Grand Opening Read online

  “Nah, you go on. I’m gonna smoke a cigarette before I go back in.”

  “Suit yourself. Just remember, Sam don’t like us being out here but so long.”

  I took one last hit of the reefer, putting out what was left of the joint on the side of the building before searching my bag for my Newports. I lit a cigarette as I watched Big Shirley and KeKe, a tall, jet black beauty with a dynamite shape escort Lou into the building. The other girls, including Little Momma, were trailing close behind, chattering excitedly.

  With the girls inside, I made my way to the front porch, leaning against the pole that held up the awning. As I stared up at the stars, I started daydreaming of being anywhere but Waycross, Georgia.

  I still couldn’t believe I had ended up here, turning tricks for Sam. When I slept with Alejandro for him, I had thought it was a one-time thing. The next day, Sam took me to Disney Land and treated me like a queen. I swear I had never felt so special in my life. My night with Alejandro felt like nothing more than a bad dream—until the end of the day at Disney, when Sam admitted to me that he was broke. He also told me that there were some very bad men after him, who would kill him if he didn’t pay the money he owed them. Before I knew it, I had let him convince me that if we wanted to be together, I had no choice but to help him out by selling my body. He also promised that once his debts were paid, we would leave that life behind and see the world together. I had visions of us traveling, with every day feeling as special as our day at Disney World had. The hope of that future was what kept me going when he brought me back to Waycross and introduced me to the rest of his girls. By the time I figured out he was a pimp, I was already deeply in love with Sam. Part of me wanted to start walking and never look back, but the truth was that Sam was all I had, so I would just have to be satisfied with these stars, this cigarette, and my high, until Sam said we could get out of this life.

  “Bitch, did I say you could come out here and sit on your ass?” Big Sam scared the shit out of me as he stuck his head out the door and yelled at me. I wasn’t surprised though. I’d already made my quota for the night, but Big Sam wasn’t one to let his girls spend idle time at his establishment. I hadn’t really expected my smoke break to last very long. “How many times I gotta tell you time is money? Now, get yo’ yella ass in here. These dicks ain’t gonna suck themselves.”

  “Coming, baby.” I never liked to displease Sam, so I quickly gathered my Newports and my lighter and scurried back inside. By the time I entered the club, however, Sam had already forgotten about me. He’d probably retired to his smoke-filled private office at the back end of the club.

  “Move, bitch,” this heifer Sandra said, knowing she could have gone around me with her john. About half her size, the man looked like he was stone cold in love before he had even gone for a test ride.

  “I’ll move when I damn well please,” I growled at her. She ignored me with a smack of her lips and a switch of her ample hips as they disappeared behind the beaded curtain.

  Meanwhile, I saw Lou sitting at a table with about ten of the girls surrounding him like he was a rock star. Curiosity got the best of me, and I moved closer to see what the commotion was all about. He was reaching into a duffle bag on the table and handing each of the girls some type of gift, most of which were I LOVE NEW YORK T-shirts and small statues of the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty. From the way the girls were reacting, you would have thought they were gold coins.

  “Well, well, well, what do we have here?” He’d just finished handing out his little trinkets, and I guess he noticed my hands were empty. He looked me up and down, smiling with his pearly white teeth as he undressed me with his eyes. “What’s your name, Red?”

  “My name’s not Red,” I snapped at him. I hated being called Red. It was such a cliché.

  “We call her Chippy,” Little Momma jumped in, trying to clean things up for me.

  Chippy was what they had begun calling me when I started working there last month, just to get under my skin. They said it was because I acted like a stuck up bitch when I arrived—like I had a chip on my shoulder. Truth be told, it was because most of them were jealous of how much Sam loved me. So, rather than fighting it, I claimed it. At least it wasn’t what I was called back home; then again, nothing could be as bad as what they did to me back home. I took some solace in the fact that I had a room of my own and decent food. Even more importantly, I had Sam, who loved and protected me, and I wasn’t nobody’s victim anymore. I knew exactly what I was doing . . . despite the fact that everyone kept calling me naive.

  “Okay, okay, Chippy it is, then.” He reached in his duffle bag and pulled out a red T-shirt. “How about we fix you up with a Big Apple T-shirt.”

