Ladies Listen Up (19 page)

She was young, but not naive. She knew that all manner of things could happen and come between them. The life she’d lived had been one of losses, and fights. Through it all, she’d never given up on her hopes and quest for happiness. Elise had decided that life was a journey and along the way she’d learn to pick her spots and enjoy the good things that came to her and try to grow from the bad.

But deep in her heart, she’d always believed that there would be
one person who’d come into her life and make it better. She wouldn’t have to work at pleasing him. She could be herself and still be loved and feel special. That person would make her feel safe. He would show her the way and make all the rough times seem worth it.

Though she could never have seen it coming, the day she walked into his classroom, Jacob was the one. He was her lover, her friend, and her protector. This man, even if he left tomorrow, had shown her what she was supposed to feel like. He was her teacher.

“I love it. Thank you,” she said with tears in her eyes.

He reached out and hugged her. There was nothing else to say or do except call in for another day off.

The slap came
as quick as an alligator’s jaws clamping shut and it stung like hell. I couldn’t believe the words had come, or rather slipped, out of my mouth. “Get the hell off of me,” she yelled at the top of her lungs. Another slap and I hopped back.

“I’m sorry.” I was now on my knees on the bed, dick still hard, yet it was going down quickly.

“I have never ever in my life had a man call me another woman’s name while he’s making love to me. Diego, how could you do that?”

In warp speed, Lanelle was putting her clothes on. I had no answers. A brother had simply gotten caught up in the moment. “
Alicia,
it feels so good. Fuck you,” she said, and jumped at me again. I flinched. “Go find that bitch. Go fuck that bitch, ’cause you won’t be getting no more of this,” she said as she left my bedroom and headed down the steps. I followed behind her, but not too closely. The next thing I knew, my front door was slamming shut with crazy force. She was mad.

I walked into my kitchen and poured a glass of cranberry juice. I sat down, ass naked, and began to think about what I’d done. I couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t like I was still sitting around thinking about Alicia. I stood up and reached into the cabinet so that I could add a little Grey Goose to my cranberry drink.

The wind howled a bit and shook my screen door. I thought for a second that she’d come back to finish me off. “Damn,” I said aloud. At times like this, a brother needed a pet. A little dog that I could talk to and ask stupid ass questions like “Should I call her and apologize?”

The little dog could say, “You could try, but she ain’t gonna want to hear that bullshit.”

I put the bottle of vodka straight to my mouth and began to
chug it, a gulp at a time. After the equivalent of five shots had landed in my belly, I had to sit down on the couch and hold it together. My stomach started to hurt a little. Lanelle was a really nice girl. On top of that, I had just blown the best piece of ass I’d had in a long time. She was far better in bed than Alicia and I couldn’t figure out why I’d slipped up.

I turned on the TV and began to flip channels as I tried to figure out my next move. It was eight o’clock on a Friday night. If I hadn’t blown it, she would have been in my kitchen right at that moment making me a sandwich while I recuperated for the second round. Now I was ass out, owing myself a nut. I watched a few minutes of
Paid in Full
on BET before I lost complete focus. It hadn’t taken thirty minutes before the thoughts started to drift back again.

I began to wonder where Alicia was, what she was doing, and who she was with. The emptiness would be coming next, but I decided to head it off. A hot shower and more liquor did the trick for a moment. I needed to get out.

I was buzzing and put on Trey Songz’s CD while I got dressed. Once I finished, I took a look at myself in the mirror and began trying to motivate myself. “You’re fucking, Dr. C. You don’t need that bitch. You can go out and get anybody you want. You’re a good-looking nigga, and look at that jacket you have on. You’re a baller, my nigga.” I was slipping, talking to myself. I made a note to get a dog.

And on the real, I was lying to myself. I definitely needed Lanelle, to some extent. She had grounded me, helped me actually curb some of my self-defeating behaviors, and she’d helped my career. Because of her, I’d gotten on Janet’s radio show. After I followed Jonetta’s advice and got an agent, my contract was on the way any
day now. Though I wasn’t technically a baller yet, the proverbial check was in the mail.

Speeding, for no
reason, to a bar so I could get even more drunk made all the sense in the world to me. I picked up the phone hoping someone would join me. When I didn’t get any responses I called Lisa to tell her what had happened.

“I told you not to fuck that bitch. Now you got to look at her funny face until Mrs. Whitmore comes back.”

“Yeah. You right.”

“Diego, your ass is retarded. How could you call her another woman’s name. That’s like the ultimate dis. What did she do, slap the shit out of you?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

“Because that’s what a bitch does to a nigga who can’t remember who’s pussy he’s in.” She laughed at herself. “I got to go. Me and my man are about to roll up a tree.”

“All right, cool.”

“Gees up. Hoes down, my nigga.” Then she hung the phone up.

I pulled into the parking garage and headed up the block for the bar. I had been calling Jacob, but he hadn’t picked up the phone, and when I dialed my brother, Lee, all I’d gotten was a busy signal. He hadn’t had a cell phone since the incident with the police near my job. The phones were in Nicole’s name and she’d cut them off.

So here I was, solo, already drunk as a skunk just trying to keep my mind off my problems. I walked into Ozio’s and made my way straight to the bar. I spoke to a few random folks who were nearby,
simply because they were staring in my face, and once I was at the bar, I people-watched until I could get my drink order.

There was an attractive girl standing next to me who seemed to be by herself. “Excuse me, would you like a drink?” I asked.

“Sure.”

She looked to be black, but she definitely had some Filipino or Japanese flavor working as well. The slanted eyes and the straight hair were the giveaway. “What you drinking?”

“Baileys, on ice.”

