Story inspired by this 2Pac song. Lyric video below. Originally written in 2017 for an anthology I was booted out of because the publisher was offended by it. This is the short version the long version is lost to the bowels of the internets
I think I’m dreaming. I inhale her smell, cocoa butter and vanilla skin smell. A split second later I feel the cold steel of her gun against my throat I open my eyes and croak at her. “Hi baby.” She is straddling me, a canon of a handgun pointed at my throat, a big smile on her face. I am smiling like a big dummy.
“Don’t be cute, I want to fucking kill you babe.” It’s embarrassing what she does to me, I sigh, and she slaps me hard across the face. I whimper and get one of those big instant rock-hard boners. I am the most unfortunate human being.
She grunts and moves off me, I cough and pull the blankets up. She’s wearing the ivory summer dress I bought her and even in the weak light from the window her brown skin glows. She puts the gun on the table, she is so perfect and beautiful I can’t stand it. My queen. My perfect person. Her crackly on the verge of tears tone says it all. “Put some fucking pants on and convince me not to kill you.”
I know she will kill me if I fuck this up and I just can’t run. I gingerly get out of bed; I hear her intake of breath when she sees my swollen and multicolored ankle. “Oh, Jesus crispy fried what happened?” I can tell she’s still pissed, but it feels nice to know she cares. “I’ll get to it. You want a drink? I got a bottle of that cinnamon whiskey shit you like.”
“Mmhmm.” I can’t will my hard on away so I lean my butt against the wall and carefully pull my jeans up, I don’t button them, but I do put my shirt on and leave it untucked. I pour us each a good snoot of whiskey and settle myself. We toast silently and she hands me a lit cigarette and gives me her profile.
“So, talk.” I take a long drag and watch her face. She is so beautiful, I am not a praying man, but watching her makes me want to be. I want to pray that I haven’t fucked this up forever. How do you even pray for something like a good outcome when you know how bad you fucked up to begin with?
“First, I’m sorry. I know I did the bad thing.” She snorts. “Do you even understand why I’m pissed?”
I think back to our first night together, I’d seen her dancing on a pedestal in a short shiny skirt and ruffled booty shorts. I thought I was hallucinating. She was so perfect with her blond tipped locs swinging, her chubby body moving like liquid fuck and the look of pure joy on her sweaty face. I waited until I watched her climb down and I gathered myself up and bought her a bottle of water at the bar and yelled in her ear.
“You are the most perfect fucking human being I have ever seen. Thank you.” She followed me out as I ran away from her, grabbed the waistband of my pants and threw her arms around me. The smell of her hot, sweating neck made me tingle from the top of my head to my feet. I hate to be that guy but, I wanted nothing more than to have her arms around me for the rest of my life. She told me exactly how to keep her, “don’t lie to me or steal from me and we’ll get along just fine.”
I smile at her and come back to this shitty hotel room and how much she wants to kill me; I want to feel her arms around me again. “Of course, I understand. I lied and I stole.” She nods and gestures with her cigarette.
“Start at the beginning. Make it good or you won’t have to worry about that ankle. Put it up, it’ll help the swelling. Dummy nerd. God damn it.” I can’t meet her gaze; I don’t want to tell her everything, but I have to. It started when I met Grizz. I was low-level IT for a giant shit company and everybody in the neighborhood knew I was the computer kid, I let folks know I was available.
At first, I got a few in-home things, putting together folks’ computers. Hooking up their internet, fixing Xboxes and shit like that. Nobody could pay well, but it felt nice to have people genuinely thankful for my work. I didn’t play ball, I couldn’t rap, I was always just a kinda weird neighborhood kid folks tolerated until I became their tech guy.
And then I met Grizz and Chaco, real gangsters. Actual bad guys.
Grizz came to a party I was at and asked me to do his game system. I tricked it out to high hell, I knew the dude was a banger and had friends with lots of cash. I only charged him for parts because I needed the advertising. He introduced me to Chaco, who introduced me to the fine art of modding stolen tech and big big money.
By the time I met Lee, I had money finally. I was rolling like a grown ass gangster, and I felt good. I kept my job on Grizz’s advice, for tax purposes of course and I hid my cash. I decided to do what Lee called my gangster glow up.
I got tattoos, I got my teeth fixed, I saved and got my shit together so I could get with Lee. Lee is still the most perfect person I have ever seen or known. Someone made her for me, and I fucked it up. I take another drink and a deep breath.
“So, you know Grizz is dead, right?” She nods, sloshing her drink waiting me out. “That’s the word on the block.” I don’t want to tell her any of this. “I killed him. I killed him and his greaseball pervert friend Chaco.” Lee gapes at me. “What? Are you fucking serious?” I nod and shift in my seat.
