Cameron

by Jade Jones

  I smiled. “Oh, so you were a bad boy?”

  He chuckled. “Yeah, I stayed in a lot of shit. Anyway,” he continued, “After I graduated from Ohio State--”

  “Oh, you went to OSU?” I asked excitedly.

  “Yep. Class of 2010.”

  “So what was your major?”

  “Business management.”

  “So what do you do?” I asked.

  “Me and my brother, Jerrell own two car dealerships in Columbus.”

  “Wow. That’s impressive. How old are you?” It was no secret that he was slowly garnering my interest. Young, sexy, and legit. He was the total package.

  “I’m twenty-two,” he answered.

  My eyebrows raised in surprise. “That really is impressive,” I told him. “Young, attractive, and about your business. Please tell me why you’re single.”

  Jude shrugged. “I guess I’m picky.”

  I gave him a skeptical look. “Oh really? So what makes me so special?”

  He smiled. “Because you’re young, attractive, and about your business.”

  ***

  “Oh my God! I was so close!”

  “You gotta learn how to time it,” Jude explained.

  We were playing Cyclone; a game where you had to stop a light at the right moment to be awarded bonus tickets. Obviously, it was addictive as hell because I had been playing the game for the last fifteen minutes and hadn’t even come close to winning the bonus. It was the first and only game I had played all night and I would not move on until I beat it.

  “Lemme show you,” he said.

  I stood to the side and allowed him a turn.

  “Just be patient,” he said. “You’re so eager.”

  I watched as he stood at the machine and placed his hand steadily over the STOP button. Ten seconds elapsed before I finally said, “How long are you gonna wait?”

  “Ssshh,” he said. After waiting for the light to come back up two more times he finally hit the button to stop the light. Sure enough he stopped it at the right moment and earned the bonus prize of three hundred and sixty-four tickets.

  “You just got lucky.”

  “Hatin’ ain’t a good look for you,” he said before collecting the tickets. “Why don’t you try?”

  I slowly approached the machine and placed my hands over the stop button. Jude placed the cup of tickets on a table beside the arcade game and stood directly behind me. He was so close that I could smell the enticing scent of his cologne. Goosebumps quickly sprouted on the nape of my neck as he placed his palm over my hand.

  “Just take your time,” he whispered. His breath tickled my ear and I could feel my hands growing clammy from the close encounter. “Okay, get ready,” he said.

  Once the light came back up, Jude quickly pressed my hand down on the STOP button. And I’ll be damned if we didn’t win the bonus prize again.

  “Now that was your luck that time,” he said, obviously not wanting to take the credit.

  “Well, you helped me...” My voice trailed off as I looked over Jude’s shoulder. I could have sworn I had just saw Silk.

  Chapter 21

  “I really had a great time,” I told Jude.

  “Me too. Thanks for lettin’ me take you out.”

  “No. Thank you,” I said. “I look forward to doing it again real soon.”

  “Well in that case, hit me up.”

  “I sure will,” I promised.

  “And it won’t be accidental this time right?”

  I giggled. “No. It won’t be.”

  “Cool.”

  After giving each other a long, tight hug, I exited the car and headed towards Viking Hall. Jude didn’t pull off til he made sure I was inside. Just as I walking towards the elevators, I received a text message. Rummaging through my Valentino purse, I pulled out my cell phone. I expected for the text message to be from Jude, perhaps telling me goodnight, but I frowned at the number displayed on the screen. It was Silk. Reluctantly, I opened the text message. It read: I saw you tonight. End that shit now or I’m fucking up you and that nigga.

  ***

  “Hypnotic? Where the fuck you been at, girl?” Juicy greeted me as soon as I entered the dressing room.

  She was the only one who had acknowledged me and I could just imagine the other dancers were not happy about my return. It only meant more competition for them. Not speaking arrogantly, it was just the truth.

  “I had a brief hiatus but I’m back now,” I told her. Besides, I was broke as hell and I could use the money. She didn’t have to know all that, though.

