Chapter Thirty-Eight
Alizé
T
he last place I want to be is Braun, Weber. My ass is tired from having to jet out to the Hamptons and pick Cristal's wannabe bougie ass up from some corner. Seem like she caught another glimpse of the lifestyles of the rich and famous that sent her scurrying her ass back to the real world with a quickness. Drugs, ménages à trois, and an aging lesbian was more than she could handle. Thank God. For real I thought that girl was tripping so hard on being something that she ain't that she might just give Carolyn a good pussy licking. For real.
So, after listening to
that
crazy shit all night, I go home early this morning to get clothes only to find that my mama's tenderoni spent the night. I'm headed in the bathroom for a shower and they were headed out after doing only God knows what in there. Of course, I had to scrub the tub with bleach before I could take a shower. I'm saying.
And now I might have to run into Cameron after he admits that he loves me Friday but then goes home with his wife.
I drop my pen and rub my hands through my hair as I lean back in my chair in my little cubicle. My cell phone vibrates and I lean forward to pick it up from my desk. I roll my eyes at Dr. Locke's number.
Okay. I went running to Dr. Locke Friday night . . . and Saturday afternoon for a fuckfest to get my mind off my drama. By Saturday night I realized that riding and sucking and jacking and draining a big hard dick didn't stop my heart from hurting. Plus, that fool asked me to pour hot candle wax on his nipples while I ride him. What the fuck?
I send the call to my voice mail and drop the phone back onto my desk. Dr. Locke is a freak and he needs to get his ass on somebody's couch and find out why he get a kick out of being slapped and all kind of shit during sex. His ass is one therapist who needs therapy. For real.
I have that weird feeling that someone is watching me and I swivel around in my chair and my eyes fall on the elevator. Cameron is standing in the rear of the elevator with his eyes locked on me as people get off. I openly stare back at him just as the doors begin to close.
I jump up from my desk so suddenly that my chair rolls back and hits my desk. I get over to the elevator as quick as my Manolos can get me to it. I push the button like it stole something from me and the doors slowly go in reverse and open. Cameron looks up at me in nothing but surprise as I step on and stand in front of him on the empty elevator with my hands on my hips.
“Not now, Monica,” Cameron says, reaching past me to hit the button to open the doors.
I twist just enough to put my hand on his even as I look him in the eye. “Now,” I insist.
The doors close behind us.
“Serena is filing for divorce.”
I'm shocked and it shows.
He drops his head and wipes his eyes with his fingers. “She grilled me about you and me being in the elevator and what exactly is going on between us. It was ugly and I really don't want to talk about it right now, Monica.”
“You told her you loved me?” I ask him in this soft and husky voice that doesn't even sound like me.
He shifted his eyes away from mine and then shifted them back. “Yes.”
I hit the button to stop the elevator and step forward to press my hands against his face and my body against the length of his.
“What are you doing, Monica?” he asks in this voice that sounds tired and a little aggravated.
“Finishing what we started in this same elevator Friday.”
“No. I'm still married and if this gets out I can lose my job and you will get the reputation for being willing to sleep your way to theâ”
I press my lips against his as my heart pounds and the butterflies in my stomach flutter away. “I love you, Cameron,” I whisper to him in between soft kisses to his delicious mouth. I feel his heart beating just as crazy as mine and I know that he can't resist me. Us. This.
His hands grab my waist and I feel his briefcase against my ass as he jerks me closer while his tongue slowly enters my mouth to touch down on my own. We both moan deeply and release a shaky breath as our mouths part slightly. I look up into his eyes and he looks down into mine as we just stand there breathing in each other's essence. I have never felt such a connection with a man before. Oh, Cameron has me. He has me to do with as he pleases.
“I never wanted to hurt anyone but I love you. I love you so much,” he whispers against my mouth.
I feel such a rush of energy and emotions and edification.
This thing between Cameron and me is bigger than both of us.
In heated seconds our hands are unbuttoning, unzipping, pulling, and tugging until my black lace thongs are on the floor and my skirt is up above my waist. His boxers and trousers are down around his ankles.
We kiss each other deeply as he turns me and presses my back against the wall. I spread my knees wide as he guides my pussy down onto every thick and delicious inch of his dick. I break the kiss and gasp for air and control as I feel complete with him buried deep inside of me.
“Damn,” he swears as he presses his mouth to my neck.
We shiver together and hold each other tight as hell as he finally begins to shift his hips, pushing his dick in and out of me like we were the only people on our own damn planet. It feels like we are floating in air. Raw energy courses over our bodies and our souls shiver from the passion, the fire, the love that we share.
