by SLMN
Mac chuckled.
“Oh now I’m trouble.”
“Ever since the fifth grade,” she sassed.
Cash’s mind went back to simpler times. When candy money and Catch-a-girl-Kiss-a-girl were his only concerns. How the fucking times had changed. Back then, Katrina had been one of the baddest little chicks in school. They’d played the kissing game a few times, not that he remembered how her tongue tasted, probably of Pop rocks or bubble gum. He’d lost contact with her, like most people from back then. Looking at her now, it seemed like she had given up on life. It was weird to find her holed away in a no-name club like the Graveyard. He assumed she was selling pussy and doing whatever else she could to get by.
“I just got out of jail about a month ago,” she told them, as if reading his mind.
“You need a job?” Cash asked.
“Not any kind you can give. This may not be much, but it’s keeping me out of trouble, you know?” Cash nodded, then pulled out his money, flicked through the roll, counting out some notes, then handed her five hundred dollar bills.
“Welcome home.”
She smiled and tucked the money in her boy shorts.
“Still got class, I see. Take care of yourself,” she winked, then walked away.
Cash sipped his drink.
“Damn yo, life is crazy. I never expected her to fall off. Of all the old faces, I had her pegged to be a doctor or some shit. You know, the good life. Not this.”
“Yeah, one decision can change your whole life,” Mac commented. “But yo, I got some big shit to talk to you about.”
“I’m listening.”
A beat.
“I’m retiring.”
Cash looked at him, then laughed. “You almost had me, yo.”
“Naw brah, I’m dead ass. I’m done,” Mac replied with all seriousness.
“Retiring? Why? Brah, we on the way up. We in The Commission. Only way is up.”
“No, O is in The Commission. We just on his so-called team,” Mac retorted.
“So-called? We are a team,” Cash disputed.
Mac shook his head.
“Yeah, well, not no more. It’s time I bow out gracefully. I’ve got plans to start a record label, maybe even do some movie productions,” Mac told him. “Do something good with my days. Step away from the hustle.”
Cash eyed him levelly. “You serious.”
Mac nodded, sipping his drink.
“Fuck. You told O yet?”
“Naw. But yo, he’s gonna be stepping back from the game, too. He’s going to have to give his connect to one of us.”
“Which is gonna be you, Mac. Why walk away now?”
Because it won’t be me, Mac thought bitterly, but said, “When a man gets tired, they get tired. Me and Kandi want to have kids. Life is good. But I ain’t bringing kids into the game. Don’t worry about me, brah, this is your shot to blow. With me retiring, he’ll definitely give it to you.”
Cash took a sip, not only of his drink, but of Mac’s words, turning them into thoughts that danced in his head.
“Brah, this is your opportunity, but I’ma keep it real with you,” Mac told him, “O love you to death, but he think you just a pretty boy,” Mac informed him.
Cash looked at him, like, “Pretty boy? Fuck you mean?”
Mac shrugged.
“Come on, Cash, you always been more worried about the bitches than the money. Don’t get me wrong, we all fam, but bottom line is, to be a boss, you got to be M.O.B, money over bitches.”
“Like I don’t know that,” Cash huffed, caught up in his feelings, just as Mac had known he would be.
“What you need is a muhfucka to holler at him. Convince him that you should be the next boss. Get in his ear, feel me?”
“So you holler at him for me,” Cash suggested.
“You know I will, but we both know the better person to make your case is Mona,” Mac proposed, the devil hidden behind his poker face.
Just the mention of her name got Cash’s total attention. “I can’t do that.”
“Do what? Ask her to speak to O on your behalf? Why not?”
Cash downed his drink, then raised his hand for Kat to bring another. “It just ain’t a good idea, believe me.”
“Cash,” Mac began, dropping his head for a minute. He needed to play this just right, deliver the coup de grâce, looking him in the eye, “I know about you and Mona.”
Cash fronted him.
