The Pleasure Trap

by Niobia Bryant

  The women in the audience threw money on the stage, cheering his movements, but it was her he noticed squirming in her seat as she crossed and uncrossed her legs. He could see her heat in her eyes as she sat and watched him perform as if he took her to a place—a very good place—where desire and passion and hunger reigned.

  A place he knew she had yet to explore.

  He could tell in the reserved way that she carried herself. Even in the midst of women screaming, hollering, and gyrating, she sat with dignity, only revealing her lust in her eyes or maybe a gentle nibble of her bottom lip.

  When she eased money from her purse and held her hand up to him like a schoolchild requesting permission to go to the restroom, he moved away from some customer that he would never remember to dance over to where she sat. He performed for her, wanting to please her. Tantalize her. Turn her on. She tentatively reached out to tuck the folded bill into the front of his thong. He followed his instinct and grasped her wrist to guide her hand to his dick.

  “Don’t be scared,” he told her loud enough to beat out the pounding music as he felt her slight resistance.

  He wanted her touch. He wanted her to feel him. He wanted her to get more out of her monthly trips to Newark just to see him.

  “You know what? You need a private dance,” Pleasure whispered in her ear, liking the subtle scent of her perfume. It intrigued him. “You game?”

  He surprised himself. He wanted her to say yes.

  “I’m married,” she said, looking nervous.

  “I don’t give a fuck,” he told her. And he didn’t.

  Her monthly trip to find passion let him know that the addition of her husband to her life had done absolutely nothing to alter it. He didn’t know this woman, but he knew that. And he wanted to change it.

  Pleasure took her hand and he was surprised when she so easily rose to her feet. He massaged circles against her wrist as he led her to one of the private rooms at the rear of the club and pulled her through the curtain. They entered to the sound of Ginuwine’s “So Anxious.” The lone red light gave the darkness a fiery glow as he sat her in one of the few chairs before stepping up onto the small stage.

  Pleasure gave her a slow and sensual dance, his eyes locked on her as he let the combined effects of the red light, the music, and his body tantalize her.

  “I love the way you’re talking dirty . . .”

  What he didn’t expect was his own titillation. Not the bravado he put on for the customers. Maybe it was the awareness of her over the last five years or just the sight of her sitting there, all prim and proper, but giving off a vibe that beneath the layers of propriety was a hellcat.

  He was caught up too. The real deal. Desire.

  Pleasure moved his hips in tight ticking motions in sync to the sudden flickering lights as he worked the custom-made sleeve covering the length of his thick dick and flung it away. He massaged the length of his dick, biting his lip as he looked at her with intensity.

  “What exactly happens during a private dance?” she asked when he stepped down off the stage with dick in hand.

  Pleasure smiled sexily at her as he straddled her hips and leaned back onto the stage with his dick blowing in the wind like a flagpole. Rolling his hips, he teased the tip just as his eyes locked on her licking her lips like she wished his dick was in her mouth. He wished the same.

  He stood up before her, and although he knew he could probably guide it into her mouth with ease, he refrained. “Touch it,” he told her. “Come on, you been coming to my shows for years. You know you wanna touch it. Go ahead, I won’t tell.”

  At the first feel of her hand surrounding his hardness, his hips thrust forward and the pulse of the vein running down the side quickened in unison with his heart rate.

  They were in the midst of something and he couldn’t stop it. He doubted she wanted to. It was five years in the making.

  “That’s right. Beat that motherfucker.” He tilted his head to the side to watch her. It thrilled him to see her, his Miss Prim and Proper Pearls, uninhibited and free. He wanted to push her even further.

  “You need to be fucked, don’t you?” he observed, freeing his dick from her touch as he dropped to his knees and pushed her skirt up around her hips to open her legs with a guttural moan filled with the fire she stoked in him at the sight of her spread out before him. The sheer, delicate lace bikinis she wore were so different from the demure clothing. “Damn, that pussy smell good.”

  She shivered as he rubbed her quivering inner thighs, loving the way she arched her back, causing her hard nipples to press against the thin silk of her shirt. His heart pounded as he pulled her moist panties aside to slide his middle finger deep inside her. There was tightness and heat, and her cry of passion made him hungry to please her. To taste her.

  “Your husband ain’t taking care of this pussy, is he?” Pleasure asked as he spread her legs wider and dipped his head to lick the length of her pussy before he circled her clit with his tongue.

  She shivered as she brought her hands up to grip his shoulders. “Do it again,” she begged in a hoarse voice.

  Pleasure enjoyed the taste of her. The feel of her clit throbbing against his tongue. The sweet smell of her core. The way her body reacted to him.

  “Yes,” she sighed, her hips jerking with each stroke of his tongue.

  Pleasure reached inside the top of his boots and removed the condom he had stashed there to use during his performance. He wanted to be inside her. He tore away her panties and sat back from her just long enough to sheath himself with the latex.

  “You want me to fuck the shit out of you, don’t you?” he asked her, feeling more of a thrill about sex than he had in years.

  “Yes. Please.”

  “What’s my name?”

  “Pleasure.”

