Stud Princess

by N'Tyse

  “Look here,” Trent held Illusion’s chin in his hand, “do you believe in fate, or do you think it was just some weird-ass coincidence the way we met today?”

  Illusion was taken by surprise at his question. She nodded her head slowly. “I guess I believe,” she answered softly. His warm touch enveloped her and made her feel whole.

  “Well, trust and believe this,” Trent said. He leaned into Illusion and placed his lips against hers. He wanted to hold her and never let go.

  When Illusion finally opened her eyes, everything looked and felt different. Because tonight, for the first time ever, she would trust a man—with her life.

  20

  Deja and Nessa sat in Sandrene’s at a round dining table that was elegantly draped in a golden orange tablecloth and adorned with a black and gold glowing S and R centerpiece, ignited by a single tea light. The sexy ensemble added something special to the ambiance of the room.

  The pair stuck out like two green apples in a barrel of candy-coated red ones. Nessa dressed in a backless shimmering silver top, black bottoms, and two-inch heels. Her bulky jewelry received compliments from afar along with the updo ponytail that hung symmetrically down the center of her back. Her makeup was applied lightly, and her smooth, flawless skin was spritzed in Dior. Deja, caught up in the moment, looked equally flattering in a wool, cranberry-red peasant dress, and a pair of heart-shaped diamond studs. Her neck was naked except for the very many hickeys that she attempted to hide with makeup, and resting on her hips was a silver chain belt, matching the eloquent design in the heel of her shoes.

  The two continuously relished the incredible poet that was now making his way off the stage. Everybody in the club began clapping and snapping their fingers in the air. While Nessa could hardly understand Deja’s rationale for taking it upon herself to oversee the club in Sand’s absence, she had to give it to her; it was definitely an upgrade of taste. Everybody was in the house, including South Dallas’s own, Erykah Badu. Admiring the scenery, Nessa took another healthy sip from a glass of blackberry Merlot.

  Deja looked around. She was hoping Sand would be there by now, but she wasn’t. Once again, Sand was making her feel like a fool. She let out a sigh of disappointment and prepared for the hostess to announce her name.

  When Erykah graced the stage, the snaps grew louder, and the whistling from the brothers just wouldn’t quit. Ms. Badu picked up the microphone and began clapping with it in her hands. As always, she looked so exotic in a sleeveless, olive-green bell-bottom one-piece, and her hair tucked away in a matching green head wrap. She moved her lips closer to the mic. “Ladies and Gentlemen, let’s give Mr. Michael Guinn another round of applause.” The few men sprinkled about started barking. It was their way of showing appreciation for the piece Michael had just put down. He recited everything most of them wished they could say to their woman out loud, but only half of them would dare to take it there.

  “Now, if that’s not spoken word, I don’t know what is,” Erykah responded to the crowd. Everyone who agreed with her was now up on their feet, waving and fanning the air. “Yeah, y’all feeling that, ain’t ya? I see Michael left a lasting impression with some of y’all down there,” Erykah joked. The women jeered in agreement. “Well, it doesn’t end there,” she paused. “Because for our next performance, we have a young lady that I’m sure all of you are familiar with. She’s also a very good friend of mine. So Sandrene’s, get your snaps together, and show some love for my girl, Deja.” Erykah stepped back, and Deja made her way to the center of the stage. The two women embraced in a soft sisterly squeeze.

  Deja spoke softly. “Thank you, thank you.” The whites of everyone’s eyes were fixated on her. “I’m glad you all could make it out tonight. I know this weather has been something else. I tell ya, one minute it’s hot and sunny, the next minute we’re ruining eighty-dollar hairdos,” she chuckled.

  “Say it, girl,” someone yelled out.

