Envy (10 page)

I got scared again. The only reason them niggahs wanted me alive was so they could torture my ass. I woulda preferred to die then let them drag me down into the Dungeon and tie me up again in the G-Spot.

“But I can’t stay down here in this basement much longer,” I told Rita. “Flex’s black ass is crazy. He’s almost as bad as G. I gotta find someplace else to go.”

Rita looked real sad on the camera.

“I’ll keep working on it. It’s just that everybody I know and trust is right here in Harlem. Which is exactly where you don’t wanna be seen.”

“How’s Nooni?” I asked. “I’m sorry, girl. I’m over here complaining when I shoulda been asking about your sister.”

Rita shrugged.

“I haven’t heard anything from her or anybody else. Dutchy still has a few eyes on the G-Spot, though. We’re just watching and waiting, and praying too. But really, it’s their move.”

I heard that. I had somebody waiting on me to make a move, too. Earlier that day Flex had handed me a large box that had a dope three-thousand-dollar Fendi dress inside. It was a classy cut, in a beautiful shade of emerald green, and inside the big box was a smaller box that held a pair of cute diamond earrings and a platinum tennis bracelet. He had already bought me a couple of pairs of jeans and some cute tee shirts, but this was something way different.

“What’s all this for?” I asked him. I was getting used to him sporting a different tailored suit everyday, but I hadn’t worn anything this fancy in a minute. “We going somewhere?”

Flex just grinned and shook his head.

“Nah, baby. We ain’t gotta go nowhere special for me to wanna put you in finery, Juicy. All this is for
us
, baby. I’m looking good for you, and I want you to look good for me too. It ain’t about nobody else.”

That shit creeped me right out. Flex was like a weird-ass kid trying to play big man. I wasn’t about to get all dressed up just to watch movies in his basement. It had been over a week since I’d gotten out of jail, and I hadn’t been above the ground not one single time.

“That’s okay,” I had said, turning down his gift and handing him back the box. He could keep that shit. The last thing I wanted Flex to think was that we was some kind of Bonnie and Clyde couple. “I’m good. Thanks, though.”

He stared at me real hard, then started spitting like a maniac but real quiet-like.

“You know what? You’s a ungrateful bitch, Juicy. You don’t appreciate nothing a niggah try to do for you! Look at all the shit I got for you! You got everything you need right here.
Everything.
If you want something I ain’t got, then just tell me and I’ll go out and get that shit!”

I fixed his skinny black ass.

“I want a
phone charger
, Flex. I need my phone so I can make some calls. Can you go out and get me that?”

“You know,” he pouted and straight igged my request, “I could be one of them sorry muh’fuckas who just gets up in your pussy and treats you like a hoe, but no. I’m treating you like a lady, Juicy. Like a real lady. And you don’t even ’preciate that shit.”

“I do, Flex,” I insisted. “You like a little brother to me, and I appreciate everything you been doing. I just need a phone charger so I can use my phone.”

His face got real twisted. “I ain’t your fuckin’ brother, Juicy. I ain’t trying to be your brother.”

I sucked my teeth. “Okay then. I just don’t wanna get dressed up to sit around and watch you play no damn video games.”

I walked back into my room and turned on the television, but I wasn’t hardly watching it.  

Instead, I was thinking. There was a time when I had been real stupid and naïve, but I wasn’t any more. I saw where Flex was going with all his crazy bullshit. I saw exactly where he was trying to get me. In a corner. In a box. In a small little space where only he had access to me. A space that only
he
controlled.

But it wasn’t happening. The days when I let a niggah hem me up in his fantasy were over. Flex might be throwed off, but if he pushed me hard enough I could get throwed off too. The next time he unlocked that basement door I was going out with him. There were plenty of knives in Flex’s kitchen, and I didn’t care what I had to do, or who I had to fuck up, the next time that door opened up I was leaving.

CHAPTER 15

“Nooni’s little ass needs a job,” Salida told Monique. “I’m tired of her sitting around here looking pretty but not doing shit. That girl is a liar and a thief, and I want you to put her ass to work.”

“Me?” Monique said, thinking about how pissed Nooni had been after she jumped in the bed and finger-fucked her until she came. “That chick is mad at me. We ain’t even hardly speaking.”

“Look, me and you work our asses off, right? Hell, everybody up in this joint is about a hustle except her. All that warming up barstools is out the door now, and she’s gotta start bringing in some money. Besides, how the hell is she not gonna speak to you when she’s living up under your roof and eating your food? You better get her ass in check real quick, honey. Don’t you
ever
let a young girl play you. Remember that.”

“So you want me to put her to work?” Monique asked skeptically. “Where?”

Salida grinned. “Remember when I told you how to get rid of her little friend Bubbles? By telling them you hosted private parties in Philly and Atlantic City and you only had room for one more girl?”

Monique nodded. She saw exactly where this was going and she couldn’t believe Salida’s predatory ass was taking it there.

