The Doctor Is In (9 page)

The cigarette hadn’t calmed Voncile’s nerves like she wanted it to, so she opted for a shot of vodka. She downed the fiery liquid that caused her chest to burn, then took a deep breath and listened for signs of movement from Raine. Things had become awfully quiet up there, so she tackled the stairs again to check on Raine.

Raine was lying sideways, in a daze. Her eyes were wide open as she stared at the wall in front of her. She hadn’t moved an inch; it didn’t look like she had even blinked. Voncile thought she was dead, until she walked up to her and slapped her face. Instantly, Raine snapped out of it, but she was still as docile as she could be.

“Please,” Raine begged, “just let me have a pillow for my head. I’m so sorry for all that screaming. I shouldn’t have made you mad. I hope you can forgive me. All I want is for the two of us to get along while I’m here. Don’t you want that too?”

Voncile pursed her lips then folded her arms. She patted her foot on the floor, responding to Raine in a sharp tone. “Don’t you dare feed me a bunch of bullshit. We are not friends, and we never will be. As for the pillow, I’ll think about it. Depends on how you behave. See, I am in control. Don’t you understand that?”

To Voncile’s surprise, Raine didn’t respond aggressively. She actually gave her a smile, even if it did look a little forced. “Okay, I understand. But may I please use the bathroom to go clean up myself? As you can see, I’m a mess. I don’t want to ruin your floors like this, and I know the smell on me is irritating you.”

Voncile sniffed the air. “I don’t smell anything, especially since I gave you a shower earlier. Now please don’t get ahead of yourself and keep asking me for favors. I said I’ll think about the pillow. That’s all I will do.”

“I won’t push,” Raine said politely. “And thank you. Thank you, again, for at least considering it.”

Voncile pivoted then walked away, not noticing the evil glare that Raine shot at her behind her back.

Nearly an hour later, Voncile returned to give Raine a fluffy pillow. She also had another clean pajama top for her, along with a soft white towel. The pot was back in her hand, and inside of it was the burger and fries she had purchased for Raine earlier.

“See,” Voncile said, setting everything neatly in front of her. “When you’re nice to me, I’m nice to you.”

Raine flashed another fake smile. “Thank you. But I need my hands untied so I can wipe myself down and change clothes. Do you mind freeing my hands?”

“Of course I don’t mind.” With a grin on her face, Voncile removed a 9 mm from her pocket and showed it to Raine. “I got this bad boy a few weeks ago. It’s nice, isn’t it? I paid a pretty penny for it, too. I hope like hell that I don’t ever have to use it. After I untie your hands, I want you to be real careful, because if you do anything stupid, one little thing, I will be forced to splatter your damn brains.”

Raine assured Voncile that she wouldn’t do anything to upset her, but the second Voncile freed her hands, her eyes shifted to the door that Voncile hadn’t shut all the way.

Voncile waved her gun in front of Raine’s face. “I wouldn’t think about it if I was you,” she said as she slowly stepped backward and kicked the door shut. “I don’t care if you were a damn track star in high school or something. You can never sprint fast enough to outrun a bullet, so you might as well forget about even trying.”

Voncile leaned against the wall, carefully watching as Raine wiped her body with the towel. Raine pulled the pajama top over her head, wiggling it past her curvy hips. She tried to rake her matted hair back with her fingers, but it didn’t do much good. She glanced at the door again, but when Voncile cleared her throat, Raine’s eyes shifted to her.

“You really do have some nice clothes,” Voncile said to Raine. “I went through some of your things yesterday. Saw sooo many things that I would love to have, and I couldn’t help but to rock your dress and shoes earlier. Kasen paid me a nice compliment, and I noticed him checking me out all day. That man of
ours
is something else. He’s a romantic little devil, too, isn’t he?”

Raine cringed. “I like to buy nice things. And you can wear whatever you want to. I don’t mind. I also don’t mind that Kasen paid you a compliment. He’s a nice man and very romantic.”

“Yes, too nice,” Voncile added, then began rambling on about Kasen. She got so wrapped up in the things she was saying that she momentarily forgot about Raine. Practically in a trance, she wandered over to the other side of the room, still gushing about how she knew Kasen was secretly in love with her.

