Never Again, No More

by Untamed

  “I know, but if you answer now, Pooch will be real slick and will throw you off your game. Call him from Lucinda’s house,” Terrence advised, and I put the phone down.

  I pulled up at Skeet’s house, and Terrence jumped out of the car quickly. As promised, Skeet had waited on him. I called Lucinda and drove to her house the back way. Once inside her house, I called Pooch.

  “Where the fuck have you been?” he yelled so loud I had to hold the phone away from my ear.

  “I was with Lucinda in Athens. Why?”

  “She didn’t tell you I called?”

  “She just told me now, like, as you were calling me. She was so fucking drunk that she passed out in the car, and I had to help her get in the house. That’s why I just missed your call.”

  Lucinda played along in the background. “I’m so shor-ry, Pooch. I shraight up forgot, yo,” she said, slurring. “All the single ladies,” she sang and gave me the evil eye.

  “Damn! She drunk as fuck,” Pooch said, apparently buying Lucinda’s act. “Well, what the fuck happened to your phone?” he asked, switching gears in a flash.

  “It went dead, baby. I didn’t even think about charging it until we got back into the Atlanta city limits, since Lucinda had her cell in case of emergencies,” I lied.

  “Well, didn’t you hear her fuckin’ phone ringing on the ride home?” he asked, anger once again consuming him.

  “Yes, Pooch, but she was asleep and I was driving. I couldn’t get to the phone, and I was trying to focus on getting home. Damn! Where is the fire?” I shot back, feigning irritation.

  “Ain’t no damn fire unless I need to stomp one out of your ass,” he said with an attitude. “I’m just tryin’ figure out what the fuck was going on, since I called you hours ago to check on you, with no answer.”

  “I’m headed back home, and I’m good,” I reassured him with a slight attitude of my own.

  “Why the fuck was you clubbing in Athens, of all places, anyway? And what club did you go to?” Pooch quizzed me.

  “I don’t know. Just a change of scenery. We haven’t been club hopping in a while, and we just wanted to get away and see what was happening. We just went to 40 Watt and some other little hole-in-the-wall. Nothing was jumping, so Lucinda got drunk, and then we came on back,” I informed him, silently thanking God that Terrence had remembered to tell me the name of some club in Athens during the drive back.

  Pooch paused for a second, then sighed. “A’ight. So you on your way home?”

  “Yes. I’m walking out of Lucinda’s house now,” I said, waving at her. She shook her head at me and motioned for me to call her.

  “A’ight then. Call me when you get home and let me know you cool. I mean that shit. If my phone ain’t ringing in the next twenty minutes, I’m sending my peeps looking for your ass, and then I’m on the fuckin’ road, locked and loaded. Do you hear me?” Pooch warned me.

  “Yes, I hear you,” I said as I got inside my car. “Would you stop being so paranoid and handle your business?”

  “Shit! I’ve been up all night, huntin’ yo’ ass. My business is gon’ get handled, but now I’m sleepy as fuck, when I should’ve been resting. Fuckin’ wit’ yo’ ass,” Pooch complained.

  “Aw, baby. I’m sorry I had you worried. I’m cool, and everything is good. I promise.”

  Pooch huffed. “A’ight, babe. I hear you.”

  “I’m going to call you as soon as I get in the house. I promise. I love you, Pooch,” I sang into the phone, content that he believed my lies.

  “I love you too, Trinity. Remember that shit.”

  “I do, babe,” I said in a sappy voice into the phone.

  “You better,” he warned and hung up.

  When I got home exactly fifteen minutes later, I immediately called Pooch. I wasn’t crazy. As I talked to Pooch, I made sure there were no remnants of Terrence in my car and sprayed my perfume inside it. Once he was content enough to let me off the phone, I showered and threw my clothes in the washer. Then I sent Lucinda a text message letting her know I was cool and deleted all her messages off my phone. Just as my head hit my pillow after five in the morning, my cell rang.

  “Hello?” I answered sleepily.

  “Just checking on you,” Terrence said. “Were you asleep?”

  “Just laid my head down,” I responded.

  “My bad. I take it Pooch bought the story.”

