Deep Throat Diva (14 page)

“I know that’s right,” she says as I snap the cape around her neck. “I’m impressed. Umm, speaking of stepping outside of the box, I want a whole new look; something real drastic, yet sassy for the spring.”

“What do you have in mind?” She tells me to do whatever I want. I smile, and decide to give her a retro bob cut. I see Big Booty still at the counter talking to Felecia, either catching up on—or
dishing out—the latest gossip, then she speaks to a few clients sitting in the waiting area before she makes her way over to my workstation. Over all the chemicals floating through the air in here, I can practically smell her signature perfume—Juicy by Juicy Couture before she approaches me. This is the first time anyone has seen her since she got sliced in the face. She lifts her up her designer shades, tossing her shoulder-length weave to the side. “Miss Pasha, girl, can you fit me in today? I see you kinda busy up in here. How many heads you got?”

Shit, I can’t ever remember her damn real name
. “Hey, girl,” I say, mindful not to call her by her street name. “I have two or three, but I’m sure I can fit you in.”

“Perfect” she says, running her hand along the nape of her neck. “I need to get this kitchen handled. These peas are poppin’ for real.”

I laugh, eyeing her white Louis bag and admiring her wears. “You better go, girl,” I say, waving a finger in the air. “You look good. And that bag is hot.”

Shuwanda comments on the bag as well. “Yeah, girl, that’s shit’s fiyah for sure!”

“Thanks,” she says, letting her bag rest in the crook of her arm. “It was a treat to me after that ho cut me.” Her weave piece covers the right side of her face. She pulls it back to show us her scar. “Yeah, the bitch got me good. But she got even better.”

“Did she get charged?” Shuwanda wants to know.

“That bitch sure did, and she got stomped, too. Shit, we all got charged. That ho was snappin’ over some damn dick, comin’ up to my door tryna bring da noise.” She rolls her eyes, sucking her teeth. “Bitch, puhleeze. And the nigga was still tryna come through for some’a this goodie-goodie, okay.”

“And I know you sent his ass on his merry way,” I say, eyeing
her as I turn on the water. When it’s the right temp, I lean Janelle back in the sink and begin washing her hair.

She bucks her eyes. “The hell if I did. I dug into that nigga’s pockets for all of my pain ’n sufferin’ first. Then I pulled a nut outta him.”

Shuwanda chuckles. “Ooh, girl, you messy. But I love it!” It figures she would, since the two of them are cut from the same cloth.

“Messy, hell,” Big Booty replies. “If that nigga don’t respect his relationship, then why should I? The only fool in the room is that dumb-ass ho thinkin’ she got shit on lock.”

“I know that’s right,” Shuwanda agrees, encouraging Big Booty to stand here and keep the shit going. “I feel the same way. Cheatin’-ass niggas ain’t shit. So do you, boo. I saw what you posted on Facebook. Girl, it was hilarious. You called her out.”

“Sure did. Then had Marquelle post her beatdown on YouTube, okay? Fuck wit’ me if you want.”

I shake my head. Marquelle is her fifteen-year-old son who drinks and smokes around her—and from what I hear, with her. She stands here giving us all blow by blow details of how her and this girl fought. Come to find out the girl she and her kids beat down is only twenty-two. This bitch should be ashamed of herself. I keep my thoughts to myself.

An hour and a half later, Janelle gets out of the styling chair, looking like a new woman. “Girl,” she says, checking out her new do in the hand mirror. She smiles at her reflection. “I love it.” She glances down at her past—long, thick hair, then back up at the new her in the mirror. “This is exactly what I needed.”

I smile, sweeping her hair into a dustpan.
I need to start making wigs
, I think, dumping it into the trash.
I’d make a killing.
The wheels in my head start to churn as an idea for developing my own line of wigs comes into view.

Janelle hands me a ten-dollar tip, then makes her way over to the register to pay Felecia. I call Big Booty over. She struts over, swinging her hips. I peep a few customers cutting their eyes at her never-ending ass. She sits in the chair.

“Miss Pasha, girl, I appreciate you squeezing me in. I’m going to see Ledisi in the city at B.B. King’s tomorrow night and I gotta be right.”

“Oh, I love her,” I say, snapping the cape around her neck. “I saw her last year in Atlanta, and she threw down. She gives a great show.”

“Girl, yes,” she agrees. She tells me this will be her second time seeing her. Tells me one of the young niggas she’s got pushing her back in got her tickets to see Maxwell and Jill Scott at Madison Square Garden in June.

