Smooth Operator

by Risqué

  “Just let me know when you come up for air.”

  “Don’t get an attitude with me—you just better be ready for Erica Kane, for when that bitch flies through here and wanna kick yo’ ass. Don’t worry, we’ll jump her ass, though.”

  “Anyway—”

  “Wait a minute—ding-ding-ding—something just came to me. You’ve been fucking this mofo and we still got fired? What, you ain’t suck his dick—?”

  “You are sick.”

  “Oh no, honey, you better jaw-break the shit outta that motherfucker. And anyway, when the hell you get the nerve to be screwing your goddamn boss? You just a typical li’l slutty-ass secretary, huh—”

  “Khris—”

  “Oh wait, are you the reason why that bitch came in there and almost got tossed out the fuckin’ window? We all got fired ’cause he was off fuckin’ yo’ ass? Oh hell no, you owe me.”

  “Oh my God—”

  “But that’s some fierce shit, though, girl, that mofo was gon’ splatter his own wife all over the goddamn street for your pussy! Scandalous. I love it! You think you can fuck our way to a raise?”

  “You know what, when you’re done holding this one-sided conversation, call me back. Because I’m trying to be serious with you and you’re ranting and raving about him being fine and having a big dick.”

  “You’re trying to hold a serious conversation with me?” Khris said. “Really? Well let me ask you this—do you have another job lined up to take the place of this one?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Not exactly.” Khris paused. “Translation, hell nawl. So answer me this, do you still have rent to pay and a child who needs health benefits?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hmmm, okay, and you’re quitting your job because you fucked your boss?”

  “Well—”

  “Translation—hell yes. And you expect me to think you’re trying to hold a serious conversation? Which part of that sounds serious to you, ’cause all that shit sounds silly as hell. Or maybe it’s just me.”

  “I didn’t ask you to pass judgment.”

  “I’m not, I’m just keeping it real with you. I love you like a sister, which is why I have to tell you that you’re sounding re-tar-ded,” she said, enunciating every syllable, “cra-ay-zeee. Stoop-id … as hell to me. You fucked Lyfe and now you’re upset enough to quit your job? Huh? What part of the game is that? That’s why men always beat us at shit; we get too emotional. Listen, you don’t quit your job behind dick. You go to work and act like nothing ever happened. Give his ass the cold shoulder, but you go to work—every day. Now put your goddamn clothes on, so when we take the boys across the street, we’ll be on time for the train.”

  Arri twisted her lips and released a deep breath out the side of her mouth; she hated that Khris was right. The mere thought that she would leave her job and not have another at least in the works was crazy. A Smooth Operator was okay, but she wasn’t living the high life or no shit like that. “You’re right.” She sighed.

  “I know, girl, but that’s why I’m here to get in that ass when you say some shit that makes no goddamn sense. Now hurry up so we’ll have enough time for you to tell me how big his dick was. Geezuz!” Khris shouted as she hung up.

  Arri held the phone to her chin as she looked at herself in her vanity’s mirror. “You slippin’.” She shook her head. “Just handle your business. That’s it. Do your job. Don’t say any extra shit, and keep the thoughts of wanting to slip beneath his desk and suck his dick out of your head.”

  Arri stepped away from the mirror and commenced to getting her and Zion dressed for the day. She purposely lagged behind, though, because she didn’t want to have to deal with Khris and her multitude of questions.

  By the time Arri arrived at the office, things were pretty much back to normal. The office chatter was afloat, Terell was delivering mail, and Lyfe was standing in his doorway watching her make her way to her cubicle. She shot him a loaded eye that clearly said, “Unless it pertains to business, don’t say shit to me.”

  He gave her a crooked grin, and she did her best not to roll her eyes and instead simply took her seat.

  New York

  An early morning crowd moved swiftly through Central Park, as Lyfe sat on a cement bench next to a resting jogger. He tapped his fingers on his Styrofoam coffee cup as he struggled like hell to focus in on the financial section of the New York Times. But he couldn’t; especially since his quick and unplanned walk through the park confirmed that two men were following him. And though he only knew one of them—Galvin, the overtanned motherfucker he’d met at the cigar bar—he now knew that both of them, beyond a shadow of a doubt, were cops.