Raine realized this was her moment, and she darted across the room so fast that she was out the door before Voncile snapped out of her daydream. Running as if her life depended on it, Raine had already made it midway down the stairs before she heard shots being fired. She saw a bullet blast into the wall next to her, and another hit the wooden rail, breaking it.

“Come back here, bitch!” Voncile yelled from close behind. She fired one more bullet at Raine, and when that bullet hit the same step Raine had landed on, she collapsed and went tumbling down the stairs. Raine landed face first on the floor, her body weak from her days in captivity.

Voncile stood over her, lifting her head and placing the gun against her temple. She pulled the trigger, but the gun made a clicking sound. She was out of bullets. Voncile laughed, pushing Raine’s head forward.

“Girl, yo’ ass is lucky. Real lucky. But if you want to know anything about being brave, let me show you how to do it.” Voncile raised the gun, slamming it hard across Raine’s face. Raine was knocked out cold.

Voncile quickly got to work. She had to clean up the mess before Kasen arrived.

Kasen tried to rest for a while, but even though his eyes were closed, he hadn’t really gotten any good quality sleep. He couldn’t stop his mind from going over and over his relationship with Raine. He desperately wanted to figure out where he had gone wrong. Knowing the truth, that she had been seeing someone else, he reflected on some of the signs he had missed or ignored. There were times when Raine had not answered his late-night phone calls, claiming she’d been so sound asleep she never heard the phone ring. Now he wondered if there had been another man in Raine’s bed all those times. Also, she had never wanted to take long vacations. She said it was because of work, but now he realized she was never completely relaxed on vacation, even if it was during a break when the schools were closed. Maybe it was because she was anxious to get home to someone else. Viewing her past actions through this new lens, he saw plenty of reasons to believe that she had been cheating. He felt like a fool. How had he ever let this woman trick him into proposing?

Kasen finally gave up trying to rest. He got up out of the bed and called Omar, thinking they could go play pool or something, but he got no answer.

Kasen desperately needed something to entertain him, to take his thoughts off of Raine. Voncile’s offer from earlier came to mind. He wasn’t necessarily in the mood to be around a bunch of women who would probably seek his advice about relationships, but even that would be better than sitting there beating himself up over the mistakes he had made in trusting a cheating liar.

He got dressed in casual attire: a pair of jeans, a black button-down shirt that hugged his muscles, and Ferragamo loafers. He covered his eyes with dark shades then hopped in his car, making a stop at the store to pick up two bottles of wine.

Voncile’s place was almost an hour away from where he was, but he didn’t mind the drive. It would give him time to clear his head so he didn’t show up at the party in a terrible mood. He turned up the volume on the radio, crooning along with Tyrese Gibson’s latest CD. Before he knew it, he was parked in front of Voncile’s house.

From what he could see, it didn’t appear that any action was going on. The only car parked in the driveway was hers. He could see a sliver of light coming from one of the rooms in the house, but otherwise it was dark. For a moment he considered putting the car in reverse to leave. Maybe she’d canceled the party or something.

“Oh, hell,” he said out loud to himself. “I didn’t drive all the way out here for nothing. Let me at least go give his lady the wine I bought.”

He got out of the car and went to the door to ring the bell.

Voncile opened the door, wearing a short silk robe that revealed her thick thighs. The only makeup she wore was a sheer gloss that emphasized her pouty lips. She looked good, but she definitely wasn’t dressed as if she had been expecting guests.

“Hey, Voncile. I’m sorry. Did I get the date wrong or something? I thought you were having a get-together tonight,” Kasen said.

“Oh, shoot. Kasen, I am so sorry,” she said. “I forgot to call and let you know that my plans changed. Two of my friends said they couldn’t make it. The other one, her mother had to go to the hospital. I cancelled until next weekend.”

He shrugged. “No need to apologize. I should have called before I drove all the way over here.”

“No, this is on me. Please come in,” she told him, stepping aside so he could enter the darkened living room. “If you’re hungry, I did cook a little something for dinner.”

“Are you sure? I mean, it looks as if you were on your way to sleep.”

“Nope. I was just watching TV.”

Kasen looked around the living room, which was spotless. It was rather cozy, too, with the lights dimmed and the fireplace lit.

“So what’s that you’re holding?” she asked flirtatiously as she sat down on the couch.

