by Yoshe
And come Brandi did. It felt so good to release her juices into Kane’s eager mouth. Right after she came, he quickly put on a condom and entered her. Brandi’s eyes opened wide, as if he was much bigger than she had expected him to be.
Suddenly, their interlude took an odd turn. Kane began to slow things down a bit. While he was in mid-stroke, he stopped and began kissing Brandi on the mouth. He placed soft kisses on her neck and caressed her; being a tender lover wasn’t something that Kane was used to doing. Even he was surprised at his own actions.
“You’re a beautiful woman, sweetheart,” he whispered to Brandi. “And you taste so good, you feel good; you make me want you all to myself.”
As Kane was expressing his innermost feelings, Brandi was focused on one thing: the sex. She wrapped her arms around his neck and sucked on his bottom lip. “If you want this pussy all to yourself, you have to show and prove, honey,” she replied.
Kane commenced to showing and proving to Brandi how much of a champion he was in the bedroom. She was in her glory, as he threw her legs over his shoulders and dug deep in her insides. Sometime later, the lusty duo lay in a crumpled heap on the couch, spent from the breathtaking orgasms that they had just both experienced.
When Brandi began to doze off in Kane’s arms, things began to feel real awkward for him. He was accustomed to having sex with his female paramours and leaving right away; he wasn’t into cuddling. But he felt comfortable with Brandi. He didn’t want to leave but Kane wasn’t sure if she wanted him to stay.
Kane gave the sleeping Brandi a little prod to wake her up. “Hey, babe?” he whispered. She opened her eyes. “Um, did you want me to stay the night with you?” he asked.
Brandi’s eyes were wide opened and she sat up. “I’m not sure if that’s a good idea, Kane.”
Slightly embarrassed, Kane put his clothes on. Once he was fully dressed, he walked into the bathroom. A nude Brandi crept up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist.
“Thank you so much for tonight, Kane,” she said. “I really appreciate everything that you did for me tonight.”
Kane softened up and smiled. “It was my pleasure, sweetheart,” he said, turning around to face her. “I enjoyed myself too. I really did.”
Brandi rubbed her nose on his chin. “I know that we just got busy like two porn stars but the only reason that I said it wasn’t a good idea for you to spend the night is because . . . Well, that’s not important. I just hope this isn’t the last time that we’re going to be seeing each other, though.”
“Nah, babe,” Kane replied, putting his arm around her. “It isn’t the last time. I want to see you again.”
Brandi kissed him on the lips. “That’s what I wanted to hear.”
After sharing yet another intimate kiss with Brandi, Kane said his good-byes and made his way to his car. On the drive home, he couldn’t get the events of the night out of his head. Kane was amazed at how things went down so quickly; he hadn’t expected to make a homerun with Brandi on their first date. But he wasn’t going to judge Brandi because of it. He was just as guilty of being sexually attracted to her as she obviously was to him. And that was good to know.
“Damn, Sean,” Kane said aloud. “You’re gonna feel real fucked up when you find out that your bitch chose me!”
Chapter 9
Ever since Dollar came back from North Carolina that previous Friday morning, he hadn’t wanted to do much of anything but sleep. By the time he finally got himself together, it was early Sunday.
Pissed about missing the entire weekend, Dollar decided to get out of the house and head to Brooklyn. With no real destination in mind, Dollar called up Peeto and few of their buddies from the old neighborhood. They all decided to go to Peeto’s house, where they would sit in the basement, have a few beers, and catch some Sunday football on the seventy-inch LED television.
Little did Dollar know that his plans were about to change.
It was a little after two in the afternoon when Dollar got off the Belt Parkway/Pennsylvania Avenue in Brooklyn. As he made his way down the avenue, he got caught at a red light a few blocks away from the parkway. While waiting for the light to turn green, an attractive female in an Audi truck pulled up alongside Dollar’s truck. Normally, Dollar didn’t pay women much attention. But for some reason, this particular female caught his eye and it didn’t take him long to figure out why. Just as luck would have it, she just happened to be the woman of his dreams.
