The Ex Factor: A Novel (22 page)

The girls parked in front of the building and each got out the car. Sabrena pressed her cousin's buzzer. “G-G,” she said, “it's Brena.” A few seconds later he buzzed them in. They caught the elevator to Shante's apartment, and once they were in front of the door, they made Imani stand behind them in case Shante looked out the peephole. Then when Imani snuck up from behind, Shante wouldn't know which direction the whup-ass was coming from.

“Yo,” Sabrena said as she pounded on the door, “this that 5-0 knock, make a niggah jump out their sleep.”

“Imani,” Quiana said, “you better pull that bitch's eye socket out!”

“And if you don't,” Sabrena chimed in, “I got a knotted shoestring in my purse. I'll put it around that chicken's neck and cut that ho's air supply off. Have her ass lookin' like SpongeBob!”

“Shhh, y'all, here she comes,” Tasha whispered. The girls stood still as they heard the heavy footsteps approaching the door.

The door flew open and to their surprise, there was Walik, with no shirt on and his boxers twisted to the side. “What the fuck y'all fat asses want?” He looked them up and down. “What, y'all came to do somethin'?”

“Oh hold up, niggah,” Sabrena spat, “ 'cause I'll beat yo' ma'-fucker ass, ain't nut'in'!”

“Wait a minute, Sabrena,” Imani said as she stepped to the front. The first thing she noticed was how Walik's boxers were twisted.
This niggah been fuckin'.
Immediately a chill came over her.

“Didn't my girl tell you that I was eating her pussy?” Walik said nonchalantly, looking at Imani. “Now, what the fuck is you at my door for?”

Caught off guard, all Imani could say was, “You talkin' to me?”

“Oh we 'bout to throw!” The girls grunted and groaned; Sabrena took off her shoes.

“Wait—wait,” Imani said. “Just let me talk to him. Walik,” she repeated, “are you talking to me? Did Shante tell you to say these things to me?”

“Shante?” Walik frowned. “Do you understand the words that are coming out of
my
mouth?”

“So you really are talking to me?”

“Who the fuck else am I talkin' to, ma? Yo, check this, you must be stupid! With your dumb-ass friends, all in my grill. What you bring 'em around here for? So they could hear the truth? Listen, I told you that I don't want yo' ass, so stop sweating me. Take ya lazy ass and go get a job! I hope you can work better than you can suck a dick, you dry-mouth bitch! I swear to God yo' tired ass is just a used-up jump-off! On the real you like a stray dog around here, any niggah that feed you can keep you.”

“Walik—”

“Don't
Walik
me, ma. See a niggah can't be nice to you. Naw, I gotta get gully. Now I'ma tell you this only once, don't come back around here, ya bum bitch! 'Cause I ain't got nothin' for ya Work First ass. Go get a job or go get a pimp. But then again a pimp can't do nothin' for you, ya head game is ridiculous. Rotten-assfishy-ass-infected-ass-pus-leaking pussy. And to think you use to beg a niggah to eat that shit. Fuck off, tramp! Ya bum bitch! All I can do for you is come around from the first to fifth, take ya money, and give it to my wife. Other than that… what's the use?”

“I'ma beat yo' ass!” Sabrena took a swing at Walik.

“Sabrena!” Imani yelled. “Stop it! Fuck him. Fuck you, Walik!” “Fuck me?” Walik chuckled in disbelief. “What's left to do with you other than run a train on you? The only thing yo' stank ass can do for me is play like Imodium AD and drink the shit from my asshole. You knew your place was on your knees, now you tryin' to stand up? Stop playin' ya'self!”

“You got two kids with her, Walik?” Imani cried.

“Yeah, bitch, he sho' do,” Shante snapped, stomping to the door. Once she was standing next to Walik she placed her hand on her hip, twisted her lips, and placed her neck in full motion. “And what? And he married me when he was locked up—”

“You married her?” Imani was in disbelief. “I can't believe this!” “Believe it,” Shante said. “Ya played ya'self. Dumb ass! I told you I ain't goin' nowhere!” Shante's eyes looked as if they could pop out of her head. Imani peered at her. She looked shorter and stockier than Imani remembered, but still and all she wouldn't hesitate to beat Shante's high-yellow ass. Imani took a swing at her and Walik blocked her fist out of Shante's way. “What I tell you about disrespecting my babies' mother?”

“Babies' mother?” Imani couldn't believe it. “She wasn't your babies' mother when you followed my ass in the club. She wasn't your babies' mother when you were lying in my bed fucking me! Babies' mother?”

“Bitch, beat it,” Shante yarned, “can't you see he's tired of you?”

