Ladies Listen Up (10 page)

The bar was stocked with everything imaginable, but I kept going back for the punch. I was told that it had some blend of exotic rum that she’d brought back from Jamaica. All I knew was that the punch had fruit floating around in it to make it sweet, and I was fucked up after my third cup. In addition to that, I was getting warm as hell.

Jacob had enjoyed a plate of food and was planning on singing and then leaving. The bride was on her way and I was surprised to
see how comfortable he was relaxing among the twelve women who’d been invited to the shower.

I was told that as many as ten more were on the way. As I sat back waiting for the hostess, Julia, to come back downstairs, I looked at the notepad she’d been carrying around. She was bringing me the remote for the stereo since Jacob was going to sing over the music from a Maxwell CD.

A few moments passed and five women walked into the basement and the girls were screaming and laughing in excitement to see one another. I scanned the room and took notice of the variety of sisters. There was also one Indian chick in there. There were some big ones, some small ones, and some just in between. When one of the sisters pulled off her jacket and revealed the bustier she was wearing, I thought to myself,
There’s one in every crowd
.

Just then, Julia walked down the steps. “All right, ladies and gentlemen, Madelyn is about to pull up…so let’s get this party started.” Then she came over to me and Jacob. “I want you two to wait in the back room until I start the music. When Jacob walks out singing, she is going to freak out. Now, you two are welcome to stay for the toy party and the dancers.”

“Excuse me,” I slurred out. “Why would we want to see some—”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you, we have both male and female dancers. They’re doing a show for Madelyn.”

“Oh, wow.” Jacob looked surprised. “Never heard of such. Sounds great, but I have an engagement for later.”

She turned to me. “Well, Diego, you’re welcome to stay.”

I didn’t have shit to do and Jacob and I had driven separately. “I may do that as long as you keep the rum punch flowing.”

“For certain.” She smiled. Julia was cute and fit the mold of a church girl. Nothing flashy and just a clean-looking sistah.

When the music
started Jacob walked out the room. The lights had been dimmed and Madelyn was seated in the middle of the floor, blindfolded. Jacob drifted out slowly and burst smoothly into song—
“Whoooouuuuuu oooooohhhhhh. Never seen a sun shine like this. Never seen the moon glow like this…”
—as he moved toward her. His voice sounded eerily like Maxwell. There was a resemblance, but when he wanted to imitate the soulful crooner with his moves, it was a wrap. I thought the girl was going to faint, go into a fit, have an orgasm, or all three at once right then and there. She began screaming.

I wondered why she didn’t yank the blindfold off to see who was serenading her, then I realized that she couldn’t. Her hands were cuffed and tied to that chair. She, too, was wearing a bustier top, but hers was leather, and I noticed how firm her shoulders and arms were. She was cut up. I also took notice of her skirt. It was a short black leather one with a slit up the thigh.

Tilting the cup to my head, I finished my fifth cup of punch. I was grinning as Jacob worked her with the song, then my mouth dropped open when I noticed that all the women were sitting around in either corset bustiers or camisoles. I tried to remember what Lee had told me about this group. I had figured that it was a church group, but it was starting to look more like a wrecking crew of freaks and dominatrixes.

Jacob finished the first song and the women erupted in applause;
a couple of them began to throw money. Without hesitation, I jumped up and ran over to the floor. The more I picked up, the more they threw. It was mostly singles, but a few fives and tens showed up in the batch.

“Bravo, bravo,” Julia shouted. “Now, ladies, before I take off the blindfold to allow Maddy to see this beautiful, sexy piece of man candy, I’m going to ask that he give her one sweet kiss. After all, this is her last night as a single woman.”

Jacob smiled in embarrassment and shook his head no. He was such a square sometimes that I walked over and pushed him to the side. A couple of the women’s mouths dropped open as I straddled the bride-to-be’s lap and proceeded to kiss her gently on her forehead, then her neck and ears. When I noticed no resistance, I placed my mouth to hers and kissed her gently; as her mouth began to open I tasted the wine on her breath and wondered if she was as high as I was.

Seconds later, I heard cheers and chants as our tongues danced for a short while and then I pulled away. I stood up and put my hands in the air as if to say
I am the champ,
then everyone clapped. I pushed Jacob back in front of her to make her think it was he who’d kissed her.

Julia unbound Maddy and a smile came across her face as the music to the second song began to play. Jacob sang it as good as he had the first. This time she stood up and she and Jacob began to dance. He held the cordless mic and she held his waist, grinding him like there was no tomorrow.

