“Ain’t nothing change, nigga,” I said, noticing how sexy he still was, but giving him much attitude. With his mouth open, playing with the toothpick between his teeth, it was like he was talking but no words were coming out.

  “Damn,” he said again. He pulled me close to him and picked me up with his strong arms like I didn’t weigh nothing.

  “Put me down. I ain’t forget, nigga.”

  “Forget what? I ain’t forget either. I been looking all over for you forever. Man, I asked Natalie, your girl Simone, Natasha, Reese, I even asked your mom where you was at.”

  “I ain’t forget about the videotape. I heard how you let niggas disrespect me down at Moe’s place,” I told him, with thick attitude.

  “Ah that shit wasn’t nothing. That was Slick illing, not me. You know that kid is sick. I don’t get down like that. I see you still got your shine,” he said, looking at my diamond tennis necklace and matching bracelet. Watching him surveying my whole body with his eyes, my body temperature intensified. What I dug about Bullet was he was a real lover. He knows how to rock a woman’s entire body. He’s a guaranteed orgasm. “Come on, why don’t you take a ride with me?” he asked. My eyes peeped his black baggy slacks, leather jacket and heavyweight gold link. I wanted to say yes, but I kept thinking about what Midnight said about Bullet being down with Santiaga’s enemies. What I wanted was battling my loyalty to Santiaga. But I know loyalty comes first. So I resisted. I still asked the important shit though.

  “What you pushing?” Then the nigga started fidgeting, mumbling something which amounted to the fact that he was a passenger in another nigga’s car. That made it easy for me to tell him no.

  “Come on, Winter. You sleeping on this nigga,” he said, patting his chest with his heavy hand. “A nigga been stacking chips, I’m about to cop something lovely. I got a little business on the side making moves. I’m about to come into something real big soon.” I turned him down not with words, but with my eyes. The bottom line was right now I had a chance at getting with GS. Why should I fold my hand to pick up some unknown cards? He sensed my rejection, and didn’t want his boys to see me turning him down. But he was gonna go for it anyway. “Winter, straight up, this nigga got love for you.”

  Knowing how to be cool and not play him out, I leaned over, gave him a kiss on the cheek and whispered in his ear, “Maybe some other time. Not tonight.” He smiled, with 100 percent confidence. It was this kind of certainty that made me want to undress.

  “Let me get those digits,” he pulled a pencil from behind his ear and flipped open a book of matches to write it down.

  “No phone. I don’t have no phone,” I told him.

  “C’mon, Winter, don’t try to play me.”

  “I don’t. I haven’t been wanting no calls, that’s why. I just been staying to myself.”

  “Where you staying at?”

  “You asking too many questions,” I told him.

  “Well, how’s a nigga gonna get up with you then?”

  “You give me your number,” I told him.

  “Fuck that. Come here.” He signaled over to his man, one of the three rolling with him that night.

  “Give me your pager.” His man looked confused.

  “What?” he said, unwilling to give it up.

  “You heard what I said. Give me your pager.” He snatched the pager from his man’s hand.

  His man protested, “I just got it today.”

  “Here, take this.” He handed me the pager. “You gonna see how serious a nigga is. Learn how to respect a man when he talks. I’ll page you when I finish setting up. Seeing is believing. You’ll see. My code is 000.” He hugged me again. “You gonna be mines.”

  “What’s the phone number for the pager,” I asked.

  “You don’t need it. I’m the only one calling that number,” he said strongly.

  It was hard passing up good dick. It was easy to pass up a broke passenger nigga. Tonight my aim was much higher. As Bullet walked away, I tapped his arm and asked for his laminate. He laughed and said, “Nah. Why would I feed you to the sharks?”

  Lauren had it all worked out, or so she said. By this time she knew Frankie the security guard personally. Frankie couldn’t let her in, but he let her know that GS was having a private party out in his house in Alpine, New Jersey, at 2 A.M. All we had to do is meet Frankie around the back of the club. The four black trucks in the back would be bringing the party to Jersey and … “All the finest honeys get a free ride with security.”

