Miasha: Secret Society

“Celess I’m sorry. I was feelin’ it,” O tried to explain.

“Well, you need to leave whatever that shit was alone, ’cause it had you lookin’ slow and shit.”

“Yeah, that E will do that to you. You forgive me, sweetheart?”

“You owe me for this one,” I said.

“Come through and I’ll make it up to you.”

It had been a week since the incident at the club, and this was the first time I was hearing from O. He was about to be cashed in. I was losing love for him. He had me at my point where I was ready to juice him dry and then cut him off. I had suspected he put another girl in my place and bumped me to number two or something. I couldn’t understand why he was frontin’ on me like that, but it was really making me not care anymore.

I told O I would come through, but instead, I went to get my hair done. The shop was empty, being as it was a Tuesday afternoon. My bull Steve did my hair for me. And when Steve did my hair it was an all-day affair because he would spend more time gossiping than actually doing my hair.

“Those shoes are cute,” Steve commented on my Chanel boots.

“You like ’em?” I asked for no reason at all.

“Yeah, they hot. My girl would look good in them.”

Steve was an ITCH-an in the closet homo. He always talked about a girl who nobody ever seen. But that particular afternoon he indirectly came out.

“Yo, how do you do it?” he whispered.

“What?” I asked.

“Walk in those heels.”

I thought Steve was going to ask how I got away with being a woman. I was sure he knew. But maybe he didn’t.

“I’m used to it,” I said.

“This guy I know, he’s gay and he’s gonna start dressing up like a chick and get a sex change, the whole nine, but he said he don’t know how the hell he gonna walk in heels,” Steve said, laughing.

Bingo, I thought. Steve had to be gay. Anytime a man uses the word gay instead of faggot to describe a gay man, that’s a sign that he himself is gay. Besides, he did hair. Damn, it’s a lot of us out here, I thought. But I didn’t say anything. I just listened to Steve tell all his business and everybody else’s business.

Ring! Ring!

“Hello,” I answered my cell phone.

“Where the hell you at?” O asked.

“I just left the hairdresser,” I said.

“You a nut for telling me you was coming down here,” he said. “I might as well go shoot dice,” he continued.

I knew what that meant. He had money to spend, and I didn’t want to miss out on that.

“I’m on my way, damn, can I get cute first?” I whined.

“You could have called a nigga.”

“My bad. I’ll be there in like a half,” I said.

I pulled up to O’s house twenty minutes later. Ninety-five was empty. As soon as I walked in, he grabbed me and started kissing me. He started stripping me. I stopped him from removing important articles of clothing, but he was persistent.

“Who you been giving my pussy to?”

“Nobody,” I said, trying to control his hands.

“Then why you haven’t been giving it to me?”

“Boy, you been trippin’ since you got back from Baltimore. What were they feedin’ you down there?”

“It’s not what they been feedin’ me, it’s what they haven’t been feedin’ me. I’m lacking pussy. Can you feed me some pussy?”

I grabbed his hand just in time to stop him from grabbing my balls. O never acted like this before. Usually I took charge and he just followed my lead. What the hell he was doing I didn’t know, but it was bound to get me killed. I had to think of something quick.

“My period is on,” I blurted out.

O stopped kissing me.

“Damn!” he said. “Thanks for blowin’ my high.”

He sat down on the couch and patted his dick as if he was trying to calm it down. I sat down next to him, trying to keep a distance. He grabbed my hand and put it on his penis.

“Pull it out,” he said.

I did. I stroked it for him. He started getting into it, and he grabbed my head and forced it down on his dick. I sucked it. What the hell, I figured I owed him that much for not having a pussy he could eat.

I left O’s house with $500. This was the icing on the cake. I knew for sure he had somebody else. Five hundred dollars meant he was giving half of my money to another girl. I was pissed about it but I let it slide. He obviously had his reasons for playing me. I went home and called it a day. I put on Two Can Play That Game and fell back.

Ievaluated my situation. I had lost James and I was in the process of losing O. Tariq was the only one I had a grip on. Tariq was still paying my mortgage, but I needed another James to pay my other bills. O was still lookin’ out on my wardrobe and pocket money, but it was nowhere near what I used to get from him. I needed to make a comeback. Tina was getting bored too. White Derrek would wire her money ever’ so often and this Puerto Rican hustler named Jahuan from down the badlands was taking her out and would buy her some shoes here and there, but that wasn’t enough. We took a trip up New York to go to a fight and met some guys just in time for Valentine’s Day. Tina put me down with boxers. She used to mess with one back before her and I met, and she told me all about the kind of money some of them make.

The fight was interesting. I’d never been to a live boxing match before then. We went to the after-party at the Pierre on Fifth Avenue, which was where the meeting and greeting began. This brown-skinned bony dude came over to Tina and me and told us that his friend wanted to holla. We were prepared to tell bull to get lost, but when we saw that his friend was Christopher Talley, the super middleweight champion of the world, we were like all right.

“What are yall drinking?” Chris asked.

“Apple martini.” It was Tina’s favorite drink.

“A peach schnapps,” I said.

“Good fight,” Tina said.

“Thank you,” he replied.

Chris looked like he could have been cute if it wasn’t for the missing teeth and permanent scars that came with boxing. But he was dressed nice, and it was obvious he had money. Tina wound up with him, and I settled for another fighter, Shawn, who was from the same camp as Chris. We all ate and drank and then headed up to a hotel room. After I went down on Shawn and Tina did God knows what with Chris, we all exchanged numbers and started dealing with each other regular. I even spent Valentine’s Day with Shawn at his house in Brooklyn. That pissed O off.

“How the fuck you goin’ spend Valentine’s Day with some other nigga?” O screamed in the phone.

“When you decided to have somethin’ on the side,” I responded.

“So, you fuckin’ this nigga?” O asked, as if I had already admitted it to him.

“Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m into,” I said, being real for the first time in our so-called relationship.

I was tired of O’s recent bullshit. We both had ulterior motives, shit.

“Fuck you, bitch!” he said right before he banged on me.

I wasn’t mad, though. Actually, I couldn’t have cared less. Shit, it was time for O to take what he dished. I was moving on. And I guess that’s exactly what it took to bring O back to reality, because his ass started paying me a lot more attention after he found out I was messin’ with somebody else. He called me more and wanted more of my time. I gave it to him only because he was closer and more convenient than Shawn, who traveled a lot.

Meanwhile, Tina and I were making all kinds of plans for All-Star weekend. It was so convenient that it was in Philly that year. We went down South Street and had some things made. I ordered a baby pink leather suit with white stripes going down the side of the legs and arms like the Adidas sweat suits. The shirt hung off the shoulders. It was hot. I bought a baby pink Kangol to go with it. Tina ordered the Iverson jersey with the red leather sleeves and the red leather ties on the sides. It was hot too. She paid $349 for that shirt. She bought some Frankie B. jeans from down Charlie’s in Old City and some hot red Miu Miu boots to go with it. That was just for the game, though. We still had to buy outfits for the other parties. I bought a J Lo jeans outfit that had tan ties up the legs and the jacket. Bought tan Chanel boots, a tan knitted Chanel bag, and a tan knitted Chanel hat to match. Hats and things that tied up were hot shit that year. Tina did a winter white leather Dolce & Gabbana miniskirt, a winter white boat-neck sweater, and some winter white D &G knee boots.