With that, I jumped in the backseat with Maya. I had to calm her down. She screamed, cried, kicked, yelled, and punched the whole way to the hotel where we would stay until we returned to Miami tomorrow.
Krystal Woods
“Stop leaving this shit around. My kids find this shit and eat it, and my baby daddy will beat the fuck out of me and you,” my two years older cousin, Ashanta said as she came outside on the patio where I was.
She threw the baggie of coke in my lap that I must have left out last night on the living room table. I came to Atlanta and just started indulging in all types of crazy shit, that I never would have done when I was back home. The most I would do at home is smoke weed, drink a little lean, swallow some Xanax pills, and that was it. Here, all the strippers that I danced with were on coke. I let a couple of them talk me into using, and now it had become my best friend. It kept me sane and made me forget about the problems that I had back at home.
It wasn’t a surprise that I took to drugs so easily because growing up, that type of shit was part of my lifestyle. As a little girl, I would watch my mama and her friends indulge in all types of drugs. I remember the mornings after that, she would be so high that she wouldn’t even know who the hell I was. My mama’s house was like the hangout house. Growing up, it was my other four siblings and me.
I was the youngest of the bunch. I had three sisters and one brother, and we all had different daddies. I couldn’t even say that one of our daddies was better than the next because all five of them weren’t shit. None of them picked us up to take us anywhere, none of them gave my mama money to help take care of us, nothing!
My mama’s house had always been the place to hang out, play a couple of card games, do drugs, and sit on her patio and do nothing. I saw so many people around me doing drugs that by the time I was fourteen, I had already started smoking weed. Shit, I had to have been nine when I drank my first bottle of liquor. I wouldn’t say that my mama didn’t give a fuck about us, but she honestly couldn’t care less about what the fuck we did. Now, here I was years later, and I felt like I had become her. Just living life, putting poisonous shit into my body, and not giving a fuck about anything or anyone.
I knew I was living wrong, and I didn’t need anyone else to tell me that shit. Hell, I been living wrong; I just had a good way of hiding that shit. I had been struggling for months financially. I never had to work because I lived the type of lifestyle where I believed that pussy cost, so I made my money by fuckin’. That, and I was mean with doing box braids whenever I took the time out to actually do them. That was pretty much how I made my living since I was nineteen because that’s when I moved out of my mama’s house.
I started fuckin’ with Trip, and a bitch thought she was in love. When he and I started getting serious, and I gave birth to Maya, and then he started talking about marriage, I became about him and him only. Doing hair was the only income that I had, and that wasn’t much because I lived smack dab in the middle of the hood at the time, and a lot of customers were too scary to bring their ass to my apartment.
I couldn’t believe that I fell for a lying ass nigga like Trip. I never lied to Trip; if anything, I just kept secrets from him. The biggest secret of them all just happened to be Maya. I had my reasons for keeping Maya a secret. For one, when he and I would fuck during visitation, he was always under the impression that I was on birth control. Two, I knew that he didn’t want any more children. That was something that he’d made very clear. I knew that if I had told him that I was pregnant, he would have told me to get an abortion. I knew Trip, and I knew that he could be a monster. If I were to defy him and not get the abortion, he probably would have had his niggas run down on me and kill the baby out of me.
When I was dealing with Trip, of course I knew about Jashae. Well, I knew what he was telling me. When I would ask if they were together, it was always, “That’s my baby mama,” never giving me a real answer, but at the same time, I wasn’t dumb.
On the other hand, this man was asking me to marry him, telling me he loved me, and all of that. Now that it all came down to it, I was played. I got played for visitation pussy, phone sex, money, and time. Even with all of that, I still loved his stupid ass. He made it clear that we were through, though. That day in the visitation room, and the voicemail that he left me when he found out that I left Maya with his mother and went MIA all proved that he didn’t want anything to do with me.
