Sex in the Hood Saga (44 page)

Knight stood beside The Queen, studying how the clear safety glasses made her eyes look extra big and beautiful. With her hair pulled back in a ponytail, and the orange plugs in her ears, she focused straight ahead, over the tiny view finder above the barrel.

All his chest crushing anxiety about Manifest Destiny had dissolved the moment they had stepped down into this gun range in the basement of Babylon HQ; they had an arsenal that could arm a small country. But right now he had to make sure that The Queen's target practice, twice a month, was preparing her to fight to the death if necessary. Her self-defense classes with Lee Lee were doing the same, as she'd proven with that punk, Brian, after their Moreno meeting.

Knight was making plans to take care of Brian and Moreno, too. They'd be out of the way for Babylon to thrive under Jamal's reign, as Knight and The Queen would flee their urban underworld and live in the sunshine in peace forever.

Just in case all hell broke loose on their wedding night; a power coup, a robbery, a siege, he had to make sure The Queen could handle herself and get out alive.

Knight's thoughts popped as quickly and as intensely as the gunfire of two dozen B'Amazons and Barriors who were doing target practice in adjacent lanes.

“No emotion,” Knight said close to her ear. “Kill or be killed.”

The Queen's diamond engagement ring glistened as she gripped the pistol with both hands. She aimed at the man-sized target.
Pow!

The bullet blasted into the red bull's-eye on the man's chest.

The Barriors and B'Amazons around them stopped to admire The Queen's sharp shooter skills.

“You doin' it, baby girl!” Knight exclaimed.

Pow!
Another bullet pierced the heart zone on the target. “Baby girl!” Knight said with awe. “You shoot better than some of the B'Amazons.”

“'Cause I'm The Queen,” she said without taking her eyes off the target or lowering the gun. “I dare a muthafucka.” She turned to look into Knight's eyes.

The potency in her stare was so powerful, Knight shivered. It was like looking in the mirror, on his best days, when he felt like the African god that he was, ruling over his kingdom and making his minions quake in their boots with a glance.

The Queen smiled.

She knows what you're thinking,
Intuition said.
You're the perfect power couple. Gotta be careful, though.

There was a glint in The Queen's eyes.

“Your cry for help is
‘Isis! Osiris!'
You yell that out if anything happens while you're in The Penthouse, the wedding suite, or anywhere else. Shout it over and over until the Barriors and B'Amazons get there.”

The Queen stared back with a suspicious glint.

“We're monitoring every sound and every movement in The Playhouse and HQ. So know that somebody will be there. Until they arrive, though, you can handle it. Stay armed at all times. Does your holster fit okay?”

“It's fine.”

“Good. Stay armed at all times, even if you're with security. Even if you think you're in a place that's completely safe.”

“Even with you?” she said with a flat tone, staring hard. She put the gun on safety and slipped it into the brown leather holster belt around the waist of her low-cut jeans. “You won't go to the fuckin' doctor, you could fall out any minute. An' I'm just standin' there like a sorry bitch outta muthafuckin' luck.”

The anger in her voice made Knight's cheeks burn as if he'd been slapped. He took a deep breath.

“Baby girl—”

“Naw, don't ‘baby girl' me right now.” She jerked her neck. “I'm a grown-ass woman who's worried about her man who supposed to keep my ass safe, but the way you—”

Knight grasped her arm. Nobody needed to see anything other than complete harmony among them. He pulled her into the small office where men and women had to scan their ID cards to gain entry and check out extra weapons if necessary. Then he guided her with a tight grip on her arm, through a small door to the gun room. Knight closed the door behind them, staring hard at The Queen as she stood framed by a row of rifles. “Never show a public display of anger like that again. This a dangerous time at Babylon. We can trust no one. Because they will divide and conquer if we show even the slightest crack in the veneer.”

The Queen rolled her eyes. “You actin' way too paranoid lately. Like you ain't bein' straight wit' me about what's really 'bout to go down when we get married.”

Knight took another deep breath to force down any conscious thoughts about his plan.

She had heard something broadcast over their telepathic love connection. And it had tipped her off but she still had no real information.

“I see some scheme, Knight. An' I ain't diggin' it.”

Knight squinted slightly as he looked down at her. “Baby girl, you're acting real paranoid right now.”

She crossed her arms. “How the fuck else am I supposed to be acting when you walking around looking sick and worried like you expectin' some shit to go down? How the fuck you expect me to be acting right now Knight? You want me to act like an innocent little white girl? Like the way I was a year ago?”

“Baby girl, now you're going a little overboard. I'm just asking you to calm down. I know you worried about me, but you can't let them see you sweat. Hang in there 'til the wedding and then you won't have to put up such a front when we—” Knight stopped himself. He was about to say, “When we disappear,” but he stopped himself. Knight cleared his throat. “When we get through Game day,” Knight said softly and reassuringly.

“You're right Knight,” she said through tight lips. “I guess all this stuff going on lately has me feeling weird.” Her eyes became shiny and silvery as they filled with tears. “I love you, Knight. I love the idea of spending the rest of my life here in Babylon beside you, runnin' things an' raising our family. I don't want anything to happen to you”—she paused—“or us.”

Knight's throat burned. He wanted to pull her into his arms, cover her with kisses and whisper that he would always protect her, make her smile, make her cum, and be the perfect mate. But he was frozen by guilt. It sliced through his gut like a giant knife.

Something flickered in her eyes. “I got this feeling with Duke too,” she said with a weak tone, as if she were about to vomit. “You betta tune your thoughts back to a better frequency where you ain't givin' off that vibe I just felt. I don't like it. An' I'll slip off your radar before I let you or anybody else play me. The Queen don't get played.”

