From the Streets to the Sheets (23 page)

“Hey, gurrrrrrrrrrrl!” It was this bitch named Nakisha. She knew me and Cami from Willowbrook. I could tell she was shocked to see me holdin’ hands with Dushawn. Life had not been kind to her. She was fat as fuck, with a kangaroo pouch in the front and two grocery bags of ass in the back.

“Camille never told me you and her brother was kickin’ it.”

“Did I miss something? When did you and Cami start kickin’ it? We talk er’ night and she never mentioned
yo
ass.” I shut that shit straight down, but I knew I’d have to talk to Cami right away. Dushawn never said a word, but he never let go of my hand either.

A little further down, somebody was fryin’ the hell out of some chicken. It was smellin’ up the whole block. TVs were flickering through every other window.

Dushawn was quiet and I was pretty quiet my damn self. My pussy was still clenching and throbbin’ from being broke off proper. I thought about Camille. I wondered how she’d act when I told her about me and Dushawn. She used to haaate the bitches that tried to get to Dushawn by tryin’ to strike up a fake-ass friendship with her. I knew I had to tell her before Nakisha blurted it out just to see the look on her face. You know how foul bitches do it.

                  •                  •                  •

When we got to our cars, Dushawn gave me one last strong hug and kiss I’ll remember ’til I die.

I blurted, “You think Camille’s gonna hate my ass?”

He looked at me like I had sprouted another head and said, “Naw. I’ll talk to her. She used to tell me all the time how cool you was. She told me I needed to dump them skank-ass hoes and get wit a girl that really cared about me. She knew that meant you, La La.”

We hugged and kissed again. It wasn’t the XXX hug we had shared in the old factory but I could feel it was real. When I tried to let go, he tightened his hold and gave me a long deep kiss that reached down to my seriously satisfied pussy. I didn’t want it to end.

I said, “I got one question.”

He said, “Ask.”

“When the shit went down about my diary. Did your mama talk to you first?”

“Yeah.”

“Didn’t you tell her we wasn’t doin’ nothin’?”

“Yeah.”

“She didn’t believe you, or what?”

“Prolly not, ’cause she had caught me with my draws around my ankles more than a few times,” he laughed.

“Come on, Dushawn. I know you had to tell her some’m else for her to be that mad. What’d you tell her?”

“I’ll tell you if you promise to see me again,” he teased.

“Promise!”

He pulled me closer and whispered, “The truth—I told her you was wifey material and that when I was ready to settle down, you was definitely on my list.”

All I could say was, “Mmph! Mmph! Mmph!”

                  •                  •                  •

The next year was the best and worst in my life. Me and Cami got tighter than ever. Her mama still hated my ass but bein’ that we was grown-ass bitches on our own, it wasn’t nuthin’ she could really do. I finished cosmetology school and got my license. Camille had a baby with Tarik Jackson and moved to North Long Beach. We still talked every day, but her baby girl slowed her way down. I was by myself. Breast cancer had taken my momma after I graduated from high school. We barely had a chance to say good-bye. One minute she was complaining of a little bump under her titty, and a few months later she was gone. I was lonelier than I’d ever been in my life. I hadn’t heard shit from Dushawn since the day we kicked a hole in it. Camille told me that he moved up north to go to school. I didn’t hold it against him too much. He had already told me what the deal was, besides, I had all kinds a men steppin’ my way, if I wanted them. I looked good, I smelled good, I dressed good, and I had my own thang poppin’ at my hair and nail shop called Tight
.

                  •                  •                  •

I thought about Dushawn a lot, but I went on with my life. I ran across a thirty-two-year-old guy named Mike Gray who had done a dime in San Quintin but came out doin’ the damn thang. He got much gold from fixin’ up old houses and sellin’ ’em quick. He had bank and didn’t mind sendin’ a sista to the mall with his credit card. He was the bomb in bed, but I still thought about Dushawn every time we hit it.

We kicked it for almost a year but Mike told me he could tell I was
somewhere else,
and I was glad Cami was there for me when me and Mike crashed. A few weeks later she told me that Dushawn had asked ’bout me. My eyes lit up like Creshaw Blvd. after the Rodney King trial.

“Dushawn told me to tell you that he’s coming home.” She handed me a slip of paper with his phone number on it. Then she said, “He said he’ll call you if you don’t call him.” I didn’t want to get my hopes up, and I was still salty about the way his ass dropped the fuck off. Sayin’ that to say this—if I called Dushawn first, Kanye West is white.

