The People vs Cashmere

by Karen Williams

Genres: Contemporary Fantasy; Urban Fantasy

Synopsis

Meet the Pierce family. Desmond Pierce, a hard-working man from the South is determined to give his and wife and daughters a good life in Compton, California. Pearla Pierce is a sexy and seductive mother who plays wifey and devoted mother only when her husband is home. Then there's Carmen, a promiscuous seventeen-year-old on a self-destructive path and jealous of her younger sister. Cashmere, a thirteen-year-old, struggles to hold her family together out of love for her father.
When tragedy hits home, Carmen and Cashmere find themselves orphans living with their hateful aunt and having to resort to stripping and selling drugs to survive. Carmen drags Cashmere into a world of drugs, violence and sex when she allows a ruthless pimp named Black to turn her out. Against her will, Cashmere is also forced to work for Black by prostituting herself for high-class ballers.
Carmen's jealousy toward her younger sister continues when she sees Black falling in love with Cashmere. Carmen's need to destroy her sister sets off a chain of events that lands Cashmere in jail. Cashmere is left alone and broken, but with the hope that some way, somehow, she can be fixed.

Release date: September 16, 2012

Publisher: Urban Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

I was cold, but it didn’t mean shit. And, most importantly, after the shit that just went down, I was mad and hurt at the same time. But it didn’t matter. Black had already warned me on what I had to do. I had to numb myself, and I didn’t want to be dumb like my sister Desiree, always getting blown on that coke, and shut her stupid ass, didn’t know what the niggas cut it with. Give me some Grey Goose and X, and I’m good. The problem was, despite how tight my clothes were, or how much makeup I piled on my face, my ass didn’t look no more than the age I really was. I’ll tell you more about that later.

“Aye, yo! Yo, buy me some Goose, nigga.” I strutted up to a nigga I saw smoking outside the liquor store on my block. The polish was chipped off my fingers, and two of my nails were cracked and bleeding from me trying to fight Black off of me. I had a busted lip, a bloody nose, and my side was killing me. I ran my finger through my wild hair and tossed a ten at him.

“All right, but, bitch, I’m keeping the change.”

“Go ahead.” I stood for a moment waiting.

“Cash? Bitch, what the fuck you doing?”

I didn’t bother responding to my sister Desiree as she ran down the block toward me.

She stepped in my face. “Bitch, you hear me talking to you?” She smelled like cum, dick, and balls.

“Yeah, bitch, I hear you.”

“No, I don’t think you do. You want Daddy to fuck you up again?”

My eyes traced the letters on her neck, pretty cursive writing. I knew I would be next, or it was another ass-whipping.

I pierced her with a look. It was her fault I was in the mess that I was in.

“Look, I said I heard you. I’m getting some drank then I’ll be there, damn. Hell, I just might fuck the nigga buying me the drink.”

“Whatever. But when you get fucked up this time, don’t say I didn’t tell your dumb ass. You’ll never be a ‘bottom bitch,’ if you don’t get your shit together.”

“In case you didn’t know, bitch, I don’t want to be a bottom ho. Fuck this shit, fuck these hoes, this track, and fuck—”

“Say it, ho. Disrespect Daddy.” She balled her left fist and held it inches from my face.

I bit off my last words, anger searing from my eyes. He ain’t Daddy. I knew where the fuck my daddy was. And since I was too weak to fight her ass, I kept quiet.

“Here.”

I turned my attention to the man behind me. I grabbed the bag from his hands, and with the quickness, slipped it from the bag, uncorked the top, and downed it like it was fucking Gatorade and I was on a bike trail.

My sister stalked off, yelling, “You a stupid bitch!”

I waited for her to make her turn before I followed to my stroll.

“You too pretty a ho for this bullshit, girl. I gives a fuck about you grinding all day. Get the fuck out there and make my money. And I don’t care if you have to be out there all night. Don’t come back till you do.” Black stomped me in the back of my head, making my ponytail slip from my head. It was all because I refused to sleep with a trick.

All the other hoes laughed, including my bitch-ass sister.

As I walked, I was getting dizzy with each step. My stomach was also churning. Which was probably due to the fact that I hadn’t eaten shit that whole day, and downed the Goose way too fast.

I paused, feeling my stomach doing flip-flops on my corner with the regular hoes. I heard them whispering, “Black fucked her up.”

