A Sticky Situation (22 page)

“Come on now, Melody, you’ve been talking to somebody because I just off the phone with my peoples and they told me that you’ve been running your mouth, telling people we fucking around. Now that shit ain’t cool, especially when I’ve got a lot invested right now.”

“Who was I supposed to have been talking to?”

“So you’re telling me you don’t remember?”

Melody stood there in silence and thought to herself for a moment. Then she said, “The only two people I remember talking to about you are my homegirl and some lady that walked up to me yesterday after she saw you smack me and leave.”

“What did she look like?”

“She was a brown-skinned lady, about my height, maybe an inch or two taller. She reminded me of Nia Long because of her facial features and the way she wore her hair. But her style in clothing was different.”

“What did she have on?” My heart raced.

“I think she had on a sweatsuit.”

“And what did she say? I mean, how did she approach you?”

“Well, wherever she was standing, she had to see you hit me because as soon as you pulled off, she walked right up to me and asked if I was all right. When I told her yeah, she started preaching to me about how I shouldn’t tolerate a man putting his hands on me and then after that she asked if you were my man.”

“And what did you tell her?”

“I told her nah. But I did tell her we were close friends. Then she asked me how close of friends we were, and that’s when I told her that you and I both had somebody else but we still found the time to spend together while we were here.”

“Why the fuck you tell her all that?”

“I don’t know,” Melody replied, knowing she had talked too much and to the wrong person.

I let her have it. “What the hell you mean, you don’t know?” I yelled. “You got to be the stupidest chick I know because I don’t know nobody else who would tell a complete stranger all of their damn business, and especially the part about us fucking.”

“But I didn’t say we were fucking,” she stated, attempting to correct me.

“You didn’t have to; she ain’t stupid! Trust me, she read between the lines.”

“Well, since you’re so bent out of shape behind this, who was she?”

“Don’t worry about who she was!” I snapped. “From now on, keep your business to your motherfucking self.”

After I scolded Melody for running her mouth to Maxine, I told her that we were done. No more of that sneaking around and fucking. That chapter was closed. I also told her that shit would be run differently around there, too. She was going to stay far away from the dope and I didn’t need her collecting the money anymore, either. After I laid down the new laws, I left her ass standing in the living room looking stupid. I couldn’t stomach her ass anymore. She was a fucking waste, if you asked me. Now I saw why Mike wasn’t thinking about her dumb ass! I wasn’t gonna be thinking about her ass either. After I left this spot for good, trust me, I wasn’t gonna look back.

SAMANTHA

Playing With Fire

Mendez and his partner in crime C.O. Clayton walked around all the units and did the four o’clock head count. When they were done he came strolling back by my room and signaled me to come meet him at our usual spot, which was the supply room near our visiting room. I was dreading to go because I knew he was going to stress me out about why I’d been avoiding him. The truth of the matter was I wasn’t trying to give him any more of my pussy. I was tired of that nigga jumping up and down on me like I was his girl or something. It wasn’t like he was taking care of me for real. The lingerie and the food he snuck up in there wasn’t enough for me to be fucking him on a regular basis. OK, granted he put a couple hundred dollars on my account every month for the last six months, but if you looked at it, that wasn’t nothing but $1,200, and my pussy was worth more than that. As far as I could see it, his coochie coupon had expired, and I had to tell him.

As soon as we entered into the supply room, he closed the door and flipped the light switch. We were in a room full of cleaning supplies, and the smell of the ammonia, bleach, and disinfectant permeated the entire room. It wasn’t too bad where we couldn’t breathe, but I knew we weren’t going to be in there long, so I was happy. Now Mendez didn’t waste any time to pull me into his arms. Immediately after I fell into his embrace, I stiffened up.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked.

“I’m just not in the mood right now.”

“What is it going to take for you to get in the mood?”

“Nothing.”

“What do you mean nothing?”

“Want me to be honest? I’m just not feeling you anymore.”

He released me from his embrace. “What the fuck you mean by that?”

