The Pleasure Trap

by Niobia Bryant

  Shaking his head and wiping away the smile that spread across his chiseled, handsome face, Graham tossed his duffel onto the rear seat before coming around the car to open her door. “You’re welcome,” he said before she could even thank him.

  Geneva winked at him before she grabbed the lapel of his lightweight khaki jacket and pulled him down from his six-foot-nine-inch height to lick his lips.

  Shaking his head, he used the muscles of his arms to pick her up so that her body was against his and he was able to see the light spray of freckles across her nose. “You’re too tall,” she said, not sounding like she meant it as she moved her hands up to grip the sides of his face.

  Graham captured her mouth with his and enjoyed the taste of her tongue and her lips. Her little moan of pleasure in the back of her throat pushed him to deepen the kiss until his tongue traced the length of hers before circling it slowly and then sucking deeply on the tip.

  Geneva broke the kiss gently but kept her forehead against his and breathed hotly against his open mouth. “You make me want to do things, Graham Walker. Nasty, dirty, freaky things that”—she swallowed hard—“would send me straight to hell.”

  “For a taste of your goodies I would gladly go to hell,” he told her, burying his face against her neck and deeply inhaling her sweet citrus perfume.

  “Graham!” she exclaimed with wide eyes. “That’s blasphemous.”

  He chuckled. “God knows what’s on my heart... and on my brain, so no need to lie. He sees all and knows all.”

  “Preach, Brother Graham,” she teased, lifting one hand up to wave it as if she was in church. “I think you like church more than you put on.”

  Graham’s eyes searched hers and for one second—maybe even less—he considered telling her his truth. His secret. His shame.

  But what to say: It’s not every church I hate, just your father’s church, where I should have been safe and sheltered from one of the older boys molest—

  He shook his head, hating even to think the word.

  Giving her one last kiss, he set her back down on her feet and moved away from her to climb into the car. Not since his high school days had his feelings about what happened affected him so much. Back then, it was the anger he clung to, and the anger that led to him fighting anybody who even tried to treat him as if he was weak.

  “Hey, you okay?” she asked, reaching over to grasp his hand.

  “I’m good,” Graham said, shifting in his seat and nodding.

  “Good enough to go to church with me?” she asked.

  “I got something to do for my mom,” he lied with ease. “I already promised her.”

  “Okay.”

  Graham peered out the window as she drove the streets of Bedford headed to their favorite diner on Bedford Road. He spotted a woman with a curvy shape and a form-fitting dress about to climb into a convertible Jag. To him the lines of her body were sleeker than the luxury vehicle.

  Just like Nora.

  Although it was early October, she’d done the kinds of tricks and treats on him that had nothing to do with Halloween. The type of things most women saved for men who made some sort of commitment. As good a time as he had, she had effectively freaked herself into the category of women to screw and never the type to marry.

  Geneva slid her hand onto his thigh and squeezed it gently. He tried to smile away the guilt he felt. She offered him conversation, companionship, and comfort. All of his other tricks delivered the sex.

  And Geneva was none the wiser.

  As she sang along softly with some song on the radio, he looked over at her profile. He knew she deserved more. Better. The best of him.

  He just wasn’t sure he could deliver.

  The cab pulled to a stop in front of his mother’s French Colonial–styled home and Graham hopped out, having already prepaid the cabbie back at the restaurant. He and Geneva had lingered so long over their breakfast that he convinced her to head straight to church and let him get home on his own. He paused on the sidewalk to look up at the house, still grappling with having to move back in two months ago. Living with his father while he was single was enough of an adventure. Dealing with his father living with another woman—especially when Graham knew firsthand that Tylar was anything but faithful—no haps. He wasn’t trying to be around to witness the drama unfolding when his dad got caught.

  Giving his short dreads a rub, Graham jogged up the steps and used his key to enter the house. He headed straight to his bedroom for a long and hot shower that gave him the energy he needed to go for a run. Removing the towel from around his waist, he stood in front of the full-length mirror on the back of his door and studied his reflection as he dried off.

