Sex in the Hood Saga (13 page)

Beamer's whole body shook as he sped down the Lodge Freeway after leaving Milan's hotel room. He had to get back to Babylon with a good excuse for why he didn't answer his phone when Duke called twice. Doing that once was enough to get jacked. But twice?

If Milan still was Duke's girl. She wasn't officially, because Duke was probably on Lily White right now, getting her hooked on his power and his dick. But with Duke being so super-mack, the unstated rule was “once his lady, always his lady.” This made her off limits for anybody else to take a taste. Or a fuck. Or scheme an overthrow.

“What I'ma do?” Beamer cried into the loud beat of Tupac inside the black Hummer. It was Babylon's Hummer, of course. Beamer wouldn't have shit if Duke hadn't given him life two years ago.

“I mus' have a death wish. Nineteen years old, plottin' my own murder.”

He'd been writing out the instructions with his own nut. Why hadn't he known Milan couldn't be trusted, that trying to work with her was like trusting Judas? Impossible. He was thinking with his dick that was why. What could he do now? He could tell Milan that he wanted out, but she would bust on him, no joke. If he tried to tell Duke it was a set-up, boss man would ask why he was in a hotel room with her in the first place. He could confess to Duke what happened. Beamer let that conversation play out in his head, but he felt like he had an audience: all the ghosts of too many other dead motherfuckers who also jacked up their own lives and got themselves killed. They were proof that nobody could fuck around on Duke and get away with it.

Hell naw, I ain't goin' out like that. Especially over some ma'fuckin pussy.
Beamer slammed his foot down on the accelerator. He had to get back to Babylon and fast.

No, I can't faint.
Victoria focused hard on the garbage heaps, rusting cars, and abandoned houses on Babylon Street. The surrealness of it, like the set of one of those futuristic movies about a city destroyed by war, made it harder to hold onto her consciousness.

She felt like she was about to faint, like that time last year when Brian told her she had a fat ass and she didn't eat for nearly a week. Right now, she felt the same as she did back then, when an ear-ringing blackness rumbled into her brain. She closed her eyes and slept until her sister Melanie shook her awake, forced her to drink orange juice and eat a good meal.

“Duke,” she said. Her voice sounded like it was at the end of a tunnel, echoing back at her.

“Baby girl, you white as snow right now. I'ma take you in, let you sleep.”

She shook her head. Panic was transforming her insides into a live electrical wire, buzzing and sparking and jolting her senses. “Check this out,” he said, pulling up to a ten-story warehouse building with big wooden double doors, sandblasted brick and new paned windows. The sidewalk was clear of the broken glass that glittered everywhere else.

“When I was growin' up right there”—Duke pointed to a neat Cape Cod-style house next door—“this buildin' was abandoned. All the windows was broken out.” He was talking fast. Somehow Victoria knew he was trying to keep her conscious.

“Crackheads used to smoke up in here, an' a girl got raped while she was walkin' to school. Man, I was 'bout to kill a nigga when that shit happened.”

Victoria strained to hear him over the constant scream of sirens, the bass beat of rap music, loud voices, and old cars rumbling past. The noise, at least, was helping to push back that dark cloud in her head that was trying to knock her out.

Duke turned toward the building on their right. “So I built my own Trump Tower. Me, Prince, an' Knight was visitin' some associates on the East Coast. Soon as we seen that shit on Fifth Ave, took my vision to another level.”

The empty lot next door and the boarded up, graffitti covered house beside that made Victoria want to ask why he'd build a palace in the ghetto. But she didn't have the energy.

“This home base, baby. I'm a leader. E'rybody 'round here look up to Duke and the Johnson brothers. Right now, though, I'm solo, rulin' like a king.”

The deep drone of a military style chant made Victoria glance to the right. Her mouth dropped open.

Jogging toward the car, up the almost dark street, was a column of shirtless men in black-white-gray camouflage pants and black combat boots. Their skin glistened with sweat over muscles rippling in a mosaic of colors: jet black, cinnamon, nutmeg, oatmeal, redwood, Cocoa, and cream as white as hers. Some were bald, some had huge, wild afros, others had tiny braids, loose and bouncing or curving against their heads.

There were dozens. Yeah, four columns of twelve. As they jogged past the car, each man let out a deep call to Duke that vibrated through Victoria's chest.

“Babylon!”

They accented the last syllable,
“Babylon!”
with a sort of upward swing on the end, like a call out with the greatest pride. The word was also tattooed in small scroll across each of their right pecks.