Kasen smiled and put the bottles of wine on the coffee table in front of her. “Well, I brought some wine for you and your guests,” he said with an embarrassed laugh.

She patted the seat next to her. “That’s sweet. Why don’t you sit down here and I’ll go get you a plate of food?”

Kasen took a seat. “Thanks, but I’m not that hungry. I haven’t been eating much lately. Too much on my mind.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what.” Voncile stood and reached for the wine bottles. “I’ll go pour both of us some wine, and I’ll also pull out a deck of cards. As we play a few games of spades, you can tell me why you haven’t been eating much and what, exactly, is on your mind.”

Kasen watched Voncile walk away, thinking about how sweet she was. Maybe he would actually feel better if he opened up about his troubles instead of always trying to hide behind some perfect image. After working with her for so long, he trusted Voncile to be a good listener and to have his best interests at heart. And hell, if their talk led to something more, then so be it. Getting with another woman might be the best way to get over Raine once and for all.

As soon as that thought entered his head, Kasen pushed it out. Voncile was an employee and a friend, and it was inappropriate to be thinking about her in a sexual way, he told himself. He was only thinking that way because Raine had injured his ego. Besides, Omar was into Raine, and Kasen was not one to push up on his friend’s love interests.

Kasen stood up to distract himself from the thoughts he shouldn’t be having, strolling around the living room to look at some of the pictures on Voncile’s walls. Many of the pictures were of her. Some were of a lady who looked just like her; he assumed the pictures were of her mother. There was an older man who could’ve easily been her grandfather, and pictures of twin girls who looked to be about two or three.

Kasen stepped into the kitchen and caught a glimpse of Voncile’s shapely ass through the clingy fabric of her robe. Just like that, his head was filled with lustful thoughts again.

“Hey, Von—”

Startled by the sound of his voice, she dropped the wine glass she’d been holding. It crashed to the floor and shattered.

Kasen rushed up to her. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Oh, it’s no problem,” she said. “I don’t know why I’m so jumpy.”

She looked over his shoulder nervously, almost like someone else was there. Kasen turned around to see what she was looking at, but there was nothing.

“You sure you’re okay?” he asked.

“Of course, silly,” she said as she grabbed the broom to sweep up the shards of glass. “Let me just clean this up and I’ll be right in.”

“Let me get that,” Kasen said, reaching for the broom, but she swatted his hand away.

“I said I’m fine, Kasen.” Her tone was a little aggressive, which took him by surprise. He held his hands up as if surrendering to her authority.

“No problem. I’ll just go sit in there and wait for you,” he said and turned to leave the kitchen. “Actually, where’s your bathroom?”

“It’s down the hall over there, to your right.” This time her tone was softer.

She sure is unpredictable,
he thought.
Maybe that’s why she never seems to have a man.
Then he caught himself and realized he was being unfair. After all, he had shown up at her house when she was dressed in her robe, obviously getting ready for bed. Maybe she was just being polite by letting him in. Maybe she didn’t really want him there at all. He decided he would have one glass of wine to be polite and then he’d leave.

Kasen made his way down the hallway to the bathroom. As he stood in front of the sink drying his hands, he heard what sounded like faint moaning. Confused, he looked around as if he might find the source of the sound in that small room. Of course, there was no one in there with him. Still, he was sure he’d heard it, so he placed his ear against the walls to see if it was coming from an adjacent room. There was silence. When the moaning started again, his eyes zoomed in on a vent on the floor. Just as he bent down to check it out, there was a knock on the door.

“Are you okay in there?” Voncile said. “I’m ready to spank your tail at spades.”

Kasen loved a challenge. He took a look down at the vent but heard nothing. With his attention now focused on beating Voncile at a card game, he left the bathroom. His face still wore a puzzled expression, though, and Voncile noticed it as soon as he walked out.

“Everything okay in there?” she asked.

“I think so, but I could have sworn I heard someone moaning. Are you sure this house isn’t haunted?” he joked.

Voncile frowned, looking kind of angry.

“What, you don’t like jokes about ghosts?” he teased, and luckily, it seemed to calm her down. Then her facial expression changed to one of shame.

“I am too embarrassed to tell you what that was,” she said, walking back toward the living room.

Kasen followed behind her. “Too embarrassed about what?”

