The Pink Palace 2

  Reggie took to the stage and sat on a chair facing the main curtain. The DJ started to play Ying Yang Twins, “The Whisper Song,” and I strutted out from behind the curtain dressed in a black two-piece thong and bra set and black Gucci pumps.

  Reggie’s eyes bugged outta his head when he saw my thickness. I seductively moved my body, matching the rhythm of the song. Then I grabbed the pole and swung around and landed like a black panther on the prowl. I crawled my way over to Reggie in the chair and climbed up on him.

  “Oh, shit,” Reggie uttered to me softly and felt on my titties.

  I turned around and sat on his lap and grinded my ass in his crotch, making his manhood stand to attention. I bent over and placed my hands on the stage floor in front of me and put my fat ass in Reggie’s face, making my ass cheeks talk to him.

  The men in the club all shouted and made catcalls at me. I rolled away from Reggie as the song ended, and I danced my way back across the stage and disappeared behind the curtain. Like always, I left them wanting more.

  I headed to the empty locker room to change and get the fuck up outta there. I took off my bra and dropped it in my bag. When I looked up, I saw that ugly nigga Reggie behind me.

  “What the fuck you doing in here, nigga?”

  He grinned and looked at my titties and grabbed one. “I’m here to finish our dance.”

  I slapped his hand away. “Get the fuck off me, nigga! I ain’t one of these easy hoes you fuck with!”

  I guessed he didn’t like that, because he rushed me, grabbing me by the neck and hemming me up on my dressing table. “Bitch, you gonna give me this pussy! It’s my fucking birthday, so I get it my way!”

  He was already positioned between my legs, and he reached down and ripped my thong off, exposing my pussy. Then he struggled to get his dick out of his pants.

  I’d been raped before, and it was the most demeaning and disgusting thing ever done to me. Memories of the beating and raping I endured flashed back to me like it was yesterday. It had taken me a long time to get over that whole ordeal. I promised myself I would never let a nigga violate me like that again.

  Unlucky for Reggie, I was able to get my hands on my razor blade I had on my dresser top. Suddenly he froze as he felt a sharp prick on his neck.

  “What the—”

  “Shut the fuck up!” I yelled. I had half a thought to slit his throat from ear to ear. He was lucky he was Malachi’s brother, or he’d be bleeding on the ground. “Get your fucking hands off me!”

  He quickly raised his hands as if he was surrendering. “Whoa, listen, Nikki. Don’t—”

  “I said shut the fuck up!” I roared and pressed the blade harder against his skin.

  “Aaaahhhh . . . okay, okay,” he yelped.

  A stream of blood ran down his neck. His eyes became wide as saucers as he looked at me with fear in his eyes. I pushed him back off me.

  “If you ever put your fucking hands on me again, I will kill you. Understand?”

  “Yeah, okay!”

  “Get the fuck out.” I mushed him in the head, and he staggered back and grabbed his neck. I held the razor in my hand, ready to slice him open if he tried me again, but this little bitch didn’t want none. He slowly backed away from me and left the locker room. That little creature didn’t know how close he had been to losing his life on his birthday.

  I waited a minute before I put the blade down and quickly got dressed into my street clothes and exited the club through the back. As I was walking to my car, I saw three niggas walking with Kandi to a car and putting her in the back seat. She looked completely fucked up, high as a bird. She could barely keep her eyes open.

  I knew this was not a good look, so I rushed over to them.

  “Hey! Where do you think you’re taking her?” I yelled at them.

  One of the niggas called Chaz, who was part of Reggie’s crew, mean-mugged me.

  “What the fuck does it matter to you?”

  “Let her out of the car now!”

  “Get the fuck outta here, bitch,” Chaz barked at me.

  “C’mon, man. Let’s get outta here,” another nigga yelled at Chaz.

  “Kandi! Kandi, get out of the car,” I yelled at her, but she could barely look at me. She laughed and leaned her head against the nigga next to her in the back seat.

  Chaz started the engine and mashed down on the gas. I jumped out of the way at the last second before he ran me over.

