The Prada Plan 2: Leah's Story (4 page)

Natalie pulled up to the hotel with Slim following directly behind in his Cadillac Seville. Nervous energy filled her as she thought about Slim meeting Leah. She wondered how he would react. Hopeful that he would take his place as her child’s father, she stepped out of the car and hurried over to him.

“Give me a minute to straighten up inside. I won’t be long,” she promised. She grabbed his stiff dick and rubbed it gently to keep him on ice.

With a cigarette hanging from his mouth, he leaned against his car door and nodded his head. “Go ahead and handle your business,” he stated with authority. “Slim don’t fuck with a dirty bitch.”

Natalie ignored his arrogant nature and rushed into the motel room. Leah was sleeping soundly just as she had left her, and Natalie couldn’t help but smile as she thought,
She’s such a good girl. She’s going to reel that man right in.

Natalie was so close to making their family complete. The man that she desperately wanted was within arm’s reach. All she had to do was close the deal.

She didn’t want to throw Slim off by bombarding him with the news of his daughter. She needed to ease him into the idea of being a father.

“Wake up, Leah. Get up, baby,” she said as she urgently shook her daughter out of her sleep.

“Hmm, Mommy, I’m tired,” Leah whined, but still opened her eyes.

“Your daddy’s outside,” Natalie whispered.

Little Leah shot up from beneath the bedspread, excitement filling her eyes. She couldn’t believe that she was about to meet the legend that she had heard so many fond stories about.

“Mommy wants you to wait in the bathroom. I’m going to come and get you when I’m ready. Until then, be quiet, okay? Don’t make any noise and don’t come out,” Natalie coached.

Leah nodded her head in agreement as she was shuffled into the bathroom.

Natalie quickly pulled one of the bedspreads from the bed and grabbed a pillow as she laid Leah in the bathtub and pulled the curtain closed. “Be a good girl for Mommy and don’t come out until I tell you to, baby,” she said as she put her finger to her lips to indicate silence. Leah nodded and then anxiously watched her mother leave the room.

Natalie welcomed Slim inside, kissing on his neck and unbuttoning his shirt simultaneously as they backed into the room. They were all over each other. Like long lost lovers, they groped and groaned until they flopped down onto the bed. Slim loved sex as much as he loved air, and Natalie was enticing him. He could smell the scent of eager pussy in the air. Her natural essence soaked her silky, neatly trimmed hairs.

“Kiss me, baby,” she whispered as she wrapped her hands around his neck while caressing the back of his head gently.

Buchanan Slim frowned as he looked down at Natalie. The more words she spoke, the more his memories of her came rushing back. He recalled exactly who she was. She was the type of woman who tried to make herself a permanent fixture in a man’s life. She was pushy and conniving—forceful. She wanted to be wifey. The gold between her legs coaxed him to stay, but he knew he had to put his cards on the table up front with Natalie. She was just a fuck, a casual escapade…nothing more or less. Kissing her lips would be too intimate of an act, and he was sure that she would read more into it than what was intended.

“Turn around,” he instructed as his hands slid up her dress.

The thought of seducing Slim into submission caused Natalie to obey his command as she spun around and stuck her round behind into the air. She braced herself as he entered her, and bit into her inner jaw as his thickness split her wide open. She tried to control herself, but before she knew it, her agenda became the last thing on her mind. Buchanan Slim put his thing down on her like only he could do.

Leah covered her ears as she sat impatiently in the bathtub. She could hear the moans of a man from the other side of the door, but instinctively she knew that what she was hearing was not meant for the ears of a child. She closed her eyes and began to hum lullabies in her head as she pressed her hands against her ears. She was trying to follow her mother’s instructions precisely. She didn’t want anything to ruin this chance of a lifetime.

As the minutes ticked away on the clock, Leah became increasingly uncomfortable, but dreams of meeting her father caused her to comply with her mother’s request for silence. She squirmed as her tiny bladder filled to its capacity. She held it in with all her might, afraid to make any noise, but eventually she couldn’t hold it any longer, and as the urine dripped down her legs, tears melted down her face. Disappointment filled her as the color yellow ruined her pretty dress. Her white stockings were stained with wet spots, and she began to cry silently.

