Dirty Rotten Liar (17 page)

Selah wanted to punch him in the face for low-rating her mothering skills! She wanted to smack him right upside that banged-up head of his and then drown his half-crippled ass in the lake! But with so many important people around and this fool acting so damned unpredictable, the best she could do right now was to get the hell away from him.

“You know what?” She gave Viceroy a smack-down under her breath while smiling politely at their guests the whole time. “I'm about to beg your goddamn pardon for a little while because I have something a whole lot better to do.”

He reached out and snatched her by the wrist and she quickly jerked it back and popped him on the back of his hand.

“Let me tell you one fucking thing, Viceroy,” Selah said, coming straight up out of her Brooklyn bag. “I did a damn good job of raising my kids! There's nothing wrong with Grayson or Fallon! Both of my kids are doing just great, thank you, and that's because of me, baby. Not you!”

Viceroy shrugged. “That's a matter of opinion, sweetheart.” He angled his head toward their daughter. “Fallon is over there shaking her ass, and the last I seen of Jock he was walking around here so damn high he was sniffing cloud dust! I don't know
what
you was laying around the house doing while I was in the hospital Selah, but you been slackin' hard, baby. You ain't been raising these kids right. You damn sure ain't been doing
that
.”

Selah turned halfway around in her chair and stared at him. Oh, it was about to be on now. Fuck appearances. Fuck all their company. This fool had jabbed her in her mother-button and that shit
hurt.

“You know what, Viceroy?” she said quietly, rising to her feet in one graceful motion as she got ready to go back in the house and make that phone call again. “How about you kiss my black ass, huh? Believe me. You've been slacking for a long time in some areas too”—she stared down at his crotch and then back up in his eyes—“ 'cause trust me baby, there's a whole lot of shit that you
still
can't do right!”

“F
ucking
bastard
!” Selah muttered under her breath as she maneuvered her way through the throng of guests and stormed toward the back entrance of the lakefront mansion.

Viceroy had more nerve than a little bit, talking that bullshit to her! The twenty-year-old flame that had been burning low in Selah's belly sparked up into a raging fire. No matter how hard she had tried, deep down inside she had
never
forgiven Viceroy for the shit he'd put her through that day! All he'd had to do was keep his ass at the hotel with his family where he belonged, and they would have taken the kids out like they had planned, and her babies wouldn't have been stuck up in that room going crazy!

And if the babies hadn't been locked up in that little ass room, then Selah wouldn't have had to ask the concierge to call her a taxi to take them across town to Viceroy's office!

And if she hadn't taken her children to Viceroy's office, she never would have caught him with his dick in her sister's mouth!

And if her tramp-ass baby sister hadn't been sucking the skin off of her husband's rock-hard bone, then Selah never would have run out of that building and dragged her babies around the streets of Manhattan with her heart all broken up in little tiny pieces.

And if she hadn't been walking the streets of Manhattan with her heart torn up, then she never would have needed her a drink in the first damn place!

And if she hadn't snuck and drank up almost a fifth of liquor, then she wouldn't have had a reason to run inside that damn Duane Reade's drugstore to buy her some mouthwash.

And if she hadn't needed that mouthwash, she would have never left her kids waiting outside with a baby in the stroller with only a seven-year-old out there to watch them!

And if she hadn't left her seven-year-old son outside alone watching the kids, then her baby girl Sable wouldn't have been snatched out of her stroller in broad daylight!

And if sweet little Sable hadn't been snatched from her stroller and kidnapped by a stranger, then the scandalous fiend who had just busted out the back door and was coming down the steps sweating and holding her crotch wouldn't be in Texas trying to convince Selah that she was her child!

“Whassup, Mama Selah!” Dy-Nasty hollered as she bounded down the steps. “Whew! It's hot as hell out here! I'ma run and get me a cold brew. Want me to bring you one?”

Selah shook her head. “No thank you, dear,” she said as she walked past Dy-Nasty and headed through the back door. “I'm fine, baby. But thanks.”

 

Selah stormed inside the house and walked down the long corridor. She had just turned the corner and headed toward the staircase when she felt the floor shaking as Pilar's overweight fiancé, Ray, came barreling down the steps straight at her.

“Ray!” Selah yelped and pressed herself up against the wall so he wouldn't knock her down. “Goodness!” she shrieked as she saw the bloody ribbons of shredded skin hanging from his face. “What the hell happened to you?”

