When Saint Goes Marching In (51 page)
Read When Saint Goes Marching In Online
Authors: Tiana Laveen
“I want you to keep this DVD and play it back to remind your kooky ass about that, before you go turning and getting any grandiose ideas. The man chose me,
deal with it
. I take my responsibilities as a wife and mother very seriously. My husband and children are the most important people in my life. I don’t know what type of life you have there in New York, but here in California, it is totally different. Over half of my family are Bloods. I grew up around that shit and was almost a part of it. The only thing that didn’t happen was me not being jumped in. I didn’t do the gang initiation, and it was only hours away. At the last minute, I changed my mind. Instead, I went on drug runs, helped beat up random bitches such as yourself, cut some mothafuckas just for the hell of it. Don’t believe me? Look it up. I’ve been speaking to teenage girls about this shit for years, trying to help them keep their noses clean and not gang bang. In my teen years, I’ve seen people killed on my walks to school like it was nothing. It was like Beirut up in this bitch!
“I dealt with a weak ass father, poverty and no one believing I’d be more than a high school dropout, pregnant multiple times before I hit age twenty-one and on the system, waiting for that check so I can go buy some processed foods and sit around waiting for the next hand-out. Half the men in my family are dead or in prison. Some of the women who gang-bang, are too. By the grace of God, I realized I was going down the wrong path before it was too late. This shit you did ain’t nothin’ to me!” Xenia barked.
“You think ’cause you stole a ride on my man’s dick you permanently hurt somebody? All you did was make our love stronger. Just look at how pathetic you are, you had to drug Saint Aknaten, the former biggest ho in New York!” Xenia laughed angrily. “I’m just keeping it real. Now that is just sad, Payton. The thing of it is though,” Xenia’s smile turned suddenly sickly sweet, “he doesn’t cheat on me and never will. He is faithful; he is devoted to me and only me. When he wants some pussy, he thinks of mine, only. You’re a scavenger chick always trying to rise to the top after belly flopping in the garbage, the mess you create. I’m the cream of Saint’s crop; you’re that shit at the bottom no one wants. I’m not a Pollyanna, Payton. If I were, do you
really
think Saint would want me? Saint wants a Diamond, a classy Queen on the streets and a super nova freak in between his sheets. He could never roll with a goody-two-shoes. He needed a good woman who knows how to get down and dirty; you only know how to do the latter. I know what you think of me and I don’t give a shit. What’s important is what will happen to you if you fuck with me or my family again.” Xenia sat up from the serene green park bench and stood directly in front of the camera, her braids blowing carefree in the wind.
“Try me if you want to,” Xenia said in a low voice, her eyes narrowed. Her threat seemed to permeate through the television screen, move like a fog across the room and choke the living daylights out of Payton. “I dare you. You’ll regret the day you were ever born. Now, you enjoy your time off from work. Get into some self-help books, go see a shrink and this time don’t fuck him or her; don’t fuck the help, Payton! Admit yourself into a mental hospital, do
all
of the above. You might be from the place that Frank Sinatra said if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere, but I’m from a place where the streets breed Bloods and from the sky fall blue Crips and their keepers. You could never survive in my world. My favorite color may be purple now, but I rep Blood, all day, every day. Don’t fuck wit’ me, Payton!” Xenia hissed into the camera, her eyebrows furrowed. “Show this to people, I don’t give a shit. It’s the damn truth! Gangbangin’ is in my blood. Just because I’m a professional, I don’t do that shit anymore and I’m a MILF don’t mean you can’t get
got
! I lived, breathed, ate and slept that shit! I turned a new leaf, Payton, but you’re making me rethink my blood transfusion, bitch!”
The DVD went to black then to loud, white static, the noise almost deafening as Payton sat on her couch, her heart beating a mile a minute. She looked down at her arms and saw herself shaking. It was like she was staring at herself from another body or dimension. She closed her eyes, swallowed hard and fell back onto the couch.
How could she get those images, those words, out of her mind?
She desperately tried to fall asleep but all she managed was to be riddled with crimson nightmares.
* * *
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Three Months Later…
Xenia
laughed and put her hands up to her mouth in disbelief as she stood in the five star hotel lavish Banquet Hall. She trembled as Saint went down on one knee in front of everyone at the Rainbeau Nights of the Round Table Monthly Date-Knight Feast.
“Would you please do me the honor of remarrying me? I want to renew our vows. It’s been a hard year for us, but we survived it. I love you, Queen,” Saint asked, smiling widely as he held the huge wedding band between his fingers and slid it onto her hand.
