CHAPTER 21
“
I
don't give a damn if that girl really
is
Sable,” Pilar bitched as her and Barron zipped down the wet streets of Dallas. She had found him reading in his father's study and spilled the whole pot of beans on Fallon. “You need to keep her slimy Philly ass away from Fallon! And the same thing goes for that old-ass child molester Freddie too! I'm telling you, B. Those two chicks had your sister in there doing some unspeakable shit. They were turning her out. Both of them.”
Barron's face was set in a grim mask as he drove. He had wanted to kill that bitch Freddie, but Dy-Nasty
was
Sable. He was convinced of that. But he didn't put nothing past her and he couldn't wait until the vote was over so he could send her grimy ass packing and get her the hell up out of their lives.
“At least Freddie told you where to find Fallon,” Pilar went on, even though Freddie really hadn't had a choice. Barron had practically kicked the girl's door down and told her he was gonna set her building on fire if she didn't bring her ass outside. “Who in the world would have thought to look for her at a shelter for gay teenagers anyway?”
Not me,
Barron thought as he clenched his jaw tight and stomped down on the gas. He didn't know what the fuck was going on with his family, but every last one of them needed to get their shit together, and fast too.
He sped down the highway toward the shelter, feeling the weight of his father's inheritance on his shoulders. All he wanted to do was find Fallon and get her back home before any of this got back to Selah. Barron was a mama's boy down to the bone, and the last thing he wanted to do was give his moms any extra shit to worry about.
Thirty minutes later him and Pilar were back on the road and heading home. And with a pissed-off Fallon in the backseat. She had bitched and cried and refused to leave the shelter with him, but Barron had illed so hard that she had ended up in his backseat anyway.
Even though Barron drove fast and mad, he was filled with relief. He wasn't a helpless seven-year-old no goddamn more. There was no way in hell he was gonna lose another baby sister when it was his job to watch her. He didn't have no other choice but to get Fallon and bring her back home. His heart couldn't have taken it any other way.
Â
Bunni was mad as hell and she was hungry too. She'd gone out to a wing joint with Dane, and when she hinted and beat around the bush that they should prolly be a couple, that fool had bust out laughing.
Well, Bunni had ended up laughing like a muthafucka too! And her laugh had been the loudest! She'd thrown every fuckin' wing on her plate at his ass, and then she cracked him in the forehead with her dish too! She had stormed outta the joint and taken a taxi back to the mansion, and when she couldn't find Mink nowhere around she had headed straight to the kitchen.
“Ooh,” she marveled as she rummaged through the freezer and then looked in the cook's pantry. These fools had so much bougie-ass food in the joint 'til it made her head spin. This mug didn't look shit like her cabinet back at home, where all she had was some crumbled Ritz crackers, a couple of cans of Spam, and some potted meat. Nah, the Dominos had the real fancy shit up in here, like gourmet water crackers and some chopped tomato-looking stuff called bruschetta, red Salmon and foie gras, and some crispy gourmet cookies with coffee-flavored whip cream falling out the sides. Bunni had gotten used to eating that good stuff since she'd been in the mansion, and she knew she coulda told one of the cooks to bring her up a little midnight snacky-snack, but she was mad and she had a taste for something real greasy and real ghetto.
There was a big tray of seasoned-up catfish in the fridge that Miss Katie was planning on cooking for dinner the next day, and Bunni slid three nice-sized pieces off the top of the heap and set them on a plate. She dug around in the pantry and came out with a box of grits, and got busy fixing herself a little midnight snack and a big jug of sweet red Kool-Aid.
She was steady singing “Girls Like You” by Miguel and shaking the pieces of fish around in a paper bag full of cornmeal when Fallon walked into the kitchen. She looked mad as hell too, and Bunni paused with a hunk of catfish halfway out the bag and frowned.
“Hey, now! What's up? Why you looking all bent?”
Fallon shrugged, and her eyes went to the cast iron black skillet full of hot grease that was just starting to pop.
“You want some?” Bunni offered, holding up the fish before lowering it carefully into the sizzling grease. “I had a taste for some scrimps myself, but these just gonna have to do. I got some grits on the stove too if you want some.”
“Yeah,” Fallon said as the delicious smell of frying fish drifted up her nose. She kicked off her sandals and hopped up on a breakfast stool. “I'll take a little bit.”
A few minutes later the food was done and Bunni hooked up their grits with salt, butter, and a whole lotta black pepper. Fallon swirled a crispy piece of fish around in her bowl of grits and got her grub on. All that running away shit was hard on a girl, and she had been too amped to think about eating before she left. They had offered her a stale turkey sandwich at the shelter, but Barron had tracked her ass down so fast and snatched her up so quick that even if she wanted to eat it, she didn't have a chance to.
