So many times in the past had I awaken to the sunlight hitting me in the face, but this time, somehow, it was different. I guess it was all the tequila we had drunk at the bachelor party the night before, or maybe it was the personal bottle of Ciroc that I had polished off after the party. I didn’t know… and frankly, my head hurt too damn much to care. I needed to get some relief. On more than one level. Stop one…gotta take a piss. So I roll off the sofa…wait a minute…what the hell am I doing on this sofa? Matter of fact…where the hell am I???

“Aiight, freaky,” I said, trying to calm myself from the instant panic I started to feel. “All you need to do is think, and remember what happened last night.” I closed my eyes and tried to recall the previous nights’ events. What flashed before me was a blur of neon light, the smell of weed and Black and Milds, and the constant laughter of horny men and women. This was definitely not working. So, I don’t have a clue where I am...or how I got here. So mission one…find a place to piss. Mission two…get the hell outa here.

I could see from the little sun that was shining into the room that I was in what seemed to be a basement that had been converted into some meek sort of living quarters. Obviously, the tenant didn’t give a damn about it having to be clean, cuz whoever lived here was nastier than a mutha… Scratch Mission one…Proceed to mission two.

I located the steps that led up to what I presumed to be the main house. As I started up the stairs, I heard a muffled sound coming from behind a closed door, off to the right of the sofa. Decision time…do I go investigate (total white boy move) or do I get outta Dodge (black boy move). Now for a normal person, this would not have been such a dilemma. Most black guys would have instantly dismissed the sound as “none of their business” and kept it moving. But nooo, not me. Not mr.freaky. I was prone to my curiosity. So I gotta find out what the heck is making that strange noise. So against my, and probably a lot of you alls, better judgment, I stumble over to the door. I knew better than to open it up right away…hell, anything or anyone could be behind that door. So I decide to open the door anyway. I prepped myself with an antique lamp that was on the table. If something jumped me, I was straight lamping his ass. I waited to hear the sound again. I noticed that it sounded more feminine that I had observed from before. At that point, I guess I let my guard down, cuz I put the lamp down. I cleared my throat, readied my right fist, and slowly reached for the doorknob When I opened the door, I froze in my tracks…hell, I think I might have even pissed a little. In the closet was a young female, completely naked, but bound with her hands behind her back. She had been gagged, and bleeding profusely. She was seated on her knees, and was conscious, but shivering rapidly. This girl was fucked up. Literally. The one eye that wasn’t swollen shut was staring at me, and she made several attempts to scream at me. I could tell she wanted me no where near her. I kinda backed away from the door, although this was not my original intention. I wanted to help her.

“What in the hell happened to you?” I asked. Then the light bulb came on and I realized the girl was gagged and couldn’t answer me.

I inched toward her, being sure to hold both my hands up to let her know that I meant her no harm. As I got closer, she got louder. She tried to move away from me, but fell over to the side. From this angle, I could see that her legs we bound as well.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Lil Ma… Hold on…I’m just trying to help you out!” I said as I struggled to pick her back up to a seated position.

She thrashed and squirmed as I lifted her up, and tears clouded her open eye. This girl was in pain, and afraid. But how she got in this state was the one unknown.

“Hey, hey…it’s ok. I’m not gonna hurt you,” I sad, as calmly as I could. Well, you might have thought I said “Be still or I’ll break yo fucking neck!” Her reaction was one of sheer terror. She had definitely been through something traumatic, but you could tell that from her current state. If not, her actions spoke volumes.

“Wait a minute…I’m not your enemy,” I said, carefully lowering my tone as I bent down to remove her gag. “Please, tell me what happen to-“

“You sick bastard!” she screamed, cutting me off. “You know goddamned well what happened. This is all your fault. But muthafucka you better kill me, cuz if I ever get outa here alive yo ass going to jail. Or worse!”

“What the hell? I don’t even know you!”

“Whatever! I know all about you, Mr. Darius
I thought about this statement for a while. Not only did she not know me, but she thought that I was my twin brother…why would he have anything to do with this? What the hell is ‘this’ anyway?

“You got it all wrong, I’m not-“

“How you gone tell me that bullshit. I saw you…I felt…” More tears flowed from her eye as she recalled some of the pain she had endured. Apparently, my brother had somehow been involved in all this…

“Look, I don’t know what you think happened, but I had nothing to do with it. I-“

“You are such a coward. Oh, so you think you can just talk me out of remembering what the hell you and yo boys did to me? You think I can still…” More tears…it was too painful a memory for her to even say aloud, even in her anger.

