Excerpt of Real Wifeys: Get Money. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter Two
Two Months Later
I felt like a celebrity my damn self as I walked inside Club Infinity in New York with my cousin Eve and our friend Michel right behind me. The three of us were looking smelling and feeling good. Eve and Michel were my friends and my distractions when Make$ was away. And most nights that we went out we headed straight for Club Infinity one of the hottest spots on the East Coast. Celebs rolled through like nothing. The biggest names hosted parties.
The line was damn near around the corner but when we walked straight up to the door it was my on my own steam and not my cousin, Mali, working security like the first time I brought Missy and Goldie there. Being the wifey of Make$ had its privileges and we were led straight to a VIP booth upstairs with the neon lights flashing against our bodies.
Once we was set up with drinks, we settled back against the leather booth circling the area. It was hard not to have a ball at Club Infinity. I picked up the flute of champagne Michel handed me before I stood up on my spiked peep toe platforms and walked over to the glass wall surrounding our VIP area. I moved my hips to the bass driven music as I looked down at the crowd below us. Nothing but a good time. A damn good time.
I wished Make$ was there with me and not in Miami doing yet another show. He hadn’t lied, the amount of shows he did was increasing. His summer was fully booked and I overheard him and his manager saying how adding Goldie and the girls to the shows was the reason. I forced myself not to think about the show they were putting on. I never been to one of the shows and I made sure not to watch any videos of the shows on the internet. I had enough of my own tits and ass to see.
I knew how some of the bitches working with Goldie rolled. Coko and Ming was two freaky lesbo bitches who stayed fucked up and fucking–especially for some money. Goldie didn’t know about they side-hustle but I did. They used to laugh about double-teaming some dude in bed and doing whatever it took to make him hit high notes like a woman.
I hated that I pictured them and Make$ fucking.
I felt anger and jealousy eat me up inside at the thought of that bullshit. I quizzed Make$ all the time about his time on the road but what was he gonna say, “Yeah, I smash on the regular out on tour?“ Please. It was bad enough when I had to worry about groupies and shit, but now my man took pussy with him on the road. He had plenty of money to burn and that was right up Coko and Ming’s freaky alley. And to top all that drama? I hated that Goldie and them got to see my man perform. She got to travel with him and be up on the stage with him in those bright lights.
Me? My ass been ordered to stay behind. Stay home. Hold him down while he worked and have the pussy ready when he got home to play.
I stayed on Make$’s ass to catch him slipping on me with some other bitch. And I did whatever I had to. Snooping. Sniffing. Questioning. Fucking and sucking. Whatever I thought it took to not feel that crazy panic at the thought of him fucking around on me. Falling in love with another bitch. Leaving me.
I closed my eyes and took a deep swallow of the champagne.
My only consolation? Goldie was my eyes and ears on that motherfucka. So far so good.
“Where ya man at now, Luscious?”
I looked over at my cousin, Eve, as she walked up to stand beside me looking tall and thin and cute with her short jet black pixie cut. Her pink strapless dress was short and her gold heels were high.
“Miami,” I told her, leaning over to say it into her ear over the blaring music.
She raised a brow in question. “Ain’t no way I could have my man touring and whoring while I sit at home. Fuck that shit.”
I gave her a wink and a smile that everything was cool. Nothing but a motherfucking lie.
Eve was my cousin on my mother’s side but she wasn’t the type of chick to share your business with. It wasn’t that she didn’t have my back she just was immature as hell. We was the same age physically but definitely not mentally. Cool as we were the chick couldn’t hold water and so I fed her with a long spoon and kept her from stirring too deep in my shit with her Maury-like dramatics. She was cool to party with but a definite no-go on anything serious.
Humph. Eve always had some bum-beat niggas around her. She didn’t believe in boyfriends and kept plenty of “friends”. I’ve never dipped and told her what to do with her life–even when she caught one of her “friends” sucking a dude’s dick.
Because I didn’t tell her what to do with her heart and pussy…she wasn’t going to tell me what to do with mine.
Michel stepped up on the other side of me in a black sequin romper and smelling heavily of some flowery perfume that I know was sprayed everywhere. Wide-set eyes decorated with a smoky eye that any tanned Jersey shore chick would die for were locked on topless dancers doing sultry acrobatics from metal poles suspended from the ceilings.