  Four trucks, sixty chicks, and a caravan of niggas following behind in Benzes, Lexuses, Rovers, Rangers, Acuras, you name it. Twenty girls left standing on the curb ’cause security said they were either too fat or too ugly.

  What do you know about five chicks sitting in the seats and four chicks sitting in they laps in each row of the Suburban? Now I was sitting on some girl ’cause I definitely wasn’t gonna let her sit on me. I wasn’t gonna say a word ’cause I already decided it was better just to watch. Besides, I wanted to check out the competition. The first thing I realized was me and Lauren were younger than most of these girls. A whole bunch of them was in college. I heard them talking about a football game, Grambling U. versus somebody. Some of them was talking like they came from far away. They mentioned that they was up for the weekend or drove all the way up from Washington, Baltimore, and Virginia.

  Four of the girls in the back sitting on laps and positioned right near my ear were wilding. Every song that came on was, “Ahh, that’s my jam!” Then they would make a high-tone screeching voice—skee wee skee wee skee wee—every time. It bugged me out when they started bouncing to the beat while sitting on the girls who I’m sure had to have black and blue knees and legs by then.

  We invaded this private first-class neighborhood like an infection. GS’s mansion was accentuated by an array of colored lights, which lit it up like the Walt Disney palace. The driveway was more like a parking lot at the cineplex theater. Manicured bushes and evergreen trees gave the place the air of seclusion. Inside there were more rooms than you’d care to count, three floors with steps leading to the west wing and the north and south side of the house. Cristal, Moët, fine wines, cheeses, buffalo wings, pineapple turkey meatballs, shrimps, and crab cakes were plentiful finger foods available to all special guests.

  It wasn’t but half an hour before everybody started asking where’s GS? Where’s LX? Where’s this celebrity or that celebrity? After a while, I started getting vexed with security ’cause I wasn’t sure if they just wanted to keep all the women for themselves.

  At 3 A.M., one of the security guys stood on top of the couch and shouted, “OK ladies, GS is ready for some pussy. Who wants to give up the pussy?” We all jumped up. “If you’re not here to get your freak on, bounce now. Any virgins in the house bounce now.

  “Now y’all know it’s too many of y’all. GS told me to bring up the baddest female in the house.” All the girls were screaming, raising hands, trying to get security’s attention.

  “Hold on now. Hold on. Here’s what we gonna do. We gonna have a contest. Line up. Get up. Line up. If you too drunk to stand up, sit down. You’re out. You’re not in it. We gon’ have a beauty contest.” In the huge living room there were ten rows of six girls each in the contest.

  “I’m the host,” one of the other security guys said. He was supposed to be big and intimidating. As far as I was concerned he was just big and fat. He walked through each row of girls with his tall, fat, sloppy self, carrying a vodka tonic in his right hand. Then he started pointing. “You ugly, sit down. You ugly, sit down. You ugly, sit down.” The three girls was mad, mumbling all kinds of insults to him. One of ’em said it loud enough for everybody to hear.

  “You big fat bitch,” she called him.

  The second girl said, “I thought you left all the ugly girls at the club?” Fat ass sipped his drink and said, “It was dark, I missed you three. Now sit down and shut up.”

  “Alright now, hold out your h
ands.” Each row of girls stuck their hands out. “Man hands sit down. Goddamn, what your mother do, burn you with cigarettes? Sit the fuck down.” He was eliminating contestants.

  Next the other security guard stood up. He walked up and down the aisle like he was a military drill sergeant. For seconds he didn’t say nothing. Then he started pointing, “Cheap shoes, sit down. Cheap shoes, sit down. Cheap shoes, sit down.” I looked behind me and one of the girls he told to sit down was Lauren. She caught my eye. I just raised my eyebrows at her as if to say I’m sorry. I knew them cheap shoes would be her downfall.

  Next thing I know the same dude was asking us to take our shoes off. A lot of girls didn’t like that and they were complaining and suckin’ their teeth. I wasn’t affected, I had pretty feet. I even did my pedicure over especially for tonight. Dude started pointing out girls, “Hammertime sit down, Hammertime sit down, Hammertime sit down. Goddamn, sit down!” There was only like forty girls left.