“Yeah. Chaco said some stuff and I guess I lost it. Dirty mother fuckers were gonna rip me off, that Chaco dude ugh. He had some stuff, like bad stuff on those computers I was working on for them and I freaked out. I took it all.” Lee leans over the table to stare at me.
“All of what?” I rock to my feet and limp to the closet. I pull out my bag and dump the cash and the guns on the bed. “That’s 200 large. I got another four stashed. Yours is hidden in another spot.”
Lee squeaks, I love it when she does that because she can’t help herself. “So afterwards I left and figured that Chaco’s people would know something was up so I did that to our apartment and took the money. I was going to send you a cashier’s check from my Aunt’s place. I swear. I just wanted to make it look good.”
She throws one of the ashtrays at me, it bounces off of my forehead. “You fucking asshole I thought you were dead too.” I smile. “It was the teeth, right?” She nods, glowering at me.
“I busted my fronts out. I got scared and then I thought if it looked like they took your money, you know.” She is staring at me as I sit back down. I show her the ruined stumps of my front teeth and she grimaces. “Explain.”
I put out the cigarette and probe the growing lump on my forehead, I deserve worse.
“So, uh this dude Chaco been like uh, talking about you. To people. Bad dudes baby, real bad nasty perverted dudes. He said he was gonna tie us up and they were gonna-“
I can’t look at her while I say it. “He said he was gonna get his boys and run a train on you. On film and then sell it. That’s the shit they were into. That’s what was on all those big ass hard drives. Fucking rape porn. For rich sick fucks to buy.”
I gag. “Go on.” Her voice has lost the homicidal edge. Well, the part of it reserved for me. Her tone gives me a chill, I’ve never heard that kind of cool neutrality there before. “I saw one of the videos, two days ago. One of the hard drives was all fucked up, they burnt it out and I wanted to check it out. Chaco walked in on me, and we got into it. Like, he bragged about it. Piece of shit. He said that he had a clientele that made him untouchable. He talked about how much it was like better than slinging.”
“That why you been acting funny?” I nod, my hands are shaking, and I can’t even pick up the cup to take another drink. I glance at her and she’s still giving me her profile, her expression is icy. I’m very afraid of her in a whole new way.
“I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t snitch. The one cop I know who might’ve done right, you remember Sigel? That one detective?” She nods, still looking out the window. “I figured I’d just tell them I was gonna bounce and leave it at that. I went down there and heard them talking about you. They had an order for a Black girl and-”
I can’t look at her, my fists are clenched and my whole body feels like it did in that moment. I am so full of rage I want to die. When she lays her palm on my forehead I jump and unclench. I put my arm around her hips and pull her close, I can’t look at her face.
“I’m so sorry bae. I fucked up so bad. This isn’t what I wanted.” She laughs a little and leans over enough to put her titties on my face. “You really suck at being a gangster you nerd. Your heart was in the right place. Gimme a kiss.”
She still has her piece in her other hand, and I offer my lips. I’m not forgiven but, she doesn’t want to shoot me in the face. When I finally look up at her face, she is smiling. I realize maybe a second too late I’m crying. “Don’t cry. I’ll take care of it. That was the dumbest shit you ever did. And you’re my fucking hero.”
She lets go of me and gets into her purse. She puts a bottle of Vicodin, a cell phone and a pack of cigarettes on the table. “Don’t drink anymore, take one pill and lay the fuck down. Don’t worry, I love you dummy.”
I watch her repack her purse, produce a full ass bottle of water for me and she gives me one last lingering kiss before she bustles around the room to start fixing my mess. When the Vicodin hits I lay down and cry my eyes out. I love her so much. My perfect human, my queen and I know damn well if it weren’t for her I wouldn’t be shit.
“Lee? What are you gonna do?” She gives me her back while she fusses with the cash and pulls out a few wads and shoves them into her purse. She gathers the rest and puts it neatly into the bag. “Eileen, what are you gonna do?” When she turns, she has the most angelic smile on her round face.
“Babe, what did I tell you when you first started dealing with them dudes?” I frown. “You said, I’m a bad gangster.” She nods. “Yes, you are. And what am I?” I smile as she tucks her piece away, “you a queen gangster bitch.” I love her so much, I’m so terrified of her and I have a boner again. “Exactly. Now go to bed. I’ll come get you tomorrow. Be ready to go.”
She helps me get back into bed, pats my boner gently and kisses my unbruised temple. “Save this for later. I love you dumb nerd.” She gives me the pill and some water. She has that look on her face again, it was the same look she had when she told me the rules of keeping her. She leaves and I drift in a Vicodin and whiskey haze for a while. The same look she gives me when I have done anything cute annoying and stupid.
I sleep. I dream about a movie worthy revenge sequence where my queen salts the earth with the blood of everyone associated with that mess. I drifted in and out until her cousin showed up with instructions. I don’t know what will happen, all I know is, I’m her Dummy Nerd and she’s my Bitch Queen and I love her. I love her, I love her.