  Fuck.

  Lyfe rattled his paper. He did his best to present as cool, calm, and collected, but inside he was nervous as hell. He tried to think of all the crimes he’d committed—before he turned his life around—and hadn’t answered to. He wondered if they were following him because of some warrant he forgot he had, or some trumped-up charge the Feds were infamous for creating.

  Shit.

  Lyfe narrowed in on the financial section of the paper, yet before he could get to the third sentence, his eyes wandered to where Galvin stood by a rickety breakfast truck, dunking his glazed doughnut into his steamy cup of coffee. Galvin smiled at Lyfe and gave him a thumbs-up.

  Let me get my ass out of here.

  Lyfe closed his paper and tucked it under his arm.

  “Lyfe,” Galvin called out to him as he stood to leave. Galvin held up his index finger—an indication that he wanted Lyfe to wait for a moment—but before Lyfe could protest or simply walk away, Galvin was already before him, wearing a tan trench coat with a Burberry lining. Standing next to Galvin was a tall, dark black man with a neatly cropped haircut. “Lyfe,” Galvin said, slapping him on the back, “how the hell are ya?” He smiled and pointed to the man next to him. “This is Keenan.”

  Keenan held his hand out and Lyfe accepted his gesture as he looked him over suspiciously. “Nice to meet you,” Keenan said, a little too damn chipper.

  “Yeah,” Galvin said, smiling, “seems we keep meeting a lot, you know.” He pulled a pack of Newports from his inner coat pocket and pointed them toward Lyfe. “Smoke?”

  “Nah,” Lyfe said, “but help yourself.”

  “That’s right, rich man’s stock only,” Galvin said. “Well, a son of a bitch like me can only smoke eight-hundred-dollar cigars during income tax time, ’cause every other time, I’m a living-from-Friday-to-Friday kinda man, ya’know?” Galvin held his cigarette loosely between his lips and flicked his Bic until he caught a steady flame. He puffed the butt until the tip of the cigarette became a crackling light. Afterward he took a strong pull and released an O of smoke from his thin cherry lips.

  Lyfe could no longer fake a smile or pretend that he felt comfortable standing here. “Listen, Galvin, Keenan,” he nodded at them respectively, “I need to get to the office. Take care.”

  “Certainly, Lyfe, a hardworking man like you, surely we understand,” Galvin said, “but before you go,” he placed his hand on Lyfe’s forearm and instantly Lyfe’s bicep tightened and he shot Galvin such a fierce look that Galvin threw up his hands in defeat. “Pardon me,” he said as his cigarette dangled from between his lips. “No harm intended. I just wanna ask you something.”

  “Peep this,” Lyfe snapped. “Don’t ask me shit.” He looked Galvin dead in the eyes and then moved on to ice-grill Keenan. “As a matter of fact, why don’t you tell me something. Tell me why you keep fuckin’ following me? You got something you wanna say to me?”

  Galvin took a pull and let out the smoke. “We don’t mean to make you paranoid, Lyfe.”

  “Certainly isn’t our style,” Keenan said as he sipped his coffee.

  Lyfe snorted. “How about this: if you got something you wanna tell me or some bullshit you wanna charge me with, then you need to bring it. Otherwise,” he looked them over and said slowly, “step … the … f
uck … off. Now, excuse me.”

  The entire day had flown by and Lyfe hadn’t been able to get anything done. He knew something was plain and simply fuckin’ wrong, he just didn’t know what it was. He’d been unable to think straight all day and between thoughts of Galvin, Keenan, and the unpunished crimes he’d committed, he found his eyes lingering, undressing, and attempting to relieve stress by getting lost in flashbacks of making love to Arri.

  All week she hadn’t said more than hello, how many copies, and good night to him. And before he could even think to ask her to stay late, or attempt to hold a conversation with her, she was gone. He thought about showing up at her place, but quickly decided that the thief in the night bullshit had grown stale. And since he was a grown man and had been for many years, he didn’t have time to be chasing her. He’d already sent her flowers every morning and she had yet to say, “Thank you, I appreciate the gesture,” nothing, so to hell with it. He was at a loss on what he needed to do, so he hunched his shoulders, stroked his box beard, and figured, fuck it.

