“Python is breaking me off,” I say, giving Baby my back as I go sit on the bed. “He’s gonna take care of me. Watch and see.” Sniff. “He’s already spending more time with me than LeShelle, and he’s been talking about getting me an apartment.” I reach up and remove the silk scarf from my neck and toss it aside.
“WHAT. THE. FUCK?” Baby launches across the room and roughly inspects my bruised neck. “WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO YOU?”
I pull away. “Nothing. It’s no big deal.”
“No big deal?” Baby stares at me as if I’ve lost my mind. “Is that nigga beating on you?”
“No. Don’t be ridiculous!” I roll her eyes. “It’s nothing like that.”
“Don’t fuckin’ lie to me.” Baby’s voice tightens with anger. “If that grimy muthafucka is hurting you, he ain’t got to worry about Fat Ace’s ass no more, because I’ll rock-a-bye that nasty-looking muthafucka myself.”
I stand from the bed and fold my arms. “He’s not hurting me. We just like to play it rough when we’re fuckin’, that’s all.”
“Rough?” Baby reaches for my neck again, but I dodge her touch. “Damn, Yo-Yo. You letting that nigga choke you out? What the fuck?”
I shrug again. “It’s no big deal. He really gets into it. I mean, he fuckin’ comes like nobody I’ve ever seen.” I laugh but it sounds like a misfired weapon, so I turn away again.
Baby just stands there not really knowing what to say.
“You watch. Python’s gonna leave that bitch and make me wifey. Then all those bitches will have to bow down to my ass. The one they used to call retard and Lemonhead. I’m going to be the head bitch in charge.” Sniff. “You watch and see.” Tears bum-rush my eyes and splash down my face. “These bitches are going to respect me.”
I don’t hear Baby move up behind me, but I melt when my best friend wraps her arms around me and pulls me close. The next thing I know, I’m sobbing and blubbering against Baby’s collarbone. It’s more than just my face and mouth that’s busted; it feels as if something much deeper is going on. I put up a good front, but there’s shit about Python and all those creepy-ass snakes and his violent sex practices that scares the hell out of me.
“Shhhh. Don’t cry. Everything is going to be all right,” Baby assures me awkwardly.
I know my girl isn’t normally the comforting type, but at the moment I’ll take what I can get. I’ve missed my friend, more than I want to admit. Who knows what could’ve happened if Baby Thug hadn’t shown up when she did.
“It’s all right,” Baby whispers. “You know I’ll always have your back.”
I hear the truth behind her words, and then I feel Baby’s soft but persistent lips press against my bruised ones. I don’t immediately react. Then when my body starts to tingle, my thoughts slow and I find myself kissing her back. It’s like a click inside my head, and for this one moment in time, everything feels right.
The way Baby caresses my body makes me feel both loved and desirable. I’ve never felt this way with any man. Ever. Now curious, I allow Baby to unbutton my shirt and unsnap my bra. My reward is Baby’s strong but slender fingers spreading over my full breasts and squeezing their softness.
We ease down onto the bed. I stare at Baby like I’m truly seeing her for the first time. Even then I’m not sure what I’m seeing or feeling, for that matter. Baby is a petite woman with pretty brown eyes and long curly lashes, and her thick hair is cornrowed in neat, straight lines. Her subtle masculinity comes from her firm body, muscled arms, and thuggish attitude, which right now is turning me on.
Baby keeps her gaze level as she lowers her head and then sucks one of my erect nipples into her mouth. I gasp and moan when her tongue dances around my breasts. Encouraged by my reaction, Baby reaches down and peels my jeans and panties off my hips.
“Oh my God, Baby. I don’t—”
“Shhhh. Just relax and enjoy, sweetheart,” Baby urges, and then turns her attention to the other exposed breast. “Let me show you how I feel about you. Let me love you.” She goes back to sucking and squeezing my breasts.
I run my hand along Baby’s braided hair. I try to hold on to her, but the absence of a broad chest and thick waist slowly starts to pull me out of the fantasy that she’s trying to create for me. I feel her slender fingers skim up my open thighs and then brush against my neatly groomed pussy. I quiver, deliciously so, while conflicting emotions flood my senses and a new wave of tears leak from my eyes.