  “And what do I give?”

  “Pleasure.”

  His hand trembled as he held his dick and guided the tip inside her, finishing with a strong thrust of his hips that sent his hardness deep inside her. He swore at the tight feel of her surrounding him with heat. He paused, giving him a few precious moments for his climax to subside.

  Everything about her and being in her in the red-lit room with some slow jam playing in the background was thrilling to him. Her face was lit up with her passion. Her mouth was slightly ajar. Her pupils dilated. Her nipples hard. Her clit swollen.

  “Fuck me.”

  Those words from her mouth were his undoing.

  “My pleasure.” He gave her fast and deep strokes before alternating with a wicked slow grind.

  He picked her up by the waist and stood, kicking the chair away to slam against the wall as he worked her hips. Pleasure pulled out every move in his arsenal and made use of any available space in that small room as he did as she bid him. With his strength and her flexibility, he switched positions at a mind-blowing pace as she tugged at his dreads and he removed her clothes. Although she let him know with moans and cries each and every time he made her cum, he could feel her walls spasm and the wetness soak him with each release.

  “Have you been pleasured?” he whispered in her ear from behind before twisting his hand in her hair to ride her hard.

  “Yes,” she cried out.

  “This dick ’bout to cum,” he told her.

  He leaned his head back until the tips of his dreads stroked his buttocks as he quickened the pace of his thrusts like a well-oiled piston. Slick and fast. Back and forth.

  His explosion was like nothing he’d ever experienced, and that surprised him even as he hollered out with each spasm of his release as he slid his dick out of her and removed his condom to jack his nut onto her trembling butt. All of his senses were alive, and he felt light-headed and electrified from their chemistry as he rose and stumbled back from her.

  He didn’t have enough fingers and toes to count the women he had sexed and pleasured, but Miss Prim and Proper Pearls had just given him an experience that scared the shit out of him. “Shake it off,
Pleasure,” he told himself, still weak and trembling from his release and the rush of endorphins.

  He looked at her, slumped on the floor, naked and fighting to breathe. Everything about what just happened had her messed up too. He turned on the regular light and quickly slid his thong and sleeve back on, wishing he could get his shit together and wondering why she had such an effect on him. He didn’t even know her name.

  Needing to be freed from her and the spell broken, he picked her purse up from the floor. “That’s two hundred dollars,” he said, needing their roles clearly defined again. He needed that line up between them.

  Her eyes popped open and she quickly sat up to take the purse and shove cash into his hand. The fact that he recognized and felt pained by her obvious shame was even more confusing.

  “Um, thank you. I guess,” she said, rising to her feet to rush into her clothes and shove her torn panties inside her purse as she raked her fingers through her wild hair.

  “You’re more than welcome. Call me sometime,” he said, careful to remind her that what they shared was just that. But then he felt like this would be the last time he saw her because of the line they’d crossed, and he surprised himself when he stepped close to press a kiss to her forehead before he walked through the curtain.

  Pleasure headed straight for the bathroom downstairs in their locker room and disposed of the condom he’d left clinging to the tip of his dick. He leaned against the sink and looked up at his reflection. “What the fuck was that?” he mouthed, before shaking his head.

  Miss Prim and Proper Pearls had surprised the hell out of him.

  And I broke my promise to Smyth.

  He had given her his all and he could only hope that Smyth was busy with Baldwin and didn’t require his servicing, because he had absolutely nothing left to give her.

  Pleasure was surprised to find Smyth in the apartment when he walked through the door. She was sitting on the couch in a beautiful bright red blouson shirt and matching high-waist pants as she flipped through a file. He paused at the sight of her before closing the door and setting his duffel bag onto the floor.

  “Hi, Smyth,” he said, setting his keys on a foyer table.

  She glanced up at him briefly. “How was class?” she asked, sounding more like his mother than his lover.

  “Good,” he lied. He didn’t have class on Thursday evenings, but she thought he did. “I’m going to take a shower and get some studying done.”

  Smyth shook her head and raised her hand to beckon him as she closed the folder gracefully and sat back to drape her arm over the back of the sofa. She smiled at him as he crossed the room to reach her, but her eyes were troubled and she looked distracted.

  He briefly eyed the folder as he sat on the opposite end of the couch. “Something wrong?” he asked.

  She kicked off her black patent leather Walter Steiger heels to place her feet in his lap. “I hired a private detective to catch my husband cheating,” she said, lightly biting down on the tip of her crimson nail as she looked past him out the window in the distance.

  He said nothing, even though he was mildly curious if her husband’s adultery was true or a fabrication of her imagination.

  “When I first purchased this apartment, I thought I honestly did not care if I got married or not,” she said with a light shrug of one shoulder. “I had seen all of my friends putting up with enough drama that I was content with my beautiful apartment, my career, my inheritance, and a lover here or there to shake out the cobwebs.”

  He massaged her feet even though she didn’t ask.

  “And then I met Baldwin, and he just seemed so perfect for me and before I knew it, I was daydreaming about elaborate weddings, honeymoons, and babies.” Smyth snuggled down deeper onto the couch.

