I said I would never strip, I wanted to be a lawyer and fight cases in prestigious courtrooms but that was before Mama died, before the abuse, before I had to work hard to survive. When you go through pain at a young age your thoughts change.
Hell, there was a lot of shit I said I would never do, but now I didn’t give a shit what I did, I just wanted the money.
I learned that I didn’t have to do what everyone else was doing, I could be me and still make a bunch of money. And most of all, I could play everybody around me like a damn chess piece, they just had no idea what part they played at the moment, but they soon would.
Riding down Westheimer I looked at all the shining lights of Houston. All the people like to talk shit about strippers, but they don’t realize the reason why we do what we do. Here in Houston, strip clubs are a part of the culture, like Starbucks and football. We are in the fabric, like pecan pies and BBQ, you can’t remove ass from Texas, it's impossible to separate the two.
“You good?...You hella quiet over there.” Fendi asked me. “Your makeup looks bomb thanks to me.” She felt proud of herself, I could tell. Like I should thank her for covering up my bruises.
“Yeah I’m good. Just thinking.” All my life she was pushing into my thoughts. Everything I had always involved Fennis, and then that evolved into Fendi.
Mama always pushed him on me.
“You know you are special, you and your brother. You're chosen.” She always used to tell me. “Children without a mother are always chosen.”
“But we do have a Mama. We have you.” I would tell her, but she always let me know that truth.
“I’m your granny, baby. I love you like your mother but I’m not her. And one day I won’t be here with you, so you must protect your little brother.” She told me I needed to take care of Fennis and I kept my word.
Then as I got older it was Fendi there, playing with my friends more than I did. She was giving them makeup advice, going with them to pick out clothes, and before I knew it Mama was gone, and I really had to have her sewn to my side. But now Fendi had taken over, I didn’t have a life separate from her. Now after all of my work, she was back, trying to push her way into some shit.
“I’m good. I just...got a lot on my mind.”
“It’s cool sis. Big sis is gonna take care of it.” I wanted to tell her ass the truth. That I didn’t take this Fendi shit seriously. That she did look like a good bitch, maybe better than me, but I knew the real her, or him rather, and a big part of me hated her. Hated that Fennis couldn’t just be himself, but he had to try to be me so much that he became a better version of me.
“You like your makeup? I think I did a good job.” He said as I got closer to the club. You could see the Diamonds sign sparkling in the night, but a big part of me just wanted to drive the car into a tree and kill his ass right now.
“Yeah it’s cool.”
“Good...Just give me a couple of months and I’ll have us out of this shit.” I wanted to laugh in his fucking face. If he thought he was going to come down here and change my life and get all this credit like he was saving the day.
“Yeah you did a good job sis.” I played the role. Smiling and patting him on the leg. But I wanted to tell him to man the fuck up and take off this dress. Stop being a little pussy, but I was done talking. Now it was time for action.
“So what should I do until you get done working?”
“Chill. You can go to VIP, but just don’t embarrass me.” I told her but she was too busy staring at me.
“I just...you are so brave. I can’t believe you go up there and strip. And you got Aunt Trini a house...I can’t believe that.” I cracked my neck as she spoke about Aunt Trini.
“Uhoh...what’s wrong. You crack your neck when you're mad.”
“I just...I don’t understand why you haven’t talked to Aunt Trini. She was good to us when Mama died. You could at least call.”
“Because...she insists on calling me Fennis. I am Fendi now.”
“She’s almost 80. You can’t get mad at her because she doesn’t want to call you by this new name.”
“It’s not just new...it’s my name now.” We had been over this argument more times than I cared to go through it. I was done arguing with everybody. “Fine...whatever. Just whatever.”
“So...how do you do it?” she asked, changing subjects. It was classic, whenever she wanted to talk about something else she moved on but without permission.
“What does it feel like?” She asked, and that I could answer.
“It’s like a high to be on stage and have people drooling over you. They want to know what you're going to do next, or what crazy outfit you are going to wear. You get good enough, you get a fan club, men and women that come to the club just to see you. I’ve had a man tell me that he didn’t pay his mortgage just so he could come and spend money with me.”
“Damn sis...you're that good?” I was past good, I was the best stripper in that place. I just never told anybody. I didn’t want Fendi with her fucking hand out like always.