“Well we’re gonna follow through on all that and make it come true. I want you to rope Nooni’s ass like a calf and tie her down so tight that she don’t even think about going nowhere.

“I want you to put her ungrateful ass through a meat grinder so we can get her ready to work the rooms and generate some cash. If anybody can school her and get her trained up right,” Salida said in a flattering tone, “I
know
you can, Monique. Blast her all over Craig’s List. Hit those kinky-ass white men who like to bang hot brown bodies like hers. You’re the slickest stripper in Harlem, Monique. I want you to turn Nooni’s ass out and show how to make some money.
Shiiit,
she’s been laying around giving up all that pussy to Truth for free, right? Well, now it’s time for her to get it together and start contributing to the family business.”

$$$$$

Salida had told Monique to put Nooni in a trick bag, and that’s exactly what she was gonna do. She’d posted an ad on Craig’s List and found just the right trick to roll with, and every detail had been planned to perfection.

“Remember,” Monique told the young girl, “you gotta get the money first, then make him take off all his clothes so he can’t chase you when you run out the room.”

The first time Nooni hustled a trick Monique had participated in the party and they’d worn matching bob-cut wigs. Nooni’s was flaming red and Monique’s was light blue, and they’d had on skin-tight little cat suits in the same color. They’d drank gin and partied with the trick for a couple of hours before going in for the kill.  Monique had even let him suck on her titties a little bit just to make him think he was really getting some.

But as soon as they got his clothes off and got his cash, both girls had jetted from the room taking the trick’s clothes with them.

Tonight’s show was gonna go down a little different. The trick had specifically asked for someone who was into role-playing. When Monique pressed him for details, she found out he was looking for somebody to whip his ass and punish him. Monique had immediately doubled the price and started prepping Nooni.

“Now I already told you this dude is a little shy,” Monique said as she rubbed bright green eye shadow on the girl’s upper lids. “He’s one of them S&M freak who likes young bitches, and that’s probably because he’s got a real little dick.”

Nooni looked scared, and Monique gave her an encouraging pat on the back. “Don’t worry. I’ve partied with those types before. One dude paid me two grand just to let him stick his big toe up my ass.” She shrugged. “I would come in the room with you, but he’s not into the group thing, so it’s gonna be a private party with just you and him tonight.”

Nooni looked scared.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be listening out right down the hall,” Monique assured her, “so if any shit jumps off I’ll be standing by to squash it.”

She eyed Nooni’s shape as the girl stepped into a short white dress. Her lightly oiled body was deliciously firm and curved, and swollen in all the right places. “You think you can handle it?” Monique asked. She added a dab of mascara to Nooni’s eyelids and studied her fake lashes with approval.

Nooni sounded stressed. “I’ll try. You got a belt or something? What am I supposed to beat him with?”

“Oh, you ain’t gotta worry about that,” Monique told her with a wave of the hand. “These kind of guys always bring their own whips and chains and all that other crazy shit. They know what they like. You just make sure you hit him real hard wherever that fool wants you to make it hurt.”

Nooni knocked on the hotel room door, and waited until her customer told her to come in. She slid the key-card through the slot, then twisted the doorknob and went inside.

The room was semi-dark, with the light from the bathroom shining into the hall.

“Um, where you at, Mister?” she called out. She was so nervous her voice trembled and her knees were knocking together too.

“I’m over here,” he said, and Nooni’s blood froze in her veins.

The voice was coming from the area by the desk, and he sounded like a ten-year-old white boy.

“I can’t see you,” Nooni said, peering into the darkness.

“You gotta come closer,” he said like a child. “I’ve done a lot of bad things. I need you to punish me.”

Nooni remembered what Monique had told her.

“I’m supposed to get the money first.”

“It’s on the bed,” he said. “Near the wall. Take it.”

Nooni walked cautiously over to the bed that was closest to her, and in the darkness she made out the neat stack of bills. She picked them up and saw that they were all hundreds. She spread them out in her hand and counted over a grand, then stuffed them inside her small white purse.

“Now, come on,” the trick whined. “You promised to punish me.”

Nooni stepped further into the room, and then stopped suddenly when the butt-naked white man rose to his feet.

He was tall and heavy-set, with a baldhead and a belly that covered his dick and sagged halfway down to his knees. His skin was real pale, and the wiry hairs on his chest looked like gray Brillo. 

He picked up something from the bed and held it out to her.

It was an extra large pair of tweezers, and Nooni took them with a puzzled look on her face.

“Mister, what in the world do you want me to do with these?”

The trick turned his back on her, and spread his legs wide. Balancing his knees on the edge of the bed, he tooted his big asshole up in the air as his fat hairy balls dangled between his thighs.

If Nooni hadn’t been so scared she would have laughed. This fool had a bunch of shiny silver stickpins embedded in his nut sack. He looked like a hairy-assed porcupine, and a shiver of disgust ran down her spine.

“The hairs on my balls,” the old man gave his order in the voice of a child. “Pluck ’em.”