This is wrong. This is wrong …but it feels so good.
Baby slips her index finger in between the lips of my swollen pussy and then swishes it around my slippery clit. Slowly, she inches down my body, planting small kisses as she goes.
This isn’t right.
Baby pulls open my pussy and curls her long tongue beneath the base of my clit.
“No. No. Stop.” I sit up. “I can’t do this.”
“What?” Baby looks up, confused.
I roll away and snatch my panties up off the floor. “I’m sorry. B-but I can’t. It’s not that…that I don’t have feelings for you. I do. But I can’t love you the way you want me to.”
“Let me get this straight,” Baby says, her voice hardening. “You can fuck somebody else’s man, but you can’t fuck me? You can let that grimy freak choke you out, but you can’t lay with a bitch who cares for you—who fights for you? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Don’t say it like that.” I hang my head.
“How the fuck should I say it?” Baby hops off the bed. “I ain’t good enough for you? Just fuckin’ say it! You can’t be happy unless someone is using and abusing you? Is that how you get off?”
“Stop it! Just stop it!” I toss up my hands. “It’s not like that. I’m just…I’m—”
“You’re just what, bitch?”
“I’M NOT FUCKIN’ GAY!” I storm away from her, pressing my forehead against the palm of my hand. “No matter how much you wish I was or whatever, I just don’t get down like that.”
“Bitch, I just had my hand in your wet pussy! Don’t tell me you weren’t feeling me. You’re just stuck on stupid. You always have been. Whether it’s sucking nigga’s dicks for Lemonheads or thinking a nigga like Python is gonna upgrade some chicken head just because he put a baby on you. If that was the muthafuckin’ case, how come none of those other baby daddies didn’t wife you? Think.” She taps her temple. “Only a retarded muthafucka would keep doin’ the same thing over and over again and expect different results.”
“Is that why you keep running behind me sniffing my ass?” I explode. “Your retarded ass thinks that I’m just going to magically turn into a muthafuckin’ dyke so we can fuck with fake dicks and slurp down pussy juice?”
Baby cocks back a fist, but then catches herself before she sends the muthafucka flying.
“Whatcha wanna do? Hit me?” I glare. “Guess that don’t make you no different from the rest of them niggas after all. Does it?” To my surprise, Baby’s eyes gloss with restrained tears. Never, in all the years that I’ve known Baby, have I ever seen the girl cry. That shit just didn’t happen. Baby is too strong, hardheaded, and rough around the edges to let anyone catch her slipping. “Baby, I—”
“Squash it.” Baby relaxes her fist and holds up her hands. “I’m ghost.” She turns for the door. “You’re on your own.” She storms out. “Peace.”
I try to process what just happened. It feels like someone has just carved out my heart. What did I just do? “Baby!” I chase after her. “Please don’t leave. I’m sorry.” I race down the hall in just a pair of yellow panties. I hear the front door bang shut, and I speed up out the door. “Baby, come back! Baby!”
Baby Thug has already hopped into her blue Impala and is peeling away from the front curb.
“BABY!” I pay no mind to the lil niggas milling about, even as they laugh and point at my damn near naked ass. “BABY, COME BACK!”
In a rare and surprising move, my momma rushes out of the house and grabs my arm. �
�Girl, what the hell is wrong with you?” She drags me back toward the house. “Get your stupid ass in the house!”
“BABY!” I sob. “DON’T GO!”
32
Momma Peaches
“BABY, COME BACK!”
My head pops up from my pillow. “What in the world?”
Arzell’s thick lips spring off my fat clit as he pulls the covers back from over his head. “Forget about all that noise. Just lay back and relax.” He grins devilishly and then slides his hands beneath my ass so he can lift and plow back into his afternoon dessert.
“Oooh, sheeiiit.” I rotate my hips, smashing my pussy against his open mouth so that Arzell’s tongue gets in there good and deep. “Clean all that juice up, nigga. Ahhhh.” My boo hits my magic spot and honey gushes out of my body. I quiver and shake and then quiver some more.
