Love's Deadly Masquerade

by The Author- Yani

  “Hey Eric!” Arianna said with a smile after opening the door for him. She gave him the once over just as she had done at Saks Fifth Avenue earlier and thought to herself that he looked good enough to eat. He was wearing a pair of faded blue jeans with a pair of Prada sneakers, a white Polo shirt and a blazer. He even smelled better than he did earlier.

  “How are you…?” he winced not remembering her name.

  “Arianna…” she replied with a frown. “I’ma let you slide on that one, home-boy. Just don’t let it happen again,” she joked in a flirty manner. She called for Vanessa to come out of the room for her date.

  Eric smiled at her but turned his attention to Vanessa. His smile widened as he gave her the once over. “You look beautiful.”

  “Thank you,” Vanessa blushed. He took her by the hand tenderly and kissed her on the cheek making her blush some more.

  “What time should I expect you?” Arianna asked.

  Vanessa looked at Eric and then looked at Arianna. “Um, I don’t know. Are we just doing dinner tonight?” she asked Eric.

  “Whatever you want to do afterwards is fine with me as long as I get to spend as much time with you as the night allows me to.”

  Vanessa blushed again. “You don’t have to wait up, I’m a big girl,” she said to Arianna.

  “Yeah, uh huh. Okay,” Arianna replied as she walked them to the door. She watched from the window and her mouth damn near hit the floor when she saw Eric open the car door to what she estimated to be a 2012 Infiniti. Vanessa sat inside and he closed her door before jogging around to the other side and getting in. Arianna watched the car until it disappeared down the street.

  “He’s probably a drug dealer. Yup, that nigga’s a trap king,” she smirked before closing the blinds and going to pop some popcorn for her mini marathon of Law & Order SVU.

  Though Vanessa was nervous, she hit it off very well with Eric during their drive to Chima’s Brazilian Steakhouse for their dinner date. Eric made her feel at ease as they both talked of their child-hoods. While he didn’t look it, Eric was 25 years old and worked as a partner with one of the top Financial Brokerage Firms in the Tri-State area. He had no children, had never been married and for the last five years, he had been more focused on establishing a career and a good life than starting a family and settling down. He told Vanessa that he dated off and on but hadn’t met a young lady he could see himself with for a long time.

  Vanessa thought that he was too good to be true. Most of the guys that she knew who were his age had done at least one bid in jail, were barely making above minimum wage at a mediocre job with hardly any aspirations for anything better than the next get rich quick scheme; a party promotor or an “up & coming” rap star from Philly with a mix-tape always coming soon but never arriving. And then there were the DJ’s hustling at hole in the wall bars and clubs or alley-way block parties, guys with multiple children by multiple women who still lived at home with their mothers; back bedroom or basement dwellers who only left home when their chick of the moment let them stay with them. Because of the same scenarios she constantly ran into, she gave up on dating and focused more on school, hoping to enroll into law school after she graduated with her bachelor’s degree in criminology.

  Eric was impressed with her aspirations as well as they sat in Chima’s talking some more while waiting for their dinner. At first, Vanessa was afraid to order after she had seen the prices. Not wanting to over step her boundaries, she asked him to recommend a dish stating that she had never been to the restaurant before. Eric ordered the Picanha-top sirloin for Vanessa and a salmon steak for himself with a bottle of Chateau Montelena Estate Cabernet Sauvignon- 2010 wine and two salads.

  “I’m only twenty,” Vanessa whispered to him after the waiter poured both of them a glass and walked away.

  “It’s okay, I won’t tell if you won’t tell,” Eric smiled. “You’ve never had wine before?”

  “I’ve never drank, smoked, nothing,” Vanessa said bashfully.

  “Well, first things first: sip, don’t gulp. But when you sip it, don’t swallow it right away. Close your eyes and let the flavor dance around your mouth for a moment. Let it play a sweet melody on your tongue almost as though it’s singing to your taste buds,” Eric said softly. He watched her intently. “Now swallow it.”