He’s not going to want me. Mommy said he only likes the pretty girls,
she thought as she began to remove her soiled clothing. She was careful not to make any noise, but when her feet got tangled in her stockings; she fell to the floor; her heart dropped in agony.

The loud crash caused the lovemaking in the other room to cease. Slim stopped mid-stroke.

“What was that? You got somebody else in here?” Thinking the worst, Slim jumped up and scrambled for his slacks as he pulled a switchblade from his pocket simultaneously. “You trying to set me up, bitch?”

“No, Slim, it’s not what you think. Just let me explain before you—”

Natalie couldn’t even get the words out of her mouth before her face was met with Slim’s right hand. Her head snapped as the sting of his slap burned her cheek. She held her hands up defensively while he charged toward the bathroom.

“Slim! Wait!” Natalie protested as she put herself between him and the bathroom door.

Wrestling with him proved futile. He overpowered her easily, flinging her like a rag doll across the room.

Enraged, Slim reached out with one hand and prepared himself to rush his opponent. He snatched open the door, ready for a fight, but the sight before him caused his brow to furrow in utter confusion. His mouth hit the floor when he saw Leah standing there with tears in her eyes, stripped down to her panties. Her bare bird chest trembled as she looked up at him in a mixture of awe and uncertainty.

“What the hell is going on, Natalie?” Slim asked as he heaved from the adrenaline that had wrecked his body. He withdrew his switchblade and placed it in his pocket as he looked at her, demanding answers.

“That’s what I had to tell you,” Natalie shouted emotionally. This was not how she wanted things to unfold.

“She’s yours,” Natalie replied nervously, her voice shaking.

Slim looked at Leah, who was frozen still in the bathroom, and a furnace of anger ignited within him. He wasn’t looking for similarities. There was nothing to compare. He knew for a fact that Leah wasn’t his kid.

He walked over to Natalie and backed her into the wall until she had nowhere to go. He lowered his voice out of respect for the innocent child in the room and said, “Bitch, you still on the same ol’ bullshit? I told you years ago that I wasn’t playing daddy to no brat. I gave you the money to take care of that shit!”

Flabbergasted that she was receiving the same reaction that she had gotten years ago, she began to tear up. She could feel herself losing Slim all over again. She wrapped the white sheet tighter around her body as she looked up at him in astonishment. She couldn’t understand him. Why didn’t he see that she needed him? That she had spent every day of the last eight years of her life thinking about him. Her heart beat deafeningly in her own ear. Why couldn’t he hear it breaking?

“Daddy, just listen to me…. You were the only one I was with—”

Slim interrupted her before she could get started. “You were on the track, Nat! Fuck you talking about? You talking crazy!”

“I wasn’t out there like that, Slim. You were the only one I let go bare. I didn’t even go unprotected with my johns,” she argued with raw emotion.

“She’s not mine,” Slim stated harshly between clenched teeth.

“Slim! She is yours,” she argued with conviction. Her eyes strained with redness as she heaved, trying to catch her breath. Her love, unrequited, now felt like a curse. It was choking her with grief.

She couldn’t believe that Slim hadn’t grown up. He was supposed to be eight years older, wiser, but it was clear that he had no intentions of stepping up to the task that she had put in front of him.

But Slim was no fool. There was only one woman who could claim him as her child’s biological father. He had one son, Nanzi, and that was the product of a special affair with one of his favorite girls. Shortly after Nanzi was born, Slim had been diagnosed with testicular cancer, and the radiation that he had endured as a younger man had left him sterile. He was sure that his soldiers didn’t march. This was one of the reasons why he felt the need to overcompensate to prove his manhood. Having control over his women made him feel like a man, but he had no desire to play daddy to someone else’s seed. There wasn’t a bitch in the world that could pin a baby on him.

“What, Slim? My baby ain’t good enough for you? Huh? You have no problem claiming that bitch Dynasty’s baby when it’s obvious that she not yours. Nowhere in your black-ass family tree do those green eyes exist,” Natalie shot at him, hurt by his rejection.

Slim had to stop himself from flying off the handle. The jabs she was taking at him made him want to snap her neck, but instead he walked away and began to put on the rest of his clothes.

