Whos Loving You (28 page)

T
he second Onyx told me Honey was in trouble, I was on my way to Atlanta.

Never got out of my car in front of my parents’ home in D.C. Backed out of the driveway, drove to Washington/Dulles International, parked in the short-term lot, not caring how long my car would stay there. I owned a second home in Buckhead furnished with everything I’d need.

No luggage, hands free, I zigzagged across three lanes of congested airport traffic, slapped the hood of a car that almost hit me, woman looking down text messaging. Better keep her attention on the road before she killed someone. I ran to the ticket counter, pulled out my credit card.

Life without Honey wasn’t happening.

I’d never met a woman with so much fire, enthusiasm, drive, determination, beauty, sex appeal, bedroom skills, and a bodacious booty. She’d ruined me for all other women. Honey was the only one for me.

The agent smiled, greeting me, “How may—” Before she said, “help,” I handed her my driver’s license.

“I have a life or death emergency. You’ve got to put me on your next direct flight to Atlanta. I don’t mean your next available, let me make myself clear. I must be on your next flight leaving for Atlanta.”

Her smile vanished. “Give me a minute, Mr. Hill.” Her acrylic nails swiftly tapped the keys.

“I might not have a minute. Please, hurry.”

Her head stayed bowed. Her eyes lift toward me. She continued typing.

“I apologize. The woman I want to marry is missing and I have to find her.”

Her smile returned. She typed faster. “Here,” she said, handing me a gold first class boarding pass along with my I.D. and credit card. “Wish we had more men like you. Your flight departs in twenty minutes. Hurry.”

“Thanks!” I said, running to security checkpoint. My jacket flapped under my arms like a bird taking flight. I emptied the contents of my pockets—wallet, cell phone, keys—in a white bowl, held on to my boarding pass.

My phone rang on the conveyor. I snatched the tray.

“Excuse me, sir, you can’t reach into the X-ray machine,” a man in a TSA uniform said.

Best to ignore him to avoid misdirecting my anger. I hadn’t checked my caller I.D. before anxiously answering, “Hurry, I’ve got two minutes.” I stepped aside allowing another passenger to go ahead of me.

“Hey, bro. Won’t take but a minute,” Benito said. “I need some money.”

“Where are you?” I asked him.

“Hanging out in Atlanta for a few days. So can you help me out?” he asked.

“Atlanta?” I said.

“Yeah, I’m in the ATL, bro. You know me. I’m a transient. Atlanta. Vegas. D.C. Never know where I’ll show up.”

I felt my blood pressure rising. Wanted to question him about Honey. Didn’t want to give him time to make up lies if he knew the truth.

“I’ll call you back in two hours,” I said, then hung up.

Placing the bowl on the conveyor, along with my shoes, belt, and jacket, I walked through the metal detector. I had to get a security clear card. Should’ve been at my gate by now. I ran to the shuttle, stood the entire ride. The first one off the shuttle, I ran to my gate, barely beating the last call for my flight.

“Orange juice, please,” I told the attendant, settling into 1B, the same seat I’d sat in when I’d met my Honey for the first time. A different woman was next to me now.

Her black skin glistened. Long hair flowed over her shoulders. Skirt rose a few inches above her knees, exposing her bare legs. Open-toe shoes revealed an impeccable pedicure. Hadn’t seen black strips with diamonds across the tip of toenails. Elegant. She smelled sweet, like candy. The kind of fragrance that would ordinarily draw me real close to a woman. Make me introduce myself. Not today. Regardless how sweet she was, she wasn’t sweeter than Honey.

“Here’s your juice,” the attendant said.

The cabin door closed. I fastened my seatbelt, shut my eyes. Wanted to cry. What good would that do? Wondered how much Benito knew about Honey’s disappearance. If he was involved. Hated having to communicate with him, but my brother was my only lead.

I felt the lightest touch on my shoulder, opened my eyes.

“I don’t mean to bother you, but you seem like a man who enjoys sports,” the woman next to me said.

I exhaled. Nodded. Closed my eyes again.

“I’d like to offer you two box suite tickets to see my son play tomorrow night in Atlanta,” she said.

Answering her without opening my eyes, I asked, “What’s his name?”

Quietly, she said, “Darius Jones.”

I sat up, looked at her, “You mean the Darius Williams who changed his last name to Jones?”

Her lips parted, smile captivated me. I took a deep breath.

She nodded. “Long story. Short version, my son changed his name back to Jones after my husband died. His biological father is—”

I interrupted her, “I know, Darryl Williams, pro-basketball player.” I smiled back at her. “You are gorgeous. Stunning.”

