Risqué 2 (Love in Sin City)

by Perri Forrest

  “It really is,” she said, as we made our way down a walkway made of something that looked like concrete but smoother. We’ll circle back to this, because there’s more to it than you see here. It wraps around the top floor of the residence.”

  “Really? Wow. Okay. I like.”

  “Now . . .” she said, suddenly stopping just short of a set of double doors with gold-plated door handles, and turning to me. “When you say that you didn’t bring anyone with you, is that because she’s busy? Orrr . . .”

  “It’s just me.”

  “Really? Well then, before we go in, I must tell you. It’s a lot of house. Will you have guests?”

  Now, it was nearing the point where she was starting to get on my nerves with her unsolicited Q&A. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but I sensed that it might have to happen, to keep her on track—and in her own damn lane.

  Slightly agitated, and eager to get down to business, I brushed past her and pressed down on the door handles to enter my new home. When I first saw my executive apartment, I thought, ‘This is the life. They did good.’ When I gave my preferences for my permanent home, I wasn’t really too specific. Just knew that I wanted enough room for a large man cave, an office, preferably a view and large master. But walking into this piece of beautiful real estate, I could already tell that they had outdone themselves.

  As soon as the door opened, the entire top floor seemed to open as well. There were windows everywhere, allowing natural sunlight to pour throughout. When we stepped inside, we entered a tiled foyer with options of going left, right, or straight. Going straight required walking around an area separated by a slanted staircase. A staircase that led to the lower level. I proceeded toward the staircase, then looked over the thick railing made of some type of glass. The banister was the same gold as the door handles to the front door.

  “Damn . . .” I said under my breath.

  “Beautiful, right?” the realtor said from beside me.

  “Hell yeah.”

  “And this is just the beginning. You ready for the tour?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Alright, well, let’s head left first and then we’ll work our way through. Like I said, there’s a lot, and you’ll see it all when you move in. So, if at any point, it’s overload, just let me know and I can hand you the keys and be on my way. One thing I don’t ever want to do is wear out my welcome.”

  “Got it.”

  The moment I said that, she kicked into realtor mode and the presentation/tour began.

  “Your home has four bedrooms,” she said from in front of me. “Seven-thousand square feet of space, a two-car garage. There’s an office, a den, an in-law unit, as well as a loft area. Downstairs is where two of your bedrooms are located, as well as a space that can serve as your man cave. I was told you were very specific about wanting that. I think you’ll like what you see.”

  “I’m sure I will. It’s already pretty outstanding,” I said, looking around as we walked through.

  “The external structure of the home is considered modern Mediterranean. The architects are some of my favorites, and are a husband/wife team. They used to do all their designing in Arizona, but came to Las Vegas last year and immediately began producing some of our most beautiful homes here in Southern Highlands.”

  “Cool,” I said, taking it all in, becoming more and more taken with the phenomenal lighting. On some parts of the journey, lighting pierced through the ceiling. The design was immaculate. “Husband and wife, huh? It’s definitely an amazing collaboration. I can see in the detail that they balance each other out very well.”

  “Right?!” she exclaimed, turning around to look at me. “That’s what I said! You can see both the masculine and the feminine energy in the design, through and through. Wait until you see it all. I swear, for me it’s like a dream home.”

  “For a person whose adult life has been spent in apartments and high-rise buildings, it’s for sure a dream home for me too. It’s got a ton of personality.”

  After a long walk down the hallway, we landed in a full laundry room that looked like a housekeeper’s dream. It had large stainless-steel and burgundy machines with a wall-to-wall folding table made of granite, marble or something. There was a carved-out space inside the wall for a flat screen, cabinets and all that. It was fully loaded.

  “This is cool,” I told her from the doorway. “But I don’t plan to spend much time in here.”

  She laughed out loud, then detoured. “You’re a guy, I get it. I love a separate laundry room like this where I can get lost in the Sunday chores.”