Arzell eats it up like a starving nigga from a third world country, smacking and slurping the whole way. I thrash around so much that I know I must look like I’m having an epileptic fit. Even then, Arzell climbs up my body, hikes up my one and a half legs, and enters me with such deft precision that I come on his first stroke.
My mind spins. This young nigga is going to be the end of me, but if a bitch has to go, then there’s no better way than coming to death. An hour later, we’re covered in sweat and smoking one of Baby’s special blunts.
Arzell passes the blunt over and then reaches in between my legs and gives my sopping pussy a good squeeze. “How you feeling, Ma?”
“You know you handled your business, Daddy.” I smile dreamily and blow a stream of smoke up toward the ceiling.
A wide smile stretches across Arzell’s face as he drinks me in with his adoring eyes. “You know…I’ve been thinking.”
“Was that what that smell was?” I laugh and cuddle closer. There are just no words to describe how it feels for a woman my age to have a young, beautiful, and virile body lying next to her.
“Ha-ha.” He props himself up higher on the pillows. “Be serious for a minute, Ma.”
I catch the serious look in the young brother’s eyes and am instantly worried. I know that look. I’ve seen it on countless lovers before him. “No. No. No.”
Arzell frowns. “No what? You don’t even know what I’m about to say.”
“Actually, I do.” I pry myself away from the comfortable nook beneath his arm. “Do me a favor and let’s not talk. Let’s just float on this high for a while.”
“But—”
“Tomorrow,” I say. “I promise.”
Disappointment washes over Arzell’s handsome face. Clearly he doesn’t want to wait and lose his nerve, and unfortunately, that’s exactly what I’m hoping will happen. I try to take another toke off the addictive blunt but notice that the flame has died out. “Hand me that lighter off the nightstand,” I instruct Arzell, since he’s the closest.
Arzell grabs the red Bic and tries to flick it on. “It’s empty.” He sits up.
“There’s another one inside the drawer.”
He opens the drawer and rummages around. “Hey. Who’s this?” He picks up a frame. “Humph. She’s pretty. Is she related to you?”
I roll my eyes. “I asked you to grab a lighter, not to get all up in my business.” I reach over and grab the damn lighter myself.
Arzell steals another peek at the picture, but clearly he knows better than to ask me about it again. Instead of putting the frame back in the drawer, he sits it on top of the nightstand and climbs out of bed.
“Where are you going?” I ask, suspicious that he’s getting away from me because I have somehow hurt his delicate feelings.
“I’m hitting the shower,” he says with a serious attitude.
“Whatever,” I mumble under my breath, and flick on the lighter and inhale another much-needed hit. “These damn kids today.” I toss the light over at the nightstand and hit the picture frame. Glancing over, I sigh at the sight of my smiling sister. I don’t remember exactly when that picture was taken, but I certainly remember the last time I saw Alice….
I worried about Alice’s sudden interest in motherhood, mainly because she had dumped responsibility of her firstborn into my lap. Now her desire to be ghetto baby momma of the year stemmed solely from her wanting to prove that if I could do something, then so could she. That shit was questionable—especially since every time I did a roll-by of her Section 8 apartment in LeMoyne Gardens, the place was a total wreck and reeked of dirty diapers, spoiling food, and just outright BO.
Alice complained endlessly about not getting enough sleep or not having enough time to just take a decent bath, but whenever I offered to babysit, I would get accused of trying to steal custody of Mason. It was pointless to remind her that she was the one who had willy-nilly given up custody of Terrell and that it wasn’t some sneaky, underhanded maneuver on my part. But facts didn’t have a place in Alice’s drug-induced perception.
Plus, Alice was being very secretive about Mason’s father. Rumors circulated that it could’ve been anyone, since what my sister did to support her crack habit was the stuff of legends. Though my help wasn’t wanted or welcomed, I still felt that it was my duty to check on my newest nephew.
“I say leave her alone,” Isaac said as he shoved more bricks of cocaine into the deep freezer. “If the bitch doesn’t want to be bothered, then don’t bother her.”
“I know, but I think that baby is sick. Every time I call, I can hear him screaming in the background. It ain’t normal for no baby to holler like that all the damn time.” I crammed my arm through the sleeve of my sweater. “I’m just going to run over real quick, and then I’ll come back and start dinner.”
