Thong on Fire (4 page)

“Girl, you got to be washed,” she would say, hustling me into the bathroom, “’cause ain’t no way in hell you climbing in Paris’s bed smelling like that!”

Yeah, Aunt Ruthie fed me and ironed my clothes and she didn’t feel me up or beat my ass. She treated me all right when Uncle Swag was around, but when he wasn’t there just her whole attitude made me feel dirty and low, like a nasty little beggar. The only time she ever really touched me was when she was scrubbing me hard enough to make my skin scrape off. She
never
hugged me or told me I was cute. She never let Paris come over to my crib neither, and I knew it was because of Kimichi.

I’d heard Aunt Ruthie telling one of her ugly church friends that my daddy must’ve been a real fool for dragging that Chinese hooker outta some back alley in Seoul when there were plenty of two-cent whores up for sale right on the streets of Harlem.

I might have been just eight, but already I understood that women like Aunt Ruthie looked down on people like Kimichi and me. My mother stuck out in Harlem because Asian junkies with half-black children weren’t an everyday sight on our streets. But I had Aunt Ruthie figured out, though. Paris mighta had the finest stuff money could buy, but she was still ugly, short, knock-kneed, and had her mama’s big forehead. Whenever we were out together I was the one people ooohed and ahhhed over. They played in my curly hair and rubbed my smooth light-brown skin. They told me I had the cutest little bowlegs and the prettiest slanted eyes, just like a black Chinese. Nobody said much of nothing about Paris, except when they was complimenting her on her clothes. She was just regular looking. There was nothing cute about her at all, especially with that rock-head of hers, and I didn’t care how pressed she dressed, or how many top beauty salons permed her hair and hot-curled her bangs. There was no hiding that big shiny dome Paris was packing, and even Aunt Ruthie knew I looked way better than her daughter did.

I kissed Uncle Swag’s cheek as I walked past his chair at the head of the dinner table. He grinned and nodded at me as I took the seat across from Paris. I could feel Aunt Ruthie staring at me, looking for something to be disgusted about. I always tried to act real sweet and innocent around her, but she knew what it was. She took up for Paris all the damn time, but if she hurt my feelings too bad, I’d just get Paris alone in her room and kick her ass until I felt better.

Aunt Ruthie mighta been richer than me and Kimichi, but when it came to being up on her shit I had her blinded. She might have been black, but she wasn’t half as slick as my Korean mother was. She left her stuff laying around everywhere, and I hit her purse for five or ten dollars almost every time I visited because she carried so much bank that she didn’t even miss it.

I played with my food a little bit and laughed when the baby, Kaz, threw broccoli chunks all around the room. Uncle Swag laughed too, rubbing his little boy’s head and reaching over to push some dry-ass turkey in his mouth. Aunt Ruthie acted like she was mad about all that food getting all over the floor, but I could tell she was fronting and felt real good about her little family.

I couldn’t really blame her, neither. It was real warm and cozy up in their crib. Nothing like the life I lived with Kimichi and King.

We were still laughing at the baby when Paris started rubbing her neck again and acting up just to get some attention. She grabbed her stomach, then made this funny noise and threw up all over the table.

“Paris!” Aunt Ruthie hollered. Her and Uncle Swag jumped up at the same time. Aunt Ruthie got to Paris first and pressed a bunch of napkins to her mouth.

“What’s wrong, baby? Is something you ate bad?”

All this shit is bad,
I wanted to say, but instead I pushed my plate away and kept my mouth closed.

“I don’t feel good,” Paris whined. “My head hurts, Mama. It hurts so
bad
!”

Aunt Ruthie felt Paris’s forehead. “Swag, this child is burning up with fever!”

Paris started crying. She kept saying her neck felt twisted and her head felt like it was busting open. She covered her face and complained that the dining room lights was hurting her eyes.

Aunt Ruthie started crying too, and all the cool seemed to drain outta Uncle Swag. He looked worried in a way that I’d never seen before.

“You think we should call the doctor?” he asked, heading toward the phone.

