Thong on Fire (22 page)

I sat up and shook my head, and that’s when the whole damn room got stupid. The smell of the eggs hit my stomach hard, and I threw up all over Free’s ancient coffee table.

“Damn,” he said, trying to stick the plate under my chin to catch what was coming out my mouth. Just the sight of those damn eggs made my skin crawl, and I pushed the plate away and heaved again.

“You’re sick, Saucy,” Free said, softly.

Tell me some shit I don’t know,
is what I woulda said if I could have.

He took me in the bathroom and stayed with me, holding me as I threw up water and yellow sludge and cried at the same time.

When I finally managed to stop Free put me in his bed and covered me up, then went in the bathroom to clean up my mess. The house was so small I could smell the bleach he was disinfecting with, and I stuck my head under the covers real quick so I didn’t throw up all in his bed.

Free came back in the room and took off his clothes. He got in the bed with me and just held me and rubbed my back. He was whispering sweet shit like, you gonna be all right baby, and don’t worry, Free is here. I drifted back off again and when I woke up I felt a little bit better.

I slept all day, and that night Free woke me up and told me to drink a cup of hot tea. It was nice and sweet and felt good to my stomach while I was drinking it, but minutes later I was bringing it back up again.

“Damn, baby,” Free said as he helped me into the bathroom. My legs were trembling and I felt so weak I couldn’t stand up by myself. I clung to him as he wrapped his strong arms around me and wiped my face and my mouth.

“I’m taking you to the doctor, Saucy,” Free said after my fourth bout of heaving. By now my lips were dry and I was feeling faint. Free had been cleaning up behind me all day and he was acting real concerned. As sick as I was, I liked it that he was focused on me and I was enjoying his attention. “You probably got the flu or something, but you need to let somebody check you out,” he insisted.

I didn’t wanna go see no doctors, but I was too sick to argue with him so when I woke up the next morning and I was still feeling sick, I let him put me in the car and we bounced. The hospital wasn’t that far, and when we got there Free took me straight to the emergency room.

This wasn’t New York City and I could damn sure tell. Instead of waiting five hours to see a doctor we waited less than two. They had already taken blood tests and made me pee in a plastic cup, and when the doctor came in to see me I was stretched out on the exam table and Free was standing over me, kissing my forehead and playing with my hair.

“Well, Ms. Robinson,” he said, pulling a stool out from under the desk and sitting down. “It looks like we’ve discovered the reason you’re feeling so badly.”

“Flu, right?” Free said, looking at me all proud like he had already made some grand diagnosis. “She’s got the flu, don’t she!”

“Oh,” the doctor said. He stood up and patted me on the arm. “There’s a flu going around all right, but Ms. Robinson doesn’t have it. She’s pregnant.”

I
don’t know who cried harder, Free or me.

I mean, I had the tears coming all out my eyes and running down my face. Free’s tears was in his heart, but I could still see them shits.

That nigga wasn’t half as shocked as I was. I had never been one of them women who got real heavy periods, but as far as I could remember I hadn’t missed a single one. I had told the doctor that and he said that wasn’t unusual. He told me and Free that some women continue to get their periods for nine months and end up shocked as shit when they sit on the toilet and a baby falls out.

“Has your appetite increased?” the doctor asked.

Free answered. “She barely eats. I ain’t never seen nobody eat as little as she does.”

“So you haven’t gained any weight?”

I looked at Free, and we both shook our heads. “If anything,” I told him, “I’ve probably lost some of my booty.”

“I want you to tell me the truth, Saucy,” Free said, squeezing my hands. We were back at his house standing in the kitchen. The doctor had estimated that I was about sixteen weeks pregnant. I had been kicking it with Free for just a little longer than that. “You been with anybody else? Could this be somebody else’s baby?”

I broke all the way down.

“
Nooooo!
” I wailed, like my heart had been stomped on. “How could you even ask me some shit like
thattttt
?” Snot and tears were flying off my face as I shook my head back and forth hysterically.

“I been with
you,
Free! Nobody else but you!”

“I ’on’t know, girl. You keep a lot of talk flying around—”

“I thought you said you was your own fuckin’ judge! You said you didn’t even
listen
to none of them stupid-ass rumors that go around!”

“Still—”

“I don’t want no fuckin’ baby, Free! I made sure you used a wrapper
every single time
!”

He stared at me for a second, then pulled me close to him, holding me tight.

“But one broke, baby,” he said quietly. “Don’t you remember? The plastic broke the first night we got together, yo.”

We stayed pressed together like that, rocking each other. I didn’t even think about Marshall or Quaison, or that other nigga I’d fucked the night I passed out drunk.

We spent the night holding each other and fucking slowly and quietly. Free’s hands were all over me, touching every part of me. He kissed my lips tenderly and sucked on my tongue. I screamed out loud when he pushed my knees back and slid down and buried his face between my legs and licked my slit deeply, sliding his tongue in and out of me, swirling it around my clit. I rubbed his head and arched my pussy up toward him, pulling his face down to meet my thrusts.

