Authors: Leila Jefferson
“
Damn, vacuum lungs. OK.”
Bianca rolled another blunt once the first one was finished. They sat there looking Chinese in the eyes because they were so low.
“
Bianca, I love Bank Roll, but I don’t want to be that bitch he don’t want me to be. Nothing is supposed to matter and I’m not allowed to have feelings. It’s hard not to tell him I love him. I don’t have friends, and I hope you can be one. If I seem too caught up, check me.”
Bianca waved her off. “Girl, you straight.”
“
No, B, I’m serious. I need a bitch in my corner for real. A real bitch that ain’t trying to get over or set me up.”
“
I’m old school, so we gonna pinky swear right here.” She held her pinky out so Lexi could wrap her pinky around it. “Long as you stay as real as you are right now, I got your muthafuckin’ back. Let’s be real, though. Who been here since you moved in?”
Lexi shrugged her shoulders. “Nobody really.”
“
Bank Roll got bitches that love his dirty draws and they would be laid up. That should tell you something if nobody been laid up since you moved in.”
“
Damn, I guess you right. But, I still want you to keep me in check. I don’t wanna set myself up for the okie doke.”
Bianca looked at Lexi sideways. “That’s so cute you can see how much he love you, but again, I got your back girl.”
They hugged and that simple gesture started a bond that could never be broken.
***
Bank Roll returned from Vegas four days later. He came bearing gifts, bringing Lexi a Versace dress with matching shoes and a diamond ring that anyone would have sworn was an engagement ring. For Bianca, he had a designer dress and shoes as well with a gold necklace that had a diamond pendant. He also bought gifts for her kids. Bianca thanked him, and left him and Lexi to be alone.
“
I missed you, daddy,” she whispered in his ear as she sat on his lap.
“
Daddy missed you, too,” Bank Roll admitted. “Get dressed, we going to dinner.”
Lexi jumped up and prepared herself for dinner. She took her time showering, washing every crevice of her curvaceous body. Bank Roll always told her it was important to make sure she stayed clean. She took long bubble baths every night and showered every morning. Even when her and Bank Roll messed around, she took a shower soon after to make sure she stayed fresh.
When she was done, she slowly lotioned herself as she waited for the curling iron to get hot. She added a few curls to her hair, and sprayed the Chanel No. 5 on her dress, wrists, and neck. It was Bank Roll’s favorite scent. Their destination was The Cliff House in San Francisco. Lexi loved when Bank Roll took her out for five star dining in fancy restaurants where adults were the only patrons. She even loved when he ordered her meals for her, taking care of her like a real daddy was supposed to. She felt so grown up as she placed the linen napkin in her lap, sipped wine, compliments of the fake ID, and talked to her man while they waited for the food.
Bank Roll had her visit Mabel, one of the older women on his team. She was very refined and proper, and she taught Bank Roll’s girls how to act, speak, and interact with others. Mabel’s mother had taught etiquette classes back in the day so she knew everything about being a proper young lady.
“
I missed you while you were gone, daddy.” She looked at Bank Roll in his jazzy black suit with a gray shirt, and black and gray striped tie. He could have easily been someone’s business man that worked a nine to five.
Bank Roll smiled. “You told me that already, baby girl.”
“
I just want to make sure you know how much I missed you.”
“
I do.” She beamed at him as her eyes sparkled.
Bank Roll looked at Lexi and was proud of himself. He had trained her to be better than any hoe he’d had, and he had plenty over the years. There was one problem, he had broken his number one rule and fell in love with her. She was so sweet and innocent, but so dangerous. She did any and everything for him, and did it with no questions. She had willingly given herself to him, and he wanted to keep her. When the waiter returned with their food, he watched as she smiled and thanked him. She was so poised. She could easily pass for a woman in her young twenties. She waited for Bank Roll to take his first bite before she began eating her own meal.
“
Guess what?”
“
What’s up, baby girl?”
“
I passed my finals. You’re looking at an official high schooler now.”
“
That’s my baby girl.” Bank Roll smiled. He was proud. She was only thirteen, but had gotten skipped up a grade. He wanted her to keep those book smarts, and that was why he decided he wasn’t going to lead her down the same path as he had led so many lost souls in the past. “You going to go to college and make a better life for yourself.”
Lexi’s eyes got big. She didn’t know anyone that had gone to college. “College? You think I could go to college?”
“
You gotta have an education in this life, baby girl. Streets smarts will get you a few places here and there, but book smarts will take you places you never been. You need both of those to be the total package. I already got your college fund put aside for you.”
When Bank Roll said things like that, Lexi was determined to remain a straight A student. School was easy to her, and she liked going there to learn. She wanted to be everything he thought she should be. When he told her he grew up in Mississippi and hadn’t gone to school past the sixth grade because he had to work, she was determined to learn all the things he seemed to wish he had learned.
She wanted to show him she could be the best. She wanted to be well rounded and be the baddest bitch Bank Roll ever had. She listened intently as he shared one of his stories for what was probably the thousandth time.
“
I was just about your age when I first came here to Cali. Uncle Willie taught me to play pool and we’d run game night after night. I ran numbers for Uncle Po and watched my big brother, Pootie, run his women. My granddaddy had a juke joint down south where everyone went to hustle some way or another and have fun. We come from a long line of hustlers. I watched them all and studied each of their crafts. I loved the way my brother had women selling their bodies with only sweet words and empty promises. Those bitches would do anything he said, they worshipped the ground he walked on. I learned finesse from him. Of course, when I got here I dabbled here and there, and found my way when I got my first bottom bitch. A few years later, I started getting some of this drug money.”
“
You’re so smart.”
