Whos Loving You (6 page)

Now I had to find time to let my nail polish dry while microwaving dinner. Sew in my own tracks to save a few dollars to pay the rent, utilities, after-school care expenses, and my Sidekick bill, and to compensate my mother for graciously watching my son all the time. Not one penny of child support did he have to pay. I had no idea where to find Alphonso, nor was I about to try. I didn’t have an address, and I’d erased his cell phone number shortly after I told him I was pregnant. Determined to make it on my own and provide a decent life for my son, I’d taken on a second job, working nights.

Toweling off, I wanted to cry, but I didn’t. What good would that do?

I was tired of living dollar to dollar and struggling to take care of Ronnie. He deserved better. Hell, I deserved better, too. Mrs. Taylor was retired, and if she knew the truth about her husband, who had offered me money in exchange for letting him taste my pussy, Mrs. Taylor—married to her husband for forty years—wouldn’t have thought my suits were beautiful. Instantly, I would’ve become the whore, slut, and tramp next door. Women of all ages were ignorant like that. Always blaming other women for the affairs their husbands had.

“Damn. Can I wash my ass in peace?” I said, making my way to the living room. “If one mo’ horny motherfucker calls me when I’m already running late for my second job, I swear I’ma scream at the top of my lungs.”

Every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night, I barely made it in the door before the men started calling. John always tried to beat the rest and convince me to hook up with him after I finished stripping. I tried telling John’s cheap ass that being with me was a relay race, not a marathon. Until I found the right man for Ronnie and me, all men were a financial means for me to quit stripping. Pressing the button on my Bluetooth, I didn’t bother looking at the caller ID. I went into my bedroom, opened my lingerie drawer, then placed a soft, red, furry bra with strings and a matching thong in my oversized purse before answering. “Make it quick,” I said.

“I want to know if you sucked my husband’s dick,” a female voice yelled in my ear.

“What! Who in the hell are you?” Moving the earpiece away from my ear, I shouted, “Ronnie! You hungry, boy?”

“No, Mama.”

“I’m walking you over to Grandma’s in exactly twenty minutes. Go make yourself a sandwich.”

“Okay, Mama.”

“Where’s my damn boots?” I said, placing the earpiece back on my ear.

“You gon’ answer my question or make me show up at your ho job tonight and beat your ass? The choice is yours,” said the female voice.

Working at Stilettos was getting old quick, but I hung in there because the money was decent. And Trevor gave me a bonus whenever the bar broke six figures. A few rappers and high rollers, men and women, dropping credits cards and offering to buy a few rounds of drinks or a case of champagne, and I was on my way to making some extra change.

What I couldn’t stand was the guys who claimed to have their shit together, begging to take me out for a drink, translation, sex, and they couldn’t even keep their women in check. I had picked up a few “friends with benefits” to fund my emergency savings account, but whosoever the fuck this chick was who was challenging me, she was way out of line. I wished she would show up tonight at Stilettos, talkin’ that shit to me. She’d end up with this heel right in the middle of her damn clit. I picked up my spike-heeled boots, then put them in the bag with my outfit.

I had to ask her, “Who are you, and why are you wasting my damn time?”

“Don’t worry about who I am.”

“Okay. Then who’s your trick?”

“My what?”

“Your man, bitch! Who’s your fuckin’ man?”

“Oh, Tolliver. But you probably know him as T.”

I had to smile. T was my favorite. We were cool and had fun kickin’ it at the movies and hotels and shit. T was the bomb, or so I’d thought until I heard him get on the phone and say, “Velvet, tell my wife that we’re just friends and we’re not fucking, because she’s tripping. I told you, woman, I go to the strip clubs to relieve my stress. What’s wrong with that?”

No, this too-dark-to-be-white, too-light-to-be-black, punk-ass, biracial motherfucka wasn’t pleading with and lying to his wife and asking me to have his back. He must’ve forgotten Red Velvet was the one on the other end of the damn phone.
I swear, I gotta stop fucking these trifling-ass men,
I thought. He was probably taking her money and giving it to me, but that wasn’t my concern.

“Yeah, Velvet, tell me, because Tolliver claims you’re just a sleazy stripper begging to ride his dick,” said Tolliver’s wife.

No, those fools did not put me on speaker. This bitch was checking the wrong person. She’d asked for it.

