Hold Me in Contempt (19 page)

He moved my feet apart and grabbed me by the back of my neck, pushing his fingers into my hair.

“You're fucking beautiful,” he said to my image.

I looked down at my breasts in the mirror. His free hand played with one of my nipples, and in between his white fingers my chocolate skin was brilliant.

“You see?” he asked again, sliding a condom from the counter beside us.

“Yes!” I answered through moans, taking everything in.

King slid his dick into me like I was the only woman he'd ever enter again. His eyes were on me in the mirror with the most sincere intention of pleasure.

We didn't have to say another thing about what we were doing, because seeing him looking at me on the outside as he pulsated on the inside, I knew this was something to him. He was making love to fucking me.

Once it was clear that I knew that, King left me alone with my image in the mirror. He moved his eyes off the mirror and started beating into me, giving me exactly what I'd asked for: a feeling.

“King!” I cried.

“Queen!” he answered, thrusting me so close to the mirror I could see my panting in a cloud. “Queen! Queen!”

Chapter 8

A
t 8:15 a.m. I was usually headed into the district attorney's office, but after my night with King in the Clocktower Building, I found myself standing on Park Avenue outside Wilhelmina New York cloaked in yesterday's clothes with wrinkles of last night's gossip.

I knew Tamika would still be mad at me for leaving her hanging the day before, but I just could not hold my news in until she decided to calm down. On one hand, I could count the number of times I'd had sex with a man that quickly—and that included King. I felt a euphoria that sent butterfly wings fluttering in my gut every time I thought of King's fingers grabbing the roots of my hair as he held my head in place over the bathroom sink. At every second, my thoughts took me back to his long stroke, pulling his penis all the way out of me and then pressing forward until my ass stopped him; he'd called out “Queen” so many times, I looked in the mirror and considered that maybe it was my name.

Tamika walked into the building with one of her male coworkers who usually rode the train into Manhattan with her from Brooklyn. She was wearing low black Chuck Taylors but had heels tucked into a small reusable grocery bag on her arm.

I was sitting on a bench beside security sipping a latte I'd purchased from a food truck.

“Oh hell no, Stan,” Tamika started with the security guard after noticing me sitting beside his desk, “you know we have tight security here. Can't let strays in Wilhelmina.” She rolled her eyes at me and took a sip of her coffee.

Stan knew me from my many visits to the office, so he laughed at Tamika's show, but she, predictably, kept up her matinee performance.

“I get so tired of the fakes. The wannabes. The liars and duplicitous individuals. Lock them all up, I say. Throw away the key,” Tamika declared so dramatically, her coworker laughed and excused himself to go upstairs. “No need to leave me. There is nothing down here for me.”

I stood and walked over to Tamika, who was standing in the middle of the lobby like she was Cleopatra or Queen Nefertiti and I was about to bow to her.

“Humpf,” she murmured to my face. “Looks like the chickenheads have come home to roast.”

“Malcolm X quotes at eight a.m.?” I joked. “And that's
chickens
have come home to
roost
.”

“Actually that was
Tamika
—because I'm about to
roast
a
chickenhead
,” she added, but even though she was extending the humor, she had a sour face and I knew she was cool on me. Other workers, hardly awake and looking more like the extras from
The Walking Dead
than a healthy workforce, trickled in through the sliding doors, and we had to step to the side with our standoff.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

“For what?” she asked.

“For letting you down by not picking Miles up from fencing.”

“No. You let your
godson
down,” she said.

“Okay. I did that.”

“And you let
yourself
down.”

“Okay. I did that, too,” I said.

“And you let
Malcolm X
down!”

“Him too.”

“And
Spike Lee and Denzel
.”

To that, I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Them too.”

“Now, say it,” Tamika demanded, looking off.

“I am not saying all of that,” I said.

“Humpf.” Tamika looked at me. “Guess we're done here.” She stalked off in her sneakers and headed for the elevator.

“Mika, wait!” I followed her. “I have hot gossip.”

“Tell someone who cares,” she snapped.

“No, really. It's good.” As she was about to join a crowd of sluggish coworkers on the elevator, I got close up on her ear and added in a low voice, “I slept with the white cutie from the bar.”

She froze and then her entire disposition changed. “I'll see y'all upstairs,” she said to the person holding the door open for her. “Go on. Get! Skedaddle!” she ordered the elevator door as it slowly closed on the widening eyes inside.

She turned and looked at me with electrified eyes, and we screeched liked groupies, pulling each other out the front door to gossip in private.

“Oh, my God! I can't breathe,” Tamika said. “This is crazy. I can't believe you fucked him! Damn, he was fine! Damn! Whoa. You're such a slut!” She hugged me like I'd just won a trophy, then backed up and looked into my eyes. “I'm proud of you though,” she said in pretend sincerity. “Sometimes being a slut wins. And I can tell by looking at you that you won last night. Yes, Gawd! Yes!” She laughed and looked me up and down. “Was it good?”

“It was, girl! It was,” I confirmed.

“Okay! I need all of the details. Every little bit.” She bit her lip like she was about to tear into a bag of Funyuns. “And wait, just know this does not excuse your behavior yesterday. I am still not your friend. But we both know that juicy gossip overrides anything any day! Now, spill the pork and beans!”

Telling the story of my night with King was like reliving it, like leaving that morning outside Wilhelmina and returning to the Clocktower. Back to me heaving over the sink and thinking King had cum, but then feeling him pick me up and carry me into the bedroom with a hard dick pressed into my back. Him whispering, “I'm not done yet.” Him making me feel like everything sexual was new in his bed. I was lost, disoriented, found, and perfectly in place all at the same time.

“I must meet this man who did you right,” Tamika said in her fake noble English accent, and we laughed. “So, after all of that, what the hell are you doing here . . .  ​like, with me?” she added, fanning herself.

