In Love with a Thug

by Reginald L. Hall

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” I yelled to Jeff as the other boys came toward me.

  “Where’s all your money?” asked one of the boys wearing a black Dickie set. Actually all of them had on black Dickies except for Jeff.

  “No, fuck the money, I want him,” yelled Jeff, pointing to Rob with a twelve-inch sharp blade.

  “Boy, you better not stab me with that knife,” yelled Rob. Keisha and Kya ran out of the office as all four boys ran toward me and Rob. I turned and tried to run as I tripped over a stack of magazines I had sitting beside my desk. The four boys grabbed Rob and pinned him to the floor as Jeff began punching and kicking him in his stomach.

  One of the boys grabbed Rob by the head and began jabbing him in the mouth as Jeff took his sharpie toward Rob’s throat and deeply slit it from right to left. I screamed to the top of my lungs as Rob’s blood gushed from his skin as one of the boys let his lifeless head go and made a thump sound as it hit the floor. The four boys ran out of the shop one right behind the other with Jeff tailing behind.

  Rob lay on my office floor with his legs twisted and his arms spread out. His eyes were closed as if he were asleep.

  “Noooo,” I screamed as I ran throughout the shop looking for Keshia and Kya but they had vanished and so had Jeff and all his boys.

  The sun had begun to set as the police did their last walk-through of the salon making sure they had all the evidence needed to look for Rob’s killer. I cringed at the thought of Rob being dead. The look of his chocolate face lying there in my office in a pool of blood will always scare me.

  The smell of blood throughout the salon freaked me out. I was traumatized from what I had seen. I needed to be comforted, I needed to be saved and not the type of saving that comes from a man. I’m talking about the type of saving that only God can give me.

  Through all the blood and fingerprint dust and police tape, I got down on my knees and prayed to the Lord for forgiveness for all I had done. This shop was going down like the Titanic and the Lord was gonna let it sink. Maybe it was meant to be. I needed to be forgiven but then I thought that in order for me to be forgiven then I must first forgive.

  The candles that were lit on each table set the mood right as I entered the door of Zanzibar Blue.

  “Hi, will you be dining alone or are you here with people?” said the African-American female who greeted me as soon as I walked through the door.

  “I’m supposed to be meeting someone here,” I responded, noticing Bryant in the distance sporting a black blazer and a Kangol. He motioned for me to come in his direction.

  “There he is,” I said, walking past the hostess and over to my man.

  “Enjoy,” she said. As soon as I came within his distance he stood up and we embraced with a four-arm hug. He inhaled my scent the way I’d inhaled his cologne, which was Burberry Brown. I could tell his sincerity by the way he gripped the lower part of my back.

  “I’m sorry, Baby,” he said as he held me close. I backed away from him and took my seat at the table.

  “Let me get that,” he said, grabbing the chair and pulling it from the table so I could sit.

  “Thanks,” I said as he helped push me toward the table. “So, Bryant, what’s this all about?” I asked, cutting to the chase. My father was being buried tomorrow and I had no time for games.

  “J.J., I brought you here tonight because I wanted to show you how much I missed you the past couple of days. Baby, what happened at my grandmother’s house the other morning, Baby, that wasn’t me.” His eyes started to tear up through the flames of the candles.

  “Bryant, I might be going to jail because of you,” I hissed as his tears made an appearance. For the first time in my life; I had seen a thug cry.

  “Baby, no you won’t,” he protested.

  “Yes, I will, if she testifies against me, I will.”

  “Baby, no, you won’t,” he spat, now bawling out of control.

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Because she’s dead,” he said as my eyes widened with surprise. The waitress came over to our table.

  “Can I start you two off with a few drinks?” she asked cheerfully. Bryant looked up at her with his teary eyes. She read him like a book. “I’ll give you some time. I’ll be back.”

  “Bryant, what the hell you mean, she’s dead? What the hell happened?” I asked, trying not to let anyone hear our conversation.

  His tears began to fall steadily as he told his story for the first time.

