Niya Read online

  “So why you tell me this, huh?”

  “Because I’m a lesbian.”

  Her hands no longer moved. The water was running, but she didn’t say a word. Nor did she wash another dish. I backed out of the kitchen. With anger and hurt filling my airways, I needed some air. I grabbed my cell and opened the door. I heard her call my name, but I just couldn’t go back in there. I had said it. For the first time, I had said it out loud, and at that moment, the truth was suffocating me. Once I was outside, I called White Boy and told him that we could meet up. When I hung up with him, I called Roxie and told her I would see her within an hour or two, after I made a deal.

  * * *

  Eye to eye with the barrel of the gun, and all I could think about was how much of a shitty night I was having. First Rodney, then Jamilla, though that shit with my grandma was just the worst.

  “You got one minute, bitch. If you don’t come up off them bricks, I’m gonna put a hole in your chest.”

  See, now, why did he have to call me a bitch? ’Cause I got tits? I shook my head before getting out of the car.

  “Don’t you know that this is a man’s game? Ain’t no room for no pussy in this shit. Fucking dyke running around here like you a nigga. I should put this dick in your ass and remind you that you’re a bitch. You got a pussy just like the rest of them hoes around here.”

  I looked back and looked him up and down. This little nigga was poppin’ big shit, but I couldn’t worry about that right now. I had other things to think about. Like how this dude knew that I was holding. The only people who knew about this deal were White Boy, who was buying the shit from me, and Roxie, the bitch I was fucking with. Could it be that this nigga had just got lucky, or had White Boy sent his ass?

  As soon as I’d pulled up to pick up my packages, he was right on my ass. Either way, I was going to find out. Whoever he was, he had to know something about me. He was taking my sexual orientation a little too personal for him not to. I walked him to the shed behind the abandoned house and popped the lock.

  “Hurry up, bitch. I ain’t got all damn day.”

  We walked into the shed. I moved some things around and pulled out the two bricks. Even through his ski mask, I could tell that he was smiling.

  “If I wasn’t in a hurry, I would dick your dyke ass down. Maybe it would remind you that you should like dick, not walk around like you have one. I should—”

  “Nigga, maybe if you weren’t so caught up on the pussy that I’m getting, you would actual get some real-life pussy, instead of just talking about what you should do. Small dick motherfuckers always got a problem ’cause I’m fucking bitches better than they ever could!”

  As the words left my mouth, I couldn’t help but question if they would be my last. But he didn’t shoot me. He punched me in the lip instead.

  “Bitch, I’m giving you ten seconds to get the fuck out of here.”

  I spit out the blood that was dripping into my mouth from my busted lip. “All right. My bad. I’m leaving.”

  I left the shed, made a left, and prayed that I was moving fast enough. I walked over to the plant, lifted it up, and stood there for a minute. I had never had to use the gun. I’d just cracked a few niggas in the head. I’d never really pulled the trigger. That night, it was as if everything was moving in slow motion. I cocked the gun, made my way back to the shed, and prayed to God. I was about to take a man’s life, and I wanted him to forgive me. A few things ran through my mind, but the thought of him dying didn’t have the importance it should have. I thought about who I was and who I was going to be after that day. I thought about the people in my life, and how they’d reacted to the person I had always been but had hidden, and it pissed me off. I turned the corner and crept into the doorway of the shed. There he was, walking out, as if what he held belonged to him.

  “Ay, you still wanna fuck this dyke bitch straight?” I asked as I aimed the gun at him.

  He tried to reach for his gun, but I moved faster. I let out three rounds, hitting him only once. He fell back, but he was still breathing. I walked up on him, took the duffel bag from his fingertips, and did the world a favor. I shot him again, hopefully ending the life of a homophobic thief who would otherwise rob again. I got the rest of my things, moved them to a new place, and went straight home.

  * * *

  I didn’t get much sleep that night. The dead man ran through my mind as I tried to get some rest. It wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be, taking a life, but I tried to act as normal as possible when I awoke the next morning to the smell of bacon and eggs on the stove. I stumbled down to the kitchen.