One day about a week later, I got home late from work and noticed the blue light pulsing on my answering machine. I figured it was some bitch needin’ to have her head hooked up for some emergency club night or something. But when I heard Dushawn’s voice coming outta the phone my knees got weak. He asked me to meet him in Santa Barbara for the weekend—so we could catch up. He left the address, directions, and room number to the Seaside Suites.

He said, “I can’t wait to see you and hold you, Nailah.”

I flew into a blind rage for a few minutes. I started slinging things and cussin’ until I lost steam. After I cleaned everything in my house, I flopped down in my overstuffed chair and dozed off. I had a triple-X dream of me and Dushawn, fucking like we was the last two muthafuckas on earth. When I opened my eyes I started digging through my sexiest shit to pack for my trip. I called Breanne to ask if she could take all my clients. She said yeah.

That Friday, I rode up Pacific Coast Highway with the top down on my electric blue 350 Z. I decided that if Dushawn could forgive me for movin’ on, I could forgive him for droppin’ off. What’s wrong with a good fuck between friends?

The sun felt good on my bare, dark copper skin. I wore a “barely there” silver kidskin bikini with matching leg-strap heels and a white suede baseball cap that said player 69 when I went to meet him. No point in beatin’ around the bush when I wanted him to beat the bush up. My trainin’ days were long gone.

I saw Dushawn from a mile down on the highway. His mouth dropped and his dick pointed to the left like a traffic cop when I hopped out my ride. The eighteen months had been good to me. I was thicker and curvier than ever. I had figured plenty of things out about men and sex and seduction. What I hadn’t read, I’d learned from experience. When my heels hit the asphalt, they clicked with absolute confidence. One look and Dushawn knew I wasn’t the nervous little girl he had sucked and fucked out of her mind in the factory.

When we got inside the room he must have said, “Damn. . .” ten times in a row. He asked, “You wanna get some’m to eat?”

I said, “Sho! . . . after we fuck!”

He pulled the drapes open wide and sat me in a cushioned chair facing the ocean. He ran both hands through my braids and across my scalp and gave me a kiss that made me know how much I had been missed. I bent the dial when I slapped it back on him. He praised my new skillz, “You’ve learned a few things, huh, La La?”

“I sure have. Thanks for that bomb first lesson, Dushawn.” He slowly untied each strap on my bikini until it fell away from my body, revealing all.

He asked, “This one?” as he dove tongue first into my juicy cunt, joined by his big thick fingers. This time he reached deeply and twisted his fingers in and out of me while he sucked and tongued my clit with a hot new rhythm. He picked me up and sat me on top of the dark wood dresser on the other side of the room. I dug my heels lightly into his shoulders and gapped my thighs wide for him. Dushawn took slow deep fuckin’ to the Olympic Gold level. Just when he was starting to lose it, he put me back in the chair and sucked my pussy like a pro. I was more than ready to come, and when I did I shuddered and let loose an animal-like grunt as Dushawn tongued me back down to earth.

“Your turn, Mr. Lambert.”

I twirled the head of his slippery dick in my mouth and popped it from side to side until he called out my name. I stroked his dick from the tip to the back of his thick shaft— soft and slow, and then wild, fast, and hard. Suddenly I stopped and made him sit in the chair. I knelt in front of him and let him look out at the ocean. I sucked him into a wicked pulse and ran my fingers through his curly black hair. He was just about to pop, but he pulled away just in time and said, “Let’s fuck watchin’ the ocean together, La La.”

I asked, “How we gon’ do that?”

He moved me into the doorway of our spot and climbed on doggy-style. He started sliding his thick dick in and out of me from behind. My clit was on swole again. He reached up front and started whippin’ it from side to side, plunging deep as he could and every now and then he’d freeze . . . Mmph! Holdin’ it all the way in . . . filling me up. I wanted more. I told him to hol’ up and I went and unpacked my toys. I gave Dushawn the honor of inserting my li’l red devil tail ass plug for me. That and Big Black drove me outta my mind.

“Where you learn to freak like that?”

I said, “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but I haven’t asked you shit about where you been and who—oops! I mean, what you been doin’—now have I?” We laughed a little and then took turns fuckin’ the shit out of each other until the sun started to go down.