  “I had her murdered, J.” He put his hands on top of the table as I placed my hand in his. “I did it,” he said, now with snot running from his nose. He squeezed my hand causing my fist to ball.

  “Bryant, stop crying and tell me what happened,” I demanded. He took a few sniffles, then blew his nose with the napkin and prepared himself to tell me the full story.

  “That bitch blinded my daughter for life, yo. Then she had the nerve to kill my seed and send me the pictures. I offed that bitch,” he spat in anger. He straightened his face and got himself together. “My bad, shawty, I just needed to get that out. I’m ready to order now.” He called the waitress over to our table.

  “Bryant, we need to talk.” I stopped the waitress in mid sentence before she started telling us what the day’s specials were.

  “Okay, I guess I’ll give y’all a little more time,” she said as she spun a one-eighty in the other direction.

  “Baby, you wanna talk, then let’s talk. Like I said in my email, I’m all for you.” he said, talking with his hands. “What is it that you wanna talk about?” I took a sip of the ice water from the table.

  “We need to talk about us. Bryant, I need more than what you’re willing to give me. I need more than a piece of dick. I need a man, a companion. Someone that’s gonna be there in my time of need.”

  “I feel you,” he said, nodding his head in agreeance. “So basically you’re telling me that you want me to be your man?”

  “Bryant, I’m not telling you anything. If you choose to be with me and stop all the lies and commit to me, then fine, but if you can’t, then you need to step,” I said, looking him dead in his eyes. “And look at me; you basically turned me into a crackhead. I had never thought about taking drugs until you came into my life.”

  He looked down at the flowery prints on the table. He then looked up.

  “Baby, the drugs are going to stop. I promise you I will get a real job only if you give me the time. Anything you need from me—you have it. Rehab, time to yourself—Baby, you got it. Just put in a little bit of faith, J.J.” We both stood silent as the music from the jazz band played on.

  “Listen, Baby, I love you and I would do anything in this world for you. You saw that I took care of Melissa; not just because of what she did to my daughter but for what she’s done to you.”

  The waitress came back to the table. “Oh, are we smiling now,” she said jokingly. “May I now take your orders?”

  Bryant looked at me with a sexy smirk on his face. “Baby, you order first.”

  “Okay.” I briefly looked over the menu. “I’ll have the stuffed duck with a side of orange rice and cabbage.” I closed the menu and looked in his direction. “And what will you have, honey?,” I said in a way to see his reaction. He shocked the hell out of me when he seemed not to mind that I had called him out in public. He looked over the menu himself as he palmed his hands underneath the table.

  “I’ll have the roast chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy,” he said, closing his menu and handing it back to her. “We will also have two glasses of your finest wine,” he added without taking his eyes off me.

  “Okay, I’ll take your menus and be right back with your drinks.” The waitress smiled. The mood got quite silent for a minute before he began to speak.

  “J.J., I need to say this. You’re the most honest, beautiful, and most considerate person I’ve ever met. I’m truly sorry for ever laying a hand on you the other day. And not to offend you by any means
but even with a bruised face, you’re still beautiful,” He glimmered as his eyes matched my soul. I smiled at his lovely demeanor.

  “Well, Bryant, I can honestly say that this morning, I hated you. But after seeing one of my friends get murdered today, it made me think about life and how short it is. And there is no time to walk around holding a grudge against someone that I truly loved. I had to realize that the person I love is you.” I held my head high as I spilled my guts to the man who would in the future make me happy.

  “You know, J, I’m glad to hear you say that because I want to take our commitment a step further.” He smirked.

  “A step further; what do you mean by that?” I asked as the waitress came back with our drinks.

  “Here you go,” she said, setting the glasses of red wine in front of us.

  “Thank you,” I said before directing my attention back to my b-boy. “Now back to what you were saying. You would like us to move a step further?” I was anxious to know what he meant.

  Again his put his hands on top of the table and I placed my hands in his.

