Best Friends Forever

The small fingerprint on the chocolate cake's icing was unmistakable. Someone had stuck a finger in the icing and taken a big swipe. The missing icing was nowhere to be found. There was no one in the apartment but Sugar. Sugar smiled at the chocolate cake. She knew who had stuck a finger in the cake.

Sugar's real name was Tasha. She used Sugar at the club because men didn't throw dollar bills at women named Tasha; they threw money at women named Sugar. Her roommate, Diamond, real name Lucille, was hit by a car a month ago today. Sugar and Diamond had been friends since they met at Gentleman Jim's After-Hours Club. Tasha knew she was out of danger when she saw the frosted piece of cake. Relief flooded her.

Sugar danced at the club for eight years, longer than anyone else. She and Diamond met because of their mutual love for chocolate cake. Diamond made a chocolate cake and brought it in for the girls to share. Sugar was dancing when Diamond brought the cake in, but Diamond saved her a piece and set it at her makeup station. Sugar loved chocolate cake.

In return, Sugar had shown Diamond the ropes, including performing one of Diamond's pole spinning thigh tricks that always made dollars rain upon the stage. They became friends and eventually shared an apartment. Diamond was never late with her portion of the rent. Inside their apartment, they called each other by their real names, Tasha and Lucille. Lucille would make a chocolate cake for them to share on Tuesdays, which was her day off. The last piece of cake was shared with Lucille eating the icing while Tasha ate the cake. They were the perfect pair of friends.

Tasha loved coming into the apartment filled with the aroma of freshly baked cake. She would shower the odor of the club off. With her hair in a towel, wearing her favorite old dressing gown, Tasha would sit with Lucille, eat cake, drink milk, and talk about everything: their past lives, hopes, and dreams. They laughed and cried about the state they were in, but only Lucille had a plan to get out. They were friends forever and vowed to always ‘do the right thing’ for each other.

Lucille was one of those exceptional strippers who was saving her money. She had a two-year-old back in Washington that her mom was taking care of; half of what she made went out to her mom twice a month. The rest of the stacks of ones were in a large plastic container in Lucille's closet. Lucille made Tasha promise to give the money to her mom and kid if anything ever happened to her. Tasha had agreed… until Lucille died, and Tasha opened the container.

There was the plastic container, but Lucille's boxes of clothing, shoes, and costumes also had money in them. The clothing and shoes layer covered the rubber band bundled wads of cash. There was $156K sitting in the clear plastic bucket and cardboard boxes in the closet. Tasha had not told Lucille's family about the money when she called them to inform them of Lucille's death. But she did not touch the money for a month. Finally, she unwound one thousand dollars and brought herself a pair of brand new bright red knee-high boots she had lusted after for a year. In the back of her mind, she heard a small voice chanting: “Do the right thing.”

In the following weeks, Sugar paid off her car (six thousand) and paid her rent for three months (three thousand) using Lucille's stash. The voice in her head grew louder with each purchase.

Sugar had small things in her life going wrong. Her air conditioning broke. When the landlord fixed it, the air conditioner broke again. When the landlord replaced the air conditioner, and the new unit broke, he told her she would need to live with it for a while until he figured it out. Something must be wrong with the power of the unit. Tasha hated being hot, but here she was, dripping sweat. She had a bit of a headache. The voice in her head was louder: “Do the right thing.”

She had to borrow heels at the strip club. A brownish liquid had dripped from the ceiling of her apartment and got all over both pairs of her favorite strip dancing heels. The gooey fluid looked like chocolate mixed with snot. It was hell getting that stuff off her shoes.

She got into a fight with Sassy. Once Sassy finished her routine, and it was Sugar's turn, the pole was coated with that same brown sticky substance. The stuff could not have gotten on the pole without Sassy putting it there. She ran off the stage and snatched the wig off Sassy's head, punching her in the face as she did so. Sassy claimed she put nothing on the pole.

They fired her from Gentleman Jim's after the substance appeared every time she performed. The liquid would appear at random locations in the club each time she tried to dance. No matter who she danced after, she could do none of her pole tricks. If she went to the pole, the substance was there. They lost customers to the sticky substance being on the bar and in chairs. One girl, Candy, said that Sugar was bringing bad juju to the club since the gluey chocolate only appeared when Sugar appeared.

A medium the club owner brought in advised the club to fire Sugar. The owner felt he had no choice and did as suggested. The voice in her head was so loud that she could hardly hear people talk. Still, Sugar did not call Lucille's family. She spent no more of Lucille's money, but she did not put things right either.

The apartment was so hot. Sugar wanted to go out. Her door would not open. Ok, then. She went to the small window. The window did not open. Sugar couldn't fit through it, anyway. She went to the fridge to get a drink of water. When she attempted to fill her glass with ice, brown cubes came out. She tried to pour herself a glass of milk; what came out appeared to be chocolate. She didn't have any chocolate milk in her refrigerator. Was the apartment getting warmer? The radiators were on and smoking hot. Sugar took her clothes off and headed for the shower. Nothing but brown nastiness came out of the showerhead.

Forty-eight hours later, a naked, brown slush-covered, hot Sugar sat on the floor in the bathroom mumbling along to the sound in her head to ‘do the right thing.’ She was sweaty, sticky, hungry, thirsty, and exhausted. She could not get out of the apartment. Her phone did not work. The toilet did not work. Her food and water were contaminated. The food sat on the shelf perfectly fine until she tried to eat it. Then, as soon as she picked it up, the item was covered in chocolate slush. She tried eating the slush, but the slush came right back up. She vomited until she was dry heaving.

Sugar went to her room. She slid on shorts and a top. Getting a knife out of the drawer, she decided she would cut the door lock out of the door to leave. It was going surprisingly well until Sugar cut her thumb deeply. The red blood squirted out of her hand. Alarmed, Sugar ran to get a towel, but the towel had the brown goo all over it. She was going to bleed to death in here.

Sugar picked up her phone and dialed Lucille's family. She told them about the money and how she would get it to them in the next few days. As she hung up the phone, the brown goo left. It just vanished. The sound in her skull went quiet. The radiators suddenly stopped steaming. She lay there for a moment, enjoying the insanity of her situation.

She called 911 for her wound. When she crawled to the door, Tasha saw the perfect piece of chocolate cake sitting there on the counter. Right before Tasha passed out, she took a big bite; it was so delicious.