“What the hell is going on, Natalie?” Slim asked as he heaved from the adrenaline that had wrecked his body. He withdrew his switchblade and placed it in his pocket as he looked at her, demanding answers.
“That’s what I had to tell you,” Natalie shouted emotionally. This was not how she wanted things to unfold.
“She’s yours,” Natalie replied nervously, her voice shaking.
Slim looked at Leah, who was frozen still in the bathroom, and a furnace of anger ignited within him. He wasn’t looking for similarities. There was nothing to compare. He knew for a fact that Leah wasn’t his kid.
He walked over to Natalie and backed her into the wall until she had nowhere to go. He lowered his voice out of respect for the innocent child in the room and said, “Bitch, you still on the same ol’ bullshit? I told you years ago that I wasn’t playing daddy to no brat. I gave you the money to take care of that shit!”
Flabbergasted that she was receiving the same reaction that she had gotten years ago, she began to tear up. She could feel herself losing Slim all over again. She wrapped the white sheet tighter around her body as she looked up at him in astonishment. She couldn’t understand him. Why didn’t he see that she needed him? That she had spent every day of the last eight years of her life thinking about him. Her heart beat deafeningly in her own ear. Why couldn’t he hear it breaking?
“Daddy, just listen to me…. You were the only one I was with—”
Slim interrupted her before she could get started. “You were on the track, Nat! Fuck you talking about? You talking crazy!”
“I wasn’t out there like that, Slim. You were the only one I let go bare. I didn’t even go unprotected with my johns,” she argued with raw emotion.
“She’s not mine,” Slim stated harshly between clenched teeth.
“Slim! She is yours,” she argued with conviction. Her eyes strained with redness as she heaved, trying to catch her breath. Her love, unrequited, now felt like a curse. It was choking her with grief.
She couldn’t believe that Slim hadn’t grown up. He was supposed to be eight years older, wiser, but it was clear that he had no intentions of stepping up to the task that she had put in front of him.
But Slim was no fool. There was only one woman who could claim him as her child’s biological father. He had one son, Nanzi, and that was the product of a special affair with one of his favorite girls. Shortly after Nanzi was born, Slim had been diagnosed with testicular cancer, and the radiation that he had endured as a younger man had left him sterile. He was sure that his soldiers didn’t march. This was one of the reasons why he felt the need to overcompensate to prove his manhood. Having control over his women made him feel like a man, but he had no desire to play daddy to someone else’s seed. There wasn’t a bitch in the world that could pin a baby on him.
“What, Slim? My baby ain’t good enough for you? Huh? You have no problem claiming that bitch Dynasty’s baby when it’s obvious that she not yours. Nowhere in your black-ass family tree do those green eyes exist,” Natalie shot at him, hurt by his rejection.
Slim had to stop himself from flying off the handle. The jabs she was taking at him made him want to snap her neck, but instead he walked away and began to put on the rest of his clothes.
“Everybody knows that ain’t your baby, Slim. I don’t know what you think is so special about Dynasty. She don’t love you the way that I do, baby. She never did,” Natalie stated as she ran to his side and began to fiddle with the zipper on his pants.
She had never understood his infatuation with Dynasty. Even after all this time, he still put her on a pedestal. Dynasty was his queen B. “She can’t make you feel good like me, baby.”
He slapped her hands away, disgusted, as he nodded toward Leah. “Go take care of your daughter.”
Now his memory of her was clear as day. She was still needy and clingy. She was one that he had not missed. The money that she used to rake in for him was not worth the headache that she caused.
Completely ignoring Leah, Natalie chased after Slim, following him all the way to his car. “Please! Slim, don’t do this again. I love you, Daddy. Please!” She sobbed as she beat on his car window.
He started the vehicle. The rain that fell drenched her, and her hair stuck to her face. Desperate for affection, she ran through the mud, refusing to let go of his door handle as he picked up speed. It wasn’t until he put pressure on the gas that she was thrown to the ground.
She sobbed, her body shuddering from the feeling of emptiness that dwelled inside of her. “Sliiiiiiiiiimmmm!” she screamed as she watched his headlights. “Babyyy!” He had always had a hypnotic effect over her. She was crazy over him.
He heard her animalistic cry and closed his eyes as he hit his brakes.
“Damn it,” he mumbled under his breath as he put the car in reverse. He was soft on a bitch. He knew that part of Natalie’s infatuation was his own fault. He had sold her one too many dreams in the past to expect her to let go. He had taken her heart without giving his in return. When he began to back up, he knew that he would regret his decision, but he couldn’t leave her out in the cold.
“Please, baby. I don’t have any money. I spent everything to come find you! I just want you to love me, Slim. Love me, baby…the way that you used to,” she begged shamelessly. There was no saving face when it came to matters of the heart. It wanted what it wanted, and despite years of being apart, she craved him.
Feeling sympathy for her, Slim rolled down his window. “I love you when you make that money, baby. You go back to bringing Daddy that money and I’ll love you to death. You understand?” he said, giving her false hope and provoking her to return to her old profession.
Grateful that he was even willing to keep her around, she nodded her head as she wiped the tears from her cheeks. An invitation back into his stable wasn’t what she had intended, but at the moment, it was better than being shut out of his life. If she had to be one of his bitches, she was determined to be the best. She would eventually earn her place at the top; she was sure of it.
“Yeah, Daddy, I understand. I’ma bring you that money, Slim.”
“If I even hear about you starting shit or bumping your gums, we’re done. I’m not that girl’s father, Natalie, so never let the shit slip off your tongue,” he threatened.
“I won’t, baby. I won’t. I’ma be good, Daddy. I promise you,” she repeated right before she watched him speed away.
With a combination of fury and hurt battling inside her chest, she stormed into the motel room. “Leah!” she yelled. “I told your ass to be quiet! See what you’ve done? You’ve fucked everything up!” She grabbed a wire hanger out of the closet as she cried tears of rejection. “He wasn’t ready yet! All you had to do was shut the fuck up, but you had to let everyone know you were hiding in there!”
Leah’s eyes widened in fear at her mother’s tirade, and she cowered apprehensively as Natalie rushed at her like a madwoman.
Natalie grabbed Leah, and without remorse or hesitation, she brought the hanger down across Leah’s naked skin. The thin, pee-soaked panties offered no protection from the whipping, and Leah screamed and twisted her body in agony.
“Your stinky, pissy ass…you ruined everything!” Natalie raged, unyielding in the amount of force she used. She swung the hanger with all her might. Each snap of the metal felt as if it set Leah’s skin on fire. She was taking out all of her frustrations, and beating all of her own insecurities into her daughter. Slim’s rejection had sent her into a blind rage. She was stuck in a place so dark that even she couldn’t snap herself out of it. Leah, unfortunately, was the only one there and became Natalie’s release.
The beating was so severe that Leah couldn’t even cry. The excruciating pain paralyzed her tears, but the slave-like screams