Life (16 page)

is she just one

of them bitches sweating me for my cheddar, thinking I can make her

life better?

I ran up in her after she finished giving me head. We

did it until the sun came up. She paralyzed me with her body and

afterward, she rested her head on her elbows and watched me until

I fell off to sleep.

*****

The next day I was awakened to the sound of someone pound-

ing on the door. Trina was gone. Instantly I knew that something

was not right. I stared into the darkness and called her name. The

knock continued. Groggily, I got out of bed, hit my big toe on the

chair, “Shit,” and stumbled to the door. “Who is it?” I shouted

rubbing my sore toe.

“
Hope,” the voice answered back.

I opened the door, and the ardent sun electrocuted my blood

cracked eyes, blinding me. I was standing in my boxers with a

morning erection. Hope looked at me pathetically and stormed

past me. She was wearing some kind of African garb of floral col-

ors of picot yellow and brown. It was long with a matching hat.

She looked like a Princess. I remembered hearing her voice on the

radio, but couldn’t recall a thing she said. In her arms she was car-

rying books. I closed the door limping toward her. “Life, Boy! Did

you see the news?” I had not really paid any attention to anything

she had said. My attention was focused on the carpeting on the

floor pulled up. I walked over to it, bent down and examined it.

My money was gone. Never trust a bitch with a fat ass and a sexy

smile. Trina had beat me for my stash.

*****

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Chapter Six

Chapter Six

“
Thug Love versus Old Love”

–
Hope –

I drove away from that hotel with the residue of Life Thugstin in

my skin, and in my flesh. I felt humiliated and ashamed. The car

I drove was the evidence of my sins, my betrayal to the man I love,

my boyfriend Marcus, and yet, I thought about Life and what

happened at that hotel. The way that man made love to me, I had

never experienced nothing like that before. He had sexed me to

the point of tears. As a young woman, I did not even know that

was possible. Ecstasy! I thought about his soft touch, how he

spread me apart, placed his lips on my privacy, devouring me. Yes,

I knew it was so wrong, but for that moment in time it felt so

right. I could understand why women cheat, but I was so wrong,

morally wrong, or was I?

Hope can I lick you there?

Shit! I cursed

the diction in my mind, changing lust over reason, infidelity over

love. I was so wrong! Life and Marcus were as different as day and

night. Marcus just graduated from college with a degree in

Structural Engineering. He came from a middle class family. He

was high yellow with curly hair, a real “Pretty Boy.” We had been

together for over two years and he was the man that I gave my vir-

ginity to. I almost never enjoyed making love with him. He just

never satisfied me, and oral sex was out of the question. There was

so much I wanted to learn. I asked him to experiment and he then

accused me of cheating on him because of the things I wanted to

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do with his body. So I decided long ago that sex was not every-

thing. Now I wondered about all the things that I had been miss-

ing. Life taught me a lot but Marcus ruled my mind. As I pulled

up in his driveway, I had a lot of explaining to do and I needed to

do it before Trina saw him. The trepidation of it wore me down

like a ball and chain. I knocked on his front door. His front porch

was decorated with all kinds of exotic plants. The summer breeze

felt good on my face. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I pawed at

my hair. The door opened. Marcus Green was dressed in causal

black slacks and a Tommy Hilfiger shirt. He took one look at me

and smiled, taking me into his arms.

“
Girl, I missed you,” he said dearly, planting wet kisses on my

face and neck. He pulled me inside. He was unusually vibrant and

beamed. “I’ve found a job!” Animated, he carried me through his

small apartment with the excitement of a man that had just

accomplished one of his biggest dreams and he wanted to cele-

brate. In my mind I wished that I didn’t come; the generic smile

on my face was as plastic as a storefront mannequin. He sensed my

discomfor t. “Baby are you OK?” he asked, while taking my hand

and cocking his head sideways, affection written all over his face.

“
I’m just tired from the long drive,” I said and kissed him on

the cheek, feeling so guilt-ridden that I wanted to run out of the

door.

Marcus watched me intently. “Let me get you something to

drink. Want a beer to celebrate?” he asked as his eyes roamed my

body in a way that I knew so well. I nodded my head yes and

watched as he danced away with a look in his eyes. I had the

uncanny feeling that something was not quite right.

I sat on the couch and the television was on the news. I

watched absent-mindedly as a litany of voices chanted in my head.

All of them chaos of my guilt. Suddenly on the screen, three white

faces jumped out at me. Star tled, I felt my heart racing as I sat on

the edge of my seat. The newscaster began to announce that three

men had been shot. I covered my mouth with a trembling hand.