  During the year between being sixteen and seventeen, he’d had a four-inch growth spurt that sent him up to six foot five inches. Wanting to look less gangly and awkward, Graham had started boxing, running, and lifting weights a year ago and now had the muscle definition he wanted. Not big and bulky like he chewed on steroid pills and would burst with a pinch, but lean and chiseled like the basketball player everyone thought he was.

  Getting pussy was his sport.

  He smiled playfully as he popped his hips, causing his dick to rise and fall quickly, as if he was raising an arm. Even at rest he hung seven inches easily, and every woman he blessed with his magic stick let him know just how hung he was.

  Graham pulled on boxers, basketball shorts, and a hoodie with the sleeves cut off before plopping down on his bed to pull on his sneakers. He paused when he spotted the college brochures on his pillows. He ignored them and jerked on his socks and Jordans.

  Because of his expulsions, Graham had been held back twice during high school and attended an adult education program and earned his GED that June. Although his mother had secured him a job in the mailroom of the advertising firm where she was a head copywriter, she was hell-bent on him going to college and getting a degree.

  It just wasn’t a part of his plans. Not that he had any real plans. He just knew it didn’t include more school, studying, and taking tests. Not yet, anyway. Fuck that shit.

  He pulled his hood up over his head and walked to the door, only to turn around in the threshold. He retraced his steps and reached under his bed to reach inside an old sneaker box for a nickel bag of weed and a blunt before putting the box back.

  Graham had just pushed it into the pocket of his hoodie when his bedroom door opened. His surprise read on his face at the sight of his mom still in her nightgown and house coat. “You didn’t go to church?” he asked, coming over to kiss her cheek.

  Cara shook her head and pulled a crumpled tissue from her pocket to swipe at her nose. “Came down with a head cold this weekend,” she said, sounding nasal.

  “Well, I’m about to head out for a run,” he said, moving past her.

  “Next Sunday you will be in church, Graham,” she said with a sniffle. “No excuses.”

  He paused on the steps and grimaced. Hard. “Why—”

  “No excuses,” she repeated, her voice hard and unrelenting.

  He frowned and kept moving down the stairs.

  “And don’t act like you didn’t see those brochures on your pillow, either,” she called behind him.

  He held his baggie of weed tighter and left the house with a slam of the front door.

  Chapter 5

  Geneva

  “Graham!”

  He jumped a bit in his seat on the padded pew as his mother pressed her elbow into his side. “Huh?” he asked a little loudly, drawing the curious looks of nearby parishioners.

  She gave him a hard and meaningful stare.

  When he glanced over at Geneva sitting on the front pew beside her mother, her eyes were locked on her father as he delivered his sermon from the elaborate pulpit that seemed high enough above the parishioners to truly look down upon them. He tried to will her to look his way as he enjoyed her profile, but she didn’t.

  Shifting his eyes about, he froze when he spotted a honey
eyeing him from across the large expanse of the church. He assessed her quickly but efficiently: light-skinned cutie with thick full lips, a cute pug nose, and long brown hair with natural blondish streaks. Early twenties. Stylish. Flirty. Doable.

  He sat up a little straighter as she smiled at him and licked her bottom lip slowly with a hot little bite as she directed her eyes off him. Forcing his eyes away from her as well, he looked up at Reverend Garrett in the pulpit.

  He was a tall and broad man with a bald head and a stern jaw. His purple robe with elaborate gold trim made his figure all the more imposing. Geneva hadn’t introduced Graham to her father yet, and he didn’t mind one bit. He could just imagine the questions with which the minister would drill him.

  “Seek ye first the kingdom of God,” Reverend Garrett roared into the microphone before taking a few steps back and wiping his forehead with a handkerchief.

  Graham glanced at Geneva’s profile again before darting back to his admirer. She boldly met his gaze before looking away with the hint of a smile at her lips.

  He looked away as well and shifted in his seat as he rubbed his large hands on the pants of his khaki suit.