“Something like that.” The experience is breathtaking and heart wrenching at the same time, with money on top like sprinkles on a sundae. The shit was beautiful but at the same time it was still a job, all of this was still business. I parked near the back door like always and I walked through the side entrance.
“Alright, go get comfortable. I’ll let VIP know you're coming and I’ll see you in a few hours. VIP is on the second floor okay.”
“There is more than one floor…?” She asked.
“Yeah, the elevators are up front.”
“Damn, this place is fancy.” She looked around and I took it in a bit also. It was a beautiful place, but when you see it every day it's easy to take the beauty for granted. The club always lived up the diamond part of its name. The diamond wallpaper sparkled in the darkness of the back hallway, as the ceiling looked like small diamonds from the back of the club all the way to the front.
It was still early, but looking out I could see people starting to file in.
“Look, just follow this up and you will get to the elevators, and tell Terry to check the text message list. Tell him I sent you.” She was half listening, too busy looking and gawking around at the club.
“Do you hear me…?”
“Yes...I hear you. Go do what you do. I need to start working on my plan.” She was still on this plan shit.
“Hey...Fen…”
“Yeah…?”
“Just be cool, alright.”
“What do you mean?” She knew what I meant, she always did this.
“I mean...you look top notch and everything.”
“I know bitch...look at me.” She stood back, twirling around in one of my dresses. She filled up the back more than I could and her breasts were popping out the top like a jack in a box.
It always fucked me up to think that years ago I would have never thought that my little brother would become a woman, or something like a woman.
“Yeah you look good and…”
“Oops...My boo is calling.”
“Boo.” She flashed me the screen showing me the name. And three letters appeared. UZI…
“Yeah boo whattup.” She answered the call and gave me a wink before disappearing down the hall towards the club.
I watched her, it was like this all the time. That’s why I didn’t feel guilty about my plans. At the core of it all Fendi was selfish, and I was done with selfish bitches, including my blood.
Shaking the shit off from earlier and having my sister here I was still ready to get to work. Walking into the club tonight with my sweatpants on and tennis shoes it might as well have been a three piece suit and stilettos, because I was about to put in some work.
“Look at this bitch.” I heard one of the dancers whisper as I walked into the dressing room. It was a billion personalities in here. A million women from all different walks of life and we were put into a room to dance and battle each other for money, that’s basically what the stripping game is. A battle, and some girls cliqued together to form super teams, but for me, I worked alone.
I didn’t want no bitches on stage trying to out-dance me and, of course, I wanted to keep all my money to myself.
It was bad enough I was cutting my piece of the pie with Don, so I didn’t need they ass cutting into my shit.
“Yo Legacy.” That was my stripper name. “Somebody called looking for you. Said they were in the usual spot.” I already knew what that meant.
“Alright…” Changing my clothes I slipped off the drab covering attire of Lark, and slipped on the skimpy outfits that Legacy was known for.
Six inch heels that resembled the rainbow were on my feet. My makeup was a little flashier tonight than I wanted but my hair and nails were already laid.
“Damn girl, you look good.”
“Thanks boo...You know Legacy always leaves em wanting.” It was already happening. I was turning into her. The ‘I don’t give a fuck’ part of me. The part of me that was about to free herself once and for all.
“Yeah sis, you damn sure leaving a Legacy.” All eyes were on me as I left the dressing room. The same small group of minion bitches that were talking shit when I came in, were now drooling at my feet.
I walked past them, taking a right out of the room towards the back stairwell. I took the steps two at a time in my heels until I was up the small stairwell. Everything transformed when I opened the door to the back office that said private on it.
Closing the door behind me everything got a lot quieter. He sat with his back to me. The glass all around showed you every angle of the club. But from outside you couldn’t see a damn thing looking through the completely opaque glass.
“Hey baby…”
“Lock the door.” He ordered me.
“Sure...you okay?”
“When you say that shit is going down with that nigga you fuck with?”
“Tonight...I think he’s going to hit that club tonight.”
“Good...let him knock them off. Then all those customers will come here.” He said standing up. “It’s so funny that the nigga is hitting all the spots after you stop working there. Does he think that no one will see a pattern?” He was all business now. Earlier today he was eating my pussy like his last supper. Now he was in a suit, tailored, clean and smelling like a million dollars cash.
“Baby I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Well we need to.” He said finally turning around to me. “Because I want this shit wrapped up as soon as possible. That nigga has to go or I’m gonna lay his hoe ass down.”
