Free No Boyz Allowed by Ni-Ni Simone

mirror. Are those clean?”
    He gleamed. “First of all, don’t disrespect the trophy. And yeah, they’re clean ’cause I washed ’em. And they’re not wide, they’re just right.”
    “For who?”
    “My boos. Big girls. I love ’em. I can’t stand no skinny chicks.” Man-Man frowned like he had something bitter in his mouth.
    “And why not? What skinny girls ever do to you?”
    “They just don’t feel right. Whenever I tried to hug one I felt like I was being attacked by a paper cut. Nah, I like my honeys the same way I like my chicken: plump, big thighs. Nice and thick. Juicy. But don’t get it confused, although I like big girls I have a limit. I like a hungry man’s dinner, not a buffet. Feel me?”
    How about no . . . “So those panties belong to some random chick. How nasty.”
    “You buggin’. I bought those panties out of Dollar Tree. They belong to me.”
    “You own a pair of lace panties and I’m buggin’? Yeah, okay.” I side-eyed him.
    “You need to get your mind right. ’Cause if you broadened your horizons you’d understand that those panties keep me focused.”
    “Focused?” I couldn’t help but laugh. “On what? Big booties?”
    “There you go, mind all in the gutter. Ma raised me to be a respectable young man. I like girls for the veins in their brains.”
    “What?”
    “You know what I mean.”
    “Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.”
    He continued, “So I bought the panties because when I meet my plus-sized queen and I ask her to be my girl, I’ma give her the lace panties to wear.”
    “Boom,” I said sarcastically and snapped my fingers. “It’ll be like a ring.”
    “Pow, there it is,” Man-Man said. “Like a drop down crown. And if ya girl Pop gets herself together maybe she’ll get her upgrade on, be back in wifey status, and these panties just might be in her future. Dig?”
    “How rewarding. I’m sure she’ll love that.” Not.
    “You know my motto: go big or shut da hell up.”
    “Yeah, those big panties prove that.”
    “And there it is. Now let’s get back to politickin’.”
    “Let’s.”
    “So check it: at Brick City High I run the Player’s Club.”
    “Why am I not surprised?”
    “ ’Cause you know how I do it. And peep this—I’m not only a client, I’m the Player president.” He popped his invisible collar.
    O . . . M . . . G . . . straight clownin’ . . . And while Man-Man tripped off of his own swag and laid down his laws of the land, my mind drifted to thoughts of Ny’eem. I was feeling him like crazy...I just didn’t know what to say to him, which is why I had yet to call him back. He’d called me two days in a row. Left messages on my cell phone and not once did I dial his number. I just didn’t know what to say to him.
    “Yeah, hello...” was my failed attempt to act out our conversation. Even to myself I sounded stupid, so I knew he would think I was dumb.
    I looked toward Man-Man, who was still running his mouth about his favorite subject, himself. “...Yeah, my Player’s Club presidency will go down in history because it’s only one of me. And any more than that would be disastrous.”
    Fa’ real though. “Man-Man—”
    He continued, “People don’t understand there are no clones of Man-Man. I mean G-Bread—”
    I snapped my fingers and waved my hands for attention. “Excuse me, can you get off of planet Myself and come back to Earth with everyone else? I need to ask you something.”
    Man-Man looked at me like I was crazy. “That was hella rude.”
    “Would you listen to me? I want to ask you something.”
    “What?” he said as we stopped at the light. “Wassup?”
    “I want you to be serious, okay?”
    “I’m always serious.” The light turned green and he took off. “What you think I be playin’? Nah, what you see is straight up G. See, I be telling these girls that I’ma real cat. Never been phony—”
    “This is so not about you.”
    He looked taken aback. “Then what is this