Crazy thing is, when I went down there to see him for visitation, I didn’t go there planning to tell him about Maya. Actually, the picture that I showed him of her was one that I always carried around with me. It’s just that when he started talking crazy about not wanting to get married anymore, I just fuckin’ snapped. I knew that telling him about the daughter we shared could risk our relationship, but at the time, I was running so high off emotions that it didn’t even matter to me. Now, look, I probably lost the one man who actually gave a fuck about me.
When it came to Maya, I just felt that she was too much to handle. Every time I took her to the doctor, they diagnosed her with something else. Maya didn’t start talking until she was two, almost on the verge of three. I knew something was wrong with her, but like I did everything else, I kept pushing it to the back burner. Next, they were talking about she had autism spectrum disorder. I didn’t want to believe it, but she displayed many of the symptoms common with children on the spectrum like her communication and her way of socializing with others. Although she was five, at times, it felt like her ass was two.
When she was in kindergarten, they had a specialist come out who believed she had a learning disorder as well. I guess the problem was bad enough since it interfered with school and other everyday activities. I wasn’t even sure if all that shit that they were diagnosing her with came from me smoking, drinking, and everything else that I was doing when I was pregnant with her because no one had said anything. All I knew was that I just couldn’t do it.
I could see if she was a normal five-year-old who didn’t demand so much extra attention, but damn. Fucking around with that little girl, I was going through almost ten blunts a day just to stay fuckin’ sane! Everybody wanted to point the finger at me and make me out to be the bad guy, but I just didn’t understand how me deciding to give my daughter a different lifestyle made me to be a bad person.
I didn’t know that Trip’s mother would drop Maya off to Jashae, but I couldn’t say that I was mad. Although I didn’t know Jashae and Vonte personally, when he was alive, they were always doing little sports interviews with him for basketball, and I could tell from his personality alone that she’d raised a good boy. So, I wasn’t mad at the fact that Jashae would raise my daughter for me. Hell, that was her son’s sister, so it really wasn’t like she was doing me a fuckin’ favor.
I couldn’t stand that bitch, though. She brought her ass down to Atlanta last night and called herself telling me about myself! She did all of that talking just to leave and take my fuckin’ daughter with her! I didn’t know if my mind on wanting Maya would change later down the line, but right now, I was firm on my answer. I no longer wanted to take on that responsibility!
“My bad. Where the kids at anyway?” I asked after I stopped staring off into space and daydreaming.
My cousin, Ashanta, was a very beautiful girl. She reminded me of Diamond from the movie The Player’s Club. Her ambition and determination are what had me seeing the similarities between the two. We’re talking about somebody who was a full-time nursing student by day and part of the naked hustle by night. She was a classic example of someone who was using her stripper money to pay her way through school. She could easily get the money from her dope selling boyfriend, Diante, but she’d told me long ago why she didn’t. Diante was the type of nigga who would throw all the shit in her face that he did for her, and I guess she just didn’t want to live with that burden for the rest of her life.
Ashanta had pretty much the same built as me, but her ass was a little bit smaller. Like me, she
had a tiny ass waist, wide hips, fat and curvaceous ass that would make a man and a woman do a double take. She didn’t wear a bunch of weave and shit like I did because she had naturally, long silky hair that would make her a fool for putting weave in. She had inherited the same gray colored eyes as her mom, which was my mom’s sister, and she had a small gap between her nice set of pearly whites.
Looking at Ashanta, you wouldn’t even know that she had two sons because her body was sick. I had seen this bitch naked on plenty of occasions, and there was no sign of stretch marks or cellulite on her body. Her son, Diante Junior was seven, and her youngest, Dion, was four. Her kids were bad as fuck. Just the other day, she had to beat their ass for trying to flush my good wigs down the toilet. When their parents weren’t around, the two of them would curse like sailors. They were handsome little boys, just bad as fuck.
“Diante just dropped them off to his mother’s house. I’m working tonight, and he says that he has something to do, so no one would be able to stay home with them tonight,” she let me know, and I nodded.