Fallon had been too pissed off when she saw her brother walk calmly through the shelter's front door, and she'd had no choice but to leave with him when he told her if she didn't march her little ass outside and be sitting in the backseat of his whip before he got there, then he was gonna call his friends at the police station and have Freddie locked up as a child molester. Barron had brought her straight back home, and she was just about to stomp up the stairs to her room when she smelled something cooking in the kitchen. Still mad, but with her stomach talking loud, Fallon had followed her nose.
“So where you was hanging out at tonight?” Bunni asked her as they chowed down together at the breakfast counter.
Fallon watched as the New York chick picked up the pepper shaker and shook it until her grits turn almost completely black.
“Why you roll up in here with your lips all balled up like that, Fallon?”
“Because I was mad.” Fallon smirked. “Bump was trippin'. Pilar told him I was getting smutted out in my room, and he came up in there swinging on people and going the hell off.”
“Smutted? You? By who?”
Fallon sighed. “It wasn't even like that. Pilar lied and said I was stripping.”
Bunni shrugged and slurped some hot grits off her spoon. “You was stripping? What's wrong with that?”
“But I wasn't even stripping. I was just dancing in my room. Barron went off about nothing. Hey,” Fallon said, changing the subject. “I like your hair. I want mine twisted. Do you go to a salon or do it yourself?”
Bunni picked up her cup of red Kool-Aid with one hand and touched her red hair with the other one. “Sometimes,” she finally said, out of breath after taking about ten long gulps. “There's a lotta braid shops and whatnot around my way, but I do my own shit 'cause I'm a native New Yorker and I know how it's supposed to be done!”
Fallon nodded. “I wanna go to New York one day. Bad. As soon as I graduate, I'm there.”
“Haaaaa!” Bunni stuck her tongue out and laughed. It was red and dotted with little balls of white grits. “Awright nah! There's a lotta freaky-deakies in New York! Be ready to party when you get there, okay?”
Fallon laughed and nodded. “I'm gonna be ready. I'm already ready.” She reached over and took one of Bunni's spirally red dreadlocks between her fingers.
“I really like the color of your hair,” she said. “The texture too. I want mine done 'cause yours is way cool.”
“I know,” Bunni said, grinning. “It's the shit, ain't it? C'mon, let's go upstairs to your room and play beauty parlor. I'll put some conditioner in your hair and twist you up a few locs too.”
Â
Pilar was finally heading back to her suite. Ray's car was still parked in the driveway, and she couldn't believe that after all this time his dumb behind was still sitting up in her room waiting for her to come back. He had been begging her to let him lick her out, but Barron had already eaten her pussy real good and it was still a little tender. The last thing she needed was for Ray to come stabbing his five-inch tongue up inside her coochie trying to get him a little taste too. Yeah, his tongue was thick and long and he knew how to use it just like a little dick, but then what? After she nutted she would still have to look at his fat belly and his hairy man tits.
No thank you,
Pilar thought and shuddered. She would really rather not.
Her sore pussy was still throbbing as Pilar walked up the stairs and headed toward the custom-designed suite that her aunt Selah had built specially for her. She had stepped off the top stair and turned to her left when she heard something coming from the opposite direction that stopped her right in her tracks.
Here we go again,
Pilar thought as she looked over her right shoulder, but it wasn't stripper music that assaulted her ears this time. She listened closely. She heard faint noises. Fuck noises. Soft moans and sighs, and then somebody grunting and gasping and then groaning. The sound of a headboard striking the wall rang out a few times, and then a female voice growled real loud, “Yeah! Suck my clit! Eat this pussy, goddammit! Fuck me with that long-ass tongue and lick up
all
my cum!”
Pilar frowned, alarmed. The voice was so damn guttural she didn't recognize it, but on that hallway it could only be coming from one or two rooms: Fallon's or Dy-Nasty's.
Pilar turned around and headed down the other hall with her ear cocked and anxious to hear more, but now there was only silence. She got up close to Dy-Nasty's door and held her breath, listening. Nothing. A few moments later she ran down to Fallon's door and listened too. Nothing. She didn't hear a damn thing.
Until she walked past Dy-Nasty's door again. And that's when she could have sworn she heard somebody say
Shhh
. . . and then giggle. But maybe she didn't. She stood quietly, listening. Nothing.
Pilar had given up and had walked almost down to the end of the hallway when she heard a door open behind her. She slowed her pace until she was barely moving.
“That was so much fun,” she heard Fallon say. “It felt so squishy and wet. I think you should leave it in there a little longer next time, okay? I like it to be nice and soft.”
