by Simply BWWM
“You’re not going to talk me out of it. I do wish that I could see Shane again, but it’s just not realistic. It was the most incredible time of my life, but our paths just aren’t in the right place for us to do anything more than what we have. I guess I’m thinking of it like a gift. It was such a surprise, and I loved it and had such a good time, but we had to part ways, and we did.
It’s over now, and it’s time for me to go back to my regularly scheduled broadcasting. The real life. The one where I end up in a little house with Maurice.” She sighed, letting herself wonder for a fast moment what it might be like to be with Shane instead of Maurice. Her body warmed and tightened, and her heart began to beat faster, and she made herself stop. There was no reason to even let thoughts like that entertain her imagination. It would never happen.
Her sister sighed. “Well, just be careful. That’s a lot of money. Be careful. I want you to be okay.”
“I’m okay.”
“I love you.” Janet sounded fully irritated but polite, at long last.
“I love you, too.” They ended the phone call, and Tamika pulled her car up to Maurice’s apartment just a few minutes later.
She locked the car and went to his door. He answered it after a minute and eyed her curiously. “Well? Did you do it?”
Tamika nodded. “Yeah, I did.”
“Did you get the money?” he asked, his eyes growing wide and serious.
“Yes. It’s in the car.” She indicated her car over her shoulder. He looked past her at her car, and then glanced up and down the outside hallway on both sides of his door.
“Okay. Let’s go get it and bring it in here. You can’t leave something like that in your car.” He headed out, and she followed him, giving him the keys. A few minutes later, they were both back in his apartment, and he had the suitcase on his bed. He unzipped it and whistled long and low when he saw all of the cash inside.
Maurice began to laugh, shaking his head. “My god. I never thought I would see this much money in my life, and it’s all mine.”
She frowned at him. “Ours.”
He waved his hand a little in the air. “Yeah, that’s what I meant. Ours. Yours, mine, ours. It don’t belong to no one else is what I mean.” He shook his head again and laughed louder. “Ain’t that something!”
Tamika watched him, feeling tension grow inside of her, without really understanding why. Something was bothering her, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.
“So, now what do we do with it?” she asked, still keeping her gaze on him.
He closed the suitcase and set it carefully in his closet, closing the door behind it. “I’m going to take it to the bank and put it in an account for us. You can’t have money like that just laying around. Come on.”
He continued to talk as he walked out of his bedroom and into the kitchen, reaching for two glasses and a bottle of whiskey. “We gonna celebrate.” He poured some of the whiskey in each glass and handed one to her.
“Maurice, you know I don’t like hard liquor.” She made a slight face at it. She had never liked it, and he knew it well.
“That’s all I got for now. Just drink it. Don’t argue with me.” He was grinning from ear to ear. He tipped his glass back and took a long pull on it. “So, how was it? What happened?” he asked, looking mildly curious.
Her cheeks warmed as if they were on fire. “It… uh, it wasn’t too bad. He was really good to me. He was kind and sweet, thoughtful, gentle. It was better than I thought it would be.” She wasn’t sure just how honest to be with him.
Maurice’s smile faded, and his eyes narrowed. “You liked it with him?”
She felt a lump form in her throat, and she tried to swallow it as she held her untouched glass of whiskey. “Well, it… it wasn’t bad.” Her nerves tensed, and her heart began to race as blood rushed in her ears. Panic began to tangle her nerves. “He wasn’t gross or mean or anything. He didn’t want anything weird. It just wasn’t bad during any of the times we did anything.”
He furrowed his brow and crossed his arms over his chest. “Times? Was there more than one time?”
Tamika felt her insides begin to tremble. “Yeah, there was.”
His eyes narrowed to slits. “How many times did you screw him?”
She looked down from his face to his chest, unwilling to say it as she shared eye contact with him. “Four times,” she said quietly. It hadn’t seemed like a lot when she was with Shane. It had seemed almost like a continuum during the night, with only one extra time before she left. One last sweet time, before it was all over for good.
“Four times?” Maurice’s voice grew so loud that she jumped. “You screwed him four times? Did he give you four million dollars? Is that what he did?”
She shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest. “No. Just one million.”
“Only one million, and you were on him four times? You must have liked it! It wasn’t too bad, you said. You little liar! You loved it! You were on him screwing him four times, and he only paid for once! You a slut! You a whore! Hooker! Prostitute!” he shouted angrily at her.
Tears burned her eyes and rolled unbidden down her cheeks as she looked up at him and shook her head. “No! No, that’s not what it was at all! He didn’t say how many times; he said I had to spend the whole night with him for the million. That was the deal! That’s what you and I agreed to! One whole night, not one time with him! I’m not a slut! I didn’t even want to do it in the first place! It was you who told me to go do it.