  Vanessa did as he said and then slowly opened her eyes. Looking into his eyes, she felt hot, and aroused. She felt his seduction wash over her body and felt as though she was getting to know him intimately without having him touch her physically.

  “Was it good?” he asked her in the same soft voice, snapping her out of her trance.

  “Yes,” she replied trying hard not to bite down on her lip and trying even harder not to stare at his.

  Eric sat back and smiled as though he read her thoughts and could sense what she was feeling. He took a sip from his glass and then swirled it slightly before sitting it down and looking back at her. “When do you turn 21?” he asked.

  “In June. My friends want to throw me a big party, but nah. I’m just not into that.”

  “Well, how about I take you to one of my favorite vineyards and we can go wine tasting together. You’ll love it. That’s normally around the time that I grab a few bottles for the winter and the fall anyway, so if things work out for us, we can make it a date.”

  Vanessa smiled. She was liking Eric more and more even though she had just met him. “Maybe we can.”

  They ate their dinner and desert continuing their conversation, sharing stories, laughing, and enjoying each other’s company as they got to know one another. After Eric paid the bill, he drove them over to Warm Daddy’s where they listened to the live band and had a few more drinks. Eric then noticed that it was almost 1am and decided to bring the evening to a close.

  He pulled up in front of her residence and got out of the car so he could open her door. He walked her to the front door and she turned to face him.

  “I had a wonderful time tonight. I honestly can’t think of any other time I went out on a date and had this much fun with a guy who genuinely seemed interested in me and was such a gentleman. Thank you,” Vanessa said with a smile.

  “You don’t have to thank me, Vanessa. That’s what a man is supposed to do, and if a man isn’t doing those things for you, he isn’t a man.”

  Vanessa blushed and looked away from him for a moment. Before she realized it, Eric leaned in and kissed her softly. She hesitated momentarily, but then kissed him back. He pulled away before giving her another peck on the lips and then brushed her hair behind her ear.

  “I’ll call you when I get in, okay.”

  Vanessa nodded unable to speak, feeling like her breath had been taken away.

  Eric waited for her to go inside before getting into his car and driving away.

  Vanessa floated to the bedroom that she and Arianna shared and plopped down on her bed grinning from ear to ear. She replayed the night over in her head mainly focusing on their kiss as she continued to smile. She was snapped out of her daydream by Arianna’s groggy voice.

  “GTD or naw?” Arianna asked in a husky voice.

  “GTD?” Vanessa asked confused.

  Arianna clicked the lamp on by her dresser. “Got the drawls, dawg!” She burst out laughing, imitating Tommy from the T.V show “Martin” and Vanessa laughed with her.

  “You’re so goofy! No he didn’t get the drawls, girl shut up!” Vanessa went into the bathroom and changed into her night clothes before crawling into bed and dishing the details of her date with Eric.

  That night, Vanessa was positive she had found the man she was looking for; charismatic, smart, funny, and ambitious, good looking, kind and gentle. She was positive Eric was the man of her dreams. Little did she know he would turn out to be nothing more than a hellish nightmare from which she could not escape…

  2

  Eric had gone out for the night like he normally does after him and Vanessa gets into a physical altercation. Once before, Vanessa
had tried to leave him and because of that, he put locks on the door that could only be unlocked from the inside as well as the outside with a key. And of course, he was the only one who had the key. So Vanessa literally was a prisoner in her own home. As punishment once, Eric locked her in the house with only one bottle of water and a half of a can of plain Pringles. He also took her cell phone so she couldn’t call anyone and disconnected the internet so she couldn’t get on any of her social media pages, send emails or anything. For two days she practically starved as she tried to ration out the chips, choosing to sleep off the hunger so she didn’t suffer too much.

  On the eve of the second day, Eric came home as though nothing had happened, with her favorite Beef with Garlic Sauce Chinese food, a shrimp roll and a mango Nantucket. He purposely opened the food to let the aroma fill the air, teasing her senses and awakening her hunger even more. But before he allowed her to eat, he demanded she performed oral sex on him.

