I experimented with everything. There was Millie the inflatable mouse; Dong, a ten-inch dildo with a clit stimulator; and an eight-inch thruster with a suction cup. Instead of riding the thruster, I pushed it into me and held it steady with both hands as the head vibrated and the hinges moved it in and out. By the time I’d gone through my whole bag of tricks I had come so many times that I was whipped.
Exhausted and too tired to get up and wash my ass, I rolled over onto my stomach, pulled the comforter over my legs, and fell asleep.
When I opened my eyes again the sun was peeking into the room and I heard somebody moving around in the kitchen down the hall. Not sure if it was G or Jimmy, I jumped up and grabbed the shopping bag and searched for someplace to hide it. The footsteps were coming closer now and I knew I didn’t have much time. I ran across the room and pulled the leather chaise lounge away from the wall and stuck the bag behind it. Then I ran back to the other side of the room, snatched my robe from the closet, and managed to get one arm in the sleeve and pull back the covers, then dive into the bed before the door was flung open.
I lay there playing possum like a mother. Doing my best to control my breathing so G would think I was asleep. I heard him lock the door to our suite, and then I felt him standing over me, just staring.
All kinds of shit was running through my mind. G forbid me to sleep naked, especially without no drawers, and I would have to come up with an excuse as to why my ass was hanging out all over his bed. He was probably wondering what time I’d come home, and then I remembered. He’d told me that when I left Dicey’s I was to either come on back to the Spot, or call him on his cell phone when I got back to the apartment.
In trying to get my freak on I had forgotten all about it, and I knew that even a small thing like this was enough to make G suspicious and jealous. I knew he was mad, and I thanked God that Pacho could vouch for me. He could verify that he picked me up from Dicey’s and brought me straight back to the crib.
G was still standing over me. I dared not open my eyes, or even let them shits flutter, but neither did I have to. I could feel him twirling his ring. Probing at me, taking everything in and examining it like a spy, and when I heard him turn and walk away, I wanted to jump up and praise the Lord.
Instead, I cracked one eye open just a peep, and watched as G headed out of the room, but then he turned around and I thought sure he was looking straight into my face.
But he wasn’t. He was looking at something on the nightstand, and I almost shit on myself when I saw it. The box from the Ben Wa balls. It was sitting right there in the open. I closed my eyes again as G came back over to the bed.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit
was flying through my mind as I heard him pick up the box, and I knew he was trying to figure out what had been in it.
My heart was thudding and my body broke out in a cold sweat. G walked away again, but not toward the door. Peeping through slits, I watched as he opened dresser drawers, searched through the highboy, and even looked under the bed. He’d gone through the closet and had started searching my purse when he decided to check out the Ben Wa box one more time. I had no idea what he was thinking, but when he walked over to the chaise lounge I felt all the blood rush to my head and I was so scared I felt like I was gonna pass out.
I was fully expecting G to find my sex stash and then strangle me with a vibrator cord, but what he did next made me frown and put my brain on alert. G reached up and took a whole mirrored panel down from the wall. Just like that, he lifted it away and sat it down on the dresser. Built into the wall was a metal box with a turning dial. G looked at me just once over his shoulder, and satisfied that I was asleep, he turned his back and spun the dial. I opened my right eye real wide. 32-6-14-41. Hot damn. We were in there.
Chapter Eight
I
couldn’t tell whether G had put something in the safe or taken something out, but I’d been watching him and hadn’t seen him holding anything in his hands. I lay there faking sleep like a pro. I even threw a snore and a fart up in there for good effect, and so far it was working.
32-6-14-41, I repeated the numbers over and over in my head, but there was really no need. Like flies on shit, them numbers weren’t going anywhere. There was no doubt in my mind that one day I was gonna get in that safe and see what G had hidden there. I knew he had all kinds of bank, but where he kept it, I sure didn’t know. I figured he had it stashed in a bank somewhere, all that money just sitting there drawing interest and making more money.
G had just closed the safe and replaced the mirrored tile when I exhaled. He was probably checking the room looking for some business papers or something he’d misplaced, I told myself. That’s all. I was damn grateful that it hadn’t been me who had gotten his radar up. But then he moved over to me again and I felt him staring down at me with I don’t know what in his eyes.