“I did the old ‘I'm cool and I have to go' routine. You know, didn't want to seem too thirsty,” I informed her. I'd hardly slept in King's bed. I lay there watching the moonlight dancing on the ceiling and thinking about how crazy I was for being there with King, but still not regretting it.

“Well, there's also the fact that you had to go to work,” Tamika blurted out. “Wait, why aren't you at work?” She looked confused.

“Just a few days off. Vacation,” I explained. I hadn't even considered what I'd say once people realized I wasn't going to work each day. “You know I won that big case last week. Figured I'd take some time myself. Relax.”

“You ain't never relax before,” Tamika said. “Shit, you've had a straight pole up your ass since forever. Got to get some drinks in you to calm your tight ass down half the time.”

“Well, all of that is behind me now. I'm turning over a new leaf. Good times ahead!”

“Really?” She stepped back and looked at me with a grin. “I guess Mr. King is the new boo-thang?”

“Girl, are you kidding? No way. There's no possibility of us getting together. He's all Brooklyn, and you know I'm Harlem world,” I joked.

“Just get your feet wet for once. Enjoy yourself. You deserve it. Plus, I hear Monique's been hanging out with that guy she met there—I think his name is Vonn or something. Isn't that your guy's dude? Y'all can, like, go on a ghetto double date. Go see a movie at Kings Plaza. Make them buy y'all some high-top Reeboks and shit like we used to do back in the old days.”

“Yeah, they know each other,” I said, laughing, “but I don't think King's the make-out-at-Canarsie Pier type. He seems a little classier than that.”

“Classy?” Tamika chuckled. “And hanging out at Damaged Goods?
No comprende!”

“I know, but there was over one million dollars in art in his condo,” I said. “His sheets—they were Frette! Fucking Frette!”

“Well, then something doesn't add up,” she whispered, looking devious and crossing her arms.

“Well, I think he owns the club. I mean, he didn't say it, but it was evident by how people were treating him.”

“Humph.” Tamika pursed her lips shadily. “I'm sure there's gold in the club, but that's not Clocktower money, honey. He'd have to own, like, half the clubs in Brooklyn to be up in there. And Manhattan, too. You know that. We both read the
Times
Real Estate.”

“Look, Mik, King is cool. But, like I said, that was a one-time thing. Who cares about how he got up in the Clocktower? I was in, now I'm out.” I jumped over an imaginary line on the ground. “I'll never see him again.”

“Right. Right. Famous last words.”

After Tamika and I said good-bye, she walked into the building, leaving me on the sidewalk. Two svelte women who were obviously models walked past me in oversized clothing that exaggerated their frail frames. Still, there was something so sexy or mesmerizing about them. Even on a gray New York City street corner with hundreds of blank-faced people whizzing by in the morning rush, they were special. Something to look at and admire and seek out. People seemed happy at the chance to lay eyes on these images of perfection, of what women should want to be, but in a cruel twist of irony, never could. I remembered how I'd felt walking the streets with Kim 2. How men would stop walking and rush over to talk to her. They could hardly say anything substantial. They'd babble like idiots and beg for her telephone number like circus monkeys begging for bananas or peanuts. It didn't matter what she was wearing or how she behaved. She could look homeless and gaunt, like, near death, and act like a raving bitch, and still these men would grovel to get her to smile at them. Handsome men. Rich men. Famous men. They'd call the apartment all through the night. Just to have her say she'd go out with them, they'd send Luxor roses from Banchet and No¯KA chocolates and boxes of La Petite Coquette lingerie and airline tickets to wherever.

One of the models must've seen my stare. She rolled her eyes and nudged the other woman before they walked into the building.

Kim 2's time at Wilhelmina took a turn when she gained three pounds. It was nothing—that's what I'd told her as she lay on the living room floor crying about what I felt ridiculous for calling a “fluctuation.” She said I didn't understand—those three pounds, and her inability to lose them, were a demarcation in her existence, an indication of the beginning of the end. I wanted to laugh. But I didn't. I actually felt bad for her. That she thought three pounds could mean anything. In the end, she was right though. The agency stopped booking her for shows. The reason: She looked “different” in the clothes; they couldn't send her out if she couldn't exactly fit the items designers provided on the rack; and one designer asked that the agency stop sending him “Puerto Ricans,” saying the last one they'd sent (Kim 2—who isn't Puerto Rican) had a big ass and he couldn't send that down the runway. This made Kim 2 cry and made me feel horrible for her. I decided to try to cheer her up by having Ronald hook her up with one of his decent friends. While she always had men trying to get at her, most of them were trifling or crazy. I thought maybe a romantic distraction could get her on track again.

The day Ronald was supposed to hook up Kim 2 on a double date with his coworker Alonzo, a Cuban attorney who not only looked like a model but had a brilliant mind, I was held up at the office and Alonzo was stuck at an airport in Miami. Kim 2 and Ronald ended up at the restaurant alone.

She texted me a picture of them waving from the bar at Ginny's Supper Club in the basement of the Red Rooster. She captioned it, “borrowing your boo for the evening.” Hope you don't mind. Thanks for looking out for me, bestie.

It took me a long time to look back at that moment without quick tears. Other times, I wondered if her joking or their play with each other, sneaking into each other's lives in front of my face, was just suspicion on my part. But for some reason, when I read that text, I just knew something was starting. That was the beginning. I sat at my desk in my office surrounded by papers I needed to organize by sunup, thinking about my perfect-model best friend cozying up to my boyfriend in the snuggly, twenties-inspired décor at Ginny's. Men walking by and seeing Ronald with Kim 2 and thinking how lucky he was to have her. Ronald feeling that and leaning in . . .  ​definitely leaning in. Loving it.