  Lyfe rose from his seat and paced his office; he held his ringing cell phone in the palm of his hand. It was Payton. He sent her to voice mail. He had too much on his mind to be entertaining her melodramatic, controlling-ass bullshit. He looked out the window and onto the street, seeing nothing that impressed him; his eyes roamed to the clock: four p.m.

  Fuck. He grabbed his coat and walked out of his office. “I’ll be back,” he threw over his shoulder to Arri. He wasn’t sure if she’d caught what he said or not, because she didn’t once turn away from her computer.

  Jonathan Butler’s guitar filled the Shark Bar as Lyfe sat on the bar stool, sipping a glass of Hennessy and drifting deep into his thoughts. He looked into his drink and saw a snippet of Payton, a flashback of Arri, and a snapshot of the blue Caprice Classic that he had spotted in his rearview mirror as he drove over here. He closed his eyes and tried his best to make sense of all of this.

  “You’re under arrest,” drifted sternly into his ears and caused him to jump. He quickly turned around and noticed a few men gathered at a table laughing and joking with one another. “This is too much,” Lyfe said to himself as he knocked off the rest of his drink and left.

  The late winter wind whipped across Lyfe’s face as he entered the all-glass-enclosed lobby of his office building.

  “Evening, Mr. Carrington,” the doorman said, and tipped his hat. “Another late night?”

  “Pretty much.” Lyfe stepped onto the elevator. “Pretty much.”

  As Lyfe approached the double glass doors of Anderson Global, he could see Arri’s curved back while she leaned into her computer. She held a pencil in her hand, tapping it against the side of her forehead.

  “Arri?” He looked at her, surprised. “You’re still here?” he said as the doors swung closed behind him. “Why are you here so late?”

  “I have some work to finish up for accounting,” she said, her voice clearly on edge.

  “Accounting?”

  “They asked me if I would mind compiling this report for them, since Donna is on maternity leave. Besides, I could use the overtime.”

  “Yeah, but it’s after eight, you can finish that up tomorrow. I’m sure Zion’s waiting on you.”

  “I have a sitter and I can lock up too, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “I know you can lock up, I’m just saying—”

  “You don’t need to say any more,” she snapped so hard and curt that Lyfe instantly took a step back.

  He placed his hand on the sides of her rolling desk chair, and turned her toward him. “Let me know when you’re done having a fit, throwing a tantrum, or whatever you call it, so that I can hold a conversation with you.” He bent over and looked her directly in the eyes. “Ai’ight?”

  “I don’t have fits and I’m not throwing a tantrum. I’m doing my job.”

  “So then, let’s get to the point. How long are you going to be upset with me?”

  “Upset with you?” She batted her eyes. “About what?”

  Lyfe chuckled. “Oh, so, is this the name of the game? Act as if the weekend we spent together didn’t exist.”

  “Oh,” she said as if she were thinking, “we did spend a weekend together. Wasn’t that the one where you left and never said shit to me?”

  “It wasn’t that easy for me to leave.”

  “You could’ve said good-bye, take care, something; instead you treated me like you left money on the nightstand.”

  “That wasn’t my intention.”

  “Look, we settled our curiosity by fucking last weekend. Cool, we can move on. I’ma do me and you do your Mrs.”

  “It’s more complicated than that, Arri.”

  “I don’t see how, when I just made it quite simple. What we had no longer exists.” She blew into the palm of her hand. “Poof, gone. Okay? No guilt, no hurt, and no misunderstandings.”

  “So you’re not falling for me?” He pressed his forehead against hers. “That’s what you’re telling me?”

  Silence. She wanted to belt out, “No,” but even the thought of such a lie burned her mouth.

  “I fucked up,” Lyfe continued, “and I know that I’m married, I know. But it’s complicated.”

  “I’m not into being a complication, so let’s just simply walk away.”

  “But I’m too selfish of a motherfucker to do that. And I’m relentless as hell.”

  “Well, that’s on you”—she dusted her hands together—“because I’m done.”