“Those fake titties defying gravity like a motherfucker,” I said, cutting my eyes up to Michel who towered over my five foot seven inch fame with damn near four more inches.
“Yes, honey, and the show is even making me want to let my dick swing,” he said, his voice soft and effeminate–but Michel aka Michael was all man. He took drag to a whole ‘nother level. We been friends since I moved into my first apartment and he was the only person I let do my hair and make-up. Bootleg unlicensed stylist or not Michel was self-taught and the shit…and he knew it.
We all laughed as he squatted his long and shapely legs as if his dick would miraculous slip from the tape securing it in the crack of his ass and make a shadow on the floor. Except his family and his lovers, we were the only ones who knew he wasn’t one hundred percent woman. He tucked his dick. That his business.
Michel was the perfect tranny for those brothas wanting to enjoy the tricks and treats of a man but wanted his lover deep undercover as a woman. Michel would’ve stumped the whole Maury audience on his Man or Woman shows. And the bitch had a gaydar that was out of the world.
He already assured me that Make$ was straight. Yes, I asked.
Michel was also good for a teaching a bitch how to suck a dick proper. Fuck that. Who knew a dick better than a man?
Thanks to him and the afternoon we spent practicing with a dildo, I could make a nigga nut in a minute or less–one of the reasons I had Make$ head gone from my brain game that first night. Swallow it. Gargle it! Ow!
“Yo, Luscious, ain’t that your mother-in-law?” Eve asked pointing over the rail towards the bar.
I looked down where she pointed and talk about being disappointed. I felt that shit all in my guts. Seeing Peaches in her five shades of red fucked my night up. Seeing the bartender sit a bottle of Patron in front of her really wrecked my shit. One, Peaches couldn’t handle her liquor and two, I knew that shit went right on Make$’s tab… and the night was still early.
“Dayuuum. I see that bitch more than I see my own parents,” I said, drawing it our as I stomped my foot. No, I didn’t give a damn how childish that was.
Michel and Eve laughed at the expression on my face.
Wasn’t a damn thing funny about a future mother-n-law who was just fifteen years older than me and twenty year immature.
I just thank God Peaches and her crew didn’t spot me in the club because she would’ve lamped in VIP with us all night and invited them pigeons flocking behind her. Nothing.
“I guess the chick with her think she Nicki Minaj with that ratty ass pink and blonde hairdo?” Eve asked.
Michel’s brow lifted. “Got that quick weave looking like a lost weave,” he said, lifting a hand to smooth his own shoulder length auburn lacefront wig.
I couldn’t do or say shit but laugh.
Deciding to ignore Peaches, I turned and grabbed the bottle from the bucket of ice to refill our glasses. And we had a ball…especially when Moment for Life came on. It dropped last year but that was my theme song in my head.
“I wish that I could have this moment for life…,“ we sang together, dancing around the VIP area.
On my mind, as I closed my eyes, pressed one hand to my chest and raised the other to the ceiling, I thought about making it through my struggles…
My parents cutting me off when I dropped out of college…
Stripping to survive and pay my bills…
Not stripping good enough to get off that dead ass day shift…
Struggling to afford to pay the rent on my shitty apartment…
Eating Oodles of Noodles and Dollar Store can goods damn near three times a day…every motherfucking day…
Wearing the same jeans three times a week with different cheap ass shirts because I put paying my bills before clothes shopping…
All the faces I done shook my ass in…all the sweaty hands on my body…all the funky breath in my face, and all the laps I grinded on…
The chance we took on our lives and our safety stripping in Goldie’s apartment right up until the night we were robbed at gunpoint…
But all of that was behind me. I made it.
“I wish that I could have this moment for life…”
Now, in this moment of time in my life things were so different…so much better…not everything but most things. I was happy for that. I said the lyrics harder and sang the chorus louder.
Things were a little better between my parents and me.
No more stripping.
A better apartment and a better lifestyle.
More clothes and shoes and things than I could ever dream about.
Money to burn…and with Make$ career bowing up even more that meant even more money to burn.
Being in love.
And then maybe marriage and babies. My own family.
Shit, my life was good. I was blessed. I was thankful for all the good and just praying for the end of the not so good.
