Both Bev and my mother rushed toward me. “I know you’re upset. But calm down, Cashmere, and get back in the bed,” Bev said.
“Come on, Bev, how much fucking more am I supposed to take? My husband leaves me; then he is killed. I have a miscarriage! I’m so tired of this shit!” I shoved my sleeve up took one of my fingernails and prepared to dig it into my right forearm. I wanted my skin to tear so bad.
I heard my mother and Bev scream, “No!” at the same time. They both grabbed me before I could get a chance to dig in and for the pain I was feeling I was really going to dig in. So I didn’t feel so fucking dead inside!
I snatched away from my mother who looked lost. “Let me guide you back to the bed, Cashmere.”
I allowed her to put me back in the bed. “Neither one of you understands how I feel. How bad this shit feels. How much it hurts. Neither of you do!” I started sobbing loudly.
Bev came over to me and started hugging me and saying, “Let it out, Cashmere; that’s the only way you going to heal from this.”
I continued to sob in her arms while she held on to me. When my crying calmed down Bev helped me get comfortable in the bed. The nurse came back in the room and reattached the IV into my arm. Once the nurse left, I asked, “What was it?”
“It was a boy,” my mom said.
I shook my head bitterly. I was so mad at myself for not even thinking that I could be pregnant. I guessed after so many false alarms a part of me felt like I couldn’t conceive. That it would never happen. Who was to say that the night Demarco had left if I had told him I was pregnant that he wouldn’t have stayed? He wanted nothing more than a child. It would have improved his temperament and made him a better husband to me and even a better stepfather to Dominique. I felt so, so stupid. If he hadn’t left he probably would be alive right now as well.
“I know you pretty much hate me. And you sure as hell don’t respect me or want to hear what I have to say. But, Cashmere, I don’t want you to sit in that bed and beat yourself up more for this. I know what you thinking. If you had known you were pregnant things would be different. Cashmere, don’t even begin to do that shit to yourself, baby. I can’t stand to see you punish yourself anymore. I love you. And if you let me I can help you get through this.”
I saw my mom start to sob. It made me soften toward her. She loved me, I knew. Yes, she had fucked up but she loved me and she was showing it now by being there after all the shit I had been talking to her. And I had no energy to attack her right now. What purpose would it serve? It wouldn’t change the shape of things. It couldn’t reverse shit.
“Thanks, Mom. But you can’t fix this and you can’t take away the pain. I appreciate you trying and I appreciate you caring. But you can’t.”
“That’s fine and all, Cashmere, but I’m here. And I’m not leaving you.”
I nodded and looked away. I felt irreparably broken. Like nothing could ever fix me and like nothing could ever make me feel good or whole again. That’s truly how I felt.
I closed my eyes and pretended this shit was one big dream.
They performed a D and C that would have kept me in the hospital for three days. Then because my fucking mother said I was feeling depressed, they kept me for a fucking seventy-two-hour hold because they feared I was going to kill myself. Once I was evaluated the doctor extended the time and diagnosed me with severe depression. So I was forced to stay in their psych ward. Four days later I was reevaluated again, prescribed some Abilify, and released. My mother stayed at my house and looked after Dom during my hospital stay. A couple times, Dominique had come up with my mother to see me. Shit was so embarrassing.
The last thing I wanted my child to think was that I was incapable of taking care of myself. I just wanted to get home, be with my baby, and keep busy to get my mind off of this. The morning they finally released me, Dominique was in school; my mother came to get me alone. All I needed to do was wait for my prescription and I was free from that bullshit hospital. As we walked over to the pharmacy, my mother asked me, “You feeling better, Cash?”
“Yeah,” I said. I was certainly better than when I had first gotten there. But there was still an ache in my heart that’s for sure. I shook my head as my eyes got watery again. My mother rubbed my back to comfort me.
Once we made it to the pharmacy, my mother sat down and pulled out her phone. I walked up to the window and I gave them my prescription.