I came in Free’s mouth twice, and that seemed to turn him on even more. I wanted to give him some head, but I was scared to put his big dick in my mouth. Just the thought of anything near my throat made me think I was gonna start throwing up again. Free understood, and when he rolled me on top of him and gripped my ass, lowering me down on his throbbing dick, neither one of us bothered worrying about a rubber at that point.

When I say that was some of the best dick I’d ever had, I mean it. I felt it all in my soul.

“Oh, Free…I love you…” I whispered, sucking his nipple and tracing circles around it with my tongue. And the four words my boo whispered back to me were the best I had ever heard. It wasn’t like we was just straight-out fucking. Free was feeding me from the center of his self, and I was lapping that nourishment up like a starving cat. When it was over Free rolled me off him and kissed my stomach tenderly, then put his hand on its flatness and slept.

But I stayed awake for a real long time thinking about how I could play this shit to my advantage. I was in Free’s heart and loving it. I wasn’t lying when I said I didn’t want no baby, but maybe having a kid by Free wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. I couldn’t see me as nobody’s mother, but I knew Free would be the best damn father in the world.

The sun was coming up by the time I closed my eyes. I had thought real long and hard throughout the night, and I decided this wasn’t the worst thing that coulda happened to me. I was actually tired of running from nigga to nigga to get my sticky off. Free was a complete package in the sheets and out. I wasn’t lacking nothing in his bed, and now that I had him back on lock I could only see the sex getting even better.

The next afternoon Free drove me back to New York. After that bomb-ass pipe he had laid between my legs the night before and then breaking down and whispering how deep he felt for me, Free was real moody during the day like he wished none of it had happened. I kept quiet in the car because I figured he was mad at himself for saying the L word because it had probably been his dick talking and he didn’t really mean it. Well fuck him too! Neither did I! But I still needed his ass. I had two days left to stay in Marshall’s apartment and I had been selling his shit off so fast there was hardly any furniture left in the joint.

When Free pulled up outside the apartment I didn’t know how to be. He didn’t even put the car in park, he just sat there with his foot on the brake so I knew this was a drop-off and nothing else.

“See ya later,” I said. I was pissed but I wasn’t gonna let him see it. This motherfucker must not know! I hadn’t stayed up busting my brain all damn night for nothing. I was up crunching numbers and what-if-ing scenarios to death. Free mighta lost a whole lot with Ruthless, but it took cash to run an apartment as phat as the one he kept in Manhattan, so I knew he still had a decent amount of bank left. I was the one carrying his motherfuckin’ baby, not the other way around. He could act shitty if he wanted to, but eventually brothah was gonna hafta recognize!

Free almost clipped my ass in the door he pulled off so fast. He left me standing there on the curb, sucking down his fumes. I went upstairs and looked around Marshall’s half-empty apartment and sat down on a big beanbag. I had sold the living room furniture to a lady who lived on the third floor and the money I’d gotten for it might have to go toward renting yet another damn hotel room.

I got mad at Free just thinking about that shit. Here I coulda been sitting up lovely with Pretty Boy and whipping them Cambodian bitches’ asses while he paid my credit card bills, or hanging out with Grillz and getting my butt massaged, or riding around in a Escalade all night with that young, fine ass Quaison. But instead I was tossing my whole roll on Free, when that nigga didn’t even wanna act right.

I slept like an old fat man that night. Worried or not, Marshall’s bed was soft and plush, and if I had found somebody who wanted to buy it, it woulda already been gone. The next morning I was sick again, but I did what the doctor had recommended and ate a couple of crackers that I’d set out on my night table the night before.

I was sprawled out in bed when my cell phone rang. I looked at the caller ID, then let it ring two more times.

“Hello?”

“I been thinking,” Free said. His voice sounded real serious, but still real smooth. “About what you asked me a couple of weeks ago.”

We both knew what he was talking about, so there wasn’t no need for me to front.

“Okay.”

“And I think I’m ready for that now.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.”

“So what made you change your mind? The baby?”

“Yeah, that has a lot to do with it,” he admitted. “But I’m feeling you too, Saucy. Even when I don’t wanna be feeling you, you still there.”

I took a deep breath and let it out real slow. I was ’bout to have this nigga eating outta my hand now. But I kept myself in pocket.

“I got feelings for you too, Free. I admitted them to you last night. But I don’t wanna jump off into nothing with you just because we having a baby. Plenty of people have babies but don’t hook up. It don’t take no father being around to raise no child, you know.”

“It does to raise my damn child! I don’t care what them other niggas out there do with their seeds, but I’ma nourish mine! Ere’ day. You can believe that. I’ma get real personal with my tyke, Saucy. That’s what’s real, baby!”