“It was Pilar,” he blurted out. Tears were in his eyes and Selah saw a patchwork of blood-streaked scratches on his neck and arms too. “Your niece jumped on me and hit me in the head with a wine bottle!”

“Pilar?” Selah said in disbelief. “Why in the world would she do something like that?” He started down the steps again but Selah grabbed his arm.

“Uh-uh,” she said, nudging him gently in front of her. “You just take yourself right back up those stairs!”

She shook her head and frowned.

“You walk yourself out there in front of Viceroy and his friends all scratched up like that and he'll have a damn fit. Uh-uh. Come on upstairs with me, baby. Let's put some peroxide and Neosporin on those scratches and get you bandaged up.”

 

“She just went crazy,” Ray muttered as Selah dotted his face gently with cotton balls soaked in peroxide. “She attacked me. Just jumped all over me! First she said I was messing around on her, and then she went bonkers and started scratching up my face!”

Selah frowned. “You? Cheating? That's ridiculous! There must be some sort of misunderstanding because really, that just doesn't sound like the Pilar I know.” She dabbed at Ray's shredded skin and squeezed the cotton balls so the peroxide would drip foam as it cleaned out a few of the deeper scratches.

“Well it was her,” Ray muttered. “Pilar's been acting crazy for months now. Fighting with me over the littlest things, ignoring my calls and talking down to me like I'm not worth shit! I don't get it, Ms. Selah. I'm a good catch! A good man! But no matter how much I try to do for your niece, she's just never satisfied!”

Selah treated his wounds and listened quietly as Ray poured his heart out. She wasn't one to get in other people's business and after hearing Ray out, that's exactly what she told him.

“Look, I can't explain Pilar's behavior and I can't excuse it either. All I can tell you is . . .” A feeling of deep regret and longing washed over Selah and she felt her heart quiver. “Just don't waste your damn life, Ray,” Selah said quietly. “You only live once, baby, and every single day is precious. If a relationship isn't right for you then you'd be a damn fool to spend twenty or thirty years trying to make it right. What did the old folks use to say? If it don't fit, don't force it?”

Selah picked up a Q-tip and smeared Neosporin all over his face. What she was about to say was for Ray, but it was also for herself too.

“You have to live your life, Ray. And Pilar has to live hers. The last thing you want to do is wake up thirty years from now and realize you've wasted your whole life on the wrong damn person.”

 

If Selah thought her little dust-up with Viceroy had gone down unnoticed she had another think coming.

Digger Ducane had a wide-open view of his sister and her husband as they sat under the white canopy and talked outta the corners of their mouths. Digger knew his sister, and he could see right past her fake smile and spot the fury flashing in her hazel eyes.

The music was too loud and Digger was sitting too far away to hear what Selah and Viceroy were saying, but judging from the set of Viceroy's jaw and the way he leaned in on Selah and gestured with his hands, their private little convo wasn't about nothing nice.

Digger knew he was on point when Selah jumped up from her chair and smirked down at her husband, and then rolled her eyes and walked off with her hips swaying as she left Viceroy sitting alone and headed toward the house. She never even looked back as she worked her way through the crowd and passed Dy-Nasty coming down the back steps, and then disappeared through the double doors.

Digger's first instinct was to run over there and knock the shit outta Viceroy for upsetting his sister, but then he remembered that Selah wasn't even speaking to him and she had been giving him the shit treatment all day. Taking another sip of his drink, he settled down in his chair and kept one eye on Viceroy and the other eye on the back door where Selah had just disappeared.

Long minutes passed but Selah didn't come back out. Digger figured she'd gone inside to pull herself together or to use the bathroom or something, but after that little love tap she'd given Viceroy, something in his gut told him to go find his baby sister and make sure she was okay.

Taking the long way around so Viceroy wouldn't peep him, Digger skirted along the edges of the crowd and climbed up the back stairs. After shooting one last eye bullet at Viceroy, he pushed through the doors and walked down the hall, and then he headed up the stairs to go see about his sister.

 

Selah didn't have any excuse for what she was about to do and she wasn't trying to come up with one either. She had finished getting Ray patched up and then hurried down the hall to the master suite and locked the door behind her. She was pissed like hell, and what she was about to do was truly scandalous, but Viceroy didn't deserve her loyalty and she ignored the lively sounds of the guests outside as her fingers dialed the familiar number and she waited for it to ring.