“Poppa gonna have to leave a message on the telephone, baby…There won’t be…till the cops come knockin’.”

When the song was over the ladies clapped feverishly for a strong thirty seconds. Jacob blushed. I walked over to him and whispered, “I already have the dough in the envelope. I’ll hit you with it when we get upstairs.”

“Yeah, how much did I get for this again?”

“Two hundred,” I said.

“How much did you get?”

“Hey, man, did Tina ask Ike how much he got? Hell no. I’m insulted. As your manager—”

“Man, shut your drunk tail up. Look, I’m about to jet out. You can hold on to all of it until later. I know you’re busted after paying for your window. So it’s all good—hit me up next payday.”

“You sure?”

“No doubt.”

I was touched. Because of Jacob, I’d be able to eat for the next couple of weeks and keep my cable on. He knew that after getting stuck with the house Alicia and I had planned to live in, my funds were low. The house was almost completed and I couldn’t finagle my way out of the contract, so my plan was to go to settlement and put a “for sale” sign up immediately, unless I hit the lottery between now and then.

I announced to the ladies that the entertainment was leaving. As Jacob turned to go one of the girls yelled out, “So are you going to give her a kiss or what?”

Maddy heard and replied, “He already did and it was the bomb…mmmm.”

“No, that wasn’t him. That was the other one who kissed you,” she said, pointing at me.

I shrugged and said, “What can I say? He’s a little shy.” I caught a glare from her that spoke to me. I couldn’t tell, though, if she was repulsed or if in fact she wanted another kiss.

An hour and
a half later and I was still there sandwiched on the couch between a thick, brown-skinned sistah and a thin redbone. I had sat through the toy party and watched the women go crazy over technological advances in dildos, butt plugs, and bullets. A few of the women purchased things for the bride and she had a gift bag full of toys. I imagined her husband’s surprise the day he found that stash. It might make him a little insecure to see that his lady possessed a twelve-inch toy called a Thrasher or a double-ended his-and-hers dildo.

Couldn’t be me,
I said under my breath. I even watched as the coed dancers put on an X-rated sex show. The voluptuous stripper had actually put on a clinic for giving brains. At one point I imagined myself standing up and yelling out, “What kind of fucking church people are you?”

At 1
A.M.
, the party was winding down; few of the women had begun to file out and the rest had begun to clean up. For the past thirty minutes I’d been trying to get my bearings to drive home. I finally stood up and began to bid the women farewell. I made it up the steps and thanked Julia again. I was surprised that I didn’t get a speech about keeping the lid on their little secret society. But she acted as if this was the normal bridal shower. Maybe it was, and men just had no clue.

When I opened the door and the rush of October air hit me, it further sobered me up. I made my way down the walkway and was
almost to my car when I heard footsteps. I turned around and there was Maddy.

“Can I come with you?”

I was shocked. “Are you serious?”

“I get married tomorrow at four
P.M.
I know my fiancé is having a crazy bachelor party tonight. I ain’t dumb. I know what the fuck you niggas do at bachelor parties.”

“So you wanna…”

She stepped closer to me and leaned in. “I wanna go with you. I want you to fuck me all night. It’s my last time. Do you think you can handle that?”

Just then, Mr. Waverly’s words crossed my mind.
You need to go out and get your own woman, one that ain’t got no boyfriend, no husband…If you keep this up, you won’t make it…You won’t see thirty-five…Mark my words…“In his day of fury, a jealous man will show no compassion.”

“Baby girl. I don’t think you really want to do that. That’s not a good way to start a marriage. Not a good way at all.”

I saw the disappointment on her face, so I added, “It’s not that you aren’t attractive, ’cause you’re sexy as hell. I just been through a lot lately and I don’t wanna—”

“Nigga, I ain’t trying to be with you. I just want to spend a night. My last night, and tomorrow…I want you to forget me.”

I couldn’t do it. Not after all I’d been through. I had to make some changes and they had to start now.

The way her
head kept banging up against the headboard I feared that she would wind up with a concussion. She had warned me
that she liked it rough and she loved for a nigga to talk dirty to her, really dirty.

“Take that dick, bitch,” I said, trying to oblige her.

“Fuck you.”

“That’s what I’m doin’. Stop trying to get away,” I huffed as I yanked her by her hips back toward me. She was petite but strong. Her body was rock hard. I found out that she was a flight attendant as well as a fitness freak. She really was trying to go all night and was definitely in the shape to do so. It was almost five in the morning and we hadn’t slept yet. I was wondering what the hell her man was going to think about her stretched-out twat when it came time to consummate the marriage later that evening.

