“So are you. I love what you did with your hair,” Tempest lied, staring at Chiquita’s hairstyle and wondering what was up with it. There were finger waves on the left side, crimps on the right side, and a gigantic fake roll of hair on the back that was two shades darker than her natural hair. Tempest always found Marquita and Chiquita amusing. They were the most hoochified sistahs that she knew. The fact that they were Janessa’s first cousins wasn’t much of a surprise because Janessa was running a close third in the hoochie-of-the-decade contest.
“Thanks.” Chiquita blushed, running wet fingers through the roll on the back with pride. She was convinced she had it going on. “Conchita Dina Alonzo Morales over at Weave Central hooked my ass up.”
“She did a bangin’ job,” Tempest lied again, searching through the lower cabinets for the gallon of potato wine Mrs. Porter had sent her upstairs to fetch. Tempest found the dusty bottle and wondered how many decades it had been crammed down there.
They were all over Mrs. Porter’s Northeast row house for Marquita’s bachelorette party. Tempest had no idea how she’d even ended up there. She’d agreed to go to the wedding rehearsal with Janessa. She’d even agreed to stand in for the bride, which was a trip in itself—half the wedding party had been smoking weed and could barely manage to walk down the aisle without giggling or munching on potato chips. She definitely hadn’t planned on the bachelorette party, though. Janessa claimed she needed a ride from the rehearsal dinner over there, so Tempest complied, even though there were dozens of other women headed that way.
Tempest turned around and became enthralled in Chiquita’s fucked-da-hell-up hairstyle again. “Yeah, she really worked your hair over gurlfriend,” Tempest said, trying to suppress a smile.
“Didn’t she though?” Chiquita grabbed another handful of fresh greens out of the produce bag and ran them under the running faucet. “You ever been there?”
“Naw, I can’t say I’ve had the pleasure.” Tempest chuckled, knowing there was no way in the world she would share the same stylist with Chiquita, Marquita, or Janessa, for that matter. “I do my own hair most of the time.”
“Well, you should definitely check Conchita out,” Chiquita persisted. “Her shop is at the corner of Extension Avenue and Tracks Lane in Fakehair.”
“Fakehair?” Tempest giggled. Figures!
“Yeah, Fakehair, Maryland. Right off the beltway.” Chiquita turned off the faucet and dried her hands on a dish towel. She went over to the opposite counter and started rummaging through her fake Louis Vuitton handbag. “Hold up. I’ve got a card somewhere.”
Tempest watched her pull out everything from a twelve-pack of condoms to some Monistat 7. “That’s okay, Chiquita. You can just give me her number later.”
Chiquita shoved all of the stuff back into her purse. “Okay, but make sure you try some of the Jamaican bean pies they sell in the back of the salon when you go.”
Tempest couldn’t hold her laughter in any longer. “I’ll be sure to do that,” she cackled. “Listen, I’m going to go back downstairs. Your grandmother’s waiting for me to bring the wine.”
“I’ll grab the cups,” Chiquita offered, getting a package of plastic cups off the top of the fridge and holding the door open for Tempest, who was trying to carry the wine without getting dust all over her black pantsuit.
“Thanks!”
“So how’d you like the wedding rehearsal?” Chiquita asked while they walked through the dining room to the basement steps off the hall.
“It was cool,” Tempest answered, not wanting to give her real opinion. The wedding rehearsal had been a mess. She was just glad she hadn’t gotten a weed contact from the groomsmen who were getting high on the back pew.
“Thanks for standing in for Marquita. My sister’s a nervous freakin’ wreck about the wedding tomorrow.”
“It was no problem, really,” Tempest said, thinking she would be a nervous wreck too if she was getting ready to marry a man who looked like Marquita’s fiancé.
“I can’t wait till tomorrow myself!” Chiquita exclaimed. “The wedding’s going to be the bomb-diggity!”
“Sure seems like it.” Tempest smirked, following Chiquita down the basement steps.
There were about forty sistahs crammed into a ten-by-twelve-foot room without a drop of air circulating. Tempest was trippin’ out—the women in the room ranged from eighteen to eighty. Some were even senile. Hell, Janessa’s grandmother Mrs. Porter was half blind in one eye and couldn’t see a damn thing out of the other one. One thing she could do was bake up some mean sweet potato pie. Tempest quickly downed two slices, even though she’d managed not to get a weed contact.