Voncile had placed two big pillows on the floor in front of the fireplace with a stack of cards between them. The wine glasses were nearby on a table. She sat on a pillow, inviting Kasen to do the same.

“You’re not getting off the hook that easy,” he said. “What are you so embarrassed by?”

Voncile reached for her glass of wine and took a sip. “You ready to play?” she asked.

He raised his eyebrows, still waiting for an answer to his question.

Finally, she relented. “Fine. If you must know, those moans are coming from downstairs. Sometimes I like to watch a little porn, but I keep it all in the basement in case . . . you know, I don’t just go advertising to my guests that I watch porn. I must have forgotten to turn off the TV.”

Now Kasen understood. He hadn’t interrupted her on her way to bed. He’d interrupted her getting her freak on by herself. He had to suppress a little smile as he imagined her down there with her robe open and her legs spread wide, playing with herself as she watched porn. The image excited him.

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” he said, and then, throwing all caution to the wind, he added, “Maybe next time we’ll check out a movie together.” His lust had gotten the best of him.

For a split second he was worried that she would be offended. After all, she had told him how much she didn’t like Omar’s aggressiveness. She totally surprised him, though, when she handed him a glass of wine with a smile and said, “Sounds like a plan to me.” They clinked their glasses in a toast.

“But before we get busy on this card game, let me run downstairs to turn off the TV. No need to run up my electric bill, you know?”

“I feel you on that. And when you come back, I’ll be right here, ready to spank that ass.”

She winked. “I’m looking forward to it.”

Voncile walked away, giddy about how flirtatious Kasen was being, but also fuming about how close Raine had come to ruining everything. She went through the kitchen and unlocked the deadbolt that secured the basement door. Pulling the string on the single lightbulb at the top of the steps, she peered down into the musty room. Raine was in the far corner, her quivering body dripping with sweat. A sizeable knot had appeared on her forehead where Voncile had bashed her with the gun. The cloth that Voncile had wrapped around her mouth was still in place, but she could tell that Raine had been trying to remove it.

“You must really want me to knock your teeth out.” Voncile’s hand was attached to her hip as she went down the stairs. She tightened the gag around Raine’s mouth so she wouldn’t be able to budge if she tried again. “I have been nothing but nice to you, and what do you do? Try to run. Try to trick me and run, even when I told you that there was no way out of here. You need to listen to me, and when you start playing by my rules, your stay here will be much easier. Take two more days down here to think about what I said. Until then, I don’t want to hear a peep from you. Not one word. No moaning and groaning, nothing. Do you understand?”

Raine slowly nodded. That was all she could do, considering the vulnerable position she was in. Besides that, she was obviously in so much pain, which made Voncile very happy. It served her right for messing up the flow between Kasen and Voncile.

Voncile locked the door to the cellar and put the key back underneath the small rug in front of the door; then she quickly returned to Kasen. Her whole demeanor changed when she saw him chilling sideways on the pillow, waiting for her to return.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Voncile said cheerfully. “That chick in the porn movie was doing a lot of moaning. I had to stand there for a second to see what she was getting into.”

“You mean what was getting into her.”

They laughed as Voncile took a seat, purposely crossing her legs yoga-style so that Kasen could have a clear view of her goodies. She wasn’t wearing panties or a bra, and the top part of her robe exposed just enough to keep him interested on both ends.

Kasen could barely concentrate on the card game. His narrowed eyes thoroughly examined Voncile, and with her neatly shaved slit in his view, he had to keep shifting to try to hide the growing tent in his pants.

Trying to focus on the game and not embarrass himself, he fixed his eyes on the cards in his hands. He didn’t have enough spades to beat Voncile, but beating her wasn’t exactly on his mind. Laying her back on the floor and throwing her legs over his shoulders was.

It wasn’t long before Voncile tossed a king of spades on the floor. Not one card in Kasen’s hand could beat the king, so he laid all of his cards on the floor.

“You win; I lose,” he said.

Voncile laid all of her cards down too. “No, actually, we both win. And I’m about to show you why.”

Voncile leaned back on her elbows and untied her robe, causing it to fall open and expose her flawless body. Her firm breasts sat high. Pussy looked good enough for Kasen to eat, and from the way he eyed it hungrily, she could tell he was ready. She spread her legs wide and touched her pearl, turning it in circles and inviting Kasen to enter the gates of her moist haven.