Thong on Fire (5 page)

Aunt Ruthie fell against her sister, tears running from her eyes. “Lawd, that’s my baby’s Easter dress,” she said, crying into a black handkerchief.

“Saucy,” Aunt Roz said, dressed all in black and giving me an evil look. “Why don’t you go change into something else, dear. Something more…appropriate. You do have something of your own that you can wear, don’t you? I bet you’d feel a lot more comfortable in some of your own clothes.”

All eyes were on me again but this time I didn’t like the way it felt. We
were
going to a damn funeral, right? That meant Paris was
gone.
Saucy was
here
. Why should all them cute clothes go to waste?

“Leave her.” Uncle Swag spoke up. He looked at his watch and started waving folks toward the door. “The limos are already waiting downstairs. Besides. It don’t matter what the child has on. Life don’t have a damn thing to do with fancy clothes.”

At the church I barely glanced at Paris laying up there looking stiff and funny in that big white box while everybody sang and cried around her. I was too hyped after taking my very first limousine ride and couldn’t wait to ride that bad boy back home again. There were five of them. Stretched out. Long, black, and sparkling. Cars that screamed money. I just knew every other driver on the road was looking at us with envy because my uncle had big doe.

The next few weeks woulda been the bomb if everybody around me wasn’t so damn sad all the time. Hell, I was happier than I’d ever been in my life, and when Kimichi called and told Uncle Swag that King’s nasty ass had gotten sent upstate and asked if he would bring me to our old apartment to see her, I told Uncle Swag I didn’t wanna go.

Why should I? For the first time in my life I had everything I needed and almost all of what I wanted. They’d put me in a new school where nobody knew the old dirty, raggedy Saucy. Every morning I gave Uncle Swag a kiss and jumped outta his Maserati in front of that big old school a happy child. I felt like a shiny little model on a runway as I walked into that school like my feet were touching a red carpet. My hair was always pretty and decked with Paris’s cute bows and barrettes, and I never wore the same outfit twice in a month.

I had enough smarts to hide some of my glee around Uncle Swag though. I made sure to catch an occasional sad face and teary eyes like I was thinking about Paris every now and then for Uncle Swag’s sake. But for real though, I didn’t miss nothing about her ass. Every chance I got I closed the door to Paris’s old room and rolled all over that big-ass bed. I yanked all her gear out the closets and tried every stitch of it on, even the ugly stuff. I crammed my feet into her too-small shoes and gave not a damn when my toes caught a cramp.

In no time at all I had taken over Paris’s space and was working on making the life she used to have all mine. Aunt Ruthie tried to fuss when she found out Uncle Swag had asked the courts for permanent custody of me, but he shut that down real quick.

“Woman, I done lost my only brother and my only daughter. You think I’ma lose my only niece too? Saucy’s a sweet little girl and she needs us. Who knows what that dyke bitch was doing to her up in that filthy apartment. You can say what you want, but Saucy Robinson ain’t going nowhere. I love her, and she loves me right back. Life is too short for bullshit, Ruthie. Losing Paris shoulda taught you that.”

Yeah!
I wanted to scream out loud as I stood with my ear pressed to their bedroom door. Aunt Ruthie could just chill with all that “when is she going home” shit. I
was
home. And she could just believe that.

B
Y THE TIME
I was fourteen Uncle Swag couldn’t do a damn thing with me. He treated me like a princess and had spoiled me to death, giving me everything I even thought about asking for. And believe me, even though I loved my uncle more than I loved air, I asked for a whole lot.

My cousin Kaz was about seven then, and had been so smothered by Aunt Ruthie that he couldn’t even wipe his ass by himself. After Paris died she had totally babyfied Kaz, even coming between him and Uncle Swag to the point where my uncle couldn’t have no kind of real relationship with his son. But Aunt Ruthie never could tell me shit, so after a minute she didn’t even bother to try. She gave me my space and I gave her hers. She stayed stuck up in her room and I stayed running the streets. Her dealings with me were kept to a bare minimum, and that was more than enough for me.

