Skinny smacked her hand down on the obtrusive device ringing by her head. Once her fingers grasped it, she slowly flipped it open and pulled it up to her ear without even bothering to look at the caller ID. Expecting it to be Richard, she answered, “Hey baby.” But she then realized that she hadn’t heard the operators voice asking her to accept a collect call.
“Um…hello? Is this Skinny?” a female voice asked on the other end of the line.
Sitting up in bed, intrigued by the voice, Skinny answered, “Yeah, this is me. Who this?”
“Yo’ boy Rich Kid told me told me that you wanted me to call you,” answered Ms. Jackson.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Skinny said. ”Now I know who this is,” smiling. “So what’s good with you?”
“What you mean by that?”
“What I mean is,” Skinny lowered her voice to a seductive purr. “I want you to bite me and I’ll return the favor.”
Intrigued by Skinny’s proposition but also shocked by her forwardness, Ms. Jackson fought the urge to hang up the phone. “I don’t know.” She paused for a moment. “I ain’t never done nothing like that before.”
Skinny knew it was time to go in for the kill. If she was still on the phone, she was interested. Nervous, but interested. “I tell you what, you give me the chance to get you right and I put my money up that you’ll see it my way.”
“I don’t know,” Ms. Jackson replied. “I don’t want to be gay.” The last word left a bad taste in her mouth. Yet, despite her inhibitions and internal protest, she couldn’t deny the moistening between her legs.
Skinny read behind the rejection and laid out the bait. “I got one question for you. I want you. I want you to be real, so don’t lie, a’ight?”
“What’s that?”
“I want you to tell me if your pussy wet just by talking to me,” Skinny asked.
Ms. Jackson felt the heat rising from between her legs all the way up to her cheeks now. Unsure of whether or not the flushed feeling was from embarrassment or desire, she answered hesitantly, “Well…”
“Just tell the truth. If you say no, I’ll let you go, no hard feelings,” Skinny said, cutting Ms. Jackson off.
“I’m gone tell you,” Ms. Jackson answered, but she still hesitated a moment before giving her answer. “Yes, I got a flood going through my panties.” The last part of her response quickly spilled out of her mouth. She felt like a high school girl getting ready to have sex her first time. Suddenly realizing that she hadn’t heard a response from Skinny, she asked nervously, “I said it. Now what?”
“Now we meet,” Skinny answered plainly. “It ain’t got to go down the first time we meet though.” Already knowing that Ms. Jackson was probably a little on edge, Skinny wanted to put her at ease a little. “We can get to know each other,” she added.
“You mean, like a date?” Ms. Jackson sounded uncertain, whether it was of herself or of Skinny’s response, Skinny couldn’t tell for certain.
“Yeah,” Skinny answered, nodding her head as she spoke. “You can say that.”
Before she could even reason her response, Ms. Jackson blurted out, “When we gone meet?” With the words now out of her mouth, they felt right. In fact, the whole situation felt right, minus the growing pit of nervousness in her gut.
“What you gone be doing…?” A beeping sounded in Skinny’s ear, stopping her in mid-sentence. Pulling the phone away from her ear, she noticed it was E calling in on the other line. “Hold on,” she told Ms. Jackson. “That’s my brother on the other line. Let me see what he wants.” Clicking the call over, Skinny answered, “Wuz good, bro?”
“Ain’t too much. Just calling to see if you want to go to the club with us tonight,” E replied. Skinny could hear music thumping in the background.
“Yeah, I’ll go,” she replied, already standing in her closet trying to decide what to wear. “Where we going?”
“I don’t even know yet,” E laughed on the other end of the line.
“A’ight. Do that then. I got somebody on the other line waiting.” Suddenly, Skinny realized that tonight would be the perfect time to start Ms. Jackson’s breaking in process. “Matter fact, I’m gone bring her with me.”
“A’ight, a’ight,” E replied. “I’m gone let you get back to the other line. Stay up.”
Clicking back over to the other line, Skinny asked, “Ms. Lady, you still there?”
“Yes, I’m here.” Ms. Jackson realized that she was actually excited to hear Skinny’s voice again. That excitement bled through into her voice.
“You sound happy.”
“Well…maybe I am,” Ms. Jackson smiled on the other end of the line. “So when we gone meet?”
Hearing Ms. Jackson’s response, Skinny grinned. She rarely ever guessed wrong and Ms. Jackson was as curious as they came, but you always had to act fast with the “virgins.” Time gave way to logic and logic gave way to back-pedaling. Tonight would be the perfect time to meet up. “You got to work tomorrow?” Skinny asked.
“Wait…” Ms. Jackson suddenly became so nervous that she almost dropped her phone. “I thought you said we ain’t got to do it the first time.”
“It ain’t like that, lil’ mama,” Skinny soothed. “I was gone take you to the club with us tonight.”
Ms. Jackson’s pitch lifted in a defensive question. “And who is us? I told you I ain’t gay, so I ain’t hanging out with a clique.”
“It ain’t like that,” Skinny chuckled. “I’m gone go with Rich Kid’s lil’ brother and son and them.”
“Hold up.” Ms. Jackson suddenly realized that she knew very little about Richard and Skinny, but she knew that it was impossible for either of them to have a son old enough to go to a club. They weren’t much older than she was. She started to wonder what she was getting herself into. “What you mean Rich Kid’s son?”
Laughing in Ms. Jackson’s ear, Skinny replied, “Don’t think like that. It’s just a young nigga that he adopted from the streets.”
“A’ight, but I ain’t going to no teen club,” Ms. Jackson replied.
Skinny smiled to herself. “I’m glad you think like that. I just hope you ain’t got to work tomorrow, ‘cause you ain’t gone make it.”
