A Good Dude (2 page)

She was thin and young, but Candace had the shapely bulges of a grown woman. In fact, her mother always warned that her body would be her downfall if she wasn’t careful. Candace had a good head on her shoulders, but her mother said some men wouldn’t see past her supple breasts and protruding hips. These men would ogle her openly and undress her with their eyes. They would look at her much like Rilla was looking at her at that exact moment, but Candace’s mom was the last thing on her mind. This man, this
famous rapper
, had chosen her out of all the women in the building. Candace never felt more special.

“Damn, baby. You look good. What’s yo name?” Rilla asked.

He thrust the microphone under her chin and she said, “Candace.”

“I was right about you,” Rilla said. “You’re definitely a tasty lady.” He looked her up and down and licked his chops. “
Candace
. Sweet like
candy
.”

Candace wore a tight pink T-shirt with a denim skirt and leather sandals. The skirt didn’t go past mid-thigh. It rose to ridiculous heights when she sat down, but Candace wore pink panties, too. She figured she was coordinating.

“Sit down, baby, I want to sing to you,” Rilla instructed.

Candace looked around, surprised to see that the hype man had brought out a folding chair. With the audience screaming behind her, Candace took a seat and crossed her legs and listened intently as Rilla rapped “Tasty Lady” just for her. He stared into her eyes and held her hand most of the time. And although a big pair of panties came flying very close to Candace’s head halfway through the set, she felt like it was just him and her there.

Close yo eyes, baby Let me take you there Let me smell yo hair

Kiss beneath yo underwear

Look in my eyes, girl Feel my heart

You got me sprung

I’m sucking toes tonight

I’m licking thighs and pearl tongues

By the end of the song, a good number of the women in attendance were turned on, but no one was as moist as Candace. Before he showed her off the stage, Rilla leaned in close for a conspiratorial whisper.

“You sho look good, girl. Yo name Candace for real?” His accent was barely discernable.

“Yeah.”

“Check this out, I only got
one night
in town. I know that sounds shady, but I’m for real. No bullshit. I wanna kick it with you tonight. Can you stay out for a while?”

“Yeah,” Candace lied.

“How old is you, girl?” Rilla wanted to know. “Eighteen,” Candace lied again.

“We having a little party in my room after the show, in about an hour. Can you come?”

“Yes. Where?”

“We stayin’ at the Renaissance. Room 234.”

“Okay.”

“You gon’ remember that, Candace? I really want you to come.”

“I’ll remember,” Candace promised, and she did. Rilla wasn’t necessarily the biggest name out there, but he appeared to be on the rise. His “Traffic Stop” video was always ranked in the top five on BET’s 106 and Park. His
Rilla Time
tour took him all over the country. Candace was a devoted fan, but her girlfriends thought she was sliding into groupie territory.

“You’re not going, are you?” Shannon asked. Shannon was tall, blonde, and about as soulful as Barbara Bush. Why she went to the concert in the first place was a mystery.

“Yeah, I think I’m going,” Candace told her.

“You father’s going to kill you,” Shannon noted. And she was right about that. Candace graduated high school two months ago, but her stepdad was nowhere near ready to push her from the nest. He barely let Candace date at all, and he couldn’t stand rappers. He would have had an aneurysm if he knew Candace betrayed him and sneaked to Rilla’s concert.

“They’re gonna treat you like shit,” Rachel said. She was Candace’s best friend. Rachel was in Candace’s graduating class, but the private school never corrupted her free spirit. “They just want sex,” Rachel went on. “You’re not going without me!”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Candace said.

Shannon was mortified. “Your dad thinks you’re spending the night with me! What if something happens to you over there? You’re my responsibility!”

“Stop being so melodramatic,” Rachel said.

“Come with us,” Candace offered.

“I’m not going. And you shouldn’t, either.”

But Candace did go. She and Rachel spent their last few dollars on a cab and made it to Rilla’s hotel ninety minutes after the concert ended. Candace’s life was never the same since. Rilla was an amazing guy, full of surprises. The first surprise came when they got to his room. Candace expected a party atmosphere. She expected a large entourage and loud music and groupies as far as the eye could see, but there were only three people in his suite. Rilla answered the door himself wearing jeans and a T-shirt. His platinum grill was removed, and his other jewelry was set aside somewhere. He looked like a regular person.

Candace had been in love before, but never swept off her feet. And she didn’t think a guy like Raul “Rilla” Canales could do it. He was too much of a roughneck. Candace grew up on the other side of the tracks. Her mother was a college-educated social worker. Her stepfather was a retired naval lieutenant. Rilla invited her into his world of gunshots, broken beer bottles, and spilt blood, and Candace had never seen anything so amazing.

