Sixty-Nine (25 page)

Having learned to trust and experience life from the other side. Magnolia Lockhart, just like her best friends, was changed.

And changed for the better by trying something just a little bit…different.

B
y that next New Year, it was a new way of celebrating hot new lives on a chilly first day of 2011. There was no longer a girls’
night out on New Year’s Eve. It was a new and different day for Magnolia, Rebe, and Darla.

Miller and Magnolia had everyone over to their new waterfront, Mediterranean home in Indian Creek Village to bring in the
year, and to celebrate Magnolia and Darla’s birthday.

Rebe was there with fifteen-month-old Tristan. And she was also allowed to bring Randall’s daughter, Chyna, who was three
and a half. Chyna called Rebe T-mom, meaning she was Trinity’s mom. Rebe and Kandi were actually on speaking terms.

Trinity, who did not graduate from college, but promised to go back, got her own place in New York and was finally working
as a runway model. She was making a lot of money, even without a degree. Rebe knew she probably would not return to school.
She was just happy that Trinity was happy. Also modeling in New York with Trinity was Armani.

And Darla had ended her first year in the black. She was up to date on her condo payments and had cleaned up her credit.

She sat on Grainger’s lap in the sunflower leather chair in Magnolia and Miller’s family room, watching little Chyna try her
best to dance to the song “Billie Jean” by Michael Jackson. They laughed and clapped their hands to the beat. On the ring
finger of her right hand, Darla wore her tiny black diamond ring in yellow gold. She and Grainger were simply promised. But
this time, the subject of sex before marriage was not an issue for her.

And in the backyard on the deck, along the edge of the narrow creek, surrounded by a menagerie of towering trees, minding
the grill, in the sixty-degree weather, was Darla’s father, grilling the chicken and ribs for their feast, working the barbeque
pit like he was thirty years younger.

“Do you need anything? Are you okay?” Gigi asked, coming outside in her sundress from the kitchen after making her signature
cabbage and turkey wings, stepping up behind him to wipe the sweat off his brow with her hand. She still wore her same old
wedding ring. She handed him a bottle of Dos Equis.

“Yes, dear.” He still wore his same old wedding band.

They kissed on the lips.

“Watch it now, Mister,” Magnolia warned Darla’s father as she stepped outside to check on him.

“I’m good,” he said, sipping on the cold bottle. “Very good. Excellent,” he told Magnolia, eyeing his new woman down. They’d
spent nearly every day together at one or the other’s place the entire year of 2010.

Miller came outside and joked, “Okay now, don’t burn those. I spent a lot of money on that meat.”

“Oh he’s got it just fine. My spousal equivalent knows how to grill, all right,” Gigi said, chomping on a piece of hard candy.
Her light brown eyes devoured his image.

Darla’s father said, “Yeah. If I burn one, it’ll have your name on it, Miller.” He laughed and Gigi laughed louder. She sat
down at the patio table and continued to watch him do his thing.

Magnolia said, looking protective, “Spousal equivalent. How cute.” She spoke directly at Miller. “My grandma is happy.”

“Looks like they both are.” Miller took Magnolia by the hand and led her back into the kitchen and then into the family room.
“Happy birthday, love.” He leaned into her.

“Thanks.” Magnolia held on to his arm and kept her shoulder to his.

As the Michael Jackson CD ended, Grainger picked up the TV remote and turned up the volume, switching to ESPN. That’s when
Rebe heard a familiar voice.

“I will continue my contract as the WNBA head coach of the San Antonio Silver Stars. These allegations are untrue. I have
not been involved in a sex ring, as I’ve been falsely accused of. I am innocent until proven guilty.” He had a cleft in his
chin, big man, perfect goatee.

Magnolia and Rebe watched as well, seeing the familiar face, all ears.

The sportscaster said, “That was Marcus Cotton, former track coach at New York University, who left his position to coach
the WNBA team recently, who’s under fire for alleged charges of promoting prostitution. We’ll have more tomorrow after the
team’s press conference. Back to you in the studio.”

Rebe looked as though she’d seen a ghost. She was in sheer shock. Her eyes were the size of ice cubes.