“Oh shit, Luscious, look. Oh my God! Look!” Eve screamed gripping my arm like she had claws.
I opened my eyes and looked where Eve pointed just in time to see Peaches get backhanded across the face by a heavyset chick who looked like she was in less of a mood for Peaches’ bullshit than me.
“Let us prayer, Lord Jesus,” Michel said, shaking his head. “This ain’t looking good.”
I knew some dumb shit would pop off.
I watched over the rim of my glass as the big girl yoked Peaches little petite ass up by her throat and shook her like a rag doll. That’s gotta hurt.
Nicki Façade tried to jump on big girl’s back but just got shook off like a fly. Peaches’ other friend didn’t even fuck with it and disappeared into the crowd.
“She better sit her ass down before the last of them tracks get snatched,” Michel said.
The shit was funny but I knew he was serious as hell…and so was the big girl.
“Luscious,” Eve said, her tone all disapproving and shit.
“What?” I asked, making sure to sound extra blasé because I really didn’t give a fuck.
There was a crowd starting to circle the drama.
Big Girl drew back her arm and landed her fist dead in Peaches’ mouth. Blood squirted out like crazy while Peaches‘ little body was lifted off her feet as she fell back into the crowd. Everybody in the circle leaned back with nasty frowns on their faces.
I released a breath that was maxed out with aggravation. Like I said I knew something was gonna pop off and I should’ve hauled ass when Eve first pointed Peaches out to me. I pushed my flute into Eve’s hand and stepped out of my shoes to kick over at her too. I was down the stairs and through the crowd in no time. I had to make myself ignore my pretty feet sticking to God knows what on the tiled floor. Ugh!
Much as Peaches pissed me off, I couldn’t stand there and watch Make$‘s mama get her ass beat–no matter how much she probably deserved it. Or how badly I wished it was me delivering the smack down.
“Yo, Peaches you alright?” I asked, squatting down beside where the crowd let her land on the floor. My stomach turned at the blood running down her chin.
“What the fuck you think?” she snapped, before wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
I barely heard her over the music. Peaches’ scuffle had barely made a blip on the radar of Club Infinity. Except those in the immediate area, the party was still going strong.
Suddenly the neon lights flashing across Peaches’ face disappeared. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.
“I ain‘t scared of you, you Precious looking bitch,” Peaches yelled over my shoulder, bloody spit landing against my skin as I helped her to her feet.
“Oh you want some more?” a deep voice that was more masculine than Michel’s asked.
I felt like slapping Peaches my damn self. Instead I turned around and held my hands up. This big bitch does look like Precious for real though, I thought, before I took a deep breath and swung catching her off guard. Three quick punches. They landed between her eyes sending her head back.
“Damn right, Luscious,” Peaches yelled from behind me.
I straight blocked her the fuck out and dashed around that big bitch to kick the back of her leg hard as hell before she got her shit together. She dropped to her knees and I pushed against her backwith both my hands to knock her ass down the rest of the way.
A big bitch like that, about two hundred and seventy pounds? Shit, I had to fight dirty. Fuck the dumb shit.
Peaches started doing the dougie jut as the house lights came on and the music faded away. Somebody had dropped the dime to management about the fight…and my ass was glad. Shee-it!!
“Oh my God, she peed on herself,” someone hollered.
I looked down at the floor and sure enough a puddle of pee spread across the floor from between her thighs.
My mouth fell open in shock as she jumped up to her feet and squared up in her own pee with her dukes up like she was really ready to straight whup my ass. Oh shit! My eyes got big as shit and I wished like hell I had Goldie’s taser because I would shoot her one to her neck and drop her.
I could tell she was embarrassed by the fists to her dome and wetting her damn self.
I saw my damn studded shoe flying through the air. My heart ached as that motherfucker missed her and landed in the puddle. I looked up and Eve shrugged apologetically with just one shoe under her arm.
Oh hell no. Who wanted a pissy Louboutin?
She swung. I ducked.
I can’t even lie, I was glad when security came rushing over and got between us before she could really put in work on my ass.
I motioned to Michel and Eve that it was time to go as they “escorted” Precious, Peaches and me right through the crowd and out the door to the street. Those waiting in line to get in was glad for the show. Hella embarrassing.