“Do what you feel is right Astro. I’m not asking you to spare him.” I watched Astro as he stood up, walking around his mahogany desk he turned up the knob on his radio.
“Did you hear about this shit?” Instead of playing the same music in the club, Astro was busy listening to talk radio. He turned it up for me.
“This hurricane season will be especially active in the Gulf and Atlantic region.” But I didn’t care anything about that. I was up here for one reason only, money.
“Damn that’s crazy.” I said pretending to be interested. “But baby what about the plan?”
“Damn girl, you don’t want to hear about your environment?” I heard him, but my eyes were out across the club. I could see straight across to VIP and what I saw made me laugh.
“What?”
“Look across there…” I pointed to the VIP section. Astro did as I said looking back and forth from me to the section.
“Is that you're…sister.” I wanted to correct him and say brother but I held my tongue. Instead I nodded my head.
“And she with that hoe ass nigga from Louisiana. What’s his name?”
“Uzi.”
“Yeah...that’s him. Hmmm so they fucking?”
“Shit I don’t know. Probably.”
“That’s a good thing right? She’ll tell us more about what’s going on with fuck boy?” That was his name for Don.
“Yeah something like that.”
“I tell you what…” He said standing up straight and unzipping his pants. Letting the tailored slacks fall to the floor, he pulled out his dick and let it flop around.
“Why don’t you come over here, and do a line off my dick and tell me about how shit went today.” Unscrewing the cross on his neck Astro put his dick on his desk like he was serving up a casserole.
“So you just want me to sniff it right off your dick huh?”
“Yep.” Astro shook out the coke onto his throbbing dick. He made it as straight as possible and smiled, revealing his wall of diamond studded teeth as he waved me over.
“Now tell Daddy how your day went.”
“You know how he is about his wife...I mean I told you about it.”
“Yeah…” Getting to my knees I was eye level with his dick. Holding down one nostril I got right down to his dick and took a tornado like sniff and I felt everything in my body immediately feel better.
So much better that I let my knees sink into the plush softness of Astro’s rug.
“See, I told you that was some good shit.” Without being told, I took him into my mouth. Sucking the rest of the cocaine residue off his dick.
“Damn girl.”
“So he got mad like usual. We had a fight...my sister bought it.” I gave him a summary between slurps. Two sucks and I popped his dick out of my mouth, just to tell him we were on schedule.
“I love it when you tell me the plans like this. Tell Daddy more.” So I kept sucking. Taking him deeper for a few more slurps then pulling him out.
“By this time next month, I will have both my sister and Don out of my life…” Dick went back in, and more slurps sent his hands to my shoulders, and his knees to buckling.
“Shit...How can I help?” That was the simplest question he had asked me all night.
“Well, when the time is right, you can tell all of Houston that ole Uzi over there is fucking a man that looks like a woman.” Before I could put his dick back in my mouth Astro had already pushed me away.
“What?”
“My sister… is a…” I watched him as he looked from me to her across in VIP, and then back again.
“You gotta be fucking shitting me.” I wished I was lying. I wished that there was no truth to it and that she was born a girl. “Damn...so that’s why…” He backed away from me and I could almost see him putting two and three together in his head.
“Oh you're a bad bitch...you got this whole shit figured out. You're gonna send everybody up the river aren’t you?” I could only smile at that. I didn’t want to tell him my whole plan, only I was privy to that.
“Damn...this is crazy. Like I would have never guessed.” His dick went from hard to shriveled in a matter of seconds.
“So what am I supposed to do now?…I don’t even want my dick sucked anymore.” I laughed at that. Getting to my feet and wiping my mouth, what I saw behind him made me smile.
“I tell you what, I’m going to work for a little bit, then let’s go to the studio and lay this track down.”
“Bet.” I felt my high kicking in, my heart was racing and I felt like I could run through a wall.
“Look…” I pointed to Fendi getting up with Uzi, both of them making their way to the door.
“All you gotta do is sit back, watch, and enjoy the show. She’s always fucking shit up.” I told him as I stood and watched Fendi do the exact shit that I told her not to do.
She walked right out the club with her arm wrapped around Uzi and his hand wrapped around her ass. It was like fate with her, she liked fucking up her life and this time I was going to let her. I was done being Captain Save-a-hoe, it was my turn to save myself, and the best thing I could do was get Fendi and Don out of my fucking life for good.