  “Yeah, that’s not me at all. How tall are these ceilings?” I inquired on the way to another location in the house.

  “They’re 21 feet high on this level, and fifteen downstairs. All the rooms have tray ceilings with the circular lighting fixtures. And all the lights can be remote-controlled as well.”

  As the rest of the tour continued, I fell deeper and deeper in love with the home. With my marriage having been so short, I had lived in a home for a short amount of time. It was her home that ended up being our marriage home since mine was a bachelor pad. For the most part, I had always had a bachelor pad. This would be the first home for me, and I was liking it. Kind of made me feel as though I should have opted for an actual house before.

  Nevertheless, it was all in the timing. It was clear that Vegas had served me a few firsts: The sex club, my first relationship (although short-lived) with a beautiful black woman, and now my own home.

  My thoughts floated quickly to Giselle. Admittedly, I missed her, but that ship had sailed. So, just as quickly as she infiltrated my thoughts, I flipped that switch off…

  “Zane?”

  “Uhh, yeah,” I responded, not realizing I had zoned out. “I’m listening.”

  “Your master,” she announced as we stepped over the threshold and into luxury.

  “Shit…” I said under my breath.

  The master bedroom was jaw-dropping. It was huge. I visually measured it to be about 30x40—maybe bigger. It had corner windows, as well as an elongated bay widow that was just as high as it was long. Outside that window was a dynamic view of the Las Vegas strip, that I knew would be even more magnificent at night. A wet bar sat near a balcony that led to another part of the patio that she told me started in the living area.

  “Now, this part is going to have you in amazement,” she warned, as we took steps toward what looked like an arched hallway that led to another room. “This here is a bridge that leads to your office. So essentially, your master and your office are connected.” We stopped atop the bridge. I guesstimated it to be around 12 feet long. It was made of a layered glass, and offered a view of a small section of the lower level.

  “Is this glass we’re walking over?” I asked, was we continued over the bridgeway.

  “No, I forgot the name of the material used, but it’s not glass. Some kind of plexiglass or something like that,” she said.

  “It’s nice whatever it is. Never seen anything like it.”

  When we reached the end of the bridge, we entered into an office space. “And so, this here is your conjoined office,” she announced.

  And that place is where I fell in love. I’d found my space. Sure, I was still dead set on having my man cave. Couldn’t wait to see it. But for now, I was enamored and had no immediate interest in going further.

  “Wow. This here… is fucking amazing.” I stared around at the all-black environment with built-in cherrywood finishing. Built-in book shelf. Built-in entertainment center for whatever media I was ready to install. The walls were made of flattened stone and had thin silver strips of plank in the grooves in certain areas. It was sophisticated luxury. “I think I’ll take the keys now.”

  She smiled at me, then handed me a ring with six keys dangling from it, and two fobs. “Welcome to your new home. I’m sure you’ll enjoy the rest of it even more.”

  I looked around before settling on a window that overlooked an
other piece of my dazzling view. “I don’t foresee it getting any better than this.”

  9 | Giselle

  After I hung up with Skai, and she apologized for the way she ended our conversation earlier, I decided that I was going to get up and make something of the rest of my day. I had managed to clean up like I planned. I even got a few loads of laundry washed, dried, and folded. But the part that I had decided to change was lounging around inside the house. I needed to get in some retail therapy, and dig a bit deeper inside my mind, so that I could get right.

  Even though my baby apologized, I had a lot to apologize for as well. And I managed to issue that apology without telling her that Zane and I were on the outs, and that we hadn’t even spoken. That, in fact, I wasn’t sure if he and I would speak again outside of work. During the course of chatting with Skai, I did arrive at the conclusion that I was indeed running. I didn’t realize it at first because I knew the passion was there, and that’s what I honed in on. That part was easy to accept. But what I had pushed into my subconscious was the fear that I felt. The emotions for him had crept up on me, and yeah… I was afraid.