I took a deep breath. “Look, bitch,” I said. “I did not say ‘I do’ to you. Someone else walked down the aisle and said all that for better or for worse shit to you. That’s the bullshit
you
signed up for. Listen up and you tell me if you think I fucked your
husband
or not. Tolliver’s dick is eight and a half inches long, it’s thick, it’s circumcised, and it’s beautiful. The lips around his opening, when you look at his dick sideways, are shaped exactly like those succulent lips on his face. He has four flat chocolate moles, one between his nuts and three in a row on the underside of his dick, so when I play connect the dots with the barbell in my tongue, I draw a straight line. He shaves his pubic hairs down to a shadow. His favorite color is blue. Favorite movie,
American Gangster
. And his favorite pussy is Red Velvet. Hope that helps both of you sick-ass tricks the fuck out. I gotta go. And, T, don’t call me no fuckin’ mo’!”

That bitch didn’t know who she was questioning, and I didn’t know what in the hell Tolliver was thinking by trying to check me. I hated men who couldn’t keep their nosy bitches in check.
Let that bitch show up tonight,
I thought.
I’ve got something for her ass.
And T, with his big-ass, country-sized dick could still hit this pussy, but first he’d have to pay for every dollar I’d missed tonight for being late. Plus I was gonna charge him a hundred dollars extra for being stupid. After throwing my fiery red human-hair wig into my bag, I slipped into a green velour jogging suit and flat shoes, just in case I had to kick that bitch’s ass. The last thing Red Velvet did was run from any motherfucker.

“I’m ready,” my son said, walking into my bedroom, with his Spiderman backpack strapped tightly over his shoulders. “Mommy, who was that on the phone?”

“Nobody, baby. Nobody important. At least not anymore. Let’s get you to Grandma’s.”

M
y pussy. My pleasure.

Fucking Grant was my preference, but having a man penetrate me wasn’t necessary in order for me to have a satisfying orgasm. I spread a black mink throw on the patio beyond the sliding glass door outside my bedroom. The stars surrounded the moon as I inhaled the cool midnight breeze.

“Ah, every night should be this peaceful.” I bet God got upset whenever He blessed us with a beautiful day that we didn’t take time to appreciate. It was up to me to take advantage of each minute. Tonight, right now, I was doing me.
Forget about Grant,
I told myself. I wasn’t thinking about the girls. I declared this Honey time.

My pussy was so starved that it felt like she’d eaten my labia minora, sucking it inside my vagina, and like my labia majora had closed, the way a
Mimosa pudica
flower closed when touched, when cold, or when put in the dark. My pussy trapped and stored the chi energy inside the walls of my uterus. The combustion was going to erupt into an orgasm so explosive, all of Atlanta might get swept underground by my fluids.

I had to stop suppressing and ignoring my sexual feelings. I could go out, find a charity dick attached to a man, fuck him, then forget about him, or I could please myself. Opening my mint green pleasure chest, which I kept at the foot of my bed, I pushed aside my vibrating rabbit. “Nah, fuck that. You’d better come with me,” I said, putting the rabbit on the bed.

I moved my ruby glass slipper aside. Not the kind of slipper Cinderella had, my glass dick was twelve inches long and heated up nicely in the microwave, or I could chill it in a bucket of ice. The extreme sensations inside my pussy felt fantastic. I didn’t want to go into the kitchen. Any room other than the kitchen would’ve been okay.

I buried the slipper at the bottom of the chest, then scanned the edible panties, pleasure pearls, my remote-control egg, and a whole lotta other stuff. I came up holding a silver bullet, dangling from my cyber-skin vibrating tongue, in one hand, and in the other hand was my pink pocket rocket. The toys that solely focused on clit stimulation made me cum in less than two minutes, so I tossed the pocket rocket back into the chest and kept the tongue.

Sitting on the black mink throw, I squeezed a few drops of lube onto my tongue, attached the silver bullet, then put a few drops of lube on the bullet. Lying back, I bent me knees upward, spread my thighs, slipped the bullet in my ass, then turned the vibration on high. The tongue fluttered against my clit, almost feeling like the real thing. At the same time the bullet shot vibrations inside my ass.

Sometimes I’d put the bullet in my pussy or in my ass while fucking Grant. He enjoyed the feel of the vibration. “Ooh-wee! Damn, this shit feels good.” But not good enough. Leaving the bullet in my ass, I placed a condom over my vibrator, lubed the shaft and the rabbit ears, then powered on my fucking rabbit.

Inserting the rotating dick into my pussy, I let the pearls vibrate along my G-spot. The rabbit ears teased my clit. My ass felt wonderful. Gazing up at the moon, I moaned, “That’s it. That’s the spots.”