I gripped my stomach just as the vomit flew from my mouth. When I heard siren and squad cars swoop up on us, I was too weak to even move as hoes flew everywhere. I continued to heave on the ground. When I heard the shuffle of feet and felt hands on me, and the cold steel of the cuffs on my wrist, I knew they were taking me to juvenile hall, and in that moment I didn’t give a shit.

I was lifted to my feet and assisted to the squad car. Once there, I stared at the cracker officer who was looking at me like I was a piece of shit. Like he wasn’t a piece of shit.

He shook his head at me in disgust. “Look at that nappy-headed nigger. She’s like a wild animal.”

“Fuck you!” I yelled.

“Fuck me? You nigger bitch!” he snarled, his pasty face turning red.

Despite the pain in my side and head, and the handcuffs chafing my skin, I managed a mock smile at his ass. “Naw, I take that back. Ain’t that the problem, Officer? I wouldn’t fuck you last week, and I still won’t fuck you this week. Don’t hate the player, punk bitch! Hate the muthafuckin’ game. I may be a ho, but this ho got standards. And this pussy you will never get, so take me to jail. I gives a fuck!”

The Taser gun he used on my ass hurt like hell. I felt like I was having a seizure as snot flew from my nose and I was drooling. I screamed like a wild woman, my eyes cooking, “Muthafucka! You didn’t have to do that shit. I wasn’t resisting arrest! That’s illegal use of force.”

He gripped the back of my hair. “Yeah? Well, I hope your black ass can prove it.”

I continued to whimper as pain pumped through me. The burning wouldn’t stop and there was no air from the window because he closed both doors of his squad car.

I was determined not to beg him, but damn, I sure wanted him to wash this shit out of my eyes. But he didn’t. And since I’d been in more pain when sprayed with pepper spray, I disregarded it, thinking it would go away. But the pain wouldn’t stop, and truth be told, I didn’t need to be arrested. I had never been. So I swallowed my pride and begged him.

“Okay, Officer, you want this pussy, come and get it.” I breathed deeply as snot slid down my face and everything was a blur.

He chuckled then got in the car, turned on the ignition, and drove down an alley. He stopped the car, jumped out, and pulled me out the back seat. The burning in my eyes was easing now, until it was nothing but a tiny sting and I could see . . . see this smirk on his pasty, white-ass face.

“A deal’s a deal. I want some of that black pudding. Been wanting some for a long time.” He grasped my hand and rubbed it against his dick.

I sighed, raised my dress, and bent over against the car, and let him have his way with me.

And I’ll bet you think I was a nasty bitch. Hell, I was, but it wasn’t always that way.

“Desiree, hurry up. Mama and Daddy will be here soon.” I ran around the house making sure everything was tidy for the dinner that I’d slaved over to celebrate Daddy’s promotion.

“I’m coming, shit. I don’t know why you had to do this shit today of all days.”

I followed my sister’s yelling and found her puffing on a joint in the bathroom in her underwear. “Put that out. You know Daddy would have a fit, Desiree.” When she continued to puff, I yelled, “Desiree!”

“Cash!” she retorted back, after taking one last puff and grinding it out on the windowsill.

I was so happy for Daddy. He was such a hardworking man. He had been working for the trucking company for the past fifteen years. He worked sixteen-hour shifts four, sometimes five, times a week, so we had everything we needed, and to supplement the one-income household, ’cause our mom didn’t work. Mama had been home for as long as I could remember.

I felt so bad for Daddy sometimes because he worked some long-ass hours, so I made sure I always packed him a big lunch—a big jug of coffee with thick ham, bacon, tomato, lettuce, chicken salad or tuna sandwiches, fresh fruit, and his favorite snacks, like beef jerky and salty peanuts. He always gave me a big kiss before he smacked Mama in her mouth.

Sometimes they would be so into their kiss, they’d forget I was standing there. Then he’d whisper something to Mama, and they’d rush back upstairs. When he came back down, I’d say, “Oouuu, Daddy, you know you just nasty,” and he’d wink at me and be out the door.

Well, now Daddy would be promoted to supervisor, which meant he wouldn’t have to drive any big-ass trucks out of town. He would be home in bed at nights. Which I hoped would make Mama happy, and she would keep her ass in the house now.

See, Daddy worked straight through Friday-Monday shifts. Which was cool for my mom, because she never had to worry about Daddy finding about her ass backing that thang up in the club. And during the week, she would stay home and take care of all of us.

They had been married for over sixteen years. We lived in a spacious two-bedroom house in a nice neighborhood. But, don’t get it twisted, it wasn’t always so safe. When we’d moved here, it was so bad, prostitutes fucked in our backyard, drug addicts got high in our laundry room, and illegal immigrants slept in our garage.