“
I got street smarts, but you gonna be a shining star. You got that potential, baby girl. I’m going to be so proud to see you walk across that stage when you graduate high school.”
“
I’ll graduate top of my class, daddy. You just watch and see.”
“
I know you will. We gonna go somewhere special when you do.” Bank Roll knew she would have been the most loyal bottom bitch he ever had, but he had bigger plans for her.
“
I’m so lucky to have you. I’m gonna go above and beyond what you need from me.” Lexi’s eyes sparkled.
“
You remind me so much of Betty Sue,” Bank Roll said in almost a whisper.
“
Who is she?” Lexi couldn’t recall hearing the name before.
He sighed heavily. He removed his wallet from his pocket and took out a worn, black and white picture. He handed it to Lexi. She studied the beautiful, chocolate woman in the picture. Her smile was so wide and bright. Her hair was long and straight. She had her arm around a much younger Bank Roll’s neck, and he looked so happy. Lexi felt a small twinge of jealousy rise in her. Of all the women she had ever seen swoon over Bank Roll, the woman in the picture seemed more threatening than all of them.
“
She was the first, and only, woman to break old Bank Roll’s heart. That was a tough lesson for me, but I needed it and I’m glad I got it out of the way early.”
Bank Roll had a faraway look in his eyes. He met Betty Sue almost a year after he had touched down in Oakland. They were at a bar celebrating his fourteenth birthday and he felt like the man. When he heard her order a drink, he knew she was from down south. Bank Roll drank with his uncles and brother like he was a grown man. When they saw him checking her out, they dared him to go talk to her. He smoothly walked over to the beauty at the bar and asked her name. They talked and he learned she was from Tennessee. She had had stopped in Oakland to visit her sister before she headed to Los Angeles to be a star. She wanted to be on the big screen and everybody back home told her she had the looks to make it. By the end of the night, Bank Roll had Betty Sue in his bed fucking her like a wild animal.
Pussy was nothing for him, he had been fucking with his brother’s hoes since he was nine. They sucked his dick and fucked him like a grown man, so by the time he got to Betty Sue she couldn’t tell he was still a boy.
He fell in love with Betty Sue. Her sweet smile and soft voice had him hooked. He hustled so he could lavish her with gifts and money, and she never saw the bright lights of LA. A couple months after she was supposed to officially be his woman, he found out she was fucking everyone, including his uncles and brother. Bank Roll was heartbroken, but Pootie pulled him to the side.
“
Ain’t none of these bitches worth shit. They pretty and can make you feel good, but at the end of the day they always looking at the nigga with the biggest dick or the biggest wallet. Don’t ever get caught up thinking they ain’t nothing but pussy.”
“
She said she loved me, bro.”
“
Lil’ nigga, you a kid. I know you got a lil’ game and think you the shit, but you still a kid.”
“
She said she wasn’t trippin’.”
Betty Sue was only nineteen herself and knew he was younger, but she figured he was maybe seventeen, eighteen. When she found out he was fourteen and still handled business like he did, she didn’t care. Age didn’t discriminate against the furs, fancy cars, and diamonds. She stood by her man proudly.
Pootie had stopped by their spot to holla at Bank Roll, but he wasn’t there. Betty Sue invited him in and told him he could wait. When she flashed that bright smile and sashayed away from the front door, Pootie knew exactly what she wanted. He told Barbara, one of his hoes, to go wait for him in the car while he fucked the daylights out of Betty Sue. He gave her a few dollars because she had some good pussy and told her to give him a ring when she wanted more.
They started fucking, and it wasn’t long before she was letting Po, Willie, and anybody else Pootie sent her way get a piece of her goods. Bank Roll was so hard on his hustle he hadn’t noticed until one night after he handled some business he stopped by his brother’s place. He walked in and heard sounds of fucking, but that was nothing new. When he walked to the back and saw his Betty Sue sucking Willie’s dick while Po fucked her from behind, he was devastated.
“
That’s ‘cause you was buying her all that shit and treating her good. Treat all these bitches like shit and it’ll get you further. Now, that Betty got some good pussy and she a looker, put that bitch on the track.” Pootie tapped his brother on the back. “Go get yourself a drink and get that love shit out ya system.”
Bank Roll did just that. He got a fifth of Gin and got pissy drunk, but he couldn’t pimp out the woman he loved. He did, however, let Pootie handle his business. Before anyone knew it, Betty Sue had become one of his best bitches on the streets. Bank Roll kept that picture to remind him love wasn’t shit.
Chapter 4
It was three years after Lexi first sat on Bank Roll’s lap and he told her she was going to be his special bitch because she made him cum so hard. She was no longer a little girl. In her eyes, she was a grown ass woman. She sat on the front porch of immaculate house she lived in and waited for her ride to the funeral home. Bank Roll had been everything she had ever wanted. He introduced her to everything sexually, even anal. By the time he was finished, she was a top notch bitch. She knew how to talk, how to walk, how to act, and how to get paid. She made good grades in school and was destined to be a lawyer or doctor or business mogul. All the niggas in the hood wanted her so bad they could taste it, but they knew she was off limits. There was a silent celebration for Bank Roll’s demise because Lexi Savage had become fair game.
“
Come jump in the ride,” Devin said to Lexi.
“
What’s up, Devin?” she asked as she slid in the passenger seat of Acura Legend like a panther.
“
Damn, chocolate, you done grew up,” Devin said as he looked her up and down. “Your sister been around?”
“
She ain’t been around since my folks died. She in LA or Vegas or somewhere turning tricks for a nigga that whoop her ass,” Lexi said like it disgusted her.
“
Is that right?”
“
Yea. She don’t look the same. I hope that bitch wake up. She ain’t using her power the right way.”