  “Hey, Grandma. Anything good to eat?” I asked as I tried to rub the sleepiness from my eyes. I wasn’t going to bring up the night before if she didn’t.

  “Niya, mi amor, you have to get some rest. You too handsome to go around looking like zombie.”

  I looked over at my grandmother and had to smile. She always knew how to brighten up my day. Just hearing the word handsome made my heart skip a beat. I took a seat at the table, and as she brought over a plate of eggs and bacon, I asked myself if she got it. Did she understand what I had told her last night? If so, was she okay with it?

  As I ate, she watched me. I knew she had a mouthful to say, so I waited.

  “You know, your uncle George was a gay in Santo Domingo. My father kick him out because he gay. He struggle so much. He didn’t have no money, no food, no clothes. So . . .” She had to stop for a minute. I waited for her to wipe her tears so she could continue.

  “So he live on the streets, did anything for money. Soon he start to take the drugs to be able to stay up, work more, sell his body. Well, we beg my father. Me, my mother, and my sisters, we beg him. We say, ‘Please, Papa, let him come back. He still your son.’ He say, ‘No. He dead to me.’ For two years, we beg him, and he say no. Well, one day, we in the house, making dinner, and we hear yelling from outside. We run out. It’s my papa covered in blood. He hold George in his hands. He skinny like broom, almost dead. Someone beat him, rape him. We bring him in house, call doctor, clean him, give him medicine. Three days later George die.”

  I got up, got the box of tissues, took one, handed her the box, and watched her wipe her tears as I wiped my own.

  “See, my father, he cry the hardest. He cry the loudest. He know this no happen if he let George stay. My mother hate him after that. They never the same. They fight. They hit every day after that. Life never the same again. My father die with this on his heart. So, Niya, when I ask why you tell me this, it’s ’cause I know already. I know for years. I love you, Niya. That don’t matter. Forever, I love you. No matter what. Understand me?”

  I couldn’t take it anymore. I got out of my chair and kneeled down in front of her. I threw my head onto her lap and just cried. I cried for her dead brother; I cried for my broken family. I cried because I loved her and she loved me. I cried because she loved me, no matter what. Most of all, I cried because I was free. As long as my grandmother knew and accepted me, I could start to come to terms with who I was. I could say “Fuck the world” and just be me.

  “Mi amor, as long as I love you, that’s all that matters. ‘Fuck you’ to anybody who no love you. You are great, Niya, the best, no matter who you love or sex with. I love you.”

  Chapter 4

  Jamilla

  I hadn’t seen Niya for a week. My heart raced as I thought of my notebook. I didn’t want her to take anything she might have read the wrong way. Or worse, I didn’t want her to think that I was some obsessed person who wrote about her. I hoped that she just thought that I was writing about some random person.

  “Jamilla, we need to talk. Ki kote ou ye?”

  “I’m here, in my room,” I said to my mother.

  She came into my bedroom and sat down at the foot of my bed. She waited for me to put my laptop down before she started to speak. “How are you and Marie?”

  I rolled my eyes. I had got a new stepdad, and a stepsister, Marie, had come
with him. “Everything is fine,” I answered coldly. My mother shifted on the bed, and I waited for the bullshit.

  “You are still wetting the bed?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Marie said you wet the bed four times this week. She said—”

  “Mom, I don’t want to talk about this. The doctor said that it’s a side effect.”

  My mother stood up and looked at me. “Side effect? Kisa sa ye?”

  I couldn’t believe that my mother had just asked me what a side effect was.

  “From what happened, Mom. The doctor said—”

  “Ban’m tèt mwen. I don’t care what he say. You need to stop this, and since you can’t, you have to move out of the room.” She had told me to “give her her head.” Meaning she didn’t want to hear anymore.

  “What? Why do I have to move? This is my room.”

  “You keep wetting the bed. Marie can’t take it, and I can’t expect her to live like that.”

