“Well, you going. And you knew G’s rules. You knew you was supposed to have your ass home while we was gone. How you think G felt when we got off that plane and didn’t nobody know where you was? He was so mad he told Pacho to leave Moonie in Queens and let him find his own way home!”

“What Moonie got to do with me?”

“G left him in charge. He was supposed to have his people watching you, that’s what. He failed G, so he had to pay for it. Shit, G should have left me running things. I’da made sure you kept your ass right here where you belonged.”

Jimmy’s words cut through my pain. Not only didn’t I like the yang he was talking, he needed to get certain shit out of his head. Fast. “G didn’t leave you in charge of nothing,” I told him, “because you ain’t getting involved in nothing. I already told you. You have to graduate next June, then come September you need to have your ass up in a college just like Gino had his ass up in one.”

Jimmy leaned over me and spoke in a way I’d never heard before. In fact, a whole lot about him seemed to have changed after only five days alone with G. “Juicy-Mo. Get it right. I’m not going to college, and that’s word. I’m down with G now. He made me a lieutenant and I got a job to do.”

This wasn’t the time to argue with Jimmy. When shit settled down I would talk to G. If he loved Jimmy so much then he should want the same thing for him that he’d wanted for Gino. An education. I pushed past my brother, elbowing him roughly as I left the kitchen.

“Get outta my damn face, Jimmy, before I fuck you up. I might not be able to beat G, but I can damn sure beat you.”

G said we were leaving in two days and would stay gone for ten. I’d been real quiet all day cause my head was still banging like a drum. Jimmy had introduced me to Gino, then spent almost an hour talking him up like he was some kind of saint. It was Gino said this and Gino did that. It wasn’t long before I was sick of Gino-Gino-Bo-Bino and I didn’t even know him.

But Gino was G’s son, that much was for sure. Except for the curly hair, which Gino must have gotten from his Puerto Rican mother, they looked just alike. The same tall build, solid shoulders, dark skin, and pretty teeth. But even as tight as G kept his body Gino’s youth outshined his father, and of course he dressed hipper than G although his clothes were just as expensive.

For some reason G had put Gino in the guest room that was connected to our bedroom, and I couldn’t understand why. The other room down the hall was much bigger and had nicer stuff in it. A plasma screen television, a sitting area, it was laid. The room he put Gino in was the smallest in the apartment, and while it was still nice and had a good mattress on the bed, it wasn’t where I would have put my son if he came to stay with me.

G acted like he’d forgotten about the scene with Rita. Forgotten about how he’d tried to bust our heads open like watermelons. Since it was Sunday, all areas in the G-Spot except the cut room were shut down. I usually cooked a big Sunday dinner for the three of us, but tonight G had decided to order in Chinese food and even rented a bunch of movies for us to watch. It seemed like he was trying to be nice to me around his son, who hadn’t said more than a handful of words the whole day and spent most of his time talking on his cell phone or playing video games with Jimmy.

When I climbed out of the bathtub later on that night G was waiting for me. On any other Sunday night he’d jet over to the Spot before midnight so he could check on his powder, but tonight he was sitting up in the bed naked, the lamp shining from his nightstand, the white silk sheets tangled around his legs. I saw the way he was looking at me but I ignored him and did like I usually do. I rubbed myself all over with some scented lotion, then slipped into a pair of silk panties and a black lace teddy. I didn’t bother to do anything to my hair because I knew G would insist I get it blown out and stiff curled first thing in the morning.

I got in the bed and closed my eyes and heard a click when G turned off his lamp. I cursed inside when he reached for me and turned me over on my back. This was gonna be one dry fuck, and the only comfort was that I knew it wouldn’t last long. It never did.

Pinch, pinch on the right titty. Squeeze, poke on the left. Sex with G was so stale and predictable I wished I could just put the pillow over my head and go to sleep while he did his thing.

I kept my eyes closed as he moved on top of me.

“Moan, Juicy.”

For a second I was so stunned I couldn’t speak. I just knew I heard him wrong.

“Moan,” he said. “Make some damn noise up in here.”

Moan? I didn’t even know I was allowed to roll my hips during sex with G. A moan was likely to get my ass kicked. But I moaned. Moaned like a mother. I felt stupid as I did it, but considering the fact that he’d caught me hanging out for five days and all I got was clunked in the head with Rita, I moaned my ass off.

“Oh, yeah. Uh-uh-uh. Oooooh, baby.”

“Louder,” he said right in my ear as he rammed his dick up in my dry insides. “Much fuckin louder.”

G had a wild hair up his ass and I didn’t know how to take it. But I knew better than to disobey him in bed. I loved my asshole too much for that.

“OH GODDAMN, DADDY! EEEHH!! YOU MAKING ME FEEL SO GOOD!”

“Keep going, Juicy. Louder.”

If G wanted me to wake up the dead then they asses better be prepared to get up.

“OHSHITDADDY!! YOUTEARINGTHISSTUFFUPRIGHT! OHHHYESSSGIVEITTOMEBABYKEEPONGIVINGITTOMEGOOD!!!!!!!”

Didn’t no porn star have nothing on me, cause I performed like a pro for the whole two minutes G was fucking me. I don’t know when I realized that my fake moaning had become real. That G’s long dick was stroking me so nice I started purring like a cat, because for the last thirty seconds G had been giving it to me good. He slammed his dick up in me so hard and deep he touched my backbone and my whole body tried to go into shock. Damn! Negro should have been handling me like this all along! Now he was gonna have to bring it like this every single time! But thirty seconds still only lasted for thirty seconds. On his tenth stroke G almost cracked his spine getting his nut, and the moment he came he clamped his hand down over my mouth and smushed my face into the pillow. “Shut up, girl,” he muttered, and pulled his limp wet dick out of me. “Just shut the fuck up.”

So I did.

Chapter Thirteen

I got on that airplane mad as hell. Steam was rolling off me and I had enough fuel running through my blood to fly that bad boy all the way to Hawaii and back.

G had pulled some low-down shit.

I should have known he was scheming like a demon. He’d been too damn nice. Had let me off the hook too easily for staying out while he was gone. Now I knew why. I had just finished packing last night when I called Jimmy in my room to sit on my suitcase so I could zip it up.

“Your gear ready?” I asked him. “You got enough medication for the whole trip?”

He couldn’t even look me in my face. “I ain’t going.”

“What?” I got up off my knees. “What you mean you ain’t going?

Jimmy mumbled something under his breath and shrugged. “I ain’t going.”

I broke. “Uh-uh, Jimmy. Hell fuckin no. Ain’t no way in hell I’m leaving you here for no ten days while I go way across the world to some damn island. How the fuck you sound, you ain’t going?”

“How the fuck I said it, Juicy? I ain’t going. You got any beef, see G.”

And that’s exactly what I did, too.

“G!” I bust into the bathroom while he was sitting on the toilet. “What’s Jimmy talking about he ain’t coming with us in the morning?”

That nigger pissed me off. He looked at me for a long moment, then spun the toilet tissue on the holder and bunched a wad of it up in his hand. I was tapping my foot and smelling his shit as I waited for him to answer. He took his time wiping his black ass, inspecting the tissue, then tossing it behind him into the bowl.