Unzipped: An Urban Erotic Tale (21 page)

P
earl was hyped as she took a taxi back to the Sunset Motel Thursday night. Yoda had taken her shopping on 125th Street, then snaked his whip down to Thirty-fourth Street so she could hit a few designer dress stores and score some fresh shit to get the Classic weekend started properly the next day.

She had shopped like a happy ho spending Yoda’s cash, and even though she bought the kind of skanky clothes she would never wear in her real life, Pearl couldn’t help noticing how much her new style reminded her of her sister Diamond.

“My aunt is real religious,” she had told Yoda, waving off his offer of a ride home so she could get the rest of her things. “She don’t believe in boyfriends and all that, only husbands. That’s why I gotta get outta her crib. I’m about to go crazy up in there.”

“Yo, fuck all that,” Yoda said, his big hand gripping her thigh. “Look at all this fuckin’ traffic, girl. It’s rush hour. I already told
you, you ain’t gotta go back there at all. You can stay right in Harlem with me.”

Pearl wasn’t going for that. She didn’t give a damn how much traffic was on the roads. She wanted this niggah to drive her back to Harlem so that she could catch a cab right back downtown. She had a lotta shit to do over the next two days. She had serious preparations to make.

“Nah, she’s my grandmother’s sister. I can’t disrespect the old lady like that, and besides, I don’t wanna burn no bridges ’cause I might need her again. But don’t worry,” she said, flashing him a dimple as she bit down sexily on her lower lip. “I’ll meet you at the hotel on Friday, okay?” Pearl patted her crotch. “This thang gone stay nice and hot. I promise.”

Pearl had smiled inside as Yoda gave her the name of the hotel he was staying at and the room number. “I got some business to take care of in the morning,” he told her, “but I’ma leave a key card for you at the desk, aaight?”

Pearl was more than cool with that. And as she rode downtown in the backseat of the taxi she couldn’t believe her luck. But Pearl also knew she had crossed the point of no return. She had made intimate contact with one of Mookie’s men and set the wheels of her plan in motion. Carlita and her niece Zoe were on the ready and just standing by to help her put the people she needed in place to make her grand finale a success. There was no going back now. All Pearl had to do was stick to her plan, keep her cool, and make sure Mookie Murdock didn’t peep her until she was ready to take him down on game day. And with God as her witness, and Irish as her father, Pearl was determined to do just that.

The Sunset Motel was in full swing when Pearl’s taxi pulled up. Young chicks lined the streets outside, working their territory
harder than most folks worked a tax-paying job. Pain pierced Pearl’s heart as she looked into the faces of thirteen-and fourteen-year-old girls who all looked like they were over thirty. She wanted to take them into her arms and wipe away their misery. These poor girls had been working the track so hard that their youth had faded into the wind, and Pearl recalled seeing that same tired look of desperation in the eyes of her twin when Diamond was heavy into the street life.

Seeing the blight and smelling the odor of street sex coming off these young girls just made Pearl hate Mookie and his boyz even more. It was a man like Mookie who Pearl blamed as she watched a thick young ho in a blond wig as she walked up to a tree and spread her legs. Without hesitating, the girl pulled the crotch of her shorts aside and began peeing in a stream without wetting her clothes. No woman had taught that young chick how to do that, Pearl knew. She’d learned that move from a man.

“She must have really practiced that shit a whole lot,” Pearl muttered as she climbed out of the taxi with four bags full of designer gear. She strode past the hoes and junkies just like she didn’t see them. It wasn’t their fault that they were out there. It was society’s fault. Nobody had ever told these girls that they could do better, that they deserved better. Most of them just needed to be shown how to take a few positive steps in their lives, and then most of them would be off and running.

Pearl stiffened as they eyed her down. It was in her heart to feel for them, and under different circumstances she would have loved to stop and talk to some of the younger girls and find out what their stories were and how she could help them. But this was New York and if necessary she would fuck them up. No matter how young people were on the streets, if they smelled a weakness they exploited that shit. These little young hoes wouldn’t have thought twice about running up on Pearl and shaking her down. Shit,
jacking Pearl for her money would beat catching a stank ass trick by a long shot.

The male clerk at the desk was old and fat. He was reading a copy of
Tits and Ass
magazine and Pearl had to clear her throat to get his attention because his watery old eyes were glued to the young white knockers on the page.

“Hi. I’m in room two-forty-seven,” Pearl said pleasantly. “Did any mail come for me today?”

The old man nodded. “Packages,” he said, pointing at two large boxes that were right next to his chair. “You got two packages.”

Pearl eyed the boxes and thought about how she would get them upstairs. No matter how heavy the boxes were, Pearl knew she could handle them. She was strong and fit, and could carry much more than that. The problem was, there were two boxes and she already had two handfuls of shopping bags. There was no way she could take it all up in one trip, but Pearl was hood and she knew the deal. This joint was crawling with fiends who had eyes for opportunity. If she took one package upstairs and came back to get the other, by the time she carried the second box upstairs her room would have been broken into and the first box stolen.

“Can you bring them up?” she asked the old man.

He nodded. “Yep, but I gotta charge you.” He shrugged. “Labor, you know.”

Pearl knew.

“No problem,” she said, reaching into her back pocket and sliding him a twenty. “Just drag them both out here and I’ll carry one myself.”

Up in her room, Pearl set about getting things done. She turned on her laptop and slid her Internet-to-go card in the slot, then navigated to a local messenger delivery site and set up a
pickup and next-day delivery for the next morning from the seedy Sunset Motel to the extravagant Primero Hotel. Once she received a confirmation, she used her FBI-issued pocketknife to slit open just the top of the larger box, then stared for a moment at the contents that had been packed within.

Carlita had done a damn good job.

Her girl was on point. She had supplied everything Pearl had asked for.

