In the picture The Stud was wearing a strap-on that looked as big and brown as a small tree trunk.
“Don’t mess with that, brah,” some man said from behind him before the people around them started to laugh.
Graham knew he had a big dick, but this was offensive in its size. Offensive and unreal.
“The only thing I got for you is some bad-ass tats,” Lola said in her husky voice. “We good?”
Graham shrugged and smiled. “We good,” he asserted.
Lola reclaimed her seat and The Stud lifted her leg to cross it over Lola’s.
Graham lifted his hand and scratched his scalp through his skully. It was dry, and that reminded him of how Geneva would sit him on the floor between her legs to grease and massage his scalp with coconut oil. That was the kind of girl she was, and he couldn’t deny that he really cared about her.
He dug his cell phone out of his pocket and was disappointed that Geneva hadn’t called or texted him back. He started to call her but snapped the phone shut as the train came to a stop. He figured a night without speaking to him should rattle her.
Lola and her girl stood up.
“Holla at me about getting them dreads together,” said The Stud, passing him a business card before she followed Lola off the train.
Graham dropped down into one of their vacated seats and eyed the card. The Stud’s name was Kezia, and she was a beautician specializing in natural hair. Shrugging, he slid the card into the pocket of his vest and eyed his phone again as the train pulled to a stop in Grand Central Terminal.
He jumped a little in surprise as the phone suddenly vibrated in his hand. Geneva’s phone number appeared on the screen. He sent it to voice mail. Geneva was drawing him in when there was no hope for them. He thought by now he would’ve had her in love with his dick, but her fear of her father outweighed her love for him.
Bzzzz . . .
A voice mail.
He opened it and smirked at her detailing how she was touching herself and thinking of him. He envisioned her using her fingers to spread the lips the way he taught her so that he could see the real goodness on the inside and not just her ’fro.
He texted her: Don’t tease me with what I can’t have.
Bzzz.
“You know I can’t,” he read the incoming text to himself.
Reversing his decision not to call her, Graham dialed her number, his hand tightly clutching the phone as he pressed it to his ear. “G,” he said when she answered.
“Hey, baby, where—”
“We need to talk,” he said.
“What’s wrong?”
“Look, some things between us gotta change one way or the other—”
“What? What’s wrong?” she wailed.
Graham shook off the pang of pain he felt at the hurt in her voice. Frowning, he moved on, taking the familiar path through the crowded station to the platform for the train to Bedford. “Meet me at the station in forty-five minutes.”
She released a heavy breath filled with her reluctance. “My father won’t—”
“Geneva, when the hell you gonna grow up?” he snapped in frustration. With her. With her father. With their pseudo sex life.
With his love for her.
“Are you gonna meet me or not?” Graham said, leaning against the wall as he awaited the train with less than a dozen other people.
The line was quiet—or at least he thought so until her soft whimpering came through. Graham wiped his mouth with his hand. “Just meet me at the station in forty-five minutes. Okay?” he asked, deliberately softening his tone.
He ended the call without waiting for a response. She didn’t call back.
A few minutes later he boarded the train and took the seat farthest away from anyone. For the duration of the ride he enjoyed the solitude and the sound of the train against the track. His thoughts were varied but clear. He didn’t even want a blunt to cloud his thoughts.
As the train pulled to a stop, Graham was the only one on his car to step out onto the platform. The October night air was chilly and raced through his clothing like it was nothing. He made his way inside the terminal and then crossed it to leave the building. He didn’t spot her car in the near-empty parking lot.
She didn’t come.
He was disappointed but not surprised. It wasn’t just her hymen her father kept an eye on. Pushing his hands into the pockets of his jeans, Graham made his way to the taxi stand and felt lucky that a town car sat there.
Lights suddenly reflected against the windshield. He glanced back over his shoulder and slowed his steps at the sight of Geneva’s BMW pulling to a stop behind him. He turned in the gap between her car and the taxi as she climbed out.
Graham’s pulse quickened at the sight of her, and he took a deep breath as he walked over to where she stood by the door to her car. “You came?”
Geneva smiled and reached up to pluck something from his dreads. “You didn’t give me much of a choice,” she said lightly, smoothing her hands over the jeans she wore with a form-fitting cream turtleneck.
“Things got to change, G,” he said in a rush, admitting to himself that he pushed the words out before he lost his will to have the conversation.
“What things?” she asked.
“Yo . . . I want to have sex but you not giving it up until you get married . . . and your father hate me so you’ll never marry me . . . and I’m nowhere near ready to be married,” he said, moving to sit on the back of a bench on the sidewalk. “I feel like I’m putting in a bunch of time for a relationship that may be going nowhere.”
Geneva slid her hands into the back pockets of her jeans as she walked over to stand between his knees. “So I’m a waste of time?” she asked.
Graham balled his hands into fists and lightly pounded them on his knees. “I’m used to having sex—”
“But I suck it,” she said, her eyes darting down to his crotch meaningfully before they widened.