Thirty minutes later I’d given myself explosive pleasure that made my pussy wet inside and out.

I tossed the toys aside, stared up at the stars, and relaxed for a moment. Fucking myself felt good. Fucking Grant felt great.

Exhaling, I thought,
Maybe I’m not good enough for Grant.
If he wouldn’t give me the decency or respect I deserved and allow me to explain my side of the story, perhaps Grant was the one who wasn’t good enough for me. The time had come for me to let go.

E
ntering my D.C. office at 8:00 a.m., I paused in front of my receptionist long enough to say, “Good morning, Beverly. Hold all my calls until eleven a.m.”

Beverly was five feet eight. Her short brown hair was neatly tapered to accentuate her beautiful, big brown eyes. The mesmerizing curves of her hips matched those of her lips each time she smiled, which was often. She held a broker’s license but didn’t like sales or managing people. Beverly was dependable and flexible. She’d visit a few properties when I needed her to. But generally, I had other employees handle on-site management.

“Certainly, Mr. Hill, and good morning to you. You have—”

Walking away from her not-so-bright smile, I said, “I know. Another message from Ms. Honey Thomas. Trash it.”

If my wanting to be with Honey was worrying my parents, I had to do the right thing. Why did this woman repeatedly call me at home, at work, and on my cell, then text me in between? Didn’t she get it? She was a murderer, and I was done with her, and thankfully, I’d found out the truth before making the same mistake I’d made with Valerie by giving my heart to a black woman who didn’t know how to care for me.

Clicking on her computer, Beverly dragged a file to her trash can, smiled, then said, “She hasn’t called you today.”

Oh, she must be still sleeping,
I thought, feeling embarrassed.

“What I was getting ready to say was you have a visitor, who invited himself into your office.”

“What! She showed up instead! She had the audacity to show her face without my—”

Holding her open palm toward me, Beverly slowly said, “Hold up. Calm down. No, Mr. Hill. I said, ‘Himself.’ Actually, it’s a man, and he refused to give me his name.”

Frowning, I felt like a fool this time. I wasn’t listening well, and I was hurt that Honey hadn’t called or texted since the day before yesterday. Maybe she had sensed I’d let Velvet fuck me. Had she found another man to replace me? Or was it like my dad said? Would she call in a week or a month? I wanted her to call this morning, like she’d done almost every day for the past eighteen days.

“Is it one of my evicted tenants? Did you call the police?”

“I wasn’t sure what to do. He wasn’t unruly. He just invited himself into your office.”

Banging my fist on her desk, I yelled, “What! You should never allow anyone to invite themselves into my office! Ever! You got that!”

Beverly’s eyes widened. “Mr. Hill, I apologize. I’m sorry. You want me to call the police?”

“Yes,” I said, slowly approaching my office. People who had nothing to lose sure as hell didn’t mind taking other people down with them. What was Honey’s fucking problem?
Fuck her!
She was probably laid up with some other man.

Peeping through the crack in my door, I saw it was trifling-ass Benito. “Beverly, never mind,” I yelled over my shoulder. “I can handle him.”

“Who is he?” she asked.

“My brother.”

“I didn’t know you had a brother,” Beverly replied and waited for a response, which I refused to give.

But I did give her what she deserved. “Beverly, I apologize. I over-reacted.”

She smiled. “It’s okay, Mr. Hill. I know you’re under a lot of pressure with the merger. It won’t happen again. I’m getting a lock put on your door today.”

Standing in my doorway, I watched Benito browse the hundreds of architectural design, real estate, and law books on my wall-to-wall customized shelves. I slammed the door. His ass didn’t flinch. He nodded as he looked over the encased model of my newest 411-unit hotel and condominium building, which was under construction across the street from Trevor Williams’s hotel and condos in Atlanta. I glanced around to see if any lightweight items were missing, like my Mont-blanc pens or my platinum golf balls. Nope. They were there.

“Hey, bro. I apologize for imposing on you like this, but we need to talk about Lace,” said Benito. “You should thank me for saving you. She was getting ready to fuck you blind.”

First my dad and now this asshole wanted to tell me how to live my life. Lace, Honey, whatever her real name was, I wanted no parts of that pathological prevaricator.

Oh my God. Looking at her picture on my credenza, I’d been sure that woman was amazingly beautiful both inside and out. Her silky skin, juicy lips, perfect figure, sculpted legs and thighs, and those incredible crystal green eyes had commanded my attention the second she sat next to me on the plane, in first class.