  I rushed back inside of the club and went over to Gina, the bartender.

  “Gina, do you have Jasmine’s phone number?”

  “Yeah, what’s up?”

  “I need to her call now!”

  JASMINE

  The melodic sounds of Monica’s “Everything to Me” resonated from my cell, waking me up from my sleep. I looked at the display and saw a 404 number I didn’t recognize, so I ignored it and rested my head back on my pillow. One minute later, the phone rang again, and it was the same number. I didn’t like answering numbers I didn’t know, but this fucker kept on calling. I’d never get any sleep.

  I pushed ACCEPT. “Who is this?”

  “Jasmine, it’s Nikki.”

  I sat up in bed. “Nikki? How did you get my number?”

  “Gina gave it to me. Listen, your girl Kandi is in trouble.”

  “What are you talking about? What trouble?”

  “She was here at Reggie’s party getting fucked up.”

  My eyebrows crinkled. “Reggie’s party? I told her not to go.”

  “Listen to me, Jasmine. Kandi left here with Chaz and two other niggas, and she is high as hell!”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “You need to get here, ’cause them niggas looked like they was gonna run a train on her ass.”

  “Oh my God. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  “Okay.”

  I ended the call and jumped up out of bed and threw on some pink Baby Phat sweats and pulled my hair back in a ponytail. One minute later, I was in my car heading toward The Pink Palace. I couldn’t believe Kandi went to that damn party after I told her ass not to fuck with them!

  I didn’t know why I even cared so much about what happened to Kandi, but a part of me felt responsible for her. She was so damn naïve.

  I raced down Peachtree Road toward the club and finally pulled into the parking lot. I saw Nikki and Gina waiting for me. I jumped out of my Mercedes-Benz.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  “Like I said, Jasmine, your girl Kandi got in a car with Chaz and two other niggas and took off. She was totally fucked up,” Nikki explained to me.

  “Who was she here with?”

  “She was getting high with Hester and Jade all night,” Gina informed me.

  I cut my eyes to the club entrance. “Them bitches!”

  I stormed toward the club, and Nikki and Gina were right behind me. When I went in, I looked around and saw niggas still partying. Reggie was in a booth, holding a napkin to his neck for some reason. Then I spotted them two scandalous hoes, Hester and Jade, giving lap dances to some niggas.

  I marched over to that Filipino bitch, Hester. “You stupid bitch! Why did you let her go with Chaz and ’em?”

  Hester flipped back her long, black hair and looked me up and down. “What the fuck you talking about, bitch?”

  “Kandi! You dumb bitches got her high and then let that grimy-ass nigga Chaz take her outta here,” I roared. My loud voice began to draw a few stares from the people around us, but I didn’t give a damn.

  Reggie and a couple of his niggas started to walk over to us, but then I saw Nikki mean-mugging him. She took her finger and made a cut-throat gesture across her neck. Reggie got an anxious look on his face and motioned for his niggas to go sit back down.

  “I ain’t her momma. She a grown-ass woman. If she wanna go make some paper, then that’s her business,” Hester retorted.

  “But you knew she was fucked up and you still let her go. Why weren’t you looking out for her?”
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  “Bitch, ain’t that yo’ job? What? You afraid Chaz is gonna stretch out that little tight pussy of Kandi’s? I know you like that coochie nice and tight, Jasmine,” Hester said in a sarcastic tone then licked her tongue between two fingers.

  Both Hester and Jade started laughing. I snapped and grabbed Hester by her long hair. I pulled her up out of the lap of the dude she was dancing with and pulled her head back.

  “Owwww,” Hester yelled.

  “You listen to me, bitch. If anything happens to Kandi, I’ma come back and whoop your ass!”

  I gave her hair another tug, pulling her head back further. She always bragged about having real hair on her head. Guess the bitch wasn’t lying, ’cause I was about to rip her shit off her scalp!

