The Pleasure Trap

by Niobia Bryant

  Gone were the days of his Jordan sneakers, track pants, and T-shirts. He hadn’t worn one of those clinging dick sleeves in at least two years. Stripping was in his past. Too much work for not a lot of money.

  He had just flown in from Los Angeles for a one-night rendezvous with an entertainment reporter for a major television show. These days his focus was on the list of high-profile clients he’d established. Bigger bank for the bang. Less miles on his dick.

  And it afforded him a good lifestyle.

  He rode the elevator thirty-seven levels up to his penthouse apartment—one of four in that tower. Entering his apartment, he paused by the door to take in the sweeping view of New York across the Hudson via the windows spanning from the parquet floors to the nine-foot ceilings. It almost reminded him of his apartment in Newark, but better. Much better.

  Unbuttoning his blazer, Pleasure sat down upon his sofa and turned on the television as he browsed through the stack of mail he left before his spur-of-the-moment jaunt to the West Coast. He was barely able to make it through the endless bills before he dropped them and sat back against the sofa. Still, the days of him enjoying his work were fading.

  He didn’t know if it was reaching the milestone of thirty or whether his father’s words of advice of choosing love over sex were finally resonating, but Pleasure was becoming more and more discontented with a life he should have been happy about.

  He was paid very well to have sex with beautiful women. A lot of them. But still, only one woman remained uppermost in his mind. For him, one was always elevated above the rest.

  Even if he hadn’t seen her in over two years.

  It was after he chose not to continue his affair with Smyth that he moved into the Bell Towers penthouse apartment and opened himself back up for business. His reasoning for that was twofold. He needed the influx of cash without Smyth’s weekly stipend, and he’d discovered that his feelings for Jaime had run deeper than even he knew. That was something he neither welcomed nor wanted.

  With that realization, he made very sure that things between him and Jaime ended.

  Whether doing immature acts like walking out in front of her mother naked and asking Jaime if she was ready to have sex or boldly giving her best friends his sexy business card and offering them his services to “please,” Pleasure had lived in a world where his body desired her but his head wanted to push her away. He wanted her to be the one to tell him to go away because he didn’t have the strength to do it.

  The antics hadn’t worked. Jaime continued to call for him, and fighting the temptation to answer her had been getting too great for him. Avoiding her calls hadn’t worked when she sought him out at Club Trick, his old stomping grounds. He saw the hunger she had for him. He felt it too but he knew he had to end it.

  She had gotten too close.

  Pleasure shook his head, then let it fall back on the sofa. He made a small noise of regret as he recalled the night . . .

  When she couldn’t afford his rate, he had danced away from her and instead chosen a much older and far less attractive woman to take into one of the private rooms, purposely leaving Jaime and her shattered ego behind. Truth be told, he had just given the woman a dance, accepted her tip, and sent her on her way, not even returning to the floor to continue work.

  It took everything in him not to call Jaime and tell her the truth, but he didn’t. That line had blurred so many times that now it was beyond repair. The last thing he wanted to do was fall in love back then.

  Today?

  Pleasure rose from the sofa and crossed the parquet floors to stand at his window and look out at the sun reflecting against the water. He couldn’t say that he loved Jaime—he’d pushed back from her before that happened—but after two years he still missed her. Still wanted her. And was even curious about her life.

  What became of her?

  Reaching into the inside pocket of his blazer, he pulled out his iPhone and dialed her number, not at all surprised that he remembered it well. His heart hammered and he paced a bit as it rang. He felt nervous and unsure.

  “Hello.”

  He stopped pacing and his head dropped as his pulse raced.

  “Hello,” she repeated.

  “Jaime. Hi. It’s me. It’s Pleasure,” he said, shifting on his feet so that he faced the window.

  “You have the wrong number,” a teenage girl snapped before ending the call.

  Did I remember it wrong?

  Pleasure’s brows furrowed as he double-checked that he had not misdialed. He hadn’t. Shit.