I sat motionless for a few moments. I was too shocked to speak. Seeing her like this was definitely having an effect on me. I felt like doing something I hadn’t in a long time…I felt like crying…

Fighting back the urge for tears, I tried to explain. “Listen, please, just listen. I am not who you think I am. Darius is my brother. I am the one they call freaky, and I wasn’t the one that hurt you. I just want to help you…please let me help you!”

At this, this woman, this victim of some ungodly abuse, just paused and looked at me in disbelief. “What did you just say? Darius has a twin brother? I’ve never heard about no damn twin. You must take me for a fool???”

Her anger had returned, if it ever left in the first place.

“Look, regardless if you believe me or not, I can’t leave you like this. Let me help you As I proceeded to take her restraints off, the woman looked at me, still not quite knowing if I could be trusted. As soon as the leg restraints were removed, she attempted to get up. This was unsuccessful, and she began to stagger as of her legs were intoxicated. As she stood, I tried to reach out to her, just so she wouldn't fall.

"Don't touch me!" she said in full anger, then a second later she repeated in a much lower tone, tearing up again, "Please... Just don't touch me...".

With this last tearful request, she shrank back into the closet, trying to get as faraway from me as she could, while making herself appear as small as she could.

I made no further attempt to try to touch her. I backed away. Shit, I don't really know where my thought process was at the moment. All I really wanted to do was bail. I didn't want to get involved in this shit and I definitely didn't know what to do in a situation such as this one but call the people (cops, popo, 12, 5-0, whatever you wanna call them). I check my pocket for my iPhone bur it was no where to be found... I turned and checked the sofa area...still nothing. So I returned to the closet to make one final plea.

"Lil Ma... I know you been through some rough shit... Looks like somebody did you pretty bad. But regardless of all that, something tells me we need to be getting the hell outta here. So you can come with me, or you can take your chances of the sick muthafucka that put you in there comin back to Dinah what he started. Either way... I'm bouts to be out.".

Sure it was harsh. Bit I needed to say something that would have the same effect a slap in the face would. I needed her to get angrier at her attacker than she was at me. I needed her to get off her ass and out of that closet. So I said what I had to.

"You would just leave me here like that? Sonovabitch! Really? "

"Really yoself...truth be told, I don't know you. But I have to find out what my brother has to do with all this. How do you know Darius?"

"Help me out of here, and I'll tell you...".

Just like that...she was my ally? Yeah right. More like an opportunist. But that's aiight... So was I at the moment. I had to get to the bottom of any involvement my brother may have had in her attack. Darius was always on some shit. And I'm always left picking up the goddamned pieces. Guess things never change...

"C'mon," I beckoned. She slowly picked herself up and while trying (and failing) to cover herself and keep some dignity, she took my hand. She was obviously in a great deal of pain, as she grunted with each step she took. I gave her the once-over to ensure that she had no fresh bleeding.

"Hell are you lookin at?" she shouted.

"Are you serious? Man I'm just tryin to make sure you aiight. Aint nobody trying to get at you."

She rolled her one eye at me. Ignoring her gesture, I gave her my sincerest smile and lead her upstairs.

As we were climbing the stairs, I suddenly remembered a flash of last night... 12 hours earlier…
The five of us have been boys since before we could drive. There was Reggie, who considered himself the leader. Reggie was 6’2, bout 185. He was the oldest, by a year, and therefore thought he knew more than we all did. We never had the heart to tell him that just because you talk the loudest doesn't make you the leader. Reggie's younger brother, Terry, was the driver. He started that role just so he could hang out with us. Turns out, he never liked to drink, so this made him an intricate part of the group...the DD. Next was JD, known as the Superstar. He was the star athlete in high school and most folks thought he'd be sure to go to the pros. Little did they know JD had more love for weed than he did sports. JD could be counted on to get the 420 started at every party. Rashad, or Ra as he liked to be called, was the pretty boy of the group. Light skinned and highly conceited, Ra really believed that he was God's gift to women. Actually, he had the track record to prove it too...

So those were my boys. We'd been invited to the bachelor party by one of Darius' friends, Omar. Well, I was invited... The rest of them niggas invited themselves...

So the night of the party rolls around and everybody is at my crib getting ready. Why these niggas decided that my lil ass apartment was the meet up spot I'll never know. So now Reggie is tying up my bathroom and JD is rollin blunts on my coffee table. Terry is banging it out on my PS3 like a madman and Ra is caking on the phone to some broad...as usual.

I headed to my bedroom to finish getting ready. I really didn't feel like going out, but if I had too, a brother wasn't gonna look like a clown. So I threw on the custom made big pony Polo shirt and searched around for my Polo boots. Under the bed with the boots, I found a note Brianna, my girlfriend, had given to me the night before...

