“Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” They screamed into my neck, gripping my hips and trying to knock a hole in my back. “You thought you was too good for a nigga! Huh? Huh?”
At night G had Ace and Pluto take me upstairs and get me ready for the stage, and when the show was over I worked the back rooms until closing time.
By the third night I had a fever, and one of the customers refused to fuck me. He told G I was talking out of my head and looked half-dead, so G gave him his money back and told him to pick another ho.
Flex came through on the morning of that third day, during the daytime when he coulda got him some for free. He stepped up to the mattress and stared down at me laying on that dirty sheet.
“Damn, girl. You used to be a Porsche. Now you just a regular putt-putt.”
I tried to give him the finger, but I was too weak. Besides, I was laying on one hand and the other one was chained to the pole.
“Fuck you, Flex,” I whispered, my throat raw.
“Nah, baby. That’s okay. Your pussy stanks, and plus, you been run through.”
“Where’s Jimmy? You seen Jimmy?”
Flex got quiet for a minute. “Yeah. I seen that niggah. G set both of y’all up, Juicy-Mo. He sent Jimmy to the A.C. and then had some niggahs jack him for his yards.”
“You knew about it, you motherfucker!”
“Uh-uh.” Flex shook his head. “Not when you came down to Taft I didn’t. I tried to talk Jimmy out of making that run to A.C. but he wouldn’t listen. See, G arranged the whole thing, and Jimmy was scared to come back without his money, so I let him chill at the crib with me and Cooter on the Lower East Side.”
“Where is he now, Flex?” I whispered. “Where the fuck is my brother?”
He shrugged. “You got me. I been looking for him myself. Word got around that G had you and Gino, and the next thing I knew Jimmy rolled. I thought he was heading up here, but I ain’t seen him in two days.”
I started crying again. I couldn’t help it. Loud, heavy tears.
“This is fucked up, Juicy,” Flex said. “I feel for you, girl, but you put your money on the wrong nigger. Shit is about to change big time. I told you one day I’d be runnin thangs in Harlem. You shoulda had some faith in me. You and Jimmy both. G is getting old. That motherfucker ain’t got much longer on the throne. But since we go way back, I tell you what. Make it through this, and I’ll hook you up with a job. You can be my main bitch when I take over the Spot. Me and Cooter gonna rename it Flex-n-Effect.”
Cooter? I thought. Flex was bugging. He was worse off than me and I was beat and fucked and chained to a bed. I closed my eyes and willed myself to doze off before the next pair of balls were dangling over me. Fletcher Boykin could take his job and stick it up his ass. If I lived through this, I was definitely gonna be my own boss.
The door slammed at the top of the stairs, and I opened my eyes and tried to sit up. My mind was so confused I had lost track of time and couldn’t tell if it was morning or night. Heavy footsteps boomed down and I looked up to see Pluto standing over me, looking like he wanted to beat my ass again. He grabbed me and unlocked the chain, then started dragging me toward the stairs by my ponytail and the back of my shirt, but I was already so bruised and banged up I couldn’t even feel any additional pain. I could tell he was still mad about the way I bit up his dick, and he slung my ass from wall to wall as we came out of the Dungeon and headed toward the main room.
Right before we turned the corner Pluto gripped the back of my neck and spit dead in my face. “You about to get yours now, you scab-ass bitch. Before the night is over you gone be a dick-suckin pro.” I wiped his funky spit out of my eyes and told him to kiss my ass.
“That’s why we capped that mothefuckin Gino, tramp. Cause he was too busy kissing your ass to handle his business. You shoulda seen how that bitch bled.”
Gino was dead.
I moaned and my whole body went cold. To keep from screaming, I bit down into my lip and fought to clamp my mouth closed.
Pluto snatched me in a headlock and I stumbled beside him as we climbed the stairs to the stage. It was dark in front of the Spot, except for a few low lights over the bar. My eyes adjusted and I could see there were people sitting and waiting in the darkness, and I smelled weed and cigarette smoke and heard shot glasses clinking together.
“Right there,” I heard somebody say, and my stomach clenched. It was G, and just the sound of his voice almost made me pee on myself.
Pluto threw me on the floor, and the funk of thirty different dicks rose from my body. Just make me dance, I prayed. Please don’t beat me no more. Just make me get up and shake my ass, lick my own titties, hold my pussy open, and let these freaks stare at my uterus. Just don’t beat me no more.
Suddenly somebody turned on the spotlight overhead, and I saw that I wasn’t up on that stage by myself. Some guy was sitting in a chair, slumped over with a hoody pulled over his face like he was asleep. I couldn’t see any of his features, and his clothes looked just like every other playa who rolled at the Spot. He was wearing a fresh pair of Timbs, some Sean Johns, and the rest of his gear was Roc-A-Wear.
“Stand up, Juicy.”
I looked out into the audience and saw G sitting there twirling that goddamn ring. Moonie, Ace, and Cooter were also there, along with a few regulars. Slowly, I pulled myself up to my feet, shaking so bad and in so much pain that I almost fell back down. Somebody pointed the spotlight right in my face, and I put my hand up to shield my eyes, squinting as I waited for his next command.
“You like sucking dick, right, Juicy?”
I swallowed hard, fear stealing my breath.
“N-o-o, G,” I whispered. “That’s why I bit Pluto. D-d-dick sucking is nasty. I don’t like to suck no dick.”
A glass came flying toward me, barely missing my face. It shattered against the back wall and I almost peed again.
“Lying ho. Next time it’ll be a whole bottle and I won’t miss.” He started talking again, his words real slow and evil. “So now you think that shit is nasty, huh? Turn around, Juicy.”
I was scared to turn my back on G, but I had no choice. I turned around slowly, bracing myself for the shot that would blow the back of my head all over the stage. Instead, the big screen was lowered and the projector started rolling. G was showing a movie, and I was playing in the starring role.
I started crying when the camera picked up a shot of me and Gino chilling in that phat-ass hotel room in Atlantic City, courtesy of G. It showed us coming out the bathroom wearing fluffy white robes after showering together, and then taking turns rubbing our naked bodies down with designer lotion from the Taj Mahal. Gino looked so good to me, so real and unhurt, that it was painful to imagine him all beaten up like he was the last time I’d seen him, and it almost killed me that I’d never see him again.
But then the camera rolled on and I was on my knees, smiling and taking all ten inches of Gino’s big black dick in my mouth, licking it like it was candy, stroking it with both hands, sucking it so hard my cheeks collapsed.
My shit was done for. To G, this was the ultimate betrayal and disrespect, and I turned back around, ready to face whatever I had coming. Yeah, G had set us up, but I already knew that. His revenge was to humiliate me and keep me fearing for my life. Well, I didn’t give a fuck no more. G couldn’t do no more to me than had already been done. Let him kill me, I didn’t care. He dictated the game and called all the shots, but I wasn’t my mother and I wouldn’t beg or try to trade somebody else’s life for mine.