Dollar quickly rolled down his driver’s side window and began beeping his horn like crazy. “Ay yo, Brandi!” he yelled out of the window at the top of his lungs. “Brandi!”
When Dollar got her attention, Brandi leaned forward to get a closer look at him. She smiled when she recognized who he was. Brandi quickly rolled down her passenger side window. “Oh, my God!” she yelled. “Dollar? Is that you?”
Dollar felt elated. The woman that he had fallen in love with at first sight was right there before his eyes. He couldn’t believe it. “Yeah, it’s me, girl! Pull your vee over so I can get a good look at you!”
Dollar and Brandi pulled over the right side of the street and parked. As soon as Brandi got out of her truck, she ran up to Dollar and gave him a big hug. He hugged her back, lifting her off her feet.
“Oh, my God, Dollar!” she said, with her arms still wrapped around his neck. “How are you?”
Dollar released her from his tight embrace and stood back. Brandi was looking even more beautiful than what he remembered. The last time he saw her, she was a young woman, about twenty-one years old to be exact, and Shamari was a preschooler. Dollar gave her a nod of approval.
“Damn, Bee!” he exclaimed. “You look good as hell! Just when I thought that you couldn’t get any prettier, I’m looking at this dime piece standing before me,” Dollar said, with a look of admiration.
Brandi laughed and waved him off. “Oh, stop!” she replied. “Shoot, look at you! Last time I saw you, you had nothing but some peach fuzz on your face. Now you got a full beard and”—she stopped talking for a second to squeeze his right bicep—“and you got some big muscles, too! Wow!”
Suddenly, Dollar’s face turned serious. “So what’s up, Brandi? What’s really been up with you? And how’s your son?”
“Well, I’m doing very well for myself,” Brandi said proudly. “I went to college, got myself a bachelor’s degree, then I went back for my master’s and got that, too. I’ve been a director for the Administration of Children’s Services for the last twelve years. And my baby, Shamari? He works for the Sanitation Department now, has his own apartment, and a four-year-old son.”
Dollar seemed impressed. “Really? That’s what’s up! By the way, did he ever tell you that I saw him on Rikers Island a few years back?”
Brandi rolled her eyes at Dollar. “Yes, he did! And what the hell were you doing in there anyway?” she asked, playfully punching him on the arm. “You’re too much of a veteran to be going back and forth to jail, man!”
Dollar held his head down. “Yeah, you’re right, Bee. But at that time, I got caught up in some hustling bullshit. I don’t do that shit no more though.”
“So what do you do now, man? How do you support yourself?”
Dollar sucked his teeth. “Come on now, girl! Now you of all people know that I always keep my money-making moves top secret! But on the real, I’m the owner of a successful trucking business. They don’t call me Dollar for nothing.”
“Same old Dollar,” she said, giving him another hug. “You look great, though. And you didn’t age one bit.”
Dollar thanked Brandi for the compliment. “Where are you on your way to?”
Brandi sighed. “I was just about to head to the mall to return a few items and run some other errands.”
“Why don’t you follow me to the Lindenwood Diner? We can catch up over some brunch.”
The Lindenwood Diner, a popular East New York eatery, was filled with Sunday morning churchgoers. Older women with their overs
ized hats and suited men holding Bibles chatted it up in the front of the diner as they waited to be seated. Just as Dollar and Brandi walked through the front door, the small entourage of holy rollers entered the restaurant before them. They were escorted to their respective tables and not too long after, a smiling waitress guided the old friends to a booth in the back. Brandi slid into the seat and took off her wool coat.
Dollar found it impossible to take his eyes off her. Brandi put down her menu when she noticed him staring at her. “Yes, Dollar?” she asked, with a hint of sassiness in her voice.
He smiled. “I don’t mean to stare at you but it’s just that been such a long time since I’ve seen you.”
“Yes, it has. So where are you living these days? Do you still live in that little-ass apartment on Ashford Street?”
Dollar frowned at her. “Hell no! I gave that apartment up years ago! I actually have a condo in Kew Gardens, Queens. Been living there for about five years now.”