It was like her first wedding band, only wider and with more diamonds. Xenia hadn’t noticed yet, but it also had their sons’ initials inscribed on it.
“Yes, Saint, I will!” Xenia blushed as Saint stood back up and embraced her. The other male guests offered a round of applause. Xenia looked down at her hand. “It’s beautiful. I think you were supposed to wait to give it to me though. It’s a band, not an engagement ring.” Laughter erupted in the wide space.
“I know, but I wanted you to have it right now.” He kissed her cheek.
Xenia
sat down at the table and took a sip of her wine.
“Well, gentlemen, we’ve eaten and fellowshipped and all of your wives, except mine because I lied to her and told her I needed her to help take some minutes at the end, are out in the gift shop spending all of your money.”
Xenia
rolled her eyes.
“I didn’t expect them all to leave; I thought everyone would be here but then as soon as the announcement hit about half off clothing, I about got trampled over.” Saint said, causing more chuckles.
Xenia
looked at him in mock disdain.
“Oh well, they missed me being romantic,” Saint smiled as he bent down and kissed her softly on her lips.
Some time later, the Knights and their spouses began to clear out of the hotel. Xenia followed behind Saint as she talked to the babysitter on her cell phone. They waited hand in hand for their car to be brought back around.
“He did? I’ll have to talk to Dakarai about that when I get home. I’m so sorry, Chantel,” Xenia said. “OK, well, we will be there in a second to get them.”
Xenia
disconnected the call and let the valet help her into the passenger side of the car. Saint tipped him and got into the driver’s side.
“What’s going on?” Saint asked as he pulled away from the hotel. “What did Dakarai do?”
“He broke Chantel’s vase then lied about it. He’s OK, though, no cuts or anything. She had asked them to stop running in the hall. Hassani stopped but Dakarai kept right on, ran into the vase and it busted. She didn’t see him, but she heard it. She asked him about it and he told a bald-faced lie.”
Saint patted her hand as he negotiated the traffic. “I’ll make sure I give Chantel the money to cover the damages and inconvenience and we’ll have another talk with Dakarai about honesty and following directions. I guess it’s just the stage he’s going through right now.”
Xenia
nodded and put her phone back in her purse. Saint entwined his fingers with hers.
“Do you know how much I love you, Xenia?” Saint said after a few minutes of silence.
Xenia
gave him an affectionate smile and leaned her head back on the car seat. “I like to think I do.”
“I would do anything for you, Xenia. I don’t want anything to break us up again. I can take a lot of things but losing you and our babies is not one of them. Ever since I’ve been with you, I can’t keep my emotions back. I prided myself on being someone that no one could get close to. I liked it that way. I was protected. With you, all of that changed. I needed you to trust me, Xenia. So, I knew I had to let that ice melt that was in my heart. You’re my solace.” Saint turned the corner.
“I’m never going to let someone come between us again. Your soul mate turned her back on you,” Xenia looked down into her lap then out the window. Unspoken words hung between them, dangling from the shadow of shame that hovered above her like a black cloud.
Saint squeezed her hand tightly.
“It’s OK, baby. It just made us stronger, right? You’re my Diamond Queen on the streets…
always
.”
She looked at him intensely, wondering if he knew about her video threat to Payton.
If he knows, so what. I meant that shit and he knows it. Mess with my man again and I’ll cut her ass.
* * *
Saint smiled nervously as he paced back and forth in his expansive finished basement. He had asked for time alone, so that he could meditate and go over in his mind what he was going to say to Xenia at their wedding, which was only two hours away. He sat down in the quiet darkness and basked in the haunting sounds of Native American meditation music. The blood red curtains were tightly drawn, blocking all light. He steepled his hands together and readjusted himself in the theater-like, plush black leather chair.
Lowering his head and slowly closing his eyes, he went into a trance, and reminisced about the first moment he laid eyes upon her, until this very chapter, this very page in their lives.
It’s been an amazing and trying year, Xenia. We made it through. We survived.
He exhaled deeply and looked towards his right. His eyes began to move rapidly under the lids as discomfort and annoyance set in. He ended the trance and opened them.
Something isn’t right. Someone is in my space.
At that moment, his cell phone vibrated, glowing blue in the darkness. It moved jittery across the black table, flashing, beckoning him. He looked down at it, his whole body immediately ambushed by unbridled anger. He snatched the phone and answered.
“What the fuck do you want?”
“I called to tell you congratulations on your second wedding day,” came the overly friendly, feminine voice. “Come outside, I need to see you.”
“Payton, you are going to make me…”
“You sent your barracuda wife after me.”
“She is her own woman. I did nothing of the sort.” Suddenly, Saint’s heart began to beat at an exponential rate.