I stood there with my arms folded near my breasts and sighed heavily. “Do I need to spell it out for you? I don’t want to do this shit with you anymore!” I snapped.

Mendez snapped too. He became so angry, he grabbed me by my neck and forced my back up against the wall with his right hand. His actions took me by surprise. “Bitch, do you know who the fuck you talking to like that? I don’t let my wife disrespect me, so I damn sure ain’t gon’ let you do it.”

“You better let me go before I scream!” I threatened him.

“Go ahead and scream. Ain’t nobody gonna hear you,” he dared me with a psychotic expression plastered all over his face.

“Let me go!” I screamed.

He added more pressure around my neck and then he pressed his body against mine. “Bitch, you owe me! So, I’m about to collect!”

“So, what, you about to rape me or something?” I roared.

Before he could answer me, someone knocked on the door and startled the hell out of us. He released me from his grip and immediately walked over to the door. “Who is it?” he whispered.

“It’s me, Clayton,” his friend said.

Mendez opened up the supply room door. “What’s up, man?” He smiled.

“Yo’ man, you need to wrap that up. I can hear you out here.”

“All right. I’m coming,” Mendez assured him and began to shut the door.

“A’ight, well I’ma stay out here just in case some inmate tries to come around this door and snoop around.”

“All right.” Mendez sighed with frustration and then he closed the door shut. And before my heart could skip a beat his body was pressed against me again, but this time he had his mouth pressed to my ear and the words he whispered made my skin crawl. “You better thank God Clayton saved your ass! But just remember that this shit ain’t over. I’m gonna get what’s mine.”

When he took a step back from me I stood there and looked at him like he was fucking insane. It was obvious this man wasn’t dealing with a full deck, so I wanted him to get the hell away from me as soon as possible. As he moved toward the door, I followed suit. But he made it clear that he wasn’t through with me, because right before he grabbed a hold of the doorknob, he grabbed me by my arm, swung me around, and forced my face against the wall like a police officer would do someone resisting arrest.

“What are you doing?” I snapped.

“Shut up!” he demanded.

Next thing I knew, this motherfucker had pressed his dick and started grinding on me while he unzipped my pants and slid his right hand down inside of it. At that moment, I started bucking at him by trying to elbow him in his side, simultaneously tugging on his hands because at that point, this nigga had my entire coochie in the palm of his hands. He was literally trying to get an arousal out of me.

“Get off me!” I screamed once more.

He tried to muffle my mouth to keep Clayton from hearing me, but it didn’t work. Clayton jiggled the doorknob and said, “Come on Mendez, we gotta go man.”

Hearing Clayton’s voice gave me the notion that I was safe and that Mendez’s spree of sexual favors was over. When he finally let me go, which was about three seconds later, I gathered as much saliva to the front my mouth as I could and abruptly turned around and spit every drop of it right in his face. And when it hit him, the shit fell slowly down his left cheek. Lucky for me, it caught him off guard, so before he could get his thoughts together and react, I flew out of the supply room with my pants unbuttoned.

“I’ma get you, bitch!” I heard him yell from behind.

But I ignored him and kept it moving. Thankfully, Clayton was back there with him, because I truly believed that motherfucker would have tried to run me down and kill me. Lately he had gotten so possessive, and I couldn’t get with that shit. Other inmates had noticed it too, which was one of the reasons why rumors had been circulating about our relationship. Mendez’s lieutenant pulled me in his office and questioned me about my relationship with Mendez not too long ago, but I told him there wasn’t one. Since he didn’t have any hardcore evidence, he had to leave us alone. Boy, was Mendez lucky. He just didn’t know how heartless I could get. Because if I really wanted to bury his sorry ass, I could set him up and get his dumb ass fired. But the warden would launch a full investigation on our asses that would surely prevent these assholes from releasing me to go to the halfway house. They would make me do the six months halfway house time right there, and I couldn’t have that. No way. The best thing for me was to stay away from his ass and that’s exactly what I intended on doing.