“I like pussy,” he snapped, splaying his fingers as he raised his hands. “I like being in pussy. I like stroking in pussy. I like feeling pussy when I make it cum. I like when the pussy makes my dick wet. I like to nut up a pussy. I’m about pussy, pussy, pussy, pussy.”
Geneva’s eyes continued to widen with each declaration until she looked frightened for her life. “Graham.”
“Nah, G, don’t Graham me,” he said, waving his hand dismissively as he looked away from her.
“Graham,” she repeated, sounding reproachful.
His frustration with her made him feel like fleas were nipping at his neck. He looked up to the night sky as he stomped his booted feet on the seat of the bench. “Look, Geneva, I want to be with you,” he said, shifting his head to look at her. “You not feeling me like that?”
Geneva stepped up and held his face with her hands. “You know I am . . . but you know I can’t,” she stressed. “Hell, my annual is coming up in a few weeks.”
Graham tensed. “So you just gone let your daddy pussy test you ’til your ass forty?” he snapped.
“What makes you think I won’t get married until I’m forty?” she exclaimed.
He looked incredulous. “That’s what you pulled out of what I just said?” he said sardonically.
She eyed him as if she was confused.
For the first time Graham wondered just how deep Geneva’s naïveté ran and how weak her spine was. Innocence is one thing. Stupidity is something else.
“I know something we can do,” she said, leaning in to wrap her arms around his neck. “And I know you want to.”
Graham lowered his head to her shoulder as she slid her hand beneath his vest and rubbed his back above his shirt. “Does it involve pussy?” he said, his eyes focused on his boots.
“Close,” she said, rubbing her face against the tips of his dreads.
Graham stiffened. His eyes shifted from left to right as his brain raced a mile a minute. “Close?” he asked, recalling her words before that.
And I
know you want to.
“Real close,” she stressed, stepping back to turn around and give her full bottom a wiggle in front of him before looking over her shoulder with a flirty wink.
And I know you want to.
Graham’s brows lowered so severely over his deep-set eyes that the color of his irises was indistinguishable. “I look gay to you?” he asked, his voice low and ominous.
She turned. “Huh?”
“What do you mean you know I want to,” he asked, rising up to stand on the seat of the bench before stepping down off it to stand in her face.
She stepped back from him. “Why are you so mad? What did I say?” she asked, pressing her hand to her chest.
“I ain’t fucking gay!” he roared, spittle flying from his mouth.
“Graham—”
“I. AIN’T. GAY!”
Geneva kept stepping back from him until she stumbled against the hood of her car. Her fear was clear. Her lips moved like she was trying to form words but nothing came out.
And I know you want to.
Had someone in the church known and spread the word of what Lionel had done? Graham wiped his eyes as an image of Lionel touching him flashed. Stepping forward, he grabbed her, his fingers digging into the flesh of her upper arms.
Geneva cried out before she wrenched her body free from his grasp and slapped him.
WHAP!
Graham reached out to grip her wrist.
“Hey! Let her go.”
Graham looked over his shoulder. The driver from the taxi had hollered out his window at them.
“Let me go, Graham,” Geneva whined.
He looked back to her and she grimaced with the pain he was causing her. He let her go. “G, I’m—”
She turned and quickly climbed behind the wheel of her car.
He stepped up to grab the handle of the driver-side door. She had already locked the doors. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
She said nothing as she glared at him and started her car.
“G, don’t leave like this,” he said, feeling panicked.
She shifted the car into reverse. “My father was right about you,” she said coldly through a crack in the window just as the faint sound of police sirens echoed in the air.
Her words stung harder than her slap. His jaw tightened in anger as he released her door and stepped back from it with his hands high. “To hell with you and your daddy. Maybe he want the pussy and scared somebody else gone get it,” he said, lashing out at her. Angry. Hurt. Wanting to hurt.
Through the windshield, he saw Geneva’s pain-filled eyes and a tear racing down her cheek as she reversed away from him and exited the parking lot.
All his anger instantly disappeared as regret consumed him. But the sounds of approaching sirens forced him to push everything aside, flee the parking lot, and run through the darkened streets of Bedford to reach home.
Interlude
Present Day
The feel of ice-cold water splashing against his naked skin caused him to release an abject cry as he was jarred from sleep. The bonds on his wrists and ankles snapped into his skin as he instinctively tried to extend his limbs.
He didn’t even realize he had dozed off. He had no clue if just minutes or hours had passed. He licked his parched lips and felt a deep thirst for water.
“No time for sleeping, slut,” she said into his ear with a lick against his lobe that repulsed him. She moved past him with her gloved hand trailing down his tattooed arm and then his thigh before she reached over and lightly smacked his dick sending it from his right thigh to his left before rebounding back.
“Who knew selling dick for a living paid so well?” she mocked, turning to toss the glass she held into the fireplace.
He felt tiny shards of glass fly out and pierce the skin on random spots of his body. He winced as her fiery anger flipped to her weeping, with her gloved hands covering her masked face as her shoulders shook with her tears. Just moments after that she flung her head back, spread her arms wide, and laughed as she turned in circles.