“So you live in Kew Gardens now? Wow! It’s top dollar for property out there. You seem to be doing pretty good for yourself. What did you say that you did for a living again?”
Dollar waved her off. “Come on now, Bee! I told you that I’m about that trucking life! I’m not into anything illegal . . . anymore. I flipped all of that drug money I made and found myself a legit hustle. I was able to buy me that condo in New York and I have a winter crib in Miami, too. Not to mention, I made some good investments. Trust me, ya boy doing real good!”
Brandi rolled her eyes at him. “Okay, Dollar. Don’t make me have to take my investigation to the streets. You know that it’s not a problem for me to find out whatever I need to know about you.”
The waitress walked over and they both put in their order. In the meantime, Dollar was thinking about what he was going to say to Brandi. He had so much to ask her but he had no idea where to start.
“So what’s up with your love life, Bee? I know you got a man.”
Brandi took a sip of water. “As a matter of fact, I don’t. I’m just dating right now. What about you? Do you have someone special in your life?” she asked.
Dollar shook his head. “I have a few female friends but nothing serious.”
Brandi smirked. “Dollar, you have always been this mysterious guy. I never really saw you with too many women back in the days and even though I knew you, I really didn’t know you. What’s up with your family? I never heard you talk about your family.”
Dollar leaned back against the cushioned booth seat. “That’s because I don’t have no family, Bee. I was raised in foster homes all of my life and when I turned eighteen, the streets, Maleek, Gator, and Peeto became my family. I have a teenage son but him and I don’t have much of a relationship with each other.”
“That’s so unfortunate, Dollar,” Brandi said. “He’s your only child, right?”
“Well, his mother and I never really got along and truthfully, I didn’t really make much of an effort to be in his life. I can’t blame his mother for that, though. I just couldn’t stand that chick and it’s a shame that my son didn’t have a relationship with his father because of it.” Dollar paused. “Isn’t it funny but I used to always get on Maleek about that same shit.”
“Maleek,” Brandi said, repeating her son’s father’s name. “I hadn’t really thought about him in years. Maybe I finally came to grips with his death.”
Dollar frowned. “Speaking of Maleek, I heard some disturbing shit about his death,” he said. He looked closely at Brandi’s reaction to what he said. She didn’t flinch.
Brandi shifted in her seat. “What about his death?”
“I heard that his murder was a hit. At least that was what the streets were saying back then. And the streets were also saying that you and that dude, Smokey, the cat from Virginia, were the ones who orchestrated the hit.”
Brandi looked at Dollar with a straight face. He was amazed at how composed she was when he knew, just like him, that she was guilty as hell.
“Hell no!” she said. “Why would I put a hit out on the father of my child?”
“I didn’t say that I believed the rumor, Bee. I just said that was what the streets were saying.”
Brandi took a big gulp of water. “I was, you know, many things back then, Dollar. But honestly, I wasn’t the type of chick to have the father of my child murdered! To do something like that is fucking nuts!” she said, looking away from his intense stare.
Dollar respected Brandi’s tenacity but he was laughing on the inside. If only she knew that he overheard her talking to Smokey on the day that Maleek was murdered, she would probably run out of that diner, screaming at the top of her lungs. But the fact that she orchestrated a hit against her baby father had never been an issue for Dollar. He was more upset that she had sexual relations with Smokey.
Brandi screwed up her face. “Besides, I heard that the dude Smokey was the one who killed Maleek. Whatever happened with that Smokey situation anyway?” she said, continuing with her lie. “I was told that his body was found not too far from where Maleek was killed. That’s a little strange, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know too much about the Smokey shit,” Dollar replied, also lying through his teeth. “But hey, that was how the game went back in those days. That drug money was nothing but blood money and a lot of people lost their lives because of it.”
“You’re so right, you’re so right.” She paused for a moment. “So what’s up with Peeto’s fat ass? You know that he was the one who was responsible for my baby being locked up, right? He had Shamari out in the streets selling drugs or at least attempting to.”