  I shook my head firmly. “No, thank you. I’ll get my own when Sam and I travel to New York.”

  Lou sat back in his chair and pulled Little Momma into his lap. “Oh, well, excuse me.” Little Momma wrapped one arm around his neck while she massaged the growing imprint in his pants. Lou laughed at me, and so did all the other girls. “Sam’s taking you to New York, huh?”

  I lifted my head proudly. “Sam’s taking me to a lot of places: Paris, London, New York, Vegas. We’re going to travel the world.”

  “Shiiiittt, you ain’t been past Main Street since you got here, so you might as well take that fantasy shit somewhere else,” Big Shirley teased. “Your ass ain’t going nowhere but on your back like the rest of us hoes.”

  I liked Big Shirley, but she was starting to piss me off. “Don’t tell me what I’m going to do, Shirley. I was on my way to Vegas when my purse got stole with my ticket in it. And as soon as I get enough money, me and Sam are getting the hell out of this one horse town.”

  “You and Sam?” Big Shirley let out a big, infectious laugh and soon it seemed like everyone in the group was laughing at me, including Lou. “Bitch, you got to be the dumbest ho I’ve ever met. You been here over a month and you still drinking Sam’s Kool-Aid. Let me pull your coat to something: You might be Big Sam’s little queen right now, but we all been there at one point or the other. You ain’t nothing but the flavor of the month, baby girl, and trust me, next month there will be a new flavor, and you’ll be just like the rest of us hoes.”

  LC

  4

  After pleading with Donna to finish what we’d started in the Trailways parking lot, I was eventually sent home with blue balls. It turned out that in her eyes, Lou’s untimely interruption was just God’s way of reminding her that she wasn’t that type of girl. I didn’t care what she had to say. It sure felt like she was that type of girl when she had her lips wrapped around my dick—although I wasn’t about tell her that. Frustrated and uncomfortable, I dropped off my boss’s tow truck then headed home to take a cold shower.

  After my shower, I made my way back to Big Sam’s with Levi to drop off my brother’s car. I might even stay for a while, I decided. Hell, I’d earned a good time after what Donna had just put me through.

  You know what they say about time heals old wounds? Well, it must be true, because by the time I found a parking space on Oak Street, which was packed because of the Friday night crowd, I’d almost forgotten about my sexual frustration with Donna. It may have also had something to do with the fact that I’d completely fallen in love with my brother’s car. I’d always been a car nut, but Lou’s Buick Electra 225 was like nothing I’d ever driven before. It was like a Caddy and a sports car all rolled into one.

  “Man, I got to get me one of these one day,” I said to my brother Levi as we stepped out of the car. I turned to admire the car, but Levi barely paid attention to me or the car. His mind was on one thing.

  “Wh–wh–where’s Lou?” Levi stuttered.

  I looked up at my hulk-like brother, who at 6 foot 8 towered over my meager six foot frame. Levi was so big he barely fit through most doorways without turning sideways. Despite his size, my brother was really nothing more than a big teddy bear who spent most of his time at the house tendin
g to his animals. The only time you had to worry about him was when he thought you might do some harm to one of our family members. Yep, ol’ Levi had a good soul, but to be quite frank, he was what some people called slow.

  “We’re going to see him at Big Sam’s.”

  The door of the club opened and the sound of music and laughter poured out into the parking lot, putting a smile on Levi’s face. He and Sam were real close, and as he eloquently put it, “I–I–I like Ba–ba–big Sam’s.”

  As Levi and I went into Big Sam’s, I swear it was like a scene from a movie when the record stops playing. The entire place became silent as everyone watched us—or at least Levi—enter. It wasn’t every day you see someone his size.

  “L–look at all the pu–pu–pu–pussy, LC,” Levi said excitedly, his eyes wandering from one scantily clad woman to the next. “Y–y–you th–th–th–think I’m g–g–gonna get some pu–pu–pu–pussy tonight?”

  Levi might not have been the brightest bulb in the box, but he was all man, and he loved him some women ever since Lou had paid Mimi Knotts to give him some on his sixteenth birthday. “Yeah, big man, I’m sure you’re going to get some tonight. You know Lou wouldn’t have me bring you all the way here if he wasn’t going to get you some.”