  I had only known him for a short while, but he was everything I told myself that I wanted, if I ever gave myself to a man again. Shooting him with that comment the way I did, was purposeful. A defense mechanism. Telling him that he was in my life because Skai had manipulated a situation made him feel irrelevant, a mistake. And he was neither of those things.

  I was wrong.

  In my situation with Zane, being honest with myself, was indeed proving to be a bitch of a process. But once I inwardly assessed, I saw with a clear lens, what I was doing.

  Shit, Giselle…

  Yes, a part of me did feel that maybe I needed to date and see what else was out there. But the reality of the situation was that Zane had done nothing to show me that I needed to suspect that he would do anything deceptive with my heart. I was just doing preemptive damage control… before actual damage could be done… but without any type of warning signs.

  Damn, girl…

  You’re your very own cockblocker…

  Tragic…

  Yeah, I had a lot of thinking to do.

  It was a little after two in the afternoon when I stepped into my garage in a pair of white shorts that were short, but not too short. A peach-colored tank and my favorite pair of flat rhinestone sandals. I was dressed for shopping, and plenty of it. I figured by the end of it all, and a few bags of new things, my mind would be a lot clearer.

  Behind the driver’s seat, I pressed the genie to raise the door to the garage and proceeded to put my sunglasses on while the car was warming. I hadn’t driven it in a few days and I was a stickler about not pulling off right away when my car hadn’t been moved. I was convinced that would damage the car’s engine. Don’t know where I heard that from, but it sounded right. So, I was determined not to pull out until the little red lever moved a little.

  As I was backing out, I was shocked as hell when I saw Kameelah through my rearview. The first thing that came to mind was, what the fuck she could possibly want. My anger kicked in like we were back in the restaurant that night. Just seeing her blonde-ass head back there, pissed me off. And the fact that her man’s little incident had sort of been the cause of the argument I had with Zane, intensified the anger even more.

  I let the garage door close then put my car in park, cut the engine and got out. “What’s up, Kameelah?” I asked, standing in front of her. “I’m on my way out.”

  “I know you’re mad, Giselle.” She lowered her eyes and a faint ticking sound, of her tongue hitting the root of her mouth. After a few seconds, she released a heavy sigh. I could tell that she felt badly, but I had nothing in the way of sympathy to offer her. Not at all. “Giselle, I’m really so sorry. I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am.”

  Kameelah normally looked so full of life, with her smooth skin and pretty smile, but that wasn’t the case today. She didn’t even look like she took a lot of care before she came out; that wasn’t like her. There were only four houses that separated us, which didn’t give her far to walk, but Kameelah was always dressed, even if it was just to go to her mailbox—which was right at her curb!

  “I’ll be real honest with you, Kameelah. I don’t even know what to say to you right now. Don’t know if I even want to say anything to you right now, for that matter. What happened the other night was… I don’t know. Shit was on another level. Disrespectful, ghetto, unnecessary. All that and then some.”

  “I know, Giselle. Trust me, I know.”

  “Where did he come from anyway?” I shrugged and folded my arms across my chest, already pressed to get out of there. “I don’t know your type. But he doesn’t seem like it. He’s a nice-looking man, but something—”

  “I know what you’re gonna say.” She nodded. “I just wanted to tell you that I was sorry. I didn’t want to call to tell you. I wanted to see you in person so that you could see that I was genuinely remorseful.”

  “All of that should’ve happened before you and him got up from the dinner that my date, paid for. That man didn’t have to invite y’all to sit with us. He didn’t have to invite y’all to order whatever you wanted to eat—off of a menu with $50 seafood platters. He sure as hell didn’t have to invite y’all to order whatever you wanted to drink. And by all accounts, the four or so Long Islands that your friend ordered, kicked his ass into high gear. That man didn’t have to spend money on y’all—at all. He didn’t have to. And then your man is gonna go in the way he did with a fucking race war! What the whole fuck was at that even about, Kameelah?!”