I was a hot, wild, and crazy young girl and enjoying life to the fullest. I got respect and admiration from all the young come-ups on the street because my uncle Swag was a nigga in the know. He was power in the flesh. Our Upper West Side Columbus Avenue apartment was always live and filled with music and important people coming and going. Uncle Swag worked for the state government, but the G’s he hung out with were club owners, record producers, and black businessmen who kept Harlem running smooth.

Me and Uncle Swag both loved us some music, and one of his tightest dawgs, Tollie Jones, was a record producer who was always giving me mixtapes and telling me about the hip-hop celebrities who were constantly after him to hook them up with some gully beats.

“I wanna go to L.A. and meet me some rappers,” I told Tollie one day. “You know Nellie, right? How about Puffy and Nas? Yo! Introduce me to Jigga!”

Tollie just laughed. “You ain’t gotta go way to Los Angeles to meet no stars, Saucy. Rappers hang out in New York and Atlanta too. But them some ocean dwellers, little girl. You still swimming in a freshwater pond. You ain’t ready for none of that.”

“Yeah, right,” I said, dancing all up in his face and showing him some of my new moves. “You just scared Jay-Z might see all a’ this and wanna get with me. He’ll stack all them other girls on some ice real quick once he gets a taste of the Sauce.”

I was out there. Just begging for trouble and drama. Uncle Swag did his best to keep me in his sights, but all I had to do was give him a sad look and hang my head down a little and he would give in and basically let me do my thing—as long as I did the do in school. Of course, school was the last damn thing on my mind. I was smart and passed all my exams with no problem whenever I bothered to show up, but even when I was in the school socializing, I wasn’t trying to actually sit up in no boring-ass classroom.

My days were all about flossing in front of cute boys and showing off my designer clothes, fierce ass, and bomb titties. My nights were spent drinking Hypnotic, smoking trees I’d copped from 116th Street, and hanging out with my girl Tai when I was supposed to be at the library.

“Let’s go see what’s shaking in Harlem,” I told Tai one Friday night. Tai lived downstairs from me on the fourteenth floor, and we were in her bedroom with the door closed smoking a blueberry blunt and listening to some Ying Yang twins.

“For what?” Tai asked. She was dipping Spanish olives into a big cup of ranch dressing and sucking on two fingers after every bite.

“To get us some beer and find us some niggas!” I said. “And stop eating that shit. It looks so nasty.”

“You the one nasty, Saucy. I don’t even know why you be fuckin’ with all them dudes like that. Clowning with them niggas and letting them get all up under your clothes just so they can get you high and buy you shit.” Tai frowned, twisting her lips. “I bet you don’t even remember half of they names.”

I laughed. “See. That’s why you ain’t got nobody chasing after you,” I told her. “It ain’t even about they names. It’s all about the dope, the dick, and the doe.”

Tai sucked her teeth. “You need to stop tripping. Your uncle gives you almost everything you ask for. You ain’t gotta grind with no corner boys unless you want to.”

“Well, maybe I want to then! So what? Guys like to fuck and they wanna fuck me. What’s wrong with that?”

“Look, Saucy,” she said while trying to hold her breath. She pulled on the blunt again then blew the smoke out toward the window. “I’m just saying, okay? You ain’t gotta fuck everybody just because they wanna fuck you. I know you been through a lot girl. You told me about that dyke King and what she used to do to you. But that one horrible thing ain’t gotta rule your whole life girl! You don’t have to sell your body short just because one person took advantage of it.”

I stared at her like she was mental. I knew what the real problem was. Tai was jealous. She had a flat ass and knocked-knees, and didn’t no real playa wanna be seen with her. We had been best friends since I moved downtown, and over the years my slim package had gotten phatter while Tai’s apple frame had just gotten fatter. She wore dope clothes for a big girl, and kept her hair and nails done, but she coulda actually been cute if she stopped eating so damn much. Tai was my girl but she had zero self-confidence, and what cool hustler wanted to fuck somebody who had corn chips stuck in their teeth and a stomach that was four times bigger than their ass?