  I thought I was losing my damn mind. My mother was kicking me out of my own room for Marie? I couldn’t understand what was happening. I wasn’t wetting the bed on purpose. I prayed every night, before I went to bed, that the sheets would be dry when I woke up. It was embarrassing. I couldn’t sleep over at anyone’s house because of this, and it just ate at my self-esteem.

  “You are taking her side on this? You are going to make me leave my own room for her? Where will I sleep? In the living room?”

  “You wet the bed and won’t stop. What do you want me to do? Jackson is not happy that his daughter is mad. You cannot sleep in the living room. You will ruin Jackson’s couch. You will have to sleep in the kitchen. The floor can be mopped if you pee on it.”

  I didn’t know what to say. My heart felt as if it was being ripped out of my chest.

  “What do you mean, in the kitchen? I can’t sleep in there. This is my room.”

  “Listen, I have to do what is going to make everyone happy. You keep peeing in the bed, and that’s not right.” My mother’s Haitian accent seemed to get stronger, the angrier she got.

  “But, Mom, it’s not my fault. I have tried to stop.”

  She was actually mad at me, and she yelled, “No, you are not trying hard enough.”

  I started to cry. I felt like I was in the twilight zone. I knew that my mother liked to brush whatever happened under the rug, but the bed-wetting was a result of her refusing to deal with things.

  “I am not leaving my own goddamned room for that bitch. Let her go sleep in the kitchen.”

  “Hey! Veye bouch ou nan kay mwen. It is over. You do what I ask, okay?”

  I got off the bed and stood face-to-face with my mother. “You are asking me to watch my mouth? Fuck her! She is not your daughter. I am.”

  “Yes, you are my daughter, but why can’t you be good, like Marie? All day you sit outside. I say study, and you go outside. I say clean, and you go outside. I say stop peeing in the bed, and you still pee.”

  “Are you kidding me? I get straight As, maybe one B, if that. I do everything, while Marie sits on her ass. It’s not my fault she would rather stay in the house, watching TV all day.”

  “Listen, I don’t care what you say. You do what I tell you.”

  I looked at my mother and lost all respect for her in that very moment. “Fuck all of you. This is my room, and I’m not leaving.”

  Chapter 5

  Niya

  I sat back as Roxie danced for me. There was something about her body that just drove me crazy. Her dark skin, her jet-black hair, her eyes, her lips—they all told the story of a Negro Puerto Rican. Well, that was what she told me her family called her. I guessed she had always been some sort of outcast, because the rest of them were light. But she was the most beautiful. I met her when she came over to my house with Rodney. I had thought that we would freak off, but she hadn’t wanted Rodney to touch her at all. We’d just ended up drinking and smoking. But before she left, she gave me her number.

  She was very open about who she was, but I met up with her only in private or after dark. She loved to fuck with me. She knew that I didn’t like her hugging or kissing on me in public, so she would do it all the time.

  “You bring something for me today?” she asked as she made her ass jump to the music. She was thick, had ass and breasts for days. Her body was that of a grown woman, but she had just turned eighteen.

  “Maybe, maybe not. Aren’t you just happy to see me?”

  She walked over to me, straddled me, and let her hair down. It swept past her shoulders and made her even sexier. “Come on, Papi. Don’t play with me. You know it makes me wet to see something sparkle.”

  I knew what type of chick she was, but I just couldn’t help it. Looking at her in her bra and thong, so pretty, so deceivingly pleasing to the eye, I just had to feel her, be around her, feast on her.

  “You feel that, Papi?” she asked as she took my hand and slipped it into her undies. “You feel how wet that pussy is? Make it wetter, baby. Show me what you bought for me.”

  Like her fucking lapdog, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a bracelet.

  “Oh, baby. I love it. Look at that! How many carats?”

  “Two,” I answered. I was a sucker for a bad bitch with good pussy. She had me right where she wanted me.

  She stood up, put on her gift, and took the rest of what she had on . . . off. She got on top of me and let me taste her lips. They were just as sweet as I remembered. The cash I had dropped on her jewels was money well spent. With Roxie, sex was always exciting. Just the sound of her moaning turned me on. She was a straight freak. Her pussy was always wet, and no lie, once I slipped my fingers between her legs again now, I’d be damned if she hadn’t managed to get even wetter than she was before. I flipped her on the bed, and as always, she played her little games. She pushed me away, sat up, and waited for me to pull her close again.