It was his private line and it rang three long times before he picked it up. And when Selah heard his low, deep voice she almost slammed the phone down and hung up again.

But she didn't.

“Hello, it's Selah,” she said simply.

“I know who you are, Mrs. Dominion,” he said, and for a second she thought he sounded amused. “What can I do for you?”

“I, um, you asked me to call, so I'm calling.”

“Okay.”

There was a long pause on the line and Selah broke the silence first.

“Also, I was . . . I was wondering if we could, you know, meet someplace.”

He was playing with her and she liked that shit.

“Come on,” she said shyly, grinning like a kid from ear to ear. “I want to see you, Rodney. I do.”

“Why? Would you like me to fuck you again?”

“Excuse me?” Selah giggled like a schoolgirl as a bolt of excitement zipped through her and she caught a cheap thrill.

“You heard me.”

He was bold as hell.

“I said would you like me to
fuck
you again?”

Beads of sweat popped up on Selah's nose as she remembered how thoroughly his long black dick had plunged her out.

“Ummm . . .” She glanced out the window and saw her husband put his head back and laugh at something his business associate Hank said. “I was just wondering—”

“Come on now, Mrs. Dominion. We both know what time it is. Would you like me to fuck you? Or would you prefer me to lick your pussy first and make you cum?”

Selah blushed and pressed her hand to her groin.

“Yes, that.”

“That what? Say it, Mrs. Dominion. Let me hear you say it.”

“Yes. I want you to eat my pussy first. And then fuck me.”

“Fine,” Rodney Ruddman said in his deep, baritone voice. “Take off your panties and open your legs,” he commanded her. “Then lay your head down on your husband's pillow and do exactly what I tell you to do.”

 

Digger was just about to knock on the door to the master suite when he heard his sister's high-pitched voice coming from inside. Pausing with his fist in the air, he leaned in close until his ear was almost pressed to the door.

Digger frowned.
Rodney?

Digger pressed his ear right up against the door.

Get the fuck outta here!

A
s usual, Bunni Baines was steady on her grind.

The BBQ was kickin' all the way live. I was chilling on the lawn sipping some Goose and juice with a few of the Houston cousins when my girl did the exact kinda shit that rich white folks expected hood rats like us to do.

Bunni had rounded up a group of about twenty corporate wifeys and lined them up side by side so she could teach them how to twerk it.

“Hey now!” she hollered as the stiff-jointed white women moved their bodies around in hard right angles. “I'ma need y'all heffas to put some hips in ya game,
okay
? You can throw a lil ass in it too, if you got any. Just be sure to make it whip like this . . .” She gapped her legs open and started rolling her stomach and snaking her high booty in S-waves like she had a roller coaster in her drawers.

“Ay!” she hollered and pointed. “You over there in the wrinkled-up shorts! What's wrong witcha hips, boo? That ain't it, Mami! That is
definitely
not
it
!”

Bunni marched down the line until she was standing in front of the stiffest chick in the bunch. She was a rung-outlooking white woman who looked about sixty, and even though she was real round in the middle, her eyes were bright and funny and her big Kool-Aid grin said she was down for whateva!

“A'ight now, I want you to
feel
me, Mami,” Bunni said as she turned around and tooted her round ass up and backed it into Grandma's flabby stomach. Bunni reached back and grabbed the old lady's hands and placed them firmly on her stacked hips.

“Now, wherever I move it,” she ordered over her shoulder, “that's where I want you to move it too. You got that?”

The old lady nodded and giggled, and when Bunni dipped it down low and humped two times to the left, Grandma got down behind her and did the same damn thing.

“Yeah,
baybeee
!” Bunni hollered, egging her on. She leaned to the right and whipped her hips in two tight roundies, and Mami riding her ass swiveled her old hips around in a circle too.

Bunni grabbed the old woman's hands again and made sure she was gripping her hips real tight, and then she dropped it down even lower. Grandma said fuck it and dipped her damn chips too! She groaned like hell as her knees damn near gave out, but she got down on it!

And when Bunni got to twerking her fine, heart-shaped booty back up into a standing position, Mizz Thang behind her hung for the whole ride, and she twerked her square hips pretty damn good for an old chick too!