"Have all the fun you want, but if I hear about them hoes all up on my man, I'm gone go ham on you and all them little ass boys you call friends.”

Brianna and I had been together for about a year and she knew all too well the shit my boys and I could get into. But I assured her that I'd behave myself. She was convinced that all my homeboys were a bad influence on me. She didn't know the half of it!

"Jay, hurry the fuck up man!" Reggie said. Now that he was through in the bathroom, he figured he'd start rushing me.

"Nigga, perfection don't just happen; that shit takes preparation!" I hollered back. I splashed on some Polo 4 and headed out the bedroom. "Aiight, oh let's do it!” That phrase always hyped us up to get going. Everybody got their stuff and headed for the door. We'd decided to have my Tahoe since it was the only ride that didn't have us packed like sardines in a can. Terry, as usual, took the driver’s seat.
“Yo, where we headed?” Ra asked, still on the phone.
“We goin to hit up Quest first, then we goin down to the Den for the bachelor party,” Terry answered.
Most of the rest of the trip we took just talking about random bullshit, from sports to women, back to sports, and then back to women. I was laughing at a particular fun run-in that Ra was telling us he had with this broad he had nicknamed “Big Shirley”. Shirley was bout 35 and had the idea in her head that she was gonna be the one to marry Ra. Of course, Ra had put that notion there. Turns out, Shirley is loaded. In more ways than one…I chuckled to myself as he described her. Terry let us know we had arrived at Quest.
“Thank you, bus driver!” JD told Terry sarcastically. Terry somehow seemed to feel like he had to announce when he got us somewhere. But hey, that’s just Terry. He’s really a good guy.
So we got out the Tahoe paid the VIP for entrance into quest. The line was longer than a muthafucka, cuz most folks wasn’t coming off the $40 for the VIP entrance. We had decided a long time ago though that we wasn’t the crew to wait in line for shit.
Soon as we get in the club, Ra takes off on one of his “conquest”, and that leaves me, JD, Terry, and Reggie. Reggie spots a shorty he had met back in the day, and then there are three. JD goes to the bathroom…(nigga always gotta pee for some reason), and that leaves Terry and me.
“Dude, you know this bachelor party ‘posed to be off the chain right?” Terry said as we hit the bar.
I ordered a blue muthafucka from the bartender. “Really though?” I asked, actually not caring.
Terry explained that the dancers were ordered months ago, and the groom was supposed to be this major baller. “Yeah, bruh…they said that the bitches ‘posed to be video ho quality. Poppin bottles all night long. I’m thinking bout takin me one home, shorty. I got a coupla hundred, and I’ma make it rain. Them hos gone go crazy on a nigga.”
Terry’s excitement was crazy…like a kid looking at the damn Sears Wish Book, picking out all the shit they wanted but never had a chance at getting. “Boy you wildin!” I told him, as I left the bar to go find something else to do.
Now I never explained why I didn’t wanna go to this damn bachelor party. Darius, my brother, had asked me to go. Darius and I, though identical twins, are very rarely seen anywhere in public together. Some time ago, as kids, we’d decided we wasn’t the Olsen twins, and we each chose a different circle of friends. None of our crew hung together, so neither of us had to worry bout saying “No,I’m actually freaky.” That shit got on both our nerves enough with Mama getting us mixed up when I lived back home. So this woulda been the first time is homies actually met me. And since I got a thing about people I don’t know…this was not something I was looking forward to. I was kinda relieved when the fellas invited themselves. At least I’d know somebody at this party.
Don’t get me wrong…I love my brother. But the only thing alike about us is our looks. Darius still loves at home with Mama, running up her light bill and her blood pressure at the same time. Nigga refuses to work, and depends on the women he fucks with to take care of him. He smoke enough weed to give JD a run for his money. The only time I usually hear from him is when he is knee deep in some shit, and then I am supposed to help him out. But whenever I get in a low place, he’s no where around. Yep…he’s that kinda brother. So I shoulda known something was up when he called me outta the blue to go to his homeboy’s bachelor party. Hell, I don’t even know Trey, nor does he know me…
Back to the bar to get another drink. This was going to be a long ass night.
We left Quest and headed over to the Den on the Southside at about 11:30pm. Man I was fucked up form all the drinks at Quest. I had drank bout 4 blue muthafuckas before the alcohol kicked in. No worries though. I can hold mine. Considering that me and the fellas went out and got sloppy on the regular, this was a light night. I decided to take a quick nap in the truck on the way to the Den. I knew this party would not end til the early hours of the morning, and it took about 35 mins to get there on the express. I looked at my iPhone before falling asleep…11:38…just a quick nap. "freaky …wake up man…we here!” Terry’s voice was sooo damn annoying when you trying to sleep. I looked at the iPhone.
“Terry, it’s after 1 in the fucking morning…what the hell took so long?” I asked as I got out the truck. Terry kinda looked at the floor for a second, and then looked over at Reggie. I knew this meant that some shit had went down and Terry didn’t want to put nobody out on front. “Reggie, what the hell happened?” I looked at him square in the eye. The funny thing about being friends with someone for so long is that you can tell when they lie. I knew Reggie wouldn’t lie while I was looking them in the eye. He would always laugh if he tried to.
“Man, you know Ra…he had us stop by this lil shorty house to drop him off.” I hadn’t even noticed that he wasn’t with us outside the Tahoe. I had thought that he was still in the truck on the phone.
“Where the hell she live at? In Drisdale?” Drisdale would be the same distance as leaving downtown Atlanta, driving to Conyers, and then going back to Six Flags…in other words, why the hell would you if you didn’t have to.
“Nah, she stay round the way…” Reggie said and walked toward the club.
Rather than waste more time bitching bout the time, I decide to drop it and just head on in the club.