“Give us fifteen minutes,” the pharmacist told me.
I nodded. I turned to walk over to where my mother sat and collided with a chest. “I’m sorry,” I said without looking up.
“Cashmere?”
My eyes narrowed and I looked up at Caesar.
“How are you?” He looked concerned when he saw my appearance. “Are you all right?”
“No, not really,” I said truthfully despite who it was I was talking to.
“Is there anything I can do? Assist you with? Cashmere, the last time I saw you, I meant what I said when I told you if you needed anything you could call me.”
I shook my head at him. “Caesar, you are the last person I would ever come to for help. Believe that. You seem to forget—”
“Maybe if we talked you’d feel different.”
“Oh I doubt that, Caesar. I’d probably hate your ass more.”
“No. You’d actually have clarity.”
I gave him a crazy look. “At this point in my life clarity won’t do shit for me.”
“What’s taking so long?” My mother, with her nosy ass, came and stood next to me. Her eyes locked with Caesar’s and she looked him up and down.
“Who is this, Cash?”
“No one important,” I bit out hatefully.
“Damn like that, Cash?” she asked stifling a giggle before turning serious and mean mugging Caesar. “Now if you a stranger trying to get at my fine child, you have to excuse my daughter. She is going through a lot. She lost her husband and just recently had a—”
“Mom, shut up!”
She ignored me and her voice got louder. “Had a miscarriage. Now if you some no-good nigga from her past you best get the fuck on, ’cause my daughter don’t look too happy to see you and I’ll have my commissioner husband pay your ass a visit,” she threatened. She took a fighting stance like she was ready for war.
“Calm down. I’m definitely not a stranger, ma’am; and, Cashmere, like I said, I’m—”
I sucked my teeth and said, “I’m done talking to you, Caesar.” I grabbed my mother by her arm and we walked away to the pickup side. Caesar just stood there and watched me. Then a few minutes after I pretended to ignore him, he left.
Chapter 25
Dominique
I was seeing stars and I was feeling good as Tyga’s “Bubble Butt” blasted in the club. Meka said we couldn’t go back to Starz so she had me working strictly for Barbary Coast. She said the place was known for players and pimps. I was winding and twirling on a random guy in the lap dance room.
Lots of thoughts went through my head as I danced. My mother was finally home from being in the hospital for almost two weeks. It was crazy. I mean for one thing she was pregnant and lost the baby. I wondered if she had known she was pregnant and had Demarco would things have been different. I didn’t think he would have treated me any different because I was never his. In my opinion the baby wouldn’t have done anything but put a Band-Aid on their messed-up, miserable marriage. But I probably wouldn’t even have gotten a Band-Aid for my messed-up relationship with him. While I knew my mom was in pain from the reality of what she was dealing with, I couldn’t focus on her. I was dealing with my own stuff. I mean, for so long and no one wanted to tackle or assist me with my pain. So why should I have cared about hers? Chasing after a man was far more important to my mom so I would keep focusing on my dad: the man who really cared about me.
The fact that he was my mother’s pimp and the fact that he was in jail meant nothing to me. Like Black had told me, if my mother hated him and working f
or him so much why didn’t she leave? She could have gone to the police or social services and she never did.
Since my mom had told my grandmother about me going out and being in a strip club she watched me like a hawk. Meka was pissed. I couldn’t even get out to see my father. I only snuck out a couple times while she was asleep. It was crazy to me because she seemed like she would be cool. Nope. I thought back to how she sat me down for a talk while my mother was in the hospital.
“Now your mother told me all about where she found you. Dominique, what’s wrong with you? I’m not here to judge you but being in a female strip is hella ratched, little girl.” Then without blinking she asked, “Are you fucking?”
“No, Grandma.”
“Girl, you better be telling the truth. Because I done seen all and done all. I could have self-destructed but I have been lucky enough to have been with good men. First Cashmere’s father and now my commissioner.”
