Dirty Rotten Liar

by Noire

“Stop playing.” I shot her a funky look. “Where is she?”

  “In my bra, stupid ass! Where you think?”

  “Oh, you funny as hell. Funny-lookin’!”

  “Your ass is funny-lookin’ too. And don’t be eyeballin’ me all stank, Mink,” Dy-Nasty giggled like she was up on something slick as she cut her amber cat-eyes at me. “ ’Cause when them DNA results get back ere’body up in here is gonna know who is really who!”

  “Oh you damn right they gonna know!” I said, bluffing my ass off.

  “Yep, ’cause minez is gonna be a match.”

  “And minez is gonna be a match too!”

  “Bitch, please!” we both said at the same time.

  “You ain’t even slick. I already know who yo ass is!” I said like I was a detective on a case.

  “And I know who yo ass ain’t!” she spit back.

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  “Yeah, whatever-whatever! That’s why I’m the one Mama Selah took with her to Houston to visit my daddy today and you wasn’t!”

  “What damn daddy?” I smirked. “A trick like you wouldn’t know your goddamn daddy if he reached down in his pants and smacked you in the forehead with his big fat—”

  “Y’all two cut that shit out,” Uncle Suge growled as he walked up carrying me and Bunni’s suitcases. He shook his head and shot us both a shitty look.

  “How many times I gotta run this game down on y’all? Both of y’all is greedy and hardheaded as hell, but neither one of y’all is gonna get a dime around here unless y’all learn how to cooperate.”

  “Cooperate, hell,” Dy-Nasty muttered under her breath as she rolled her eyes and folded her arms over her bulging titties. She hit me with a look that was so full of trickery that I felt bitch-smacked, and then she poked her lip out and whirled around and flounced her big booty off down the hall.

  Uncle Suge carried my suitcase up to my room, and while I unpacked my few pieces of gear he ran me a hot bubble bath and called downstairs to have one of the servants fix me a cup of hot tea. He started making noise when I told him to get his butt outta the bathroom so I could get undressed in peace, but I didn’t care. I knew it turned him on to watch me step outta my panties and slide underneath some hot bubbles, but with all those hundreds of black and blue bruises that Gutta had kicked up on my body I was like uh-uh, hell no!

  Suge pulled his gold flask outta his pocket and spiked my tea for me nice and strong, and then I took it in the bathroom with me while I soaked in the warm bubbly water behind the locked door.

  I laid back in the tub and closed my eyes, loving the way the hot liquor felt sliding down my throat and trying hard to let those rambling thoughts of Mama and all that other craziness that had gone down in New York drift right outta my mind.

  After a few minutes Suge knocked on the door and said he needed to dip and go take care of some business, so I hollered good-bye and then kicked back again, sipping my yakked-up tea and soaking my aching ass. By the time the bubbles disappeared and the warm water started turning cold, both my body and my mind were feeling a little bit better and I was ready to concentrate on the gank at hand.

  I got out the tub and dried off, and then rubbed some baby oil gently into my skin. I had picked out a booty-hugging, ankle-length cotton dress that I was planning to wear downstairs to dinner, but as soon as I put that baby on I knew it wasn’t gonna do. The banging little number was slinky and sleeveless, and Gutta had kicked up mad bruises everywhere he could get a hold of me. My chest, my shoulders, my arms . . . damn near my whole body was bruised up from one end to the other and I was gonna hafta cover up real good.

  What I really felt like putting on was a pair of old sweats and a raggedy T-shirt, but rich folks like the Dominions didn’t roll like that at the dinner table, not even on their worse damn days. So I put my hair up in a ponytail and pulled on some tight jeans and a long-sleeved clingy shirt, and then I swung by Bunni’s room and we headed downstairs to eat.

  Selah hadn’t shown up yet, but the rest of the crew was already sitting around the dining room table. Dane, Jock, Fallon, Dy-Nasty, and Barron. Pilar’s uppity ass had shown up too, and she had a tart look on her face like she had smashed her damn finger in a car door.

  Dy-Nasty was sitting beside me with her elbows propped on the table and talking real loud on her cell phone. She was wearing my ear out and steady running off at the mouth as she bragged to some hood chick on the other end about all the fly shopping she was finna do and how much she was gonna pay for so-and-so luxury items from so-and-so expensive-ass stores.