“I was there, remember? That night at the Waffle House? I got eyes to see. And I also know you never got over her. I don’t know what happened between y’all, but it’s obvious to anybody watching you when she’s around.”
Cash shook his head.
“I don’t know what you talkin’ about.”
Mac chuckled lightly.
“Nigga, this me. We been down even before O moved to our ‘hood. I know you. I know you better than you know yourself. I know you feelin’ shortie and I know shortie still feelin’ you. So let’s not beat around the bush here. You wanna be boss?”
“Of course.”
“Then I’m tellin’ you the best way to make that happen is Mona. She got O’s ear… among other things,” Mac quipped with a smirk.
Katrina brought Cash’s drink.
He took a deep gulp, smacking his lips as he slammed the glass down, empty. ‘That obvious, huh?”
“Yeah brah, it is.”
“I just don’t know what it is about her, yo. Maybe it’s just we want what we can’t have. Maybe it’s because she the only chick that just blew me off. I dunno. Bottom line is, she under my skin bad and ain’t shit I can do about it,” Cash admitted, scratching at his forearm like an addict, as though just her name was enough to set the withdrawal biting.
“Now who’s the sucka for love?” Mac teased him.
They laughed.
“Yeah, you right. Now I understand, yo. Ain’t nothin like that special woman.”
“Holler at her. She’ll put a bug in O’s ear. I’ll put a bug in the other,” Mac assured him, but he just didn’t tell him what kind of bug he had in mind.
“Word. Good luck in that new life, Mac. A nigga might even be jealous.”
They shook hands.
“Come on, brah. What are friends for?”
“You feel tense,” Aphrodite said, her breath warm on Joe’s neck as she massaged his shoulders.
It felt good.
Better than good.
He allowed himself to relax back into her touch.
He sat on the edge of the bed. She knelt on the box spring behind him.
“Goes with the territory,” he responded, eyes closed.
“Maybe it’s time to pull out of that territory,” she suggested slyly.
He smiled, keeping his eyes closed.
“Soon,” he promised.
“You know I heard that promise a year ago,” Aphrodite reminded him.
“These things take time, baby,” Joe said, eyes closed. For a moment, he could just wish it all away, the world reduced to the feel of her fingertips on his flesh. “You know that. I can’t just walk away.”
“You won’t be. Think different, like Steve Jobs always used to say. Adonis would just be getting on the job training. You’d be his advisor. The voice in his ear.” She stopped massaging him and came around to sit on the edge of the bed beside him.
“Truth? I don’t think he’s ready,” Joe confided.
“But ask yourself how will he get ready if he never gets a chance to test himself? You know this world, you get tempered by the fire, it’s the only way it works. You gotta get into the fire. Nothing makes you ready.”
Joe shook his head.
“I don’t know, Aye. In so many ways he’s still just a kid. You must see he doesn’t have that killer instinct. Nature fucked up. I wish Mona was the boy, I’d leave the family to her in a heartbeat. She’s stone cold.”
“Not out of the question,” Aphrodite countered, like the notion had just occurred to her. “
We live in a modern world. What’s wrong with a female Commissioner?”
“Nah. The Commission would never respect her, no matter how many bodies she piled up. A woman in this game always has to be more aggressive than her nature intends. She may be good, our girl, but she’d never be accepted.”
Aphrodite sighed.
“Adonis is as ready as he’s ever going to be, Joe. Besides, there’s something dark about this Othello I don’t trust.”
“He’s married to our daughter.”
“And I told Mona that was a mistake, but she’s your daughter. Hard-headed, doesn’t listen to me,” Aphrodite remarked and they both laughed at that, because they both knew it was the diametric opposite of the truth. But there was another truth about to be spoken. “How can we trust a man whose father you…”
Joe rubbed his face.
“He doesn’t know.”
“Are you sure about that?’
“No. But, I know people. If he was going to move, he would’ve done it by now,” Joe surmised.
“Still…”
Joe caressed her cheek.
“I tell you what… I’ll start bringing Adonis up to speed on the family business across the board. By this time next year, if he handles shit correctly, I’ll step back. You have my word, Aye.”