  Pleasure didn’t think that boded well for him enjoying the rest of his night alone. He honestly had no desire to make love. He was still trying to recover from the rendezvous with Miss Prim and Proper Pearls. I really should have asked her name.

  “He proposed. I accepted. We wed,” Smyth was saying with sadness. “And now, seven years later, I’m hiring PIs to track my husband because something is not right in our marriage and it hasn’t been in a long time—way before you,” she added, as if to defend her actions.

  “Where exactly is Baldwin?” Pleasure asked.

  “Upstairs,” she answered simply. She shifted her eyes to look at him. “I told him I had dinner plans, but that was just a ruse to get some privacy to read this report.”

  His eyes studied her face for some hint of the file’s details.

  “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?” she asked, choosing as always not to address him by the name Pleasure and abiding by his request to keep his real name just for himself.

  “Our relationship doesn’t require lies,” he lied.

  “But I pay you very well not to share your dick,” Smyth said. “Is that enough motivation for a man to remain loyal even when a ring and a promise before God cannot?”

  Baldwin had been caught, and now she was trying to catch Pleasure.

  “More than enough,” he said smoothly.

  She released a heavy breath and turned her head on the arm of the sofa to look at the file. Tears filled her eyes. “A woman’s intuition is never wrong,” she said in a soft, bitter whisper.

  Pleasure continued to rub circles in the arch of her foot with his thumbs as he massaged her delicate ankles.

  “So what do I do now?”

  Good question.

  She eased her feet from his lap and sat up. “I guess my black ass is not as smart as I thought,” she said, tapping her finger against the file.

  He eyed her profile.

  “I convinced myself that this docile and sweet white man wouldn’t do me wrong like the bro-thas,” she said, emphasizing the last word as if she was in a seventies black exploitation film.

  He bit back an amused smile.

  “I may not know what to do about my husband and his dalliance,” Smyth said, piercing him with her eyes. “But I’m clear on my use for you if you’re playing in the greener grass also.”

  Pleasure shifted in his seat as he remembered the excitement he felt during that hour he’d spent in that room with Miss Prim and Proper Pearls.

  She stood up with the file in hand, lightly hitting it against her thigh as she looked around her apartment again. “If I had just stuck to my original plan,” she said with regret.

  She crossed the room to stand before the fireplace, reaching up to swing open the framed mirror to reveal a safe. She pressed her thumb to the pad on the door, and an instant later, it opened. As she slid the file inside the safe, he didn’t bother to try and see the rest of the contents. They were not his concern.

  Smyth closed the safe and then the mirror before she turned and left the apartment without saying another word. The door gently closed behind her with a click.

  Pleasure let his head fall back and looked up at the gold-trimmed tray ceiling and the elaborate chandelier above. His thoughts were full.

  His decision to sell himself to just one woman had helped with his feelings of being overwhelmed by all the women. It had him in a bad headspace for a long time. Being with Smyth had seemed like a win-win.

  That time in the red room with a woman whose name he didn’t know had reminded him that there was more to sex than just busting a nut.

  Standing up, he walked down the hall into the bedroom and retrieved his trick phone from under his boxers in the dresser drawer. Sitting down on the mink comforter, he powered the phone on. He had twenty voice mail messages since the last time he’d amused himself by listening to them. He switched to speakerphone.

  “This is Pleasure. I’m sorry, but I am on an extended vacation. Time to recharge, you know. Check back often to see just when I can be reached again.”

  Beep.

  “Pleasure, when are you coming back so that I can cum? This is Shantee. Call me.”

  Beep.

  “Damn.”


  Beep.

  “This is some real bullshit, Pleasure.”

  Beep.

  “What do you give? Pleasure. What do I need? Pleasure. Call me. Oh, it’s Ursula, boo.”

  Beep.

  Message after message after message.

  Still, his motivation for checking the messages was for one woman only. He was curious if she called. She hadn’t.

  Beep.

  “Plea-sure . . . come out and play.”

  He went through them all and saved them. He knew his run with Smyth would not last forever.

  Chapter 18

  Smyth

  Seven Months Later

  It had been a very long time since Pleasure had allowed himself to think of Lionel. That night last year had been one of the rare occasions he’d even tried to deal with all of his emotions about being. . . violated. He’d never even broached the subject during the counseling he received while in rehab. He just wanted to forget, and most times, he succeeded.

  Slowing his truck down, he looked over at the house Lionel’s parents once owned. Although it was two blocks over from his parents’ home, Lionel had been five or six years older than him and the two boys had not been friends. Pleasure had never once stepped inside, but it had become a house he avoided. The very sight of it reminded him of everything he needed to forget.

  Even far beyond the year when Lionel and his parents moved out of town, Pleasure avoided that street. Avoided the memory.

  That hadn’t worked today. A parade had blocked off the streets he usually took to reach his parents, and he had no choice.

  So here he was.

  A new family had purchased the home years ago and even changed the color from a powdery blue to a brilliant white, but still the house affected him. He looked pensive, his hands clutched tightly enough at the wheel to snap through it.