“I don’t fuck with everybody, Tai. And that bitch King wasn’t the only one who got with me, either. Girl, I been fuckin’ since I was six years old! Kimichi used to put me in bed between her and Mr. Warren, and when he got up to leave we’d have enough cash to eat for a month. Plus I used to ride that little dick popping outta Mister Jack’s box just like it was a pony. How you think we kept our lights turned on in Harlem? Ain’t nothing wrong with fuckin’ as long as you getting something out of it, Tai. Rememer that. You oughtta stop letting that nigga Geoffrey bust all them free nuts up in you without giving you nothing but hickeys to show for it.”

“Shut up! I get stuff from Geoff. Just because I don’t throw all his goods in your face don’t mean he ain’t dishing it out.”

I looked at Tai, and then at the platinum tennis bracelet I was sporting on my left wrist. She had no clue that it was her man Geoff who had paid for this shit. I had his stupid behind wide open just like all the other guys in our school, and when he showed me the bracelet he’d been planning to give to Tai, I gave him a real good reason to change his mind and slide it to me instead.

After Tai sprayed some air freshener around the room and I checked my shit out in the mirror, we booked, creeping out as quietly as we could. Tai’s mother hated the sight of me. Back when I was twelve she had hallucinated up some crazy shit, and for years I had sworn to her and Tai that it wasn’t true. I had been standing next to Tai’s father one day, just looking out their living room window, when Tai’s moms came in and started wildin’. She was screaming and swinging on Mr. Watkins like a maniac. She told Tai she’d caught me grinding my ass around while Mr. Watkins had his hand stuck down inside the back of my shorts. It took me two whole years to convince Tai that her mother had been seeing things and that shit wasn’t true.

We left our building and ran toward the train station, and pretty soon we were uptown in Harlem and I was feeling grand. As much as I had hated Harlem as a little kid, I couldn’t stay away from it now. The aura of this neighborhood was right and relaxing to me. I’d been born here and it was good to be home. All the action was up here, and I was definitely a girl after some action. If I felt like cruising these streets and Tai didn’t wanna hang, I didn’t even sweat it. I would hop my ass in a cab in a minute and ride up to Harlem to see how many corner niggas I could pick up.

Me and Tai could always get our young asses up inside one of Harlem’s clubs, but sometimes they got extra and refused to sell us any liquor. We wasn’t taking no chances tonight, so we stopped at a corner liquor store to get some mini Bacardis before going inside.

“You got ’em turning heads,” the dude at the counter said when I tried to show him my cute hips and round ass instead of a photo ID. I had on a thin mint-green shirt with a slit all the way up the middle and no bra, and his eyes were zooming in on my nipples. “You might be old enough to fuck, but you sure ain’t old enough to drink.”

Well, I was already doing a whole lot of both, and of course my little ass was heading for trouble in a major way. Inside the club we partied as hard as we could. I was on the dance floor screaming out all the hot rap lyrics I’d studied and memorized, hooks, verses, bridges, the whole shit. The DJ threw on a slow stripper song called “Envy” by Reem Raw and Robb Hawk, and the guy I was dancing with pulled me into a deep nasty grind and started whispering it all in my ear.

Look what I found,

Pretty brown,

Yeah I gotta have!

Her bottom half’ll have you digging out ya pocket stash!

She got a latch on my soul,

The way her body wrap ’round a pole

With her ass out on roll,

Her passionate stroll got my shit on brick,

Them glossy lips will make a nigga trick off chips!

Her eyes telling me she wanna come sit on this,

Everybody in the spot tryna hit on Miss!

So I gotta strategize,

Feel the vibe when she passing by,

No lie, she can send me home satisfied,

Her frame’s mean…everything that I fantasized…

Gotta step to her, let her know that I can handle mine!