“What the fuck you think yo' light-bright ass is, special?” Imani frowned at Shante. “All his ass gon' do is come runnin' back to me when the clearance sale on irregular pussy is over.”

“Irregular pussy?”

“Irregular pussy, damaged goods. That's what the hell I said and I ain't stutter! Now come wit' it.”

“I'm the wife, trick.”

“The wife? Bitch, please, you was just an address for the parole board. 'Cause if you were all that, he would've stayed with you when he first got outta prison and you would've been at his mother's for his get-free party.”

“Whatever,” Shante blew Imani off. “Wasn't no party, so stop lyin'. Dumb ass!”

“No, sweetie, you're the dumb one. At least I don't have fiftyfive kids by his ass.”

“Whatever. I ain't on welfare.”

“I guess not, since I reported yo' ass for fraud.”

“You reported me?”

“Anyway.” Imani turned her attention back toward Walik. “I can't believe that you really have two kids by this trick and you married her? I've been with you since I was thirteen and you married her?”

“Maybe I did, maybe I didn't, don't even worry about that. And as far as my kids, yes, I got two with Shante. Now skip yo' ass outta here and go find yo' punk-ass li'l DJ.”

“Oh, so that's what this is about? You mad over a niggah I ain't even fuckin' wit'? And here you having babies by this bitch! You really got two kids with her ass?”

“Did I stutter? Yes… two kids. Shante's last two kids is mine. So go away. I have a family, ya fuckin' retard!” Before she could open her mouth, he slammed the door in her face.

“Why the hell did you stop me from busting his ass!” Sabrena turned on Imani and pushed her on the shoulder. “Now I wanna bust yo' ass! Why the fuck you let him talk all that shit to you and you ain't say or do nothing? I could've kept my earrings on for this bullshit! I should beat yo' ass!”

Imani did her best to hold the tears back. She felt like the epitome of stupid. She felt as if all the air in her body had been stolen and all she had left was a hollow shell filled with the echo of Walik's harsh words:
Get ya lazy ass a job, ya bum bitch!

Truthfully it never mattered to Imani before about being on welfare and only having a job when she needed some extra money for clothes and shoes. Hell, who really wants to work anyway? Especially if you can stay at home, get money, put ya feet up, and get fucked, then what's the use of wasting your time having a job?

But now it felt different. To hear ya man call you lazy and to tell you to
get a job!
and your position was
on ya knees anyway
, and to say it not only in front of your friends but in front of the girl he'd left you for, felt as if you'd welcomed death and kissed its feet.

“I promise you if you take that niggah back that I won't say shit else to you!” Sabrena spat as they got into the car.

Imani didn't respond. Besides, taking him back wasn't the issue. She would take him back in a heartbeat… but it was his words that couldn't be taken back. And the embarrassment; that was the issue. He'd taken her heart, opened it up, and pissed inside.

She never felt the car move as Tasha drove to her and Sabrena's building and dropped them off. Imani and Sabrena caught the elevator and quietly went their separate ways.

Imani walked into her apartment and flopped on the couch. She took her hands and covered her mouth as she screamed… and screamed… and screamed.

Half an hour into screaming she wiped her face. As she went to go to the bathroom her phone rang.

“Hello,” she sniffed, trying her best not to sound upset. “Wassup, ma, I thought you were coming back? That's fucked. You just jetted on me.”

“I'm sorry, Kree. I really am. I wasn't thinking. It's just that things got crazy and we left in a hurry. It's a long story.”

“Yo, where ya li'l man at?” “My sister's.”
Damn, that bitch gon' cuss me the fuck out
, Imani thought, remembering the drive-by drop-off she did with Jamal.

“Ai'ight,” Kree said. “Well, look, Papi got you some chocolate cheesecake and some Cristal. Let me come check you.”

“Ai'ight.” Imani sighed.

Ten minutes later Kree was knocking on her door. As Imani opened the door, she could smell the sweet aroma of Kree's Eternity for Men cologne. Although he smelled good, she never expected him to look so sweet—his long braids hanging on his shoulders. At first glance you would think he was a black man, but something about the look in his eyes or the mixture in his skin let everyone know that he was Latin. He stepped into her living room, still dressed from the night's festivities, but his shirt was
now thrown over his right shoulder, supported by the tip of his index finger. “Goddamn, you look good as hell.” Kree kissed Imani on the forehead as he glided into the apartment, one hand holding his shirt and the other hand holding the bag with the cheesecake, Cristal, two plastic forks, and two plastic champagne glasses. “You look sweet as hell, too, ma.”

