Page 32 of Queen of the Pole

“Oh nah. My mom was born and raised over there. She didn’t move down to the states until she was twelve,” he said.

“You’ve been there before? To Ethiopia?” I wanted to know.

“As a kid, but that was years ago. My mom got a lot of beef with her family. They don’t approve of the nigga that she married,” he said it so casually, as he reached over in the box that was still sitting on top of the middle console, and he picked up the box of popcorn.

He sat the popcorn down in his lap and started eating it.

“What’s your background?” he wanted to know, putting the hot spot on me this time.

“Both my parents are black,” I said. The way I said it, you would think I’ve seen my dad before to know this. I’ve never seen him in person. Only from a picture that my mom used to have sitting in her room, on her dresser many years ago.

“You cool with both of your parents? What does that dynamic look like?” he asked.

“My relationship with my mom is very toxic. I don’t have a relationship with my dad. I never met him,” I was honest with him.

I think he expected a different answer from me. Most girls were typically close with their mothers. Hell, I wish that I was able to give him a different answer. I wish that I could sit here and tell him that my mom was my best friend, but that wasn’t my story. I stopped believing years ago that that would ever be my story.

“Why is your relationship toxic with your mom? She don’t like the fact that you dance?” he asked me.

“That lady could give two fucks what I do. Also, she can’t judge me on that. She used to dance too. Her and my aunt,” I let him know.

“That’s why you did it? You started dancing because your people did it?” he asked me.

“I wouldn’t say that I did it to follow in their footsteps. I did it because I saw the kind of money that came with it. My mom stopped dancing long before my aunt did. When I was in high school, my aunt was in her prime with dancing. She had nice cars, a nice home, all the fly clothes, jewelry, just all the things that I looked at as goals. I wanted in, and I’ve been dancing for five years now,” I said. When I finished saying that to him, he didn’t say anything for a little while. He continued to eat the popcorn. I’m sure I turned him off.

As fine as I thought Wolf was, and as paid as I knew he was, I’m sure that nothing would ever come out of this. I was sitting next to a nigga that came from a two-parent household. You could smell the money on him. I knew that I was the kind of bitch that Wolf would never seek any kind of interest in. He probably was disgusted that I’ve been stripping since I was eighteen years old.

“It bothers you that I strip? Be honest,” I went ahead and asked.

That question caused him to sit the box of popcorn back into the box, and he kept his eyes on me.

“It’s niggas out here in Miami that’s flooding the streets with drugs. Shit, I got a couple of homeboys that I went to school with that’s living that life. They putting the kind of drugs on the streets that’s turned women into addicts. Having them neglect their kids, and family. It’s other niggas out here that’s scamming for a living. Stealing from the elderly. All the bad shit that motha fuckas out here doing, and I’m supposed to be bothered by you stripping? I’m not sure what all you heard about me, but I can assure you that I’m the most secure nigga that you’ll ever meet in your life. I have no problem with you dancing. Make your fuckin money man,” he went on, and I swear my pussy jumped at those beautiful words.

“Okay, so you admire the hustle. I feel like once you get with a stripper, that admiration goes out of the window. I know because I’m currently dealing with that. I don’t have a boyfriend, but, I have someone that I deal with. When me and him started messing around, just like you, he admired the hustle. Now, I’m always being accused of fuckin different niggas, and he gets mad whenever I have to work. My question to you is can you date a stripper?” I wanted to see what his answer was going to be.

“I’m a different kind of nigga though. You gotta understand how I was raised. My father isn’t the best husband to my mom by any means. Aside from that part of the marriage, I was exposed to watching a man provide. That’s the mentality that I’ve had since I was a little boy. A man is supposed to take care of the home. He gotta protect it, and provide for his wife, and children. I never had to see my mom get up and slave for a job. My dad made sure that she didn’t have to,” he started.

I was turned in my seat, with my back against the door frame, watching him. I wanted to see where he was going with this.

“I have three brothers, so it’s four of us total. My pops provided, but I felt like it was our mom that was always there. All the school shit, the after-school activities, doctors and dentist appointments, it was my mom that showed up for all that stuff. I can’t imagine her having to raise four boys, be on every scene with us, and still have to punch in for work. Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s millions of mothers around the world that gets it done, but my pops always made sure that my mom didn’t have to do both. Her only job was to show up for her boys,” he said.

“So, what I’m getting out of this is that you wouldn’t want your girl to work?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t want my wife to work,” he corrected me.

“Hmmm. You and I won’t mesh well then. I’m only 23 years old. Nothing sounds exciting to me about being a stay-at-home wife. I would rather have my own hustle. Plus, I enjoy what I do. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I also feel like niggas that want their women home all day, raising kids are controlling. You just admitted that your father isn’t the best husband. That tells me all that I need to know right there,” I let him know, and he nodded at that.

“You’re not wrong for thinking that though. I do feel like a lot of men keep a woman at home to be controlling. My pops is the most controlling nigga that I know. The only thing that I take on from him is my hustle. I work just like he used to work before he passed the company down to my brothers. Other than that, me and him are like night and day. I don’t condone the way that he moves. I’m always clashing with him because of the disrespect that he shows towards my mom,” he said.

I was finding out new things about him. I had it all wrong. Here I am, thinking that he comes from this perfect family. When I hear two parent household, which is something that I’ve never had before, I just assume that those kind of households were perfect. Guess I was wrong.

“I know the responsibilities that’ll come with me telling my wife not to work. I saw how my pops would use money to control my mom, and I’ll never do that goofy ass shit. That’s financial abuse, and I’ll look like a sucka ass nigga for doing that. So, to answer your question on whether I could date a stripper, I feel like that won’t be my problem. Based on the traits that I have, my woman not going to want to dance. She’ll automatically want to quit,” he finished, and when he did, that was the funniest shit that I’ve ever heard him say, so I laughed right in his face.

“They say that you don’t be outside, and it’s obvious that you don’t. If all I take home at the end of the night is twenty g’s, that means I had a bad night. I don’t think you understand the kind of money that I take home. A nigga would have to put voodoo on me to get me to walk away from the club. I’m eating too good with this dancing money. I already told you that I think very poorly of men. If I think that way about them, I know one will never have what it takes to get me to stop dancing,” I was honest with him.

It’s almost as if he knew some shit that I didn’t know because he casually went back into the box, picked up the bag of skittles, and poured a few in his hands. I watched as he dumped them into his mouth, and that had to be the sexiest shit in the world, seeing the way his jaw muscles moved around as he chewed down the candy.

“You saying that because you don’t know the kind of nigga that you sitting across from. You say you in it for the money, right? You wouldn’t walk away from the pole because of the money you getting, right? I am the money, so what benefit would it serve you to put all that wear and tear on your body every night, when you can just transfer whatever you need from out of one of the accounts? The kind of man that I am, my girl going to be so happy, and spoiled, that reality going to kick in, and she’ll start asking herself why the fuck is she getting ready to dance at a club, be gone all hours of the night, when she can be in the house, put up, and sleeping at this time of night,” he finished. This nigga was so cocky, but I liked it.