  Eric forced his throbbing member in and out of her mouth with such vigor, becoming more and more aggressive each time she gagged and sounded as though she would vomit on him. Seeing her eyes getting teary and hearing the gagging noises she made turned him on even more. Without warning, he ejaculated in her mouth and on her face. He then laid her on her back and pushed her knees to her chest before entering her hard and deeply. She clawed the sheets, grimacing against his strong thrusts knowing better than to scratch his back because that would result in a hard slap to the face or him possibly choking her as he fucked her harder and deeper. He seemed to enjoy seeing her face covered in his cum and that made him pound her even harder. Not being able to take the look on his face any longer, she closed her eyes trying hard to separate herself from that experience.

  After he ejaculated the second time, Eric flung her legs off of him as though she was just a whore whom he had picked up off the street, and walked out of the room not saying a word. Vanessa never felt so degraded and humiliated. It wasn’t until almost two hours later that the sexual escapade came to an end. But by then, her food was already cold. Vanessa had lost her appetite and just wanted to take a shower.

  Vanessa laid in the bed as that memory danced around in her head. Her constant thoughts and questions of “why” were endless and always resulted in no answers. She stopped believing she was a good person and began to tell herself this is what she deserved. The best way she knew to comfort herself was to tell herself that it could always be worst. She could be dead. “But is death really worse than what’s happening now?” a voice said inside of her head. She ignored it and rolled over in the bed before closing her eyes and thinking back to when times were happier between her and Eric…

  They had been dating for six months and Vanessa couldn’t be happier. And though she had spent nights at his place, they still had not had sex. Eric was well aware that she was a virgin and did not pressure her into being with him intimately. Sometimes Vanessa thought that he was tempting her with the coconut oil body massages he would give to her, the way he would walk around his house with no shirt on looking as though he had just stepped out of a Melanin Adonis God Catalogue. But at night when they would go to bed, he would only wrap his arms around her and sleep. While Vanessa had never experienced sex, she was indeed feeling sexually frustrated.

  “Why don’t you just tell him you want to fuck for goodness sakes?! Sheesh!” Arianna asked one day when they were in their apartment.

  “Oh my God, Ari! Do you have to put it that way?” Vanessa shook her head as she folded her clothes.

  “I’m just saying! This man got you all horny and shit, damn near leaving a trail of pussy juice behind you as you move about, complaining about the lack of dick action you’re getting. Say something! Shit, closed mouths don’t get fed, and closed legs don’t get fucked.”

  Vanessa shook her head at her friend. “You’re a whole mess.”

  “Yeah well, at least my coochie ain’t dying from dick deprivation,” they both laughed at her comment. “Aw shit, what if he has a little dick and he’s scared you might laugh at him.” Arianna roared with laughter. “I bet that’s it! He’s a little midget, limp-dick, leprechaun mofo!”

  “Nah, that’s not it. I felt it up against me when we were sleep and it definitely wasn’t little,” Vanessa replied with a mischievous grin.

  “Oooh, girl! How big was it, could you tell? Was it on some Idris Elba shit from the movie “Takers” when he got out the bed and you could see that big Black Mandingo Warrior dick behind his drawls! That print was like POW!”

  “God help this girl,” Vanessa chuckled. “I’m not telling you! All I’ma say is he definitely ain’t small.”

  “Then he’s probably a two pump chump… shit, you better hope his ass ain’t gay.”

  “Here you go! He’s definitely not gay.”

  “Shit, you don’t know. Niggas hide that shit too well these days. And it don’t even be the obvious fagalicious fairies you gotta worry about. Those the ones who are cool with me because they accept their gayness, they ain’t trying to hide it. It be those fine niggas with the deep-ass Barry White voices, talking about just cause they let a bitch eat they ass or stick a finger up they ass, that don’t mean they’re gay, knowing muthafucking well they’re a jail sentence away from getting butt-fucked like Bubba’s bitch. You better watch that nigga,” Arianna warned.

  “If you don’t shut up, Arianna I swear on my life, I’ma punch you in the throat. Eric is not gay.” Vanessa rolled her eyes starting to become annoyed.