“Cool.” I ordered another double shot of vodka for myself and her drink.

“Thanks,” she said. “What’s your name?” she asked over the music.

“Diego. What’s yours?”

“Rhiana.”

“Diego, you look kind of familiar,” she said as she accepted the drink.

“You don’t.” It was never a good thing when a woman thought you
looked
familiar. Most likely you did something to her, or one of her friends, that had made them try to forget about you. I figured I’d give her some time to think about it, so I said, “Rhiana, you’re looking so beautiful tonight and I don’t want you to think I’m trying to tie you up all night just ’cause I bought you a drink. I’m going to go take a look for someone I was supposed to meet here. I’ll look for you in a little bit so I can keep that drink fresh.”

“Oh…okay. Well…make sure you do that.” She seemed a little thrown off that I hadn’t gone in for the kill or tried to sweat her.

I stepped off and headed for the other side of the club. Then, as
the DJ put on Young Jeezy’s “Go Crazy,” I saw her. A five-foot-six, copper-skinned beauty of a woman. Now, I knew that I might have been being shallow and that the alcohol might have been talking to me, but this girl had an aura about her. Before I said a word to her, something was telling me that she and I were meant to be…something. I moved toward her and we exchanged glances. When I was no more than ten feet away from her, I smiled and waited for a second. Then she smiled back and waved for me to come to her. Unless there was a glitch in the Matrix, it was clear to me that this chick was the
one
. She had crazy amounts of sex appeal. When I looked her up and down, I was certain that she was the one that could make me forget everything that I was going through. Now, face-to-face, I could see that she was truly a fine woman with a nice body and a mystique that separated her from the everyday girl.

She was actually smoking a cigar, which shocked me. I don’t know why, because we were in a cigar bar. Something about the way she puffed it threw me off at first, made her look tough. Then at the same time she made the act look vogue.

She offered me one. “It’s a Cuban. This is no habit for me,” she said as she lit the stogie I’d accepted. “It’s just a little conversation piece.”

I nodded and responded, “Well then, let’s converse.” Ozio’s was packed and we wasted no time getting another round of drinks and finding a booth in the back to sit and talk shit.

“I love your eyes,” she commented. I might have heard that before but never really understood why. “They make you look so innocent, like a little boy.”

I laughed into a smile when she said that.

“And those teeth, there’s nothing like a man with a nice, sexy smile.”

“Thanks, your smile is nice, too.” I wasn’t lying. I realized that my focus was more on her lips, though. She had big juicy lips like the chick Jill Jones from the UPN show
Girlfriends
. And truthfully, I had fantasized about a blowjob from Toni Childs on more than one occasion.

The girl continued to compliment me on all the things about me that she found oh so wonderful. By the time she finished, my head was big as a hot-air balloon. The last thing she said almost made me spit my drink out. She leaned in after taking the cherry from her martini into those big lips. “Now, as cute as you are, if you can fuck, then we’re in business.”

“Well, if you want, we can get out of here right now,” I said.

“Slow down, brother. You don’t even know my name.” She laughed.

“Damn.” I was stunned. “It hadn’t dawned on me that we’ve been talking for almost thirty minutes and I didn’t even ask you your name.” I started laughing. I was so drunk, but it was my own secret. I was the type of person who could be highly intoxicated and no one would really know without a Breathalyzer. Other than some slightly slurred speech, I could hide it. The only thing it did was make me get more aggressive.

“My name’s Paige.”

“Well, Paige, my name’s Diego. And wasn’t it you who brought up the whole topic of sex?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t say it was going to happen tonight. Did I?”

“No, you didn’t, but let me say this. Correct me if I’m wrong, but
I’ve been hanging out in clubs and have been through the whole “meet-and-greet” process enough to know when there’s chemistry there. We have that and it’s strong. You’re flirting with me. I’m flirting with you. I don’t have anyone at home, and who knows what tomorrow brings, but tonight I wanna get with you. I’ve been through some shit and I’m just trying to chill.”

She took a sip and eyed me hard, as if she were peering into my soul, trying to either deem me worthy or discount me. I went on. “You seem like an intelligent sister—”

“Seem?”

“Well, I’m just saying. From the conversation we’ve had…my bad…you are intelligent. I find that a turn-on. And we seem to have a few other things in common. So I’m not saying that we can’t enjoy some of those things at another time, but right here, right now, give me one good reason why we can’t go back to my place, where I can rub you from head to toe and make you feel like your body is being worshiped.”

She looked at her watch. “Well, the first reason is because I told my husband I’d be home by ten and it’s almost eleven.”

“Husband?”

“And the second is…you’re going to have to come better than that. I need to know a little more about you before I give you some of this. You see, this isn’t something that I just do. A woman has to be
selective
.”

“You’re married?” She nodded yes and showed me her finger. I didn’t notice a ring until she’d mentioned being married.

“But we can be friends and get to know one another…really well if you act right,” she said and showed her smile. Again, my eyes were drawn to those big dick-sucking lips.

I couldn’t believe it. Another married chick. I was trying to do right, but they kept coming across my path, married women who were chasing a little strange ding-a-ling. It was official. Women were just as bad, if not worse, than men.

“All right,” I said, and we exchanged numbers. Of course she told me when to call which numbers and ran the whole drill, which I already knew. “You better head on in.” I was sure I sounded dejected.

“Why don’t you walk me to my truck? It’s up the street in the garage,” she said.

“Yeah, okay.” I was ready to leave anyway. My mind was on getting some ass. I figured I’d get on my cell and call everybody and their mama to see if I could catch someone in the same horny state. If push came to shove, I’d stop off at the strip club and blow a little cash on one of my ex-girlfriends who shook it fast for a living.