
“I hate it, too,” Rayne cooed. His tongue in her ear was sending tingles up and down her spine. His strong, masculine hands were gently rubbing her taut nipples, causing them to ache with desire.
“Umm,” she moaned, dropping the towel to the floor then reaching behind her and sliding her hand inside of Khalil’s boxers.
“You gon’ miss me?” he whispered into the crook of her neck as Rayne stroked his engorged dick.
“Baby, you’re so thick,” she moaned.
Khalil’s hands cupped her breast as she continued to stroke him, then slid down and traced her moist, swelling pussy lips. Rayne’s knees weakened and she felt faint as Khalil lightly rubbed her clit while she caressed his huge dick head.
“K-Khalil, please, baby! Please don’t turn me into an addict for you,” she begged through her moans.
“Why not?” putting three fingers in her wet pussy, taking them out then letting her see him lick her moistness.
“Just . . . don’t,” she cried.
Khalil turned her around, lifted her up, and sat her on the sink’s counter. Then he pulled her to the edge of the counter, leaned her back, then went down to his knees. He gently peeled back her wet folds and traced them with his tounge to spell “Baby Love” on her clit over and over again until Rayne exploded. Her honey poured down into his mouth and her breathing became irregular. When she recovered from the intense orgasm Rayne panted, “Khalil, I want you inside of me.”
Khalil dropped down his silk boxers and his thick seven inches stood tall. Rayne eyed every inch appreciatively while licking her lips in anticipation.
“You like the way I spread you wide open?” asked Khalil as he slowly penetrated her tight fit.
“Ummm!” was the only reply he got. Rayne was feeling too damn good to say anything more. She wrapped her legs around his wasit and pulled him real deep inside of her.
“Dayum . . . oh fuck! Baby you feel so goddamn good,” exclaimed Khalil.
He struggled not to bust yet, but looking into Rayne’s eyes while he grinded into her made it difficult to hold back. He tried to think about something else, which would’ve helped him last longer, but Rayne’s hot grip held his attention and would not release it.
“Don’t hold back. Give it to me. I wanna feel you come inside me,” she moaned.
Khalil’s nuts erupted like a volcano. He sucked on Rayne’s tongue and steadied his legs.
“Khalil, I’m falling in love,” admitted Rayne after hopping in and out the shower again.
“That makes two of us.”
As soon as Rayne left, Khalil went over to Sinnamon’s crib to check his trap.
A couple hours later his cell rang. “Khalil, I’m in jail!” Rayne sobbed into the phone as soon as he said hello.
Khalil went into another room to get some privacy away from Sinnamon. “Try to calm down, baby, and tell me what happened.” His voice was full of concern.
“You know what happened!” she screamed.
“No, baby, I don’t. Does it have something to do with that thing I asked you to do for my man?”
“Yes!” she cried.
“Dayum, Baby Love, I’m sorry. That bitch nigga must’ve dropped a dime!”
“He had to because as soon as I showed up for work, the lieutenant asked me to step into her office. When I did, she patted me down and found the stuff,”explained Rayne sniffling.
“I shouldna told that nigga when you was gonna bring it, but I never thought Onion Head got down like that?”
Rayne didn’t respond. She was so mad at Khalil she could kill him.
“What jail are you in, baby?” he asked.
“Mitchell County.”
“Aight, I’m on my way to bond you out.”
“Please hurry, Khalil. It stinks in here.”
After Khalil posted bail for Rayne he waited in the jail’s reception area for her to be released. An hour later she came rushing into his arms, burying her head in his chest and crying, “I’m so embarrassed!”
“It�
��s gonna be okay,” he said soothingly. “Don’t worry about anything. I’m gonna take care of you. I’m gonna move you to the “A” with me. Fuck country-ass Pelham, Georgia.”
Rayne offered no protest. She didn’t have a job anymore and she would’ve been too ashamed to remain living there anyway. Her arrest at the prison had made the evening news.
“Just take me by my apartment so I can pack my clothes. I never wanna show my face down here again.”
She planned to call a friend and ask if they would put her furniture in storage. At
Rayne’s apartment Khalil shook his head in mild amusement as she tip-toed in and out like a cat burglar.
Khalil kept his promise to take care of Rayne. He moved her in with him and introduced her to his people. The love and attention he gave, helped to ease Rayne’s anger at him over what happened. Khalil spent every minute of the day for a month making it up to her until finally he had to hit the streets and get money for them to survive on.
“I can go look for a job,” suggested Rayne.
“No, baby, your job is to look beautiful for me,” Khalil said, punctuating it with a kiss.
“Khalil, I don’t want you out there selling drugs,” she would say when he’d come home with pockets full of trap money.
“I don’t get down like that, Baby Love. My hustle is gambling,” lied Khalil he was not ready to tell her the truth.
In just a short time Rayne learned to accept what Khalil told her he did to put food in their mouths but she still worried about something bad happening to him.
Rayne’s worries heightened when a whole week passed without Khalil coming home or calling to let her know that he was okay. Crazy with worry, Rayne called Khalil’s pop. You have reached the answering service of Rapheal Jones; unfortunately I am unable to answer your call. At the sound of the beep . . . you know what to do, the prerecorded message inpersonably told Rayne for the fifth time.
Rayne decided to call Q. She was near hysterics when he answered.
“Have you seen Khalil? This is Rayne.” Worry laced her voice.
“Naw, not since last week. Why? Whud up?” Q asked.