“Oh shit,” she yelled out. “Let me get on top again. I need to come again.”

We flipped around and I rolled onto my back. Just like that, she was on her feet, bouncing up and down on me, causing a loud smacking sound to erupt between her ass and my thighs. “That’s it,” I moaned.

“Oh, you gonna cum? You ready to bust? C’mon, give me all dat nut, boy.”

We worked a steady pace of our bodies colliding. It was all I could do to reach out to place a finger at her anus, sticking it in. “Nooooo, that’s cheating.” But it was too late. I jammed it way in there and her body went limp and she screamed out and shivered at the same time. “I’m cuummmminn’ again. Ohhhhhweeeeee. Don’t stop…don’t stoooopppp.”

I didn’t stop because I was in the middle of chasing down my own orgasm, my third. “Uhhhhhgggghhh, yeaaahhhh,” I moaned out as I filled the condom.

We were both panting and she collapsed onto my chest. We both dozed off and didn’t wake up until a little after ten. When I looked at the clock I woke her. “Maddy, it’s almost ten-fifteen.”

“Madelyn,” she said. I guess we were back on formal terms since the alcohol had worn off. “Damn. Okay. Can you call me a cab?”

“I can drop you off…”

“No thanks. No offense, brother, the sex was great…but not good enough to get busted on my wedding day.” She smiled and asked for a washcloth and towel. I told her where to grab one and a toothbrush.

“Oh, I got you.” I was lying naked still. I reached for the cordless and dialed the Silver Cab. When she stuck her head out of the bathroom, I said, “The cab will be here in fifteen minutes.”

“Good,” she said, glancing at her watch as she fumbled through her purse. Then she pulled out a condom and held it up. “Fuck me one more time?”

A
month passed after the incident with Kenard in the parking lot and things were getting back to normal for me. Ms. Knight had gradually gotten off of my back about the whole thing. There hadn’t been any real heat from her superiors, as she’d feared, and because of that, she’d seen no reason to try to rake me over the coals because of an article in the local paper. True to her threat, Erin had removed Dante from my class, the next Monday, and I was okay with it. If she chose to let him terrorize some other teacher in a new school, I figured it was her choice. I hadn’t heard from her or Kenard. Even so, I was forced by Ms. Knight to get an order of protection against him. It kind of made me feel like a bitch, but to keep my job, I did what I was told.

It was a Thursday morning and I was thrilled that there was only one day left until the weekend. I looked out my classroom window at the pouring rain and was resigned to the fact that it would be one of those days. The rain tended to make the kids more docile, qui
eted them down like cough medicine. It was like some aliens had come and switched bodies with my little people. The quiet of my room was amazing as I looked around at them working quietly.

I began working on my lesson plan for an observation that I had coming up. I hated them. Here I had someone who hadn’t been in a classroom in probably twenty years as a teacher, coming to critique me on my shit. People had no idea how kids had evolved in twenty years. Twenty years back I was in elementary school and I was a crazy kid, but I didn’t do half the stuff that I saw these kids attempt on a regular basis. I thought the whole process was a joke, but I planned my ass off just the same.

I was halfway to the door when it opened up. It was Mrs. Whitmore, the second-grade teacher from across the hall. “Christian, can you come here for a second?” she said in a strained voice.

I walked over and looked at her face. Now, she was already one of those extremely pale white women, but at that moment her color was completely gone. She was no longer white—she was gray. “You okay?” I asked once I got close enough to her. I noticed her eyes had incredible bags underneath.

“No, I’m not. I need you to watch my kids. I need to go down to the nurse.”

“Yeah, no problem. I’ll leave my door open. You look a little rough. Are you feeling okay?”

“I feel hot…then cold, my head is pounding, and I’m more than a little dizzy.”

“Well, do you need some help getting down there?” I asked, because she now had one hand on the wall. I backed up a little because I definitely didn’t want what she had.

As we spoke a teacher’s aide, who we called Grump, came
around the corner. “Yo, Grump. Mrs. Whitmore’s not well. Can you escort her to the nurse’s office. I’ma watch her kids till Ms. Knight can get a sub.”

Grump, short for James Grumper, was a stocky fellow and could have easily thrown her on his shoulders if the need arose. “Yeah, of course. Here, check this out, front page of the
Metro.
It happened yesterday, right around the corner.”