“Everybody knows that ain’t your baby, Slim. I don’t know what you think is so special about Dynasty. She don’t love you the way that I do, baby. She never did,” Natalie stated as she ran to his side and began to fiddle with the zipper on his pants.

She had never understood his infatuation with Dynasty. Even after all this time, he still put her on a pedestal. Dynasty was his queen B. “She can’t make you feel good like me, baby.”

He slapped her hands away, disgusted, as he nodded toward Leah. “Go take care of your daughter.”

Now his memory of her was clear as day. She was still needy and clingy. She was one that he had not missed. The money that she used to rake in for him was not worth the headache that she caused.

Completely ignoring Leah, Natalie chased after Slim, following him all the way to his car. “Please! Slim, don’t do this again. I love you, Daddy. Please!” She sobbed as she beat on his car window.

He started the vehicle. The rain that fell drenched her, and her hair stuck to her face. Desperate for affection, she ran through the mud, refusing to let go of his door handle as he picked up speed. It wasn’t until he put pressure on the gas that she was thrown to the ground.

She sobbed, her body shuddering from the feeling of emptiness that dwelled inside of her. “Sliiiiiiiiiimmmm!” she screamed as she watched his headlights. “Babyyy!” He had always had a hypnotic effect over her. She was crazy over him.

He heard her animalistic cry and closed his eyes as he hit his brakes.

“Damn it,” he mumbled under his breath as he put the car in reverse. He was soft on a bitch. He knew that part of Natalie’s infatuation was his own fault. He had sold her one too many dreams in the past to expect her to let go. He had taken her heart without giving his in return. When he began to back up, he knew that he would regret his decision, but he couldn’t leave her out in the cold.

“Please, baby. I don’t have any money. I spent everything to come find you! I just want you to love me, Slim. Love me, baby…the way that you used to,” she begged shamelessly. There was no saving face when it came to matters of the heart. It wanted what it wanted, and despite years of being apart, she craved him.

Feeling sympathy for her, Slim rolled down his window. “I love you when you make that money, baby. You go back to bringing Daddy that money and I’ll love you to death. You understand?” he said, giving her false hope and provoking her to return to her old profession.

Grateful that he was even willing to keep her around, she nodded her head as she wiped the tears from her cheeks. An invitation back into his stable wasn’t what she had intended, but at the moment, it was better than being shut out of his life. If she had to be one of his bitches, she was determined to be the best. She would eventually earn her place at the top; she was sure of it.

“Yeah, Daddy, I understand. I’ma bring you that money, Slim.”

“If I even hear about you starting shit or bumping your gums, we’re done. I’m not that girl’s father, Natalie, so never let the shit slip off your tongue,” he threatened.

“I won’t, baby. I won’t. I’ma be good, Daddy. I promise you,” she repeated right before she watched him speed away.

With a combination of fury and hurt battling inside her chest, she stormed into the motel room. “Leah!” she yelled. “I told your ass to be quiet! See what you’ve done? You’ve fucked everything up!” She grabbed a wire hanger out of the closet as she cried tears of rejection. “He wasn’t ready yet! All you had to do was shut the fuck up, but you had to let everyone know you were hiding in there!”

Leah’s eyes widened in fear at her mother’s tirade, and she cowered apprehensively as Natalie rushed at her like a madwoman.

Natalie grabbed Leah, and without remorse or hesitation, she brought the hanger down across Leah’s naked skin. The thin, pee-soaked panties offered no protection from the whipping, and Leah screamed and twisted her body in agony.

“Your stinky, pissy ass…you ruined everything!” Natalie raged, unyielding in the amount of force she used. She swung the hanger with all her might. Each snap of the metal felt as if it set Leah’s skin on fire. She was taking out all of her frustrations, and beating all of her own insecurities into her daughter. Slim’s rejection had sent her into a blind rage. She was stuck in a place so dark that even she couldn’t snap herself out of it. Leah, unfortunately, was the only one there and became Natalie’s release.

The beating was so severe that Leah couldn’t even cry. The excruciating pain paralyzed her tears, but the slave-like screams could be heard throughout every room of the motel. Welts of flesh arose out of her delicate back. It would undoubtedly scar, leaving her with a constant reminder of the day her mother’s heart turned cold.