Nina's Got a Secret Read Online Free Page B

and winos scurry beneath.
    At the age of two, Nina became the custodial child of her grandmother after her nineteen-year-old mother was killed by her boyfriend. Nina spent the next fifteen years of her life in a constant search for peace. Her teenage body developed faster than her maturity level. As a result, she was ill-equipped to handle the barrage of propositions she received from boys her age, young men that stalked her, and many of the men in her neighborhood who were old enough to be her father.
    The verbal harassment she endured during her walk from school to her home was so vile it would have made the most sanctified woman go postal. Getting her butt rubbed and fondled by the sordid men in her community was an unwelcomed but integral part of her travels.
    Even if Nina did manage to avoid the scum that dwelled throughout the streets within her ZIP code, she was usually met at her front door by yet another dark secret. Nina’s perverted thirty-six-year-old, registered sex-offender uncle lived with them. He honed his molestation skills by sexually abusing her two and sometimes three times a week.
    Nina graduated high school on a sunny Friday afternoon, and less than twenty-four hours later, her clothes were packed and she was gone. She was no longer a boarder in her grandmother’s tiny project apartment. She became a tenant of the streets.
    That entire summer was spent in transient mode as she lived with various friends until she and her boyfriend, Flip, were able to secure a small one-bedroom apartment.
    Flip was just another wannabe drug dealer. He was tall and lanky, and had little to no education. But he had a genuine respect for Nina and eyes that made her weak in the knees whenever he stared at her. He protected her from the scum of the streets as much as he could. He pampered her hood style by making sure he sold enough rocks to guarantee that her hair and nails were always done.
    After two months of sleeping on a borrowed mattress and sitting on a hand-me-down sofa, Flip took Nina to the discount furniture store and let her choose her own particle-board, gold-trimmed, five-piece, black lacquer bedroom set. In Nina’s eyes, Flip was ballin’.
    For his generosity, Nina gave Flip a seven-pound, two-ounce, beautiful baby girl that he insisted be named Precious. Their dream of one day becoming a prosperous family and moving into a house in the suburbs appeared clear and attainable. The thought of being able to walk down streets littered with manicured front lawns instead of empty liquor bottles was a great motivator for both of them. The young couple eagerly put their dreams on the backburner while they stockpiled their cash and made their plans.
    Unfortunately, Flip’s untimely death changed everything. Without his support, Nina felt lost. He didn’t have a duffle bag full of money stashed under the bed like the drug dealers on television. She had no insurance policy to help pay for his funeral or bereavement counseling. She had no family to rely on; only a few people she called friends, and little to no hope.
    As she left another interview for a minimum wage job—an interview that she had to once again bring Precious along onbecause she didn’t have a babysitter—she walked past a construction site pushing her daughter in her stroller. Despite her determination to ignore the lustful stares, Nina heard one of the workers yell, “ Girl, you’re so fine I’d give you my check on payday if you’d give me a lap dance.”
    That idiot’s comments garnered laughter from his idiotic peers, but Nina’s curiosity was piqued by the suggestion. She always knew that she had the type of beautiful looks and shapely figure that drove men wild. As much as she wanted to live a regular life while working a regular 9-to-5 job, the realization that she was a card-carrying member of the underclass forced her to consider all of her options, including giving lap dances for