  I pushed her ass forward, back into the lap of the dude she was dancing with, and she grabbed her head. Then I stepped to Jade, still sitting in the other dude’s lap, and I pimp-slapped her ass across the face. I was so pissed, I wished she would try to fight back so I could break my foot off in her ass. But none of them wanted some.

  I turned and walked away. Nikki was right behind me.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “I know Chaz hustles out in Bankhead, so that’s where I’m going.”

  We both exited out the back of The Pink Palace and walked over to my car. Nikki walked around to the passenger side.

  “What are you doing?”

  Nikki looked at me. “I’m coming with you.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I know, but I wanna see this through to the end,” she said sincerely.

  I nodded my head, and we both got in my car. I pulled out of the parking lot and headed to Bankhead.

  What the hell was Kandi thinking? I wanted to blame her, but I saw what she was doing with Hester and Jade, and I hadn’t tried harder to stop her.

  Hester had called her a grown-ass woman, but Kandi was far from grown. In all actuality, she was still very much a little girl. I should’ve encouraged her to work things out with her boyfriend and get the hell out of that lifestyle, but instead I decided to be her “guru” and pulled her in deeper. I even seduced her for the hell of it. Now that I thought about it, I didn’t even know her real name. What the hell was I thinking?

  “This is not your fault, you know,” Nikki mentioned to me as we drove on the highway. “I know you think it is, but it’s not.”

  “It is. I should have seen this coming.”

  Nikki looked at me. “How could you?”

  I didn’t have an answer.

  “I’ve been where you are right now,” she said.

  “You don’t have to say that to make me feel better.”

  “I’m not. A few years ago, I got my little cousin caught up dancing at The Pink Palace. I schooled her on the do’s and don’ts of the game, and because of me, she got caught up in some real life and death shit. I should have never brought her into this game. I was lucky she got out of this lifestyle before it ruined her,” Nikki confessed.

  I glanced over to her. “Why did you get out? You could be running this shit by now.”

  She chuckled. “That’s what I thought, but we both know in reality, as long as you’re the one swinging on the pole, you’re never gonna run this shit.”

  We rode in silence for a few minutes, and her words really resonated with me. I guessed she really was me a few years ago. So where did I go from there?

  “What kind of car was Chaz driving?”

  “A gray Dodge Charger. Have you tried calling her?” she asked.

  “No. Shit. I should’ve been tried that.” I took out my cell and speed-dialed Kandi’s number. After six rings, her voice mail came on. “She’s not picking up.”

  We soon exited off I-20 and drove down Lee Street. I really didn’t fuck with this side of town if I didn’t have to. Nikki seemed to know this area like the back of her hand as she navigated me through the hood like a ghetto tour guide.

  This was the area that Chaz hustled at, and we drove to a few motels and didn’t see his car. An hour or so passed, and still no luck. The more time that passed, the more my concern for Kandi’s safety grew. We really didn’t know where Chaz could have taken her.

  “We’re wasting our time. There’s no telling where they could be,” I said to Nikki.

  “We have to do something. What do you know about this nigga Chaz?”

  “I know he’s an asshole. He runs the streets with Reggie, and he’s almost as perverted as him. He’s just another one of these young wannabe thugs who thinks he’s the man.”

  “Typical,” Nikki quipped.

  “I just don’t want anything to happen to her.” My cell started to sing Monica’s “Everything to Me.” I looked at the display, and Kandi’s name illuminated. I quickly answered.

  “Kandi! Where are you?”

  “Jasmine, please come . . . get me.”

  I pulled my car into the parking lot of a Texaco gas station/Hood Mart and parked. “Are you okay?” I asked her frantically.

  “Please . . . just come and get . . . me,” she responded weakly.

  “Okay, baby. I just need to know where you are,” I said as calmly as I could.

  “I don’t know.”

  Nikki touched my arm,

  “What did she say?”

  “She doesn’t know where she is,” I told Nikki. “Kandi, I need you to look outside and tell me what you see.”

  “Okay.” I heard her struggling to move around, and I thought she fell off the bed. “Kandi!”

