“Ssssssssssssss.” Python’s hands lock onto my waist as he tosses his head back. Ecstasy ripples across his face. He knows his shit is home now.
I take his hands off my waist and plant them on my neck. I know what he wants and I know what he likes. One night of that slow lovemaking bullshit is enough for me. I need a good pounding out to relieve some major frustrations.
“Squeeze,” I order, gritting my teeth. “Enough of this wife shit. I’m your bitch now.”
Python’s forked tongue slithers out of his mouth as I feel the pressure of his large hands pressing against my larynx.
“That’s it, baby,” I hiss. “Harder.”
The corners of his lips inch higher as he tightens his grip and cuts off my air supply.
Yes! I slam my eyes shut and throw my ass back as fast and as hard as I can. In my mind, I imagine cramming a 9mm into Ta’Shara’s mouth as she snots up and cries like a bitch. It’s going to feel so good to spit in her face and shows her who’s the real head bitch in charge. I’m gonna make her beg and suck the end of that barrel like a ho tryna make the muthafuckin’ rent.
My clit thrums harder as white stars dance along the edges of my fantasies. My rhythm slows, frustrating Python. In a flash, he tosses me off top and throws me onto my back. He snatches the wide leather belt from off the floor and wraps the shit around my neck.The buckle bites into my windpipe, causing my nut to rise.
“Ssssssssss. Time to ride this shit right. On your knees.” Smack!
Eager as shit, I pop my ass up high in the air and scream when his fat dick violates me again.The pain feels so good.
Smack! “Shut the fuck up and take this muthafucka.” He yanks the belt back so fast and hard that it’s a wonder that my neck doesn’t snap off. I fire off my first orgasm of the morning. The shit is so strong that my hands and knees wobble while the rest of my body trembles like an earthquake.
“You comin’, baby?” Python asks, chuckling from behind. He loosens the belt a fraction so I can drag in a sliver of oxygen.
Despite the pain in my chest and lungs, I beg. “More.”
“That my girl. You missed this shit, didn’t you?” Smack! “Your man got something for you.” The bed shifts, letting me know that he’s reaching over for something else inside the nightstand drawer.
I peek over my shoulder to see him opening a package with silver cucumber-shaped probes. “What are those?”
“You’ll see.” He smiles as he works the package.
I open my mouth to ask a question when he touches the two probes together and a zap of electricity crackles between the probes. What the fuck?
“Your nigga is gonna hook you up,” he promises, fisting the belt and snapping my head back again.
Fear slices through me at the sound of crackling and a humming electricity.We ain’t never done no play like this before. “Py—”
Smack! “Shut the fuck up. You’re my bitch right now, right?” Python hunches over me. His dick bounces off the crack of my ass as he palms my right tit and sends a small shock to my nipples. BUZZ!
“Aaaargh!” I bounce up out of shock, while a delicious tingle ricochets down to my clit. Do I like that shit? I ease down, pressing my tit back into his hand.
Python’s rumbling laughter vibrates off my back. “I knew that you’d like this shit.” ZAP!
The next scream is out of my mouth before I can stop it. My bruised chest is aching, my nipples are on fire, and my pussy is dripping all over these nice-ass sheets.
“Spread your legs,” he orders, pulling the belt back farther.
I obey, greedy for that next shock of pain.
Python palms my clit and at the same moment he rams through my back door.
BUZZ!
No shit my eyes roll to the back of my head and it feels like I’m flying. Soaring above so much fuckin’ bullshit. Those baby-raping foster daddies, those evil child-beating bitches who’d locked me in rooms and starved me for days on end, and that back-stabbing, selfish bitch of a sister. I’m above all their bullshit.
Python drills into me—every few thrusts, I’m jolted with that wonderful zap that has me clenching the back of my teeth and soaring through those clouds in my mind. After the fourth time, I realize that Python loves the shit because it makes me clench my ass muscles tighter.
“Ssssssssss. That’s it, baby. That’s it.”
ZAP! BUZZ! ZAP!
I don’t know what happens next. My brain shuts down or I black out for a few seconds. All I know is that I wake to the feel of Python glazing my ass with his hot nut.