  After taking a seat at the vanity, I briefly looked over at Pocahontas through the mirror. Oddly enough, she was already staring at me and when our gazes connected, she quickly looked away. She had changed her hairstyle to the signature platinum blonde “Nikki Minaj bangs”.The new look was definitely not working for her but then again just the sight of her made my blood boil.

  Pocahontas and I had managed to stay out of each other’s way for the most part that night. Whenever we walked past each other, we avoided eye contact. If she spoke to me or even looked my way, I was liable to whup her ass all over again.

  “What’s been up with you and Poca?” Juicy asked me later that night.

  I assumed the obvious tension between us was apparent. “Nothing.” And I meant just that. Not a damn thing.

  “She be acting different lately,” Juicy continued. “She ain’t been her natural loud, obnoxious, ghetto self lately.”

  I snorted. “And you’re complaining?”

  Just as Juicy opened her mouth to speak, I noticed a young guy wave me over to the table he was seated at. “Lemme holla at you later,” I told Juicy. “I see some money.” I didn’t have time to idle and talk about Poca’s backstabbing ass.

  “Alright. Make that paper,” she said smugly as I walked away.

  “Hello, how are you?” I asked politely.

  “Good. What’s poppin’ with you? My name is Bobby. What’s your name?”

  Bobby was a scraggly looking guy, who didn’t even look old enough to be in a strip club. He was dressed in an oversized navy hoodie with dark jeans. He was seated alone and his drink of choice had been bottled water. Nothing about him screamed “money”, but I had run into too many guys in the club with stacks of paper in their pockets that looked like bums on the outside.

  “They call me, Hypnotic,” I said. “So you gone offer me a seat?” I asked pointing to the empty chair on the other end of the table.

  Instead of ushering me to take a seat in the chair, he pulled his own chair out and instructed for me to sit in his lap. After taking a seat, he proceeded to caress all over my body.

  “So what can I do for you, Bobby? You wanna lap dance?” I hoped he couldn’t sense the irritation in my tone. Hell, it cost to touch and I was wasting precious time sitting in his damn lap when I could have been earning money elsewhere.

  “Not right now,” he said. “I just wanna talk.”

  Hell, it costs to talk too, I thought. Time is money.

  “I just wanna get to know who I’m about to spend my money on. Is that cool?” he asked.

  My ears perked up at the mention of money. It was Saturday but fairly slow. Then again it was early at only 9 p.m. and The Shakedown didn’t usually start rocking until midnight. If I had to guess, I would probably say I only racked in a measly two hundred dollars all night. I could easily make twice that much on a bad night.

  “Sure,” I answered sweetly. Tell ‘em what they wanna hear; that was the motto in this hustle.

  “You wanna drink or something?” he offered.

  “Oh, no. I’m fine. Thank you,” I answered politely. Dancers under twenty-one were strictly forbidden to drink. Ahmad didn’t play that shit. Undercover police lived in The Shakedown and basically waited for Ahmad to slip up, so they could have a reason to shut his entire establishment down.

  “So, how old are you?” he asked.

  Suddenly, I wondered if he was one of the u
ndercover cops. They were always trying to catch underage dancers as well. Then again he could have been a pimp looking to recruit. I ran into a lot of those.

  “Twenty-one,” I lied. The legal dancing age was eighteen in Cleveland, but his nosy ass didn’t have any reason to know my age.

  “So, you like strippin’?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I shrugged. “It’s cool.” I had learned early on in the game that some men simply enjoyed a little conversation before a woman got her “twerk session” on so I didn’t trip too much about the questions.

  “So, how much you be making here every night?” he asked.

  Okay, now it was time to start tripping, I thought.

  I quickly stood up to leave.

  “Wait a minute, whoa! Whoa!” He quickly grabbed my elbow and gently pulled me back down on his lap. “Chill, baby girl. I ain’t mean to offend you,” he said. “Here.” He pulled out a ten dollar bill and placed it in my garter belt. “Lemme get a lap dance real quick on the next song.”