  “Yep.”

  “Good. I knew he would. Well, you have a good night, baby.”

  I yawned and stretched. “You too.”

  “I love you,” he said nervously.

  “And I love you too. That hasn’t changed.”

  He chuckled. I could sense the relief in his voice. “We’ll talk.”

  “Most def. Good night,” I said and hung up the phone to go to sleep, but not before I deleted his call out of my cell.

  As I drifted off, my mind began to reminisce about the awesome night I’d had with Dreads, and I felt myself smiling. I loved Dreads, and I wanted him so bad. I knew I had to figure out a way to get back to him, but real talk, a part of me still felt obligated to Pooch. He’d been there for me when I couldn’t depend on anybody else, and I’d just betrayed him in the worst way. Did it mean I still wanted to be in the relationship? Absolutely not. I wanted Terrence. If I was truthful with myself, it’d always been Terrence for me, and it always would be. I’d choose him a hundred times over. But like Terrence said, if I was nothing else, I was loyal, and that was the part that made me feel bad for the exit I would soon make from this relationship with Pooch. If only I knew exactly how to do that . . . safely.

  Ugh! It bothered me that I didn’t know what or how I was going to do anything. The only thing I knew for sure was that even though I had love for Pooch, in my heart, I was in love with Terrence and I longed to be with him.

  With thoughts of Terrence on my mind, I didn’t even hear my cell phone ringing with another call from Pooch.

  Charice

  Dressed in a long yellow tube dress, with a matching yellow flower in my hair, I held my flip-flops in my hand as I walked along the beach. The beach was pure white sand, not hot, just warm, and it stretched for miles, farther than the eye could see. The ocean tide was low, and as I walked along, the warm water cascaded back and forth over my feet, tickling my toes, and carried each footprint back out to a sea that was so blue and pristine, it looked mystical. I couldn’t help but stare at the water as the sun beamed brightly over it. It was as if God Himself smiled down on the beauty of it. The climate was just right, sunny and warm, with bursts of cool, refreshing winds. It was as if Heaven had adorned the day itself and blessed us earthlings with a little piece of paradise.

  As I walked along, I enjoyed the serenity of the moment and basked in the beauty of the day. Suddenly, I felt two strong arms around my waist, and the person attached to those arms offered the sweetest, most succulent kiss to the nape of my neck. I turned my head slightly to see who’d blessed me with this delectable treat, and I saw Lincoln in a tank top and linen shorts. I offered him a small peck on the lips as we lovingly giggled at each other. Our love was as natural and pure as this little slice of Heaven. I lovingly leaned against him, and we swayed back and forth to the rhythm of the waves that crashed on the shore.

  As I leaned back, wrapped in his embraced, I grasped his huge python arms and slid my fingertips down his bulging muscles, making sure to trace the tattoo of a heart that showed the date that we began dating on a banner that wrapped around it. On the banner, written in Swahili, was the saying “The day I gave my heart away.” Engulfed in the essence of romance, we kissed passionately on the beach. Once our desires consumed us, he carried me back to our cabana, which opened up to a private oceanfront view, laid me on the huge circular bed situated in the center of the bedroom, and made slow, sweet love to me for hours.

  I smiled as my eyes fluttered and finally opened. I sat up, stretched, and looked around as I realized I’d had the sweetest dream. Do you want to
know what’s better than having that dream? To wake up and realize it wasn’t a dream at all. It was my reality. I was in Paradise Island, on a four-day, three-night vacation with my man, and we were only on day one.

  As I swung my legs to the side of the bed, I picked up my flower off the nightstand, placed it back in my tangled hair, and wrapped myself in a sheet from the bed. When I stood up, I spotted Lincoln out on the terrace. His focus was trained on the ocean as the sun prepared to set on the horizon, to rest and prepare for another day. I walked out, sat in the chair next to him, and placed my feet in his lap.

  “This is beautiful. You should’ve woken me up so I could come to see this with you.” I sighed, sitting back in the chair.

  His gaze fell on me as he toyed with my feet. “You beat me to it. I got so lost in the peacefulness of the moment that I forgot that I was going to come and wake you. But I am so glad you’re here now.”

