Queen of the City 3: The Life of a Female Rapper Read online

  Queen of the City 3

  The Life of a Female Rapper

  Tamicka Higgins

  © 2015

  Disclaimer

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and events are all fictitious for the reader’s pleasure. Any similarities to real people, places, events, living or dead are all coincidental.

  This book contains sexually explicit content that is intended for ADULTS ONLY (+18).

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 1

  I got out of the car and followed her up to the second floor of the apartment complex. I could smell the marijuana smoke as soon as I began walking up the stairs and it completely engulfed me when we walked through the door. Through the thick smoke, I saw lighters firing up more blunts and the silhouettes of various women standing around, watching me as I walked in. “Follow me,” Quandra said as we walked through the sea of women straight to the back room. She knocked twice and opened the door. She sat on the bed with a blunt hanging out of her mouth. She blew a cloud of smoke into the air as soon as I walked into the room behind Quandra. Her lips were covered in red, eyebrows arched to perfection. I could see her eyelashes extending out far beyond her eyelids, resembling mosquito legs. Her eyes were sky blue and her peach-colored skin seemed to have been painted onto her body with perfection. On the top of her head, long red hair flowed down like a sensuous fire. She stood up to me as I leaned against the dresser.

  “So, you’re Lyric, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  She smiled, “Quandra told me a lot about you. A lot of good shit,” she looked to my side, glancing down at my ass, “yeah, you thick as a bitch, too.”

  If I closed my eyes, there was nothing in this world that would have convinced me that she was a white girl. She had the attitude and characteristics of a black woman. She walked over to the window, her ass jiggling effortlessly inside of her gray yoga pants. Just then, two more girls walked in behind me, “Malley, we got one of the niggas down for tomorrow. We workin’ on the other two, though.” She inhaled another drag of the blunt as she turned around, “Cool. Make sure all five of them niggas are down, otherwise, ain’t shit movin.” They both turned and left the room as Malley passed the blunt to me. I grabbed it from her hand and inhaled it, allowing the weed to sit in my lungs for a few moments before I blew it back out. I didn’t cough once as I passed it back to her, “That was some G shit,” she said, smiling in approval of how I just handled the blunt, “not even coughing once? Aight, Miss Lyric. Well, like I said, Quandra told me a lot about you, and I think you’d be perfect here, you know what I’m sayin? You got the looks for it and from what I hear, yo’ ass is as hard as they come,” she leaned towards me, whispering in my ear, “you’re the perfect fucking killer.”

  She winked at me and walked back to her bed, taking another hit of her blunt. I had no idea what the fuck was going on here. I didn’t know if this was a prostitution ring or what but it was something about Malley that I liked. It was her assertiveness, the way she seemed to run whatever shit she had going on here. It was in that position of power that I saw for myself. Her cute smile seemed to get lost in the thick smoke as Quandra leaned on the dresser right beside me. I looked to the right out the window and for a moment, I saw Big Mama’s face outlined in the smoke. That weed must be hitting quick, I thought to myself as I refocused my eyes in that direction. A tear fell from her eye just as Quandra walked into her, dispersing the vision that I had. She went over to Malley, “So, what you want me to do with her?” she asked as Malley looked right at me. Malley smiled, “Don’t do nothing. This is perfect for her, and she doesn’t need convincing either, I can tell. She’s not going anywhere.”

  Soon after that, Quandra walked out of the room and left us alone. Malley leaned back on her bed, “So, let’s talk,” she said, her crescent smile barely visible through the smoke.

  “Talk about what?”

  “About how we can be mutually beneficial for each other.”

  “I’m listening.”

  I took a seat next to her as she passed the blunt back to me and explained what they had going on. It was an all-female stick-up operation. They set up stripping events for groups of niggas in the city, and when they put their guards down, they robbed them blind. It reminded me of what I did to Big Tuck a while back, except I went in to kill. The way Malley was talking, killing them wasn’t something that they wanted to do. They just wanted the money, and they made a few hits in one city before they moved to the next. It really had been a flawless operation for them because honestly, what nigga wouldn’t fall for a fine ass stripper with his pants nearly off his legs. I guess they found the key weakness in most of the dudes in the world—pussy. Sometimes they fucked them, at times they made like they were going to and then pulled the pistols out. Either way, they got what they wanted and left.

  Malley was the head of the slick ass operation. They called her Hot Tomalley because of the color of her hair and her attitude, but it eventually got shortened to just Malley. From the looks of it, she was a bad ass white girl that didn’t have a fear of anyone or anything. Immediately, I was drawn to her and the way things were going, I felt she thought of me the same way. She scooted up to the edge of the bed and positioned herself right next to me as she rubbed her hand on my thigh and passed the blunt back to me. I glanced down at her hand, inhaling the marijuana and letting it rest in my lungs before I blew it out. She was a freak, but honestly I didn’t expect anything different. I’m pretty sure every chick in this little clique fucked with each other in one way or the other.