Two years after she met him, she found out her baby’s father’s name was not DeMarius Collins. It was Marcus Cotton. She now,
at least, knew who he was.

“Ain’t life a flip,” Rebe said to her BFFs, and then looked over at her and Marcus’s young son, Tristan, who was curiously
toddling near Chyna. Tiny dimple in his chin.

“Yes it is. A real flip,” said Darla, looking stunned.

“It surely is,” said Magnolia, still holding on to Miller. “In an instant.”

The best part of life is when your family become your friends, and your friends become your family.

Unconditional commitments to imperfect people.

The theme of
Sixty-Nine
is sexual freedom, and also showing the shame, disgrace, and consequences of reckless lust with the undersexed, just as I
did with the oversexed in
Sexaholics
. It’s a thin line.

Each character had a goal, and some sort of conflict that kept each woman from that goal. I wanted to challenge these women
to go beyond their comfort zones. Sometimes it’s safer to experience what we know, and not challenge our self-built boundaries.
These boundaries often come from our upbringing and society’s standards, etc. But when inner happiness and self- satisfaction and faith come first, we are better able to go beyond the norm, within reason, and just be free to be. I hope you enjoyed
Magnolia, Rebe, and Darla as they lived out their nonmissionary risks and discoveries, as much as I enjoyed creating them.

And my next Pynk book, preview chapter ahead, is called
Politics. Escorts. Blackmail
.

I’m intrigued by the many stories in the news about how men of power and privilege, in sports and politics especially, feel
such self-empowerment, as though they feel they can get away with anything. Funny how we don’t hear about female politicians
getting caught— some say because maybe we women are better at cheating. Maybe so, but I think sometimes these men of privilege
are the guys who didn’t get laid in school and now they have the power and money to get attention. Men romanticize the women
they cheat with or pay to sleep with, and the more innocent the woman, the more desirable she is to the man, and the more
he feels like a man.

It’s about entitlement. Some well-known men in prestigious or public positions often feel they can’t be touched. Can’t be
punished. They love the prostitute with the heart of gold who doesn’t give them any grief, and start to trust her, sometimes
even falling in love with her. But all things in time must come to a head. And what happens in the dark must come to light.
Even the most passive of women can reach their breaking point, prostitutes or not.

In
Politics Escorts Blackmail
, you might even see an appearance by Trinity and Armani, from
Sixty-Nine
, or even Marcus Cotton, the escort who is the father of Rebe’s son.

Some say bread eaten in secret is more filling. I guess so. Because in this story, Money Watts’s world of call girls and guys,
escorts and mistresses, is being served up on an undercover Pynk platter. Enjoy!

H
ey there, Mr. Big.

I’ll bet you think this book is about you, now that it’s all said and done, right? Wrong. It’s not. It’s about me. Money Watts.
And how the world of politics, escorts, and blackmail came to a head, all in one day in 2011. It’s about my side of the escort
coin. The side of making a business out of sex for money.

This is my own version of
Sex and the City
. Sex in the Big Apple. Sex with big names. Sex for big money. Sex that made big news. You were my Mr. Big. But now…well,
like I said, this story is not about you.

I had the baddest high-end call girls and call guy in New York City. My agency, called Lip Service, was comprised of just
the four of us. We kept it small, we kept it exclusive, and we kept it high-class. And I kept all the juicy names in my little
pink e-book.

I was the provider, or organizer. And they, the clients, were called hobbyists. We did it all over the Internet on an adult
website, or sometimes over the phone. Sometimes the hobbyists would even rate each of us and give reviews. They’d rate us
on price, cleanliness, honesty, and attractiveness. And we always received ten out of ten. This was no street corner operation.
These were not escorts of ill repute. This was not a brothel. This was about meeting a classy man or woman to “escort” you
to dinner, and then going somewhere after for an intimate evening together. That’s it. No different than a first date with
someone who doesn’t call the next day. Only there’s a booker who gets ten percent. I split the rest fifty-fifty with my escorts.
And at two thousand dollars per hour, sometimes even thirty thousand per weekend, we did very, very well. We were providing
a very necessary service. And we were very, very good at it.