I arch my back and clutch him so tightly as my body spasms with each release of my cum. “Yes, Cameron. Oh God, yes,” I cry out as tears fill my eyes. He is making love to my body and my soul. He touches spots inside of me that no man has ever strokedâintimate parts of me that is beyond sex. He fulfills me. He completes me.
Sweet Jesus.
The tears course down my cheeks freely and as I feel his body stiffen and then shiver as his dick literally swells with each shot of delicious cum against my walls. And with each spasm against my ridged walls I cry out with no shame in my game. Our hearts both pound wild as hell.
I bring my hands up to caress his cheeks as he kisses my lips. Our eyes lock and I feel as if our souls have kissed too.
This connection between us is real. For the first time ever I know what making love is really all about.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Dom
M
e and Kimani are sittin' in the living room watching videos as I write in my journal when Alizé strolls her ass up in the apartment lookin' like she 'bout ready to do the fuckin' runnin' man or some shit.
Kimani looks over her shoulder from her spot on the floor. “Hi, Auntie Ze,” she calls out before turnin' back to the television.
“Hi, KiKi.” Alizé drops down onto the sofa already out of her intern clothes and dressed in an off-the-shoulder pink and gold Baby Phat shirt and a jean skirt. I used to think she wasn't no better than Moët with her split personality bullshit. She could be Monica the preppy student or Alizé the ghetto-fab chick whenever she got ready. Now I realize the suits, briefcase, and shit is just her image to get ahead. The real Ze is sittin' right in front of me poppin' gum and swingin' her crossed leg.
My eyes dart down to the long and pale scar on her thigh. I still feel like that pain Rah inflicted on her was all my fault. Sometimes I hate the person I used to be.
“Where's everybody?” she asks as she sends off a round of gum poppin' that sounds like fireworks on the fuckin' Fourth of July.
“Cristal is somewhere in the building lookin' for Mohammed and Mo said she's gonna be late gettin' off work.”
I don't miss the look of regret all up on her face. I don't think it's ever been just me and her since that day at the courthouse. I know she has some good news she wants to share but I'm not feelin' her hurtin' my damn feelings 'cause she don't trust my ass no more.
“My dadâ, my fatherâ, Willie and I are talkin' a lot lately. He wants me to meet the rest of his family,” I tell her, my attempt to bridge this fucked up gap between us.
Alizé kicks off her gold sandals and looks over at me before she nods in understandin'. “I hope everything is good for you, Dom. You deserve some good times in your life.”
That makes my ass smile on the inside. “So do you.”
She tilts her head to the side like a goddamn owl and her eyes squint at me before she licks her lips and says, “Cameron was sent to Japan at the last minute and he wants us to hold off until he gets back. He loves me and all that jazz but I am so afraid that him and his wife will get back together or he won't let us be together if I take the summer internship there. He says he'll call but I have no idea where all of this is going. So I guess we're together . . . but we're not.”
There is no denyin' that this bitch is in love. “If I can give you advice . . . you really should cut off Dr. Love.”
She looks surprised.
“I overheard you telling Moët about him.”
Alizé picks up her purse and looks down in it. I can tell her ass is tryin' to figure whether to be mad or not that I know her business even though she didn't want me to.
“After lookin' at how Cristal completely fucked up a good thing with Mr. Lover Lover, I just don't want another one of us to fuck up.”
Alizé pulls out her MAC lip-gloss as she looks over at me. “Well,
bitch
, since you all up in the mix any damn way. I already decided that Doc's supply of goodies have been shut down. After what me and Cameron shared today in that elevator another man is going to find it very hard to top it. Trust,” she says dreamily before she coats her lips with clear gloss.
“The elevator! You nasty bitch you,” I tell her.
“And you know that.” She winks at me and does this fake shiver that make my ass laugh.
And it feels so damn good to laugh, gossip, and just shoot the shit with my friend again.
I moan in pleasure as Corey presses a kiss to my lower back and then each of my butt cheeks. I wiggle it playfully for him and then giggle like a damn little girl when he bites down onto one ass cheek.
“I have a surprise for your sexy chocolate ass.”
I lean up and look down over my shoulder at him. “I don't do rim shots.”
He laughs and slaps my ass before he rolls out of bed. I turn over and the sheet drops while I watch that little sexy motherfucker strut over to the closet. He pulls out this big gift-wrapped box. “My birthday ain't for months,” I tell him as he walks over to the bed.
He don't say shit and just sits the box in front of me before he drops back down onto the bed.