This bitch crazy.
She came to a stop and locked her eyes on him. “Do you know how long I have waited to have you, Pleasure?” she asked him in a low voice.
Even crazier than I thought.
He took her in. She was of average height and build. Nothing spectacular or memorable. The length and hue of her hair was hidden beneath the hood she wore. Every inch of her body shielded by dark clothing. She didn’t mean to be revealed until she was ready. That was clear.
Who is she?
His eyes, though heavy and weary, leveled on her. Studying her.
Geneva had loved him. That he knew. But was this her? Physically it could be. He hadn’t seen her in years but it was possible. But the Geneva he knew? The Geneva he loved? He doubted very seriously that this could be her.
Their story had come to him in those moments just before he passed out again but he couldn’t imagine such a crazy act from the woman he’d known all those years ago. He had so much regret in the days after he blew up at her at the train station. The side of him he’d revealed was enough for her to end things, and he had felt the loss of her in his life for a long time after that.
“I’ve waited a long time for this . . . pleasure,” the masked woman said, before turning to walk across the room and out of his line of vision.
Raising his head, he eyed his captor as she stood by the windows of his living room looking out at the bright lights of New York across the Hudson.
He wondered about her thoughts, her plans . . . for him.
Who is she?
“I can’t believe this shit,” he mumbled with a grunt of pain as he took a deep breath before focusing his eyes on her again.
She twisted her gloved hands together and shifted slightly back and forth on her feet before leaning her shoulder against the glass. Her gaze still locked on some undeterminable spot out the window. He wondered if her thoughts were as erratic as her behavior.
“It’s not too late to let me go,” he called, wanting his voice to carry across the distance.
She turned and shook her head. “Wrong again,” she snapped before crossing the room to stand before him.
“Man, who are you?” he asked, his anger and annoyance rising.
She lifted her right hand so high in the air that her upper arm covered her face before she brought it down and slapped him across the face with such force that the chair he was tied to rocked before tipping over with a loud thud.
“Ah!” he cried out as the side of his head hit the floor forcefully and the ties cut deeper into his flesh.
She stretched out on the floor, moving quickly and crazily, with her face close enough to his for him to detect the smell of cigarettes and liquor on her breath and to see the craziness in her eyes as she laughed maniacally.
Chapter 7
Joy
2004
“Don’t scratch my car.”
Graham first spotted a pair of black high heels and shapely legs in black opaque stockings before he allowed his eyes to travel upward to a leather skirt cut high on her thighs and a sheer white blouse. Standing up to his full height, he eyed the tall beauty standing before him as he wrung out excess water from the shammy he was using to wipe down the blood-red Chrysler.
Damn, she fine, he thought, tilting his head to the side as he eyed the mixed Asian and African American beauty with shocking honey-blond hair that somehow worked with her olive complexion and the golden tones of her makeup. She had small breasts, but her ample thighs and hips more than made up for it. Even from a distance, he could smell her perfume and it made him want to get closer to her. Every movement of her body seemed to convey or convince that she was pure sex appeal.
She was dope and she knew it.
“I got you,” Graham said, looking away from her as he finished drying the hood of her vehicle with large sweeping circles that caused the muscles of his arm to flex and relax beneath the smooth brown of his skin.
“Humph.”
He glanced up and caught her eyeing him as she lit a cigarette. His eyes dipped to take in the pucker of her glossy lips as she inhaled from the cigarette and soon exhaled a stream of smoke. Deciding to ignore her, Graham kept at his job of drying the left side of her car as one of his coworkers at the detail shop tackled the right.
“She could love on this dick long time,” Pogo said, in a horrible imitation of a Vietnamese accent from the memorable scene in Full Metal Jacket.
Graham looked over at the short, thin man who was every bit of sixty or seventy years of age and looked dwarfed by his navy blue uniform. Following Pogo’s line of vision, he watched the sway of her skirt against her shapely thighs as she slowly paced and talked on her cell phone.
Graham was not short on women by any means, but this thoroughbred pacing before him was nothing like any of the other girls on his roster. Her style and demeanor made that clear. He doubted she even shopped in a Walmart, much less worked the register like Monique. She’d probably never even been in a run-down motel like the one where Jacia worked as a housekeeper. And for sure she wasn’t busting suds in a diner like Yvetta.
He eyed her as she tapped her gold cigarette lighter against her palm as she continued pacing. Everything about her said she was a career chick. Teacher. Nurse. Secretary. A nine-to-five, weekdays-only, indoors-always type of career. Something like that.
Something out of my league.
Looking away from her, he stretched his tall frame before stooping down to wipe large circles to dry the door. His parents stayed on his back—and his nerves—reminding him of the straight-A student he used to be. They kept reminding him of the potential he was wasting.
“If you put as much time into working your brain as you did working on your body, you’d be hell,” his mother always said.
He knew they were right but he was enjoying life. He worked, made money, kept women eager to please him, brought fly gears and kicks, smoked weed, and partied. Life was real good.
The Pleasure Trap Page 7