Yeah I can see why they envy ya baby!

Now pull ya benjies out, start tippin my baby! My baby!

My baby! My baby!

He whispered that shit so hot and freaky in my ear that I didn’t even protest when he pulled me into a booth and started tonguing me down. He smelled like a real man and his lips were so soft! He reached under my shirt and rubbed my titties until my nipples started aching, and when his hand trailed down to my lap and he slipped his fingers under my skirt, my pussy was nice and wet. I let him slide two of them up in me, and as he massaged my clit with his thumb, I arched my back, then reached under the table, found his lap, and squeezed his rock until I came.

“Saucy!” I pulled away from ol’ boy as Tai slapped me so hard on my shoulder that she damn near broke a bone. Her face was sweaty and all her curls had fell. “What y’all doing hemmed up in this corner? I thought you came to dance, girl!”

Dude slid his fingers outta my pussy and I laughed and kissed his lips again. Tai dragged me back out on the dance floor and I got back in my club groove. Near the end of the night so many niggas had passed me dutches that my head started hurting. I switched up and starting drinking Alizé when one of the dudes who was clocking me started buying me double shots, and I made sure he spent some real money too.

By the time the club started emptying out I was blasted. All I wanted to do was get me some hot wings or something, then go home and black the hell out. I hadn’t meant to stay out all night, but the sun was already coming up when we stepped outside. But when I staggered into the crib at six in the morning Aunt Ruthie was up waiting for me. She called herself fed up enough to open her mouth and get in my business. She convinced Uncle Swag that I needed some boundaries laid down and he went for it. She said I was shopping too much, and as smart as I was, my grades were slipping in school. She accused me of being spoiled, selfish, and ungrateful. She told him no teenager needed as much jewelry, shoes, CDs, and money as I had.

Uncle Swag put his foot down and declared that my ass was now on a curfew and a strict budget. Fifty dollars a week. What the hell was I supposed to do with that?

“Saucy, baby girl you gotta slow down just a little, okay? I know you like going out and having fun with your friends and that’s cool. It really is. Just slow down a little, okay? You know you the only baby girl your uncle got left.”

I got pissed off with Uncle Swag but I couldn’t stay mad with him because he acted like slapping rules on me was hurting him more than it hurt me. See, my uncle was the only person in the world who understood how fucked up my life had been before Paris died and I moved downtown. I’d gone through some shit no little girl should have to go through. Because of that trifling ass Kimichi, all kinds of fingers had been in my young pussy. Dicks too. Grown tongues had licked all over my clit. The hardest part about all of that had been the feelings it turned on in me, even when I was too young to understand what those feelings were all about.

But young or not, I knew what felt good to me, and right after I entered the eleventh grade I hooked up with a guy named Plat from 112th Street and got my first real good fuck that made me lose my mind.

I had already been tricking all the wannabe’s I went to school with, but that was just for fun. I took their money and talked them into buying me gifts and stuff, but them young sons couldn’t handle the kind of nookie I was putting on them and I was always scared my uncle would find out. These fake cats played like they was hood, but they had housekeepers and whatnot at home, and jumped in limos when school was over and headed home to apartment buildings that had doormen waiting outside. Just like Uncle Swag and Aunt Ruthie, their folks had gotten some ends together and fled the hard life of Harlem, and they felt safe and protected in their Upper West Side world.

But I was looking for a real thug nigga. Street-hard is what turned me on. And Harlem was full of that. I started sneaking uptown to get a glimpse of Plat every chance I got. He was tall and had a goatee and thick, muscled-up arms like Suge Knight. I got a thrill outta watching him do his thing on his corner grind. I knew he wasn’t no big-time hustler and he didn’t sit too far up the ladder of importance, but there was something real hot about that low-level action he was involved in, and I decided that Plat, with his smooth dark skin and piercing eyes, was gonna get him some of my goodies.