  “So, you down or what?”

  I inhaled once again, “I’ll fuck with y’all for a minute, you know what I’m sayin’, just to see what y’all on.”

  She took the blunt from me and inhaled,

  “Aight, that’s cool. Well look, if you up for it, we runnin’ a spot tomorrow night. One of the girls ran into some off brand niggas at the strip club the other night. She said they had bread, though, so we want to see what they are on. Just show up here tomorrow around 10 pm. Oh, and make sure you are wearing something to show off that phat ass of yours. I saw that shit from the front as soon as you came in.”

  I took another hit of the blunt and passed it back to her as I stood up, “Aight.”

  I felt her eyes scanning me as I left the dark room and stepped into the hallway. Quandra was in the front room sipping on a drink in a red cup when I came out. A few other girls were scattered throughout the room, watching my every move as I walked towards Quandra.

  “So, what’s up? You down or what?”

  “Yeah. I’ma come back through tomorrow.”

  “Aight, bet! This shit is easy money, Lyric. Easy as shit.”

&nbsp
; “That’s what I heard.”

  I glanced around the room at the unfamiliar faces. Some barely paid any attention to me while others gave me too much of it. I kept my eyes on the ones I needed to as Quandra walked me back out to my car. The street lights had just come on, and the apartment complex suddenly was littered with men and women outside, listening to loud music with little kids running around shirtless in saggy diapers. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Lyric,” Quandra said as I got into my car and headed out. I was warned about trusting Quandra last time, but I went against it, and she burned me in the end. Even though it seemed like everything was squashed between us and a new beginning just started, I still kept one eye on her. Everything seemed cool, but the pursuit of money is the root of all evil and every woman in that apartment wanted their cut, including me.

  Chapter 2

  I got home at 1 am. I went to the store for about an hour while I waited to come down off my high. I didn’t want to bring that around Prince or Mrs. Butler, so I had to make sure I was in my right state of mind when I saw them. I dropped a little bit of Visine into my eyes and waited in the parking lot of my apartment complex for a few minutes until the redness of my eyes were completely white. I bought a shirt from Walmart when I was there and got rid of the one that was soaked in the scent of marijuana. Even though she wasn’t my biological mother, I still felt like she would scold me for coming home smelling like weed. I had that much respect for her, even in my own house.

  Prince was asleep when I walked through the door, but Mrs. Butler was wide awake, flipping through channels on the television I bought earlier that week. “Honey, you have to hurry up and get cable or something in this house. There is literally nothing on here to watch,” she said as she pressed the buttons on the remote. I walked over to her and flipped to a station that played all the old-school television shows. Good Times, Facts of Life, What’s Happening, and What’s Happening Now, just to name a few. Her eyes lit up, “I didn’t know you had this channel,” she said as the Good Times theme song came on. I plopped down next to her.

  “Yeah, you can’t reach it if you just flip through the channels. For some reason, the antenna won’t pick it up unless you actually punch in the station with the remote.”

  “Duly noted,” she said as J.J. came onto the screen, telling everybody he was the prince of the ghetto.

  “How was Prince today?”

  “Prince? Oh, that boy was all right. He is teething so he was a little fussier than normal, but Grandma knows how to handle that, so he was alright. What about you? You were gone for quite some time.”

  “Oh, yeah. I was just, um, out looking for work.”

  “Work?” she asked quizzically, “I thought you had enough money saved up for a year?”

  “Oh, I do. I just hate sitting around the house. I forgot how much I hated that in the process of leaving Milwaukee. I’ve only been down here for a little while, and I’m already getting antsy.”

  “Well, what will you do with Prince if you start working?”

  “Well, Mom. I thought that maybe you could stay out here for a little while. I mean, if you weren’t doing anything else.”

  She looked at me with a side-eye, “How long, Lyric?”

  “I don’t know, maybe a month or two. Just until I can find Prince a trustworthy daycare or something like that.”

  J.J.’s dad threatened him while Michael laughed in the background. The audience’s laughter followed soon after his. I felt her eyes on me as I peered at the television. I was always able to feel someone looking at me and honestly, it was a little creepy at times, but I guess it was a sixth sense for me. I always figured it was just my mama or Big Mama warning me about someone, and now, it was happening more than it ever did before.

  “Lyric, you aren’t out here getting into any mess again, are you?”

  “No, Ma’am.”

  She paused, attempting to feel me out. I kept my eyes away from her, “Alright,” she said, “because that is the last thing you need to do. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, you know? But I’m going to trust you and your judgment out here. Oh,” she continued, “and to answer your question, I will stay out here for as long as you need me to watch Prince. Depending on your work schedule, I may have to take him back to Milwaukee with me from time to time just to check on things, but I will let you know ahead of time. You just let me know about a week before you are supposed to start so I can make plans, alright?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Alright.”

