Sex in the Hood Saga (3 page)

For New Year's Eve, he had taken his crew to Caesar's Palace. In the Forum Shops, after the fiery, thunderous display of the Greek Gods show, he had stepped to the fountain, tossed a handful of coins, closed his eyes and wished for his Duchess to walk into his life like Momma said she would someday. And he'd just know it was her.

His dick was throbbing so hard it hurt. Bangin' it up into that virgin pussy couldn't come soon enough if it had happened yesterday.

“Timbo hard as hell. 'Cause she gon' take one look at this six-foot-six Mandingo warrior ma'fucka, an' she ain't neva gon' think about anotha dick. In life.”

“We need to work on yo' self esteem, br'a,” Beamer said playfully. “No joke. Maybe crank up the confidence a rung or two.”

The reporters clustered around her like a swarm of bees. They had already stung her dead daddy and her momma. Now they wanted to suck the honey out of her. Like a reflex, Duke grabbed the side of the door, raised his knees to leap out and shield her from those vultures.

“Massa Duke!” Beamer grabbed his arm. “The las' thing you need is yo' face on TV! You can't be brawlin' wit' the media 'less you want 'em jamin' they cameras down the street at Babylon.”

Duke froze.
Prince. He would pimp-slap my ass right now, 'cause I know betta.

This was just like the day, three years ago, when the mayor walked through the hood with a national TV crew talking to folks about urban renewal. Duke wanted to give them and the world a peek at Babylon HQ from the outside only, to show how he and his brothers had transformed the 100-year-old warehouse into apartments and offices. He wanted them to see how the Barriors were patrolling the streets to keep everybody safe. But as soon as Duke had said it, Prince smacked his bald head and shouted, “Li'l Tut! You wanna audition for a future episode of
America's Most Wanted?
'Cause I guarantee one ma'fucka watchin' the news gon' say ‘Look at that proud nigga. Can't be doin' nothin' legal to pay fo' dat, so let's bring 'im down.' Then they'll write a script for the perfect crime, frame it wit' yo' face, an' put it all ova TV 'til yo' mortals call in to bus' on they enemy.”

Prince's eyes always had that wiser-than-you look, just like Knight's did. His big brothers had the same face as Duke, except Prince was a little lighter, and Knight was a little darker. But both brothers were always looking at Duke and talking to him like he was a knucklehead.

Even as Duke held Prince in his lap as he died, his eyes still looked up like
I'll always be smarter'n you, ma'fucka.
Prince looked at him that way even as his last breath bubbled through his lips with a gush of blood and the worst gurgle sound Duke ever heard. It was a sound Duke didn't ever want to hear pass through his own mouth. The sound of death.

Duke slid down in his seat, hoping no cameras had already caught him in pictures or on video. Damn, Knight would probably kick his ass for this too. That was why he hadn't told his brother about The Duchess yet. Duke needed to transform her into a hood goddess before she could come close to passing Knight's ridiculous standards of excellence.

So, for right now, Duke could break the rules for a minute because he was here to collect the female treasure being dropped from the sky.

“You are all wicked!” Her strong but satin-smooth voice, deep and sexy, came at him as she faced the TV cameras and reporters. “Everything you printed and broadcast about my dad and my mom was malicious and racist and wrong. Wrong!”

She stomped through the swarm, tossing her head with a slight jerk to her neck, making all that hair fly up, like at the end of a movie when the screen faded to black. It was like she was dismissing all the Motown media with a toss of her pretty head.

“Tol' you baby girl got balls big as mine,” Duke said, the corners of his mouth curling up as he watched her strong, elegant stride on the sidewalk.

“Bof y'all crazy,” Beamer said, smacking on his chocolate.

“Naw, just watch her,” Duke said. The way she carried herself so tall and proud reminded him of his mother—regal, no matter how hard life was. Now, Duke took care of Momma the way she deserved to live, like the Queen that Big Ma named her.

But how would Momma react if Duke brought something that bright home to dinner? When Momma had seen her on the news the other night, she said, “Po' chil'. Don't nobody deserve that. I'd give'er a hug if I could.”

His mother sure couldn't stand to see the dollar signs flashing in Milan's eyes, or the bossy, fake proper way she started talking since she went to that white prep school and renamed herself after the fashion capital of Italy. But something about this chick Victoria Winston, she looked and sounded one hundred percent real.

She was all natural, without a lick of makeup. Perfect black eyebrows arched over lashes so long and thick they looked like awnings over windows with her long, black hair falling straight around her face and an Indian-style necklace on, she looked like a Native American princess, walking toward the chief.

She was about three feet away on the sidewalk when she turned to him. Locked those silver-dollar eyes right on him. Her face wore no expression, but the sex power in her stare hit him like two blue-flamed blow torches. Sucked the air out of him. His mouth, nose, and throat burned dry as the desert. It felt like a firestorm inside him.