I’d pretended I wasn’t impressed with her when we first met, but I couldn’t lie: she’d had my undivided attention the instance our eyes met. I smiled on the inside, remembering how she’d made me laugh off and on the entire trip. Honey was easy to talk to. I’d felt like we were two old friends getting reacquainted after a long period without contact.

On our first date, she’d looked and felt ravishing on my arm, making me the proudest man alive. Men and women had stared at her, and all I had thought was,
She’s spoken for. Yes, this is the woman I’m going to marry one day.

“Man, she whipped that red, snapping pussy on you, too, huh? Consider yourself lucky, G. You only put in two weeks. I’m telling you,” Benito said, puckering his lips like a baby getting ready to cry.

Exhaling, I cut him off and said, “Yeah, I guess, but don’t compare me to you, ever.”

What had impressed me the most about Honey wasn’t her ability to sex me senseless; it was the business objectives for her company. After becoming successful, I wanted what my parents had. I wanted someone special to share my life with. I truly wanted to marry a black woman like Obama’s wife, a woman who would dedicate her life to improving the community in a huge way. A woman who knew her self-worth. A woman who would stand by me and be a wonderful mother to our children.

I had to stop thinking about Honey…but I couldn’t. With all my investments, I could have sex with practically any woman I wanted, including those two women I’d met at Starbucks, but the only woman I desired to make love to was Honey.

“Give me a job,” Benito blurted. “I can handle things here in the office while you travel, or I can manage one of your properties, for a good salary and a free apartment.”

I shook my head. “Outside of football, you don’t have any employable skills. Besides, I don’t trust you,” I said, suppressing my memory of Honey drizzling hot chocolate syrup on my chest, abs, dick, and balls, then smearing it all over me with her pussy.

I’d grown tired of sharing my bed with strange and estranged women. I no longer wanted to pretend I enjoyed the company of highly intellectual women who didn’t realize they had four holes between their thighs that could generate orgasmic pleasure, from clitoral orgasms to vaginal orgasms to ejaculating secretions produced by the Skene’s glands—which they squirted from the urethral canal, the same way I shot cum from my nuts through my dick—to anal orgasms. Those women made me impervious to their empty promises of giving me unforgettable sexual pleasure. My eyes closed for a few seconds as I relived some of those disappointing situations.

“Okay,” Benito said. “Is it the silk scarf tied around your nuts while you’re fucking her doggie style, and just when you start cuming, she tugs your balls, and you screaam like a bitch because that shit feels so fucking good. Or—”

Opening my eyes, I felt my forehead buckle as I stared at that fool. “I’m not giving you a job, nor am I going to sit here and swap X-rated stories with you.”

Yeah, I knew exactly what Benito was talking about, and that shit had felt fucking fantastic. I needed to release the backed-up cum building inside my nuts. If I had sex tonight as planned with those two ladies I’d met, fine, but if I didn’t, that was okay, too. I’d stroke my own dick. But either way, I was busting a big one tonight. Since my breakup with Honey two and a half weeks ago, my encounters had been dreadful: I had to do most of the work, and I’d get dressed immediately after cuming and go home.

In my desperate search for an experienced woman like Honey or Velvet, I had reneged on my promise never to stick my dick inside a black woman I didn’t care about. Before I could make it to my house, my cell phone would ring, and the woman I’d just finished fucking would ask, “Grant, what’s wrong?”

How could I respond, “Take time to learn your own body. Open your mouth and tell me what pleases you. Move your ass. Suck my big, beautiful dick like you enjoy that shit. Hell, learn how to please yourself,” without insulting a woman? So I gave my canned response, “Nothing,” followed my unconscious lie, “I’ll call you later,” which meant nothing to me before or after I’d said it.

Money couldn’t buy experience. Earning a degree didn’t educate women about sex. Either a woman had it—knowledge about her body—or she didn’t. Ooh, Velvet could teach classes on how to suck a dick the right way.

Benito stood in the middle of the floor, bobbing his head. What was fucking wrong with him? Was he retarded or something? I wanted to see how long he would stand there before opening his mouth or, if I was lucky, leaving.

Honey knew all of her spots and all of mine, too. She was perfect, or so I’d thought. What I knew for sure was I needed someone to share my life with and somebody who loved me for me. I still wanted Honey. I picked up my iPhone, hoping I’d missed a voice-mail message or a text. Nothing.

Honey was the last person I thought about at night and the first person I thought about in the morning, but I was afraid of learning the truth about her. Or perhaps I was afraid of learning the truth about myself. What really attracted me to her? Either way I’d rather hold on to the best memories of my life and let her go than take her back and have regrets for doing what I knew I shouldn’t have done. Honey was a former prostitute and madam, but I had to prove to my parents that my brother was lying about her being a murderer.