Later, we decided to get some’m to eat on the pier. It was still warm outside so I threw on a scandalous burgundy suede halter and low-riders set. I pulled my hair back into a ponytail and grabbed my nicest shades.

He held my hand while we walked. It felt good but I couldn’t help but think about how he had held it this way before, and then turned around and left without even sayin’ “Fuck you, bitch!”

Dushawn was reading my mind. “Don’tchu wanna know where I been and why I didn’t get in touch?”

I said, “Not really. I ain’t got no way of knowin’ if that shits for real. Let’s just do what we do best—fuck and forget about it.”

He laughed at how I point-blanked his ass.

“Anybody ever tell you how sexy you look when you mad?”

“Cut the bullshit and tell me what’s up, Dushawn.”

“’Member when I got popped at the park?”

“How could I forget? Yo ass like to died.”

“I found out who did it.”

There was a lot that coulda been said, but it didn’t need to be said. That changed everything. I thought back to when Dushawn left and who came up missin’ before that. That told me all I needed to know. The Lambert brothers didn’t really bang, but they hung and slung with guys that did. If somebody fucked with any of ’em, it wasn’t over until it was done. Dushawn was a Lambert.

After he spilled the details, he told me that he’d been chillin’ with his cousins in Sacramento. He said he had learned how to do electrical work from this O.G. named Jerry, and that he was ’bout to buy a house outside of Sacramento. That’s when the convo got serious. Dushawn asked what my plans were.

Truth be told, my plan was to come up to Santa Barbara, get freaked proper by my first good fuck, and then take my ass back to Compton. Things had swung serious though, and I knew Dushawn wasn’t just askin’ shit to be askin’.

I told him I needed to think about that.

“Take your time, baby. I got plenty a shit to keep me busy ’til you hit me back with your answer. I just need for you to know that I can’t ever come back to Compton. I did some serious dirt before I left.”

“You askin’ me to move up here?”

“That depends on whatchu got planned.”

I felt like my brain was ’bout to bust. Everything had flipped so fast.

I told him, “I need to come up here for a few weeks and take a look and see where I fit in. I can’t come up here blind, Dushawn. I gotta be able to take care of myself. I got a business to think about. I mean . . . every couple thinks they gon’ make it forever. Know what I mean?”

He said, “If I say forever, I mean forever. Splittin’ up ain’t a option. I want some kids. Don’t you want kids, La La?”

That shit blew me away. He was talkin’ marriage and family.

I asked him, “Where the ring, fool?” I was just jokin’ but he went to the bedroom and started diggin’ through his suitcase. When he came back, he hit the floor and grabbed my hand. What he slid on my finger was some’m that would make the ladies say, “Oooooh!” It was at least three carats and slangin’ fire all over the room.

There was a lotta shit I coulda said, but I kept it short and sweet. I said yes.

Me and Dushawn spent our last day together fuckin’ each other’s brains out. We talked about er’ything—friends, family, work, old times, and times ahead. I felt like I was dreamin’. We talked about his moms. I saw her from time to time in the streets, and nothing had changed between us. She turned away when she saw me, just so she didn’t have to speak.

Dushawn said, “Don’t worry about her. She’s down there and we’ll be up here.”

I said, “That sounds all good and shit right now, but how do you think she’ll feel when she knows we’re gettin’ married?”

He said, “She’ll get over it—or she won’t. My pops thinks she will.”

We had a good laugh about his dad dick-whuppin’ his mom into acceptin’ me as her daughter-in-law. We talked until we fell asleep in each other’s arms. We woke up to the sound of the ocean crashin’ on the shore. That last day we spent together, we got up before sunrise and walked out to the end of the pier. It was empty. We stood behind the little bait house and food stand and watched the seagulls fight over scraps. Dushawn was behind me with his big arms wrapped around me.

I wondered if we could beat the odds. Most people ain’t up to forever. Suddenly he pulled up my jacket and my mini skirt, and moved the crotch of my panties to the side. He slid up inside me and started workin’ me slow while we watched the tide crash against the pier. I thought,
Maybe it won’t last forever, but as long as he fucks me like this, it will.

Shit. I pushed back on that big dick and stopped worryin’ ’bout whether or not it would last. As my man squeezed my ass and made my juices run down my leg, I squeezed my pussy muscles and started worryin’ ’bout how to finish my business in Compton and get back to Dushawn as soon as possible.