  Sliding the phone back inside his pocket, he felt disappointed.

  Maybe it’s for the best.

  What was he going to say? “Hey, I just wanted to reminisce over how you used to pay me to fuck you?”

  Shaking his head and releasing a breath, he walked out of the living room and headed down the hall to his master bedroom. Halfway across the length of it, he turned and retraced his steps. He snatched up his keys and left the apartment.

  As he rode the elevator down to the lobby and exited into the parking garage, he wondered if he had lost just a little bit of his mind. His father’s words came back to him. He could remember them well.

  Don’t be so focused on the pussy, son, that you don’t take time to find the right one to share your life with.

  Pleasure had indeed become so preoccupied with avoiding love and filling his days with these fleeting moments with women too numerous to count that he had no one to truly share his life with. His dick? Yes.

  He unlocked his black convertible Jag and climbed in easily. “What the fuck am I doing?” he wondered aloud as he reversed out of his reserved parking spot and accelerated out of the deck and onto the Jersey City streets.

  Pussy is easy to come by, love isn’t.

  During the entire hour-long drive, Pleasure tried to convince himself that his impulses were not leading him astray. Fuck it. What’s the worst that could happen?

  Slowing down the vehicle, he waited for traffic to pass and made the left turn into the Richmond Hills gated community. He forced his body to relax as he pulled up to the security booth and lowered the window when the portly red-faced guard came out of the booth.

  “Good afternoon. Does Jaime Hall still live here?” he asked, squinting his eyes against the sun as he remembered he’d left his shades back at his apartment.

  The guard, whose tag read Lucky, nodded. “Yes sir, she does,” he said. “I can call her and request permission for you to enter. What’s your name?”

  “Pleasure.”

  Lucky did a double take at his name before he entered the booth and picked up the phone.

  Will she let me in?

  Did she remarry?

  Does she look the same?

  Those and a dozen more questions rapidly flew as he fought hard to breathe and maintain his usual cool composure. “What the fuck was I thinking?” he asked, his eyes shifting up to his rearview mirror before looking over at Lucky just as the portly man glanced over at him as he continued to speak on the phone.

  Pleasure shifted in his seat when the guard finally left the booth.

  “Go right in, sir,” Lucky said.

  Pleasure waved to him and raised his window; all the while his heart was beating so loudly that he could see himself having a heart attack. He couldn’t deny that he was pleased and surprised that she’d allowed him entrance back into her life, even if for just a little bit.

  As he drove around the curve and enjoyed the sight of the landscaped grounds, he recalled the very last time he had come to Richmond Hills. He couldn’t remember the name of Jaime’s neighbor who’d called him to her home under the guise of buying his dick but had used him to embarrass Jaime in front of her neighbors and attendees of her husband’s funeral.

  Pleasure threw his hands up at all the drama that had unfolded behind the wrought-iron gate. It was just like he always said. It was the places of seeming perfection that hid so much unhappiness.

  He didn’t know
all the details, just the little bit Jaime divulged to him in between hot sex and whatever stories the national news reported, but he knew enough that he hated he was involved in all the drama on even a minute level.

  A vengeful mistress who betrayed her friend with a lover who turned right around and stalked her when she tried to end things because he broke his promise to leave his wife for her. A text message. Angry friends and neighbors. A suicide/ murder attempt. Pregnancy. Lawsuits. Publicity. Book deals. Speaking engagement. Jessa Bell had ridden the wave of her infamy.

  “That’s right, Jessa Bell,” he said as he turned down the final curve in the paved road before reaching the street Jaime lived on. “How the hell could I forget a name like Jessa Bell?”

  As he pulled up and parked outside Jaime’s house, he looked up the street to the house where drama once lived. There was a white couple sitting outside watching their toddler play, and so he knew Jessa Bell had moved on. Still, after all the hoopla, he knew her actions had to leave a stain on the community.