“Thanks. My name is Jada Diamond Tanner,” she said, handing me her card.

I dug in my jacket pocket, handed her my card. “I’m going to Atlanta on an emergency. The woman I want to marry is in danger. I have to do all I can to save her. I love her.”

Jada’s eyes filled with tears. “My husband felt that way about me before he died. My Wellington wasn’t a perfect man, but the one thing I knew for sure was my husband loved me with all his heart. Doubt I’ll ever love like that again, but I haven’t given up. If there’s anything I can do to help you find her, you have my number.”

Had no idea what compelled me, but I leaned Jada’s head on my shoulder, held her hand in mine, and comforted her until our flight arrived in Atlanta. My instincts indicated Jada was one special woman.

Everything happened for a reason. Was I in search of Honey to have a wife? Or was my heart simply in search of a true love?

Enjoy the following excerpt from

Sweeter Than Honey

On sale now wherever books are sold.

“Y
ou’re never going to be more than a trifflin’, lyin’ lil’ slut! You make me sick! My God, I wish I woulda followed my first mind and aborted your ass instead of listening to that deadbeat lying-ass motherfuckin’ daddy of yours. I can’t believe you up in here under my nose tryna fuck my man! Why can’t you be more like your sister? Get out of my house and this time stay the hell out!” were the last words I’d heard my mother say before she slammed the door in my face.

Was she referring to my baby sister? The golden can-do-no-wrong child?

What had I done this time?

It wasn’t my fault that on my sixteenth birthday, my mother’s fiancé saw in me what most men saw: a young, cute, innocent face, a firm, cellulite-free ass, perfect, plump, perky tits, and long legs stacked with a virgin cherry that they desperately wanted to burst. Well, he wasn’t positive about the virgin part until his hard calluses, dirty hands, and jagged fingernails slipped inside my pink panties. His stale morning hadn’t-brushed-his-yellowish-brown-teeth breath exhaled in my face as he squatted in front of my pussy. He poked, probed, gazed up at me, smiled, and then said, “Aw, man. You really are a preemie,” kissing my virgin lips while checking twice for confirmation.

“Ow, you’re hurting me,” I said, shoving his forehead. As I crossed my legs, the scratches on my kitty stung worse than paper cuts.

That incident happened over thirteen years ago, but psychologically it hurts like he violated me yesterday. To this day I can’t stand men with dirty or rough hands or bad breath or yellow teeth.

“I’ma tell Mama,” my sister had said, standing in the doorway, covering her big mouth.

I snapped, “Stch. Go tell Mama ’cause I ain’t do nothing wrong!”

Truth was I was very afraid, fearing Mama would side with Don and Honey. The only reason I’d let
him
find out I was untouched was that my mama constantly accused me of being a whore and a slut, so I wanted to prove her wrong. My sister was the fast one, sneaking boys into her room after Mama went to sleep, going to jail for petty theft, and staying out all night on the weekends smoking weed.

With any reason not to feed us or to have the house to herself with Don, Mama didn’t care where we went or how long we stayed. I guess my being the opposite of my sister hanging around the house reading books or listening to music most of the time invaded Mama’s privacy.

Don’s eyes widened. He swiftly sucked air into his mouth, snapping his head toward Honey. When he pushed me, I fell to the floor screaming, “Mama!”

My mother, Rita, raced into the family room, bypassing Honey. Rita stared down at me. Hatred narrowed her eyes that never blinked. I spread my legs, hoping she could see what Don had done to me. This was my chance to have him confess he was wrong and confirm I was pure. But he didn’t. I lay there trying to figure out why a grown man would take advantage of a minor and why my mother would let him.

Sinking into the gray carpet, I felt my ignorance giving me away to the streets when my mother deemed me competition as opposed to her little girl. True, most times I was guilty of something, but not trying to have sex with my mother’s man or the boys I went to Flagstaff High School with.

My heart exploded like a bomb when Mama believed her husband-to-be’s words, “Rita, get rid of her…your tramp of a daughter just offered me her pussy,” over mine. “Mama, I swear I didn’t, he’s lying. He stuck his finger between my legs. Go on, tell ’em I’m a virgin. Honey, you saw him. Tell Mama what he did,” I cried, spreading my legs wider this time. Instantly I’d become a casualty of compassion.

Before my sister answered, the strands of my ponytail wrapped around my mother’s fist. Content that he was out of the spotlight, Don sat on the sofa with his lint-filled Afro and sagging gut gargling beer like mouthwash while fingering the remote, flipping through channels like nothing was happening. Instead of helping me, Honey bent toward the floor, grabbing my white ankle socks. The tip of my brand-new tennis shoe slammed against her chin, knocking Honey on her ass.