  “So, what you’re telling me is that if I’m standing here telling you that no matter what I do or how hard I try to fight, I can’t help but fall for you—that means nothing to you?”

  Silence.

  “Answer me, and if you say it doesn’t, then I promise you I’ll never bring the shit up again.”

  The only sounds that could be heard were the echoes of the copy machine’s motors burning. “Tell me.” He brushed her lips with his own. “Tell me something, because I wanna get back to laughing with you.” He kissed her again. “I wanna make you smile again.” He sucked her bottom lip. “When all is said and done …” he slipped his tongue into her mouth, “I wanna make love to you again.”

  Arri hated that she was responding to his kisses. This was not the way she planned her response or had rehearsed it in her head. She was supposed to tell him to get the fuck out her face, stand on her heels, and leave him festering in his spot. But she didn’t and she couldn’t; instead, she allowed him to lift her from the seat as she wrapped her legs around his waist and be carried to his office; where he pressed her back into the floor-to-ceiling window, with the evening skyline of the city resting behind her.

  “I don’t know” were the only words she was able to formulate, as she watched him unbutton her blouse and line kisses over her shoulder. “I just …” she said, stopping for a moment to moan as he planted wet and sloppy kisses on her nipples. She wanted to stop his hands from roaming her body but she couldn’t get her mouth to stop moaning as she melted into his tongue kissing her breasts. “Lyfe … I can’t.” She watched the tip of his tongue flick against both of her nipples and then bite them slightly, making her mouth hang open and her pussy cream in preparation of his tongue, his dick, or both.

  “Shhh …” he said as he slid to his knees, and opened the eyes of her pussy. “Look at this pretty pussy.” He slid his tongue over her clit. “I want you to watch me make this pussy melt.”

  “Mmm, Lyfe …” she moaned, watching him suck, nibble, pull, and pop her cherry in his mouth. She could feel her pearl turning to Jell-O as he twirled it between his lips and then sucked it as if he were trying to get to the center of hard candy. Never had she felt or ever dreamed that her sex would be eaten with such intensity. Hell, maybe he needed to fuck up again, if this is what came along with his apologies.

  Her eyes drifted closed. The electrified licks to her clit forced her to dream of marriage, kids, him sucking her body into a double nut over and
over again.

  “As wet as this pussy is, you gon’ tell me you’re not falling for me. Who the hell gon’ believe that?”

  Lyfe licked, as Arri gripped his shoulders and his tongue moved deeper and deeper through her creamy trenches. She reached for his beard and pulled his face up to her own, greeting his lips with a silky kiss.

  Lyfe picked Arri up and carried her to his desk, where he lifted her onto it, knocking everything on it—stacks of unreturned phone messages, files, Payton’s picture, and the wooden plaque engraved with his name—to the floor. Her skirt rose over her ass and their fingers entangled as they both pulled her panties off and he tossed them to the floor. Hurriedly she unbuckled his pants and revealed his hardness.

  “I’ll never hurt you again.” He opened her legs like scissors and brushed the head of his dick against her wetness. Slowly he pushed into her warm flesh, while taking his hands and caressing her breasts; he loved the feel of her nipples between his fingers.

  His meat was hot, and hard, and heavy as Arri squeezed her velvet walls.

  “I’m sorry, baby.” Lyfe moved his body like a monstrous chocolate wave as he soared into her. “You forgive me?”

  Silence.

  “Did you hear me? I said I was sorry.”

  More silence.

  “Oh, you’re not answering me.” He held her legs straight up in the air.

  “Yes … oh God,” she screamed as he rocked in and out of her.

  “Not God, baby; He didn’t apologize, I did.”

  “Wait,” she gasped, and her mouth flew open with every word. “Wait, maybe …” Arri moaned, “maybe we should—”

  “Should what?” Lyfe stroked. “ ’Cause you know I’m not stopping.”

  “But the office door is wide open.”

  “I don’t give a fuck.” He threw her a hard hip and she started to scream again. “Make ’em lose their fuckin’ minds!”

  Arri paused, his mind-blowing strokes were on a mission to enter her stomach, her chest heaved up and down as she screamed out, “Lyfe!”