In private, he patronizes escorts. In public, Democrat
Darrell Ellington
is a New York senator for the 21st District in Brooklyn, married to Ursula Leah Ellington, a former Republican who came from
a long line of politicians. They met while working together at Paine Webber years ago, and married in 1995. Darrell worked
in government affairs and Ursula was a senior consultant. He was elected to his senate seat in 2002, and if Ursula had it
her way, she would one day be the next African American First Lady to the second African American U.S. President in history.
And her son from a previous marriage, Micah Daye, knew that all too well. His mother had dotted the
i
’s and crossed the
t
’s, willing to do whatever it took to keep their noses clean so that she could make it to the White House before her competitive
ex-best-friend, Kendra Graves, married to the New York senator from the 60th District, made it there first.

Republican
Kalin Graves
was a New York senator for the 60th District. His wife, Kendra, was a marketing executive at Saks Fifth Avenue corporate.
Just when Ursula’s husband, Darrell, made it known he was interested in politics, Kendra sought out a politician of her own
and married Kalin Graves the next year. The beef between Kendra and Ursula stemmed from the fact that they were once secret
lovers.

Like I said, I’m
Money Watts
. My home in Cobble Hill West outside of Manhattan was where I ran my business. In 2005, I was married to a well-known sports
anchor who brought me to New York after he was hired for a big announcer job with the NBA, co-anchoring with Ahmad Rashad,
but he left it, and me, all behind when he went back to Los Angeles to be with a local weathergirl whom he met during a National
Black Journalists Conference the year before. We’d only been married six months. I’d signed a prenup. I had nothing, so I
made a way. I had sex for money. The money was good. I was good. I still take on clients if it involves my expertise, which
is role-playing and dominating—my dom name is Brooklyn. I personally service Tyler Copeland, the NYPD police chief, who is
a certified cross-dressing sissy.

As a runaway teen and aspiring actress, strolling through the lights and wonder of Times Square at the age of seventeen,
Midori Moody
saved a pimp’s business card for a rainy day. She left home because she said her big sister was the perfect child, and she
was the misfit. Two days after she called the pimp named Romeo, she became a good girl gone wild who drank and partied, and
screwed for money. She found out that feeling love through those transgressions was easier than dealing with her own abandonment.
She’d later break away and buy herself a condo on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, but by the time she met Micah Daye, her
new boyfriend, that’s when she started to get sloppy. Bailey Brenner, her regular “hobbyist” who was on the city council,
started getting crazy jealous.

Malaka Sutton
’s three-story townhouse is in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Malaka’s own mother was an escort when Malaka was a child in Denver.
Her mother would even take her along to see clients. Malaka learned firsthand how to make sexy ends meet. And in New York,
they were meeting like a muthafucka. Malaka was my highest paid escort. She satisfied the cream of the crop. She was my number
one lady.

Tall and fine and in demand,
Kemba Price
, Italian and Sudanese, from Staten Island, was my one and only call guy. He lived in Harlem on 128th Street, and when he
wasn’t on “dates” for Lip Service, he was at the gym, chiseling his six-foot-five, model-type body. And that’s where he first
met Ursula Leah Ellington, the wife of Darrell Ellington. And he also met a new friend, Romeo, the pimp.

S
o tell me what happened.” I sat in the lobby of the historic Algonquin Hotel on Club Row. Midori made me frown.

“Bailey’s just jealous. He’s making up stories.”

“What’s he jealous of?”

“He knows about Micah.”

“And how does he know anything about your private life, Midori?”

“I guess he followed me. I guess he’s been watching me.”

“You guess? Midori. Listen to me. This is a problem. I send you to meet Bailey at the St. Regis, and you take money from him
on the side?”

“I didn’t.”

“Then what happened to that hotel room? Why was it damaged like that?”

“It wasn’t damaged when I left. I left him there.”

“So, you didn’t tear up the room and threaten to accuse him of roughing you up?”

“No. He said that?”

“I said that.”