  “LC, Levi.” I turned toward the voice to see Sam Bradford, the forty-something-year-old owner of Big Sam’s and the closest thing Waycross had to an HNIC. Big Sam was one of those tall, light-skinned pretty boys with green eyes that black woman always seemed to fawn over. Being a dark-skinned brother, I’d always hated those type of guys, not just because they were usually arrogant fucks, but because they were always the ones with the girls I wanted to be with.

  “What’s happening, Sam?” despite my personal dislike for the man, I offered my hand in politeness. He slapped me five.

  “Nothin’ much,” he said, patting the sides of his head like I actually gave a shit about his five-inch fro. “You know how it goes, baby. Another day, another dollar. Making these bitches work so I can get rich.”

  “I heard that. You seen my brother?”

  “Which one? Lou’s upstairs trying to put two of my best hoes out of commission, and Larry’s over there nursing a bottle.” He gestured toward a table in the corner, where my older brother Larry was sitting alone. “One of the girls tried to holla at him, but man, that’s one ornery son of a bitch. What’s his problem anyway? He hate the world, or just pussy?”

  “I like pu–pu–pussy,” Levi stuttered, causing Sam and I to laugh.

  “We know you do, big man,” I said to my brother then turned to answer Sam. “Nah, that’s just Larry. I don’t think my momma hugged him enough as a child,” I replied half-heartedly.

  “You know, that makes sense. Lou always said you were the smart one.” Sam chuckled, waving over a half-naked cocktail waitress. “Look, what you cats drinking? The first one’s on me.”

  “I’ll take a rum and Coke,” I said

  “I’ll take a Sh–sh–shirley T–t–temple, but I’mmmm not really th–th–thirsty,” Levi sputtered, shaking his head. “I–I just want some pu–pu–pussy.”

  “Let me talk to Lou and see what I can do, big man,” Sam replied. He walked away, and I followed him with my eyes as he whispered in the ear of a cute, light-skinned woman. She glanced over at us then climbed the stairs. Meanwhile, Levi and I headed toward Larry’s table.

  “Well, well, well, if it isn’t my two younger brothers, the college boy and the simpleton.” Larry picked up the half empty bottle of liquor and put it to his lips. “I heard the playboy’s back in town. Where is he? Wait, let me guess. He’s upstairs fucking one of Sam’s two-bit whores.”

  Lou

  5

  “Ohhhhh, Lou, that’s right, honey. Fuck me with that big ol’ dick!” Little Momma shouted loud enough for everyone downstairs in Big Sam’s to hear. Not that I could blame her. I was fucking her real good, while Big Shirley lay next to us, rubbing a piece of ice on her sore pussy from the beating I’d just put on it. It didn’t matter how big her ass was; Shirley’s tight-ass pussy wasn’t meant for what I was packing. No matter how hard she tried, she always needed a ton of lube. Now, Little Momma was a different story. She’d had so many babies her stretched out twat was perfect for my baseball bat–sized cock.

  I heard a knock at the door. I didn’t miss a stroke as I continued to pump Little Momma, but I did lock eyes with Big Shirley. “Who the fuck is that?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, go find out. Can’t you see I’m fucking?” I turned my attention back to the velvety wet goodness of Little Momma.

  “Ooooh, shit. I’m about to come,” Little Momma moaned, shaking her ass like a vibrator.

  I slammed my hips against her to go deeper as I felt myself ready to explode. “Urrrgh!” I growled, damn near lifting Little Momma off the bed with my last orgasmic thrust.

  It took me a minute to regain my composure, but when I slid my semi hard dick out of Little Momma, I was face to face with Sam’s newest whore, the girl they called Chippy. Her red ass sure was fine, standing there gawking at my pride and joy. “Like what you see?”

  “I told you that shit was big,” Little Momma said with a laugh.

  “Ummm, yes you did.” Chippy nodded, her eyes still glued to my dick. “Damn!”

  “So . . .” I snapped, breaking her trance. “You come here to join us, or you here for some other reason?”