The male strippers were running late, and all of the women were anxiously awaiting their arrival. Janessa and her cousin Chiquita had ventured out a couple of nights before to catch the Wednesday-night male revue at the Black Screw, where they found the strippers they hired.
Tempest was looking forward to the show. Through the big-dick-alert grapevine of the D.C. Society of Sistahs in Pursuit of Good Men, Tempest had heard some very intriguing rumors about the Black Screw. She’d never been there personally, and frankly, her ass was half scared to go. Sistahs claimed the place was sportin’ wall-to-wall naked men with Mandingo dicks. Legend had it that there was even a brotha in there who was sportin’ such a gargantuan dang-a-lang that he sucked it onstage. Tempest wondered who on earth would fuck a man like that. Big can be a good thing, but too damn big can be hazardous to your pelvic muscles.
Tempest briefly dated a brotha originally from Bermuda, who was raised in London. Nevel’s accent turned her on big-time. She loved it when he called her “luv.” Everything was cool between them until they ended up in a compromising position one night in his Adam’s Morgan flat. Nevel took it out of his pants; Tempest took it in with her eyes and immediately faked a muscle cramp in her leg.
She toyed with the idea of saying she was on her period, or even faking nausea. She knew no man wanted some so bad that he would willingly risk a sistah hurling all over his back or, worse yet, his dick.
Nevel tried to massage the cramp out so he could get some, but there was no way in the hell he was sticking that thing up in her. Tempest considered herself adventurous, but she was not about to venture there. She ran the worst-case scenario through her head, pondering whether or not her health insurance would cover surgical dick removal from a vagina.
She was tempted to give his dick a test drive but decided to keep her leg cramp and hobble on out to her car. She ran home to call Janessa to spill the beans, and that huzzy had the nerve to ask for his digits. Even though Tempest had no intention of ever seeing Nevel again, sistahgurl wasn’t getting anything from her—all she needed was Janessa bragging on getting the bottom knocked out of her pussy.
“Listen up, everybody,” Janessa announced. “The strippers just called and said they would be here in about an hour, so we’re gonna play a couple of games while we’re waiting.”
“What kind of games?” Janessa’s Aunt Mabel asked. “I hope they’re not boring.”
“Oh, I doubt you will be bored, Aunt Mabel,” Janessa replied, winking at her. Her aunt sat up on the edge of her seat after registering that comment. She knew how wild Janessa could be, and it suddenly seemed like the night was getting interesting. “First, we’re going to play Pin the Dick on the Mandingo,” Janessa continued. “And then we’re going to play a quick round of Ghetto Jeopardy. By that time, the dancers should be here.”
“Oooh, I just love Ghetto Jeopardy!” Tracy, one of the bridesmaids, said excitedly. “Ya’ll ever played that joint before?”
Most of the women shook their heads and answered no, but another bridesmaid, Yvonne, yelled out, “I have! We played at my family reunion last year. My peeps came to blows over it, though, because we were betting quarters. It was almost as bad as Acey Ducey. We had to ban that game from our reunions after my Uncle Jack ended up with a broken nose.”
“Umm, Yvonne, thanks for the
family history lesson,” Janessa said, smacking her lips. “But we’d like to get started some time today. Damn!”
Yvonne rolled her eyes at Janessa and went to sulk in a corner. It was common knowledge that the two of them hated each other. They even got into a fistfight one Saturday night at a Junkyard Band go-go when they were teenagers, and the police had to break it up.
Everyone’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets when Janessa went to the laundry room and returned with a life-size poster of a brotha with a huge, elephantine dick down to his ankles.
“Who in the hell is that?” Marquita asked, sipping a cup of potato wine. “Dang, I thought my boo had a big one!”
“That’s Mandingo,” Chiquita replied. “I told you about him. He’s one of the headliners at the Black Screw.”
“Dizammmmmmm, I hope he’s the one you’ve got coming here tonight!” Marquita exclaimed, looking like she was ready to feel herself up just thinking about him.