Squishy and wet?
Pilar froze, then looked over her shoulder as somebody walked out of Fallon's bedroom. Her lip curled down in disgust when she saw who it was.
Bunni!
You nasty bitch!
Pilar thought. Poor Fallon couldn't catch a break. She was like a sweet little sheep surrounded by a bunch of hungry ass wolves! Pilar cursed under her breath as she headed to her suite. From Mink to Freddie, to Bunni, to DyNasty, all these twisted, perverted bitches needed to get up out of her aunt's mansion! She stormed down the hall and snatched her door open and stepped inside.
To Pilar's surprise, her man's glasses were still on the end table and the television was still playing real loud. But big fat Ray, with his five-inch tongue, was gone.
CHAPTER 22
T
he big day had come. It was finally time for us to retake our DNA tests. We were going to the lab as a family because nobody trusted no damn body. Selah and Dy-Nasty were already sitting in the shiny Rolls-Royce when I got outside, but when I went to get in the whip with them Barron checked me kinda hard.
“Nah, don't get in there,” he barked, stiff-arming me and blocking the door handle. “This ain't your ride this morning. Go ahead and slide up in Dane's Hummer. He's gonna drive you where you need to go.”
I looked him up and down in his Valentino suit and European Zanotti leather shoes, and rolled my damn eyes. That nigga had something up his sleeve. I could feel it along with the butterflies that were fluttering in my stomach. It was like he knew I was lying so he was throwing all his weight behind Dy-Nasty. As trifling and ghetto as she was, he seemed to want her to get up in that trust fund money, but he flipped out and acted the fool if he thought even a penny of it might come to me.
Barron got in the front of the Rolls beside the driver, and it seemed like he slammed his door a little extra hard. The car headed toward the driveway, and Dy-Nasty had the nerve to stick her tongue out and wiggle her fingers at me as they drove past.
I stood out there all alone. I felt ass-out, just like I was gonna be when those DNA results came back. Right now the only way I was gonna come outta this caper with a dime in my pockets was if the test results didn't come back until after the board meeting. If those babies could just be delayed until them white people at Dominion Oil got together and met, then I might still have a chance.
All this was heavy on my mind as I stood waiting in the heat beside the Hummer for Dane and Bunni to come outside. “They told you the name of the new lab?” I asked Dane when they showed up a few minutes later. The whip was hot as hell on the inside, so he cut on the air-conditioner and blasted it on high so the leather seats could cool off.
“Yeah, he told me five minutes ago,” he said. “But Bump knew where y'all was gonna be tested all along. That nigga just didn't want nobody else to know.”
“I know he didn't!” Bunni said. “ 'Cause we woulda got up in that lab and worked them fuckers over!”
“We still gonna work them over,” Dane said. “Trust me, every business has a weakness. A soft spot. Uncle Suge is the type of cat who knows how to find those spots and poke 'em until they bleed. Don't worry about your test, Mink. Let Bump and Dy-Nasty worry about hers.”
“I can't
stand
your stingy-ass brother.” I was feeling real evil after standing out there under all that hot sun. “Y'all got enough money to give me and Dy-Nasty
both
a little bit of change. It ain't fair that some people get to have a whole lot when other people got next to nothing.”
“That's the way of the world, baby girl,” Dane said, laughing as he held the back door open for me. I hopped up in the whip in my cute little lime green skirt and I had to sit on my hands because the seats were still kinda hot. “The big fish always eat the little fish. It ain't personal. That's just what big fish do.”
Â
Jock had learned his lesson about that group-home shit. He didn't care how many times his boy Dre begged him to ride out to Fort Worth and wait for some easy pussy to climb outta a group home window, he wasn't going for it.
Instead, after smoking some nice yay and popping a tab, Jock unbuckled his belt and let his baggy jeans fall around his ankles. Grabbing ajar of cocoa-butter scented Vaseline, he sat back on his couch as the Latina porn flick he had downloaded to his laptop started to play.
It was the weed and not the intro fuck music that was putting Jock in the mood. He dug his hand into the jar of grease and scooped out just enough to thoroughly wax his pole. Two hot Puerto Rican chicks with long curly hair appeared on the screen. One had light skin and the other one was dark. Both had massive titties and wide asses, and Jock stared at the screen as he stroked his shit up and watched them go at each other.
First they kissed passionately, showing a whole lot of darting, curling tongue. They gripped their breasts and rubbed their nipples on each other, with the camera zooming in to get a good shot of the stiff little stones.