  As soon as The Weeknd’s “Wicked Games” filled the speakers, I stood up and removed my purple mermaid bikini top--Suddenly, an arm reached out and spun me around before I could begin my dance.

  “So, you still gone play these lil’ bullshit ass games?” Silk yelled.

  “Silk, can’t you see I’m busy!” I retaliated.

  “Yeah, can’t you see she busy?!” Bobby jumped in.

  Silk cut his eyes at Bobby and pointed in his face. “Mothafucka, I ain’t the one. You can find that shit out real quick.”

  Bobby quickly stood up and I instantly found myself standing between the two.

  “Chill ya’ll! Just chill out!” I focused my attention on Silk. “You know I’m at work. Why would you come up here with this shit?”

  “I’m tired of you playin’ a nigga to the left, Cameron! This the longest you ever been mad at me.”

  “I ain’t got time for this shit," Bobby said walking away.

  I began pulling my top on. “You just don’t get it do you?” I asked. “This isn’t like all the other times when we had our little fall outs. This isn’t some temporary shit, Silk. I’m through with you. Plain and simple--”

  “Remember when we was in the truck outside your dorms, baby?” he asked in a softer tone. “And remember when you asked me why I’m with you? At the time, I was actin’ like I couldn’t give you a straight forward answer,” he said. “Well, baby, I’m with you because I love you. You put up with a nigga regardless of all my faults. And you was right. I ain’t gone never find nobody else like you,” he admitted. “So, why don’t we just put this lil’ bullshit behind us and move on.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “There is no moving on, Silk!”

  “What the fuck else you want me to say?! Huh?” he yelled. “That bitch don’t mean shit to me! She was just some pussy! That’s it!”

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Pocahontas making her way over towards us.

  “Pocahontas don’t mean shit to me! Nada!” Silk continued to holler.

  Pocahontas approached us with folded arms. “Oh, so now I don’t mean shit, Silk?” she asked.

  I started to check the bitch about walking in on our conversation but Silk and Pocahontas quickly began arguing with one another.

  “Bitch, why you in my mothafuckin’ mouth?!” Silk yelled at her.

  “Don’t throw me under the bus. Keep it real with her about us.”

  “What’s she talking about?” I asked Silk.

  “Man, she ain’t talking ‘bout shit!”

  “So, you still ain’t tell her?”

  “Tell me what?” I asked. I thought I knew everything after finding out about them sleeping together, but obviously there were more skeletons in the closet.

  “I’m finna smack you in your shit if you don’t shut the hell up!” Silk threatened Poca.

  By now most of the people in the club had begun paying attention to the scene the three of us were creating. Just like that, we had quickly become the entertainment.

  “Tell her Silk. We all right here in the opening. Let’s keep it all the way one hundred,” Poca continued.

  “What the hell is she talking about?” I asked Silk.

  “Silk is my baby daddy,” Poca blurted out.

  I opened my mouth to say something but no words came out. I looked at Silk in questioning but he didn’t say a thing. The fact that he didn’t deny it meant it was true.

  Tossing my hands in the air, I quickly walked past them. I could not stand to see the sight of either one of their treacherous asses. They had hit me with a double fucking whammy! First I find out they were sleeping together, now I find out that Silk is Poca’s baby’s father. Silk had never mentioned having a kid since we had been together, and I was under the impression that he never had any. And all this time he had been pretending his child didn’t exist, much like Pocahontas had.

  Rushing into the dressing room, I quickly changed into my regular clothes and paid Ahmad the tip out fee. Pocahontas and Silk were still arguing with each other in the middle of the club and I didn’t stick around to see if the bouncer would finally toss his ass out.

  Not wanting to walk past either of them, I left out the back door. Just as I was pulling out my cell phone to call a taxi, I noticed Bobby leaning against the hood of a car. He was smoking a Black&Mild while staring at me intensely.

  “Callin’ it an early night?” Bobby asked.

  “Yeah,” I mumbled, scrolling through my contacts until I reached Ace Taxi.