Present time…
OK… remembering that shit got me no where. I still don’t know where the hell I am and who this woman is.
Nearing the top of the stairs, I notice that the girl suddenly stopped and had this defeated look on her face.
“ C’mon, don’t do this now. We gotta get out here. The first step is this door. I grabbed the doorknob, and looked back at her as I opened the door.
The look of fright on her face told me that she was preparing to scream. As she let loose a shriek that could awaken the dead, I turned to see what had frighten her.
Pain….excruciating, searing pain, and then I felt my body falling down the stairs. As I fell, I heard a deep voice…
“Bitch I told you…you ain’t going nowhere!!! Now look what you made me do. Yo boyfriend all busted up...”
I didn’t hear the rest of the sentence…darkness surrounded me, leaving me out cold. starting two weeks ago(from desyre's eyes)

“Hey, this is Omar.”

Just the sound of his voice on the phone made me wanna throw up, but instead of going with my first thought and hanging up, I asked, “What do you want, Omar?”

“Yo, my boy Troy is having a bachelor party on the 23rd and I was hoping you could swing through and show some of yo skills.”

“Well, you know I don’t work for free, so what kinda money we talkin’?” I asked, almost completely sure that this shit was not going to be worth my time.

“Troy said that you name yo price. I talked you up so much, that nigga just want you at the spot!” Omar replied.

“Look…let me think about it, aiight.” I really didn’t need to think about it. Hell, I needed the money. Rent was due and the light bill needed to be paid.

“Aiight then, you got my number when you decide.” The conversation really should have ended there…Unfortunately, it didn’t. “You can call me whenever you want, even if you haven’t made up yo mind yet.”

Fighting my gag reflex, I put an end to this farce. “G’bye, Omar. I’ll call you once I make up my mind.” I then immediately hung up my phone.

Somehow, talking to niggas like Omar always made me feel dirty about the job I do. I mean, being a dancer has enough connotations, but then you get calls from people that just make you feel like every thought people have ever had about you. Omar was a regular of mine when I was headlining at Sparkles, and had been one of the reasons I left in the first place. Using the stage name Desyre, I brought fantasies to life for hundreds of men every night. Not one time did I regret this…hell it was just a job. I didn’t sleep with them, I didn’t give blowjobs, hand jobs, or none of that other bullshit. I strictly danced. Now I could say that I was only doing this to pay for my education, but hell the matter of the fact is I did this because I loved the feeling it gave me. It made me feel so damn alive to have these strong men under my control each and every night. I often thought to myself that these were the same men that would beat their wives or be so damn demanding to their spouses. But not with me. Never with Desyre. All they could do was sit there, play out their fantasies in their minds, and then pay me. They could demand that I cook them dinner, fuck them, or even give a damn how their day went. And I loved every minute of it.

Now a lot of people will look at that and want to judge me. Literally, I never cared what other thought of me. All I cared about was that the twenties, fifties, and hundreds kept flowing. And with the way I could move my body, they definitely kept rolling. Until the night Desyre met Omar.