Daddy tried to be nice about it at first. Then he went to the police station to get them to clean up the neighborhood, something they told him had to be a combined effort. So, shit, Daddy combined the effort by doing what the hell he knew. He would throw firecrackers in the garage and lock they ass inside, so they got popped by the firecrackers. If he caught a crackhead getting high in the laundry room, he would sneak to the door, and as soon as he got ready to step out, he was hosing they ass like cops did, yelling, “Get the hell off my property!” When he saw prostitutes in our backyard, he shot them in the leg, arm, and ass with his BB gun, and they would hobble away screaming.

When they saw Daddy wasn’t playing with them, they thought he was crazy as hell and stayed the fuck away from our house. A few other neighbors took notice of Daddy’s actions and banded together with him ’til all the addicts, gangstas, and immigrants were gone. Then it got so safe, you could sleep with the windows open. Hell, Daddy was a legend on our street.

Mama decked our house the hell out. Every six months she would get bored with the way the house looked. Then she would go whining to Daddy, throw some pussy his way, and he would feed her hands dollars and she would go out and buy new furniture. And although I appreciated everything my parents had done for me, I wished me and my sister had separate rooms.

Truth be told, although we looked a lot alike, we were different, like night and day. We both had Mama’s mahogany-colored skin, and thanks to Daddy’s Creole ancestry, shiny, silky, black hair that hung to our shoulders. Lots of girls hated on us for that, which was fucking stupid to me, because we wore the same hairstyles they did. Besides, it was easier to grip coarse hair, and you could do more with it. In our case, you couldn’t put too much heat and shit, so to me it was more of a nuisance than a good thing. Desiree was named after our dad. I don’t know what I was named after.

Desiree inherited thin lips from who the hell knows, while I inherited Mama’s pout. We both had Mama’s nice nose, medium-sized and slightly pointed, and the shape of our faces had the same symmetry as Daddy’s. Blessed with high cheekbones, we both had straight pearly whites. I had Mama’s big ass, but Desiree got her big-ass titties.

Then the other thing that set us apart from other females was our chinky eyes, which Mama had too. She would brag and say she had Japanese in her family. But we knew her black ass was lying. We just had tight eyes, that’s all. But dudes said it made us look exotic, and my sister ate that shit right up.

We were almost the same height. I was five foot seven, and my sister was five foot nine. While I was a big-time square, Desiree was a party machine. She would sneak out and go to parties, dragging me with her sometimes. And when she was tired of leaving the house, she was sneaking guys in the house to her room and fucking the shit out of them, leaving me no choice but to place my pillow over my head.

“Get dressed!” I yelled.

Desiree pointed her free hand in my face. “No. You seem to forget who the big sister is.”

“Well, if you act like you are, then maybe—”

“What? Go ahead, bitch. How am I supposed to act like you? Please . . . you a fucking peon. You ain’t got shit going on.”

“What you got going on, but a loose pussy?”

The smack my sister gave me sent me falling backwards into the laundry hamper. She got like that when she was high.

I stood to my feet and flew with my fists at her. “Bitch, don’t ever put your fucking hands on me!”

Desiree swung back and missed.

I swiped underneath her feet with one leg, making her fall backwards. Then I dragged her by her hair. From the hallway to the bedroom, with the intent to fuck her up.

Then she kicked me sideways and tripped me over. Then we went after each other again, throwing blows.

“You high-ass bitch!” I yelled.

“No-titties-having bitch!”

“But, bitch, I got ass and you don’t. And I ain’t got to give my pussy to get no dudes to like me either!”

“Fuck you!”

After the punch connected with the side of her face, Desiree shoved her finger in my eye, a bitch move.

I screamed and blinked rapidly. “Bitch, you couldn’t take your ass-whipping like a woman. You had to take the punk way out.”

Desiree took my temporary blindness as an opportunity to leap on me and hold me down. “Talk shit now, bitch!”

My eye was burning like crazy, but I still struggled against her.

“What in the world are you girls doing?” Mama, was standing in the doorway.

Pearla Pierce was a petite, dark woman with a big, dazzling smile, full lips, a sassy, big behind, and small waist that drove Daddy wild. At least once a day Desiree and I caught Daddy playing in our mother’s behind. Whether he was smacking it and saying, “Damn! Them video wenches ain’t got shit on you!” or caressing it, or just plain out bending over and kissing it, he worshipped our mother’s ass. And he seemed to worship her too. And, best believe, Mama had Daddy wrapped around her finger. His ass wasn’t going nowhere Mama wasn’t going.