I open the box like my ass is five and it's Christmas. I'm shocked as hell to see a laptop computer. I look up at him and this little motherfucker is smilin' and showin' all his teeth and shit. “Damn, you got me a computer?”
“It's from a pawn shop but it works real good and when you write that first book you better dedicate it to me.”
Okay, so this the shit. I always fucked with dudes that had mad cash flow. Dope dealers. Hood boys. Duffel bag boys. I have been taken on trips to the Caribbean, taken on shopping sprees most bitches would die for, I have enough ghetto gold jewelry to start my own store, and I've gotten wads of cash big enough to choke a fuckin' pit bull. I have been spoiled by these niggas.
As I rub my hands across the computer and open the lid I know that this is the best gift any motherfucker has ever given me.
See why I love this nigga for real?
Corey lays down on the bed and pulls my head over to rest on his chest. We don't fuck or nothing. We just lay there and hold each other and it's the best time we ever had in bed.
For real.
Chapter Forty
Moët
I
have a million things I could be doing. There are files on my desk to be completed. Cases to be investigated. Calling my attorney back. Checking on Cristal and making sure she doesn't have a mental meltdown. Calling my parents to check on Tiffany.
All of it has to wait. I couldn't move from beside this child's bedside even if it meant saving my own life.
Parents are supposed to do whatever, whenever for their child. We are the first line of defense against them being hurt, exploited, used, or abused. We are their protectors.
But what is a child supposed to do when it's their own parents doing the using and abusing?
Tears raced down my face as I look at the eight-year-old boy whose life has forever been changed because his mother is a no-good bitch who would pour hot grease down on him. He has third degree burns on sixty percent of his small frame. They don't know if he will make it through the night.
I know I am here in a profession but right now this is so personal for me. I am a social worker. I am a protector. I am a mother.
Any guilt I feel over fighting for my daughter always leaves me when I come face to face with situations like this. As a mother and a protector, I have done and will do anything for my child. God and everyone will just have to forgive me.
And I do feel guilty. I wanted to take the high road but Bones knocked the game into the gutter and to win I had to get down in the gutter with him.
I don't know how long I sat there or how many different prayers I sent up to the heavens. For this motherless child. For my child. For Bones. For myself.
Hours later, as I left the hospital, I finally checked my voice mail messages. The one from my attorney makes me hop in my car and speed home.
It's over. I thank the Lord for that.
I feel my entire body slump with relief as my attorney tells me via speakerphone that Bones has agreed to joint custody. Tears fill my eyes as everyone in the living room begins to clap.
Someone presses Tiffany into my arms and I hold her so tight and bury my face into her warm neck. “Thank you, Jesus,” I whisper against her cheeks as I cry with no shame.
“Don't cry, Mo,” one of the girls tells me as they hug Tiffany and me close. It's Alizé. I can tell from her perfume.
They're all here. Everyone that means something to me beat a fast trail to the apartment once I gave them the heads up that my attorney was meeting with Bone's attorney today. My parents. My sisters. Alizé. Dom. Cristal. Taquan. Even my godchild Kimani is waiting around with us for the news. And my baby girl, Tiffany.
Taquan bends down beside me. I feel his arm around my shoulders and his lips on my cheek. “We thank you Heavenly Father,” he says aloud.
“I would thank Him even more if she didn't have to share custody at all with a crackhead,” my father throws in for good measure. Like I haven't heard that enough.
I just hold my child because right now that's all that matters to me.
“That
is
something to think about, Mo,” Alizé adds. “I heard on the news that he might get dropped from Platinum Records.”
“Oh, the streets is talkin' 'bout him. Y'all really think he a gay sex freak who smoke crack?”
Everyone laughs at Dom's words but I shake my head to clear it of their conversation. Their gossip. Even my parents are putting in their two cents. I don't want to think about those tabloid papers or the rumors in them. Or what those rumors are doing to Bones. I just want to enjoy the end of this custody battle. That's all I can focus on right now or else I might not be able to stand myself.
Girl Talk
T
he four friends were all in Cristal's bedroom in the apartment. They said nothing to each other. Cristal sighed as she shifted her body deeper under her covers on the bed.
Alizé nervously sucked her lollipop as she flipped through the latest
Essence
magazine while she sat cross-legged on the end of the bed.
Dom bit her bottom lip in determination as she sat typing away on her laptop computer in between blowing cigarette smoke out the open window.
Moët's eyes were troubled before she closed them and put her hands to her chin in prayer.
No words were spoken but everyone knew that each had their own battles to win. Each was deep in their own thoughts and their own worlds. Still, it was important for them to just be together.