“What ever happened with ole girl popping up on you last night? You just jumped in the car and didn’t say shit about it,” Ashanta pressed the issue.
She was smoking a blunt, and I don’t know if she thought that I needed it or she was just being nice and letting me hit it, but she ended up passing it to me. I took a few deep pulls from it.
“That’s Trip’s baby mama, Jashae. She’s watching Maya for me,” I said.
All of this was news to Ashanta. She was under the impression that my mama had Maya. I could feel her eyes on me. One thing about us, we weren’t going to sugar coat shit, and from the heat that was coming my way from her eyes, I knew that she was going to read me for filth.
“I thought you told me that you didn’t know his baby mama like that. I thought the two of y’all just went to school together,” she said, not forgetting the piece of information that I told her years ago when Trip and I started dating.
“I don’t know her like that,” I let her know.
“Then why the fuck you got that bitch watching your child? She’s practically a damn stranger. I’m confused,” Ashanta said.
I tried to hand her back the blunt, and she shook her head, basically letting me know that she didn’t want it.
“Because I know that she’s not going to harm Maya. Yeah, I’m her mother, but that doesn’t mean that I’m the best pick for her to be with. I saw Maya last night, and she had nice braids in her hair, clean clothes, clean shoes. She good over there. I gotta get my shit together first. I done failed that girl too many fuckin’ times,” I voiced.
“And you’re going to let her keep your daughter for good?” she quizzed.
I didn’t answer that question, but my silence spoke volumes.
“Wowwww. What does Trip think of all of this? He knows you got y’all daughter with her?” she asked.
“He knows because I originally left Maya with his mama after telling her that I would come back. I guess she ran back and told him that I pulled a fast one on her. He left a voicemail on my phone, laying me out like a dirty ass dog. Telling me everything from he regretted putting his dick in me to he was going to get some Miami bitches to run down on me and beat my ass. You know, just typical jail house threats that I know he isn’t going to live up to.
“We talking about a nigga that’s serving a life sentence. He don’t have no fuckin’ room to talk about me and the way that I’m parenting when he can’t do a fuckin’ thing for Maya behind them walls besides draw her a fuckin’ picture,” I snapped.
Just when Ashanta was about to respond, we both heard the front door to the apartment slam. We both turned around, only to see that it was her fine ass baby daddy, Diante, walking into the house. He saw us, so he came right for the patio. If I stared at his ass any longer, my cousin would want to fight me for fantasizing over her man, so I looked the other way, although it was so fuckin’ hard.
This nigga had the nerve to be walking around in gray sweatpants that showed me every reason why Ashanta would never leave his ass. That dick was hanging down like another leg. On top of that, he had the nerve to have on a wife beater which showed the many tattoos that he had all on his arm, his chest, even the few that he had on his hands. I wasn’t sure if my cousin’s pussy was just that good, but he had her name right above his right eyebrow, again on the side of his neck, and once again on his ring finger.
Diante was tall. I want to say over 6’7”. This nigga had served a lot of jail time, and his body was built like it. Instead of going to the gym and working out, this man who would go outside and bench press shit like old tires from a car and bricks; I knew because I watch him through the living room window.
Ever since I was introduced to him almost nine years ago when the two of them started dating, he still had braids with his nice ass hair. Today, he had them styled in two French braids that were going back. He sighed when he came outside, and I noticed the permanent gold teeth that he had on the top and bottom row of his mouth. Everything about this man was hood perfection. His nice, caramel skin, even the few freckles that he had on his face, his beautiful light brown eyes, everything. My cousin was lucky. Too fuckin’ lucky.
“That’s my shit y’all smoking?” was the first thing that Diante asked.
“Bae, that’s the same weed from what you gave me last night,” Ashanta called out to him.
“Come inside. Let me talk to you,” he told her.
I watched her as she rolled her eyes and then stood up. He was standing by the patio door with it open, and she had to squeeze by him to get through. He slapped her hard as hell on her ass, and his eyes stayed on me a few seconds longer before he went back inside. I knew this nigga hated me. He didn’t have to say it. It was the vibe that he gave off. He barely spoke to me, and just the other day, I eavesdropped on him and my cousin’s conversation and heard him ask her when I was going home.
