Hood Don't Love You (HDLY#1)

Chapter four

Charmaine hated strippers. She thought they were beyond disgusting in her opinion. Day in and day out, watching horny broke ass men look at your body like a damn cheap appetizer meal was not the kind of life Charmaine wanted to lead.

Charmaine hated her father for putting her in this predicament. All because her father wanted to be Big Willie of the block, she had to suffer. Charmaine had to pay the price because her father fucked up and got greedy. And it damn sure wasn’t for her sake. She may have seen a couple of those dollars for books, maybe, but if her father was really claiming he was spending that money on her, then she really never saw none of it.

But Tamel was right. Charmaine may have hated her father for what he did, what he had promised, and how she was paying for it. She still didn’t want to see him dead. So if working at a lousy strip club at least for the summer until she went to school, kept her father breathing a little longer, she could deal with that.

After Charmaine agreed to the terms that Tamel had laid out, she was free to go. She knew she couldn’t try to run because Tamel wasn’t stupid. He was a thug, a heartless criminal, and yes, definitely a kidnapper but he wasn’t stupid. She knew he probably had one of his boys stationed at her house in case she tried anything crazy.

Charmaine didn’t even care about the stares she got when she entered back in her apartment building. These motherfuckers did nothing to help her or could help her now so fuck them. Some people tried to give their ‘are you okay?’ look but Charmaine ignored them and headed to her apartment. She would be gone after this summer and she was going to say good riddance to these projects, now and forever. She was never coming back after she left for college. She would find housing out there. This summer would be the last time these ratchet people saw her.

Charmaine entered her apartment to find her father still in the same spot on the floor by her bedroom door crying like a baby. She had no problem getting in since the door was torn off the hinges. Her father looked up and saw her walking in. At first he was startled but when he saw who it was, he sniffled and tried to get up.

“Babygirl, you okay,” Davids said getting up from the floor. “I thought…”

“Hey, pimp,” Charmaine snickered.

“Listen, babygirl, I…” Davids tried to explain again as he walked towards her.

“Don’t call me babygirl,” Charmaine said winching away as her father came close. “Pookie or darling. My name is Charmaine the piss stain. Congratulations! You just made your only daughter the next living whore of the block. Hope you really proud of yourself.”

“Babygirl, I…” Davids tried again.

“Stop calling me that!” Charmaine screamed. “And don’t touch me. Save your hands to touch all that dirty money you used to sell out your daughter.”

“I was doing it for us,” Davids pleaded.

“No, you was doing it for you,” Charmaine corrected. “You sold your soul to a damn dope dealer and then you tried to sell mines too. For what? A couple of more stores? A new watch? A new car? What? I never asked you for anything but for school. You didn’t need to do this for us or for me. I never asked you to. You did that for you, then you threw me under the bus.”

“It wasn’t like that,” her father tried to move another step towards her.

“Bullshit!” Charmaine expressed. “It was like that. He came in here and took me and you didn’t do shit about it.”