  “Alright ladies, this is a big one. Everyone with a weave sit your bald asses down.” Twenty-five girls were out on that one call. My shit was straight and real.

  With fifteen girls left, I was planning on winning. Then the next security guy got up and said, “Pull up your shirts. I’m checking for them nasty worms.” Everybody was confused. We just stood there asking him and each other, “What? What worms?”

  “Stretch marks. A lot of you slick bitches got nice figures and ugly stretch marks. You know you got four kids. Your ass shouldn’t even be here. GS do not wanna be your baby’s daddy!” All the guards started laughing. Five girls with worms were eliminated.

  The security guard called over to the DJ, “Throw on some Biggie Smalls. Let me see you hoes dance. You gotta have rhythm. If you can’t dance, you probably can’t fuck. Sit down, you off beat. Sit down, you’re whack. Sit down, your butt fell off.” Seven girls left. Everybody was like alright, OK, alright already, just pick one. “OK, one of y’all step up, the other six sit down.” Everybody stepped up. “OK now we gon’ see who got some sense upstairs in the head. If you give the wrong answer to the television trivia question sit down.

  “Contestant number one: Who shot J.J. Evans?”

  “Who?”

  “J.J. Evans, in Good Times.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Sit down. It was Mad Dog. Contestant number two: What was Janet Jackson’s name on Good Times?”

  “I know, it was Penny,” the contestant answered.

  “You’re right. Contestant number three: What was Alice’s, the maid in The Brady Bunch, boyfriend’s name, and what job did he do?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.”

  The security guards was laughing so hard they was bent over. The one who fell on the floor yelled, “You’re out, it’s Sam, the Butcher.”

  “Contestant number four: What was Fred Sanford’s favorite drink?”

  “Come on, that one’s too hard. Hers was easy,” she said, pointing to number two.

  “Sit down. Fred drank Ripple. Contestant number five: What was Samantha Stevens’s mother’s name on Bewitched?”

  “Umm, um, Sabrina.”

  “No, it was Endora.”

  “How was I supposed to know, I didn’t watch that shit. I don’t have cable.”

  “Sit down. Contestant number six (that was me): “What was the name of the dog on The Jetsons, the dog on The Flintstones, and the dog on The Brady Bunch?”

  “Astro, Dino, and Tiger,” I said swiftly.

  “Ah shit. That’s right, that’s right.”

  Security laughed. The buffed one was like, “Yo, that bitch is smart.” Contestant number seven was disqualified ’cause she didn’t know who beat Rerun in the dance contest on What’s Happening. But I saw that episode at least ten times; it was Danny Disco Dynamite.

  “Now we’re down to two contestants. Who’s it gonna be? Let me see.” Then one of them security guards jumped up and said, “What size is your bra?”

  The girl said “36D.”

  I said “34D.”

  “Pretty close,” he said. “But who has on clean panties with no holes and no loose strings? Open your legs.” He got down on all fours and looked under her skirt. Then he crawled over and looked under my dress. When he saw my nicely trimmed, bare, hairy pussy he said, “That’s it! You’re the winner!” All I could think was, Thank God I didn’t wear no panties.

  It seemed like we would never make it up to the top of the wide, steep, and curvaceous staircase. Every step closer I got to the bedroom on the west wing of the mansion, the more excited I became. I wish I could have a Polaroid snapshot of the look on GS’s face when I walk into the room.

  As we got closer to the door the fat security guard who escorted me said, “Me and you could dip into any one of these rooms right now. If it’s me you really want just give me the word.” I wouldn’t even respond to him. A few steps before the entrance to GS’s bedroom the fat guy turned around and walked away.

  I could hear the music in the room pumping real loud. Standing outside of the door I checked my clothes and touched my hair with my fingers. I turned the knob to let myself in. Surprisingly, the room was dark. The only light was coming from the television where the image from the PlayStation street fighter game was stuck on pause.