They stayed in the main room and talked for hours. Rilla sat on a sofa next to Candace. He stared into her eyes and smiled a lot, telling her how beautiful she was a few times. Rilla told war stories about his hometown, Overbrook Meadows. Candace had never been to Texas. She thought it sounded like a pretty rough place. Rilla told her there were beautiful sights there, too. He asked if she might like to see his city one day, and Candace eagerly said she would.

Around three in the morning, Rachel was nodding on the suite’s love seat. Rilla kissed Candace for the first time and asked if she wanted to go to the bedroom with him. Once there, he asked her if she was sure about what they were doing. He asked again right before insertion. Candace had never experienced anything like it. The boys at her school were so eager. They wouldn’t dream of giving her a chance to back out.

And Rilla was different in other ways. He was twenty-four, six years older than both of Candace’s former lovers. Candace had never experienced
grown man sex
, and she took an immediate liking to it. When he put his head between her legs, Rilla knew exactly where to lick. He sucked her like he was trying to get meat off a neck bone. When he mounted, Candace found out what an orgasm was.

And she loved it.

Rilla left the city the very next day. He begged Candace to go with him, but that was ridiculous. Candace was a good girl. She graduated from a private school and had already been accepted to three universities. So he left by himself.

But he called her later that week. Rilla was in Michigan then. He told Candace there was no woman in the whole state who came anywhere near her beauty. He asked again if she wouldn’t reconsider going on tour with him. Candace was so smitten by then that she actually asked her mother.

“Are you serious?” Katherine Hendricks asked. “Mama, he just has another month to go before he goes back home.”

“You want to ride around with some
dumb rapper
for a month? Candace, have you lost your godforsaken mind?”

“No, Mama. Rilla’s not like the other rappers. He’s sweet. He—”

“Your father would roll in his grave if he knew you were asking me this.”

“Mama—”

“I know I raised you better.”

“Mama, if you just listen—”

“There’s nothing to listen to, Candace.”

“You don’t even know him.”

“I don’t even know
you
, girl! What the hell is wrong with you?”

“But—”

“You turn eighteen in six months. Even then you’ll have to hook up with this guy
over my dead body!
”

Candace’s mom was indignant, but her stepfather was livid.

“You went to that damned concert after I told you not to?” Gerald asked.

Candace couldn’t come up with a response.

“You met this guy? Tell me you were with him. I’ll have his ass locked up for statutory rape!”

“I’m seventeen!”

“Did you sleep with him?
I’ll kill him! I swear to God!
”

“Daddy!”

“
Go to your room!
”

When Rilla called two weeks later to say he was in Jersey, Candace told him she would be on the next train headed that way. She squeezed what belongings she could in her school backpack and hit the road, becoming the most illogical runaway in New York. Most kids her age ran from abuse or suffering or some type of trouble. Against the advice of virtually everyone she knew, Candace ran straight to it.

* * *

That was eight months ago.

Candace thought she would live a Hollywood lifestyle with Rilla, but he got dropped from his label at the end of the tour. The only thing he got from his record deal was plane tickets home. Candace was obliged to go with him.

Back in Overbrook Meadows, things got bleak. In a desperate attempt to fund his second album on his own, Rilla easily fell back into drug dealing. Candace thought of leaving him a few times, but he still had
some
money and a lot of clout. Rilla was a local celebrity in his hometown. He didn’t perform often, but he could still pull in a thousand dollars a night, like this gig at Club Tron.

Candace sat back and watched the hoochies throw themselves at her man, knowing Rilla would never go for them. Ever since he invited Candace on stage at that Summer Jam, Rilla had never met a woman he wanted to be with more. He told her so almost every day.

PIECE OF PARADISE

They stayed at the club for an hour after his set. A lot of girls lingered, too, so they could get some one-on-one time with the artist. This used to be cause for concern, but Candace respected and listened to her man. Rilla had a logical explanation for his interactions with the opposite sex, and if Candace wanted to be his girl, she had to accept certain things:

“See, when I write songs like ‘Tasty Lady,’ ” Rilla once told her, “I do that for the bitches. I might have a steady girl, but I want everybody to feel me. You dig? If the bitches like me, the niggas will follow.

“I can’t be actin’ shady at my shows. If them hos wanna come and speak to me, I gotta be there for ’em. I love my fans. I
need ’
em. If I gotta kiss a couple broads on they cheek to sell my CDs, I’ll do that. Is that gonna be cool with you or not? Let me know now.”