You’re the one who wanted the money so bad that you were willing to push me into his arms to get it! Don’t you go calling me names and talking me down like that after you’re the one who told me I’d better do it in the first place! The most important thing to you was the money!” she yelled back at him, and he ground his teeth and clenched his jaw.
There was a tense silence between them for a long moment, and she lifted her chin as her body trembled with anger and despair. “Maybe I should just take the money and leave then, right? Since you think that’s what I am? A whore? A hooker? I’ll just take my money and go. You won’t have to be with me.”
He sighed long and heavily and glared at her as he lifted his glass and drained it, swallowing every bit of it. “Don’t you touch that suitcase. I’m just pissed off that you screwed him so many times. You didn’t have to do that. You could have done it once and then walked out with the money. That’s messed up, Tami. Messed the hell up.”
He turned back to the bottle and filled his glass with the amber liquid. “Don’t you worry none, though. You right. I did tell you to do it. I told you to do it cause that money means we got ourselves a future. I’m gonna take that money and go to the bank. Start an account with it.”
Tamika felt as if her heart was breaking, and she wiped her fingers over her cheeks and eyes to dry them, and then walked toward him as he polished off all the whiskey in his glass and then plunked it down on the counter.
She wrapped her arms around his torso and looked up at him, her eyes searching his, hoping that the anger between them, the misunderstanding, was gone. He had a steely look about him that she had never seen before, and she didn’t like it. She leaned up on her feet to kiss him, to try to ease the tension, but just before her lips touched his, he turned his face from her, putting his hands firmly on her shoulders, and he pushed her away.
“Don’t kiss me. Not right now.” He walked away from her and looked into the living room.
“Why not?” she asked, feeling as if she was being choked with emotion.
“Cause I got to go to the bank. Ain’t no time for romantic crap like that. I got business to do. Got to do it right now. Can’t have money like that laying around. Anything could happen. Someone could come in here and try to take it. Can’t let that happen. Need it in a safe place. I’m going to the bank.” He walked away from her and went toward the bedroom. She followed him for a few steps.
“You can’t go to the bank right now; it’s Saturday
afternoon,” she said with a practical tone.
“Well, I’m going to take the money somewhere safe. Don’t feel safe with it here in the house. This ain’t that great a neighborhood.” He was already in the bedroom. She heard the closet door open and close.
“Do you want me to go with you?” she asked, calling out to him hopefully.
“Nah, I want some time on my own. I need to think through this whole thing. Why don’t you go home?” he said with a cool tone.
Her chest felt tight, and her heart ached enormously. “Actually, you know what, that’s probably a good idea. I’ll go home. I’ll call you soon and see what’s going on. Be careful with it,” she said to the doorway of his bedroom. He stayed in the room.
“Talk to you later then. Lock the door on your way out,” he called back to her.
She sighed, and her shoulders drooped low as she turned and walked out of Maurice’s apartment, closing the door behind her and turning the knob to make sure that it was locked. As she walked back to her car, she felt like the weight that had been on her chest had tripled in its mass, becoming heavier and harder to carry, and she hoped that it would all go away soon, and that some semblance of happiness would return.
She tried to focus on the bright side of it all. She and Maurice were finally going to be able to settle down. They would have a house together, and it would be like a dream come true. It was going to be a good future, and in that future, she would be happy, and things would be wonderful.
There was no word from Maurice the rest of the day or on Sunday. Tamika did her best to keep her mind on the good things. The future was going to be bright for them. She held on to that and wouldn’t let herself think of anything else.
Chapter6
Tamika cleaned her beautiful new dress on Sunday, and on Monday morning, she put it on with a big smile on her face, remembering where it came from and how wonderful that time was, and she went to work.
She worked in a high-rise tower just off of the center of downtown Los Angeles, where taller, more prestigious high rises stood. The company that she worked for had leased three floors in the building, and she worked on the one in the middle. Tech support was on the floor below them, and management was on the floor above them. She worked in customer support, on the middle floor, in the middle of the tower, with a semi-decent view out of all the windows, looking out onto some of the city, though they couldn’t see too much, as there were so many other buildings in the way.
Her desk was in a small gray cubicle that was one of several cubicles all fitted together, in what most office people called a cubicle farm. It wasn’t what she had intended to do with her life when she was younger, or even when she was in college, but it was the first job that she had gotten when she left college, and though she had looked for another job better suited to her degree for a while, she had finally given up on the dream.
She had sunk into the quicksand reality that she wasn’t going to be working in her field of education and her dream job. She was going to be working in customer service, making a decent wage for anyone in the suburbs, but not in the city, and she would be slowly promoted up the corporate ladder to subtly different higher levels of management, but never to one that really mattered, or made her any notable amount of money, or could be considered an achievement in the advancement of her career.