“Sssssssssssss.” He collapses on top of me. “I really missed your wild ass.”
I laugh because I don’t know if he means literally or figuratively. We curl up into a spoon where I can enjoy the feel of his softening dick against my ass while he peppers my back with kisses. “How do you feel?”
“Satisfied.”
He chuckles, nibbling on my shoulder. “No doubt.”
I’m eased onto my back again and smile into that ugly face that I love so much. I’m on the verge of spitting that saccharine-sweet bullshit at him when I see that damn sadness again. Honeymoon’s over. “So when are you going to tell me what’s on your mind?”
Our gazes lock.
“I’ve never been good at hiding shit from you.”
“No. And if you tell me that there’s another bitch about to have your baby, I’m going to cut your fucking dick off . . . honey.”
The entire bed shakes with his next rumble of laughter. But when I don’t crack a smile his shit peters out until there’s dead silence between us.
He rolls away and falls onto his back. “I’m not in the mood to be dealing with no jealousy shit.” He covers his face with one hand and uses his thumb and middle finger to massage his temples.
“You ain’t in the mood?” I jet up on the bed. “When the fuck are you ever in the mood to hear this shit? Now that I have your last name, I ain’t having a bunch of miscellaneous bitches disrespecting my ass.You can try me if you want to and you’ll be like the rest of these muthafuckas and find out how I get down. Believe that.”
He doesn’t say shit.
“Python!” I shake his meaty arm. “Nigga, I know you hear me talking to you.”
“Is that what you’re doing? Sounds like you’re nagging the shit out of me.”
Pissed, I slap the taste out of his mouth.
Out of reflex, Python swings his muscled arm toward me but stops short from making contact. A new smile breaks across his face. “Look at my little gangsta bitch.” He chuckles and lowers his hand.
“Ha. Ha. Muthafucka. I’m not playing. There’s going to be some changes,” I tell him. “If I’m your Queen—your Boss Bitch, then, dammit, I want you to start treating me like it. Look around. Ain’t nobody rolling harder with you than I am. We in this shit together—to the grave, baby.”
He studies my ass like I’m a new nigga on the block. “I hear what you’re sayin’ but—”
“Nah. Fuck that.” I grab his hand and place it over my heart. “I want you to feel what I’m saying. I’m your bitch. Together, we’re gonna rule it all.”
He rolls his eyes.
“Listen.” I drop his hand so I can brace his head and force him to look at me. “We’re going to fix this shit. You’ll see. We’re going to be back on top. We’re going to settle old vendettas and remind everyone who really rules the streets—but I’m your partner. I never have and never will deal you dirty. I’m not like Shariffa . . . or Melanie. I’m your true rib—’til I die. Recognize and give me the respect I deserve.”
A long silence stretches between us before a slow smile hooks the corner of his thick lips.
“A’ight. I’m putting you on, baby girl. Me and you—ride or die.” He reaches for the belt still wrapped around my neck and jerks me forward. “I warn you. If you ever cross me or do me dirty, I’ll have no fuckin’ remorse on your ass.”
I return his smile. “Ditto, muthafucka.”
/> 37
Lucifer
The mortician snatches the white sheet from Bishop’s head.At my side, Momma releases a gut-wrenching wail that twists my gut into knots. I force steel into my back while I clamp my jaw tight, all in a desperate attempt to stop the unthinkable.
Don’t cry. Don’t. You. Fuckin’. Do. It.
I can’t believe that I even have to say this shit to myself—but life is dealing me too many body blows and I’m seconds from giving in.
My mother, on the other hand, loses it. She jets from my side and throws herself across Bishop’s cold, dead body. I should pull her back, but I know that she’ll fight me off so I let her have her moment. In my absence, the mortician steps forward and before he can even touch my mother, I pull him back and shake my head.
“I’ll give you two a few minutes,” he says.
I keep my glare leveled on him until he exits the room. Even then, I cling onto my anger as if it’s going to save me from drowning in an ocean of unwanted emotions.
Too many emotions.