“Juicy,” he growled.
I didn’t answer. I was playing possum, remember?
“Wake your ass up, girl.”
I rolled over and stretched, then pretended to snuggle into the pillows and go back to sleep. G pulled the comforter clean off of me and I could feel the whole left side of my body exposed to him.
“Get up, Juicy.”
Something in his voice prompted me to move. I opened my eyes and tried to play innocent. “Huh? What’s wrong, G? What’s going on?”
“What did I tell you to do last night?”
I gave him a confused look. “You told me to go tell Dicey not to come back to work until she stopped bleeding.”
“What was you supposed to do when you left there?”
I snapped my fingers and sat up. I pushed my hair away from my face and yawned. “Damn, baby. I’m sorry. I know I was supposed to call you when I got in, but Dicey was so sick that I ended up cleaning her house and cooking for her, too. I was so tired when I got back that I took off my clothes and fell straight to sleep.”
“Is that right?” His eyes said he doubted me.
“Yes. I’m sorry, G. Next time I’ll remember.”
“Where your drawers at, Juicy?”
I stared at him. “In the bathroom. In the dirty clothes. Why?”
He didn’t answer. “Open your legs,” he commanded.
I was scared, but I didn’t know what for.
“W-w-why you want me to—”
His hand was around my throat before I even saw him move.
“You questioning me, Juicy?”
It was all I could do to squeak out the word no. When he let me go I spread my legs and brought my heels up.
G kneeled on the bed between my thighs. Then he did something that really fucked me up. He lowered his face down between my legs just like he was gonna lick my pussy, but instead, he spread my lips apart and I heard him sniff deeply as he took a good long whiff of my stuff.
I just knew I smelled like sex. I’d stroked and poked myself to multiple orgasms and had fallen asleep without washing. But, I reasoned, I could only smell like me. I mean it’s not like I had no real dick inside of me. Nothing to mix with my stuff and make me smell like a night’s worth of real fucking.
G got up and I couldn’t read his face. “Go get them panties you had on last night.”
I jumped from the bed and scurried into the bathroom and came back holding my champagne lace thong in my hand. G took the thong and looked all in it, then did the same thing he’d done to my crotch. He sniffed those panties like he was a bloodhound, and I prayed that he didn’t smell anything that even almost made him think I’d been with a man.
I was standing there with one arm in my robe and one arm still hanging out. G handed me back my panties and started loosening his belt and unbuttoning his shirt like he was ready to hit the bed. I had just turned to walk into the bathroom to put the panties back in the hamper when he hit me from behind.
Heat cut into my upper back, snaking across my right shoulder and burning up my naked titty.
A whishing noise broke the air and I whirled around to see G’s thick leather belt coming at me like a mad black snake.
Crack!
I was so shocked pee came straight out of me.
“Wh-h-ha—” I pressed my legs together but before I could get my words out G pulled his arm way back to alabama and let his belt fly again. This blow licked across my hip and curled around my upper thigh.
Another one cut into my stomach and ended up sizzling between my breasts. It felt like somebody had thrown lye on me, and thick purple welts started popping up everywhere I’d been struck.
“G!” I screamed, running toward the bathroom. He had this crazy look in his eyes, like he wasn’t really there, and for the first time he looked outright ugly to me. His lip was all curled down and spit was actually hanging from it.
“Why your pussy so stink, Juicy? Huh?”
I didn’t see the next blow coming, but I damn sure felt it. He caught me square on the ass and I yelped and grabbed myself back there with both hands hopping just like a little kid. I hit the bathroom door still holding my ass and moving fast. But if I was going a hundred, G was going two. He grabbed me by the back of my neck and forced me to my knees, all the while swinging his belt like I’d stolen something.
“Bitch,” he called me. “Sneaky little bitch!”
I wanted to ball up in a knot and make myself as little as possible, but he had his foot on my back and my whole body felt like it was on fire. So I screamed. Screamed like somebody was killing me, which is just what I thought he was doing. My face was pressed to the floor, right next to the toilet, and when I opened my eyes the mirrors reflected G standing above me, fucking me up. Bringing his belt down on my ass until I almost passed out.
