Free I'm Still Wifey by Kiki Swinson

know who I’m talking ’bout.”
    “Oh, them,” I said with no interest at all.
    He continued by saying, “Oh yeah, and so you know, Papi is always at his store in Northwest on M Street. Not the one on New Jersey Avenue. A’ight?”
    “A’ight.”
    “Oh and I’m gon’ let you know up front that them people is gon’ want you to cop a brick or two. And they gon’ probably want you to wear a wire, too.”
    “A wire!” I snapped at him. “I ain’t wearing no damn wire on my body to go and see Papi. Are you crazy?”
    “You wore one on me!”
    “No the fuck I didn’t! That’s a damn lie.”
    “Look, Kira, I ain’t trying to argue with you. ’Cause I know for a fact that the shit ain’t gon’ work if they don’t get him on tape.”
    “Well, we’re going to have a problem then because you and I both know how Papi and his people are. I would come up missing behind doing some shit like that. I mean, it’s bad enough that I’m helping to set him up.”
    “But you ain’t got a choice.”
    “What the hell you mean by that? I have a choice!”
    “Listen to me, bitch!” Ricky screamed at me. “As of right now, your freedom to make choices just got revoked. Now I don’t wanna hear nothing else about what you ain’t gon’ do, ‘cause, you gon’ do it. And if you don’t, I swear on every one of my seeds that you and your cousin Nikki gon’ come up missing. Y’all will get hunted down like dogs. And shit ain’t gon’ be nice. So you better think long and hard about whatcha saying because there ain’t gon’ be no turning back.”
    Now, before I could retaliate on this bastard, the time on his phone call expired. So I hung my phone up and lay my head back against the headrest of the office chair because I was pissed. And to have this piece of shit tell me that me and my cousin Nikki going to come up missing if I don’t help him get Papi busted, bugged me the fuck out. He honestly just scared the hell out of me because I know for a fact, that there’s people out here who owe him favors. So if and when any one of them are summoned, they will carry out his wishes without any questions asked.
    What I got to do now is try to figure out a way to get out of this whole thing because either way it goes, I can get axed by Ricky’s people or Papi’s. I’m fucked all the way around the board. But, I do have one thing working for me and that is the fact that I have exactly one week to come up with a plan. So, I’m going to have to be very creative. And since I know I ain’t gon’ be able to do this alone, I’m forbidding myself from telling Nikki that her life is in danger. She would not know how to handle it. Somebody else is gonna have to come into play. And it’s gon’ have to be very, very soon.

Getting My Swagger On
    All last night Nikki begged me to ride with her, her friend Syncere, and some other guy out to Pentagon City for a little shopping trip. So this morning, I finally said I would go. And like a flash of lighting, she and her little entourage was parked outside of my apartment waiting patiently for me to come out.
    Now Nikki had already given me the heads up on how good this other cat looked, and she had also told me that he looked like he had dough, too. So I was all for that. But what I liked most about her description of him is the part where she said he was tall, chocolate and handsome with a six-pack. And even though I ain’t in the market for another man, ain’t nothing wrong with going out with a cat when the tab is on him.
    Before I walked out the house, I took one last look in the mirror that sat on the back of my bedroom door to make sure that the Christian Dior tank top and wrap-around skirt I was wearing looked spectacular around my curves. And once I realized that they were, I threw on my Christian Dior sunshades and made my exit.
    When I got outside, I noticed all eyes were on me. And I loved it! It sent my confidence level about thirty feet in the air. I know I