It was an accident. I’d never done anything to hurt my sister. Honey was the only sibling I had.

Angrily, Mama dragged me faster. The rug beneath my butt felt like a flaming match frying through my skin. Frantically kicking the air, I yelled all the way to the door, “Bitch! Let me go! Grab his fuckin’ ass!” I peeled my fingers from the door hinge, barely escaping the
slam!

That wasn’t my first time getting thrown out of the house, but it was my last time calling my mother what I’d wanted to call her for a long time. She was a bitch. Why I’d gotten kicked out every other month since I’d grown unusually large breasts twice the cup-size of my mother’s and sister’s put together, I didn’t know. How could my mother carry me for nine months, birth me, then despise me for being molested by her man?

Dressed in pink shorts, and a white shirt with a pink cat on the front, I stood outside the door for fifteen minutes praying my mother would open it. When she didn’t, I knew better than to bang on Rita’s door. The smell of Mama frying Sunday morning bacon and baking homemade buttermilk biscuits made me hungry. Surely Rita would slide me a plate or a slice of my birthday cake so I wouldn’t have to walk down the street to the Sunshine Rescue Mission.

I waited in vain, drifting off into thoughts about attending my first day of school tomorrow, celebrating with all the seniors, and getting my driver’s license in the mail. Within seconds all of my hopes of becoming the youngest valedictorian had become dismal. I sat on the steps watching the heat waves float through the hot air in Flagstaff, Arizona. Our small town was a short drive from the Grand Canyon, where lots of tourists came to see one of the seven natural wonders of the world. As a homeless child, I felt like the eighth wonder that no one cared about. People drove by me waving but all of them kept going.

Sitting alone on the steps gave me lots of time to daydream about the big city with bright lights. I’d heard lots of neighbors and students rave about Las Vegas, but I’d never been there. I heard that pretty girls made lots of money simply because they were cute like me. Vegas was over a hundred miles away from my house, too far for me to travel alone with no money.

The orange sunrays traded places with the blue moonlight. Gazing up at the stars, I questioned why I’d fallen into a bottomless pit so young, so innocent, and so afraid. Cursed for being beautiful, I slept on the ugly concrete porch until the break of dawn. The crackling of the front door startled me as I sadly looked up into my mother’s piercing brown eyes.

“Mama, please, I’m sorry. If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll stay in my room after school whenever he’s here, I promise.”

Desperately seeking my mother’s forgiveness, I apologized for Don’s faults. I had no place else to go. Not permanently. With her silver spiked heels, my mother stepped on me like a doormat and kept walking as if I were invisible: incapable of being seen.

Years later, at times I still felt I wasn’t perceptive to the human eye. Funny how back then I thought I was grown until I had to make it on my own. Over the past decade, I’d learned a lot about being a woman, not necessarily the easy way.

In my opinion, ninety-five percent of all women were abused at some point during their lifetime by their mothers, their fathers, their husbands, their boyfriends, strangers on the prowl seeking a rape victim or in my case all of the above. Living on the streets convinced me that the five percent who weren’t abused died at birth. If only I could’ve been so lucky.

My sister to this day still lives at home with our mother. An old high school acquaintance said Honey was dying of some rare form of cancer and that I was Honey’s closest possible match for a donor. Was that God’s way of paying my mother back? They didn’t need me then and I don’t need them now.

After my mother kicked me out I would’ve gone to live with my dad, but we never knew our father. And the way I saw it, any man who’d abandon his children was the worst type of abuser. Forget that lame bullshit about the mother keeping him away. I swore I was never having kids. My daddy had a choice! He could’ve fought for joint custody, weekends, supervised visitation, something. Anything was better than nothing. The one time we asked about our father, our mom cursed us out.

“Jean St. Thomas’s green-eyed, slick-haired red ass ain’t shit! Never was shit! Ain’t never gon’ be shit! Sorry-ass son of a bitch ain’t never paid one damn dime to help me take care of y’all and if you ask me about him again I’ma beat y’all’s ass! Now, get out of my face!” Then she mumbled, “That good-for-nothing-but-a-wet-dream bastard better not ever call me again asking to see y’all.”

Daddy wanted to see us?

My green eyes filled with tears at the thought that my mother hated me but wouldn’t let my daddy love me. I guess I was light-skinned with straight hair like my father, because my mom and sister had skin like dark brown sugar and hair equally coarse.

Whatever, I didn’t need any of them. I was fine. Honestly I was. But it still hurts that after all these years Mama never inquired about where I was until Honey got sick. Mama didn’t care if I never came back. If she could suction my marrow through a straw over the phone, she would do so, then hang up in my face without saying thanks. Maybe one day I’d go back to her in my white-on-white or my black-on-black Jaguar and show her how successful I’d become.