I couldn’t do shit but shake my head as I stood in the street in my bare damn feet. I came out to party, have a little fun with my friends, and try not to fixate on what the fuck my man was doing. Getting lumped the fuck up because of some of his mama’s shit wasn’t in my plans at all.
“Damn, stripper Barbie I ain’t know you had it you,” Peaches said, lighting a blunt she pulled out her bra.
That’s because God has kept me from fucking you up, that’s why, I thought. “What was y’all fighting over?” I asked, glad to see Eve and Michel finally leave the club. I took my purse from her and reached inside for the little gel flats I usually put on after the club.
“That big bitch stepped on my toe and I told her Precious, Magilla Gorilla, Fat Albert, Al Roker and Biggie looking ass to get off my fucking toe!” Precious jerked her thumb over her shoulder at the girl walking up the street with her friends. “Shit, did I lie?”
When Eve tried to hand me my shoes–both of them–I eyed her like she was crazy. “You can throw them pissy motherfuckers in the trash,“ I said, dead serious.
Michel raked his slender fingers through her hair. “I know that’s right,” he agreed.
Eve looked back at me like I was crazy. “Fucking Louboutins? I’ll rock these pissy motherfuckers then.”
I shrugged. I wasn’t the type of chick to waste money but I didn’t want to drag nobody else’s piss and possible germs in Make$’s car or our apartment. Nothing.
“Oh heeeeeeeellll no,” Peaches said, stepping up next to Eve and pulling a plastic grocery bag from her purse. “Put them Loubies right in this bag, beanpole.”
I rolled my eyes, even as I wondered who in they right mind carried grocery bags balled up in they pocketbook. Why? Who? When? Why? How?
“You not gone waste my son’s money, Miss Chocoliscious,” she snapped. “And I’m gone tell Terrence that’s how you living. I told him he need to let me handle his money while he gone. You ain’t had job the first since you fell off the stripper pole and you just wasting money like you Keyshia Cole, Mary J. Blige or some shit. Fuck you and fuck what you thinking baby boo. You wait ‘til I talk to him.”
“Girl, you right, Peaches,” Nikki Facade cosigned, digging under her loose tracks to scratch her scalp.
Eve and Michel and I shared a long look. I knew they had to be thinking what I was thinking. I just fought a bitch for her ass and she flipped the script on me in a heartbeat.
I wasn’t worrying about fucking up my cash flow. Peaches was on a strict allowance outside of the house he brought her, and there was no way he was trusting her crazy ass with his money. Hell, I barely had a lot of access to it.
Still that bitch was dirty. I should’ve left her laid the fuck out on the floor but hindsight is always clearer.
Dumb bitch.
# # #
# # #
Since Make$ was out of town, Michel and Eve spent the night with me. A couple of bottles of Moscato and retelling about our club escapade kept my mind occupied but as soon as I set them up in the guest room and made my way to our master suite I felt all my loneliness again. That shit was starting to fit me like a second skin.
Sometimes it felt like it was suffocating me.
Most bitches would spend his money, enjoy his whip, lamp in the nice crib and find a jump-off for a little phone conversation and sexual stimulation on her terms. But no other nigga did it for me. I didn’t want nobody but Make$. A couple of his friends–like his childhood friend and fellow rapper Tek-9, had even tried me on the sneak tip but I played like I couldn’t read between the lines. Besides I couldn’t even picture myself chilling with–and definitely not sexing–another dude.
My mama always taught me that a woman can’t do the shit a man do. Our bodies are built different and trying to handle two or three dicks in steady rotation would fuck up a woman’s reputation and her pussy walls.
I picked up my cell phone from the bed, hating myself for checking to see if the ringer was off and I missed his call or text. I felt the disappointment before I even confirmed that there wasn’t shit wrong with my phone but there was a lot wrong with my relationship–at least when he was on the road. When he was home we were straight.
We spent a lot of time together. Whenever he had an event I was right there on the red carpet with him chinning and grinning. Award shows. Premieres. Vacations. Shopping sprees. But also plenty of romantic surprises and hearing “I love you”. That ninja was straight on point…until he got out of my eyesight.
I called his phone and it went straight to voicemail. I didn’t bother with leaving a message. He would eventually call me back and have his excuse ready. I’ve heard them all:
I turned the ringer down by mistake.
