“Dam K. You ready again? You gon spoil me rotten fuckin me like this.”
He sped up his motion and Liza began to buck, riding him like a mechanical bull. She put her hands on his knees and leaned forward, stood on her toes, and slid up and down on that dick. As K watched himself disappear in and out of Liza he thought to himself we are gonna get along real good.
The first talent show a month later was won by a young man with a million dollar voice for his rendition of the Jodeci classic STAY. It was a packed house and he shut shit down with the standing ovation he received.
The past month had definitely been a crazy one; Darkside escaped his brush with death with a concussion, a broken leg, and a fractured shoulder. He was confined to a wheelchair for three months after his two week hospital stay. Mattie had left T and moved in with her sister Reebie in a rooming house, and during the same period of time had slept with a guy that Reebie had gotten close to and was calling her man named Randy. Reebie never had a clue.
K had gotten a new cell phone two weeks after the incident at his condo with Mattie and Liza, and gave the new number to everyone except for the cuties that he had been creeping with, and of course Mattie. Deondre had been bugging Liza, begging and apologizing, but she wanted absolutely no parts of him. He had come by the youth center one day and threated to smash all of Liza’s windows of her car if she didn’t give him five minutes of her time to hear him out. K could see that she was getting real fed up with his bullshit and so was he. She wanted to get an order of protection against this bitch ass pretty boy, but K told her to let him handle it.
He had caught Deondre going into his apartment after work that same night. Deondre lived in an apartment on the east side of Allentown on a back alleyway that had a lot of dark corners. As he was putting his key in the door after getting off work, K crept out of the shadows in all black, put the cold steel of the Dirty harry 44 long to the back of his head, cocked it, and told him, “ If you move the wrong way, you die.” Once inside K pushed him onto his couch and put half the barrel in his mouth, until Deondre almost gagged.
“Look, Liza don’t want no parts of you mufucka, so leave her the fuck alone! And I don’t give second warnings. Do we understand each other?”
He managed a muffled “mmhmmmmhmm!” Shaking his head up and down, so K took it that he did.
He took the gun out of his mouth and started to leave but almost as a reflex action K spun and backhanded him to sleep. As Deondre lay hanging alfway off the couch out cold, K spit on him.
“And that’s for disrespecting me. Pussy!”
He quietly left the same way he had come in.
Liza stayed at K’s apartment every day since the first night that she was there. Over the following week and a half Liza had slowly but surely proceeded to move her belongings into his condo. After getting to know each other intimately that first night, they were both sprung. Sitting next to her now at the side of the judges table after the first talent show, he realized it was time for a change. They had some shit that he thought might develop into a long term relationship, and he realized they were well on their way. All of the events were successes and things were looking good. K moved Dark into his down low spot and Dante moved in a sistah he had taken a liking to named Charmaine. K and Charmaine instantly became like brother and sister due to the fact that they both had a crazy sense of humor.
Liza presented Dwayne Garret the winner of the first talent show and announced that he would be the first artist on the new indie label Big $taxxx records. K figured they had a real good shot with Dwayne as their first artist and decided to slow up on his illegal operations. He had a hefty stash and the Feds had come through cracking heads, which also influenced his decision. Plus, his right hand man Darkside was out of commission for a while, and he really didn’t trust nobody like he trusted Dark.
The second and third talent show went over well and they added to their roster a hip — hop artist named G’d-up and a female singing group that called themselves Triple Extasy. G’d- up was actually one of K’s best weight customers, and K had no idea his skills were on a recognizable level. Triple Extasy turned out to be three strippers, one black, one white, one Puerto Rican, all So Seductive. So they had the first three acts for their label, all hot and extremely talented. They found a tight studio out in Philly and booked it solid for two months. K had no idea putting together such a project could be so hectic and time consuming. Allentown was about 45 minutes from Philadelphia and they would leave town in the two Suburbans K had brought and totally covered with Big $taxxx Records logo’s and decals as promotional vehicles and headed out back to back pushing 90 mph, immediately after evening rush hour traffic.
Liza drove one and K drove the other. On the way to the studio their artists would be song writing, rehearsing lyrics and harmonizing. They also noticed how Dwayne and Triple Extasy sounded hot when they collaborated. And when G added his witty lyrics for the masses is was official.
Perfexion Studios was a first time experience for all the artists. None of them had actually been in a professional recording studio, let alone record in one. The spot was run by a cat named LP, who K had heard a lot of good things about, and his chick Jessica. She was a real head turner too. As they walked into one of the recording rooms Dwayne looked around in amazement.
“This is it! I finally made it to the big leagues,” he said with enthusiastic excitement, then he went into one of the soundproof booth bowed his head and said a prayer:
“Heavenly father, I want to thank you this day for your many blessings. As you know father, I have prayed to you on numerous occasion for the chance to just be heard, Heavenly father. You have continuously answered prayers and I know this is just another of your blessings, which you give abundantly. I ask you at this time to bless our creative efforts and bless these wonderful people and our record label as a whole. All of this I ask in your precious son Jesus’s name. Amen.”
K gave him a hug showing love when he came out and they got prepared to put in the hard work they knew it was gonna take to make this a successful venture. They all sat in on track selection sessions and the first group to select tracks for their project was Triple Extasy. K had contacted a lot of hot producers from around the country and listened to them all unbiased, but by far the hottest tracks came from K’s people and his industry ace S.I.D. To hear Triple Extasyharmonize and rift over his tracks with head nodding baselines and horns was musical poetry.
By the end of the two months in the studio, they had three potentially platinum albums, mixed down, Mastered and ready for sales or a major distribution deal. G’d-up had a crazy street buzz from mix tape appearances coast to coast. Dwayne and Triple Extasy’s upcoming releases were so hyped up through radio and street team marketing and promotion, that they did pretty good their first time out. Dwayne moved 22,000 units with his debut and self-titled album, Triple Extasy moved 26,000 units and G’d-up came out strong moving 37,000 units out of the stores and online all in the first month.
This also gave K the opportunity to take some other money to the Laundry mat. And even though it wasn’t gold or platinum success it got them recognized by the majors and they kept every dollar. K eventually employed persons to oversee daily operations and told Liza that he had a surprise that he had been planning for a while. He told her it was something that was going to make her very, very happy.
“I have you and my health and we’re building a new youth center on top of our success with the record label. What more could you possibly do to make me happy?” she asked seriously.