I still blamed and will never forgive my mother for the life I was forced to live after being kicked out. As an involuntarily high school dropout, I’d hitchhiked and moved in with my instant twenty-three-year-old boyfriend who brutally stole my virginity, then yelled at my ass every other day like he was bipolar. He had me so screwed up in the head I jumped every time he spoke. I’d leave the house and forget to put on my shoes. I’d pour orange juice on his cereal instead of milk because I was so afraid he’d beat me if I didn’t get him what he wanted fast enough. After six months together, I slept in the doghouse that was inside the garage just to stay out of the way of his fists.

At seventeen I ran away and married only what I could describe as Charles Manson’s offspring. Brutally he stomped my ass daily, I think either for his amusement or for his daily thirty-minute workout. The reason I stayed was, once again, I didn’t have any place to go, nor did I have any money. That was another lesson learned.

Men controlled women by making women dependent upon them for everything from food and clothes to shelter. So for an entire year, if my husband had a bad day, I had a worse night. But what I did have was enough sense to realize if I didn’t find the courage to escape, one day a coroner would carry me out in a body bag and deliver me to Rita’s, only for her to write
return to sender
on my toe tag.

Before leaving his ass I stole a blowup doll, inflated it, then doused his bed and the doll with six gallons of ketchup mixed with two gallons of gasoline, praying his ass would light one last cigarette.

I went to a pleasure store and stole four dildos that looked exactly like his dick, hiding them under my skirt. The first dick I chopped off the head with a butcher’s knife, then sliced the shaft into tiny confettisized pieces and left the plastic floating in his toilet. The second one I set on fire on top of his gas-burning stove and left it there with a tent card that read
last meal.
The third one I ground in his blender on
PUREE
until the motor shot bluish red sparks into the smoky air. And the fourth one I poured fire-red fingernail polish over the head, watched it bleed down the sides, then drilled an ice pick into the piss hole and left it on his doorstep with a note,
Fuck and beat this, you piece of shit! If you come after me, your motherfuckin’ dick is next! I guarantee it!

Needless to say I never heard from him again. Hopefully because he’d flicked that lighter and burned to death. If by some misfortune he was alive, his cruel abusive ass probably thought I was the crazy one.

On my eighteenth birthday, I moved into the Pussyland Ranch and didn’t move out until I was twenty-nine and went to work for Valentino James as a madam. Eleven grueling years on my back with my legs spread open was no easy feat, but where could I earn decent money with no diploma? After fucking a different john every day during my first three years at Pussyland, I became the top-requested girl. The high demand allowed me to establish a regular clientele, granting myself two days on and two days off. On holidays my nonnegotiable rate of three hundred dollars an hour tripled.

Working for Valentino helped me maintain my sanity and gave my body a much-needed rest. Instantly my twelve female escorts depended on me, and in return I relied upon them for my five-figure monthly paycheck. I especially counted on my personal favorite, Sunny Day.

There was something special about Sunny. Something beyond her striking beauty. Something deeper than her almond-shaped eyes that beamed rays of light. Sunny was unique. She was young, vibrant, and enthusiastic about life. Sunny possessed the passion I lacked, and although she didn’t know it, in many ways she’d helped me. I wasn’t there yet, but occasionally I felt the desire to genuinely care about her and the other girls I’d hired. Kinda like how I wished my mother would’ve loved me. Sunny didn’t have an old soul; she had a wise spirit beyond her years. Always happy, motivating the other girls, and willing to work extra hard to please her clients. Sunny’s invincible, indispensable take-charge leadership personality reminded me of myself when I first started prostituting.

For me, prostitution provided a much-needed clean and safe place to live off of the hot, sweltering, or freezing snow-covered streets of Nevada. I wasn’t always cold and callous. My God, I hoped Sunny didn’t end up like me. She wouldn’t. Tonight I’d decided Valentino could take Onyx or Starlet off the circuit for himself, but at the end of the month, three days from now, I was firing Sunny for her own good. Sunny needed to do what I couldn’t…go home to a mother and father who loved her.

It was too late for me. I’d been in the game so long I didn’t know how to get out. Didn’t know what else I’d do. I’d been mentally, physically, sexually, spiritually, financially, you name it, taken advantage of. The only thing left for someone to take was my life and that’s what was not going to happen without a fight. Whether I’d win or lose didn’t matter to me as long as I never again voluntarily allowed anyone to beat me. I’d paid my dues. In some ways I was stronger. In many ways, wiser. Now it was my turn to take control of my life.