Imani looked down. “Thank you.”

“Don't be looking down when I give you a compliment. I want you to look me in the eyes and be like,
That's right, ma'fucker, and don't get it confused.
”

“I'm spose to be that bitch, huh?” Imani chuckled slightly. “Damn real.” He handed Imani the bag, and she placed it on the floor. “You got a cute li'l spot,” Kree said, looking around.

“It's ai'ight,” Imani said, unsure.

Kree looked at Imani. “Wassup, ma, why you sounding all down?”

“I'm not down.” She sat down on the couch and took the cheesecake and forks out of the bag.

“Yes you are.” Kree sat down beside her. “The other day you were Ms. Confidence, looking at me like,
Yeah, niggah, what?
But today you look like somebody stole ya bike and shit. Wassup?”

Imani sucked her teeth. “It's nothing.”

“Talk to me.” Kree turned her face toward him. “I'm a good listener.”

“The night that you brought me home after my mother's wedding, Walik and I had a fight …” Imani told Kree everything, from Shante being pregnant on the prison bus to Walik cussing her out like a dog. She spared no details and Kree didn't make a sound; all he did was listen. “Sometimes I wonder if it's the dick,” Imani said, eating her third slice of cheesecake.

“The dick? Whose dick?” Kree asked, taken aback. “His dick?”

“Yeah. It's like, he was my first, unless you count that other shit, but I was twelve and that was nothing. But I haven't been
with anybody but him. I mean, you should've heard him.
Get a job, you lazy bitch!
”

“You don't work?” Kree asked, surprised.

“No, I don't work. The last job I had I quit. I don't do shit.”

“Take that down, ma. Don't beat up on yourself. You don't have to front for me, I'm cool. I'm saying, though, you have a son, and you're young. You need to think about what you wanna do and do it. Don't ever let no niggah play you like that. And on top of that the chick was talking shit to you? Don't sweat it, ma, all he gon' do is cuss her ass out later.”

“Yeah right.”

“He will, but you wanna know what I'm trippin' off of ?”

“What?”

“That you tellin' me about his dick being good. Fuck that Russian-roulette dick. All you can get from that niggah is infected. Trust me, he don't give a shit about you. You got a baby by him and that's how he treats you? Oh hell no. Ain't no way the sex was that great.”

“It was good. He wasn't no freak or nothing.”

“What you mean, he wasn't no freak?”

“All he wanted to do was fuck, no foreplay, he ain't wanna go down or nothing.”

“He ain't wanna go down? They still make ma'fuckers like that? Come on now, I know you was six o'clockin' his ass.”

Imani laughed. “I am sooo not answering that.”

“Look, ma.” Kree smiled. “I didn't exactly expect you to answer that. It was a statement. Not a question.”

“Oh. Anyway, I don't wanna talk about that anymore.”

“Well, what you wanna talk about?” Kree smiled.

“What's up with the DJing. You got any of your hot-ass CDs that are flying off the streets?”

“How you know about that?” he asked.

“I have my ways.”

“I bet you do. Well, I got a demo that this CD company wants to buy.”

“For real?”

“Yeah, one of those companies that sells the deluxe slow jams on TV. The commercials come on late at night. They offered me a contract to create CDs for them.”

“Well, where's the CD? Let me hear it.”

“Ai'ight, let me run downstairs and get it.”

… … …

KREE WENT DOWNSTAIRS and came back. He noticed that Imani had lit some candles. “Wassup with the candles?” he asked, cutting the CD player on.

“Ambience,” she assured him, “nothing else.”

“It's your show, baby. It's all yours.” Kree popped the CD in and instantly Joe's “All the Things Your Man Won't Do” came on.

“This used to be my song.” Imani smiled, singing along.

“Yo, I'm supposed to be singing this song, not you.”

“Oh, is that so?”

“Uhmm-hmm.” Kree sat next to Imani, held her chin in his hand, and started singing to her.

“You're embarrassing me.”

“Why?” Kree said, moving his face closer to Imani.

“I don't know if I'm ready…”

“For what?”

“To be with somebody else right now.”

“I didn't ask you for all of that.” Kree kissed Imani on the eyelids. She could feel her clit jump. “Kree,” she whined, “maybe we shouldn't …”

“Shhh, let me show you something.” He stood up and sat on the floor. Gently he pulled Imani's hand. “Come here.” Imani sat on the floor next to him, and he started to kiss her soft and slow. He took his tongue and licked the outline of her lips. Then he
sucked her lip in and out of his mouth. As he slipped his hand underneath her dress, he soon discovered what he thought were silk panties was actually the wetness of her pussy.