I couldn’t even cry no more. What I was feeling was beyond pain. It took me a minute to realize that somebody was bamming at our bedroom door, and when the heavy knocking got through to my brain all I could think was:
Lord, no. Please don’t let it be Jimmy.
I didn’t want my baby brother to see me getting my ass whipped like this. I didn’t want him to see G so out of control.
“What, motherfucker?” G stopped swinging long enough to bark toward the door.
“Uhm.” It was Jimmy. “Ya’ll okay in there?”
I bit into my lip, whimpering like a dog.
“Yeah,” G said calmly. “We handling shit. Gone to bed. You can talk to your sister when I’m through.”
I lay there trembling as Jimmy walked away. I could hear how slow his footsteps were, like he didn’t really want to leave.
Go, Jimmy!
I prayed silently.
Just go!
And now G had me by the neck again, but at least he wasn’t swinging his belt. He was taking off his pants. I was too scared to even open my eyes and look in the mirrors to see what he was doing, but then again I didn’t have to. I felt him on me. His dick long and hard and pressing into me. This time there were no juices to even halfway ease his entry. He grabbed my hips and rammed his dick straight up my ass, and when he lowered his body down on mine I screamed out loud, my torn skin bleeding and burning in pain.
He fucked me the same way he beat me. Stroke for stroke, his dick was just like a belt, cutting into my flesh. I was so battered and scared I couldn’t tell what hurt worse: my asshole, my body, or the top of my shoulder where G was now grinding his teeth, biting into my flesh.
“Aaahh!” I screamed and squirmed as he bit me over and over, sinking his teeth just deep enough to break the skin and cause real pain.
As heavy as he was I tried to crawl from under him, but he grabbed me by the hips again and thrust harder and faster, biting me and fucking me with fury until I felt him bust a walnut inside my ass that was so big his cum filled me up and then ran right back out of me.
Moments later he was on his feet again, pulling up his pants. As hurt and terrified as I was, the tone of his voice cut clear through my pain.
“Stay the fuck away from Dicey, you hear?”
I rolled over on my back, forgetting my fear.
“W-w-why, G?”
Dicey was the only real friend I had. Hell, she was friend, sister, mother, and grandmother all rolled into one. Who else was gonna help me through this life I was living? Who but Dicey would look after Jimmy when G killed my black ass? I stretched my hands out toward him, pleading from the floor. “Dicey’s good people, baby. You know that. She’s real nice to me and even you said she’s one of the best workers in the cut room. She’s your goddaughter, too, right, G? You and her father was aces way back, remember?”
G moved toward me and all the muscles in his chest and arms seemed to flex. The rising sunlight was hitting the mirrors and throwing back at least fifty of his reflections. He had a half-smile on his face, but his eyes was so cold I knew there wasn’t a bit of joy in him.
“Let me catch you with that bitch again, you hear, Juicy? Just let me catch you.”
It wasn’t until the next day that I realized how much of a pro G really was.
As badly as he had brutalized me, there wasn’t a mark on me that could be seen by the public.
Every single welt and bruise on my body had been carefully placed so it would be hidden under my clothes. Yeah, my ass was ripped raw and I had a hard time sitting down for over a week, and yeah, G had brought home some cocoa butter and even helped rub it across my back and over my titties where the worst of the welts and the bite marks were, but even Jimmy couldn’t tell what all I’d gone through on that bathroom floor.
The next morning when my baby brother looked at me over breakfast and asked what was going on and why I’d been screaming loud enough to wake the dead, I gave him some bullshit story about good sex and rough love play. I told him when he got good enough where he could make a woman scream in bed the way G did, he would know he had arrived.
Chapter Nine
I
t was the middle of June when the roof really fell in.
Ever since the Naughty Girls party G had been playing me extra close. He didn’t care that I had been falling asleep in my classes in school and barely keeping up with the work.
Every night at six Pacho picked us up in G’s fly whip and drove us uptown to the Spot like we was royalty or something. G would send me in the back to get my makeup and hair done, and my clothes would be pressed and ready by eight o’clock when folks were beginning to roll in.