  Giddiness spread through me, and a blush crossed my face. He reached for my hand and pulled me into his lap. I leaned against him as we watched the sunset together. As I rubbed my hand across his bare chest, feeling his every muscle, his body felt a little tense, and I wondered what was wrong with him.

  “What’s on your mind?” I asked.

  “Just thinking, baby.”

  “Thinking about what?”

  “Us.”

  “What about us?”

  “Just thinking,” he responded softly.

  “Is that a bad thought or a good thought?” I asked, probing, as I eyed him intently.

  His jawline tightened as he kept his focus on the skyline. “Stop looking for trouble, Ma. We’re good.”

  He was right. I was looking for trouble, that is. See, a couple of weeks ago, I’d had to deal with one of the pressures of being his woman. He had had to make a couple of appearances and attend a benefit dinner, and women had fawned over him left and right. I had been there, in the background, but still had witnessed everything front and center. He hadn’t done anything wrong. It had been the relentlessness of the women that had me on edge. Who wanted to sit back and watch women hug and grab on their man and attempt to give him phone numbers? Shameless heifers. By the night’s end, I’d been so mad I could have spit fire.

  Afterward, I had questioned him, and a huge argument had ensued. I had claimed that his lifestyle was too much for me, and he had claimed I allowed my past with Ryan to interfere with us. I had been prepared to storm out, because I didn’t think I could handle the pressure, but Lincoln had told me point blank that if I left, he wouldn’t chase me. He’d said that he needed a woman who could be confident in who she was as his woman, and that if he didn’t give me a reason to walk away, then obviously I was walking away because I wanted to. He’d professed that if that was the case, he wouldn’t force me to stay. I loved Lincoln, so of course, I had stayed and we’d made up, but it just seemed that since then, there had been a tense feeling between us. That was the reason we had decided to take this trip. Everything had been going well up until this moment, when I began looking for trouble again.

  “I’m sorry. I just want us both to enjoy this trip,” I told him.

  “And I am,” he said reassuringly. “I just want you to relax and know that I’m here with you.”

  “And I know that,” I admitted. “I do.”

  He smiled and kissed me. “I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  We both stood up, and Lincoln looked down at me with lustful eyes as he slowly removed the sheet from around me. “Let’s make love right here.”

  Nudging him forward for a kiss, I whispered, “Whatever you want, Mr. Harper.”

  What a damn rush. The knowledge that we were in seclusion allowed us to set loose our inhibitions. I rode him in every position. We let it all out, every moan and whimper, as we unleashed our love on each other. Our lovemaking took us to the rail of the balcony, and as I leaned over it and received all Lincoln had to offer, I noticed in the distance a couple of the retreat’s employees look up at us and smile, with surprised looks on their faces. There wasn’t another cabana for miles, and no guests had access to our ocean view, but the employees did. Oh, well, they got an eyeful tonight. I didn’t bother to ask Lincoln if he saw them or not, but I didn’t give a damn who saw me at this point. He laid down some oil-line pipes, and I wasn’t about to stop getting it for no damn body.

  The two men who looked on stopped two of the women employees who appeared ready to leave with them. I smiled devilishly as I looked at them. Then Lincoln flipped me around and leaned my back against the rail. He hoisted my legs around his waist to hit it from the front. His stroke game was so fierce, it caused my head to tilt back from pleasure. My breasts bounced ferociously up and down as he unleashed fury on me.

  “Oh damn, baby!” I moaned loudly.

  “We have company,” he whispered seductively.

  “I know,” I replied. “So what?”

  He laughed, and I leaned forward to kiss him as he carried me to the sliding-glass door. My back hit the door with a light thud, but we never broke our stride. The freakiness of it turned us on in a major way. As my back slid up and down the glass while he pumped, the small group of employees cheered. We laughed and kicked it into overdrive. Soon we were both at our breaking point, and as we hit our climax, our moans reached a high crescendo together before we collapsed to the floor. The employees let out thunderous applause, and we looked up from the floor, then waved and laughed with them.

  “Good night!” they yelled in unison, then turned to walk away.