  She laughed. “Well, again, I’m very thankful to have had this opportunity to be a part of such a strong movement in our community. I want to thank the Sandrene’s staff that has some of the greatest people I know and the easiest to work with on- and offline. And most importantly, I want to thank you. Because you are the sole reasoning why Sandrene’s isn’t just some ordinary club on the corner. You’ve dedicated yourselves to us, and we thank you. Our wonderful poets and open-mic artists, thank you. Sand thanks you.” Deja took a minute to engage the crowd. “It’s been a long time since I’ve done something like this.” She chuckled again, this time more to herself. She held a folded blank sheet of paper in her hands. “It’s all right, girl,” a woman dressed in all-white yelled from the crowd. Deja met eyes with her supporter. “You’re too sweet.” She looked around a final time, still no Sand. She swallowed hard, hoping she could get herself through this one. “I’d like to call this piece... ‘Déjà Vu.’”

  The crowd was all ears, and the room fell completely silent. The attendant at the bar had taken a seat, and the waitresses that roamed about stopped what they were doing and faced Deja. Nessa waved at her friend, encouraging her from their front-row table as she upturned her drink. When she turned around, trying her best to see just how many people had shown up tonight, she spotted Sand in the far right corner. She was standing near the entryway of the club, dressed in a solid black wife beater and jeans with her chiseled arms folded over each other. Sand’s shoulder-length cornrows were missing, but Nessa would recognize that face and those hazel-brown eyes in a pitch-dark bat cave. She started to get up from her seat and drag Sand over, knowing Deja would turn flips across the stage once she saw her, especially after hearing the message Sand had left for her the night before. As Nessa played back the recording over and over for Deja, she saw the way her eyes lit up every time Sand said, “I was just lying here thinking about some things. I know this might sound funny, but you were on my mind.” Deja must have replayed the message ten more times after that.

  Nessa swung her legs from under the table and was about to head over to Sand but quickly decided against it when she noticed a light-skinned female with hideous blue-spiked hair standing closely at her side. She couldn’t believe the nerve of Sand. Nessa turned her head back around, unnoticed, contemplating if she should even involve herself. She was convinced that it wasn’t even worth it. Not when she had warned Deja time and time again. But with Deja so bent on finding love and happiness, Nessa knew that what she had to say wouldn’t have mattered one bit. She took another long swallow from her glass and saved her friend the embarrassment.

  The vibrating sound of a saxophone invaded the airwaves, and everyone began swaying their heads to the rich melodic interplay of instruments that escaped the wall-mounted speakers hanging throughout the club.

  Deja took a deep breath, preparing to freestyle her unique piece, all from the heart. One last time, she searched for her inspiration around the room, and still, it wasn’t there. Her body tightened, but she had to get it out. She held the paper loosely at her left side and choked the mic with her free hand. She engaged the crowd—all lovers of spoken word—lost herself in their collective misery, their hopes, their desires. She wondered if any of them really cared to hear what she had to say as she opened her mouth and got ready to spit them a new perspective. She allowed her words to float over the harmonic chords of her introduction and just like that . . . She was in the zone.

  Déjà Vu

  Your beauty I dare to compare,

  for it’s déjà vu

  your eyes are so binding and

  soul catching as a spider’s web,

  your fingers are as gentle to my

  face as a fly-away leaf.

  Why does this feel like déjà vu?

  Your inner essence has the

  strength of the greatest pine

  and to compare your qualities to

  nature gives me the ability to love

  you.

  Have I said this to you before?

  Because it feels
like

  déjà vu.

  Your caresses during our

  lovemaking turn me into a

  developing flower,

  an exposed bud surrounded by generous

  amounts of dew.

  Damn, this feels like déjà vu.

  The scent of your overflowing

  fountain is that of the morning

  rain.

  The sound of your most intimate

  moan, hmmmm, did I mistake your

  pleasure . . . for pain?

  As the base

  in your voice was as powerful as a

  thunderstorm, but on the contrary

  your orgasmic song was as sincere

  as the tweet of a baby bird.

  I am captivated by you, and I

  possess a twinkle in my smile for

  you,

  brighter than that of any star.

  You are loved.