My question was finally about to be answered.

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“
Last night, three men were robbed at gun point and shot in

the buttocks. The victims stated that they were robbed by five

heavily armed Black men driving an older model Ford Mustang.”

Marcus returned with drinks in his hand. My eyes were glued

to the television set like I was in some kind of trance. He sat down,

passed me my drink and placed his arm around me just as a com-

mercial came on. I was trying to decipher what I had just heard,

and yes, it was tragedy that those men had been shot in the ass,

but thank God they were not dead. And then it dawned on me

what the announcer said, “… five heavily armed men … shot in

the buttocks.” I couldn’t help it, I laughed out loud, maybe from

the relief that the thug, Life, had not killed those men.

Marcus was talking a mile a minute, and I never heard a word

he said until he turned to me and looked at me strangely, and

asked what was I laughing at. I turned and kissed him fully. In

return, he responded in a way that caught me off guard. He acted

as if he were star ving for my body. His dexterous hands found

their way under my blouse, unhooking my bra with the snap of a

finger, releasing my breasts. My nipples were still sore from the

night before. I didn’t know why. I had no intentions of having sex

with him, but my conscience needed to relieve the guilt of my

debauchery. His mouth found my nipples and he gently nibbled

on them in a way that almost drove me crazy. His body language

was urgent, a man’s desire that he needed me, it felt almost prim-

itive. And in the cramped chamber of my mind, where I had

wronged him, I needed him, too. Needed him to forgive me. In

my heart I loved him. I would not deny him, not today, not ever,

I needed his forgiveness. My love was all I had to offer. I pulled

away from him. He opened his mouth to complain but I silenced

him by putting my finger over his pouting lips, and stood, giving

him a look with the promise of the world I was offering as I dis-

robed down to my bare essence. With no inhibitions, no

restraints, I gave him my sinful body to do with what he pleased.

He laid me on the couch gently, entered me slowly. I closed my

eyes and Life’s handsome face appeared. I spread my legs wider,

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whispering epithets into his ear. I wanted him to punish me, purge

me from my sins. But all Marcus could do was poke me, and eight

minutes later we were finished. He lay on top of me spent, panti-

ng like he had just got finished running a race. We didn’t use a

condom. My mind was so full of guilt that I forgot, but Marcus

on the other hand, was a stickler for birth control.

“
Hope, I love you.” Marcus slobbed on my face with wet kiss-

es, his weight was starting to hurt, and to be truthful, I was very

disappointed in his lovemaking skills again. It numbed my guilty

conscience considerably. Marcus then asked, in what sounded like

practiced tones, “Hope, will you marr y me?”

His timing was horrible! I did not answer, but in the back of

my mind, I wondered if he intentionally didn’t use a condom. He

was still lying on top of me, his weight still uncomfortable. Just as

I was about to complain, avoiding his question, in my peripheral

vision I caught a glimpse of something on the television set. It was

a police chase shown from a helicopter, Oh my God! It was Life

Thugstin in a car chase running from the police. The camera

showed him driving down one-way streets, over guard rails up

until the point he exited the car at the mall. Now the reporter was

showing footage, a couple exiting the mall. I could vaguely see

myself walking with Life. Our figures showed up as only darkened

shadows. The reporter was asking for any help that might lead to

any arrest of the suspect. I thought my heart was going to explode

in my chest. Suddenly, Marcus’s weight on top of me was too

much to bear. He was still whispering lilting affections into my

ear. “Hope be my wife.” I could feel his little erection on my thigh

prodding now with anew vigor, but all I could envision were

prison bars. It felt like he was suffocating me.

You’ll be back in a

hurry, trust me!

Life’s words resonated in my brain like a bomb

being detonated. I shoved Marcus off of me and he nearly fell on

the floor. “Hope! What’s wrong with you girl?” he screeched. I sat

up, flustered, running my fingers through my hair. Now I was

wondering if Life left something in that car, something to make

me come back to him. Oh, God! And the police were looking for

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me, too. I untangled my body from Marcus’ and began to quick-

ly dress. Marcus was pleading for all the wrong reasons. “Hope, I

love you. You know that I do. Talk to me.”

My mind was racing a mile a minute. I touched his arm. “I

love you too, but we’re rushing things. I still have four years of law

school and you still need to get situated,” I said, gesturing with my

hands emphasizing on his small apar tment.

Crestfallen, Marcus casted his eyes to the floor. I couldn’t help

thinking to myself,

men are like little boys when it came to rejection.

Even though I loved him, I was not trying to marry him, not now.