“My baby. My baby. Whhhhyyyy?” Momma’s sobs grow so loud that my ears ring. How long should I let her do this to herself—five minutes—ten minutes? Momma had changed a lot over the years. Her once-fit frame is now ringed with love handles and breasts giving in to the pressure of gravity. And though her beautiful caramel skin is still wrinkle-free, there’s a permanent sadness in her eyes. Momma has never been anybody’s fool, she knew Bishop and I followed our father’s path into the street.
Of course, she preferred I’d taken my place among the Flowers instead of getting involved with the wet work. But she was old-school, when women just married the game—not played it. Momma and I never saw eye to eye on much, especially after she crawled into bed with Cousin Skeet so soon after Daddy’s death. And with my own situation after Mason’s death, I understand it even less now.
Unless there was something going on between them before Daddy was killed.
I shake my head to erase the thought, but it’s not like my head is an Etch A Sketch. This thought has been circling for more than a decade and each time it does, I hate her even more for it.
Closing my eyes, I hang my head. Today is not the day for this shit. Juvon is dead. I flinch from the stabbing pain in my heart. As a line of defense, I shift my gaze to the floor and pretend to be fascinated by how clean the white linoleum looks. Slowly, my eyes crawl upward.
Don’t look him. Don’t. Do. It.
I can keep it together if I don’t look at him. But my eyes have a mind of their own and they keep traveling his body until they land on Juvon’s sunken gray-black face and the huge hole in his right temple. Dammit, Bishop. Why did you have to go and get yourself killed?
My hands ball at my sides. Maybe if I’d been at Da Club that night then none of this would have happened.
I don’t know if that shit is true, but the thought keeps creeping around in my mind. With new rumors swirling around that Python and LeShelle had somehow survived that hit outside the church, it’s just one more hard blow that I have to deal with. It’s hard to believe that twenty-four hours ago, I was worried about a tag-team alliance between him and Profit. Now, if I could turn back time, I would gladly step down and give him the damn throne.
But I’ve been wishing for a fucking time machine for the past few months.
Fifteen minutes pass and Momma’s wails grow louder. Finally, I step forward and settle my hands on her shoulders. “C’mon, Momma. Let’s go.”
“No. No. I can’t leave him like this,” she sobs, fighting me off. “I can’t leave him alone.”
I close my eyes and step back and watch her do what she has to do. An hour later, Momma finally releases him, weak and exhausted. When I start to lead her out of the room, she grabs my arm and forces me to look at her.
“You find out who did this shit to your brother.” Her fingers dig into my skin. “I know that you have ways of finding out.You do it.You hear me?” Momma’s jaw trembles with renewed anger. “You kill those muthafuckas who did this shit to my baby.”
I swallow the boulder in the center of my throat as I nod. “I will.”
“Promise me,” she insists, her nails damn near hitting bone. “I want them dead—every last one of those muthafuckas.”
At long last, something we see eye to eye on. “You have my word, Momma.”
38
Alice
Arzell smells bad. I keep telling myself that I need to clean up what came out of his dead body and drag him out to one of the freshly dug graves I have prepared by the big oak tree, but so far I keep putting it off. Maybe it’s because it feels like a form of punishment to deny him his final resting place. Maybe I’ll leave Maybelline to rot in the basement, too, once she croaks.
I know she has to be begging God by now for me to just put a bullet through her head. So far, I do just enough to keep her alive. I’ll never get over losing my baby or his daddy. . . .
It had been almost five years since I’d left Terrell at Maybelline’s to run to the store and there hadn’t been a day that passed that I didn’t contemplate going back, but I had a list as long as my arm on why that shit was a bad idea. Every year on his birthday I sent him a birthday card to let him know that I was thinking about him. It was probably stupid. It wasn’t like Terrell could read.
“Just go and visit him,” Dribbles said in between shoving handfuls of catfish into her mouth. It was one of those rare days when we’d hustled a few extra dollars to put some actual food in our bellies. “You know that you want to. I’m sure that your sister will let you see him.”
“Not without giving me a hard time or . . .”