My grandmother thought she was such hot stuff because she was married to a police commissioner. But he was retired so she really should have gotten over herself. But her next comment surprised me.
“He is fucking around on me though. I don’t know who it is but I can feel it. Everything is so different now. Simple things: the way he calls my name; the way that he kisses me. It is all so very different. Crazy part is that I’ve never been faithful to any man I’ve ever been with. But the one I am faithful to is not to me. Don’t tell your mom because I been talking so much shit about your daddy your mom won’t let me live the shit down. It’s different though. But your stubborn-ass mama just won’t get it. Some men cheat because they just ain’t shit and some cheat because they feel neglected in some way. They don’t feel needed. See Hank thinks I’m still in love with Desmond. But your mama, she did everything right by Demarco so that motherfucker don’t have the right.”
Grandpa Hank always seemed to dote on my grandmother and be so enamored by how pretty she was. But I did notice that on her last couple visits he wasn’t with her, which was new.
I saw a tear slide down her cheek. She wiped it away quickly. “If I find out he is fucking around on me I’m—”
“Let me guess. You’re going to divorce him and take him for all he has, Grandma?”
She paused. “For the first time I don’t know what I’ll do. For all the years of wrong I’ve done maybe, just maybe now, it’s catching up with me.”
“Do you ever miss your other husband? My real grandfather?”
“Oh just about each and every day, girlie.” She chuckled. “I have dreams about that man. What I wouldn’t have done for fate to be different and he be the one striding through my door every day. Now don’t get me wrong; I love your smooth and fine grand pappy. And he puts it on me just right in the bedroom. But that true mind-blowing, nipples hard, pulse-racing love I only experienced with Desmond. And even still, when I had it, I fucked it up with bad choices. Sometimes I ain’t shit.”
“What about your other daughter. Do you miss her?” I asked in a soft voice.
“I mean she was my firstborn. So I can’t say that I didn’t love her. But you want me to be honest with you. To keep it trill. No, not really. She was the devil’s spawn. Hell, I almost died giving birth to her so I should have seen it as a sign of what was to come. But I didn’t. I love her because she was my baby. But I honestly don’t think she would have amounted to shit. She is in a different bucket than your mother bottom line. God bless her though.”
Wow. How can anyone say those types of things about their flesh and blood? My grandmother was really mean.
“Now while we’re on that, let’s get on you and your babysitter’s club adventures at the strip club.”
“Huh?”
“The point is, Dom, you don’t have any business being in there. Bottom line. You need to behave yourself, be a role model, go to school, and keep your focus where it belongs: not on ding-a-lings but the books. At your age sex is overrated unless these little bastards know what a Hermes bag is and for a nut they gifting you with one. And if they don’t you don’t need to be opening up your mouth or your vajayjay to them got it?”
I nodded.
“And, little hooker, don’t think you going to run amuck on me. I know all the tricks of the trade,” she said sternly. “Try to sneak out while I’m here. I ain’t your pussy-ass mama. God bless her. I love her but I ain’t. And I will fuck you up.” She blew me a kiss and said, “Now be a sweetie and get your glammommy something cold to drink and some snacks.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. I ran into the kitchen. When I came back out I brought her some cold lemonade, hot Cheetos, and some Pecan Sandies cookies. I set them in front of her.
“Here.” She handed me her iPhone. “Put it on the Mary Jane Girls, put it on your mother’s dock, and take your little behind to sleep. When you get out of school tomorrow, I’ll take you to the MAC counter okay?”
“Okay.” I put the music on for her.
“Don’t even think of trying to sneak out. Now give me a kiss, baby.”
I pecked her on the cheek.
“Sleep tight,” she said.
“Thanks.” I went up the stairs to my room.