  “It already was!” we yelled back.

  They continued to laugh as they walked away, leaving us to enjoy the solitude once again. Once we collected ourselves, we sat back against the sliding glass and watched as the moon shone brightly in the sky.

  “I wonder if this is what Heaven is like,” I said softly.

  “Ma, I don’t need to wonder, because I have Heaven on Earth, right here,” he said, then kissed me on the shoulder.

  “Aw, baby.” I snuggled closer to him. I wanted to stay like that forever, but I had worked up quite the appetite during that session. “So are we going to eat or stay in and hibernate all night?”

  “This is your time. We’ll do whatever you want,” he said.

  “Well, I say, ‘Feed your woman.’ I need my strength,” I joked.

  He helped me up, and we walked inside the cabana together. “Well, let me feed you, then, because you most definitely need your strength.”

  We showered together and then quickly got dressed. We decided to go to one of the restaurants in the main building of the resort. It was a luau-style dinner, and I had a frozen daiquiri with the famous umbrella stuck in the glass. Dinner and the fireworks show that accompanied it were simply amazing. As we sat there, sipping our drinks and watching the show, a few guys and some employees came up to us and got autographs from Lincoln. Of course, this got the ladies’ attention, and soon a few female onlookers made their way over to our table.

  “Excuse me. Are you a ballplayer?” one silicone beauty asked.

  Lincoln looked up at her. “Yes, I’m an athlete,” he said, subtly correcting her. When it came to his career, Lincoln took it seriously and hated when anyone referred to him as a “ballplayer,” as if his livelihood was a mere joke.

  “Let me guess. Football, right?” her friend said as they giggled flirtatiously.

  “You would be correct,” Lincoln responded, unfazed by their flagrant flirting.

  “Ha! I knew it! I could tell. You have the build of a football player, wide, lean, and firm,” the friend said. She laughed and pinched his bicep. I had to giggle at that.

  “Can I help you, ladies?” Lincoln leaned back.

  They looked at me. “Do you mind if we sit here?” the first girl asked.

  “Of course not. Pull up a chair,” I lied.

  Lincoln looked at me as if I was half crazy, and the ladies both slid chairs around him, then gushed and fawned over him. They even asked
him to sign their fake boobs. He refused but signed napkins instead. They went on and on about visiting Dallas, and how they’d love to have front-row seats to see his games. The whole time I watched the show as Lincoln pretended to stay engrossed in the conversation.

  “Ladies, it’s been real, but I’m here with my girlfriend, and I would like to get back to enjoying my evening with her,” Lincoln said to them after a good twenty minutes.

  They looked at each other and then at me. “You’re his girlfriend?” the first girl half stated and half questioned.

  I nodded. “Yes, I am.”

  The second girl laughed. “Some girlfriend you are. I thought you were his sister or something. There’s no way I’d let a man this fine sit in the presence of two beautiful women and not say a word,” she said in an attempt to jab me.

  The nerve. Honestly, I didn’t know whether I wanted to go off or laugh at these birds. Lincoln went to speak, but I put up my hand to intercept him. I had it covered.

  “It doesn’t bother me,” I announced. I shrugged as I took the final sip of my drink before I placed down the empty glass. “I don’t have to vie for his attention. He gives it to me willingly. Case in point, he asked you all to leave for me. I’m not worried about your intentions, because I know his intentions. So, whether it’s two okay-looking young ladies or twenty bombshells that fawn over him, it doesn’t bother me. I know that I am more than enough for him.” I sat back and addressed Lincoln. “Honey, are you sure you’re ready to dismiss your fans?”

  The grin on his face as he winked at me spoke volumes. “Actually, I’m ready to go back to the room if you are. I can think of a million other things to do right about now,” he said, rubbing my thigh seductively.

  I looked over at the girls, who scoffed at us in disbelief. “Well, ladies, that’s my cue. You all have a lovely evening. I know I will,” I said slyly to them as Lincoln stood up. “Ready, baby?” I asked.

  I stood, and Lincoln pulled my chair out so I could walk around the table. Then he wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “Yes, baby,” he replied. “Good night, ladies. Enjoy the show,” he said.