Dollar put his hand up. “Now, come on, Bee! Your baby wanted to do all that shit on his own! I admit, Peeto could have gone about the situation a little bit differently but you know how these kids are. They’re fucking hardheaded! They never learn from our mistakes!”
“Shamari never knew about any of my mistakes, Dollar; at least, he didn’t until you told him all my damn business!” Brandi said, rolling her eyes at him.
Dollar chuckled. “Oh, so it’s my fault that you didn’t keep it official with your own kid?”
“No, it isn’t, but damn! You gave him a little too much information, don’t you think?”
Dollar thought back to the Rikers Island stint.
The year was 2009 and he had to serve some time for a low-level drug charge that he caught that past summer. Naturally, Dollar was not happy about being locked up on Rikers. But he was even more pissed about being surrounded by the young, disrespectful inmates who were half his age.
The early afternoon sun was shining in Dollar’s face, as he stood in the pen. He and the rest of the Bing inmates from his housing area were locked in the gated pens outside in the yard. They couldn’t walk around but it beat being locked down for twenty-three hours a day. The one-hour recreation was just what the doctor ordered and Dollar took advantage of it.
As Dollar walked back and forth in the gated cage like some trapped animal, a young man in a neighboring pen caught his eye. There was something about the young man that looked vaguely familiar to him. He just couldn’t put his finger on it.
“Yo, nigga, it’s about time we got outside of that fucking rat hole. Shit!” he said. When the young man didn’t respond, he said something else. “The weather out here is kind of nice,” Dollar said loudly, trying to strike up some general conversation. “I was tired of being in that fucking sweat box! What about you, young blood?”
The younger man seemed surprised that someone was actually talking to him. “I didn’t hear you, man. What did you say?”
“I said the weather out here is kind of nice,” Dollar repeated. “I was tired of being in that fucking sweat box. What about you?”
“I’m just tired of being locked up, period, man!” he replied.
Dollar gave the younger man a visual inspection from where he was standing. “Yo, what’s your government name, man?” he asked him, while staring at his familiar face.
“Seems like I know you from somewhere, young blood.”
Young blood seemed a little hesitant to give Dollar any information.
“The last name is Wallace,” he replied, still reluctant to give Dollar his full name.
“Wallace. Wallace.” Dollar paused for second. “Where does your family hail from, Wallace?”
“My family is from Bed-Stuy,” he nervously replied.
“Oh, word? Bed-Stuy, huh?” Wallace nodded his head. “What’s your pop’s name? I think I know your pops.”
Wallace really looked worried when Dollar asked that. “Ummm . . .”
Dollar understood Wallace’s reluctance to tell him his personal business. “Listen, young blood, you don’t have to be afraid to talk to me, man. I don’t associate with none of these bitch-ass dudes in here! I’m about one of the realest dudes you’re ever gonna meet on this rock. I been through it all and I done seen mad motherfuckers come and go. And I’m gonna keep it a hundred, maybe I’m just might be the person you needed to talk to.”
Wallace took a deep breath. “Well, my pop’s name was Maleek. He was killed when I was five years old. And my mother’s name is Brandi. My mom’s side of the family are the ones from the Stuy. My father’s family is from East New York.”
Dollar put his hand over his mouth. He was stunned by the news that Wallace had provided to him. “That’s where I know you from!” Dollar exclaimed, covering his mouth and pointing his finger at Wallace. “You’re looking exactly like your father, too. God bless the dead!” Now that everything came together, Dollar couldn’t take his eyes off Wallace. “Damn, you look just like that nigga Maleek! Your name is Shamari, right?”
Wallace was taken aback. “Oh shit, yeah, how you know?”
Dollar chuckled. “Wow! Little Shamari!” He began reminiscing. “I was there when your mother and father first met. Brandi was about fifteen years old and she was going to Boys and Girls, the high school back then.” Dollar shook his head. “Boy, your mama was off the chain! And she had one of the biggest crushes on your father, man. Shit, she was about to cut some broad over your daddy the first damn day she met him!”