His heart beat fast and hot, blowing blood up to his brain like a hot air balloon. His head felt light and swirly, like steam was shooting out of his every pore, from his bald head to his toes in his brown leather loafers. His eyes bugged as big as doorknobs behind the sunglasses that steamed up and blurred his focus as she checked him out.

And Timbo, he was flipping around like a giant, caught fish just laid out on the dock under the burning sun, trying to dive back into familiar waters. But it bit that juicy bait worm, so now he was caught. Used to being king of the sea, it was now about to be served up as a feast for a creature who was bigger, better, smarter.

“Duke?” Beamer knit his thick eyebrows, leaning close. “Look like you havin' a heart attack. What the fuck?”

It was as if Duke's eyes were a magnet and she was a rod of gold. He couldn't separate the two. He was paralyzed on it.

“Dang, she got The Duke kronk'd wit' a right look,” Beamer exclaimed. “He out cold!”

The hot spotlight of her stare turned cool as she looked to her left, toward Miss Green's house. Duke sucked in air. She turned her back, walked up the front walk toward the porch. Her ass was bouncing,
Bam! Shazam!
with every step.

His every muscle was trembling, like when he didn't eat for three days after Prince died. His stomach was jumping, and his whole body felt like he was cumming, wracked with delicious spasms. That light-headed feeling was rolling down his whole body, like he was about to float away.

His soul had just found its mate. In fact, it was the same soul, born in two different bodies, in two different worlds. Now it just wanted to run over, dance around with its other half inside her, and come right back here inside Duke.

“Duke, you look possessed. I'm 'bout to call a priest, sprinkle some holy water over yo' exorcist ass.”

“Ridiculous ma'fucka,” Duke said coolly despite his jittery insides. “That Mexican food we had fo' lunch crampin' my gut. Stole my breath for a minute.”

Duke watched her walk up the steps into the house.

“You the ridiculous one, Duke,” Beamer said. “Sayin' ‘my' about some chick who might be crazy as hell after what she went through. Black momma got fucked to death. Daddy blew his brains out. Now she gotta move outta a big-ass palace an' move into that ghetto shack.” Beamer nodded toward her as she ascended the stairs.

“It ain't a question,” Duke said, watching her ass cheeks pop as she stepped up. “She gon' move into Babylon tonight.” Duke deepened his voice to imitate bad-ass Yul Brenner playing Ramses in
The Ten Commandments.
“And so it is written, and so it is done.”

Victoria Winston wished she could pop a pill to escape back to her white wonderland. Then she could get away from the wicked media, the big black guys in that Porsche and the hostile girls across the street. But right now, she had only one magic trick—rubbing her fingertips over her throbbing clit and cumming so hard that her mind, body, and spirit would be transported to another dimension where she felt nothing but raw pleasure.

Every time her knee rose to step up the stairs, the hard crotch of her jeans rubbed against her hot, wet pussy. Her extreme craving to cum made her sleep-deprived body feel wobbly and off-balance. She concentrated on putting one red leather sandal after the other up the five porch steps. Lumpy shreds of brown indoor-outdoor carpet were a trip-and-fall waiting to happen.

I want two fingers in the pussy and that special flicker-stroke on the clit. Non-stop.
That was Celeste, her sex power voice, dictating exactly how to deal with this nightmare. Celeste was Victoria's best friend and worst enemy, because even though Celeste screamed for attention twenty-four/ seven, she always responded with intoxicating sensations that defied words. Celeste didn't just make Victoria cum; she gave her power to make dreams and visions come true, especially when Dildo Dick joined the party.

Now, Victoria's sweaty palm gripped the handle of her suitcase, where Dick was nestled between the few jeans, sweaters, and shirts she had salvaged as the feds seized Winston Hill this morning. If her pussy weren't making such a hot, creamy mess of her panties, Victoria would feel a horrible ache and emptiness. For a hug. For assurance that everything would be okay. For the kind of loving gaze her parents used to give her and each other.

Now I have nothing and no one except Celeste as my constant companion.
Without that luscious relief, Victoria would have lost her mind the minute she walked into Daddy's blood-and-brains splattered office.

No, she could not let those horrible memories replay in her head. She had to get inside this house and soothe herself the only way she knew how.

I need you to slide your fingers outta your pussy .
. .
rub your wet fingertips over your hard nipples
. . .
then cum like your life depends on it.

It did, because orgasms were the ultimate brainstorms for Victoria Winston. In the middle of shivering and gasping, the best ideas always popped into her head. Or, if she already had a goal or a dream, thinking about it while she came would always give it the power to make it come true. Now her goal was getting the hell out of this ghetto, finding some money and starting college forty-five minutes away in Ann Arbor.

