Still Candy Shopping by Kiki Swinson

kitchen washing dishes. When he heard me putting some of the dishes away he got up from the sofa, walked over to the sink, and started grinding on my ass. I told him to stop and let me finish cleaning up, and he got mad and started cursing me out, telling me I belong to him and I ain’t gon’ be telling him when he can get some pussy. But I wasn’t paying him no attention and kept doing what I was doing. So he started yanking on my shorts, trying to take them off, but I told to him to stop and started walking away from him. When I started walking away, he started yelling and telling me to bring my ass back. But I kept ignoring him, and that’s when he ran down behind me and hit me in the back of my head.”
    Sabrina shook her head with disgust. “He hit you because you didn’t want to fuck him?” she asked.
    Jennifer nodded.
    Sabrina continued to shake her head. “That’s messed up.”
    “Yep, it sure is,” Tacora agreed and then she walked over to Jennifer and started rubbing her head.
    “I’m so tired of him putting his fucking hands on me. I swear, if I had a gun I’d blow his fucking head off,” Jennifer said. I knew what Jennifer had just said was heartfelt, because I could see how ice cold her eyes were. I also looked at Sabrina’s expression. I remembered when Paris warned me to watch out for her because of her sneaky ways. I hoped Paris had warned Jennifer about Sabrina as well, because I would hate to see another blood bath.
    “Stop talking crazy, Jennifer, because you already know how Slim is,” Tacora said.
    “I’m just so tired of him putting his hands on me.” Jennifer replied.
    “You don’t think we’re tired?” Tacora asked.
    Sabrina smiled and said, “Yeah, Jennifer, we are all tired of getting our asses kicked, but what can we do?”
    Before anyone could comment on Sabrina’s question, Slim opened the door and came back into the bedroom. “Y’all in this motherfucker talking about me?” he roared, scaring the hell out of all of us. I wasn’t going to open my mouth. I was a newcomer and from day one I found out that when you went toe-to-toe with Slim, no one was going to save you.
    Wearing the exact same thing he had on yesterday, he walked to the center of the floor and waited for one of us to answer his question. Sabrina got up the gumption to respond.
    “Slim, we ain’t talking about you,” she began to lie. “We’re just sitting here making sure Jennifer is all right.”
    “Whatcha mean you’re making sure she’s all right? I ain’t did nothing but hit her in the back of her damn head. Shit! She better be glad I didn’t hit her in her face,” he snapped.
    “What time you want us to hit the streets?” Tacora asked, trying to change the subject.
    “I don’t know,” he replied in a somewhat agitated manner. “I’m gon’ have to go out there and see what’s going on first before I put y’all out there to work.”
    “You think we might need to go back down to the other spot on Washington Street and Tidewater Drive?” Tacora asked.
    “Didn’t I just say I don’t know, Tacora?” he snapped.
    She nodded.
    “So why you keep asking me those stupid ass questions? Y’all know it’s hot out there, so whatever we do is gon’ have to be right.”
    “Can I ask you something?” Tacora asked.
    “I hope it ain’t nothing stupid.”
    Tacora sighed. “Have you thought about what we gon’ do with Paris’s clothes and stuff?”
    “Can any of y’all fit her stuff?” he asked, looking around the room at everyone.
    The way I remembered Paris, she was really thick. She definitely had the apple booty of a video vixen with B cup breasts. And no one in this room, including myself, could fit any of her clothing. We all had to be at least ten to twenty pounds lighter than Paris. Tacora and Sabrina had to be a size five or a six. And Jennifer looked like she was a size four. She was the smallest of us all, so I figured the best thing to do with Paris’s clothes would