G made me sit up at the bar all night long, and even though I knew Moonie had been ordered to watch me and dip on every conversation I had, I didn’t really care. I figured I’d already taken one ass-whipping, so hell, I could take two. I would tell Moonie I was going to the bathroom, then sneak off and go run my mouth with the women who cleaned the rooms in the back, even helping them wipe down the bathrooms and change the sheets in between hoes.
But Moonie was not to be fucked with. He was totally loyal to G, and if you wanted somebody killed he was definitely down for the job. He was slick as hell, too. I couldn’t figure out if he had a woman or any kids, or how he kept his eyes on all things at all times, but he had it down pat. Only the best soldiers made it on Moonie’s front line squad, and from the highest lieutenant to the lowest lookout standing on the corner or sitting on a project bench, nobody crossed Moonie and nobody got next to G.
The spring semester of school was just about over and even though I had managed to pass all my classes I was feeling low-down. Jimmy kept hollering about working at the Spot instead of going to college, G told me I couldn’t enroll in a single summer course unless I had the money to pay for it myself, and to top it all off I was barred from chilling with or even speaking to Dicey. That shit made me feel rebellious like a mother, so once or twice I’d sent messages to her through Cooter, but G had already gotten to her and Cooter came stuttering back and told me Dicey said she wasn’t allowed to talk to me no more.
I was so stressed and bored that for weeks all I did was masturbate. In the shower, in the backseat of Pacho’s whip, and once or twice I put my life on the line and did it laying in bed right next to G. I went through all my sex toys until they didn’t excite me no more. I walked around all day with the Ben Wa balls up in me and practiced clenching my pussy muscles until it was too tight for a tampon.
I couldn’t take the sameness of it all. Day in and day out, the same old thing. New York was hot as hell in the summertime but I didn’t get to enjoy any of it. I wanted to be in Central Park, or hanging out with Rita in Brooklyn, or just walking the streets of Harlem like I used to when I was a kid. Instead I was either cooped up in the apartment during the day or cooped up at the Spot all night. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that a hottie like me was heading straight for trouble, and when I crashed into it headfirst, the only person G had to blame was himself.
I
’d been humping those stools for so long that I’d learned how the whole bar operation was run. Liquor was an expensive commodity in the Spot, coming in right behind the drugs and the hoes. By watching Moonie and Cooter I figured out the names of all the mixed drinks and how they was supposed to be shaken or stirred. I dipped on how the finances went down, too. G didn’t run no nickel-and-dime game. Playas put their cash on the line as soon as they walked through the door.
A grand to step on the carpet, and another grand that went toward your drinks, lap dances, drugs, and any trim you might just want to buy with the room chips you could purchase at any time. If your balance dipped too low Moonie sent some huge thug like ace or that fat greasy niggah Pluto over to escort you to the cashier in the back room where they’d lighten you up by another grand.
I couldn’t stand Pluto’s fat ass. Out of all the dealers who worked for G, from the young heads on the streets to the bouncers and security workers who Moonie kept in deep check, Pluto was the only one who stayed up in my shit all the time.
Every time I turned around he was either licking his nasty tongue out at me or saying something under his breath. Pluto wanted to fuck me, plain and simple, and if he thought he could do it and get away with it, he’d snatch my ass in a back room and do me all night long.
I didn’t say anything to G about Pluto. I was gonna wait until just the right time to tell on his fat funky ass. The only person who knew about Pluto coming on to me was Cooter, and that’s because he busted Pluto getting drunk and talking loud shit to me at the bar one night.
“H-h-hey, my man,” Cooter had stuttered. “J-j-juicy is a l-l-l-lady. Be cool w-w-with that sh-sh-shit.”
Cooter made sure Pluto saw him glance up the bar at Moonie, and then stood there until fatso took the hint and moseyed his wide ass on. We both knew Cooter hadn’t scared Pluto off. It was that look he’d shot toward Moonie, and the threat of him getting involved that had done it for Pluto.
When he left, Cooter had winked at me and I smiled. I liked Cooter because he was so nice. Simple, but nice. He was real skinny and had some fucked-up skin, and sometimes he stuttered so bad it was hard to understand him, but he was totally down with Moonie, who trusted him to the max, so instead of trying him and playing him like a duck, most niggahs ordered their drinks and left him alone.