“I’d love to see Jill in concert again. But I can do without Maxwell. He doesn’t do it for me.”

“Chile, please…Maxwell can get it.”

Who can’t
, I think as I begin removing the loose stitching from her tracks. Her iPhone starts buzzing with text messages. She busies herself reading and responding back, which shuts her up for a while. And that’s fine by me. Twenty minutes into removing Big Booty’s weave, an unfamiliar man’s voice slices into my space.

“’Scuse me, ma.”

I look up from Big Booty’s head. Standing in front of me is a thug-type nigga with dreads and big, round brown eyes. He looks to be in his early twenties. His facial features kind of remind me of a browner version of Hill Harper. Yes, he’s a cutie. “Yes, can I help you?”

“Yeah, my man said if I came through you’d hit me off with one of ya deep throat specials.”

I think I hear him correct, but need to make sure. He repeats
himself and I feel myself getting lightheaded as I notice all eyes are on me, glued to the scene that is about to unfold before them. Seems like everything in the shop freezes. All I hear are gasps and the air being sucked in all around me. I can tell they are all standing and watching with baited breath to see how I react. This sonofabitch has come up in my fucking shop and called me out in front of everyone. I am about to pass out. I am through! Now I will have to bring it to him, and bring it hard! Or every bitch up in here will think this nigga is speaking truths.

“Say whaaaaat?!” I snap, flipping into bitch mode, slamming my hand up on my hip. Although I’m curious to know who the fuck his man is, asking would make me look suspect, like there might be some truth to what he’s dishing. I’m shaking inside; the last thing I’m about to do is validate shit he’s saying. “Mother-fucker, do I know you?”

“Nah, but you know my man,” this cocky-ass nigga says, smirking.

“Nigga, you got the wrong motherfucking one,” I snap, “coming up in my motherfucking shop with that disrespectful ass shit. What you better do is bounce before you get bounced.”

I can’t believe this nigga has me coming out of script like this. When I opened my salon, I made it my business to always talk and act and dress professional. To always carry myself with grace and class. But, right now, baaaaby, I feel the hood in me coming out. I am so goddamn pissed and embarrassed that I could take these scissors in my hand and stab him in his motherfucking eyeball.

“Yo, ma, I’m only tellin’ you what my man said. He said you sucked him off while he drove his whip down twenty-two in Hillside. Said you sucked him so good he forgot where he was driving to. I’m sayin’, can I get my dick sucked or what?”

I catch Shuwanda clutching her imaginary pearls, with her lips curled up in a wicked smile as if she’s enjoying the show. And knowing this bitch…she is! That in itself sets me off even more.

“Nigga, get the fuck up outta my shop before I have the cops up on ya ass. I don’t know who the fuck sent you here, but you go back and tell that nigga I said to kiss my black ass. I don’t play that shit …”

“Oh, hell naw,” Felecia says, storming up over to where we’re at with a can of mace in one hand and the aluminum bat she keeps behind the counter. “You fuckin’ tryna get ya head taken off, muhfucka! I will knock ya shit straight out the park real quick, nigga.”

The nigga doesn’t blink. He glances at her over his shoulder and calmly says, “Yo, ma, no disrespect to you, but you need to stay in ya lane. I ain’t talkin’ to you, boo. I’m talkin’ to ya peeps.” Then he turns his attention back to me. “So what’s good? Can you hook a nigga up wit’ some of that deep throat or what?”

I swear this day has turned into a fucking nightmare! This nigga picked one of the busiest days of the week to call me out and drag me for filth! Do you hear me!

“Well, muthafucka, I’m talkin’ to you,” Felecia snaps, rolling her neck and swinging the bat. “So anything you sayin’ to her, you sayin’ to me. Now get. The. Fuck. Out!”

I glare at the nigga, hearing him in my head say something real slick and me and Felecia jumping on his ass. In my mind’s eye, I snatch the hot curling iron off its plate and slap him across his face with it and—as if on cue—Felecia bangs him in the back of the head with the bat. He yelps. And from that point on, it is on and popping. Felecia and I start beating this nigga down like we used to when a nigga would come out of his face all sideways when we were younger.

I see this nigga hitting the floor before he can swing off. And Felecia fucking him up with the bat so bad that all he can do is ball up and try to cover up his head and face with his hands and arms to keep her from smashing his brains out. And I am stomping and kicking him, yelling for someone to call the police. I see cell phones out and the shit being recorded and this whole fiasco on the internet.