  I love you,

  and I am willing to be yours

  faithfully

  if you invite me, I

  will accept . . . and submit to only

  you

  and again, I will inhale

  you, and taste you, and devour

  you

  because before we ever met, I

  confessed my love for

  you.

  That’s why this shit feels

  so much

  like

  Déjà Vu.

  Deja exited the stage with a roar of applause following her. She wasn’t quite sure where the energy had come from, but it mysteriously came from somewhere because she even felt like she did a fantastic job. She walked confidently back to the table and joined Nessa who was standing and clapping with a mile-wide smile.

  “You were great up there,” Nessa said. She witnessed the sadness building in Deja’s eyes.

  Deja pulled her chair out and sat down. “Thanks.”

  Nessa watched Deja’s hopeful eyes continue to roam around the club until she couldn’t take it anymore. “She ain’t coming,” Nessa said, refusing to tell her that she’d seen Sand only a few minutes ago.

  Deja brought her attention back to Nessa after her eyes surfed until she grew dizzy. “What?”

  “Sand. That’s who you keep looking around for, isn’t it?”

  Deja lifted her glass, trying to control her desperately seeking eyes. She let the wine mingle in her mouth, tantalizing her tongue, then ease down like a river in her throat. “No.” She shifted in her seat, crossing her legs. “I’m not looking for nobody,” she lied with a straight face.

  Nessa didn’t believe her friend. She rolled her eyes upward and mumbled, “Yeah, right.”

  “I’m just checking out the crowd tonight,” Deja said. “It’s quite a turnout. I guess the radio advertising was a good idea after all.” She dodged the Sand subject. She simply did not feel like going there with Nessa, not right now.

  As Erykah Badu’s “Danger” filtrated through the speakers, the crowd invited themselves to sing along. “Because they got the block on lock . . .” A few took to the dance floor, while others rocked in their seats and enjoyed every dime they’d paid to get inside the club.

  Nessa raised her glass in the air. The wine was slowly starting to escalate her levels. “We need to make a toast,” she said sluggishly out of nowhere, snapping Deja out of her out-of-mind-and-body coma.

  Deja relaxed her hands on the table. “To what?” Her mood had changed drastically, and suddenly, she was ready to go home. Her asking Sand to come was a mistake. Expecting Sand to come was just a hopeful waste of breath. She should have known better, but yet, she still allowed this woman she hardly even knew to magically reenter the picture after months of no sign she’d be returning—to sex her, fuck her, and then leave, again. Deja felt like a pawn. How could she not see this coming? She cursed herself for being so stupid and so naïve. As she twirled her tongue ring between her teeth, she refamiliarized herself with what Sand’s essence tasted like against her lips, then instantly drowned the idea for good that introduced itself out of her imagination. It was over. That was over. She refused to put herself through agony and heartache all over again like she had done with Toni. Deja made a stern commitment to herself that from this moment on, if Sand didn’t want to take those extra steps with her, then she would move on. Let it all go and never look back. She would push Sand out of her mind—for good.

  Nessa was still holding her glass in the air, waiting for Deja to lift hers. She began shaking it some, blinking her eyes at the same time to redirect Deja’s attention. When Deja did finally snap out of it, she raised her glass as well. “To true friendship.”

  Deja started smiling. “Now, I can drink to that.”

  They tapped their glasses together, and that resonating response placed them both on the same page of life.

  21

  “She must really cut for you,” Ty said, pulling Sand out of her thoughts after a long drive of dead silence.

  Sand had been thinking the exact same thing. She enjoyed the poem, appreciated Deja for all the things she’d done, but Sand knew that Deja was wearing her heart on her sleeve. While she cared for Deja deeply, the facts remained the same. Sand was too involved right now to take things to new heights, and she knew Deja would never accept or settle for that brutal honesty.

  Sand didn’t respond to what Ty was saying and instead, asked her, “Are you sure you know the code to get in?”

  “Positive.”