I had just got on stage. As always, the music got me in my element. Tonight, I was a school girl, and Britney’s ‘One More Time’ was moving my body in ways most women can only dream of. I moved around the stage with the grace of an angel. See for me, dancing wasn’t all about just taking off your clothes and shaking your ass. You gotta have some style about yourself. Some quality. So I studied the art of dance. I was great at ballroom, salsa, and had even dabbled in ballet. All of these, I drew from to give my one of a kind performances. As I climbed the pole to do my signature helicopter slide, I noticed this guy who had been standing next to the stage for some time. He wasn’t tipping, just standing there with this smile on his face. It was more like a grimace, but giving him the benenfit of the doubt, I called it a smile. I abandoned the pole for a moment. Nobody gets front row seats to a Desyre experience without tipping. I somersaulted over to him, landing on my knees, and let the slippery floor slide me the rest of the way over to him.

“What’s yo name?” I whispered sensuously in his ear.
“Omar.” He whispered back. I noticed that he had his hands in his pockets. So I grabbed them, and placed them on my ample chest.

“Now, Omar,” I said, still giving the crowd a show, but focusing on him. “I know you know the rules of the club, so I want you to dig deep into your pockets, past that rock hard dick of yours and show Desyre just how much you are enjoying yourself.” As I said these words, I rubbed my hand down the front of his pants. Yep…just as I thought.

“Girl, I aint tippin’ unless you let me pet your kitty!” Omar said, with that same grimace on his face.

Not only did Sparkles have a no touch rule, but so did I. This muthafucka had lost his goddamned mind. I rolled over on my back, flipped my long ponytail in Omar’s face. This was only a distraction. While I did this, I motioned over to Mike, the security guard, to get this nigga away from me. Seeing my signal, Mike moved into position. Before Omar knew what was up, he was being thrown out the club.

I finished my dance, and left the stage. Since it was my last dance of the night, I took a few minutes in the back, freshened up, and put on my favorite Dereon shirt and skinny jeans. Tonight had been a long one, and I was tired and ready to go home. As I walked through the club, I wanted to thank Mike for the quick action. And by thank, I meant pay. So I walked up to Mike, and gave him $150.

“What’s this for now, girlie?” Mike asked. Mike didn’t really understand.

“Look Mike, I know this job doesn’t pay a whole lot. But when we need protection, you do what you gotta. So to show my appreciation, I tip. This tip is yours. Thank you.”

“Aww now…you didn’t haveta go do that…but I’m sho hell glad you did. I got yo back from now on, Desyre. You heard me?” Mike said, graciously. It was funny seeing this behemoth of a guy being so humble.

“Thanks again, Mike. By the way, what did you do with Omar?” I asked.

“Man, I put that nigga out on his ass. He know not to bring his as back up in here.” Mike said proudly. I am sure Omar wouldn’t have the balls to cross Mike again.

“Aiight, Mike, good night!” I said as I waved goodbye to DJ Swaggs, who was on the ones and twos for us that night. Swaggs was such a sexy man, but he just smoked too much damn weed. Besides, I heard he was married.

Once outside the club, I couldn’t help but notice that there were no stars in the sky. Hell, there are never stars in the sky in the city. Growing up in the country, I missed seeing the starlit sky more than anything else. I was still reminiscing about this when I heard his voice.

“So you gone get me thrown out the spot? Why you gotta be such a bitch?”

Omar moved out of the shadows into the light. The grimace was gone off his face. He was clearly angry now. I reached inside my purse.

“Oh, yo mans ain’t here now. So shit gone go a lil differently. You gone dance for me tonight. You hear me bitch…you gone be my private dancer tonight!” Omar said, turning up the bottle of Jack he had in his hand.

“Look Omar,” I said, my voice shaking a bit. “This is not what we do, is it? Why don’t you just call this shit a night and we both just walk away.” By this time, I had my hand on my tazer, and had my hand on the trigger. This muthafucka was about to get lit the fuck up if he touched me.

“Oh, so you think you too good? What makes yo ghetto ass any better than me? What? I’m not good enough for you to get at?” Omar said, staggering towards me.

“Nigga, you wasn’t even tippin in the club.” I retorted. I was getting mad now. “So take you broke ass home and leave me the hell alone!”

“Bitch, I oughta knock yo ho ass out!” He said as he lunged at me.

“Big mistake muthafucka! Big mistake!!!” I screamed as I tazed the hell out of him.

Omar shook as the electricity flowed through his body. As I released the trigger, he staggered backwards, and then fell to the ground. He continued to shake a little. I hoped he’d die right there. Sonovobitch!

I didn’t waste anytime. I hopped into my Maxima, and locked all the doors. I started the ignition, and then I rolled out of the lot. Once on the highway, I called the police and told them what had happened. They told me to come by the office for a statement. Apparently, the whole incident had been witnessed by someone, and the police were already en route to the scene. Omar was going to jail for attempted assault.

I headed to the police station…Damn…would this night ever just end???