Luckily, it doesn’t unfold the way I play it out in my head. Instead, this disrespectful bastard grins and starts backing out toward the door. “Aiight, ma. You got that. I’ma bounce. But I still wanna feel them pretty-ass lips on my dick.”

To save face, I go in on him, throwing a can of hairspray at him. He ducks. And it hits the wall. “Get the fuck outta here. You wish a bitch like me would suck down on ya nasty-ass dick. Coming up in here tryna disrespect me. You couldn’t handle a bitch like me, let alone afford one like me.”

“Yeah, nigga,” Felecia warns, gripping the bat tighter. “Get the fuck out before you get beat the fuck up.”

I can’t believe this shit. First, the nigga sends me a crazy ass email wanting his dick sucked. Then he calls me at my shop and sends me an envelope calling me out. Now this shit—sending another motherfucker up in here to put
me
on blast like this. The shit is surreal.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he says, grabbing the crotch of his jeans. “Suck my dick.” I forget I have Big Booty in the chair, forget I have a salon packed with clients, forget I am in slippers, and start chasing behind him as he races out the door.

I yell at him. “You pussy-ass bitch, you better run. If you ever step foot up in my motherfucking shop again, I’ma bust a round of lead in ya ass, then call the motherfucking cops on ya bum ass.”

He turns around when he’s halfway down the block and yells out, “Suck my dick, bitch!” He laughs, running off.

That nigga has completely disrupted my day. Got my nerves all rattled. All I want to do is run to my car and speed off. The last thing I want to do is go back in and look into questioning eyes. But I do. I pull in a deep breath. Walk back into the salon. It’s so quiet I can hear my heart pounding. I hold my head up and sashay back over to my workstation, like nothing ever happened, slowly exhaling.

Big Booty says, “Miss Pasha, girl, don’t let that nigga shit on ya day. I don’t know who the fuck he was but when I find out, I’ma have my goons take it to his head for you.”

“Girl, please. It’s not that serious.”

I peep Shuwanda eyeing me with her lips all tooted up. She grunts. “Mmmph, you good ’cause I would have fucked him up for coming at me like that; especially when he’s coming at me about some shit that
ain’t
true. Then again, I’d still fuck him up even if it was; just for calling me out like that.”

“That nigga adds no value to my life,” I state, meeting her stare, “so he can say whatever the hell he wants. But I do know that if he ever comes back into this shop, he won’t be leaving the same way he walked in.”

“I know that’s right,” Big Booty says. “That nigga had me wantin’ to go in my bag on his ass.”

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t,” I say, removing the remaining tracks of hair, then combing out her own hair. It’s a woolly mess. “You have enough shit to deal with.”

“Still,” Shuwanda adds, “why would a muhfucka walk up in here and say some shit like that?”

Bitch, because the shit’s true.
I shrug. “Who knows why crazy-ass niggas do what they do.”

“’Cause half of ’em have more dick than brains,” Felecia says, walking over.

“Then what about the niggas with more brains than dick?” someone asks.

“Oh, them niggas are dickless brainiacs.”

Everyone laughs. Then a discussion about nutty ass niggas being stuck on stupid starts and the shop comes back to life, filling up with incessant chatter and laughter. I go through the rest of the day acting as if nothing that nigga said rattled my nerves, but his voice and his words ring in my head.
Bitch, suck my dick!

FOURTEEN

“So, how’d you like the lil’ delivery boy I sent you the other day?”

Hearing his voice makes my skin crawl, and makes me want to scream. It’s like listening to someone drag their jagged fingernails across a chalkboard. “Motherfucker, why are you still fucking with me?” I hiss through clenched teeth. I swear I want to snap on this crazy-ass nigga so fucking bad, but my office door is open.

He laughs. “You sound distressed.”

“No, nigga,” I correct. “I’m pissed. I’m tryna be nice about this, but the shit’s getting real played.”

“Well, check this out. I’ll stop the shit now. You ready to suck this dick?”

Click
. I hang up on him, knowing in a matter of seconds he’ll be calling back. I quickly get up to close my office door. And as if on cue, a call is being transferred to me as I return to my seat. I take in a deep breath, then exhale. “Hello, Pasha speaking.”

“Bitch, I see you one of them hard-headed hoes. Hanging up on me ain’t gonna change shit. I thought I told you this already. All you gotta do is suck this dick and swallow my nut and I’m gonna dead it. But if you keep actin’ all stank ’n shit, it’s only gonna get worse. The more you say no, the more I’m gonna do to you. I don’t give a fuck how long it takes, I’ma fuck wit’ you until you either suck this dick, or take your slutty ass outta ya misery and off ya’self.”