After she satisfied herself, she could finally, after half a week with no sleep, slip into a peaceful slumber for a day or two. Now, though, the less she slept, the more irritable and panicky she felt. That made her crave her pussy power all the more. It was her pacifier, her valium, and the closest thing Victoria had to the little pills that Alice popped to grow, shrink or escape from one terrifying experience to the next.

“White bitch!” those girls screamed from across the street. “We gon' stomp yo' ass!”

Would those ogling thugs in the black Porsche parked at the curb—whose stares were burning her backside—stop those chicks from hurting her? What about all the muscular guys and girls in black who were standing on the corners and mid-block like undercover cops? Were they gun-toting drug dealers? Pimps? Friends of her cousin Henry?

A sinister bass beat vibrated from the Porsche, from those girls' upstairs porch, from every car that rattled past, and from inside Gramma Green's house that was smaller than the garage at Winston Hill.

“There is absolutely no money,” John Stanley, Daddy's top lawyer, had said when he dropped her off. “Even the insurance policy was seized to pay your dad's debts. Including your college fund. I'm sorry, Victoria. If anything changes, I'll contact you here.” And with the slam of a car door, life had booted her into the gutter.

Now, tears blurred the banged-up, dirty aluminum door, its blackened screen ripped and ragged. She coughed on the odor of bacon, dogs, and cigarette smoke. If it was this choking on the porch, she would suffocate inside.

The sadness felt like her insides were melting. The worse she felt, the more ferociously Celeste throbbed for attention.
God, get me to the bathroom!
She'd been indulging this secret pacifier for as long as she could remember, with the orgasms starting around age eleven. Stroking Celeste was just like when her former best friend Tiffany would ease nervousness by smoking cigarettes, or like her sister Melanie, who calmed stress with chocolate chip cookies and milk. Her brother Nicholas was a neat freak, always washing his hands. And her boyfriend, no, ex-boyfriend Brian, did tequila shots to mellow out. But Victoria's tried and true stressbuster was to dance her fingertips over her always hot, quivering clit then shiver away anxiety and angst. Worked every time. The ultimate opium. All-natural. Free. Safe.

She'd even written a poem about it in her journal, which was crammed in a box along with dozens of others. Years' worth of her most private thoughts were left in her closet at the house she was evicted from today. Victoria tried to remember what she'd written.

I touch Celeste when I'm stressed the best, whether rubbed or pressed
. . .
like a button, all of a sudden I'm electric, ooh eclectic, feel eclectic
. . .
in my nerves as my hips swerve to get what I deserve, my fingers serve me so well
. . .
this hot swell, never tell or go to hell, can't let anyone under my spell
. . .
or I will kill with my skill, my sex power thrill .
. .
so good that it could make history repeat, like Mom and Dad, so sad to defeat the men that I meet who want to eat my meat, so erotic and exotic but toxic . . . so I gotta keep it virgin, even though it's surgin' with hot cream, lusty steam, and it seems to possess me, ooh caress me, I'm feelin' so sexy . . .

Victoria almost smiled. She'd performed poems in the spoken word style at the cool coffee house where she used to hang out with Brian and Tiffany, but never that poem, of course. They were more innocent ones, about life and love and whatever came to mind at the moment. Brian never believed her when she said she'd made it up as she went along, but she did. And she could remember them, too. Only problem was that the one she just recited in her mind was making her pussy
burn.
And making her feel a million miles away from the hip coffee house in the rich suburb with her fancy friends. They were fake friends who loved her “exotic” Native American look, until they found out her creamed coffee complexion had some real black coffee in the mix. It was as if she turned to chum before their eyes, because once they sniffed black blood, they bit like sharks and left her with a bleeding heart.

Right now, she was going to counter every bit of sadness and rage with an equally powerful orgasm.

The screen door creaked as Victoria pulled it open. A hot gust of thick air that reeked ten times worse than on the porch, assaulted her nose and mouth.

“Com'ere, sweet chil',” Gramma Green wheezed from the plastic-covered yellow couch facing the door. An oxygen tube extended from her nose to a dark green tank beside the couch. Her swollen legs protruded from a quilt over her lap, and a crusty black sore dotted her heel. “Thought you was neva gon' get here.”

If Victoria hadn't seen her grandmother at her Daddy's funeral the day before, she wouldn't even recognize her. When Mommy died, Gramma Green had a full, nutmeg-brown face with beautiful, flowing black “Indian” hair. But the past ten years had etched a dark, raccoon-like streak around her watery eyes, and an ashen gray pallor accentuated her sunken cheeks. Who knew what was under that ratty auburn wig?

Victoria froze. Dogs were barking in the room at the end of the little hallway that led back from the front door.