Desiree looked up, and I struggled to look up at Mama, who had her hands on her lips, her eyes narrowed. Desiree shoved me one last time and adjusted her robe.

I fixed my outfit as well. “Nothing, Mama. We was just playing around, you know us girls.” I waited for Desiree to corroborate my lie. I didn’t want to jack up Daddy’s dinner.

“Yeah, Mama, we were just playing.”

“Well, girl, put some clothes on your naked tail, please. You going to drive one of them boys around here crazy. Next thing you know, they gonna be leaping through you girls’ window.”

The look Desiree gave me dared me to drop a dime on her ass. Instead, I smirked and wiped my burning eye.

Mama switched over to the mirror of our room and inspected her appearance. She eyed her curves and rubbed her hands down her hips, licking her lips. “Y’all little bitches betta be happy y’all came out my pussy and got my genes. All this body and this good-ass pussy!”

“Mama!” I yelled.

Desiree just smiled.” Uh huh! I know that’s right, Mama.”

Mama looked Desiree up and down. “Too bad you ain’t got no ass, Desiree, damn!” She shook her head at Desiree sadly.

“Well, Cashmere ain’t got no titties, and I do!” she yelled, gesturing toward her big-ass chest.

“With that ass, she don’t need none! And as soon as a nigga get to sucking on them, trust, they gonna sprout. But, as for your ass, I don’t know what to say about you, boo.”

Desiree glared at me angrily, like it was my fault she didn’t have no ass and I did.

“Baby? Girls?”

Daddy was walking down the hallway toward our room. As Mama sashayed away, he swatted her ass.

I hugged him.

Daddy tilted my face up and looked at it. “Your eye okay, baby?”

Desmond Pierce—People called him “Deuddi P”—was born in Louisiana and brought out here when he was five. He was a tall man, six foot four, had a handsome face, and was cream-colored with piercing, brown eyes, and a set of dimples, which I also had, and which made Desiree jealous.

Many girls around the way always wanted to get their clutches into Daddy, but over the years, he only seemed to have eyes for our mother. Although sometimes Desiree and I had heard rumors about our Mama fucking around on Daddy, we knew it was bullshit. The last time we’d heard a comment like that, we ended up beating a girl’s ass.

“Fuck you, bitch!” Desiree yelled, stomping the girl with her boots.

I clocked the girl in the face. “What the fuck you know about our mommy?”

We beat that girl so damn bad that we both were suspended. Daddy was pissed and whipped both our asses while he did it, mama looked at us sternly and said, “That’s right!”

Later, behind Daddy’s back, she gave us both an extra five dollars on our allowance, a high-five, and made us crab legs, our favorite dinner.

But, see, we weren’t really that bad. Well, Desiree was. She didn’t go to school, fucked anything that was walking, cursed, drank, and smoked weed. But, see, me and Desiree, we shared one thing in common. We had bad-ass tempers.

My butt was still rearing from the incident in my art class. I had managed to get an A on my test, but the teacher accused me of cheating. So on my test my A was crossed out with a red pen and “failed due to copying neighbor’s answers” was scribbled across the top. If anything, the bitch next to me was the one who was looking on my paper. But I wasn’t a snitch, so I kept quiet. But because she was white and we had the same answers, I was automatically the one who was wrong. I got the F.

Bitch, please, you got me twisted.

Anger pumped through me when I saw the white bitch relieved she didn’t fail. Instead there was an A. I slid out of my seat and slowly walked up to my teacher, seated behind her desk drinking coffee.

I leaned over her desk so our faces were inches from each other, our noses damn near touching. “You mean to tell me that after all the time and hard work I put into studying for this test that you gonna give me an F? Bitch, I’m gonna kill you, your husband, your kids, and your fucking dog!”

Her eyes widened.

I snatched the coffee mug from her hand and threw it into the wall, shattering the glass, and coffee flew all over the place.

Boy, did Daddy whip my ass.

“Baby, I asked if your eye was okay.”

I blinked and smiled at Daddy. “Yeah, Daddy, you know I’m okay. Take more than this to get to Cash money!”

Desiree sucked her teeth, and Daddy chuckled.

“Congratulations on your promotion, Daddy!”

He hugged me close again.

“Congrats, Daddy,” Desiree said, hugging him stiffly.

I don’t know why she had to act so. . .