All the other ladies were clapping and cheering and lining up to take them a trip on the back of Bunni's ass next. My girl turned around and snatched up a little redheaded housewife. Bunni had just backed her ass up deep in the chick's stomach and gripped her pale hands to her hips when somebody stopped the music and a voice sliced through the air that was so damn sharp it made the whole damn crowd freeze in their shoes.

“Y'all heard me! I said cut that foolish-ass
fuckery
out!”

My eyes zipped all around tryna see who was barking. And then a bunch of mumbling went up in the crowd and bodies started parting like a muthafucka. I figured out real quick who had spit those words when I saw Viceroy's twisted-up face eyeballing us from his seat under the little white gazebo.

Bunni spotted him at the same time that I did, and my mouth went bone dry as Viceroy hit my girl with a hood-hardened killer look and growled out the corner of his mouth, “Who in the hell are
you
?”

He didn't know Harlem-born Bunita Baines wasn't one to be spit at, and I didn't know whether to laugh or pee when my rowdy put her hand on her little gapped-legged hip and barked right back on him, “Naw, who in da hail are
you
?”

 

Ah, shit!
I almost choked on my Grey Goose!

Once again Bunni's little ghetto behind had taken shit too damn far!

The music had stopped and not a single tongue was flapping as Viceroy grilled my girl in his beastly gaze and based on her again.

“I
said,
who the
hell
are
you
?” he demanded.

“And
I
said”—Bunni posted up in a wide-legged stance and hit him dead in the mug with her stank camel toe—“who in da
hail
are
you
?”

All of a sudden it was so quiet out there you could hear the damn fish gargling in the lake.

Pack it up, Mink,
I told myself as I watched the look on Viceroy's face go from one end of the pisstivity meter all the way to the other.
Pack ya shit up and move it along to the next gig, baby. 'Cause thanks to Bunni Baines our black asses are outta here!

I just knew Viceroy was gonna pull out a gat and bust a cap straight up Bunni's ass, but then I got the shit shocked outta me right along with everybody else.

“They call me Viceroy,” the old G said, bustin' out in a slick grin and then laughing his ass off. “I'm the HNIC in the place to be! Now who the hell might you be, lil mama?”

Work him!
I thought as Bunni arched her back and threw both hands in the air, and then sashayed her big round booty over to Viceroy, grinning like a vixen as every male eye on the property either zoomed in on her chunky crotch or her high-humped question-mark ass!

“So
you's
Big Daddy D!” she giggled, sliding up to his chair like he was a tender little trick and she was going in for the kill. “I been dying to meet a big willie like you!”

Bunni was feeling herself! Mami was a professional!

If a man had at least half a nut in his sack she could
work
his ass!

“I'm Bunni Baines, so now ya know!” she laughed, dripping mad sex appeal all over his scrawny ass. “ 'Scuse me,” she said, waving Dane up outta his chair.

“Scoot over and lemme sit next to the Big Nacho, boo!” Bunni plopped her booty down beside Viceroy and reached over and put her hand all in his big plate of barbeque and got her a piece.

She was on her way back to her mouth with one of them bun-length franks when it slipped from her fingers and hit Viceroy's shoe before rolling into the grass at his feet.

“Oops!” Bunni laughed, snatching the meat off the ground real quick and kissing it up to God. “God made dirt . . .” She giggled, biting off half the damn frank and then shoving the other half under Viceroy's nose.

“And dirt don't hurt!” Viceroy said, opening his mouth and gobbling the other piece right outta Bunni's hand!

“So tell me sumthin'.” Bunni chewed with her mouth all open as she reached in Viceroy's plate again and came out with a rib. “What's your thang, Big Daddy D? Do you like a lotta meat?” she asked as she sank her big white teeth into a juicy hunk of rib and let the sauce drip all from her lips. “Or are you into bones?”

Couldn't nothing in the world shut a rich people's party down the way a nigga with his dick caught in a white girl's cookie jar shut that sucker down!

I was standing across from Bunni watching her and Viceroy eat outta the same plate of barbeque when a big-ass commotion came from the side of the house.

“Pops!” somebody screamed. “
Pops
! Yo, get the fuck offa me, man!
Pops
!”

I peeped through the crowd and my eyes bucked out when I saw Jock being shoved forward.

“That's right!” a loud voice boomed from behind him. “Call your father—that is, if you even have one! Where is he? Huh? Where is he? And where the hell was he while you were trespassing on my property and
raping my little girl
?”