Aphrodite kissed him, looked her man in the eye and told him, “Remember, sealed with a kiss.”
Aphrodite stepped out of her convertible Jaguar and headed inside the high-rise apartment building that housed the offices of her non-profit.
As she headed toward the elevator, she passed several people on their way out and a few lingering, including the security guard who greeted her with a smile.
Her stride was firm, purposeful.
She rode the elevator up, then stepped off onto a floor buzzing with activity.
The place was set up like any office, desks inside of cubicles spaced around a large mirrored glass office. That was her domain. Right outside sat her receptionist, and in the chairs designated for visitors, she saw Mac. He was dressed conservatively in a double-breasted Kenneth Cole suit and matching Italian loafers. He looked like he had just stepped out of the pages of GQ magazine.
Seeing Aphrodite, he smiled politely.
“Mrs. Hamlet, how are you? Do you remember, you asked me to come by and apply for a position,” Mac reminded her, as he stood up, as though she needed reminding.
“Ah yes, Macklin, right? I’m glad to see you again,” she remarked, her smile matching the falseness in his.
They were both playing a role for the receptionist, but Aphrodite liked the fact Mac knew how to play the game.
He definitely got points for being smooth.
Aphrodite turned to her receptionist.
“Reach out to that singer, what’s her name? Nefertiti?”
“Egypt?” Mac suggested.
“That’s her. There could be a business opportunity worth exploring here. I’m told she’s looking for a backer to launch her own label after the clusterfuck that was Notorious. I’m thinking we might be able to do something. At the very least we should talk. Two powerful women together, we might just change the world.”
“You hear Street Love? That girl was the real talent of that stable, forget fuckin’ Power and the QBC, she is the real deal,” Mac opined.
“She’s got it in her to be a star,” Aphrodite agreed. “Make it happen.”
“Yes ma’am,” her secretary, a young white woman, replied.
Mac held open her door. “Wonderful. Thank you, Mr. Bethel. Shall we?”
“No problem, Mrs. Hamlet.”
They entered. Mac loved the place right away.
Once the door closed, the sound from outside disappeared. The room was sound-proofed, and, he was guessing swept for listening devices daily. It was spacious enough for a large oval, mahogany table, complete with twelve high-back swivel chairs around it. Against one wall there was a small wet bar, a couch and loveseat, then her desk and her chair behind, which had an Ernie Barnes original looking over her shoulder. The view through the floor-to-ceiling windows was of the city far below, and the distant harbor, giving the view a feel of infinite vision.
“I love your office,” Mac remarked, “It says a lot about you.”
“Like?”
“Like, you are willing to listen to what people have to say, which is shown by the round table. No head to a round table, right, so it gives everyone sitting here a feeling of equality. Like you value them being there. Then, you have the more intimate setting over there, the one-on-one with the couches and the bar. Another place to make the elite feel included. But, see, the real importance of the room is right over there, your desk is where the decisions get made, and there, I see only one seat. Yours,” Mac explained.
Aphrodite laughed as she sat on the edge of her desk.
“Very perceptive of you. I like men who know what to do without being told,” she replied.
Aphrodite moved toward the bar, but Mac stopped her with a gentle touch to her forearm. “Let me.”
She smiled, demurred and sat on the couch, crossing her long, shapely legs.
“While you are fixing the drinks, why don’t you tell me about yourself, Macklin.”
“First of all, call me Mac. All my friends do,” he told her, as he poured them both a glass of wine.
He turned and handed her one.
“And what makes you think I want to be your friend?” Aphrodite quipped.
“You chose the couch. If this was a job interview, you would’ve sat behind the desk,” Mac smirked.
Aphrodite nodded. “Perhaps,” she said, sipping her wine.
Mac sat down beside her.
“You want to know about me? I’m a man who has a vision… plans. When I wake up in the morning, my first thought is, what’s for dinner? I think long-term, everything else is just a means to the end. It’s all about getting there.”