  He climbed from the car and adjusted his clothing before he stepped up onto the sidewalk and climbed the stairs to her front door. He had knocked just once before it opened. Taking a step back, he steeled himself for whatever reaction she gave him.

  “Mikel,” Jaime said, offering him a smile.

  “Graham. Graham Walker,” he offered, as his eyes took her in. She hadn’t changed a bit. She was still beautiful.

  “So your name isn’t Mikel?” she asked, leaning in the doorframe as she looked up at him with her arms crossed over her ample chest.

  “No,” he admitted, barely able to stop smiling.

  “It’s been a long time.”

  “Too long,” he countered.

  She shrugged one shoulder.

  “You married?” he asked, his eyes locked with hers.

  “Definitely not,” Jaime stressed, brushing her long bangs from her forehead to tuck behind her ear.

  Pleasure nodded and licked his lips as he gave her a slow once-over that missed not one detail of her curvy body in the strapless maxi dress she wore. The peach color looked breathtaking against her light brown complexion. “You look good, Jaime. Damn good,” he said, his voice even more deepened by his appreciation.

  Her mouth opened a little and he knew it was a small intake of breath. “Why are you here, Pleasure?” she asked.

  He wondered if she felt that familiar hum of their chemistry building in intensity around them like an orchestra’s crescendo. “I missed you,” he said honestly.

  “Really?” she asked in disbelief.

  “I missed you,” he repeated again, his voice softer.

  “Pleasure,” Jaime said, pushing up off the frame to eye him.

  “I missed the hell out of you,” he said with one bold step.

  Jaime’s hand came up to rest lightly against her throat, and he knew from the look in her eyes that she could feel her pulse pounding just as hard as he could feel his. “Pleasure, this is crazy—”

  He shook his head as he took another step to enter her personal zone. “This is undeniable. Always has been,” he said, reaching to jerk her body up against his. “You haven’t thought about me—about this—in all these years?”

  She opened her mouth but no words came out.

  “I’m sorry I came,” he said, stepping back from her before he turned to walk away. “I’ll go.”

  “No.”

  He smiled at the feel of her hand on his arm. Turning, he picked her up and wrapped his arms around her tightly as he pressed his face against her neck and placed kisses against her pounding pulse that caused her to shiver as she released a small cry of passion.

  He walked them into her house and closed the door with his foot decisively.

  “How much do I owe you?”

  Pleasure lifted his upper arm from across his eyes and looked up to find Jaime standing above him with her wallet in hand. “Are you fucking kidding me right now, Jaime?” he asked as he sat up in the middle of the bed with the sweat-soaked sheets clinging to his naked body.

  She looked confused. “Did I say something wrong?” she asked, her naked body barely covered by a sheer black T-shirt that ended mid-thigh.

  Pleasure hated that deep in the midst of his hurt feelings, the sight of her made him want to pull her back in the bed and bury himself deep within her until she stuttered.

  “What is your going rate these days?” she said with a wrinkle of her nose. “What? A grand? More?”

  “This reminded me of the time you fucked me on the floor of your town house and left my dick swinging in the wind after you got your nut,” he said, flinging back the covers to sit on the edge of the bed with his back to her. “And then you put me the fuck out and told me to bill you.”

  “Are you upset?” she asked.

  He made a face as he glanced at her over his shoulder before he reached for his discarded boxers and stood to pull them on. He eyed the wallet still in her hand and waved his hand at her dismissively.

  “Well, maybe I should pay you for the last one since it’s stuck in your craw,” she snapped.

  “Keep your damn money,” he told her, pulling up his jeans with jerking motions.

  Jaime threw the wallet at him and it hit him squarely in the chest. “What the fuck is going on?”

  Pleasure stood still, leaving his jeans unbuttoned and unzipped, and eyed her hard.

  “A man-whore who is mad that his trick wants to pay him?”