Isaac gave up. “Fine. She’s your sister. Just take Terrell with you because I gotta go handle some business over off Lamar.” He grabbed his gat. “It shouldn’t take too long, but I don’t want lil man to get caught in the crosshairs.”
“No problem. He’s been driving me crazy about seeing his little brother again anyway. I just hope his momma will open the door and let us in.” I kissed my husband on the cheek and headed out the door. “TERRELL!” I shouted, coming down my porch stairs. I spotted him across the street, playing with his best friend KyJuan. “Terrell, c’mon now. We gotta go!”
A door banged from off to my left, and I whipped my head around.
“I DONE TOLD YOU ABOUT TALKIN’ BACK TO ME, GIRL!” Eddie, Betty’s always drunk and deranged man of the moment, stumbled out of the house after a scrawny Yolanda.
“GET BACK HERE, YOU LIL BITCH!” Eddie waved a broken beer bottle. “I’LL TEACH YOU NOT TO TALK BACK!”
“What the fuck?” I raced over.
“MOMMY!” Yo-Yo screamed.
“Get away from that child,” I demanded, not even thinking when I retrieved the switchblade from my thigh and swish, swish, swish.
“AWWW. FUCK!” Eddie hit the ground, grabbing the side of his face where his left ear used to be. “SHE CUT ME! THAT BITCH CUT ME!”
Suddenly Betty found it fit to come running out of the house, shrieking in outrage. “EDDIE! EDDIE!” She dropped to her knees beside him and was quickly covered in blood. “What the hell did you do?” She glared up at me accusingly. “YOU BITCH!”
I blinked at the stupid heifer and then went back to waving my switchblade. “Now you can get a little bit of this, too, if you want. I ain’t about to be too many bitches out here.”
Betty clamped her mouth shut and went about trying to help her man. “C’mon, now, honey. Let me help you up.”
“GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!” Eddie shoved her away and rolled himself off the ground. “WHERE THE FUCK IS MY EAR?”
Lil Yolanda started laughing.
I glanced over at the bony child and frowned. “Chile, is you all right?” That shit just made the girl laugh even harder. I stepped back. That girl wasn’t all there.
Terrell ran up behind me, nosy to see what was going on. Hell, the whole block was pouring out of they houses to see what the hell was going on. Terr
ell looked at Yolanda like she was crazy. “Mama Peaches, what’s wrong with her?” he asked.
“Don’t worry about it, baby. C’mon.” I returned the switchblade to my thigh garter and reached for Terrell’s hand. But I jumped back when my hand brushed against something scaly. “What the fuck?”
Terrell beamed up at me as he held up a green grass snake. “This is Python,” he bragged. “Me and KyJuan found him in his backyard. “Can we keep him?”
I rolled my eyes. My nephew had gone overboard ever since Isaac had told him to embrace his fears.
“Boy, I don’t care. C’mon, let’s go see your momma.”
The ride out to LeMoyne Gardens was always interesting. Some hood nigga was cliquing up and starting to rise against the Black Gangster Disciples. Those lil ghetto hood rats were tagging damn near everything that stood still, and rolling through their territory was starting to be like going through inspection at the Mexican border.
Terrell glared at the cocky niggas but knew not to throw up the signs that repped Isaac’s set. When we climbed the deep staircase up to Alice’s apartment, Terrell wound and unwound Python around his wrist. “I’m gonna get me a gun and shoot all them niggas,” he said under his breath.
“You ain’t gonna do no such thing,” I hissed, and tugged him along. I knocked on Alice’s door. We waited for what seemed like forever before I banged again…and then again.
“Maybe she’s not home,” Terrell said, fidgeting.
“Maybe,” I said, mainly because I didn’t hear Mason screaming his little head off. I started to give up and walk away when something told me to try the door.
It was unlocked.
Curious and concerned, I pushed open the door and poked my head inside. “Hello? Alice?”
No answer.
I crept into the apartment. “ALICE. HEEEELLLLOOO.” I closed the door behind me and Terrell. A sound came from somewhere on the sofa in the living room. It took a moment, but I finally made out Alice lying facedown. “Alice?” I moved over to my sister and brushed back her hair. “Are you sick?”
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