  In the last week since he cheated on Geneva with Nora, he’d decided to try his best to be faithful. His very best. However, it was getting harder to resist all the temptation. Girls were throwing it at him left and right. Graham officially had the town of Bedford on lock. These preppy good girls love my bad-boy flow.

  He glanced back again and bit back a smile when he saw her covertly waving at him, with her hand draped over the side of her lap. His eyes shifted up to her face and he was surprised to find her still looking forward with a look of pure innocence on her face.

  A sneaky good girl. The best kind.

  She coughed and cleared her throat.

  He looked down at her hand again and saw she was making signs with her slender fingers. He frowned, burrowing his thick brows above deep-set brown eyes. What is she doing? Sign language? Gang signs? Numbers? Oh yeah. Numbers.

  Graham counted each set of fingers she splayed.

  5-5-5-2-0-0-1. 555-2001. Her phone number.

  That girl wild.

  “Call me,” she mouthed, making a motion with her hand to imitate a telephone before a middle-aged man sitting next to her looked at her and she quickly slid her fingers into her shoulder-length hair to rake instead.

  For the rest of the church service Graham tried to keep his attention focused anywhere else but on Miss Temptation. He studied the intricacies of the floor-to-ceiling stained-glass windows depicting biblical figures. White Jesus, huh? He eyed a toddler fastidiously extracting things from his nose and slipping them into his mouth. Li’l nasty ass. He spied one of the dozen or so church ushers leaning in the door frame with his head bobbing slowly as he went through a cycle of nodding off in and out of sleep. A face-forward fall would make my motherfucking day. Fall! Fall! Fall! Once another attendant came over to relieve the sleepy usher, Graham turned his wandering attention to the many hairstyles of the ladies—and some of the men—of the choir just as the organist began to play and they all rose to their feet. Like a black woman can really grow bleached-blond hair.

  As the voices of the choir singing “Ain’t No Need to Worry” filled the church up to the twenty-foot ceilings, Graham’s eyes squinted as he sat up straight in his seat and eyed a skinny man with a goatee in the back row.

  Lionel?

  His stomach lurched and he frowned as his eyes stayed locked on the man. Then he relaxed because he knew it wasn’t Lionel. It couldn’t be. He hadn’t been back to the church since his parents moved to New Jersey years ago. Not looking at him every week and avoiding ever being alone with him had relieved some of Graham’s stress about attending that church, but he still had never felt comfortable since that day. And he never would again.

  Naw, that ain’t him, just another caramel-colored Negro.

  Still . . .

  Graham jumped up and walked down the deep purple carpeted aisle, past the usher and out the double doors leading to the foyer of the church. Man, hell with it.

  He fingered the pre-rolled blunt in the inside pocket of his blazer. He started to head downstairs to the bathroom but carried himself outside instead. Walking across the parking lot, which was large enough to hold two hundred cars or more, he pulled his blunt out and leaned against the hood of a Benz as he lit it.

  Graham kept his eyes on the entrance into the parking lot, prepared to toss the blunt before someone got too near to him. Keeping the blunt pressed between his lips, he reached for his cell phone and checked the time. 11:45.

  He snapped his flip phone closed and slid it back into his pocket. The blunt still pressed between his lips bobbed as he moved his mouth.

  With a deep inhale, he closed his eyes and tilted his head back a little before finally releasing a thick silver stream of smoke. He opened his eyes to watch the smoke float up among the rust- and gold-colored leaves of a low-hanging branch.

  Graham had nearly finished the blunt when the doors to the church opened and Reverend Garrett stepped out onto the wide porch with his wife and Geneva by his side. He had removed the elaborate robe covering his suit, but there was no mistaking that he was the head of the church just from his stance and demeanor.

  Taking one last toke, Graham dropped the blunt to the ground and put out the embers with his shoe as he watched Geneva looking around. Looking for him.

  Pushing up off the car, he slowly crossed the lot as worshippers began to make their way to their vehicles.