“Naw, he’s not,” Janessa said, dejected. “He already had another party to do tonight, so we missed out. He was definitely my first choice, though.”
“Mine, too,” Chiquita agreed, giving Janessa a high five. “He had me creaming all over myself at the club when he was performing.”
Tempest cleared her throat, hoping to remind Janessa, Marquita, and Chiquita that there were older women in the room who probably hadn’t seen a dick in decades.
Janessa caught her drift and hung the picture up with some tape on the wall by the fireplace.
“Okay, this is pretty simple,” Janessa began. “It has the same rules as Pin the Tail on the Donkey, except you have to pin the dick on the Mandingo.”
She handed each of the women a cutout photocopy of a dick, much shorter than the one on the wall, and gave them a piece of tape to use to stick it on. They each took turns being blindfolded and trying to hit the right spot. Tempest passed on her turn because she thought the whole thing was damn ridiculous, not to mention inappropriate to do around senior citizens.
Ironically, the senior citizens were the ones who had the most fun playing. In fact, Janessa’s grandmother, half blind and all, won the game by pinning it on the exact spot.
“Dizammmmmm, Grandma, you won,” Marquita exclaimed. “You didn’t forget where it is, did you?”
“You go on with your bad self,” Aunt Mabel guffawed. “You did better than me. Mine is the one all the way up there under his armpit.”
Mrs. Porter flashed her dentures. “It’s like riding a bike, young ladies. Just like riding a bike. You never forget!”
They all fell out laughing. Janessa asked Tempest to go get the red gift bag from under the steps while she took the picture down off the wall.
“Grandma, Tempest is getting your prize,” Janessa informed her. “I hope it’s not too much for you to handle.”
When Tempest heard that comment, she decided to sneak a peek in the bag. She knew how sick Janessa could be, but still, she couldn’t believe her eyes. “Janessa, you know you need to take this back and get her something else!” she snapped.
“Tempest, bring the present on over here,” Mrs. Porter ordered. “I’ve been around a long time. There’s nothing in that bag I haven’t seen before.”
Tempest slowly walked over to the sofa and handed her the bag. “I want you all to know I have absolutely nothing to do with what’s in there.” Tempest rolled her eyes and clucked her tongue in Janessa’s direction and then mouthed the words, “Sick ass!”
Mrs. Porter pulled the fourteen-inch dark brown dildo out of the bag and hollered, “Oh myyyyyyy goodness!”
Everyone snickered, and some of the older women stared at it, trying to figure out what it was.
“Grandma, do you even know what that is?” Marquita probed.
Mrs. Porter gave Marquita a love-slap on the leg. “Of course I know what it is! Everyone knows what a vibrator looks like!”
Chiquita chuckled. “Ahem, actually that’s a dildo, Grandma.”
Mrs. Porter gazed over at Chiquita, who was standing up beside Janessa and Tempest. “What’s the difference? Dildo. Vibrator. They both serve the same purpose.”
Aunt Mabel decided to educate them all. “A vibrator you just stick in, and it moves all by itself. It runs off batteries. With a dildo, you have to manually stimulate yourself with it.”
Janessa’s mouth fell open. “Dang, Aunt Mabel, how do you know so much about them?”
“She sounds like an expert,” Marquita concluded, wondering if the freakiness she tended to exude herself was genealogical.
“Maybe I am an expert,” Aunt Mabel said, blushing. “I wasn’t born yesterday, you know.”
Janessa took a long look at her grandmother sitting on the couch with the gigantic, elephantine dildo in her fragile hand and envisioned having to call an ambulance if she tried to actually use it. She could never forgive herself if her grandmother ended up in traction or something. “Grandma, Tempest is probably right.” Janessa walked over to the couch and tried to take the dildo from her. “I’ll take it back and get you something more appropriate.”
Mrs. Porter yanked it away and pushed it down between the cushions on the couch. “Reach for it again and pull back a stub, missy!”
Janessa wasn’t sure whether her grandmother was joking about the violence or not. She knew how horny she’d been during her current dick drought and figured her grandmother had probably gone about thirty years without any action. She decided to get the party moving along. “Aiight, let’s get ready to play Ghetto Jeopardy,” she announced to the room.