  Bunni was sitting on my other side, and I wanted to crack up when she leaned over and whispered in my ear, “That hood bitch is so damn ghetto!”

  I nodded and then went straight back to iggin’ Dy-Nasty’s ass because listening to her talk I could tell she didn’t know shit about no real shopping for no quality items. Matter fact, her guttersnipe ass wouldn’t know classy if somebody slapped it on her breakfast plate and poured syrup all over it, because almost every designer she was naming was second rate and their gear coulda been had for basement-bargain prices at some slum little outlet mall.

  I squirmed my aching ass around in my chair and tried to get comfortable as the kitchen staff carried in steaming platters of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and corn on the cob. We went ahead and fixed our plates even though Selah hadn’t shown up yet, but the only ones who seemed happy as fuck to be at that table was Bunni and Dy-Nasty, and both of them was about to work my last nerve.

  Bunni was chewing with her mouth open and busy gnawing a chicken bone down to the marrow, and Dy-Nasty, with her wide-hipped self, was spreading about two inches of butter around on a thick hunk of white bread.

  I barely had an appetite, myself. All I could think about was the fact that my backbone was on fire and my heart was still missing Mama.

  I was glad when Selah finally decided to show up. Her eyes were damn near dancing in her face as she walked over to the table and stood beside her chair and said, “Good evening, everyone. Sorry I’m late, but I have some good news and I wanted to share it with everybody at the same time.”

  She was grinning all hard like she knew the best damn secret in the world and could barely hold herself together, so it was only natural that I started grinning too.

  “Your father’s doctors called today,” Selah said with big-time excitement in her voice. “They summoned me to Houston right away, and Dy-Nasty and I flew down there almost immediately.”

  She glanced around the table, beaming like crazy at each and every one of us and then she finally spit it out.

  “There’s really no way to ease into something like this, so I’ll just go ahead and tell you. Viceroy is awake! One of his experimental treatments worked and your father is out of his coma!”

  Fallon busted out crying and Pilar looked pissed like a muthafucka.

  “Hold up, Mama Selah!” Dy-Nasty wailed. “I’m the one who flew way down there witchu and you didn’t even tell me Daddy was woke!”

  “I’m sorry, Dy-Nasty.” Selah smiled at her. “I wanted to keep it a surprise until we were all together and I could tell everyone at the same time.”

  I forgot all about the pain that was radiating through my body. I was so damned stunned by the news that all I could do was sit there frozen in my seat, speechless like fuck, but then Dy-Nasty started actin’ up, and you can best believe when she jumped off into her grifter act I started cuttin’ the hell up too!

  “Dadddeeee!” she wailed, smushing her face down in her cold mashed potatoes as she keeled forward like her ass had been sniper-shot. “Ohmygawd!” she sniveled, and slobbered all in her plate. “Praise his name!” She slapped both her hands down hard on the table. “Praise!” Slap! “His!” Slap! “Ho!” Slap! “Lee!” Slap! “NAME!”

  I tooted up my lips and shot her a killer look. No this trick wasn’t tryna go to church on me! No this heathen wasn’t! Well we could go to church, baby! We could damn sure go to church!

 
Bunni shot me a go get ’em look, but it wasn’t even necessary ’cause I wasn’t about to let that trick show me up with her back-alley praise words, so I went for broke and busted out with a few of minez too!

  “I knew it!” I shrieked. I leaped to my feet like somebody had shoved a golden pole up my ass, knocking my chair clean over as I pogo-jumped up and down on two stiff legs.

  “I knew my daddy was gonna wake up one day! Hallelujah!” I held my hands high in the air and shook ’em like I had two tambourines attached to my wrists.

  “Hosanna!” I shrieked, and Bunni looked over at me like I had a snake comin’ outta my mouth.

  “Lawdhamercy! I prayed on my knees for this, Mama Selah! I swear to God, I got down on my knees and prayed for my father’s healing and his salvation, Lawd, thank you, Jezeesus!”

  I started trembling and gasping like I was catching the Holy Ghost, and I was performing so good that even Dy-Nasty had to pop her head up and kill all that weeping so she could see what the hell was going on.