Victoria stared with wide eyes. If she had stepped out of her former life and into this spot without the past week's events, she would faint from fear. She still felt like she could. This was just part of her wild-and-getting-wilder Alice in Ghettoland experience.

It looked like an NFL team was coming at her, and it was making Celeste absolutely roar.

At the academy, there were two black guys on the football team, and Victoria's pussy would cream as she watched them run in those little tights. That's why she loved watching Lions games at Ford Field from the private suite Daddy's business paid for. All the clients and friends thought it was cute that Dan's daughter had such passion for the game of football. Little did they know that all her staring through the binoculars let her ogle those athletic asses, their curving hamstrings, and their super-strong quads as they ran and tackled.

Now, Victoria crossed her arms to hide the fact that she was panting so hard. Her chest was rising and falling as hard as it had when she kissed Duke.

“Baby girl, you safe. Chill. This my army. My Black Warriors. The women, they B'Amazons.” Duke was beaming as the men thundered past. As he nodded proudly, his diamond ring sparkled when his hand fell to his lap.

The cloud of testosterone exploding from Duke and all those men made Victoria melt into the bucket seat. All she could think about was sex, but not in a way that she'd ever experienced. The only frame of reference for sex she had were memories of Brian's erections. Movies with love scenes. Suddenly Victoria was overwhelmed with curiosity at what it would be like to do it with Duke, and all these men.

“Huu-uuut!” A deep female voice called.

Victoria turned around. More soldiers were coming.

Women! They were wearing fatigues, boots, and tank tops. Their heads were adorned with braids, ponytails, bald heads, and afros. Their skin represented every hue from pinky white to black satin, and it glistened with a super sexy sheen of sweat.

Their faces were so beautiful. One reminded Victoria of the black Barbie dolls her mother bought when she was five. Daddy had taken them away after Mommy died, just like he stopped bringing her to Gramma Green's house for visits with the black side of her family. Not because they were black, he said, but because this part of town was “treacherous and crime-infested” and “a bad influence.”

Now Victoria felt a burning pang of resentment that she'd been shielded from this part of her roots. Who, in her past privileged life, would believe this sight? It was surreal even as she stared through her own fatigued eyes.

She felt a jolt of sex energy as the women jogged past. It was impossible not to feel a prickle on her skin or a hardening sensation in her tingling nipples or a hot gush in her pussy, because those women were like Amazon goddesses. They radiated nothing but power, strength, confidence, and sex.

As the women, they ranged in age from about thirteen up to a woman with silver hair-jogged past, they charged the air with sex. They looked so powerful, confident, and strong. She watched the way their nipples were poking through tight tank tops. Each had BABYLON tattooed on chiseled biceps, triceps, and deltoids.

They followed the men through the field, around the back of Duke's building. He drove the other way, down an alley. A huge door opened. A futuristic, neon blue light glowed from the opening as Duke wheeled inside.

The enormous garage could hold a football field. The three-story-high ceiling was a silver network of exposed pipes and whirring fans. Brick walls displayed airbrushed murals of ghetto fabulous city scenes in vivid cobalt blue, magenta, and bright yellow. A giant sign, made from neon blue block letters, said
BABYLON
across the left wall.

It shined on the silver floor, which was made of metal tire tread. It seemed to stretch forever as Duke drove past rows and rows of black Navigators, Hummers, and Escalades. A yellow H2, a cobalt blue Corvette and a baby blue Bentley were also on display. To the right was a set-up worthy of an authentic rock or rap concert hall: a grand, black stage with enormous speakers. The far corner looked like a nightclub with a long bar and sleek silver stools. Behind that, a mirrored wall held endless glass shelves of liquors.

Victoria looked up and back as the garage door closed. Near it, a spiral staircase, also made of that silver tire-tread metal, led up to a balcony furnished with cobalt blue plush couches and silver tables. A glass elevator connected the garage floor to the balcony and upper floors.

All those male and female soldiers were inside now, their chants echoing through the cavernous garage. They were filing up an industrial-looking staircase that led somewhere beyond the elevator. Motors revved, drowning out their chants. Lights glowed on four Navigators. The vehicles filed out.

Victoria felt dizzy. Awed. What the hell kind of operation was this? Was this legal? What were all these people doing here? And what in the world did Duke want
her
to do here?

“Duke,” she said, turning to him. “What—”

A blue light flashed through his white linen shirt. Duke stopped the car in the center of the garage. He raised the bottom of his shirt, reaching for one of two phones clipped to his waistband.