My lips curled up in a smirky smile. Oh, I musta said the wrong damn thing. Shit. By the way he responded it was actually the right thing.

Free came to pick me up at about two that afternoon. He was right on time too because I’d just cursed Marshall out.

“Tomorrow is D-day, baby,” he’d hollered when I answered a call from him. “I hope you got your shit packed, sweetie ’cause I got fresh plans for the crib tomorrow night, and you ain’t included.”

“Fuck you, Marshall. You can take this mothefuckin’ roach trap and stick it up your shitty ass, nigga!”

“Ouch!” he said. “As pretty as you are nobody would ever believe the kinda slime that comes out your mouth, girl.” He laughed. “Or what kinda slime that goes in it, either. I’ma tell you, Saucy. If you ever fall off and need some quick cash, call me, baby. I know some niggas who would pay good money to get their joint waxed the way you work it. Hell, I could put your skank ass out on the stroll and make a quick fuckin’ million! Your top is just that good. You must be laying down some kinda ancient Chinese secret! I’ma miss you girl! I really am!”

I opened up on his ass Harlem style!

“Oh, you gonna miss something you blinky-dink mother-fuckah! That’s for real. Just wait until you get back to your funky-ass apartment. Ain’t gone be shit up in here you and the next bitch can use! Now kiss my black ass you limp-dicked, stuttering, butt-plugged, cheesy-balls, saggy-nuts, crooked-dicked, bad-breathed, crusty-eyed, shitty-drawers, waterbug-looking, can’t-eat-no-pussy motherfuckah!”

I snapped my cell phone closed so hard it clacked, and when Free rang the bell downstairs an hour later I was still sweating. I looked around Marshall’s apartment for the last time and felt real satisfied. Every dish in the joint was in the middle of the kitchen floor, smashed. I’d torn down all the drapes, unplugged the refrigerator, stopped up the toilet, overflowed the bathtub, and cut a big hole in his mattress. That motherfucker didn’t know who he was dealing with, but when he walked up in here with his next bitch he would figure it out real quick. I was feeling myself. Getting my confidence up. Saucy was getting her spice back again, and even a rich nigga like Marshall wasn’t no match for this.

“I’m coming down,” I pressed the intercom and called out to Free, then grabbed the handles on my two gigantic rolling suitcases that were full of clothes and other gifts Marshall and Pretty Boy and Grillz and Quaison and so many others had bought me. I walked outta that box and didn’t look back. Where I was going was definitely bigger, and so much better. Let Marshall try to come up in Free’s spot blowing me up. That rabbit-looking nigga would get stripped at the steps, and I was almost sure of that.

My first weeks with Free were the shit. We lived at the top of the world and I just couldn’t get enough of his pretty smile, his muscled-up black body, the way he handled me in the bed, and the juice he had in the streets. I loved it when Tone, Cuban, Herc, Bandie, and all the rest of his boys were chilling up in the crib, listening to sounds, laying down tracks, and making beats.

Even though he was retired, Free was still doing a lot of song writing and had some new artists on the label that he was trying to help get some exposure. He took me with him to Phoenix and Las Vegas, and we even flew into Canada to check out some new talent he was scouting up there.

Free was always getting invites to award shows and hot parties, and when Tai faxed him his date sheets my eyes would be all over those pages. I’d look for the events that were gonna have the best crowds, the most important people in the industry, or the most press, and those were the ones I begged Free to take me to.

“I don’t even look pregnant,” I argued when he acted like I should be staying home. “I know chicks who got more stomach than me, and they ain’t having no baby.”

Free got invited to the BET Music Awards and I was right there on his arm. Everybody was there, Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan, Beyoncé, Kanye, Diddy, the Wayans brothers…it was all that. Afterward Free was invited to BET’s Black Carpet Lounge with Danella and Toure, and I was right up in there with him.

Free treated me so special. As soon as I moved in his joint he started feeding me, trying to make me gain some weight. Every time I looked up he was cooking and washing tomatoes and making salad and cutting up fresh fruit. I hated oranges so he went out and got me some vitamin C tablets. He stood over me and made me take them nasty-ass pregnancy vitamins too, and sometimes they kept my stomach upset for the whole day.

Free stayed on me about drinking plenty of water too, and made me take long walks with him. He took me to all my doctor appointments and was there when we saw the sonogram results too. Free was mad happy that he was having him a son, and he told every damn body who would listen that he was about to have a tyke. He barred his boys from smoking in the crib and said that meant no sticky and no ciggs, so all they could do was get their drink on. Free didn’t know it, but sometimes I got mine on, too.

I knew he loved me and was just trying to take care of me, but after a minute I started getting sick of him telling me what to do and I was bored as hell. I missed the night life and the parties. I needed to be out there on the street scene getting noticed, and wasn’t none of that happening up in Free’s joint.