“I don’t,” she replied, a little less nervous now that Skinny had explained everything. “I can be ready at ten. You got my number?”
“Yeah, I got your number,” Skinny answered. “But I still aint’ got your name.”
“Shakita, but everybody call me Kita.”
“A’ight Kita, I’ll see ya’ at ten.” Skinny enjoyed the way Kita’s name rolled off her tongue.
“Okay, bye,” Kita responded, ready to hang up so that she could start deciding what to wear.
“Oh, Kita?”
“Yeah?”
“Just so you know, it’s against the rules of our family to tell each other bye,” Skinny explained. “It’s see you later.”
“A’ight.” She wasn’t sure what it really mattered, but figured it must have been important if Skinny had thought it was worth explaining. “See you later then.”
“Yeah, see you later.”
***
Before pulling out of her driveway, Skinny searched for Kita’s number. Finding it, she pressed the dial button. It only took two rings for someone to answer. “Hello? May I speak with Kita?” Skinny asked the voice on the other end.
Kita giggled. “This me. Why you asked like that?”
“Cause I don’t know who you stay with,” Skinny answered, matter-of-factly.
“Oh. Well, I stay by myself.”
“Okay Miss I-stay-by-myself,” Skinny joked, putting the car into drive and pulling towards the front of her driveway. “You ready?”
Kita answered Skinny with a loud sigh. “No, ‘cause I don’t know where we’re going so I don’t know what to put on.”
“Just tell me what you got out,” Skinny replied, putting the car back in park.
Kita gave Skinny a run-down of the three outfits she’d pulled out earlier. Skinny immediately chose the Roca-Wear jean skirt set. “Where you want me to pick you up at?” Skinny asked, ready to get on the road now that the outfit issue was out of the way.
Wriggling into her skirt, Kita asked, “Can I trust you to pick me up at my house?”
Skinny laughed. “Yeah, you can trust me. I ain’t no stalker. Believe that.”
“A’ight then, you know them apartments on Sixth Ave and Fifty-Eight Street?” Kita asked.
“Yeah, I know where that’s at,” Skinny said, pulling the car out of the driveway, turning right. “I’ll call you back when I get there.”
“Why you can’t talk to me on the way over here?” Kita pouted.
“Cause she talking to me right now,” interrupted a deep male voice.
Shocked to hear another voice on the line, Kita’s breath caught in her throat for a moment. “Who that is that, Skinny?” she asked, finally finding her voice again.
“That my boy Rich Kid,” Skinny laughed. “Who else you think that is?
“Baby girl ain’t doing nothing without my say, Ms. Jackson,” Richard said, making things clear, right from the start.
Kita’s eyes bounced around her apartment as if she were looking for someone listening. “Boy!” she hissed loudly, cupping her hand around the phone receiver. “You better stop saying my name on that phone! You know they be recording on them jail house phones.”
“Well, hang up then so I can get done talking to my girl,” Richard chuckled. He understood that being a correction officer was her job, but could she really get in trouble for talking the inmates or was she just being paranoid?
“A’ight. See you later,” Kita replied before flipping her cell phone shut.
After hearing the other line click, Richard asked, “Baby girl, she hung the phone up?”
“Yeah,” Skinny answered, pulling onto the I-95S on-ramp. “I hope she bad like you say she is, ‘cause I want them niggas to go crazy over her.”
Smiling to himself, Richard answered, “She is baby girl. You’ll see.”
Skinny and Richard talked nearly all the way to Kita’s apartment building. As she pulled up to the light just before the last turn, the operator came on to notify them that they had one minute left on their phone call.
“Baby girl, talk to you later,” Richard said, a hint of sadness in his voice. “Y’all have a good time.”
“A’ight baby.” She steered the Charger into the parking lot of Kita’s apartment. “I love you more than you know. Talk to you later.” After pushing the end button, a loud sigh escaped Skinny’s lips. She knew the reason for Richard’s sad tone. She knew because it was the same reason she was sad. Things just didn’t feel the same without him there. She missed him so much.
After taking a minute to regain her composure, Skinny opened her phone again and called Kita. “You got here fast!” Kita replied.
“Well, I was gone go get my brother first, but you was right here on my way to the house,” Skinny answered. Through her rearview mirror, she watched the metal gate that, as far as Skinny could tell, led to the inner portion of the yellow and red apartment complex. She then turned and scanned the parking lot. She didn’t see anyone wearing the agreed upon outfit, so she assumed that Kita must still be inside.
Kita leaned against one of the apartment complex’s inner walls, just behind the red metal gate. Encompassed by the shadows of the inner portion of her complex, she knew Skinny couldn’t see her. “Well, what you driving? I don’t want to be looking crazy coming out the lobby.”
“I’m in the red Daytona Charger,” Skinny answered, finally seeing someone come through the gates – someone that she hoped was Kita.
“I see you. I’m coming.” Kita flipped her phone shut and headed straight towards the Charger.
Skinny watched every sexy step Kita took. Her Coke bottle figure swayed gently left to right as she walked. Not a man alive (or woman in Skinny’s case) could avoid lusting after that. Damn! If ‘bad bitch’ were in the dictionary, her picture would be next to it. She prolly robbed ten bad ass bitches for those looks!
Skinny bit the inside of her cheek a moment to conceal the grin that was trying to blow her cool and casual approach. “Wuz good, Kita. I see you came looking your best.”
“I see you look good to,” Kita replied, giving Skinny a quick look-over.
Smiling slyly, Skinny put the car into drive. “We gone slide by bro them house to see where we going first. Then we out.”
“If they done been through the jail, I hope they don’t remember me,” Kita said nervously, looking out the passenger side window.
“Don’t worry ‘bout that,” Skinny replied, “If they do, they ain’t gone say shit.”If they do, they gone get some what John got.