  I ran my hands along the wall trying to guide myself to the light switch. Accidentally I tripped over what I guessed was a Timberland boot tossed on the floor. Now I was glad the lights were off. I didn’t want GS to see me in an uncool position. When I stood up I walked a couple of steps before feeling the night table with my fingers. As my hands were extended in front of me to keep from crashing into anything else, I almost toppled over a Cristal bottle. I knew that’s what it was from the shape of it as I held it in my hands. It was empty. Oh shit. I knew GS was wasted, probably crashed out on the bed. It was either that or he’s a sexy motherfucker who likes to play games in the dark. I could get with that. With a few more steps I found my feet tangled in his pants that were tossed on the floor. Now I was getting real excited.

  Finally, I found the sound system, but I couldn’t read the buttons so I just started turning and pushing them one by one. There was static, then shit just started going crazy for a minute. I pushed the buttons faster until, luckily, one shut the sound off.

  “GS,” I called out softly, not really knowing why I was whispering now that it was so absolutely quiet. I heard him groan a few times and moved into the direction his voice was coming from. Soon as I bumped into the bed I started undressing.

  “Who that?” he asked, sounding disoriented.

  “It’s me, Sasha. I came to give you what we both been waiting for.” He laughed slow and sexy. Butt naked, I slid my silky legs in, then the rest of my body. Taking total control, I threw my legs over him, then mounted him like I was the jockey and he was the thoroughbred. I was determined I was gonna revive the million-dollar star. I was gonna make love to him so he would remember my name and come back sniffin’ round my door tomorrow. Laying my titties on his chest and my hairs against his now erect, big thick thank God dick, I began to suck his neck, lick his shoulder blades, and suck his chin.

  Only seconds passed before his lips came alive and gave way to my sweet passion. We was tonguing. His strong arms grabbed my hips and lifted me up slightly, positioning to penetrate. I pulled myself to the side, resisting him, so I could suck it first to keep it hard longer. As it went into my mouth and halfway down my throat, I moved my lips slowly back and forth. GS let out a groan that let me know I had him in the palm of my hands. Tonight it would be all about him. Once I turned him out, it would be all about me.

  When I felt the pressure mount in him I withdrew my tongue and lips. He grabbed my head wanting me to keep going. Instead, I mounted him then, pushed him inside of me. I put everything I had on him, double-jointed hips, and my flexible body moves. He wouldn’t never call me a lazy lover. As my pussy muscles held him in a lobster grip, I vibrated all over him. I heard him scream in ecstasy like he was my bit
ch. The sound of his surrender caused me to lose my head and my orgasm caused my whole body to shake uncontrollably. He responded by busting a nut, a big fucking walnut, inside of me. We both collapsed into sleep. I don’t know about him but I went out with a smile.

  In the morning, I tidied up after our houseguests. I was dressed in GS’s shirt. Downstairs I tried to bring together some breakfast for us; I had music playing at a low volume. The sun was filling up the entire house the way it does in classy neighborhoods where architects design houses with the position of the sun, moon, and water in mind. As I walked up the long wide staircase, I felt a pain in my side …

  “Excuse me, sweetie. Hey, hey. You got to get up and get out of here. I don’t know what you’re doing in here. But don’t respond. I’m afraid of the answer.” Everything was a blur. I attempted to focus. My head was pulsating the way it does after a night of a wild mixture of drinks.

  The harmless-looking thirty-something woman was poking me in the side with a long black antenna, on which I assume was a walkie-talkie. When I sat up my eyes confirmed the images that were jetting through my mind. I was in GS’s mansion. It was not a dream. The untidy room of last night was now spotless except for my naked body. Like a zoom lens, my eyes scanned the floor for my clothes, which I recalled dropping on the floor on my side of the bed. I spotted them laid neatly across a chair.

  I grabbed my neck with my hands. My diamond necklace and my bracelet were still on so I could rule out robbery from this bizarre situation. As I collected myself and began dressing, the woman watched me as if I was acting in a scene she was directing. Clutching my bag, I asked her, “Where’s GS?”

  “He’s not due on the set until two this afternoon. It’s 9 A.M. right now. But you will have to go.”

  “Think about it, lady. If I’m here in his room I must be a welcomed guest in GS’s home.”

  “Oh really,” she said, doubtfully. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if his girl waited downstairs for him.”

  “This house is big enough for everybody.”