Riding the Corporate Ladder (Indigo) (3 page)

Mr. Murray tilted his head back and sighed. “Aww, don’t do that…”

“Come on, Bruce…” Deena stood on one leg and worked her knee between the director’s thighs. He immediately became erect, and Deena stroked the bulge in his pants with her leg as sensually as she would have done it with her hand. When it came to sex, Deena exuded eroticism from every fiber of her being. She could bring a man to climax with just her toes if she wanted.

“Oh, Deena…” Bruce reached up and clutched her ass with both hands and she knew she had him. She leaned in closer and pressed her stomach against his face. He inhaled her scent deeply and shuddered a little. His grip on her ass tightened. His erection was like a hard pipe in his pants.

His strong hands ignited a fire within Deena as well. She felt her panties dampening, and it was frustrating to know they couldn’t go any further. She still remembered the good old days when she was fresh and young in the firm and Mr. Murray took her on as his paralegal. They spent many a night working late into the evening. Oftentimes it was just the two of them on the floor.

“Come on, Bruce. I need it,” Deena whispered.

“I need you,” he moaned.

“Tell me when,” she cooed. “Anytime you want…”

He sighed heavily and looked up at her. “Me and the missus are going out of town next week.” He shook his head. “We’re going to Paris. We’ll be gone for a month.”

That sounded like a great vacation, but Mr. Murray wore the look of a sullen man.

“I’ll be here when you get back,” Deena assured him. She lowered herself and straddled him like a lap dancer. He pulled her hips closer and closed his eyes tightly.

“Okay,” he said after a minute.

“Okay I get the account?”

He nodded and opened his eyes. “Bruce is going to kill me.”

“It’s all right,” Deena said. “If he gets an attitude, all you have to do is fire him.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Thanks, Shelton.” She gave him a tender kiss on the forehead and gingerly removed herself from his lap. He didn’t let go of her ass until the last possible moment.

“Call me when you get back from Paris,” she said on her way out of his office.

“I’m calling you from the airport,” he said.

She giggled.

“Hey.” Shelton stopped her before she opened the door. Deena turned and saw that he was fairly composed, all things considered.

“You did a good job with that Presley creep. Really.”

“Thanks,” she said. “Thanks for everything.”

* * *

When Deena got back to her office, Karen wasn’t all that surprised that her boss got the Blood Money account.

“What did you say to him?” she asked.

Deena gave her a sly wink. “I didn’t have to say much…”

“Great,” Karen said, but her expression told a different story.

Deena didn’t mind. She walked by her with a big smile on her face. She was used to those tsk-tsk looks from her secretary.

Karen was young and idealistic. She was still of the impression that a black woman could make it in a huge firm like this without ever sleeping around. If that’s what she chose to believe, that was fine, but Deena was a realist, and she wasn’t going to watch promotion after promotion pass her by.

You can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar, and you can catch more success with sex than you can with hard work. The women in the world who understood this drove Escalades and Maybachs to work. The ones who didn’t rolled Honda Accords.

Deena didn’t make it home until after seven. By then the sun was mostly gone, leaving a beautiful orange glow in the skies above her east side neighborhood. She pulled into the garage of her four-bedroom home but couldn’t make it out of the Denali before she got a call on her cellular. She fished her iPhone from her purse and didn’t recognize the incoming number.

“Hello?”

“Hey, girl. Whatchoo doing?”

It was Keshaun. This was the only person Deena knew who would call from a different phone most of the time. She met him three months ago when he approached her at a Stop N’ Go. Generally, Deena wouldn’t have given the time of day to anyone who considered a long t-shirt and baggy jeans an “outfit,” but her friends had been telling her how cockstrong Overbrook Meadows’ thugs were these days, and Deena was never one to turn down a strong cock.

Keshaun was a self-professed drug dealer, rapper, and all-around knucklehead, but Deena tolerated him—mostly because she had no long-term expectations. Nothing that happened in Keshaun’s carefree lifestyle would surprise her. One day he would call from jail, begging for bail money, and she would have to tell him, Sorry, we’re not like that. And that would be it.

But in the meantime, Keshaun was six feet, five inches tall, as black as the night itself, and cut like an Olympic swimmer. She only needed him for one thing, and he never let her down in that department.

“I just got home,” she told him. A slight smile parted her lips at the thought of his face between her thighs.

“Damn, you work some long hours,” Keshaun observed. “You should be mayor or president or something by now.”

“I put my application in a few days ago,” she kidded. “I think I might be up for mayor next year.”

“For real?”

Why was it always the dumb ones? “Yeah, sure.”

“Say, I’ve been thinking about you all day,” he groaned.

Deena rolled her eyes, but her smile remained. “You don’t have to play romantic with me.”

“Oh, okay, well, I’ve been thinking about knocking that off all day.”

“That’s my boy.”

“You like that, huh?”

“I think so. Keep talking.”

“I wanna crawl between your legs while you’re sitting on the couch. I want to kiss your panties, until you beg me to take them off.” Keshaun was good. He could give up his game plan and still pull it off once he got there.

“What time are you coming?”

He chuckled. “You a freak. I be telling my homeboys about you, but don’t none of them believe me.”

“I wouldn’t believe you either,” she said. “You shouldn’t be telling them.”

“I know, but this is, like, some crazy shit.”

“Do you want me to make you something to eat?”

“I’m not hungry; been messing with that lean.”

In addition to all of his other bad habits, Keshaun liked to get high by sipping on a Houston creation also known as syrup or sizzurp. The mixture of promethazine with codeine and Sprite left him euphoric, lethargic, and somewhat drowsy, but it never stopped him from getting hard, so it didn’t interfere with Deena’s good time.