I took the newspaper from him and he headed up the hall. “Thanks, Christian,” Mrs. Whitmore said sullenly as she followed him.

I stepped into my room and buzzed the office to let them know that Mrs. Whitmore was on the way and that I had her room covered.

I wound up walking back and forth across the hall for the next twenty minutes, until Ms. Knight walked through my door and over to the chalkboard where I had been teaching. She was carrying Mrs. Whitmore’s belongings. “Mr. Christian,” she said in a hushed tone. “Mrs. Whitmore made it to the office just in time. Once she got in there, she fainted. An ambulance had to come and get her. They had to revive her in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.”

“Oh no,” I said.

“Yeah, it’s very serious. I have a sub coming in for the rest of the day. She’ll be here by lunch. Can you take her kids down to lunch?”

“No problem,” I said, nodding.

“Thanks,” she said, and walked briskly up the hallway, heels clicking as she moved.

During lunch, I
sat at my desk eating my turkey sandwich as I scanned the
Metro.
I looked at the article Grump had been speak
ing of. Someone had robbed the grocery store just up the street yesterday, in broad daylight, no less, and escaped on foot, it said.

“That’s a bold mu’fucka,” I mumbled. I read on. Authorities believed that the same person had robbed a Taco Bell, a 7-Eleven, and a CVS, all of which are in the immediate vicinity. No suspects, but it was possible that the assailant lived nearby. “I guess he worked his way up.”

Then I began to wonder how much money he’d gotten away with. I could use some of that for sure. My money was getting funnier by the day and my change stayed strange. In other words, a nigga was broke messing around in the school system. But since I couldn’t rap or play ball, this was my fate.

With each day I tried hard to forget that I might be losing my entire savings. I had long given up trying to forget about
her
.

“Excuse me.” I looked up with a mouth full of food and saw an unfamiliar face. “I’m Lanelle Harris. I’m going to be covering across the hall. Mrs. Knight told me to come up and introduce myself to you. She said that you would show me where everything is.”

I nodded as I chewed my food. “Oh, um…okay,” I said as I wiped my mouth with a napkin. “I’m Diego—Diego Christian. If you go on in and put your things down, I’ll be right over.”

She smiled and I noticed her braces. “Sounds like a bet. Thanks.”

“For sure.”

I took the last bite of my sandwich and reached into my closet for some Listerine. I filled my mouth to gargle a bit and checked out my face. I made sure my clothes were fixed and then I stepped to my sink to spit it out. I was hoping that this girl was Miss and not Mrs. She was fine, or looked it from the distance I’d seen her, and when you worked a job like mine, you took your perks where you could.

I headed on over into her room, and when I entered, Grump was in there already. He’d obviously followed Lanelle up the hall after catching sight of her. I didn’t know why. She looked to be out of his league, but I guess he figured that if she was subbing for ninety bucks a day, then the hundred and twenty per day he earned might be impressive.

Now here he was acting as if he knew what he was doing. “So, all you have to really do is get through the afternoon. I talked to Ms. Lancaster. She’s the media specialist and she wants you to bring them down to the library once they come back from lunch, then—”

I cut him off. “Thanks, man, I got it.” His face showed disgust. I extended my hand to Lanelle. As we shook I looked directly into her eyes. They were light brown, not quite hazel, but lovely nonetheless. She wore her hair in a long ponytail that hung down over her shoulders and rested on her breast. I paid special attention to her bronze lipstick. I loved it because it matched her skin color so closely.

She was about five-foot-three and her body was lean up top, but she had hips for days and a nice ass on her. Looking into her face, I found myself thinking that she had the kind of beauty that had probably hung around since grade school. That’s saying a lot because every cute kid doesn’t grow up to be an attractive adult. Lanelle though, she looked like she’d always been beautiful.

I proceeded to explain to her where everything was and gave her the list of the spelling words, because we gave a spelling test on Fridays. Mrs. Whitmore had gotten ill before it had been time to give it. I began to flip through her sub folder and didn’t see her updated sub plans. She hardly ever missed a day, which, I figured, was the reason they were so poorly done. She never figured she’d need
them. “When you give them the test, make sure they keep their eyes on their
own
papers.”

“I’ll do my best,” Lanelle said with a straight face.

“I’m serious. These little jokers will cheat their tails off.”

She laughed.

I looked over at Grump, who seemed like he wasn’t planning to go anywhere. I recognized that he wasn’t going to waste any time trying to put his bid in, so I said, “Mrs. Harris…is it Miss or Mrs.?”