  “Alright, if you say so. But if his dick ain’t little and he’s not a two-pump chump or gay, you got another problem.”

  “And what’s that, Ms. Know-It-All?” Vanessa retorted.

  “He might be fucking somebody else. And this ain’t me on some hating shit either, Vanna. I’m dead up. When a nigga ain’t worried about getting pussy from the chick he’s with, it’s because he’s getting pussy from somewhere else. Don’t believe me if you want to. All jokes aside, that’s some real shit. Any nigga on the street will tell you that. All that I’ll wait for you shit, it’s no rush, or whenever you’re ready, is a bunch of bullshit. One thing a nigga not gonna go without is some pussy. He might go without food, a haircut, hell a nigga will even go without washing his fucking drawls. But he for damn sure ain’t gonna go without getting any pussy from somewhere. So remember this, if I ain’t teach you nothing, I taught you this; what you won’t do, there’s twenty thousand bitches lined up waiting to do that and more. Eric is young, fine as hell, has his own place, his own car, don’t have a bunch of ratchet kids by a bunch of different ratchet-ass baby-moms running around. He has good credit, never been to jail and got money. What bitch wouldn’t be throwing the pussy his way?” Arianna looked at Vanessa with the screw face as though she should know better.

  “Does that include you?” Vanessa asked her best friend seriously.

  Arianna stared at Vanessa for a moment before smiling. “I’ll tell it to you like this, if you wasn’t my home-girl and I didn’t love you like a sister, I would have fucked that nigga months ago and had a toothbrush, a drawer and closet space in his house. I’d have the keys to his car, know when he gets paid and what percentage is going to be mine.” And with those words, Arianna went into the kitchen to get her a bowl of ice-cream.

  Vanessa thought on Arianna’s words. She began to wonder if what she said was true. What if Eric wasn’t worried about having sex with her because he was getting taken care of by someone else? What if holding onto her virginity left her inexperienced and unable to satisfy her man, which would ultimately cause him to look for sexual satisfaction from another woman. She was falling in love with Eric and didn’t want to lose him over sex. She sat down on the bed and began to devise a plan to seduce him for her 21st birthday that was coming up in a week.

  The night of her birthday, she pretended she had a serious craving for some cookie dough ice-cream and begged Eric to get her a half-gallon from the market. While he was gone, she quickly showered again and put
on the sexy lingerie that she purchased from Victoria’s Secret earlier that day. It was a black, lacey bodysuit that accentuated her cleavage and was see-through in the midsection as well as in the crotch area. She made sure the day before she got herself a Brazilian bikini wax and waxed her legs as well. She was just placing the bow on her tummy when she heard Eric’s car pull up in the drive-way. She hurried to put the six inch heels on and ran into the kitchen almost stumbling and falling twice. She posted up on the kitchen counter in a sexy pose and waited for Eric to come into the kitchen. Vanessa could hear that he was talking on the phone and began to get nervous as he got closer to the kitchen. When Eric saw her, he stopped in mid-sentence.

  “Yo, I’m going to have to call you back…” he said as he peered at Vanessa. He disconnected the call and sat the phone and the bag on the kitchen table before looking Vanessa over, immediately becoming erect as he gazed at her body.

  “Damn baby, is it my birthday or yours?” he asked as he walked over to her.

  Vanessa giggled nervously. “Mine,” she replied as Eric kissed her neck. “But I don’t mind sharing.” They kissed each other but Eric pulled away from her.

  “Are you sure about this? I don’t want to rush you into anything.”

  Vanessa nodded. “I’m sure.”

  Eric kissed her again before picking her up and carrying her to his bedroom. Vanessa thought she would be terrified but she felt completely safe with him at that moment and wanted to be with him intimately more than anything in the world. She watched Eric as he undressed like a wide-eyed toddler seeing an amusement park for the first time. The only thing she could think of was how absolutely amazing his body was. She marveled over every inch of him feeling like she would lose her breath. She wanted to take in every second, every minute; memorize every detail, scent and taste so she could play it again and again in her mind and never forget.