Lust (7 page)

“You mean you bought three whole chips just to get down with little ol’ me?” Honey Dew asked her trick and laughed as she pulled him by his hoody and swung her wide hips down the hall.

Nooni fumbled with the phone and tried to hide it behind her back as Honey Dew got ready to go inside fuck room number two. She was so scared she was gonna get caught that she stuck her hand under the back of her skirt and shoved the phone between her thick ass cheeks and clenched it there.

“What the hell you standing there for?” Honey Dew sneered at Nooni. She paused and stood in the doorway eyeballing Nooni’s young flesh with a resentful smirk on her face. “Fuckin’ spoiled-ass baby up in here giving hand jobs. All the grown and sexy bitches in the house gots’ta open up their legs for a goddamn living.”

Nooni scuttled down the hall quickly, holding her hand awkwardly over the bulge sticking out from her ass. She darted past the working girls who were running the customers in and out of the back rooms as fast as they could, and walked through the main area where the bar was getting more and more crowded by the minute. 

Nooni skirted around the stage, and hurried past the kitchen and toward the stairs. She glanced up at the landing near the cut room where Salida’s crew brewed batches of potent chemicals and packaged club drugs for street sales and distribution.

She figured Salida’s posse musta been taking a break tonight, because all the lights were off and it was dark up there. Praying she was unnoticed, Nooni crept up the steps and onto the landing. She walked over to the door and put her hand on the knob, and her heart sank as she remembered that even if the door was open and she could get inside, she wouldn’t be able to get back out because that shit had been rigged to lock from the inside.

She tiptoed back toward the stairs and looked out over the railing. The club was bouncing. The ass-shaker competitions and nicest nipple contests, and all the other Las Vegas-style sex-theme parties that Salida had put in place were starting to bring in more and more clientele, which meant more money for the G-Spot, and more customers for the strippers and the hoes too.

Creeping back over to the cut room door, Nooni reached back and extracted the cell phone from her hind-cheeks. She gripped it in her trembling hand, and then she slid down to the floor with her legs gapped open and splayed out in front of her.

Tears sprang to her eyes. It had been a real long time since she had dialed the most familiar number in the world to her, and she felt worse than shit about all the heartache and drama that she had put so many people through.

Gripping the phone in her hand, Nooni punched in her sister Rita’s cell phone number.

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!” she prayed as she waited for Greco’s phone to find a signal and connect. She was relieved when she heard the hollow, static-like sound of a phone that was just about to ring.

But then suddenly, she thought she heard something else too.

Footsteps. Clumpy, uneven footsteps.

Coming up the stairs.

Nooni froze with Greco’s phone pressed to her ear.

Ringggg

Ringggg

“Please, please, please,” she uttered a prayer under her breath. “Hurry up and answer this shit!”

Ringggg

Ringggg

Her heart jumped into her throat as the phone was finally answered on the other end, but it was too late because whoever was coming up the stairs was now right up on the ledge.

“Hello?” came a voice over the phone line.

“Who’s up here?” A stern voice rang out at the top of the landing as the awkward footsteps sounded in the darkness.

Nooni bucked and panicked.

There was no time to move and no time to lose. Snapping the phone closed, she reached under her skirt and shoved the cold metal between her legs and straight past her pussy lips. She pushed hard with one finger and clenched her pelvic muscles deeply, sucking the phone safely into her moist vaginal canal.

Guilt was all over her face as she looked up and saw Salida stepping onto the landing. The beautiful matriarch of the G-Spot tapped the steps with her elegant gold cane, and a cigarette dangled from her lips as she carried a drink in her free hand.

“What the hell are you doing up here?” Salida demanded. The cigarette bobbed between her clenched lips as she gave Nooni a long, suspicious glare.

“I…umm…I…”

Salida grilled her ass from head to toe, like she had an x-ray machine in her eyes and could see up under the young girl’s clothing and detect the metal cell phone that was roughing up her pussy.

“N-n-nothing,” Nooni said, thinking fast and swallowing hard. “I-I-I was feeling kinda sick so I came up here looking for you.”

“Is that right?” Salida asked. The cruelty in her voice disappeared and she came off real sweet and motherly. “Well, get yourself up off that floor, honey,” she said frowning as Nooni climbed to her feet. “Ladies
never
put their asses on the ground. And they sure as hell don’t sit with their legs cocked wide open like that.”

Salida walked past her with barely a limp as she twisted the knob, and then she held the cut room door open as she stood on her tiptoes to reach the dangling light string.

“There,” she said as she clicked it on and the room was washed in bright, fluorescent light. She turned around as Nooni stepped inside behind her, and then once again she grilled the girl long and hard.

“You do look sick,” Salida said gently. She passed Nooni her cocktail glass. “Here. Drink a little bit of this Cristal while I get you some special shit that I mixed up myself.”

Doing as she was told, Nooni followed Salida to the small office in the back and obediently sipped the alcoholic beverage, which she recognized as expensive champagne.