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I said, “Benito, seriously, you’ve got to go. Now. I have a client arriving shortly.”

Trevor had delayed our meeting by a day. He wanted me to go forty-nine to his fifty-one on purchasing land instead of fifty-fifty as originally agreed. And he wanted to add in designing the layout and constructing the improvements for an upscale gentlemen’s club in order to get a jumpstart on professional basketball player Darius Jones-Williams, who was reportedly getting ready to open up several multilevel mega strip clubs, which would put Trevor’s and all the other Atlanta strip joints out of business in less than a year.

Against my dad’s recommendation, today I was partnering with Trevor in his strip club, Stilettos, and our developments already under construction. I could hold off on partnering to develop a new strip club. Maybe we could consult with Honey on finding the hottest female exotic dancers. That would give me a reason to call her.

“Your client can wait, man. I’m your brother. I’m homeless. I’ve got no place to go,” Benito confessed. “I have no money. Dad said I couldn’t stay at the house, ’cause Mom is afraid of me. Like I’d ever do anything to hurt her. You can at least let me stay in one of your apartments in Georgetown until I get on my feet. I promise to pay you back every penny with interest.”

I chuckled, then said, “I see you and Honey have something in common. Deceiving people. No can do. Like Dad told you, call your baby mama. I’m sure she’ll be happy to have you spend time with your son. Considering that you’ve screwed everybody who’s tried to help you, this is a perfect time to do right by her and your son.”

“I don’t owe that bitch nothing! She turned her back on me.”

“Yeah, by taking care of your son by herself. I get your point,” I said, shaking my head. “Look, seriously, my client is here from Atlanta to meet with me. I won’t waste his time or mine trying to solve your plethora of problems.”

The sight of Benito’s unshaved face and his stained jeans, and his stench, hit me all at once, making my stomach churn. How could a black man who was abandoned by his birth parents be so ungrateful all of his life?

My mother adopted him while she was a single parent, then struggled to take care of him until she married my father. My parents had given him every luxury they’d afforded me, including a house, after he graduated from high school, which he’d immediately sold. Then he’d pissed off the money trying to impress his college teammates.

Did Benito think he won four college-football championships on his own? He should’ve been grateful, but, no, he was never satisfied, and what disgusted me the most was nothing was ever his damn fault. Nothing anyone did for him was ever enough. He’d earned millions playing professional football, and what did he have to show for it? Not a damn thing.

Looking at Honey’s picture on my credenza, I said, “Get out.”

“Forget that bitch. She’s a ho, man. And she stole my money. Okay. I’ll leave, but you’re the only one who can help me get my money from her ass. Help me, and I promise I’ll never ask you for anything else. I swear.”

Benito was pathetic scum. Whatever Honey took from him, I was sure she deserved and then some. “You’ve got ten minutes to say what’s on your mind,” I said, sitting on the corner of my desk, hoping to hear something redeemable about Honey.

His ass descended toward the seat of my camel-colored leather chair. “Oh, hell no,” I said. “Don’t get comfortable. Keep standing up, look me in my eyes, and tell me what you have to say about Honey. I’ve terminated my relationship and all communication with her, so don’t infringe upon my time by trying to convince me to contact her on your behalf.”

I checked my phone again. Still no messages from Honey.

“Man,” Benito exhaled, scratching his ear like a monkey. “So much shit happened over the three years I lived with her, I don’t know where to start.”

I couldn’t believe she had let this bum leech off of her for three years. I’d thought she was smarter than that. Thank God this ignorant idiot wasn’t my biological brother, or I’d have to petition him for a DNA test. Standing tall, I said, “Then leave and call me when you get your lies together.”

Benito’s lips tightened. “Man, I’m not lying. Okay. Here’s the truth. Lace worked for my boy Valentino James. Valentino is in jail because Lace let him take the rap for killing one of her bitches. She did it. Now I can’t go back to Las Vegas to bail him out and prove he’s innocent, ’cause I don’t have any money. That and that undercover bitch police officer Sapphire Bleu told me, if I ever stepped foot in the state of Nevada, she’d personally arrest me. I ain’t letting another woman stick a gun in my ass the way Honey did after she tied me up. Forget that.” Benito swiped the back of his hand across his sweaty forehead. He frantically shook his head, and his sweat landed on my face as he said, “Whatever you do, man, don’t ever let Honey tie you up.”