  “I want us to move in together.” He squeezed my hand and smiled. I almost jumped out of my socks. Does he really mean that he wants us to move in together? Does he realize what he’s talking about? If he is to move in my apartment with me then this will definitely be a step in the right direction to making him all mine.

  “Bryant, are you serious?” I asked reassuring that I wasn’t dreaming. My eyes were as bright as the sun as the flames from the candles danced back and forth on our tabletop.

  “Yes, Baby, I’m serious. I can move today, if need be.”

  “Bryant, I really do need you in my life right now. I love you and I do forgive you for everything you’ve done to me.” I thought about the prayer I’d said this morning. “Yes, I would love to have your presence in my home.”

  He squeezed my hands a little harder before letting them go and picking up his glass and holding it out to toast. I picked up my glass by the stem.

  “A toast.”

  “A toast,” I said, repeating after him and smiling.

  “To a new beginning of us,” he said. We both let our glasses clink as we held them to our mouths and swallowed slowly. This was the first time I could say that I was in love or might I say we were in love.

  “Sir, please hold up a minute,” said Bryant as he ran behind a man selling flowers on the corner of Conshohocken and City Avenue. He slipped the guy a twenty and the guy gave him a dozen red roses.

  “My queen,” he said as he handed me the roses.

  “Aww, Bryant. Thank you, I love you so much. Now gimme a kiss,” I said as he looked around a few times, then planted a soft kiss on my lips.

  “Man, you gon’ get me killed out here,” he said as we began to walk faster to my apartment.

  “Bryant, it’s dark out here and plus, ain’t nobody worried about us this time of the night.” We walked in the vestibule of my apartment building.

  “Good evening, Trudy,” I said, holding on to Bryant’s arm and trying to carry the roses at the same time.

  “Good evening, Mr. Jiles. How are you this evening?” she asked, holding her earpiece in her ear as she stood behind the clerk’s desk.

  “I’m fine now. Can you hold any visitors for me tonight and I’ll be putting the DO NOT DISTURB button on my telephone, so please take all my calls. Thanks.”

  “Will do,” she said, getting right down to business by typing my information into the computer.

  “Damn, that’s one bad-ass Asian chick,” Bryant said, giggling as we got onto the elevator.

  “Shut up! I’m the only person you should be looking at,” I said, giving him a great kiss, tasting his delicious tongue. We kissed and grinded all the way to my floor. I could have sworn I felt his dick jump when the elevator beeped.

  “Look at you. You’re so damn drunk that you can’t even get the key into the knob. Here, let me get it for you,” he said, moving me to the side so he could open the door. Those martinis I had at dinner, plus the bump, really had me feeling fine.

  Soon as we entered the apartment, without even turning on the lights, I threw the bouquet of flowers on the floor and I went down with them dropping straight to my knees. I couldn’t wait to taste his big daddy in my mouth. As soon as I unzipped his jeans his dick was already out of his boxers. All I had to do was insert it into my warm, liquored-down mouth. I closed my eyes as I took all of him in without him even budging for me to stop. In fact he lifted his T-shirt so I could get a good suck as he pushed the back of my head into him. His dick smelled sweaty and musky and I loved it. I would call it a sports dick because it smelled like he played sports. He grabbed both of my ears as he fucked my face so hard that he busted all in my grill.

  I swallowed his ice cream whole as we began kissing again and taking off all our clothes and walked slowly toward the bedroom. I made a mistake and kicked the Jesus nightlight from the socket as we eased down the hallway and into my room where we intertwined and fell on the bed.

  “Baby, I want you,” he said in a seductive tone.

  “I want you too,” I agreed. He sucked on his bottom lip and began kissing me again.

  “Naw, I’m saying, I want you. Meaning, I want you inside me tonight.” I was so distraught at what he’d said because the thought had never crossed my mind that I was gonna fuck my man.

  “You want me to fuck you?” I asked for assurance. He looked at me with his bedroom eyes and began to suck on his bottom lip again.

  “Yeah, Baby, what’s wrong with that?” he asked as he began to massage my waistline.