“It’s Miss.”

“Okay, well, come on over here with me. I’m going to give you some of the things out of my sub folder and also put a few things together in case you come back on Monday.”

“Okay, great. Mrs. Knight told me that she wanted to talk to me about that after school.”

I nodded and we left Grump sitting there looking stupid. Once we were in my room, I quickly ensured that she had a handle on what she needed to do workwise, then I casually asked a few questions.

She was dressed in a black cashmere sweater, some gray pinstriped slacks, and I could have sworn I’d seen Alicia in the same boots before—Gucci. She had an expensive-looking watch, so it had me wondering. What the hell was she doing subbing? Of course I didn’t comment on that, but I did ask her what made her want to sub.

“That’s a good question. I actually want to run a school, a charter school. Me and three of my sorority sisters are in the process of choosing a location. We already have a grant in place. We are going to take about nine months to put everything together so that we can
open in the fall. I actually have a business background, but I decided last month to do some substitute teaching. I wanted to get in touch with the kids of today. No better place than to meet them in their educational setting.”

I was blown away and instantly I was no longer worried about her falling for Grump. Now I was worried about whether or not she’d be interested in a guy like myself. “That sounds really deep.”

“What about you? What are your plans for the future?” she asked, as if my teaching job wasn’t a career. I immediately thought to myself,
Bitch, ain’t you got some nerve
.

I wasn’t really sure, but it wasn’t like the idea of doing something to make more money hadn’t crossed my mind. But I didn’t want to say that, so I told her, “Well, I’m in grad school. Getting my master’s in child psychology. I want to become a school psychologist. There are not enough of
us
in that field to deal with
our
children. We need more than medication, ya know?” I offered. When I saw her eyebrows rise, I knew that I had her interested, so I figured just a little more wouldn’t hurt. I’d just heard a cat in the barbershop say some impressive shit, so I decided that I could use it. “In addition, I’m putting together a consortium. Trying to buy a couple of apartment buildings in some depressed areas of the city.”

“Now, that’s a great idea. I own a couple myself. It’s a lot of work at times, but worth it.” She looked at her watch. “What time do we pick the kids up from lunch?”

I looked at the clock and said, “Shit. We gotta go.”

She scurried out in front of me and I watched her hips sway back and forth in slow motion as she moved with the grace of Tyra on the runway. I wanted to fuck her for certain. I wondered if I would
ever change. Why couldn’t I look at a woman like this and see quality? Why couldn’t I see that she was girlfriend or wife worthy?

I thought again about the words of the old man:
Get your own woman, one that ain’t got no boyfriend, no husband, and slow down
. With that I took my eyes off of her ass and decided to respect her. I didn’t know if she had a man, but I knew she didn’t have a husband and that, at least, was a start.

This was the
fifth e-mail and Jacob was tired of living his life on edge trying to figure out how far the girl was going to go. As far as it looked, Anna was fine now that Dean was gone. He even began to wonder if a rape had actually occurred. He sat at his desk reading another love letter. Each letter had gotten more bold. This one had been sent at two-thirty in the morning. He’d read it three times already.

Now that the
kids were gone, he replayed the entire day. As usual, Anna had sat in front of him and her constant glares had made him uncomfortable. But the letters were too much. This time it made him hard. Even imagining Anna’s crazy ass at home typing them couldn’t keep him from getting excited.

He hit the print button, grabbed the letter from the tray, and packed his things up to head for home. He had a date tonight. He was taking Kendra out to dinner and to the movies to see
The Gospel
. Things between the two of them hadn’t gotten to the point where they’d be categorized as serious. The distance between their apartments kept them apart except on weekends, and because of it, they surprisingly hadn’t had sex yet. Not that Jacob hadn’t wanted to take it to that level with her, but a period here and a broken date there, and here they were, a couple on the verge. Tonight, though, Jacob had sex on the brain. He didn’t want to admit it might have been the letters, but deep down inside he knew that it was.

Kendra dialed his house from her cell right around the time she was supposed to show up. Jacob figured she needed directions as usual when he saw her number on the caller ID. “You lost again,” he said gregariously.

“Nah, nigga. Open the door.”

He looked out of his window and saw her car. “Hold up. I just got out the shower. I don’t have on any clothes.”

“I’m not trying to hear it. It’s cold out here.” It was still wet from
a rainstorm earlier that afternoon and a cold front had come in. “Let me in and then go put your clothes on.”