Her heart started beating real fast when she realized that Salida was unlocking her desk drawer, and she swooned when the older woman pulled out a vial filled with crystal rocks and shook some into her hand. The letters on the side of the vial read STRAWBERRY SNAKE, and Nooni’s palms got sweaty and her mouth dried up with anxious anticipation.

She waited while Salida reached for a pipe and put all the rocks on the screen. A cigarette lighter appeared in Salida’s hand, and then suddenly the rocks were hot and swirling.

Nooni sucked that glass dick like it had sweet cum in the bottom of it. She inhaled every bit of whirling smoke, and then sucked up all the acrid residue that followed too.

“Here’s your dessert,” Salida teased as she handed Nooni two pills to pop.

Tossing her head back, Nooni dry-throated the drugs and then picked up Salida’s glass and swallowed down the bubbly until every drop was gone.

“Good girl!” Salida praised her, grabbing her cane and heading toward the door. “I bet your sick ass is feeling just fine right now!” she laughed.

At the door, Salida stopped and looked at a row of boxes that were stacked up against the wall. They contained thousands of tiny vials that were stamped with her unique street logo and the name of her new brand, Strawberry Snake. Her plans for widespread distribution were about to become a reality, and after the extensive testing she had done on Nooni, she couldn’t wait for her specially-blended product to invade Harlem’s streets and capture the hearts of its residents.

Anxious to leave, Nooni made a mistake and reached for the doorknob, but Salida slapped her hand down real hard.

“When are you gonna learn that it’s locked on this side, dummy?”

Nooni waited as Salida stretched out the neon-pink spiral bracelet that she always wore on her wrist. Two keys dangled from it, and Salida stuck the larger key in the lock and then pressed down on the handle and opened the door.

She spoke over her shoulder. “You’s a sweet lil thing, Nooni. Anytime you start feeling bad you just come find Mizz Salida and I promise I’ll make you feel better, you hear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Nooni said and grinned. Her head was good and her mood was lifted. And the cell phone jammed up in her tight pussy was starting to feel just like a dick as she bounced her gorgeous young ass back down the stairs to get ready for her next customer.

CHAPTER 10

The homeless shelter didn’t look nothing like I had pictured it looking. From the outside you could have taken it to be a regular old New York brownstone, but when I got inside I was surprised at the way it was set up.  

The Puerto Rican lady who came to get me from the hospital took me into an office to meet an intake counselor named Mrs. Singletary, and after she gave me an ice pack for the lumps on my face and asked me if my foot was feeling okay, she got out her little clipboard and started drilling me with a whole lot of questions about my past.

Most of what I told her was lies, and just like when I was in jail, I made up a lot of shit as I went along, but this was New York. I figured Mrs. Singletary had been around the block a few times and had probably heard all kinds of bullshit before.

She punched my bogus information into her computer, and then I half-listened as she ran down about a million New York City shelter rules.

“We have a ten-day stay limit and there are absolutely no visitors allowed. There is no smoking, drinking, and absolutely no drug use permitted during your stay. All cooking must be done in the kitchen, and all food must be consumed in the dining room.”

My mind wandered as she continued talking. I wanted to listen but I was busy trying to plan my next move and figure out how much of me and Gino’s cash I could get Sallie to wire me before the Feds got suspicious.

“We have a bed for you on the second floor,” the intake counselor said, eyeing the boot on my foot. “You think you can make it up there?”

I nodded real quick. Hell yeah, I could make it. I could make it up them stairs, and as soon as my money got wired to Western Union, I could make it back down them bad boys too.

Matter fact, the minute I got my cash I was gonna catch a cab to the airport and buy me a one way ticket to someplace far, and then check into the airport hotel and order room service and chill until it was time for my flight to leave.

“The second floor is no problem,” I assured the counselor as we walked through a little lounge area. She was one of those older ladies who still used a hot comb to straighten her salt and pepper hair. She turned around to lead the way and her pleated skirt twirled like a giant tent. Her hips were big and round, and her stockings made that soft squishing noise as her thighs rubbed together with every step she took.

I damn near fell in love with that sound and the way her ass moved. She reminded me of Grandmother and the ladies she used to hang out with in church when I was growing up. I longed to put my head down on her shoulder and confess my sins on the pulpit the way Grandmother had always urged me to do back in the day.

But times had changed, and all the good church ladies I knew were up in Harlem, which was the last place I was going. Instead, of putting my head on her shoulder, I glanced around the room.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Singletary. Is there a phone around here that I can use?” I asked.

She nodded and pointed at a desk up against the far wall. “You can use that one right there,” she told me. “Just dial nine to get an outside line.”

  I sat down at the desk and dialed nine, and then I punched in the rest of the numbers as I remembered them.

The phone rang four times, then a recording came on that said, ”The number you have dialed is not in service. Please check your number and dial your call again.”