Chapter 7

I walked into my apartment and damn near didn’t recognize the place. Gina had scented candles burning, slow jams playing on the stereo, the TV off, and li’l man was nowhere to be found. She’d cleaned every square inch of the place from top to bottom, and I could still smell the scents of bleach and Lysol lingering in the air - along with something else: my stomach turned flips when it got a whiff of fried chicken, baked macaroni and cheese, greens, candied yams, corn bread, and peach cobbler for dessert. Fuck everything else; it was time to grub.

I ate three big-ass plates before I finally had to stop myself; the shit was that good. I was starting to feel like a fat nigga. Gina could clown in the kitchen like nobody else. If she applied herself, that girl could have been a chef at one of those high-priced restaurants in the good part of town, but that was a big “if.” She liked kickin’ it too much to go to anybody’s school. I had tried to talk to her about it before, but she wasn’t trying to hear me. Later on, though, when I wanted to fuck - she heard a nigga loud and clear. I realized then that I couldn’t make her want better for herself. She was just fine with her life the way that it was, fucked all the way up.

After a meal like that, all ’d never really had a girlfriend before, I really didn’t know how to handle the situation. Should I give her her space? Or was I supposed to comfort her? Talking on the phone really wasn’t my thing. If I had something to say, I liked to say it in person.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

“Boss.” Gina stuck her head inside my bedroom door. “You wanna smoke this blunt with me?”

“That even a question?” I joked, then waved her in. “Where you get some green?”

“From Kel,” she revealed, once again using her sweet little cartoon voice - which wasn’t fooling anybody.

“You fuckin’ Kel now?”

She didn’t answer me, but her silence spoke volumes. All I could do was shake my head. Here she was living with me - a nigga with more green than anybody else on 21^st Street - and she was fucking a nigga like Kel for sacs. She didn’t know how to do shit, and unfortunately she couldn’t be taught. That was the difference between a chick like Gina and a chick like Jasmine: Gina was who she was, and that was all she was ever going to be; on the other hand, Jazz was who she was to - but she wanted more. I could work with a chick like that.

Gina came over and sat down next to me on my bed. I watched her split the blunt, dump the insides out in the trash can, then replace them with the weed she’d gave up her body for. A part of me felt like I shouldn’t even smoke it with her; I felt guilty, like I was the nigga taking pussy for weed. That wasn’t my type of hustle. I never paid for water, and I never paid for pussy. It had a lot to do with my mother being a prostitute, but it also had a lot to do with how pitiful the shit was. Niggas who bargained for pussy were weak. I might have still been a teenager living in an apartment that was paid for with drug money, but I wasn’t weak. Life never even offered me that option.

“Damn this some good shit,” Gina announced, having only hit the blunt twice and already half-blowed. “I felt so good, and so...so...so...you want a beer?” She lost her train of thought.

“Yeah, Gina.” I cracked the fuck up laughing. “You always do that shit when we get blowed.”

I took the blunt from her crazy ass and hit it hard. She was right: the shit was some fire. I made a mental note to get at that nigga Kel and find out who he got his work from.

“Boss.” Gina stopped in the doorway and turned back around to face me. “I wanna make you happy.”

My mind didn’t even have to wonder; I knew exactly what she meant. My eyes were chinky from the green, but they still worked. I watched her hips sway while she walked to me. She moved extra slow on purpose; it was like the opening scene of a good porno. Once she reached me, she fell down to her knees in front of me like I was king of the free world. I knew it was about to be fire.

“I’m ‘bout to suck yo dick like it ain’t never been sucked before,” Gina bragged on her head and unbuckled my belt while looking me dead in the eyes.

Once she pulled my dick out, it was all over. She sucked and slobbed on my knob like it was the last one left on earth. Her mouth was so warm, I could have built a home in that muthafucka. When she moved her tongue around the head in a circular motion the exact same way her babydaddy had taught her to - any problems I had with that nigga flew right out the window. The girl was bad. For fifteen minutes, she worked me over, controlling me with nothing but her tongue. I couldn’t even front. By the time I grabbed a handful of her hair and exploded in her mouth, I was done for. After that fabulous head, I felt I owed it to her to break her off, so I dicked her down one good time, then smoked another blunt as she slept like a baby on the other side of my bed. That shit wasn’t supposed to happen. I cared about Gina, but only as a friend - and I knew if she continued to stay with me, she was going to end up gettin’ hurt.