Knowing him, he probably didn’t like me because he couldn’t fuck me since I was his girlfriend’s cousin. I wasn’t a grimy bitch like that to fuck behind family, but I wouldn’t tell if he didn’t.
I sat outside for another fifteen minutes or so until I finally went back inside the apartment. First thing I heard upon entering the apartment was loud banging, moaning, screaming, and what sounded like crying. Having to enviously listen to my cousin get her back blown out was amongst so many things that I hated about having to sleep there. Most times, I caught an earful of their sexcapades during the night. I rarely had to listen to them during the day.
The noises sounded like they were coming from the laundry room, which was downstairs. Instead of staying in the living room, where I would usually go, I went to the kids’ bedroom, since that was the furthest, and I wouldn’t have to hear them. I laid my body down on the carpeted floor for about ten minutes. Just when I was about to close my eyes, the bedroom door pushed open. It was Diante standing there. The hickies that were on his neck that weren’t there when he came in a few moments ago, the fresh cut that was on the other side of his neck, mixed with his shirt off, proved to me that he’d just finished fuckin’.
“How much longer you think you going to be here?” he rudely asked me.
“As long as I need to. When my cousin feels like I’m overstaying my welcome, then I’ll leave,” I let him know.
He let out a sarcastic laugh and then shook his head.
“That’s what you think, huh? If I decide that I want to put your ass out right now, I’ll do that, and Ashanta is not going to do a fuck thing about it because I run this right here!” he barked.
“So, why haven’t you decided to put me out yet then?” I smartly asked him.
He didn’t respond.
“You can close the door behind you. You’re just mad that you can’t fuck me,” I said in a harsh whisper because I didn’t know where my cousin was.
“I don’t want to fuck you, shorty. My niggas be at the club where you dance at. They said you opened your legs, and
it reminded them of a fish market. Fuck outta here,” he said, lying through his fuckin’ teeth.
That comment made me laugh.
“That’s a fuckin’ lie, and you know it. My pussy may not be as tight as it was when I was a teenager, but a nigga can never fix his mouth to say that I have an odor. Feel free to smell it for yourself,” I invited.
“I’m good. Seafood don’t sit well with my stomach,” his stupid ass called out right before he closed the door behind him.
All I could do was laugh. This nigga was definitely in his feelings about not being able to fuck me.
Mahogany Brooks
“Baby, I can’t believe we just did that. Oh my God. We really just got married,” I said with excitement in my voice.
I hadn’t even realized that I was crying until Jabari used his hand to wipe away the tears that were dripping so freely off my face. To tell you the truth, when Jabari asked me a couple of weeks ago to marry him, I thought that he was just running his mouth so he could get some pussy. Then, the nigga asked me again when he was knee deep inside my pussy, and I knew that my pussy just had him saying any fuckin’ thing. To my surprise, I woke up from a long ass nap, only to find a fat ass diamond Eternity 14k white gold wedding ring on my finger.
I wouldn’t say that I never thought that Jabari and I would get married; I just didn’t think that it would have happened so damn soon. I was just getting to the six-month mark of my pregnancy, and here I was taking this man’s last name. What Jabari and I had just finished doing this afternoon was so small and so intimate. Literally, the only people in attendance were me, him, and the pastor.
When he woke me up early this morning, I just assumed that we were going down to the courthouse to do it that way, but my man had it all planned out. I’m talking red and white rose petals for me to walk on through the sand, my white dress picked out for me, someone to come into the house and do my make-up, style my hair, everything. I wouldn’t even say that this was the wedding that I dreamt of all my life because I never had thoughts of getting married. What we did was perfect. It was perfect for us. This was probably not the ideal wedding for everyone else, but it was for us and that was all that mattered.
Down With the King of the South 3 Page 10