And that is why you’re calling me first. You know if Xenia sees you again, it’s a wrap for you.
deal with it
. I take my responsibilities as a wife and mother very seriously. My husband and children are the most important people in my life. I don’t know what type of life you have there in New York, but here in California, it is totally different. Over half of my family are Bloods. I grew up around that shit and was almost a part of it. The only thing that didn’t happen was me not being jumped in. I didn’t do the gang initiation, and it was only hours away. At the last minute, I changed my mind. Instead, I went on drug runs, helped beat up random bitches such as yourself, cut some mothafuckas just for the hell of it. Don’t believe me? Look it up. I’ve been speaking to teenage girls about this shit for years, trying to help them keep their noses clean and not gang bang. In my teen years, I’ve seen people killed on my walks to school like it was nothing. It was like Beirut up in this bitch!
“I dealt with a weak ass father, poverty and no one believing I’d be more than a high school dropout, pregnant multiple times before I hit age twenty-one and on the system, waiting for that check so I can go buy some processed foods and sit around waiting for the next hand-out. Half the men in my family are dead or in prison. Some of the women who gang-bang, are too. By the grace of God, I realized I was going down the wrong path before it was too late. This shit you did ain’t nothin’ to me!” Xenia barked.
“You think ’cause you stole a ride on my man’s dick you permanently hurt somebody? All you did was make our love stronger. Just look at how pathetic you are, you had to drug Saint Aknaten, the former biggest ho in New York!” Xenia laughed angrily. “I’m just keeping it real. Now that is just sad, Payton. The thing of it is though,” Xenia’s smile turned suddenly sickly sweet, “he doesn’t cheat on me and never will. He is faithful; he is devoted to me and only me. When he wants some pussy, he thinks of mine, only. You’re a scavenger chick always trying to rise to the top after belly flopping in the garbage, the mess you create. I’m the cream of Saint’s crop; you’re that shit at the bottom no one wants. I’m not a Pollyanna, Payton. If I were, do you
really
think Saint would want me? Saint wants a Diamond, a classy Queen on the streets and a super nova freak in between his sheets. He could never roll with a goody-two-shoes. He needed a good woman who knows how to get down and dirty; you only know how to do the latter. I know what you think of me and I don’t give a shit. What’s important is what will happen to you if you fuck with me or my family again.” Xenia sat up from the serene green park bench and stood directly in front of the camera, her braids blowing carefree in the wind.
“Try me if you want to,” Xenia said in a low voice, her eyes narrowed. Her threat seemed to permeate through the television screen, move like a fog across the room and choke the living daylights out of Payton. “I dare you. You’ll regret the day you were ever born. Now, you enjoy your time off from work. Get into some self-help books, go see a shrink and this time don’t fuck him or her; don’t fuck the help, Payton! Admit yourself into a mental hospital, do
all
of the above. You might be from the place that Frank Sinatra said if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere, but I’m from a place where the streets breed Bloods and from the sky fall blue Crips and their keepers. You could never survive in my world. My favorite color may be purple now, but I rep Blood, all day, every day. Don’t fuck wit’ me, Payton!” Xenia hissed into the camera, her eyebrows furrowed. “Show this to people, I don’t give a shit. It’s the damn truth! Gangbangin’ is in my blood. Just because I’m a professional, I don’t do that shit anymore and I’m a MILF don’t mean you can’t get
got
! I lived, breathed, ate and slept that shit! I turned a new leaf, Payton, but you’re making me rethink my blood transfusion, bitch!”
The DVD went to black then to loud, white static, the noise almost deafening as Payton sat on her couch, her heart beating a mile a minute. She looked down at her arms and saw herself shaking. It was like she was staring at herself from another body or dimension. She closed her eyes, swallowed hard and fell back onto the couch.
How could she get those images, those words, out of her mind?
She desperately tried to fall asleep but all she managed was to be riddled with crimson nightmares.
* * *
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Three Months Later…
Xenia
laughed and put her hands up to her mouth in disbelief as she stood in the five star hotel lavish Banquet Hall. She trembled as Saint went down on one knee in front of everyone at the Rainbeau Nights of the Round Table Monthly Date-Knight Feast.
“Would you please do me the honor of remarrying me? I want to renew our vows. It’s been a hard year for us, but we survived it. I love you, Queen,” Saint asked, smiling widely as he held the huge wedding band between his fingers and slid it onto her hand.
It was like her first wedding band, only wider and with more diamonds. Xenia hadn’t noticed yet, but it also had their sons’ initials inscribed on it.