“Lawd, if Henry 'nem don't get them animals out ma house—” Gramma Green doubled over, hacking. Her movement exposed the framed pictures on the table next to the couch. Among them was Victoria's first grade school picture, when she was six, the last time she came to visit here with her mother. After Mommy died, Daddy said it wasn't safe or wise for Victoria to come here and be influenced by her cousins.

Gramma Green sat up, blocking the picture. She spit a wad of slime into a tissue then looked back up at Victoria.

How is this sick old woman gonna take care of me? And how did Mommy grow up in this place?
She escaped, scooped up by her white knight, who made her princess of his castle. But now some wicked spell was reversing the good fortune.

“Grrrrr!” Victoria glanced to the right, down a dim hallway. A white pit bull with red-rimmed eyes was charging at her. She screamed, dropped her suitcase and raised her arms over her head. Her mind flashed with news reports she had heard about those vicious attack dogs clamping their teeth onto a person's neck, shaking violently, and killing men, women and children.

The dog's sharp white teeth flashed. It leaped up at her.

It's over. Three minutes in the ghetto and I'm killed by a pit bull. Yet another tragic tidbit for the media to sensationalize Daddy's scandal.
Maybe the TV stations would even show her chewed-up, bloody body being dragged out of this little hut while all those people on the street cheered, “Whitey's dead!”

And I didn't even get to make myself cum one last time. Male laughter shot into the room along with a high-pitched dog whimper and a rattling chain. Victoria peeked between the pink sleeves of her shirt. The dog was flinging backward on a leash held by a young black guy who was cracking up.

“Henry!” Victoria shouted. She hit him on the arm playfully, like when they were kids in the backyard or at the family's annual picnic at Belle Isle Park. “Don't you remember I'm scared of dogs?”

“Welcome to da hood, baby!” Finally, a familiar, vibrant face. Henry's big, dark eyes sparkled from his oatmeal-colored face. He had a cool goatee and mustache that was so finely groomed it looked painted on. His oversized, super-white teeth flashed as he grinned then leaned down to tighten the dog's leash. His black hair was carved with block letters that spelled POUND across the back of his thick head. The same word scrolled across the wide back of his red football jersey, which hung long over his baggy jeans. He dropped the leash and kept the dog in one spot by pressing a red leather gym shoe onto the chain.

“Henry, you scared me!” Victoria pressed her right hand just below the C-cup curve filling out her soft pink sweater. If only she could caress her nipples and take care of Celeste right now! The terror of that moment intensified her self-sex craving so strong, Victoria was dizzy.

“Girl, you ain't gotta worry 'bout nothin',” Henry said as the dog growled. “You my favorite cousin. An' I got' cha back!”

“Then can you take me to the bathroom.”

“Grandbaby, this Joe,” Gramma Green said over a soap opera blasting from the giant-screen TV. It was next to the window facing the street, but the heavy drapes were closed. Bluish light from the screen illuminated a corner where a white-haired man with dark skin sat in work pants, a white wife beater and suspenders. He nodded.

Gramma Green held out her arms. “Give me some suga, girl.”

Victoria felt Joe's eyes on her body as she bent to kiss Gramma's clammy forehead. She wanted to say,
Thanks for taking me in when everybody turned their back,
but putting it into words would somehow make this feel real, and right now it still felt like a bad dream.

As she inhaled Gramma's perfumed medicine scent, Victoria's mind flashed with the images of Daddy's waxy white face, the eery stillness of his elegant hands crossed over his chest, all those folds of beige satin, and the casket closing on her life, too. None of his family had come to the funeral. In their eyes, Daddy had died when he said “I do” to life with the woman he loved. Those nameless, faceless relatives had never met Mommy, never seen Victoria or her siblings. And they certainly hadn't come forward to take any of them in.

“You gon' stay in Kay-Kay room,” Gramma said, pointing with chipped fingernails splotched with the remains of red polish. “Slow that fas' chil' down. But first, Henry, take her to eat in the kitchen. I know you hungry.”

“I'm starving,” Victoria said. She was starving for satisfaction from food, and her fingers. A heaping plate of chicken, rice, and salad would be perfect. “But I need the bathroom!”

Henry led her into that dark hallway ringing with foul language carried on by deep male voices, along with the sound of growling dogs and loud, chewing-smacking sounds. He stopped at a door, turned the knob, and pushed it open.

“Eh!” a man yelled.

“Yo, ma bad,” Henry answered. “Sorry, Vic, the throne room occupied. C'mon.”

Victoria followed him into the kitchen. To her left, on the stove, pots and pans held pork chops in gravy, cornbread, green beans overcooked with chunks of bacon, and super-fattening macaroni and cheese. Yuck. She never ate artery-clogging crap that would make her butt as wide as that old refrigerator.