By the end of my first semester in college I’d figured out that I didn’t really want just a business degree. Grandmother had taught me how to sew, and I was the type of chick who could make a dress out of a sock, so I wanted to see where my creativity could take me. With G’s approval I took a satellite class at the Fashion Institute of Technology, and twice a week instead of taking an elective at Fordham, I sat in on an apparel design class at FIT.
When I was younger Grandmother used to have this old Singer sewing machine that was so ancient it had a knee pedal instead of one for the foot. I would get the scraps they threw away in the fabric stores and make fly-ass dresses for all of my dolls.
When I started taking classes at Fashion, G bought me an expensive sewing machine and I shopped at fabric stores up and down 125th Street and on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. G liked to shop for me and bring me nice things, so I still stepped out in designer shit left and right, but every now and then I would sew for two days straight then show up at the Spot wearing a “JuicyOriginal” and shame every other sister in the place to death.
That’s how I spent most of my time. Designing my private line of clothes, chilling at the Spot looking luscious, and going to school three days a week, grateful to get a break from the fast life and to be around people my age who were actually about something.
Marguerita Gonzales was a Puerto Rican girl who sat next to me in my English class. Blacks and Hispanics were cool with each other in Harlem because basically we were all poor and all had the same issues. Rita was one of those real dark Puerto Ricans. She had the prettiest brown skin and a head full of long curly hair just like mine. She was neat about herself, too. Always dressed real nice and made sure to fold her blazers and leather jackets on the crease before hanging them over the back of her chair.
I liked Rita, but I was slow about letting anybody get in my business. I had a lot of respect for her too, because Rita seemed like the kind of chick who could hold her own in any situation. She told me her father had fucked her for ten years, and then on the night of her fifteenth birthday she had held open her sheets, then stuck a knife in his heart and watched him bleed to death naked in her bed. She didn’t serve a single day in jail for doing that skag, and now at twenty, Rita was the top computer programming student at Fordham and she’d just gotten a side job writing programs to help support the two younger sisters she’d won in a custody battle with her mother.
I was scribbling in the Juicy Journal when Rita leaned over and whispered, “This shit is so boring.” I tuned in to catch the professor running her mouth about predicating a bunch of verbs. Rita hated English class and anything that had to do with writing, but math? Please. Now, I knew I was sharp with numbers. I could memorize number sequences and detailed equations like it was nothing. But Rita? Rita was math-momma. Her brain worked numbers and logic equations ten times faster than mine did, which is why she was such a good programmer. Damn right she was bored up in this class. Wasn’t no numbers being thrown around for her to chew on.
I nodded at her and smiled, then tried to get back into my journal. I was deep into a story where this sister was getting her toes sucked like they were seedless grapes. Her niggah was paying attention to her whole foot, too. Starting at the arch and working his way around. I wiggled my toes. There was no way in hell I’d ever know what that felt like. Not unless I was ready to twist my body up like a pretzel and suck ’em my damn self.
“Wanna go to a party?” Rita almost yelled.
“Sssh!” Just like a Puerto Rican! Girl was loud!
“What?” I whispered, frowning.
“A party. Can you come to a party next Saturday night? In Brooklyn?”
I shook my head. Hell no. Weekends were for getting fly and striking poses at the G-Spot. I had to sit up there and look damn delicious, as G would say, because everybody needed to know that I represented him.
“Okay.” Rita shrugged. “But it’s a Naughty Girls party so don’t blame me if you miss out.”
Naughty Girls? I waited until the teacher turned around to write on the board. “What’s that?”
Rita grinned. “You don’t know? Don’t worry. I’ll break it down to you after class.”
I could barely wait until the period was over. I had a finance exam next, and Rita had a two-hour break until her logic class. “C’mon,” she said, swinging her hips in a pair of brown Guess jeans. Rita was really skinny up top with little titties, but she had wide hips and cute legs. “I’m heading to the math building to hook up with a few programmers.”
“I thought this was a free period for you?”
“It is. Got a meeting. Through the Back Door. You know, we hack shit up!”
“Girl, it’s hard to believe you’re one of those crazy nerds who go around letting loose viruses that shut down banks and shit. You don’t even look like no damn computer geek.”
Rita laughed. “That’s the whole idea. Why do you think we call it Through the Back Door? Besides. We don’t shut down banks and don’t think we tap into the school’s mainframe and change people’s grades neither. It’s not about that. It’s about revealing programming weakness to keep the folks at Microsoft on their game.”
I waved my hand. We were almost at the math building. “Whatever. Tell me about this Naughty Girl Party thing.”
“Gurlfriend.” Rita’s eyes got all big and this sly look was on her pretty brown face. “They got an arsenal of shit up in there. Rabbits, butterflies, you name it, they got it. Last time I bought me a hammerhead and I rocked my own pussy so good I didn’t even need no man!”
Didn’t need no man? Rita was laughing her ass off and I tried to join her, but my mind was racing. I wanted to know more! Like, what the hell was a rabbit? And a hammerhead! Have mercy! What kind of stuff did they sell where you could beat your pussy up by yourself all night long?
“You sure you can’t get away for one night?”
I frowned. Rita didn’t know much about my life in the G-Spot, but she was from around my way so I knew she’d heard of G. Everybody had. “I don’t know,” I said. We were right outside of my finance class and I stood there frowning with my hand on the doorknob. Rita looked hopeful. Like there wasn’t an ounce of stress on her plate. It must be nice, I thought. To be in control of your own damn life. Free to come and go when you wanted to, and free to make your own decisions about where you spent your Saturday nights. The way G had me clocked was almost just as bad as living under Grandmother’s roof, and suddenly I was pissed off. Mad at G for making me old before my time, and for all the fun stuff I had to miss out on in the name of being his woman. Shit. Fuck him. G wasn’t my goddamn daddy. I smiled at Rita. “I’ma try, girl. I’ll see what I can do.”
The Spot was jumping, especially for a Monday night. Greco had hired some new meat to work the poles, and all of that fake-fucking up on the stage had created an aura of sex so thick you could lick it from the walls. The stage was on fire and Honey Dew was up there leading the charge. With her butter-smooth skin and bodacious titties, she had those new girls grinding those golden poles like they were flesh and blood dicks. And it was working, too. The hoes were burning up the back rooms; running men in and out the doors so fast the housekeeping crew had run out of clean sheets. Nothing made G happier than taking in bank, and I could tell by the way he was walking around nodding and shaking hands with the rappers and high-rollers that he was pleased.
But his attitude had been a whole lot different earlier in the day. The ice machine was acting up and he’d sent me in his office to get the number to the repair shop off an invoice. I looked in the filing cabinet where all the warranties and stuff were kept, but I couldn’t find it. I had just given up and was stepping out the office when I damn near got hit by a guy Pluto, one of G’s bodyguards, was slamming against the stairwell door.