Oh my God
.

His stomach was exposed for a second—a flat, hairless expanse of skin as smooth, beautiful and soft looking as his bald head and gorgeous face. His belly button was perfectly round and taut. Without thinking about it, she licked her lips as if she were tracing his “innie” with her tongue.

Victoria shifted, making the fabric of her baby blue velour pants rub her pussy. Celeste and her hungry imagination had already made a puddle in these fresh panties.

“Mass' Duke,” a male voice echoed through the garage.

Did he say Master Duke?
Victoria squinted, as if that would help her hear better.

It was that guy in the Pistons jersey, the chubby one with the little braids and the BMW necklace. The guy who'd been with Duke when she arrived at Gramma Green's, and when he picked her up, the one who helped kill the dog.

The guy's pudgy fingers wrapped about the edge of Duke's door, but he did not look up from his phones. Instead, Duke pressed a button on the center console. The window raised.

Beamer moved his hands.

“Yo,” Duke said deeply into the tiny silver square. “It's three-six-one down.”

He squinted toward the speedometer. She heard a male voice so deep it reminded her of that rapper Tone Loc, one of Brian's favorites. His voice was so bass it felt like it could rumble through her body and alter her heartbeat. It was the same feeling as when she would stand too close to a giant speaker during a concert. The vibration upset the body's rhythm. Now that voice on the phone was so deep, Victoria could not decipher any words.

“Ain't it.” Duke flexed his jaw. Over the past few hours, she had noticed that when he seemed irritated or lost in his thoughts, the little muscles under the smooth skin on his jaw rippled, as if he were grinding his teeth. But something was different. Duke's super-cool expression had suddenly transformed into that same look he'd had at his mother's house.

Fear. Subservience. Nervousness.

Who in the world was on the phone? It was a man, for sure. Was Duke in danger? Was it the person or the subject matter of the conversation that was making Duke like that? Or was he just annoyed that Beamer was standing on the other side of the car window, looking even more scared?

“Yeah,” Duke groaned. “Straight up.” He tossed his head back and let out a hearty laugh that echoed through the garage, and returned Duke's usual machismo to his face and eyes.

“Like beamin' up some shit!” Duke said the last word with a high pitch so playful it made Victoria smile, even though she had no clue what he was saying.

Duke hung up, clipped the phone to his waist, and kept his shirt pulled up longer this time. Victoria's mouth watered. She could not look away from that incredible skin on Duke's bare stomach. If she could just plant her lips there for a few seconds and taste . . . suck . . . lick . . . She leaned forward. Her mind felt foggy with fatigue, curiosity about this place, and raw lust. She imagined her body twisted up with his, their skin hot, their sweat gluing them together, their complexions contrasting in a way that would be breathtakingly sexy and dangerous in ways Victoria didn't even know. Her pussy was gushing. She kept bending forward, and re-tied her shoes.

“Baby girl,” Duke said, “you remember Beamer from earlier.”

“B, this Victoria Winston.”

“Hi,” Victoria said. “Are you named after a car?”

“Naw, I'm jus' goofy,” he said. Why was his voice higher than earlier? Why was he so nervous? The way he kept looking back and forth between her and Duke, it was like he was waiting for someone to scold him and tell him he'd been a bad boy. But he kept talking as if everything were fine.

“As a kid I was always clownin', crackin' jokes an' carryin' on. My auntie said I beam like the sun, so she nickname me that. “Beamer, no joke. Then cats got hype to the luxury ride.” He tapped the BMW medallion that dangled at the point where his belly bulged outward. “It's natural, you know?”

“You a crazy ma'fucka,” Duke said playfully, but in a split second his tone got deeper and threatening.

“Why the fuck ain't you called me all night?” Duke glared up at Beamer, who quaked so hard his braids shifted on his thick shoulders.

“Dude, I got sick. All that chocolate I ate—”

“I don't care if you laid up in the ma'fuckin' morgue. You betta write a note on yo' toe tag, tellin' somebody to call The Duke an' tell 'im where Beamer at.”

The hair on the back of Victoria's neck stood up and her nipples got rock-hard. The toughness, the machismo in Duke's voice made Celeste squirm so wildly, Victoria squeezed her pussy muscles to make her favorite milking motion, like the whole length of her vagina squeezed from top to bottom, making the milky cream squirt down onto the swollen, slippery lips as they massaged her clit.