“I make enough money. I wouldn’t do that just to get some cash from a client. He’s the problem, not me. What I didn’t tell
you is that Bailey did the escort bonding. He said he loves me.”

“See, that’s something you should’ve told me. Then I wouldn’t have assigned you to him. He’s good money, but he won’t be requesting
you again, I guarantee you that. I smell messy.”

“Okay.”

“So what’s up with you and Micah? You two are still serious?”

“It’s coming along.”

“And he still doesn’t know what you do?”

“No. Still thinks I’m a realtor.”

“It’s too close for comfort, Midori. He’s Senator Ellington’s stepson.”

“Yes. And that’s something I wanted to talk to you about. See, the other night, Micah was talking about playing around on
the computer. He’s doing this tech job, and with his IT schooling, he knows how to hack into email. He’s talking, well joking,
like a prank, about hacking into Senator Graves’s personal email account.”

“Midori, that mama’s boy is looking for something on Senator Graves that would embarrass him. Cause his political career damage.
That’s called blackmail, not a prank. And he’d do it just to please his mother. But he could go to jail for the rest of his
life. He really thinks he’d be able to get away with something like that?”

“He won’t really do it. He was just talking. Sometimes he acts like he’s young Microsoft or something.”

She had the nerve to giggle, but it sounded nervous, which it should have been. I kept a very straight face. “I see nothing
funny. What do you see in a nerd like that?”

“He’s nice.”

“Still looking for the knight in shining armor. Still looking for love to take you away, like in the movie
Pretty Woman
, huh?”

“No.”

“See, it’s sad that your little boyfriend has no idea that the dirt he’ll uncover could be his own. If he did that, he’d not
only uncover evidence linking Senator Graves to prostitution, but that would open a whole ugly can of worms that would expose
his own stepfather’s kinky other life, and expose Lip Service. Now there are three ways to solve this. One would be for you
to tell him what you do and what his stepfather is into. But that’s a no-no. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Another would be, you keep an eye on your little beau, and talk him out of that madness. You’d need to keep him close. You
understand that?”

“Yes.”

“Micah had better watch himself. Kemba said Micah’s own mother all but propositioned him while he was coming out of the gym
the other day.”

“She did?”

“Yes. She did. Your boyfriend Micah is so busy trying to blackmail the enemy, he’d end up destroying his own political family.”

“I’ve got him.”

“Yeah, well, you’d better.”

“How’d you know about the hotel room being torn up?”

“Back to your boyfriend. The third way would be that I could have someone handle him. I’ve been at this for years and I have
a lot to lose. My clients have a lot to lose. I’m not going to let anyone ruin this. If you don’t talk him out of his little
brainstorm, I can fix it myself with one phone call.”

“You wouldn’t do anything to Senator Ellington’s son.”

I just looked right through her.

She blinked fast. “Like I said, I’ve got him.” She swallowed hard. “And actually, I’m ready to quit.”

“Not just yet. I need you near him. Trust me, this is not a joke. Handle this.”

“Or else what?”

“Midori, even if you are my sister, I won’t let you fuck this up. We’re in the world of politics and sex in New York City,
and right now, there’s porn and kinky sex on tons of government computers as we speak. It’s the perfect place to be to make
money for the service I provide. And before I let some amateur, sorry-ass blackmail scheme happen, I’ll do what I have to
do. I’m not going to jail. I’ll stop anyone.” I gave her a look serious enough to let her know I’m a madam first, and a sister
second.

Midori angled her stare like a puppy.

I imitated her angle. “You could learn a thing or two from Malaka. Clean and easy.” I handed her an envelope. “Now, I’m flying
you to the Florida Keys for a late dinner, and then a full day with a Long Island physician. Meet him at the Little Palm Island
hotel tonight at nine. Your flight is at noon.”

“Got it.” She took it.

“And tell your little nerdy boyfriend you’re going to look at property. Keep him in check.” I did not blink. “And, Midori,
this conversation never happened.”

She did blink, fast as usual, and nodded yes.

That would have all been well and good, if Midori’s sneaky ass hadn’t been wired the entire time.