Aunt Ruthie shook her head as she got Paris up from the table and they rushed together toward the bathroom.

“No. I’ma catch a taxi on over to the emergency room. You run Saucy home real quick, then meet me there. Don’t waste no time standing around talking to that momma of hers, neither. Just drop Saucy off at the door and come straight over to the emergency room. I mean that shit too, Swag. My baby is sick.”

Three nights later the door to my bedroom popped open again. I held my breath as the sound of King’s footsteps crossed the room. Pulling my sheet back, she kneeled on the bed and spread my legs. She slid my panties down to my ankles, then took them completely off, and then her warm lips were on me. Licking. Sucking. Probing my hole and making it hot and wet. I squirmed, my booty rubbing against the linty sheets. Little sparks of heaven shot through me and I couldn’t help it as my legs slid open wider, my back arching as my hips rose to meet her tongue.

King reached under me and cupped my butt. She stroked my cheeks and licked me faster. I squeezed my eyes tight as she fucked the bed, her body hammering as she humped down into the mattress.
Whomp! Whomp! Whomp!

“Ahhhh!” I cried out, my body shivering. For the first time ever, delicious tremors rocked me from head to toe. My fingers pulled at her short hair. I pushed her face deeper inside me, shocking both of us with my greed. Consumed, I grabbed at my sheets and wrapped my legs around her head, clamping my feet, locking my ankles together, and grinding myself all over her face.

She tried to pull away but I was busy searching. Reaching for something that I needed more than air. I yelled out loud as I tried to get it. Rubbing myself everywhere trying to put that fire out. I was closer, just about to fall off the unknown edge when King wrenched open my legs and snatched her face away.

She glared at me in the darkness.

“You’s a nasty little bitch,” she snarled, wiping her mouth and rocking back on her knees, leaving cold air where her warm tongue had just been. “Little kids ain’t supposed to like that shit. You been getting off the whole time, ain’t you?”

I opened my mouth to deny it, but before I could say anything the bedroom door was opened once again.

“Please,” my mother whispered urgently, speaking directly to me and ignoring King. “Come to me.”

I was dazed. The three of us had played this game for a long time but it had never gone down like this before.

“Your daughter’s a fuckin’ freak,” King complained as I walked toward the door, the throbbing between my legs slowly fading.

I stopped in front of Kimichi. She smoothed her straight hair, then put her hands on my shoulders. Her large slanted eyes looked sad.

“Is bad news, Seung Cee,” she said, using the name she had tried to give me at birth. “It is Pawris. She pass away, yes? You cousin is dead.”

I didn’t sleep for the rest of the night.

Kimichi had cried a little bit but my eyes were dry as sand. All I could think about was Paris being dead, and all the nice shit she had left behind. That big old bed. The endless clothes. Those patent-leather shoes. That orange Gucci purse. Shoot, Paris didn’t need none of that stuff no more!

By the time the sun came up I was already dressed and ready for school. Kimichi was sleeping naked on the dirty floor in the living room, and King had passed out on the sofa. Her legs were wide open showing her big hairy pussy, and an empty vodka bottle was on the end table beside her.

I walked the few blocks to school with my mind whirling. Tightening up my scheme, making sure I had plenty of tears ready. Inside my classroom I went straight to my desk and sat down. I didn’t even bogart any of the play areas the way I usually did. I didn’t hold my hand out demanding nobody’s lunch money neither. I had fought to be the attendance monitor for the week, but I let a boy named Chester take my place and I didn’t make him pay me a dime for the privilege of doing it.

The moment my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Gladman, walked in the classroom I started spazzing out.

“Saucy!” she said, sticking her purse into her desk drawer then coming over to see about me as I wailed as hard and loud as I could. I was such a troublemaker in her class that she’d had to put my desk dead smack in front of hers, and this was the first time I was actually happy that her eyes were directly on me.

“Don’t cry, honey!” she begged, looking shocked and really concerned. “What’s the matter? Do you feel sick or something?”

I shook my head no, wailing louder.

“Did somebody hit you? Hurt you? Is everything all right at home?”