  But then Barron stood up and cleared his throat real loud. He walked over to me and put his hands on both of my shoulders, then he gave me a hard lil push like, Sinner, sit your black ass down!

  “A’ight now,” Barron said, walking back to his place at the table. “We understand everybody is extra happy”—he shot a smirk at me and Dy-Nasty—“because me and Mama are happy too. Daddy has a long road of recovery ahead of him and it’s probably gonna be a tough one. The first thing we gotta do is make some real quick phone calls and let his aunts and cousins know he’s awake and that he’s gonna be okay. After that, we’ll all fly down to Houston tomorrow so everybody can welcome him back to the world and show him some Dominion love.”

  “I’ve got the business jet lined up for seven a.m. sharp,” Selah said, stepping back into the convo. “And Viceroy is expecting us. He’s anxious to see everybody but as you all know, your father has been through a lot. The time he spent in a coma took almost as much out of him as his injuries did, and he’s also undergone some pretty invasive therapies to help his brain heal and rejuvenate too. In light of all that, the doctors want us to be extra-careful that we don’t upset him and that we keep his stress level to a minimum.”

  She took a real deep breath and then she stared dead at me and Dy-Nasty. I was still standing there sniffling snot and holding my imaginary tambourines up in the air, and that weeping-ass snake oil swindler Dy-Nasty had done cried herself outta her chair and was clinging to the table with one hand while she had one knee planted on the floor.

  “That means,” Selah continued with a disgusted look in her eyes, “that Mink and Dy-Nasty, you two will have to stay back here at the house tomorrow. I’m sorry, but I just don’t think Viceroy is ready to handle all this”—she frowned and waved her hand in the air—“drama y’all got going on.”

  If we thought what Selah had just spit was bad, the shit really hit the fan big-time when she excused herself to take a call from Viceroy’s doctors and hurried outta the room.

  Barron looked over his shoulder until he was sure his mama was gone, and then he turned around and dropped a shit bomb down on the whole fuckin’ table.

  “A’ight, now. I hate to be the one to piss in your hair weave,” he said, grinning real hard as he busted Dy-Nasty out, “but now that Pops is awake and back with us, that little bullshit vote the board passed to give all y’all three hundred grand a year is a wrap. Sisters and brothers, the door to the trust fund has been officially closed, and I’ll be filing a motion to have the board’s vote annulled the first thing tomorrow morning.”

  Pilar sat there grinning like a muthafucka but you woulda thought somebody had melted all the glue outta Dy-Nasty’s ratchet-ass horse tail.

  “Uh-uh,” she protested, coming up off her knee and climbing back up in her chair. “Wait a minute! Wait a goddamn minute! What the hell did you say just now?” she blasted on Barron. “Come again?” Her cat-eyes flashed in her face and she looked ready to jump all over him and take his ass to the mat.

  “Whatchu mean the trust fund is a wrap?” She wagged her head back and forth. “Naw, naw, naw to da naw! That trust fund ain’t no wrap, Bearrun! Ain’t nobody tryna hear that shit! You owe me, baby! I worked for minez, remember? I don’t care if ya daddy done woke up or not. That first DNA test said I’m Sable, and I want everythang all the rest of y’all been getting except I want my dough all lumped up in a big fat ball right now!”

  “Well the first DNA test said Mink was Sable too!” Bunni jumped in from the other side of me. “And Mink took her damn test first! So why should you get to keep the whole three hundred smack-smacks all to yourself?”

  “Neither one of y’all is getting shit!” Barron hollered. “And if either one of y’all gave a damn about my pops and half a damn about my moms, then both of y’all would get’ta steppin’ out the door like you had some goddamn sense!”

  Barron looked spitting mad. He was grilling me and Dy-Nasty like he just wanted us to run off at the mouth. Like he was just itchin’ for one of us to go on a slick lil lip trip.

  But I wasn’t about to bite at that bait. I just sat there and stared back at his stupid ass and didn’t say shit. And really, there was nothing I needed to say any damn way. Because something told me that after hearing what she had just heard, money-grubbin’ Dy-Nasty was about to do enough screaming, biting, and backstabbing for the both of us!