The realization of that life had come as a blow to her, but there was no foreseeable change to it, and she had finally just come to terms with it. The only bright side of her job working in the cubicle farm was that her desk was surrounded on three sides by three really great people, and the four of them had become fast friends, and had remained close friends during their five-year tenure there together. Amazingly enough, in that period of five years, none of them had been moved from their spots, so they all just kept working together and hoping for the best.
Tamika’s desk was on a corner, and to one side of her was Danny. Danny was gay with a fit and trimmed body, a millennial beard, and a fierce sense of fashion on a dime, or at least a quarter. He was a lover of music and fancy dinner parties, men bigger than him, and he was a very loyal and good friend to the few close friends that he cared deeply about, including Tamika and their other two cubicle partners.
Jane sat on Tamika’s other side. Jane was slightly overweight, and it was due in large part to her affinity for donuts and pastries, washed down with cream filled coffees more than once a day, every day. She didn’t mind her rounder figure, and her husband of twenty-seven years didn’t mind it either. He told her she was adorable, and he began to look the same way that she did: rounder, softer, and pleasantly plump, though he had thinner hair than she did.
Hers was dark brown and cut into a bob around her head. She and her husband had no children, but they had three cats, and their cats were their babies. Photos of the cats adorned her desk, and she often regaled the other three of them with stories about her fur babies. At Christmas, their gifts to her included toys and treats for the cats.
Sitting diagonally across from Tamika, and to the right and left of Danny and Jane, was Carol. Carol was a redheaded lady, thin and muscular, who wore no makeup and rarely did much with her hair, other than putting it behind her head. She had two children and was a single mother raising them on her own. She had no time or money for frivolities, and she worked hard to do what she could for her small family. She’d had dreams too, once, before the children, but her life had turned one way and the other, and she had wound up alone with them and all the responsibility that came with them.
Her dreams were tucked away into places where she did not visit them, and she contented herself as best she could with cocktail hour with her cubicle mates on Wednesday nights when her kids were doing sports, and she had an extra hour to go drown herself in a cocktail or two before she went home to them. It was a dead-end life, she said bleakly, but it was surviving. She was getting through, and she didn’t think about the future, other than making sure that there was one.
All three of them noticed right away that Tamika was wearing a new dress. They had worked together so long that they knew each other’s wardrobes. Danny came rushing around the little wall between them, admiring Tamika as he took her hands and held them up, so he could see the dress properly.
“Oh darling! It’s gorgeous! Turn! Turn for me!” he gushed with delight. She turned in place as instructed, and the skirt of the dress flared out around her lower legs some, giving Danny a thrill. “God, if I was just a little smaller, I’d ask to borrow that from you. It would be perfect for brunch at Cecil’s on Sunday morning!” He raved a bit more, and Carol waved at him to sit down.
“It is so lovely!” Jane grinned at her over the partition between them.
“Thank you.” Tamika smiled back. She felt beautiful in it, and she loved that she felt that way.
“Where did you get it?” Jane asked, inquiring further.
Tamika hesitated a moment. She wasn’t sure exactly how much to tell her friends, and she decided to play it safe. “Oh, I… got it from a friend. It was a gift.”
“That’s a very nice gift!” Carol gave her a smile over the corner between them. Tamika nodded.
“It is. I love it,” she answered, and then her phone rang, and Danny’s phone rang right afterward.
“Once more into the breach, my darlings,” he sing-sighed. They all nodded and began their work day.
Just before lunchtime, at half past eleven, the secretary from the main desk walked over to Tamika’s desk with a massive flower arrangement in her hands, and another of the ladies who helped her from time to time followed close behind her, with a large bag in her hands.
Danny’s head shot up, and he turned around in his seat, looking like a gopher who had popped up out of the ground as he searched around them. “That’s Medici’s! I know that smell. That’s lunch from Medici’s!” He was more than a little excited.
The secretary stopped at Tamika’s desk. “You’ve had some deliveries.” She smiled curiously at Tamika. “F
lowers, here.” She set them carefully on the end of Tamika’s desk, obscuring the view of half of the office on the other side of her. “And lunch.”
The secretary took the big bag and handed it ceremoniously to Tamika, giving her one last long curious look before she nodded and smile and walked back to the main desk at the front of the office, with her assistant close behind her.
Tamika looked down at the bag. There on the side of it was the logo and name of the restaurant.
“Medici’s! Ohhhh god how I love their parmesan alfredo! It’s the best in the city! Everything they make is the best in the city!” Danny was at her side, practically drooling over the bag. He turned slightly and eyed her suspiciously.
“Did you get a raise we don’t yet know about? How could you afford Medici’s?” He insisted on knowing. “That’s a once a year birthday dinner kind of place, not a ‘have a bag of it delivered to your desk on Monday for lunch’ kind of place. Talk, sister. Spill the beans.”