The second box was full of stuff Pearl had ordered from hunting and survival stores on the Internet, and she was impressed with the weaponry that she’d selected.

Not even the nasty long-tailed rat that had scurried under the dresser could blow Pearl’s excitement that night. She took a cold shower in the crumbling little bathroom and didn’t worry about the rust or the mold or the ancient germs that were surely there. As she sat in one of the folding chairs and propped her feet up in the other, Pearl covered herself with her towels and prepared to get some sleep. The only thing on her mind was getting down to business, and tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough for her.

B
ut while Pearl was busy snoozing, the night was still young for those who ruled it. Unknown to her, somebody special had peeped her getting out of the taxicab loaded down with all those bags from Michael Kors and other New York City designer stores. Bodies were his business, and a phat physique like Pearl’s was hard to miss. It was also hard to forget, and as Pearl took long strides into the Sunset Motel, Scotch Allen could only stare as he watched one of the best pieces of pussy he’d ever tasted walk through the doors of a fleabag motel.

It had been a real long time since he’d seen her. Her pops had made sure of that. Matter fact, that old fool had fucked up Scotch’s whole program back in the day. And all because his twin daughters were dick freaks who liked to get fucked in wild, crazy ways.

That niggah Irish Baines had run Scotch straight up outta Harlem. All the hard work and grinding Scotch had done to establish
his business had to be abandoned, and he had never forgiven Irish or Pearl for that shit.

Scotch had been back in New York for a quick little minute now, and had amassed himself a small stable of young bitches who worked the track on his behalf, but most of his drug connects had dried up while he was gone, and somebody new was slanging rock in his territory now.

Scotch narrowed his eyes as he watched Pearl switch up to the desk and say something to the clerk. She was finer than ever, and truth be told he had fucked up by boning Diamond behind her back. Scotch had dug Pearl. Dug her hard. Fucking her sister had been just like banging any other ho—something fun to do—and if Pearl had asked he could have told her without a doubt that her pussy was way better than Diamond’s.

The thing was, Scotch hadn’t even known Diamond was pregnant until Irish and his posse rolled up on him and tried to kill him. And even then he wasn’t sure the baby was his because Diamond had been giving away free pussy out of both panty legs. The girl was a freak and she was seriously run through.

Stroking his trimmed beard and keeping one eye on his corner bitches, Scotch watched as the hotel clerk came out from behind his locked partition pushing two boxes. Pearl grabbed the bigger box and the old man took the smaller one, and both of them disappeared through the stairwell doors.

A true street hustler, Scotch always kept his ear to the ground. He didn’t have no territory in Harlem anymore, but he still had a couple of manz up that way. He’d heard Irish had finally gotten his due, along with his wife and granddaughters too. The fact that both of the dead little girls could have been his daughters meant nothing at all to Scotch. He’d sampled so much young, new pussy and fucked so many bitches that he could have had hundreds of kids out there. Two less made him no difference.

What Scotch was interested in now wasn’t Irish or his dead fuckin’ family. Scotch was an opportunist, and right about now he saw one in the making. There could only be one reason that Pearl Baines was slumming around in a shit box on Forty-second Street. The last time he’d seen Diamond she was all fucked up. Skinny and high as fuck. She was too tore down for Scotch to even consider luring out on the track, but that didn’t stop Diamond from bragging about her twin sister and all the wonderful things Pearl had done with her life.

“Yeah, my sister Pearl made it up outta here,” she’d told Scotch. They were sitting in an all-night deli on Forty-fourth Street. Diamond had just turned a trick and bought a little blow, and she was hitting a few lines as she spoke.

“My sister is going places and doing shit. She’s an FBI agent now, and she done made more arrests than most of these toy fuckin’ cops on the streets who be so busy tryna fuck me before they cuff me!”

Is that right?
Scotch thought, replaying the conversation in his mind. Pearl was a square now, and there was only one reason she would be out here slumming. Lil Mama was scheming. She had some shit on her brain, a plan for somebody. He remembered how bad she’d wilded on him and Diamond when she found out they’d been fucking. Scotch shook his head. He’d always thought Pearl was sweet and scary, but the crazy bitch had rolled up on him and slid her knife across his chest so quick he didn’t know he’d been cut. She’d been aiming at his throat, intending to slit him open, but when she went back in for another swipe Scotch had jumped back, making her miss.

Man, that chick could be a monster when she was wronged.

And right about now she had been wronged royally. Pearl’s entire family had been planted. And if Scotch had learned anything
about the girl whose sweet little cherry he had busted when she was only thirteen years old, he knew she was all about her biz.

“Yo, Yoda!” he said after dialing a number on his cell phone. Scotch didn’t have many old-school partners left in Harlem, but he did have one real important one, and since one dirty hand washed the other in the hood, he never knew when he’d need a solid from his boy. “Whattup, my nig? Check it, you remember that jawn Diamond I used to fuck, right? Yeah, y’all prolly know her as N’Vee. Irish Baines’ shawty. Yep. Well, dig, I don’t know if you up on this shit or what, but Diamond has a twin sister named Pearl …”

It was the “Yes We Can” ringtone that woke him up.

Lounging in his phat Midtown co-op, Menace had been slobbering all over his pillow, deep in sleep, and dreaming of Pearl.
Yes, we can!
he was telling her as they did a slow grind to fast music. Menace had a sweet, plump titty in his mouth and the beat of the music was almost twice as fast as their dry-fuck movements, but neither one of them really cared.
Yes we can!

The theme music for the Obama campaign was suddenly louder than the music in his dream, and Menace opened his eyes.

“What it do?” he barked into the phone as his other hand slid under the blanket heading for his hard dick. Pearl’s scent had gotten all up in his dream and it had turned him on like fuck.