  Now, I was on a roll and couldn’t stop. I didn’t plan to give her this energy at all. Yet, there I stood, in the damn Las Vegas heat, about to have a damn tan from my nose and down to my chin . . . fucking around with her. Thinking about that, I decided to talk to her from inside the car with my air running.

  “I don’t know where that came from. I really don’t, Giselle. And I’ll pay you—”

  “Wasn’t my money. You don’t need to pay me. And I doubt that Zane would take money from you. He wanted to put his hands on that man. But what the hell would that have even looked like? We’re out enjoying ourselves in a five-star restaurant, and he’s getting gutter with… Girl…” I threw my hand up in frustration. “… Never mind. I can’t deal with you if that’s the type of individual you’re keeping company with. I don’t need it for my life. And that’s whether Zane is a part of it or not. It comes down to you and the type of person you choose to have in your space. I don’t like him.”

  “He’s not around all the time, Giselle. I don’t think that—”

  “What? He’s not around… all the time? Pssh,” I stated, shaking my head. “And so that tells me that he’s a regular.” I shook my head side to side. “I can’t. It’s bad enough that a person like that, who can go from zero to 100 that quick, is going to be in close proximity to me. Whether it’s ‘all the time’ or not.” By now, my blood was boiling and I couldn’t see straight. “Was that all you came by for?” I asked her, eager to get her away from me.

  Defeat eclipsed her face. After a few seconds of looking to see if I would change my tune, she finally nodded her response. “I guess so, Giselle,” she said solemnly.

  “Okay, cool. You take care of yourself, Kameelah.”

  I peeled out of my driveway and didn’t look back once. Listening to her made me think about how we, as women, get wrapped up in the wrong type of man—just for the sake of having a man. And as much as I hated to judge, that’s what it seemed like was happening with Kameelah. There she was, beautiful with a good head on her shoulders. A good job, her own home, and she was dealing with somebody who obviously didn’t have respect for her, or others. A person who had zero class about himself, and was ungrateful as hell. On top of that, she seemed like she was afraid of the man. Or hell, maybe I was imagining things. She seemed pretty comfortable with defending his ass. Whatever it was, I meant it when I told her t
hat I couldn’t be around her.

  10 | Giselle

  When I returned home several hours later, the sun had already begun to set. There were a few kids in the street throwing a football back and forth. It brought the block alive. I loved seeing and hearing life around me. It was probably why I enjoyed the school year so much—sometimes. Where I lived, it could really get eerily quiet; being by myself, sometimes I didn’t like that. I needed to know that I was among the living. So, seeing youthful activity was a warm welcome.

  As I pulled up to my driveway, I noticed a woman getting out of a brand-new, dark blue SUV and walking up to Trevor’s door. Shocker. The man always had female companions coming and going. She was petite, well-dressed in a white spandex dress that stopped a few inches below her ass, and a red heel that looked to be four or five inches high. A large Gucci bag dangled from her hand as she traipsed along.

  Definitely there to be fucked. I shook my head.

  I wished I could hold up a big cardboard sign like the one Tisha Campbell had in Boomerang, with “DON’T TRUST HIM, GIRL!” written on it. Just to warn the poor thing. But would she even care? The man kept them coming back. The women that I did see going in and out of there, were seldom new faces. I just hated that my bedroom faced all the action. Because whether I wanted to know when the man had company or not, all it would take was me being in my room late night, early morning.

  Nevertheless, I went ahead and took myself into the house to put away all of the stuff I had treated myself to. Dresses for work, a few pair of shoes, some costume jewelry and this nice blazer that I had to have. It was neutral in color and could be dressed up or down. I had even stopped inside of Barnes & Noble to grab a few new releases, that I knew I wouldn’t be reading anytime soon.

  I offloaded my bags in my bedroom, then doubled back to my liquor cabinet, to indulge in some relaxation, in the form of Tennessee Honey and Sprite. Equal amounts on both sides. I needed it.