  “A’ight, then. Let’s do this.” Sand pulled up to the security gate and punched in from memory every digit Ty called out. Immediately after entering the last number, the gates began to open slowly. Sand drove through and headed toward the mansion. A few lights were on, but not many. At this time of night, Sand expected no one to be inside, except for one person, and that was Fantasy. All the other girls were more than likely at work.

  Sand parked the car directly in front of the house, just as she and Ty had plotted. “Okay, it’s all you,” she told Ty.

  Ty nodded. She was ready to do this, readier than she’d ever be. She unlocked her door, got out, and strutted toward the walkway. Instead of ringing the doorbell, she pounded the wooden door with her fist. Suddenly, she could hear footsteps approaching from the inside.

  “Who is it?” Fantasy yelled, squinting through the peephole.

  “It’s me!” Ty hollered between the fake tears she forced on so quickly.

  Fantasy began unchaining every lock in place. “You better have a damn good reason for not calling . . .” Her words trailed off because before she could get the rest of her sentence out, a tall figure sprinted from out of nowhere with a ski mask over his face.

  Fantasy jumped, completely caught off guard. Terrified, she backpedaled away from the door and quickly put her hands in the air, shaking her head. “Please, don’t shoot,” she called out to the intruder. She had no doubt in her mind that he came to rob them.

  Sand shoved Ty closer to where Fantasy stood. “Both of y’all turn the fuck around!” she yelled.

  Fantasy and Ty did as told. Fantasy glanced over at Ty who had her eyes closed tightly and was breathing like she was having a seizure. Fantasy considered running for her gun but knew she wouldn’t get very far without risking several holes being blown into her back. So she waited, hoping this would be quick and painless for all of them.

  Sand closed the door behind her and rechained every lock and deadbolt.

  Ty kept putting on her Academy Award–winning performance.

  With her white and silver fingernails still lifted in the air, Fantasy asked bravely, “What do you want from us?” Her voice was as calm as it could be.

  “Did I ask you to talk?” Sand yelled in Fantasy’s ear through the mask. Fantasy shook her head and sucked in her dry lips.

  “Then don’t!”

  “But I . . . I . . . I gotta pee . . .” Ty butted in while wiggling around and practically hopping on one leg. For a second, the way things were going, she almost believed it
was real, but then remembered it was all a part of the plan—Sand’s plan.

  “Anybody else in the house?” Sand asked Fantasy.

  Fantasy shook her head no.

  Sand walked backward toward the living area, never taking her eyes off the two women. She blindly snatched the phone cord from the wall jack, tossing it to Ty. “You wanna go to the bathroom, then I’m going with you. Tie her up.”

  Ty nervously walked behind Fantasy, reaching for both her arms. She began wrapping the cord tightly around both her wrists, looping it as she went along. When she finally ran out of excess cord, she began making double knots. “There, she’s tied,” she hollered to Sand. Before she could look up, Sand was throwing a curtain tieback her way that she’d pulled from the draperies.

  “Now do her ankles,” Sand instructed.

  Ty’s brows folded in. She pulled a chair from the dining table, sat Fantasy down in it, and commenced to tying her legs from behind. “Just please, please, don’t hurt us,” she carried on.

  Before all of this, Fantasy was in the downstairs bathroom, disrobing and prepping for a warm soak in the tub. Now she stood wearing just a spaghetti tank and thong underwear with her hands tied behind her back, and her ankles shackled with curtain straps. But even still she wasn’t afraid of the perpetrator behind the mask. Not only because of who she believed it to be, but because she had been in situations like this before, a million times. And even with a gun in her face, Fantasy managed to maintain her cool.

  Sand grabbed Ty by the arm and forced her to lead the way to Chyna’s main domain—her bedroom. They ran over to the dressers, throwing clothes out, lifting mattresses—the whole nine. Sand focused on the boxes, the cabinets, whatever appeared to be a stashing ground. After tearing up the room from top to bottom, they both came up empty.