“I’m going to take a shower and cook dinner,” she said.

“Go ahead. I won’t be there for a few hours.”

“What do you have to do?”

“Take care of some business,” he said vaguely.

For Keshaun, that could range anywhere from recording in a studio to some shady street hustle. Either way, Deena was going to wake up the next morning with her own life to live. She didn’t even bother telling him to be careful.

“All right. I’ll talk to you later.”

* * *

She entered the house through the back door and was greeted in the kitchen by the only man who would ever be allowed to sleep all day while she busted her ass at the firm. Boogie, her border terrier, tap-danced anxiously at her feet, but he did not jump up and scratch her pumps or her slacks. Deena deposited her purse and briefcase on the counter, and she rewarded his obedience with a hardy snuggle.

“Did you miss me, boy? Aww, you missed Mama, didn’t you?”

Boogie wagged his tail furiously. He yipped loudly and wiggled against her breasts.

With no husband or children to come home to, Deena looked forward to this moment every time she left the office. No matter what the rest of the world thought of her, Boogie always adored her unconditionally. He would never break her heart or leave her side.

“I’m off this weekend,” she told the pooch. “Do you want me to take you to the park?”

The dog barked twice as if he understood every word.

“Okay, buddy. It’s a deal.” She gave him a much-appreciated scratch between the ears and then put him down. Boogie followed her to the bedroom, running between her legs at times. Deena used to worry that she might one day step on him during this frenzy, but Boogie was five years old and he never once made the mistake of being underfoot.

* * *

After her shower, Deena dressed in a red bra with red panties. She preferred to walk around the house in only that, but she still had a couple of meals to prepare. She hadn’t cooked in the nude since a French fry accident ten years ago. There were no physical scars, but Deena was always leery of crackling grease bubbles after that.

She slipped into a pink Baby Phat robe and heated Boogie’s meal on the stovetop first. When the dog was munching merrily, she called her mom while she made a penne a la vodka dinner for herself.

“Hello?”

Deena crooked the phone on her shoulder so she could mince garlic cloves while they talked.

“Hey, Mama. How you doing?”

“Oh, I’m just fine, baby.” Bernice was only sixty-four years old, but you’d never know it talking to her on the phone: Deena’s mom started most of her sentences with, “Oh,” and her voice had a distinct rattle more typical of octogenarians.

“Did you just get home?” she asked.

“About thirty minutes ago,” Deena admitted.

“Oh, I wish they’d let my baby clock out at a decent hour…”

Deena was the youngest of four children. Even though her next birthday would start her on that treacherous path to the big 4-0, she would always be the baby in the family.

“It’s okay, Mama. They pay like they weigh.”

“Money ain’t everything, child.”

“What? That’s blasphemy.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing.” She chuckled. “Guess what, Mama?”

“What?”

“I was on the news today.”

“Get out of here.”

“I was, Mama. They came and did a press conference at the firm, and I got on TV for a little while. If you watch Channel 8 at ten, I’m pretty sure they’ll show it again.”

“Oh, my God, baby! That’s wonderful! That’s…Cheryl! Cheryl, come in here!”

Deena smiled brightly as she listened for her aunt to come to the room.

“Mama.”

“Hold on, baby. Cheryl! Cheryl turn that TV on! Put it on Channel 8!”

“Mama, it’s—”

“Hold—Yeah, Channel 8. Dee Dee say she’s gonna be on the news! My baby’s ‘bout to be famous!”

“Mama, I’m not gonna be famous. And it’s only eight o’clock.”

“That’s all right, child. I’m gonna start watching right now to make sure I don’t miss nothing. Ooh, I’m so proud of you. I always knew you was gonna be the one. Didn’t I tell you?” she asked her sister. “Didn’t I tell you Dee was gonna be the one?”

There was a slight rustling, and a calmer voice came to the line. “Deena?”

“Hey, Aunt Cheryl.”

“What’s this about you being on TV?”

“It’s not that big a deal,” Deena said. “It was just a small press conference. They sent a few cameras out to the office to talk about a case I’m working. They probably won’t even show but ten seconds of it.”

“Girl, stop trying to downplay it. Ain’t nobody in this family ever been on TV before—except that time they was looking for your cousin, and we don’t even want to get into that. We so proud of you, and you should be, too.”

Deena found herself blushing. “I am.”

“What time is it supposed to be on?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell Mama. The news doesn’t even come on until ten.”

“Well, I’ll be sure to put a tape in so we can record it. You talk to your sisters yet?”

Just the thought of Sheila made Deena’s smile go away.

“I’ll call Janice,” she said.

Cheryl hmphed loudly into the phone. “You and Sheila really need to get over that.”

If there was a singular that to get over, Deena would have done so a long time ago. But there were many small grievances between her and her sister. It was a case of sibling rivalry that somehow festered all the way into adulthood. Now it was full-blown bad blood, though no one ever came out and admitted it.

“You can call Sheila if you want,” Deena said.

“All right, child. I’m not gonna argue with you. Do you wanna talk back to yo mama?”

“No. I’m cooking right now. I just wanted to tell her about the news. I’ll call later when it comes on.”

“Are you coming out this Sunday?” Cheryl asked.

Even though Janice and Sheila showed up at Mama’s house each week, Deena never missed a Sunday dinner with the family. “You know I’ll be there.”

“All right, Dee. Well, I’ll let you get back to cooking.”

“Tell Mama I love her.”

“I will.”