  “Oh, yeah,” she muttered, finally looking up at my face. “Big Sam said to tell you he’s in his office and that your brothers are here, and one of them is running up a tab.”

  “That’s probably Larry’s drink ass,” Big Shirley added.

  I shot her a look of displeasure. I hated when anyone talked about my brothers, although she was probably right. Neither Levi nor LC were big drinkers, but Larry was a drunk.

  “Tell Sam I’ll be right down.”

  Chippy nodded her head and then she was out the door, giving me a glimpse of her fine figure and very shapely ass. “Hey, Red!” I yelled after her. “Maybe I’ll bring you back up here after I handle my business with Sam.”

  She stopped, turned, thought about it for a second while she stared at my Johnson, then shook her head. “No, thanks. I’m woman enough to know when I’m outmatched. That thing you packing isn’t even human. I know horses who’d be jealous of a dick like that.”

  I laughed, nodding my head. Shit, I had to respect her, but I couldn’t lie and say I didn’t want her. There was something about her that made her different from the rest of the girls. “A’ight, but if you ever get the urge to test out Space Mountain,”—I grabbed my Johnson, pointing him at her—“we’re always here.”

  Ten minutes later, I had cleaned myself up and dismissed Little Momma and Big Shirley. I walked up to the table my brothers were sitting at.

  “L–L–Lou!” Levi shouted excitedly as I walked over to him. I placed my arm around his massive shoulder and pointed to the women.

  “There’s a lot of pussy running around here. Which one you want?” I asked my younger brother, who looked like he was gonna bust a gut.

  “Th–that w–w–one.” Levi pointed at a slightly heavy yella girl named Sandy, who had the biggest pair of titties I’d ever seen. I’d played hide the sausage with her on a few occasions, so I knew she’d treat Levi right. Plus she was big enough so he wouldn’t break her.

  “Hey, Sandy,” I addressed the girl, crooking my finger for her to join us. “Come here for a minute.” She couldn’t get there fast enough, wrapping her arms around my neck then kissing my cheek. Man, the women sure loved Sweet Lou.

  “What can I do for you, Lou?” She purred sexily, rubbing those massive titties up against my chest.

  I gestured toward Levi. “Why don’t you take my brother upstairs and show him a good time. I’ll take care of you later.” I slapped her ass playfully.

  “Sure, Lou. Come on, Levi. You ready to have some fun?”

&nb
sp; Levi didn’t speak. He just nodded his head happily. Sandy took his hand and led him up the stairs. I turned my attention to LC, who tossed me the keys to my deuce and a quarter. “She’s parked down the block in front of the liquor store. I’ll tell you, Lou, that’s one fine ride.”

  “You like that, huh, little brother? Well, next time I go out of town I’ll leave you the keys.” LC smiled like a little boy. I think he loved cars more than Levi loved pussy.

  “Man, enough with the BS chit-chat,” Larry chimed in. “I don’t care about your car. What I care about is in that duffle bag you carrying and how much we gonna get for it.”

  “You see I came back in one piece. Italians wanna move more product in the South, and that’s where little ole me ingratiated myself to them. Gonna make some moves with Big Sam. Water the garden and watch it bear fruit. Pretty soon we’ll have a fruit stand.”

  “I don’t trust Big Sam,” LC coolly admitted. He normally kept his opinions to himself, but as he aged, he was becoming more vocal. The boy had a good head on his shoulders, and to be honest, a lot of that shit he was bringing home from school made sense.

  “That’s because you’re smart,” Larry chimed in with a chuckle.

  “Most folks in this world are dumb as fuck. Sam makes a living off them. I got this, li’l bro. I understand not how the world should work, but how it does.”

  “And I wouldn’t know about that, right?” LC came back at me.

  “You got time, boy. And as long as I’m around, I’ll make sure you don’t make my mistakes. Come on. Let me show you how it’s done.”

  I gestured for them to follow me, praying Larry’s rebellious ass wouldn’t balk, because there was serious business to attend to, and we Duncans needed to at least pretend to be on the same wave length. Thankfully, by the time I knocked on Sam’s door, Larry was standing next to me. I handed him the duffle bag.