“Wow,” Jock panted as the light-skinned one reached down and inserted two fingers inside the darker one's pussy. She fingered her until her hand was soaked, and then she pushed the girl back on the bed and lowered her face to the girl's snatch.
The camera caught her from an angle that showed her pink tongue slithering in and out, stabbing both the pussy and the ass crack, and Jock's mouth started watering as he imagined his face all up in that good na-na.
The tempo of the fuck music suddenly picked up as a white dude with a real long dick walked in the room outta nowhere. He positioned himself behind the chick who was bent over licking out that pretty brown pussy, and then he slid his meat up in her and started pounding away.
The girl getting her shit ate out musta forgot her role because she started squealing like she was the one being fucked.
“Oy! Oowie, Papi! Fuck my cho-cha! Ay-ya-yiii! You beautiful fuggin' chulo!”
It was a cheap flick, but it still did the trick. When the white boy pulled his dick outta old girl and spurted a ton of slow-motion cum all over her back, Jock let his nut go too, and with the two girls screaming all kinds of nasty shit in Spanish, everybody in the room came at the same time.
Less than five minutes later Jock walked into his bathroom wide-legged and with his pants and drawers still around his ankles. He wiped his softening dick off with a hot soapy rag, and then he checked his text messages, got his shit together, and got out the door.
Â
Jock was pumping up the sounds of Meek Mill in his 2012 Lincoln MKT as he sparked up his last fat blunt and took a nice long pull. He felt good. His nuts was empty and his head was right, and he was heading to Fort Worth to pick up his manz Glenn so they could cop some more 'dro and replenish their supply. The beat was sick, and pounding his hand on the steering wheel, he was almost down the driveway when his uncle Suge's Ford F-450 King Ranch pulled through the gates and blocked his exit.
He watched as the driver's door swung open and one big booted-up foot hit the pavement, followed by another one. Suge slammed the door, then nodded in Jock's direction and tipped his cowboy hat further down on his head.
“Shit!” Jock cursed. Dude was coming his way. Tossing the get-high out the window was outta the question. Instead, he snatched the weed out his mouth and fumbled to mash it out in the ashtray before sliding it closed. Uncle Suge was almost up on him and he was motioning for him to roll down his window. Cranking the air-conditioner up on high, Jock pushed a button and lowered all four windows at once, just in time for a big cloud of smoke to shoot out of the window and hit his uncle right in the face.
“W'sup, Unc?” Jock grinned, trying to play it off. Uncle Suge was like a legend to him. A big, strong-fisted gangsta-nigga who had lived his life down in the trenches and had conquered them too. Jock knew exactly what kind of gutter work Suge did for his father, and recently he'd had to call on Suge as his savior when he found himself in some trouble that could have fucked up the rest of his life.
“Where's the smoke?” Suge asked quietly.
Sighing, Jock fished the bent-up blunt out of the ashtray. He straightened it out and held it out to his uncle.
“Spark it up,” Suge said and nodded, and Jock took his lighter from the tray and fired up the rough end.
They passed the blunt between them for a few minutes, with Jock feeling more and more like a man each time it was his turn to toke. And that's exactly how Suge wanted him to feel too.
“You growing up, Grayson,” Uncle Suge said, calling Jock by his real name. “You done been through some shit now and you ain't a little boy no more.”
Jock nodded. “Yeah,” he said, reaching down to his nuts to make his voice sound deeper. “Yeah, that's right.”
Suge's jaw was tight as he stared hard into Jock's eyes. “You know, when men are called upon to do man shit they don't hesitate. They do it.”
Jock felt a surge in his chest and it wasn't from the 'dro neither.
He nodded again. “That's right.”
“And,” Suge went on, pinning Jock in his killer glare, “sometimes a man's gotta make a choice just like”âhe snapped his big fingers in the airâ“that.”
Jock swallowed hard and nodded again.
“There ain't always time to sit down and think about shit, you know. Sometimes a man's gotta decide right on the spot where his loyalty is. He's gotta decide if he's gonna roll or if he's gonna ride. Quick! Just like that! You know the kinda decision I'm talking about, right?”
Suge kept Jock's eyes on lock as he pressed the blunt to his lips and pulled hard, paused, and then slowly exhaled. “The kinda decision I made for you that night you called me.”
Jock was young and wild, but he was also Viceroy's son so he knew the drill. One hand always washed the other one in powerful families. Paying dues was part of being a man. And Jock had some big-time dues to pay.
He took the blunt Suge was offering him and took a deep pull and then exhaled. “A'ight. What the fuck I gotta do, Uncle Suge?”
His uncle grinned and grabbed the outside door handle of the Lincoln and yanked it open wide.
“Scoot over, lil dude, and I'll tell you.”