But by ten o’clock I smelled marijuana and saw my grandmother in the middle of the floor, puffing away and dancing to the Mary Jane Girls and giggling to herself. Then as the last Mary Jane Girls song played, she was sprawled across the floor sobbing and saying, “I miss you so much, Des.”
By eleven-thirty she was out and so was I. It was crazy to me that my grandmother was always talking about God and being a Christian woman yet she smoked weed and I always wondered if she slept with other men.
As I finished up one dance I was told to do another. Only I gasped when I walked into the room. I was shocked to see Uncle Dame seated in the chair I was just a few seconds from straddling. He was rubbing his crotch with a smile and looked up just as the door closed behind me. He met my shocked gaze and surprise glazed over his.
“What in the fuck are you doing here?” he demanded.
I was busted.
I tried to make a run for the door but Dame was on me and grabbed me by one of my arms. “Sit your sneaky ass down.”
I nodded and sat in the chair he had vacated to get me. I kept my eyes downcast as he stood over me.
“Now tell me what the fuck you doing wrapped up in this cesspool of bullshit?”
“I, ah—”
“The fuck you stuttering for?” he shouted.
I started crying as he continued yelling at me.
“This is a fucking disgrace. You being here! You only thirteen fucking years old! This is not a place for you. You should be at home studying or some shit like that. Man, if Demarco was alive to see this crazy shit!”
I continued to nod my head as he lectured me. Then he paused for a minute to catch his breath. This mess was going to be over for me real soon because I knew he was going to tell my mother, that’s for sure, and she was going to kill me!
“Now get up.”
I stood to my feet. And as I did he moaned low in his throat. He sat back in the chair.
His next words surprised me. “Come here. Stand in front of me.” I did, confused, and he ended my confusion when he said, “You look just like your mom.”
His eyes traveled down my body and he licked his lips. Then he wiped the wetness away with the palm of his hand. “Now, sexy. Do what I’m paying your little ass to do. Yes, I knew who I requested.”
“But, but . . . you’re my uncle.”
“I ain’t your motherfucking uncle. I’m not blood, Demarco dead, so that shit frees me by default,” he said and chuckled. Then he slapped me hard on my butt. “Now make that ass clap.”
I couldn’t believe Dame was making me do this for him. I mean he had been around since I was little and had always been like a father figure to me. Thing was, I guess you never really knew a person. My mother had proved that to me. And damn, Uncle Dame had confirmed it.
When I stood there wit
h my mouth wide open, he reached over and slapped me on my butt again. I wanted to run out of the room but he stopped that by saying, “Don’t even try it. You not my niece today. You just a regular trick. Matter fact. Fuck a lap dance. Get on your knees, little Dom.”
I gasped. “No, Uncle.”
“What?” He grabbed me by my ponytail and yanked me until I tumbled forward in front of him. The pain was killing and shooting through the roots of my hair. Dame held on to my head with one hand and with the other he unbuttoned his jeans and shoved them to his feet.
He pulled my face down and said. “I seen how you get down. Open your motherfucking mouth.”
He yanked my hair super hard. I cried out from the pain and from the shock of what he was making me do. I wouldn’t perform so he gave a chop to the back of my neck. I had never been exposed to this type of treatment from Uncle Dame. It hurt to know he would treat me this way. He shoved my head into his crotch.
I resisted the urge to regurgitate. Thing was he showed me no mercy as he held on to my head with my hair. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I just couldn’t! I gagged and vomited all over him.
“Shit.” He shoved me away. I fell like a heap on the floor and continued coughing and wiped my nose and mouth with the back of one of my hands.
He stood over me and yanked my shirt off of me. He used it to wipe the vomit off of himself. He then threw it back at me. I breathed a sigh of relief that he was done. Well, I thought he was. But I heard his pants drop entirely and he grabbed me from behind. “Come on!”
“No, Uncle.”
He ignored my protests and positioned me on my knees. He covered my mouth with one of his hands and held my ponytail to roughly force himself on me. I whimpered.
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