Knight stepped close to her and rested his hands on her shoulders. “Everything I do is for us.” He lowered an open palm to the soft, warm swath of belly exposed by her low-cut jeans. The diamond in her belly button seemed to wink up at him. “For us and for Baby Prince.” Knight kissed her.

Their lips did not move. But the heat and the energy passing between them caused The Queen's tense shoulder to relax under his hand, and her belly quaked slightly. She gripped the crotch of his black jeans.

Shane surged to attention.

“Make love to me,” she whispered, grabbing the big silver belt buckle that said KNIGHT. She dropped to her knees, unfastened his belt, unzipped his pants, and pulled Shane out in front of her face.

He surged out like a black python.

The Queen had the power and concentration of a snake charmer in her eyes as she stared at his dick as if it held all the secrets to the meaning of life and love.

Knight almost smiled. He couldn't think of any situation in a relationship that didn't get resolved with some good dick therapy. Because sheer bliss glowed in The Queen's eyes as she parted her lips and stuck out her tongue to slide it under the giant black head and lure him into the hot chamber of her mouth.

Having her mouth on Shane twenty-four/seven was the remedy for his health crisis, because as soon as her steaming hot mouth closed around his cock, it sparked a chemical reaction in his body. The stress and worries that caused tight sensations in his muscles and made his mind reel, suddenly transformed into a warm swirl of liquid opium.

He threw his head back with his eyes closed and enjoyed the sensation of Shane sliding in and out of The Queen's warm, moist mouth.

Trina Michaels hurried into her office at the Global News TV Network in Washington, D.C. She was trembling with a nasty mix of emotions, ranging from fear to excitement and anticipation, to disappointment and rage.

I'm never gonna fuck again.
Sex never led to anything but trouble.

That was the whole reason she had married her first husband. And her second husband. And that jerk she left at the altar last year, when she realized that sex was her only motive for wanting to tie the knot with him too.

Otherwise, she didn't give half a shit about those cavemen. Cavemen who had gone to the best schools and came from the best, most bourgeoisie families on the East Coast, but cavemen, nonetheless. They all were. Just big apes playing with the bananas between their legs, hoping to hump it into any and every female they encountered while swinging from tree to tree.

“So why does sex make me so stupid too?” she asked aloud as she set down her suitcase and perched on the chair at her desk. “Why do I think that in order to feel clean and respectable, I have to marry the dick of the day?”

And how come, the first time she decides to indulge her curiosity for sex with women, she gets mixed up with some inner city bandits who try to blackmail her by videotaping the female sexcapades? When in her thirty-five years on this planet did Trina Michaels ever have sex that didn't end up a mess?

That abortion just before the senior prom, so she could go to college; Chlamydia after pulling a train at that frat party during her sophomore year at Georgetown University; the rumors and lies that the married anchor spread about her at the first TV station where she worked, in that dusty little hick town in Kentucky; the catfight in the newsroom at her next station, in Atlanta, when she and another female reporter had gone to blows over the hottest guy in TV news at the time.

“Talk about drama,” Trina said out loud as she logged on to the blue screen of her computer.

This last situation clearly took the cake over everything else. Even that white network TV headhunter who promised an extra $25,000 in her contract if she fucked him after the interview. When she negotiated it to $35,000, she thought of it as a signing bonus, which helped her get a luxury sports car that projected the appropriately glamorous image for a serious TV reporter in the nation's capitol.

So there was no way that anybody especially that “thug” and “thugette” in Detroit, was going to stop her now. Nope, onward and upward. Alone and without sex.

“Those niggers in Detroit think they got somethin' on me, but I'm gonna do a report that blows them outta the water.”

Yes, when The Queen and her caveman, The Knight, first threatened her, Trina felt scared for her safety, her career, and her reputation. But as she fumed on the plane ride back to D.C., she realized, in this day and age of technology and computer manipulation of video, nobody could ever prove that was GNN's Trina Michaels on that nasty tape. Plus, she did so many negative reports about vile people, and the court cases they generated, dozens, if not hundreds, of people in America would've loved nothing better than to destroy her so she could say it was just someone making stuff up to get revenge on her.

Trina wasn't stupid. She'd grown up with street hoods just like that on the South Side of Chicago, always hustling to make a dollar. No matter what toll it took on someone's body, mind or soul.

A pimp and a ho were a pimp and a ho, no matter how classy, sophisticated, or beautiful their whole spiel appeared to be. They were breaking the law. And they would have to stop. Soon. And she wasn't buying that sob story 'bout growing up in the hood and not having any opportunities.
Stupid idiots.
Her parents were both honest, hard-working people, who taught her the right values. Mother worked downtown as a seamstress at a clothing boutique, and Father had a good job in the U.S. Post Office. Her brother was a lawyer, thanks to Harvard, and her sister was a stay-at-home mom, married to a stockbroker.

Yep, the Michaels family was as American as apple pie. Whereas The Queen and The Knight represented the dark, rotting core that threatened to bring this great country down through moral corruption and blatant disregard for the law.

But not if Trina could stop them first.

“Now, where is that picture?” Trina said out loud as she typed the name Victoria Winston into the GNN video archives.

No, Trina had busted her ass to get where she was. And she wasn't going to allow it to be ruined by that horny mulatto bitch living some ghetto girl dream. Or nightmare, depending on who was talking. And that Knight guy.
Whew! What a piece of work!

Trina hated the way he just sat there silently like the king, as if everybody should read his thoughts and act accordingly, or else.

Men. The male ego knew no bounds as far as being selfish and self-centered. He should be ashamed of himself, too. Hiding that girl from the authorities.

Trina shivered under her dark brown pantsuit. Her nipples poked through her lace bra and pushed into her white satin blouse.

Babylon, schmabylon.
Blackmail or not though, that was undoubtedly the best sex she'd ever had.