Dribbles frowned and licked her fingers. “Or what?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. You don’t know Maybelline. She got this whole holier than thou thing down pat. I’m surprised that no one has nailed her to a cross already.”
“Hell, there’s one of those in every family,” Dribbles laughed. “All I’m saying is it’s clear that you want to see Terrell so . . . go see him.”
I grabbed my cola and wished that it had something stronger in it so I could handle this conversation.
“You scared she’s gonna pack Terrell’s things and make you take him with you?”
“No,” I lied.“And even if she did, it’s not like I couldn’t take care of him. I mean . . . it would be a little adjustment, but I could do it. If I had to.”
Dribbles nodded and let me bump my gums. She wasn’t buying a word I was saying. When I finished, she had one response: “Go.”
Two days after Terrell’s fifth birthday I knocked on Maybelline’s doors. After I did, I was suddenly hit with the feeling that I was making a terrible mistake. I turned to jet off the porch when the front door was opened.
“What can I do you for?”
I whipped back around at the rough baritone voice and was taken aback by the thuggishly fine, bold, chocolate brother filling up the door. To make things worse, he was bare-chested with a tapestry of tats, a gold rope chain and wore jeans that sagged off his hips.
Black Gangster Disciple Isaac Goodson was a mean muthafucka by the way of Chicago—at least that was the word on the streets. When he rolled into town and opened his own auto shop off Airways, bitches streamed in and out of that place tryna lock his fine ass down. I had heard that Maybelline had been the lucky bitch to drag him down to the courthouse but until that moment I hadn’t realize just how lucky she was.
“Are you going to stand here with your mouth open all day or are you going to tell me what you want?”
Licking my dry lips, I straightened my clothes and hand-ironed my hair. “Is . . . is Maybelline and Terrell in?”
“Nah. She took lil man down South to visit family.” Isaac propped his weight against the door frame and took his time checking me over. “You’re Alice, aren’t you?”
Surprised, I blinked up at him. I couldn’t imagine Maybelline having had anything nice to say about me. “Yeah. I just came by to, uhm,
wish Terrell a happy birthday.”
“For the past five birthdays?”
“Hey!You don’t know me.” The brothah jumped from my fantasy list to shit list with a quickness.
“No—but I know your son. And I know that he would like to see his mother every once and a while.”
“I’m here, ain’t I?”
“And he’s not. That’s what some would call a logistical problem.” He toked on a fat blunt and stared at me. Despite my addiction and homeless situation, I still had quite an effect on the opposite sex and I knew when a man was interested in me. Flipping the script, I checked his ass out, too. My jealousy mounted when my gaze rested on the growing dick imprint in the front of his jeans.
“Soooo how long are they gonna be gone?” I asked, pushing up a smile.
“They’ll be back on Monday.” He blew out a long stream of smoke. “Wanna come in and wait?”
“For three days?”
“You got something else to do?”
I smiled. “As a matter of fact, I don’t.”
Isaac stepped back and allowed me to enter.
The next three days had to be the best sex that I’ve ever had. When we weren’t screwing, we were blazing it up and vice versa. It was wrong to be fuckin’ Maybelline’s husband in her bed but it was even worse to fall in love with him. I couldn’t help myself. Isaac was as addictive as the best rocks on the street. When the time drew nearer for Maybelline and Terrell to return, I had a new reason to not want to face her.
So I left.
Isaac and I fucked a few more times in his office at his shop, but then he just cut me off. It wasn’t because he suddenly had a conscience. He had simply moved on to the next bitch. I know because I stalked his ass.
“Fuck him. I don’t give a fuck about that muthafucka.” I flicked on my lighter and rotated it beneath the spoon of cocaine and baking soda. “I hope his ass catches something and his dick falls off.”
“You keep saying that,” Dribbles said, twitching and rubbing her arms. “Hurry up with that.”
“I mean it. Who the fuck does he think he is? Humph. I like his nerve. He ain’t the only nigga out here. I can get any muthafucka I want, if I put my mind to it. Sheeiiiiit.” I put the lighter down and then worked the oil with a knife.
Gangsta Divas Page 21