I couldn’t hear the ringer over the loud music.
I was sleeping. I didn’t hear it.
You know I don’t like to be interrupted when I’m in the studio.
I text you…didn’t you get it?
I sat up in bed and reached for the pack of Newports I kept in the top drawer of my nightstand. Visions of him eating the pussy of some random bitch ate me up inside as I leaned back against the leather padded headboard and lit the cigarette. I only smoked when I was stressed the fuck out.
I dialed Goldie’s cell phone. I hated to call her this late but my desire to talk to Make$ outweighed any doubts or concerns I had.
My heart was racing as I listened to Goldie’s phone ring in my ear.
“Whaddup, Luscious?”
I exhaled a stream of smoke, filling the air with the smell of Newports. “I hate to call you so late but I been calling my so-called man’s phone and that motherfucka ain’t answering,” I said, hating how hard my heart was pumping. Hating it even more how desperate I felt.
“After the show, I left him and his crew at the venue. Maybe he’s in his suite wasted. They was drinkin’ and smoking’ like crazy.”
I tucked my phone between my ear and shoulder as I tapped the ashes into the palm of my hand. “Would you go check his room for me? I don’t know why he ain’t let me go with him.”
The line stayed quiet and that made me go all stiff and shit. I frowned. “Yo, Goldie, go check and see if he in his room…motherfuckin’ alone,” I said, climbing out of bed to dump my ashes into the commode in our adjoining all white master bath.
I dumped the cigarette too, the taste of it making me nauseous. The embers went out with a hiss. I didn’t even inhale.
“Luscious, I’m in my bed. Just keep trying his phone.”
I paused on my way back to the bed and looked down at my phone like “You ain’t that tired”. I would have hopped up out of bed and did a bed check on her man if she asked me. Who cared if it was two a.m? “I tried the other girls but they at some club,” I told her. Meaning? There’s no one to do it but you, Goldie, so stop playing.
“If I see him before we fly out I’ll tell him you was looking for him. A’ight then. Night.”
Click.
It wasn’t Goldie’s responsibility to keep up with my man, but damn. The let down and the hang up. That shit felt like “Bitch, fuck you.”
Bzzz.
My phone vibrated in my hand and Make$’s face filled the screen. My heart pounded. “Hey baby,” I said, feeling the pleasure in my heart that he called even as my doubts fucked with my head.
“We just left the after party. I wanted to call you before I went to bed. Tired as fuck, you know. This touring kicking my ass but I gotta hustle until I sign that new deal with a big advance you now?”
I nodded but to keep it one hundred I really didn’t know. Make$ made a good enough living and we live well but nothing over the top. He had more than enough to slow the fuck up some. “I know,” I lied, focusing on hearing any noises in his background to peep if what he told me was the truth.
I heard the television and I relaxed a little bit. I pictured him sitting on the edge of the bed, no shirt, just boxers, jewelry still on.
Make$ yawned. “I know I’m away a lot but when I get back next week we’re going on a trip. Wherever you want,” he promised.
Now this the shit. Make$’s word was good like money. I knew that all I had to do was point to a spot on the map and we would be there just like he said. I knew we would go shopping for the trip and we would spend the entire time together. He would focus on us and make it known that what we had–what we was building–was important.
It was like there was two of him, Terrence the boyfriend who was so completely on point when we were together and Make$ the public persona on the road. But I was no secret in the industry, I was on his arms at parties, premieres and red carpet events. He never denied me in interviews.
As soon as he went on tour his slick ass started acting shady.
“Hey, Luscious, I love your chocolate ass, a’ight,” he said, his voice deep and rough. “That’s on some real shit. I know you miss me. I mss you too but I gotta make this money. You know more than anybody the load I’m carrying on my shoulders. The people relying on me. Yo, the only thing I know for sure is you love me and I know you got my back. Ya heard me?”
I nodded as I licked my lips. “I love you too baby,” I reassured him.
“I’m tired. I’ll call you when I get up a’ight?”
I nodded again and then remembered he couldn’t see me. “A’ight.”
The call disconnected and I was left in the middle of the battle of Terrence vs. Make$.
That two-sided shit of his was a complete mind fuck.