  Bobby slowly approached me. “What’s up with you? You need a ride or something?”

  He was beginning to make me nervous. “No. I’m cool.”

  “You know, you never did give me that lap dance,” he said.

  My fingers trembled as I dialed the number. “Maybe some other time.”

  “What if I want some action out here?” He pressed on.

  Now I was feeling uncomfortable as hell. Just as I turned to walk back into the club, he grabbed and slammed me against the brick building.

  “What do you want?!” I cried.

  He quickly pulled out a switchblade and held it to my throat. Poking my flesh with the sharpest part of the knife, he said, “Yo’ mothafuckin’ money, bitch!”

  Chapter 22

  Fumbling with my purse, I quickly retrieved my drawstring money bag and handed it to him with trembling fingers. He snatched it out my hand, but kept the knife pressed against my throat. My heart thumped wildly and I could feel a small amount of blood trickle down my neck.

  “Bitch, I should make you suck my dick out here,” he smiled sadistically.

  “You got the money,” I cried. “Just leave me alone.”

  Suddenly, the back door opened and Silk stepped outside. “What the fuck?!”

  Bobby’s bitch ass took off with a quickness. Silk chased after him but Bobby had climbed into his car before Silk could reach him. Taking my earnings with him, he quickly skirted out the back parking lot.

  Instantly, I burst into tears. It just seemed like lately I couldn’t get a fucking break.

  “What the fuck happened?!” Silk asked as he walked over towards me.

  “What do you think happened?!” I cried. “Motherfucker robbed me!” I quickly wiped away the blood sliding between my cleavage.

  “See?!” Silk yelled. “That’s what yo’ dumb ass get! Why would you bring yo’ simpleminded ass back here?! You know how this neighborhood is! You know how these niggas be schemin’!” Silk was completely unsympathetic and all it did was cause me to cry harder. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  He grabbed me by the arm and led me to his truck. Honestly, I didn’t want to be within three feet of him but I feared if I didn’t let him take me home, something else bad might happen. I was totally shaken up so for the moment so I allowed him to be there for me.

  We were sitting at the red light at 24th street and Superior Avenue when Silk finally spoke again. “I want you to stop that shit you got going on with ole’
boy. You hear me?”

  I ignored him as I stared at the homeless guy pushing a cart up the street.

  “You been givin’ that nigga my pussy?” Silk asked.

  The light had turned green but Silk was still sitting there. Suddenly, he snatched my arm. “I asked you have you been giving that mothafucka my pussy?!” His grip on my arm was strong enough to break my bone.

  “No,”I cried in pain.

  Satisfied with my response, he finally released me and continued to drive. Once we reached Viking Hall, he asked me how much money Bobby had robbed me for.

  “Just a couple hundreds,” I muttered. “Not shit for real.”

  Silk dug into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. “Lemme see how much I got. I might be able to give you back what he took right now. If not I’ll have to hit up the ATM.”

  I knew the game Silk was playing and I wanted no part of it. “I don’t want your money,” I told him.

  He had just pulled out a small wad of cash when I said that. “What?” he asked.

  “I said I don’t want your money. It’s okay--”

  “You don’t want my money?!” he repeated. “The fuck you mean, you don’t want my money? What, you got this nigga payin’ for everything? He payin’ for yo’ school now too?”

  “I didn’t say all that, Silk. I just don’t want your money--”

  “It’s cool for you to take my money any other fuckin’ time, but now you too good for my paper? You got this nigga trickin’ on you?”

  “I didn’t say--”

  “He payin’ for the pussy now--”

  “I don’t want your money!” I screamed.

  Suddenly, Silk threw the money at me in a fit of rage. I didn’t give him a chance to apologize this time as I jumped out the car and ran into the building.

  ***

  After all the shit that had happened last night, I just wanted to be left alone for a few days. A few days quickly turned into a week of ignoring Silk’s incessant calls and text messages. I really didn’t know what he had to say to me. I just wanted to move on.