  She didn’t respond, but I heard her still moving. “The . . . Super 8,” she mumbles.

  I turned and looked at Nikki. “Where the hell is the Super 8?”

  “College Park, off of Old National. C’mon, let’s get back on 285 South.”

  I pulled out of the Texaco and headed to the highway. I tried to keep talking to Kandi, but after a second or two, she was not responding anymore, and my heart sank into my gut. I prayed that she was still alive.

  Within a few minutes, we were exiting onto Old National Highway and we pulled up to The Super 8.

  After we described to the night manager who we were looking for, she said she remembered her and took us to the second floor and opened room 214. When the door opened, I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing down my face. Kandi was lying on the floor, buck-naked, looking like a broken doll with blood between her legs. The odor in the room was a pungent funk of pussy and dick. The mattress had blood all over it.

  I rushed to Kandi’s side, and by the grace of God, she was still breathing. Nikki got on her cell and called 911.

  15

  Preexisting Condition

  East Point, GA

  NIKKI

  What a hell of a night. If you had told me I would be sitting there in a cold-ass waiting room in South Fulton Hospital with Jasmine, I would have laughed at you.

  This whole situation hit so close to home for me. It was a little over three years earlier that I was raped and beaten like a dog by a nigga named Damien. Seeing Kandi in that condition in that hotel room, sprawled out on the floor, naked with blood between her legs, gave me flashbacks that sent chills up my spine.

  Jasmine was in tears and in shock seeing Kandi like that, no doubt blaming herself for what happened. She rode in the ambulance with Kandi, while I followed behind them in Jasmine’s Benz.

  In the short time I’d known Jasmine, I’d never seen her like this. She reminded me so much of myself a few years ago: a money-hungry bitch using her body to get what she wanted. That reflection of myself was scary to look at now, but I guessed seeing Kandi like that broke down all of Jasmine’s defenses and Ho-ology mindframe.

  We were lucky Kandi carried her I.D. and, surprisingly, a Humana insurance card in her pocketbook. Her real name was Candice Ford, nineteen years old.

  “She’s going to be okay, Jasmine.”

  Jasmine looked at me sitting next to her in the chair. “Thank you for calling and telling me what happ
ened to her. I . . . I haven’t exactly been the nicest person to you.”

  I chuckled. “It comes with the job description: show no love to the competition in the club.”

  She laughed too. “Who said you were competition for me?”

  “See, you’re already feeling better.”

  She looked to the floor. “I should have done better by her. I should have kept a closer eye on her. Made sure she didn’t get caught up with them nasty bitches up in there.”

  “You could’ve done all that, and this still could have happened. She made a bad decision. But she’s lucky to have a friend like you,” I consoled her.

  “A friend like me.” Jasmine shook her head. “That’s a joke. I could’ve been a lot better.”

  “Then be that now.”

  She smiled at me. “I can do that.”

  We sat in silence for a few minutes. We didn’t notice it at first, because we were so concerned with Kandi’s condition, but we were gaining a few stares from some men in the emergency waiting room. All kinds of weirdos were up in there at that time of night.

  Jasmine was wearing a tight, form-fitting pink Baby Phat sweat suit that hugged her voluptuous body, and I doubted that she had any panties on underneath. I did wake her up out of her sleep. I had just left The Pink Palace and was dressed in my True Religion jeans and a tight black Hello Kitty T-shirt that snuggled my breasts.

  A dude got up from his chair and walked over to us. He just stopped and stared at us like we were a pair of steaks on the grill.

  Jasmine looked at me and then we both looked at him. “What the hell are you staring at?”

  “Yeah, put your fucking tongue back in your mouth and keep it moving,” Jasmine snapped.

  The dude got an embarrassed expression on his face and went and sat back down.

  “Niggas.” Jasmine shook her head. “Even when they’re hurt, they dicks still control their brains.”

  “Typical. We’re not even on the clock,” I quipped.

  “Speaking of which, what’s up with you and Reggie?” Jasmine inquired.

  “That asshole.”