  When she spotted him, Geneva left her parents’ side and walked to meet him just as he reached the side entrance to the fence surrounding the lot. “Come on, I want to introduce you to my parents,” she said.

  Graham locked his feet. “Right now?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she stressed, grabbing his hand and tugging him forward behind her.

  “I don’t want—”

  “Too late,” she said, lifting her chin in her parents’ direction.

  He followed her gaze and saw her parents already looking toward them. Their mouths were moving and he knew they discussed him. Questioned him. Judged him.

  Releasing a short breath, he hoped the smell of weed wasn’t too strong on him as they made their way down the street and then up the stairs, going against the crowd leaving the church. Graham nervously twisted his short dreads when Geneva released his fingers as Reverend Garrett’s eyes zoned in on them holding hands.

  “Mommy . . . Daddy, this is Graham. He’s Sister Walker’s son,” Geneva said.

  The introductions were necessary. Geneva’s father had only taken over the ministry of the church in the last year, and they had never met in the months since Graham moved back to Bedford. My luck just ran way out.

  “Nice to meet you, Graham,” Mrs. Garrett said, her head tilted to the side in the large-brimmed hat she wore over her sleek bob.

  “Very nice,” Reverend Garrett added, reaching out to take Graham’s hand into his with a tight squeeze.

  “Yes, sir,” he said. “My mother’s probably wondering where I am . . .”

  “Let me walk you to her car,” the Rev said with a smile that was tight and forced as he finally released Graham’s hand.

  “Dad—”

  Mrs. Garrett reached out a soft but restraining hand on Geneva’s elbow.

  “Nice to meet you again, Mrs. Garrett,” he said.

  “I’m sure we’ll see you next Sunday. Right, Graham?” she asked politely.

  He opened his mouth but didn’t form the lie that would appease her curiosity. Instead, he shrugged helplessly.

  “Walk with me, son,” Reverend Garrett said.

  Although Graham towered over the minister by at least five inches, the man was still an imposing figure as they walked down the brick steps together. “Your mother is a good woman,” Reverend Garrett said, lightly slapping Graham’s broad shoulder. “And I know she wants nothing but the best for you, son, the same way I want noth
ing but the best for my daughter.”

  Graham tensed as they stepped off the steps and onto the sidewalk.

  “I’m sure she wouldn’t approve of you smoking weed any more than I would approve of a pothead for my daughter,” he said, taking Graham’s hand in his again to hold tightly.

  “I don’t smoke—”

  “Liar,” Reverend Garrett said shortly. “I smell it all over you. You think I don’t know what weed smells like? You think ole Rev is a dummy, boy?”

  Oh shit. “Nah. I mean no sir.”

  “Stay away from Geneva,” he said with another tight smile before turning to walk back to the steps. He paused and turned. “And don’t bring that mess back around here.”

  Graham looked past him and up the steps to Geneva standing there next to her mother. He gave her a smile and a wave before turning to walk back to the lot to where his mother had parked that morning. She was standing near the front of her Benz talking to some other Bible-toting prim-and-proper church ladies.

  Afraid they would smell the weed on him as well, he removed his blazer and came up on the rear of the SUV to hop into the passenger seat. He smiled and gave a wave when his mother and the church ladies all looked through the windshield at him. Letting his head fall back against the headrest, he covered his eyes with his hand and let the effects of the weed really hit him.

  Graham slowed from a full-on run to a fast walk as he came up on the pond in the center of the subdivision. Hopping up on one of the wrought-iron benches, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket. Ten missed calls from Geneva. He smiled a bit and slid the phone back in his pocket.

  Everything was going just as he planned.

  Graham had learned a lot from his father about getting what he wanted—how he wanted it—from a woman. Graham wanted Geneva and he wanted her to ask for it. The Rev’s warning to stay away from her had just kicked the game plan up a few notches.

  “He’s a preacher but he know what weed smell like,” Graham mumbled as darkness began to fall around him as he eyed the still pond. “Fuck outta here.”