SETH

Putting One In The Head

Later that night, I was able to close the shop down early because we got rid of every pill of dope Mike packed inside the Ziploc bag. On my way out, Melody asked me for ten dollars so she could order a pizza for her son. Her mother was bringing him over in the next half hour, so I handed her the dough and bounced.

Mike met me in our usual spot, but this time, he wasn’t alone. He had a couple of niggas posted up in his whip with him. One nigga was sitting beside him in the passenger seat, and the other cat was posted up in the back seat. It was too dark to see their faces, but I said, “What’s up?” to them anyway.

“You ready?” Mike asked me after I handed him the dough.

“As I will ever be.” I smiled and looked down at my watch; it was ten minutes after nine. That meant I had a couple of hours to play around with before I made my move on Jay. Since I knew that Jay wouldn’t be leaving his spot until sometime after midnight, I told Mike I was going to make a quick run and then call him when I was ready. After he said OK, I hopped back into my car.

Before I pulled off, Mike instructed me to call him from a pay phone before I made my move. “Remember, you gotta give Trina enough time to run over there and pick up my dough first, a’ight?”

“A’ight,” I said, and then we parted ways.

Once I was back on the road, two things popped in my mind. The first was that I knew I had to stash my dough at my mom’s crib. I also knew I had to make a trip over to Maxine’s crib so I could do some making up. As much as it was killing me to give into that bitch, she had me by the balls. I figured I was going to have to do what I had to until I could come up with another plan to get from under her paws. I mean, that bitch was psycho, and I felt it in her voice that she wasn’t playing any more games with me, so I was going to have to lay down for a few. But as soon as I got a plan together, I was going to be ghost and it wasn’t gon’ be shit she could do about it. That’s my word!

When I arrived at my mom’s house she was up watching television, so I kissed her on her forehead and went to my bedroom. I had this little storage compartment right over my bed in the air conditioning vent. I grabbed the screwdriver from the toolbox in my closet and loosened the screws on the metal plate to the vent. Once the plate was finally off, I reached inside and grabbed the small metal box that was attached to the wall with two magnets.

“Seth, I’m getting ready to go to bed now so if you need me, I’ll be in my room,” my mother informed me from the other side of my bedroom door.

“OK.” I snatched the box from the vent before she decided to be nosey and come into my room to see what I was doing. As I was about to lock my door, I heard her footsteps as she walked away. When I heard her close the door to her room, I sat on the edge of my bed and emptied out all the dough I had stashed away in the box. When I added the money I’d earned that night, I came up with a sum total of sixty-seven grand. And from the looks of things by the time I ran through Mike’s whole package, I was going to be at least three to four hundred thousand dollars strong. Just the thought of it began to get my dick hard. Not to mention the ideas that were going through my mind about how I was going to spend it. Shit, a nigga like me was going to be straight for a very long time. If I played my cards right, me and Samantha could escape from this bitch and head out to Mexico. Maxine’s dumb ass wouldn’t be able to stop our show then. Freedom from her would be a beautiful thing.

As I was packing all my dough back into the box, my cell phone rang. When I looked down at the CallerID screen and saw a number I didn’t recognize, I elected not to answer it and pressed the IGNORE button. As soon as I stuck my phone back into the holster, it rang again. When I looked down at the screen once more, the same number popped up. I figured that whoever was calling me had to be important, so I answered it.

“Hello,” I said.

“Hey Seth, this is Trina.”

“What’s up?”

“I’m just calling to tell you it’s about to go down, so meet me at the spot.”

“A’ight,” I said and hung up.

From that moment, I knew that my actions were going to change my life forever. If I had an ounce of guilt in my heart for what I was about to do to Jay, it really didn’t matter at that point because I had already given my word to Mike. I told him I was going to take care of it, and in this game, you couldn’t give a man your word and go back on it. Actions like that would cause you to get killed. So I stuck an “H” on my chest, put my moneybox back into place, tightened the screws on the vent, and grabbed my keys to head back onto the streets. Before I exited my mom’s crib, I changed into a pair of dark blue overalls and slipped on a pair of old run-down Timbs I had in the back of my closet. I didn’t have a ski mask at my disposal, so I decided to do without.