Tonight, the staff had been preparing for Ladies Night just like they did every Saturday when Moonie came out of G’s office and told everybody there was gonna be a change in the plan. G was more of a fanatic than Spike Lee when it came to the New York Knicks, and tonight, Moonie said he was closing down the Spot to host a private party for one of the players’ birthdays.
All the strippers and hoes were hyped. Basketball players and other professional athletes always seemed to drop the biggest bank. Maybe it was a manhood thing. Harlem wasn’t the place for no sherms, and since most athletes usually weren’t truly street hard or deep in the game, they spread their cheddar real thick like they had something to prove.
So Knicks, schmicks cause I wasn’t starstruck no more. By now I was used to seeing big names roll up in the Spot.
All the rappers and recording artists who profiled in the hottest videos, the big-name actors who starred in the black movies, the pimps and playas who held down Brooklyn and the Bronx, they all rolled heavy in the Spot. I could see why the hoes were happy, but this was non-news for me. Didn’t make me no difference who came through the doors. I was still gonna be bored and uptight because nobody was coming to see me.
Needless to say, I was looking luscious that evening as I always did. Sometimes I thought it was such a big waste of energy for me to be getting all primped and perfumed and dressed in all those fine clothes just to sit up on a bar stool or walk laps around a warehouse-sized club all night. I was getting tired of the routine big time.
All that cigarette smoke stinking up my hair, my dogs howling in those high-heeled shoes, and I won’t even go there about all the fucking I saw going on but couldn’t partake in. The sauna, the Jacuzzi, the steam room . . . sperm was flowing by the gallon in the Spot, but not a drop of it in my direction.
I was sitting at the bar when my trouble walked in. I’d seen him a billion times on television, but never before in person. He played on a team that rivaled the Knicks, but he was cool like that so they made him down in New York. Something about him jumped out at me, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. It wasn’t just that he was fine. I could tell that from the TV, and besides, plenty of fine men swung by the G-Spot.
And he wasn’t all that tall for a basketball player neither; definitely under six feet, and even though he was damn near the best in the league everybody knew his ass had a problem with showing up for team practices. Maybe it was those cornrows he was rocking, or the way he walked up in the joint like his name was G and he owned it. I don’t know.
All I could say was the brother put his almond-shaped eyes on mine and smiled, and I got so wet I was ready to jump down and mop up the bar stool.
He was wearing a white sweatshirt and on the front it read
PHILLY
. The back read
FUCK NEW YORK
. Moonie scoped it before old boy got up to the stage, and just by tilting his chin sent a message to three thick-necked bouncers to check him where he stood. He was laughing as he pulled the shirt over his head, and underneath it he had on a white wife-beater with muscles bulging everywhere.
Of course I knew better than to stare. Moonie’s eyes never blinked, and I wasn’t trying to give him no dog bone to go running back to G with. So I played it chill and glanced at the brother once, then kept my eyes moving right along. But I could feel him looking at me, and when I peeped his way again I knew right then and there that he didn’t know shit about Harlem. Hell, he couldn’t have known nothing about any borough in the entire city of New York the way he was eyeballing Granite McKay’s pussy.
I watched him on the sly as he grilled me all night long: winking, grinning, and licking his lips. He was violating G like a mother, and I was waiting for Moonie or one of the bouncers to check him up and put a gun to his head. He was having himself a good old time. Punanee, one of G’s prime strippers, gave him a half-fuck lap dance, and later I peeped him kissing all over Monique’s three titties like he needed to be nursed. I knew Greco was tallying his bill up to the penny, and I also knew his pockets were deep enough where he could afford almost anything he wanted in the Spot.
Almost anything.
I watched him hit the Jacuzzi, then stroll into Ursula’s to get a massage. Later, I saw him go into the card room, then come back out and head for the cinema room.
Every time he passed my way he gave me a deep, hard look, like he was fucking me with his eyes. He could have been killed for looking at me twice, and even if this was something he should have known, he damn sure didn’t seem to care. My body was boiling and I couldn’t take it no more.
“I’m hungry,” I told Moonie. “I need to get me some grub.”
He nodded. “Why don’t you send Cooter next door to get you a fish sandwich.”