  I leaned back on my couch as she laughed at the sitcom on the television. As I closed my eyes, I couldn’t help but think about how I was becoming prone to always finding myself in the most troubling situations. From Junie to Nas and even until now, I was always around violence. Maybe I was just more susceptible to it than anyone else, or perhaps, I was just too selfish to see that my involvement in these types of things not only affected me but those around me as well.

  I heard voices coming from the kitchen when I woke up. Stacey and Prince were nowhere around me when I tossed the covers onto the floor and headed into the bright-lit kitchen.

  “No, honey, that is way too much salt! You’ll mess around and send all of our blood pressures through the roof! Mama is not eating that; you will have to make another pot.”

  Big Mama walked over to the cabinet and grabbed another large pot from the shelf. She spoke to me without even glancing in my direction, “Lyric, baby; I hope you don’t plan on standing there the whole time and leaving your mother and me to do all the work. Get yo’ lazy behind over here and help us!” I rubbed my eyes, thinking everything would disappear as soon as I refocused, but both of them were still there. “Hey, sweetie,” my mother said as she dumped the pot of ground beef out into the trash, “I never was as good of a cook as Mama is. She’s trying to teach me some stuff that I should have taken the time to learn when I was younger.” She rinsed the pot out and placed it back on the stove as I looked around to see what they needed me to do. Big Mama stood in front of me with her hands on her hips, her gray eyes seemed to glow. “Lyric? Baby, what’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” With that, she walked back over to Mama and showed her how to season the food without ruining it.

  I walked over and stood just behind them, still trying to piece together what was going on. It was surreal and even though I knew it was a dream I struggled to believe it. “Ok, now,” Mama said, “I got it.” She sprinkled a little bit of salt in her hand and spread it evenly over the meat she just placed inside the pot. “What are y’all making?” I asked nervously.

  “I’m teaching your lazy old mother how to make lasagna without giving everybody in the house high blood pressure. You know, one thing she is doing now is actually listening to my advice. When she was younger, she didn’t do any of that but now that she is older, she seems like she can’t get enough of it.”

  “Well, Mama, you know I was hard-headed. I had to learn things my way, and it was usually the hard way.”

  “Umm-hmm,” she peered at me, “that is where this one gets it from. Lyric, sit your behind down at the table.”

  “Big Mama, I thought you—”

  “Girl, sit!”

  I looked at my mother, “Girl, I don’t know why you’re staring at me. You better sit down at that table before Big Mama tans your behind.” I was still intimidated by Big Mama, even beyond the grave. I sat down in my seat, and she pulled out a chair and sat right across from me. She gazed into my eyes for a few moments, not saying a word. I beheld the fullness of her eyes, and suddenly snapshots of future events flashed within her irises like cut scenes in movies. They were pictures of me lying in hospital beds, shooting pistols, and doing questionable things with men and women. Just then, they returned back to their original color, and my mom came and sat by her side. She no longer looked like the surprised woman on the photo on Big Mama’s dresser; she was a spitting image of her mother.

  “So, you don’t think we know what’s going on, do you? We
don’t see all things, but the good Lord allowed us to keep a watch on what you are doing, and he even let us come down here to talk to you.”

  I didn’t know how to respond to her. For the moment, it was all too weird for me to make sense of it.

  “Don’t sit there with your face all scrunched up; you know why we are here. That Quandra who you ran into the other day? You know she is no good!”

  Mama chimed in, “I knew it myself. I had a friend like her in my younger days, and she got me into a lot of trouble when I wasn’t trying to. Lyric, you have to resist that urge to want to get involved in trouble. I know you get bored easily because you’re just like me, but you have to find something else to do. Prince is there. You’re in a new city, and it is a fresh new start. You don’t need to be going down the same path you did in Milwaukee.”

  “Tell her, baby! Tell this hard-headed old grandchild of mine! She seems like she doesn’t have a lick of sense anymore!”

  “I’m telling her, Mama! But I can’t make the girl do what I say; she is going to do what she wants either way. I know it because it’s my daughter and I did the same thing to you. Maybe it’s karma.”

  “Oh, hush up! I don’t believe in that old voodoo mess!” She looked at me, “Now listen here, Lyric. If you keep going the way you’re going, then you will be headed for some things that you will never recover from. Big Mama has seen it all when I was down here, baby, I’ve seen it all. The Lord is patient, though; he is indeed patient, but that doesn’t mean he will strive with you forever. You need to get back to doing something positive with your life. The way you were going before you met that old knucklehead. What’s…. what’s that boy name again? Nas, that’s right, before you met Nas.”

  The meat on the stove began smoking, “Oh dear Lord, child, you are going to burn Lyric’s place down!” My mama rushed to the stove,

  “Mama! I was sitting here talking with y’all now, don’t start fussing at me!”