Oh I was performing my ass off now. Shaking in terror, rubbing my fists all in my eyes. Clapping my knees together under the desk.

Mrs. Gladman bent down next to me and put her arm around me. As much as I had cursed her out and terrorized the other students, she probably couldn’t imagine what could have my bad ass so scared and hysterical.

“What’s going on, Saucy?” she asked quietly, stroking my hair. “Whatever it is, you can tell me and I promise I’ll help you. I
promise
.”

That was exactly what I wanted to hear. In fact, I was counting on her to say just that! I kept up my act as Mrs. Gladman led me out of the classroom and down the hall to the nurse’s office. I cried the whole way, lips trembling, working them tears to death.

I sat in front of the nurse whimpering and shaking. She was a nice fat lady with a wide face and real red lipstick.

“We’re both here to help you, sweetie,” the school nurse said, leaning over me and taking my hand. Her perfume was sweet and thick. “Please, Saucy. If something bad has happened to you, we really, really need to know about it.”

She sure didn’t have to ask me twice. I pictured Paris’s big old comfortable bed and that orange Gucci purse, and then I opened my mouth and let all the beans spill out.

“Mister King—my mommy’s girlfriend. She kissed me on my pussy last night!”

A social worker from the Department of Family Services picked me up from school and took me for a physical exam at Harlem Hospital. When we left the hospital I was taken straight to a foster home. I gave them Uncle Swag’s number, then sat listening to the social worker’s side of the conversation as she made arrangements for him to come pick me up.

“Oh, Saucy,” he said, hugging me to his chest the next morning when he came to get me. Uncle Swag was still fine, but his eyes were red like he hadn’t slept in a long time. He glanced around the crummy foster home that was almost as raggedy as my Harlem apartment. “Paris is gone and we’ll have to bury her, baby. But we sure ain’t gonna lose you too.”

Uncle Swag told me that Paris had been killed by a virus called meningitis, and while I knew that was too bad for her, it was high time for me. In a matter of days I went from a dirty Harlem girl to a downtown diva. It was hard for me to hold myself together when Uncle Swag led me into Paris’s old bedroom and told me to make good use of everything in it. I wanted to jump up and down and scream and kiss him and do a booty dance to celebrate my good luck, but instead I nodded slowly and forced myself to drag my feet over to her room, then pause at the door and look over my shoulder at him with big sad eyes.

“You sure, Uncle?”

“Yeah, darling. I’m sure. You were her best friend. It’s what Paris would have wanted.”

For a minute I wondered about what Aunt Ruthie might say when she saw me styling all of Paris’s stuff, but she was too broke down to even help with the funeral arrangements and she mostly stayed in their bedroom crying in the dark. Her sister Roz had come from upstate to help her out. She stayed in Kaz’s room and took care of him, and that left Uncle Swag to take care of me.

On the morning of Paris’s funeral I hid in her room with the door closed until it was time to leave. I was excited. The apartment was full of people and I could hear them out there talking and crying and comforting Uncle Swag and Aunt Ruthie. The moment I stepped into the living room it seemed like everybody shut up all at once. I stood in the middle of the room smiling and profiling because I knew I looked just that good.

Paris’s yellow and white sailor dress was a little short, but otherwise it fit me perfectly. I had on her white church gloves and my feet were balled up in her white patent-leather shoes with the shiny buckles. Her lacy tights were too short for me and wouldn’t come all the way up to my crotch, but I figured couldn’t nobody see all that so what the hell. Hanging from my shoulder was that fly orange Gucci bag. Yeah, I knew it didn’t match the outfit, but so what? The flap with the blue nail polish on it was out of sight, pressed against my side, and my thick, pretty hair was curly and shiny and hanging down my back in black waves.

“My lawd…” Aunt Ruthie sobbed out loud, breaking the silence and stealing some of the attention away from me. I sucked my teeth under my breath thinking that’s where Paris had gotten that shit from. They just couldn’t let me shine the way I was supposed to without trying to get all in the spotlight too.