I wrinkled up my nose even though I usually tore those hot whiting sandwiches up. Ronald Be Bad owned the fish joint next door, but there was also a full kitchen right here in the Spot. We sold fried chicken, hot wings, potato salad, and ribs, and the only reason G let Be Bad stay in business over there was because he didn’t want us frying fish in the Spot and having it “smelling like no stank ass pussies.”
“I got a taste for something spicy,” I told Moonie, sliding down from my stool. “I’ma go get some hot wings. You want any?”
He shook his head like I knew he would. I’d never seen Moonie eat, drink, or even take a piss break while he was working.
The kitchen was on the far left side of the Spot, across from the card room and a small room we used in the winter to check leathers and furs. I’d seen the brother with the braids heading that way, and I wanted to get another peek at him.
At the counter I asked Raybelle for an order of wings with extra sauce, and the whole time she was fixing my plate I kept peeping out in the hall, my eyeballs crawling all over the place. I was walking past the card room eating a wing and carrying my plate when he stepped out of the men’s bathroom and stopped right in front of me.
“Damn,” I said, playing it off like I hadn’t been clocking for him in the first place. “Why you jump out like that? What you doing in there anyway?” I spoke with major attitude but he grinned all sexy like he didn’t even notice.
“It says,” he pointed to the sign on the door, “men’s room. I was using the bathroom.”
He sucked me up with those chinky eyes and had the nerve to stick his hands in my plate and grab one of my wings.
I sucked my teeth. “Don’t be putting your nasty hands in my plate! I don’t know where they been!”
He just laughed. “They clean, baby. I didn’t even use the bathroom. I saw you walking back and forth and I was waiting for you to come back past.”
I shrugged and pretended like I was gonna walk around him. “I still don’t know where your hands been.”
He blocked me. “I know where they wanna be.”
I gave him a look. “You must not know who I am. The hoes work out of the back rooms. You can get fucked up talking to me like that up in here.”
“Girl, you been peeping me all night long. I know you ain’t no ho. C’mere.”
He pulled me toward the coatroom snatching my plate so fast the wing I was chewing on slipped from my fingers and hit the floor, sauce everywhere.
“Man, what you doing?” I twisted out of his grasp. The spot where his hand had touched me was hot and tingling.
He put his finger to his lips. “Ssshh . . . c’mon, girl. You know what time it is.”
I let him pull me into the coatroom. I melted. “We gonna get caught. . . .” I felt like a kid sneaking a hump in the closet. On some level I knew that I was playing with my life, but the thrill of it all had me on fire. I wanted this guy to do me. I wanted to feel him on me, in me, all over me.
He pulled up my dress in the dimness of the room, and pressed his lips to mine. His breath smelled sweet like chocolate. I felt his hands on my ass and I rubbed my titties against his chest. “Damn, you taste good,” he said, his tongue thick and hot and leaving wet streaks on my lips, chin, and collarbone. I was panting, unable to speak. Scared as hell we would get caught but too turned on to even think about stopping.
His fingers were between my legs, urging them wide open. He hiked up my two-thousand-dollar eggshell armani dress and got on his knees and bit down on my crotch right through my panties. “Oh, damn,” I whispered as his teeth raked across my clit and sent chills shooting through my pussy. “That feels so good.”
He pulled my panties down with his teeth and lifted my thigh over his shoulders. “Yum,” he said, looking between my legs and smacking his lips. “Cute little monkey.”
And then it was on. The moment I had been waiting for and hoping for and praying for. His tongue was everywhere, up, down, probing, licking. I felt his lips on my clit and on my asshole, too. He made his tongue stiff and pushed it in and out of me, using it like a mini dick. I cupped his face, pulling him closer as I worked my hips faster. My fingers were wet and sticky with my juices that were covering his cheeks and dripping from his chin. I shivered and shuddered and almost snatched his cornrows out as I held on to his head and came harder than I ever had in my life. My orgasm had to have lasted only seconds, but it was so sweet it felt like forever. The intensity of it scared me. I felt the whole building rock. It was totally unlike anything I had ever felt before and I never wanted it to end. But as soon as it was over I got hit with a blast of reality. I was up in G’s spot, wearing his clothes, eating his food, and fucking with one of his customers. How stupid could I get?