  “I changed my mind. I’m not horny anymore,” she said with a smile. “Fuck that bullshit. You give me that pussy when I want it.”

  I laid her back down and pushed her legs open. She had the prettiest kitty. Well groomed, fat lips, and just juicy.

  “I wanna watch you,” I said.

  She didn’t move, so I took her hand and slid it down her belly. I placed her fingers against her clit and waited. Still nothing.

  “Why you always have to do shit the hard way?” I asked as I wrapped my hand around her neck. At first, I put only minimal pressure on her neck, but the longer she made me wait, the more I squeezed. I watched as a vein in her forehead bulged, and slowly, she started to move her fingers. I eased up. The rougher I got with her, the more turned on she would become.

  As I watched her, I pushed her legs as far back as they could go. I pushed her hand out of the way and plunged into her wet spot. She tasted sweet, and I couldn’t get enough of her. I licked every inch of her cave. I sucked her engorged clit, and I tongue fucked her until she came in my mouth. She was a wildcat. Pulling at my hair, screaming my name, telling me how much she loved her papi. I fantasized about having a dick, just so I could feel her with something besides my fingers and tongue. She was so fucking sexy, and I wished that I could just give her the real thing. So, as she reached for the strap-on, I shook my head no. I just wasn’t ready.

  * * *

  “Where were you that night you were supposed to come and see me?”

  I looked at her as if I didn’t know what she was talking about.

  “You better not have been with no bitch.”

  I rolled my eyes at her. She was always talking about me being with other girls, though she knew damn well that she and Smiley were the only ones.

  “Don’t start that shit. We just had a good time,” I said as I passed her the blunt. I picked up my drink glass, which was damn near empty, and drank down the rest of my cranberry and vodka.

  “So, where were you?”

  I didn’t answer her, but when she asked me again, I pushed her off me and told her that I was going int
o the shower. Once I was out, I got dressed, counted off a few bills, and tried to hand them to her.

  “You think that I am just your pussy piece? You come here, fuck me, and pay me. I’m not your fucking slut!”

  I knew what time it was, and I wasn’t going to play her game. I left the money on the bed and started for her door.

  “Niya, I will fucking kill you, do you hear me? You better not be fucking around.” She was following me, tugging at my shirt. Turning my V-neck into a U-neck.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you? Why do you always have to end this shit on a sour note?”

  She wasn’t letting up, and I didn’t expect her to. “What’s wrong with me? No. What’s wrong with you? You can’t even kiss me in front of people. You treat me like a ho, and I am far from it.”

  “A ho? Would I buy a ho this?” I asked pointing at her neck. “Or how about this?” I pointed at her wrist. Every piece of jewelry she had on, I had bought, yet I always had to deal with her crazy bullshit.

  “Man . . . I’m out. Call me when you get some fucking sense,” she declared.

  She was still holding on to me, so I asked her to let me go.

  “I’m not letting you go. Tell me where you were, who you were with,” she answered.

  I yanked her toward me and grabbed her wrist. I twisted it, making sure not to cause too much pain, but enough to make her let go of me. Once loose from her vise grip, I pushed her away from me.

  “You’re a crazy bitch. Hit me when you are back to normal,” I told her.

  * * *

  I stopped on my way home and picked up another bottle. Once I was around my hood, I just strolled the streets as a perfect ending to my night. I sipped slowly as I walked and thought about Roxie. She always had to start shit right after we had sex. But I couldn’t lie; I could dig her crazy ways at times. It added spice. She was wild, fought damn near every girl in the hood, and always had some crazy shit poppin’ off. She was fun that way. She was the type to eat a meal and skip out on the tab, just to have a story for that day. As I let the liquor warm my chest, my phone rang. The same number had been calling me for the past week or so. I was in just the right mood to deal with the call, so I picked up.