It felt like somebody had flipped the off switch up in that bitch and killed all our batteries.

Everybody froze like a muthafucka as some old-head white dude pushed his way through the pack of bodies, hemming Jock up and manhandling him like a lil bitch.

Baby brother looked
fucked
! His bottom lip was busted and his forehead looked like it had been kicked in. Blood was runnin' outta both of his nostrils, and the look in his eyes said he was scared enough to shit in his saggy pants.

“What the hell is going on?” Viceroy roared as dude stormed up on us with Jock on his tippy toes and his arm chicken-winged behind his back. “Get your fuckin' hands off my son—” Viceroy tried to come up outta his chair but Bunni snatched his frail ass back by his shirt and let Dane beat him to it.

“Yo!” Dane fist-thumped ol' dude in the chest and snatched Jock up outta his grasp at the same time. He flung Jock's skinny ass aside and then quick-gripped the white dude's throat as he power-drove him backward with a stiff arm and barked, “Ay, muthafucka! What the fuck is you doing, man?”

This shit was juicier than a T-bone steak, and my watery mouth was on the floor! You can best believe that me, Bunni, and every last one of Viceroy's friends and business partners were
all eyes and all ears
!

“Is this your son?” dude hollered. “I just caught him in my pool house molesting my daughter!”

Dane fist-gripped his throat again and dude grabbed at Dane's wrist with both hands and started digging his chin down toward his chest as he tried his best to get away.

“Let me go!” ol' boy bucked and croaked. “That bastard raped my little girl!”

A hush had fallen over the whole damn lake, and even the sun and the stars stood still up in that camp.

“Oh my.” A real prim and proper little old white lady gasped and pressed her hands to her sunken, freckled chest. “That poor, poor girl!”

Murmurs went up in the crowd from the clear folks. They started looking around at our shaded asses like they had just woke up and realized they were in bed with a whole tribe of wild beasts.

“What the hell did you say?” Viceroy bellowed with rage flashing from his sunken eyes. “My goddamn son didn't rape anybody!”

“Hell no, I didn't rape nobody!” Jock hollered too. He had landed on Bunni's lap when Dane sling-shotted him and she had her arms crossed over his lil chest cradling him like he was her pet fool.

“Yo, your daughter
told
me to come over there!” Jock yelled, straining against Bunni. “She invited me because she wanted some of this! She's the one who was all over
me
!”

“You're a liar!” dude gasped as he turned red in the face from that throat-clocking Dane was still putting on him. “I caught him! I caught him! He cornered her in my pool house and he
raped
her!”

Barron came busting up outta nowhere, and by now Viceroy had managed to pull himself up on his feet and was looking feeble as fuck. He tried to take a step forward and one of his male nurses rushed over and caught him under his arm.

“Let him go, Dane.” Barron stepped in and pulled Dane off the white man who was straight up choking. “Turn him loose.”

“Excuse me, sir.” Barron tried to stuff the cat back in the bag as Dane un-assed ol' boy and Viceroy's business partners and their wives looked at Jock all crazy in the face. “I'm not sure what's going on here, but I'd be happy to sit down and discuss it with you.”

Barron was tryna sound all educated and shit as he put his big black hand on dude's shoulder. “Would you care to come inside where we can talk about this in private?”

“Hell no!” Dude shrugged Barron off and got to storming back toward his house. He had taken about two steps when he turned around and jabbed his finger at Jock. “I
knew
something like this was gonna happen when
you people
moved into this place!”

“
You people
?”

Every Black person in the crowd hollered that shit at the same time, and that's when Viceroy came flying straight up outta his hood bag. Ol' rich-ass Daddy Dominion forgot all about his multi-million-dollar white homies as he staggered his bony ass toward dude and exploded, “Who in the
fuck
are you callin'
you people
, you redneck honky mutha
fucka
you!”

Everybody up in that bitch bucked. Including me!

“Heaven's mercy!” the white dude spit as he turned around to beat feet. “White children just aren't safe around here anymore!”

“Mutha
fucka
!” Viceroy raged toward him again.

“Yeah, that's right! Insult me! Call me all the names you want, big guy! But just so you know, I called somebody too,” he hollered over his shoulder as he hauled his narrow ass up off the Dominion property. “I called
the police
!”