“Yes, Saint, I will!” Xenia blushed as Saint stood back up and embraced her. The other male guests offered a round of applause. Xenia looked down at her hand. “It’s beautiful. I think you were supposed to wait to give it to me though. It’s a band, not an engagement ring.” Laughter erupted in the wide space.
“I know, but I wanted you to have it right now.” He kissed her cheek.
Xenia
sat down at the table and took a sip of her wine.
“Well, gentlemen, we’ve eaten and fellowshipped and all of your wives, except mine because I lied to her and told her I needed her to help take some minutes at the end, are out in the gift shop spending all of your money.”
Xenia
rolled her eyes.
“I didn’t expect them all to leave; I thought everyone would be here but then as soon as the announcement hit about half off clothing, I about got trampled over.” Saint said, causing more chuckles.
Xenia
looked at him in mock disdain.
“Oh well, they missed me being romantic,” Saint smiled as he bent down and kissed her softly on her lips.
Some time later, the Knights and their spouses began to clear out of the hotel. Xenia followed behind Saint as she talked to the babysitter on her cell phone. They waited hand in hand for their car to be brought back around.
“He did? I’ll have to talk to Dakarai about that when I get home. I’m so sorry, Chantel,” Xenia said. “OK, well, we will be there in a second to get them.”
Xenia
disconnected the call and let the valet help her into the passenger side of the car. Saint tipped him and got into the driver’s side.
“What’s going on?” Saint asked as he pulled away from the hotel. “What did Dakarai do?”
“He broke Chantel’s vase then lied about it. He’s OK, though, no cuts or anything. She had asked them to stop running in the hall. Hassani stopped but Dakarai kept right on, ran into the vase and it busted. She didn’t see him, but she heard it. She asked him about it and he told a bald-faced lie.”
Saint patted her hand as he negotiated the traffic. “I’ll make sure I give Chantel the money to cover the damages and inconvenience and we’ll have another talk with Dakarai about honesty and following directions. I guess it’s just the stage he’s going through right now.”
Xenia
nodded and put her phone back in her purse. Saint entwined his fingers with hers.
“Do you know how much I love you, Xenia?” Saint said after a few minutes of silence.
Xenia
gave him an affectionate smile and leaned her head back on the car seat. “I like to think I do.”
“I would do anything for you, Xenia. I don’t want anything to break us up again. I can take a lot of things but losing you and our babies is not one of them. Ever since I’ve been with you, I can’t keep my emotions back. I prided myself on being someone that no one could get close to. I liked it that way. I was protected. With you, all of that changed. I needed you to trust me, Xenia. So, I knew I had to let that ice melt that was in my heart. You’re my solace.” Saint turned the corner.
“I’m never going to let someone come between us again. Your soul mate turned her back on you,” Xenia looked down into her lap then out the window. Unspoken words hung between them, dangling from the shadow of shame that hovered above her like a black cloud.
Saint squeezed her hand tightly.
“It’s OK, baby. It just made us stronger, right? You’re my Diamond Queen on the streets…
always
.”
She looked at him intensely, wondering if he knew about her video threat to Payton.
If he knows, so what. I meant that shit and he knows it. Mess with my man again and I’ll cut her ass.
* * *
Saint smiled nervously as he paced back and forth in his expansive finished basement. He had asked for time alone, so that he could meditate and go over in his mind what he was going to say to Xenia at their wedding, which was only two hours away. He sat down in the quiet darkness and basked in the haunting sounds of Native American meditation music. The blood red curtains were tightly drawn, blocking all light. He steepled his hands together and readjusted himself in the theater-like, plush black leather chair.
Lowering his head and slowly closing his eyes, he went into a trance, and reminisced about the first moment he laid eyes upon her, until this very chapter, this very page in their lives.
It’s been an amazing and trying year, Xenia. We made it through. We survived.
He exhaled deeply and looked towards his right. His eyes began to move rapidly under the lids as discomfort and annoyance set in. He ended the trance and opened them.
Something isn’t right. Someone is in my space.
At that moment, his cell phone vibrated, glowing blue in the darkness. It moved jittery across the black table, flashing, beckoning him. He looked down at it, his whole body immediately ambushed by unbridled anger. He snatched the phone and answered.
“What the fuck do you want?”
“I called to tell you congratulations on your second wedding day,” came the overly friendly, feminine voice. “Come outside, I need to see you.”
“Payton, you are going to make me…”
“You sent your barracuda wife after me.”
“She is her own woman. I did nothing of the sort.” Suddenly, Saint’s heart began to beat at an exponential rate.
And that is why you’re calling me first. You know if Xenia sees you again, it’s a wrap for you.
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