Janessa went to the laundry room to get the game off the dryer, and Tempest followed her, grabbed her by the elbow, and seethed, “No more raunchy gifts, Janessa, or we’re steppin’ out back so I can open a can of whup-ass. I can’t believe you just gave your grandmother a damn dildo!”
Janessa freed herself from Tempest’s grasp. “Dang, I’m just trying to keep the party interesting.” She pouted. “Besides, technically, you gave it to her, not me.”
Janessa giggled, but Tempest didn’t see anything amusing. “I hope these strippers you and Chiquita have coming over here aren’t planning on getting buck wild, because if they do, I’m leaving. I’m not about to sit up in here watching a bunch of senior citizens cream all over themselves.”
“Tempest, quit the mothering! Damn!”
“Speaking of mothers, where in the world is yours?” Tempest inquired. “Why didn’t she come to the party?”
“She claimed she was going home to get some rest after the rehearsal dinner.” Janessa grimaced. “Besides, the last thing we need here is my mother. She would make us all sit around and give Marquita tips on being a good and proper wife and all the other bullshit she’s always talking.”
They went back out into the main room, and Tempest helped Janessa set up the game and get people organized into two teams.
“Okay,” Janessa began, pulling a card from the deck once they were all settled. “The category is Eighties Television. For two hundred points, the name of the character on The Jeffersons who played George and Louise’s son.”
Aunt Mabel jumped up off her chair. “Who is Lionel?”
“Correct,” Janessa said. “Next question, the name of—”
Aunt Mabel was still excited over the first question. “Lionel had the biggest, juiciest ass. Brotha looked like he was hung like a horse, too!”
Everyone busted out laughing, and bunches of high fives were passed about. Tempest decided to try some of the potato wine. It was apparent it was going to be a long-ass night.
“Aunt Mabel, can we move on now?” Janessa asked, rolling her eyes.
Aunt Mabel sat back down and started whispering to the woman beside her, probably still talking about Lionel’s ass.
“Ya’ll ready for the next question?” Janessa inquired of the rowdy group. They all yelled out yes, so she continued. “For six hundred points in the category Prison Movies. Name the movie that Leon Isaac Kennedy and his wife starred in.
”
Everyone yelled out “Penitentiary” in unison, and one woman asked, “What ever happened to those two anyway?”
A few people shrugged because they didn’t have a clue.
“Next question,” Janessa began. “Name the actor who won the Playa of the Year in the movie The Mack.”
Marquita beat everyone to the punch. “Who is Max Julien?”
“Correct, Marquita,” Janessa said, smiling at her. “Oops, sorry, that was for four hundred points, by the way, and the category was Pimp Movies.”
“Dang, were there that many pimp movies back in the day?” Chiquita asked.
“Hell, yeah!” Aunt Mabel exclaimed. “Pimping was a big profession years ago. These days, most women are packing heat and work the corners on their own.” She shut up when she realized all eyes were glued on her, though. She wasn’t quite ready to reveal her “other” profession.
Janessa was just about to get in her grill and ask her how she knew so damn much about it when the doorbell rang.
Saved by the mofo bell, Aunt Mabel thought to herself.
Janessa and Chiquita went upstairs to get the door. Tempest said a silent prayer to herself that things weren’t about to get more out of hand than they already were. When she spotted not one but two sets of muscular legs coming down the steps, she knew they were in for it.
Janessa proudly introduced them to the room. “This tall, muscular man over here with the sexy bedroom eyes and sleek, firm physique goes by the name of the Lone Banger.” She squeezed the muscles in the arm of an extremely tall, about six-foot-seven, dark-skin brotha who Tempest had to admit was fine. If she ran into him in a dark alley, she would tear his dick up.
Janessa moved over to the other dancer, who was considerably shorter, about five-foot-nine, but undeniably fine as well. He was light-skinned with hazel eyes and a body that seemed to exude sex out of every pore. “This here is Cum Daddy. Apparently he likes to go at it five or six times a night.”
“That’s just an appetizer, baby. Just an appetizer,” he said with a smile, flexing his muscles for everyone to get a better look. They both had on tank tops with “The Black Screw” silk-screened on them and skintight black pants.