  CHAPTER 13

  After dinner me and Bunni went upstairs so we could get our heads right with dick-slangin’ Dane up in his private little fuck-palace over the Dominion’s eight-car garage. A hot Reem Raw track was flowing from his deluxe speaker system and glowing sticks of incense were burning in about five ashtrays.

  Dane was one of them real tasty-lookin’ niggas. Pure-dee eye candy. He rocked some real tight twisties in his thick, curly hair, and his chocolate skin looked so damn smooth and sweet it shoulda had a golden candy wrapper around it.

  We were walking into his loft when Bunni tried to pinch me as she licked her lips and checked out his package. I was still hyped over all the shit we had heard at dinner so I elbowed her and rolled my eyes, but I could feel where she was coming from ’cause Dane was holdin’. His chest and shoulder muscles was all over the damn place, and his tight stomach had at least ten cans on it. He had on a baggy pair of white basketball shorts, and two phat diamond earrings glinted from his lobes.

  He fired up some sticky green and him and Bunni got down on a little bit of hash. Both of them were tossing back double shots of yakkety-yak, but my stomach wasn’t in the mood for no more firewater so I just got lifted on a whole bunch of weed and sipped on a Corona instead.

  I could tell Dane was feeling real up now that me and Bunni had come back to Texas. The three of us stretched out on some big fluffy pillows on the floor in his loft and proceeded to get straight tipsy.

  “A’ight now.” Bunni puffed her weed and got right down to bizz. “I heard all that bullshit Barron was talkin’, but what’s the real dealio with our duckets now that Pappa-Doo done woke up?”

  Dane shook his head and pulled real hard on his spliff.

  “Bump told it right. Pops is up. Talking and everything.” He gave a short laugh. “Talking shit, I should say. It’s crazy. That cat is the biggest workaholic control freak I ever seen in my life. The minute those doctors let him outta there he’s gonna head over to Dominion Oil and get back in the driver’s seat and put the pedal to the metal. And once that shit happens all of our asses can kiss that three-hundred-grand payday good-bye for good.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because the fund can only be activated if Pops dies or gets declared incapacitated to serve in his position at Dominion Oil, remember? That’s why it’s so fucked up that the board’s vote didn’t go through. Bump said he got the call just when he was about to get that shit signed and notarized. Pops already said that once he gets back to work he’s gonna kill that money provision and kill it quick.”

  “Damn!�
� Bunni got all hyped. “Daddy-Deep-Pockets shoulda stayed his ass asleep for a lil while longer! He’s fuckin’ up some major plans around here!”

  “You got that right,” I said, and elbowed Bunni. “ ’Cause without that trust fund dough, me and you is ass-out with no place else to go. Especially once them DNA results come back.” I frowned at Dane. “While you bullshittin’, we all about to be ass-out.”

  Dane nodded and took a deep drag off the blunt. “You ain’t lying. I was counting on that cash too. Them fools up at my school is still trippin’, man.”

  “Why?” Bunni gave him the stank look. “You still tryna get up in them dorm rooms with all them freak-a-deek college bitches?”

  “Nah.” He shook his head. “I ain’t even thinking about them chicks. It’s that disciplinary board I’m worrying about. I gotta shake those sexual assault charges before they’ll let me back in school, man.”

  He took another toke. “But this chick I know in the admin office put a bug in my ear. She said the deans are about to send my shit up to the prosecutor’s office so they can hit me with a charge. And if that happens, then I might as well just bend over and kiss my balls good-bye ’cause my ass is gonna be out the door.”

  “But I thought you was tryna get a lawyer?” I asked, and then filled my mouth up with a gulp of ice-cold Corona. I knew Dane had been up in them dorms splashing around in college coochie on the regular, but he was the exact type of dude that chicks loved to throw pussy at. He wasn’t no damn predator!

  “Them lawyer niggas don’t work for free, yo.”

  I swallowed and belched and shook my head as my throat burned from the cold acid. “But you ain’t even push up on nobody! You gotta fight that shit, son!”

  “I was planning on fighting it—when I got my hands on that three hundred large, remember?”

  Dane took one more pull off his tree and then tapped the roach out in the ashtray. “Now that Pops is back in action there ain’t no way I’m gonna get next to that kinda money without somebody finding out.”