  Pleasure forced himself to step out of his emotions. Their parameters had long since been set, and he was being irrational to be upset by them now. “I came to ask you out. I didn’t even have it in my plans to make love to you, Jaime. I came to ask you out. The rest . . . just . . . happened.”

  She opened her mouth in surprise and her lips shaped an “O.”

  “So keep your money,” Pleasure told her, reaching down to snatch up his shirt and blazer, his dreads flying wildly as he did.

  “Graham, you can’t be serious,” she said softly.

  He paused at the sound of his real name easing off her lips. He liked it a lot. “I was, but obviously I was wrong, so just forget it.”

  “I am hungry,” Jaime said. “You worked up an appetite.”

  “Is that a yes?” he asked, biting back a smile.

  “Are you paying?”

  “McDonald’s all day every day,” he teased, enjoying her company.

  “Damn, not even Wendy’s?”

  He stayed silent.

  “Let me wash and change,” she said, raising her hand to run her fingers through her short curls. It caused her sheer T-shirt to rise until the twin bald lips of her pussy peeked just below the hem.

  “I could use a shower too with your juices all on me,” he said, removing his jeans to toss them onto the unmade bed.

  She eyed him. “They don’t stink.”

  “Not at all,” he agreed.

  They shared a light laugh.

  “Dinner, huh?” she asked again, sounding unsure.

  “Dinner,” he assured her.

  She nodded, her face still showing her surprise and hesitance. “Okay.”

  Across the table from each other at a waterfront seafood restaurant, Pleasure and Jaime eyed each other as they enjoyed their meals. He had shrimp and vegetables over brown rice while she dined on scallops in white wine sauce over fresh-made pasta. They reminisced a little over the more fun times they used to share in the days after she left her husband and declared herself free of the rules of what a proper lady should look like, dress like, and act like.

  “So you are still in the business?” Jaime asked.

  He nodded as he wiped his mouth with his cloth napkin. “I have fewer clients but more . . . discerning taste.”

  She nodded but he saw that her confusion about the night still lingered.

  “And the interior decorating business you were starting. Did you get that off the ground?” Pleasure asked, fighting the urge to reach across the table and take he
r hand in his to stroke her wrist—a hot spot of hers he remembered well.

  She nodded. “I must admit that Eric’s death afforded me a lot of freedom financially, but I stuck to it and the business is doing very well. Thanks for asking,” she said politely.

  “I remember when you offered to decorate my apartment—”

  “Until you sent me a text of this beautiful upscale apartment and just cracked my face because I assumed you lived in the hood in a roach-infested flea trap somewhere,” she said, her eyes light with humor.

  “I was living in an apartment on the Upper East Side—”

  “Pleasure, what are we doing here?” she asked, setting her fork down on her plate with a ding. “What do you want?”

  “You,” he answered unequivocally, looking at her before returning his focus to his food.

  “Me?” she asked with an arched brow as she reached for her goblet of white wine and took a deep sip.

  Pleasure sat his utensils down as well and leaned back in the leather club chair to look at her. “Definitely,” he assured her.

  “So we should overlook the past? Pretend it never happened? Play crazy or stupid?”

  “I never lied to you,” he insisted.

  “No, you just tried to hire yourself out to my friends and chose to fuck Grandma Moses that night in the club because she had the money I didn’t,” she snapped, lowering her voice as she drew the eyes of those at neighboring tables.

  “I was fighting how I was starting to feel about you, Jaime,” he explained. “I never slept with that lady in the club.”

  “No, but you did screw the same woman—my supposed friend—who slept with my husband and later had his baby and wanted to sue his estate,” she said, sitting back in her chair as well as she crossed her legs beneath the table and eyed him as if to say, “so there.”

  “First off, I didn’t know anything about her cheating with your husband. Secondly, I never screwed her, and thirdly, you weren’t even dealing with me then, Jaime—”

  “Oh, she reminded me of how well you ate her pussy, so trust me, I know far too much of your dealings with Jessa Bell’s slack ass,” she said coldly.