:CHAPTER 9:

"I have a question." Daeshondra cries. The seven of us are scattered around Traci's eccentric looking kitchen. Sounds like I'm complaining, but the place is warm, artistic and inviting. Her daughter Rochelle is with her father this weekend, so it's just us girls, nice change. We have the abandoned movie, Love and Basketball on the TV, Frank Sinatra blaring from the stereo, pots of food on the stove, and we're laughing like hyena's. It's almost seven thirty and we have a long night ahead of us to look forward to. It's gonna be fun.

At this moment Dae is sitting on the counter. She is suppose to be shelling peas for some dish that Olivia is cooking, but I swear she's been holding the same bean stalk for the past twenty minutes. Shan has her quite ample, and extra large African rear end sticking out of the fridge. African women have a very distinct look and shape to them, I mean yes, a general statement, but their quite curvy, big in the chest, thin in the waist, and booty and hips galore. Shan is the epitome of the ultimately beautiful African woman.

As I'm thinking this over, Olivia kicks her in the ass as she walks by her to the stove. Jaclyn is Aprhrodite reincarnate, except black. She must be the most beautiful black woman I've ever seen. She is making a salad, because her high maintenance ass can't cook. I thought I was tall, but Jaclyn is tall, all five foot eleven of thin slender frame. She and I lucked out, because we don't have the tough picky hair that most black women find their nemesis, somehow we've been blessed with manageable hair. We still straighten it once a month, to make it silky and smooth, but the difference is in the way it moves. Ours moves like white hair, theirs moves like it's been straightened. Anyways, Precious is here, but is probably peeing again, it's true pregnant women do spend ninety percent of their day peeing. Traci is cooking some dumplings and rice, and trust me the girl can cook.

"Please Dae enlighten us with your question," Traci squeals, and then winked at me. She's already drunk out of her tree, started drinking before we even got here, and we suspect her alcoholic ass would be intolerable before the night was up.

"How many calories are in cum? I heard a lot," Dae says, and with a modest attempt at keeping a straight face, we all turn to look at her incredulously. She acts as though our voices haven't suddenly hushed, and she peers into the bowl of peas, that look exactly the same as they have for the past twenty minutes. Traci breaks first and then we all burst into uncontrollable laughter.

"Drum roll," Shan cries. "Oral sex! I think Tamara should answer that one, because she's so experienced in the department."

"Bitch! At receiving not giving. For your damn information I've never given head in my life." I state, okay that's a lie, but I was trying to be convincing.

"That's a mother fucking lie. You may not be as experienced as Jaclyn per say, but then no one is. But you have and you know it." This is Liv who can't even talk cause she's been known to complain about jaw issues, during the act.

"Excuse me?" Jaclyn says with stealthy attitude. Liv covers her mouth as if it was a Freudian slip, but then smiles at Jaclyn anyway.

"Whatever, but not from experience or research on the matter, but I happen to know that you wouldn't get fat on a daily diet of ejaculate." I tell them. The icing is slipping down the side of the cake, I'm icing. It's not suppose to do that.

"It was in the New York times, that cum was fattening," Dae says. "See, this is the kind of shit that helps me stay celibate."

"Yeah.....and the fact that you don't like to get dirty."

"It ain' dirty. Just messy. And...fuck you," Dae retorts, but she is gripping her sides anyway, laughing like mad.

"Would you guys cook already? I'm starving," Precious whines, as she waddles into the room.

"Cum's ninety percent water. The other ten percent is high in energy. That's only ten percent though." I tell them.

"She's right," Shan says. "It was in my genetics course."

"You're a freaking oncology nurse, why are they teaching you abut cum?" Traci cries, and this gets us all whooping with laughter again.

"First year, we cover every topic. We don't specialize till third year ya ho." Shan snaps, and we all laugh again.

"Semen makes you fat," Dae insists.

"Check this, the volume of cum itself varies between three to five cubic centimetres right?" Shan explains. She tosses a head of cabbage to Jaclyn, who now looks bored, and is playing with the knife, too close to me at the table for comfort. Precious has sat down, and has put her feet up in my lap, and I abandon the cake, and massage them for her.

"Only five cubic centimetres. That's not enough to make anyone fat. And on top of that the maximum of five cubic centimetres, is ninety percent water." I add.

"And...furthermore five cubic centimetres of pure sugar. We're talking like five cubic centimetres of the richest chocolate in the world, has only eighteen calories in it." Shan tells Dae, and pokes her in the stomach as she walks by her to the sink.

"I was hoping Dae was right, at least I'd know why I been putting on the pounds so steadily." Precious wailed, and our laughter and giggles fill the kitchen again.

"Are your feet still swelling?" Liv asks Precious, and comes to rub her hand across her swollen belly.

"Yeah! But that's not from the one in the oven, it's from that bastard I'm married to. Doesn't do a damn thing around the house. Has me on my feet all day." She replies, and the conversation switches to husbands, and the next to get married, and lots of good girlfriend type conversations. I roll into my bed at three thirty and pass out immediately feeling renewed and stress free.

***

Marcus has told me that the trial is scheduled for May 17th. A year after the incident, and I hang up the phone full of anger. Because of this frustrating system Quincy has been in jail for two and a half months. He'll be spending six before his story will even be heard. The kid got pretty roughed up, he didn't die. Yet they won't let Quincy have bail. I'd pay it. Quincy ain't no danger to society, he wouldn't hurt a fly. But I felt better that Marcus was on his side. Quincy seems to have gotten use to things at the pen. I hate that. His mother goes to see him every Sunday, and my Mother says it still breaks her heart.