“I like that. I like that a lot. Yes, I do think you and I can be friends.”
“Good friends, or just friends?” Mac flirted.
“Which do you prefer?”
Mac downed his wine in one shot, sat the glass on the coffee table and pulled Aphrodite over on his lap.
“One thing you’ll find out about me is, I want it all,” Mac growled, then held her roughly by the back of the neck and tongued her down with gangsta authority.
He knew no other approach would have worked with a woman like Aphrodite. He had read her the first time he laid eyes on her. Joe may have been a gangsta, but he was going soft, a fact proven just by looking into Aphrodite Hamlet’s eyes. She was the pampered wife, the cougar waiting on young meat to devour.
But he wasn’t about to be the next boy toy. He was going to break her.
Or so he thought.
Because Mac may have been right that Joe had gone soft—and yes that fact was reflected in the hungry look in Aphrodite’s eyes, but she wanted more than a young stud. She wanted a pawn in the game. She wanted a young aggressive go-getter to counter the hesitancy she knew Adonis suffered.
Because Aphrodite Hamlet was playing the game too.
She wasn’t content being the wife or mother of a gangsta…
She was a gangsta.
But at that moment, she let Mac take control, allowing him to ravage her, because she needed a good thug fucking, and feeling the hardness and girth of his thug muscle, she knew she wouldn’t be disappointed.
Mac pulled up her dress, slid her panties to the side and began to finger fuck her with two fingers.
Her lips were already soaked, her pussy oozing and as soon as he penetrated her, she let out a loud moan.
“Fuck!” Aphrodite exclaimed, riding the rhythm of his fingers. “Don’t fucking tease me.”
“What about the people?” Mac huffed, his dick hard as a pole in the winter.
“What about them?” Aphrodite gasped.
The windows from the inside were clear, but looking on from the outside, they were mirrored. Two way
glass. No one could see in. Although at certain times in the day, when the sun was just right, you could just make out silhouettes inside.
It was that time of day.
But by that time, both of them were undressed, and neither cared if the whole room was watching. It only added to the thrill of the fucking.
Aphrodite’s naked body looked like Egyptian gold in the sunshine as Mac ran his hands and tongue all over her.
He gripped the base of his dick then drove it deep inside of her, stabbing her with the sweetest blade in the world.
“Yesssssssss,” Aphrodite hissed, the note going on forever as her whole body shivered like she was freezing. Her nerves endings were sensitive to every stroke.
She threw her head back and rode his dick, taking every inch in and matching the intensity of his strokes with her own grind.
“I’ve wanted to do this ever since the first moment I laid eyes on you,” Mac groaned in her ear, loving the way she rode his dick, grinding and gyrating her shapely hips, pussy juices running down over his nuts. It was fucking nirvana.
“Make me cum again, I want to cum again,” Aphrodite begged.
Mac sunk lower in the couch and changed the angle of his strokes, using the curve in his dick until he found her g-spot. He knew by the way she couldn’t hold her silence and the way her body trembled, that he had found her secret place. It felt too good for her to even moan. She opened her mouth but nothing came out. Behind her closed eyes, she saw bursts of color. Mac was relentless, taking her breath away, until she exploded all over his dick, gasping for air.
“God... damn, I’m still cumming!”
Mac pulled her down and tongued her nipple, bringing another groan from her lips. “I’m gonna make this pussy mine,” he vowed, going down to lick his own cum out.
The way her pussy tasted at that moment, he already had.
Othello leaned against the door, watching his wife sleep.
The double doors that led to the terrace were open, letting in the cool Venetian breeze. She looked like a sleeping angel, her hair flared out around her like a halo, that slight smile still on her lips as if she were dreaming of the beauty of her future. Their honeymoon had begun in Bali and was ending in Venice, an ancient city that he had always wanted to visit. In prison, he had seen pictures of the city and read about how it was slowly being swallowed by the sea, and he found a profound beauty in the waterways that served as streets. It was one of the few unique places in the world.