  “Nothing. I mean there’s nothing wrong with that.” I started kissing him as my whole feminine demeanor changed now that I was the top. I kissed him hard as I licked all over his lips while massaging his ass cheeks getting me prepared to enter the dark tunnel of love.

  I turned him around and laid him down on the bed, then went over to my dresser where I kept my KY Jelly.

  “Put dat ass in the air,” I said as I poured the jelly on my dick and rubbed some on his hairy anus. The one thing about Bryant’s ass was that it was perfectly round and ready to be stuck. I moved his body toward my torso so I could fuck him doggy style while I stood with my knees touching the bed. I used my strength to pull his body forward as I smoothly stuck my dick in his rectum.

  I tried to look at the expression on his face from behind to see if he’d ever done this before but I couldn’t. I then pulled out as his eyes opened.

  “What the fuck is up?” he yelled.

  “Chill,” I said. “I’m gonna look for a CD to groove to while I’m tearing that ass up,” I continued. I walked around the room with my dick hard as a rock. With every step I made sure that I stroked it so it wouldn’t get soft by default. I looked at my CD collection and passed by TLC, India Arie, Chaka Khan, and then stopped at Johnny Gill.

  I pulled the disc from the holder and inserted it into the disc player and pressed random. The first song that started to play was a “Quiet Time to Play.” I walked back over to the bed where Bryant was ass naked posted on all fours.

  “Are you ready for wifey?” I said, rubbing my finger up and down his asshole preparing to finger-fuck him. I slipped my finger in his anus and pushed it all the way in until I couldn’t go no farther. Then I replaced my finger with my hard dick.

  I slowly pushed myself in as his face cringed a little. But when I pulled it out, he seemed to have exhaled. I pushed it back in, then began pumping to the beat of the song.

  “Ahh shit,” he moaned as I pumped to the rhythm. I grabbed his bubble butt and started long-stroking him as if I was in charge. Now I knew the true meaning of “a pancake ain’t done unless you flip it” or “the chicken ain’t done unless you cook it on both sides.”

  “Damn, boy, that feels good,” he said as he began jerking his dick while I pumped his ass harder. I knew that it was starting to feel good to him when he started to throw that ass back to me. I closed my eyes and began fuckin
g the shit out of him. I began thinking all the things that a thug stood for. I was fucking a nigga with a head full of cornrows to the back. The same nigga that stood posted up on your corner selling that shit. He moaned seductively as I stroked my pipe in and out his wet-ass thug style. Yes, I was getting ass straight up from the same nigga that had baby moms out there in the streets that were in love with them. They would never know that I had their man doggy style. Mariah would never think of a day when her man was getting fucked in the ass.

  “Do you want me to stop?” I said as the sweat beads formed on my forehead with Johnny pouring his heart out in the background.

  “Naw, nigga, keep going. I’ma bout to nut,” he said as I flipped him over, pushed him up on the bed and raised his legs putting one over each shoulder. I was in it. I was tearing up those thug guts.

  “Shit, J.J., I didn’t know that it would be like this,” he said while catching his breath. I looked him in his eyes as I pumped faster.

  “You want me?” I said with sweat pouring down my face. He held his eyes shut tight as I tore up his insides just like he did mine.

  “Huh?”

  “I said do you want me? You heard what I said.” I was trying to sound dominant.

  “Yeah, J.J, I want you,” he moaned as I knew he could feel me in his stomach. I leaned over and kissed his lips and kissed him hard until my bust and cream coated his entire stomach.

  While I lay on top of his chest after our escapade, I definitely knew that I was in love with my thug.

  XIII

  NEGATIVE VS. POSITIVE

  The butterflies in the pit of my stomach got worse as the limo pulled up in front of my parents’ door. The family decided to wear white, a symbol of purity, rather than black to seem dark and gloomy.

  All of my aunts, uncles, and cousins had come in from out of town to share this house full of food. The smell of turkey, chicken, collard greens, sweet potatoes, and mac and cheese filled my nose as I sat in the kitchen rocking back and forth from nervousness.