by Yoshe
“Hey, Milan,” Tuki said, in a solemn voice. “I’m, like, trying to call you and you’re, like, not answering my phone calls.”
The next few sentences weren’t so subtle. “I don’t know what to think, Milan, I mean, you always answer my calls. Are you fucking with someone else? Do you love me? Tell me the truth, Milan! If you don’t love me, don’t string me along!”
Milan began chewing on her bottom lip. She always did that when she was extremely nervous. And from the sound of Tuki’s voice mails she had every right to be. Milan covered her face with her hands. She liked Tuki but she knew that she wasn’t in love with her. Now the woman was sounding as if she was about to start acting real crazy. What have I done?
Not knowing what else to do, Milan immediately dialed her friend Bam’s number.
“It is two in the damn morning!” Bam yelled, in a voice that was groggy from sleep. “Who is this and what do you want from my life?”
“Bam?” she whispered into the phone. “It’s me!”
He yawned loudly in her ear. “Who in the hell? Girl, do you know what time it is?” he replied. “Folks in the South go to bed early, child!”
“Bam, Bam, please, I’m so sorry for calling this late but I really needed to talk to you!”
Milan could hear him groan. “Okay, girl, but make it quick! Samson is sleeping and I don’t want to wake him up,” he said, referring to his live-in boyfriend.
“This bitch, Tuki, done called me like a hundred and one times tonight! She left me a message or two on my voice mail, cussing me out and talking about do I really love her and if I don’t not to string her along! What the fuck is wrong with that chick?”
“Oh, Lord have mercy! Sounds like somebody done got bit by the love bug, bayyybeeee!” Bam exclaimed. “And it sounds like you need to tell Missy Poo the truth, bestie.”
“I can’t do that!” she announced, looking back at the steps. She didn’t want to talk too loudly so she took her voice down a few decibels. “I can’t do that, Bam. I mean, I really, really like Tuki and everything. And shit, that long money of hers is enticing. She’s young, gorgeous, and so my type. I don’t want to lose that.”
Bam sighed. “Well then, you need to tell your husband that you’re bisexual.”
Milan was appalled at the mere suggestion of revealing her down low lifestyle to Sean. “Hell no! That’s out of the damn question. That man loves me and when he met me, he assumed that I was this . . . this virtuous woman.”
Bam began laughing hysterically. “Lord knows, that poor man doesn’t know his ass from his elbow if he thought that, hunty! You are serving up Janet Jacme realness!” Bam said, comparing Milan to the notorious porn star.
Milan was just too wrapped up in the Tuki issue to laugh at Bam’s teasing. “Listen, Bam, I’m gonna need for you to try to talk to Tuki for me. Find out where the bitch’s head is at. Make up some lie as to why I didn’t answer her phone calls. You have to help me, Bam.”
Bam sucked his teeth. “All right, all right!” he replied. “I will holler at her in the morning and give her a talking to. But if she comes for me, no tea, no shade, I will read her for filth, is that understood?”
Milan clapped her hands. “You’re such a great friend! I love you so much, Bammy Poo!”
“And I love you, too, boo. Now get you some rest and don’t you worry! Little Miss Shady Tuki will be just fine.”
Milan hung up the phone and leaned back on the couch. After taking another peek at the staircase, she pulled some coke out of her robe pocket and took a sniff. Then she sat there in one spot, waiting for the drug to take effect. It didn’t take long for Milan to feel the high. Pretty soon, she felt like she was sitting on a cloud, twenty-something thousand miles in the air. The coke helped Milan to stop worrying about the Tuki situation.
Milan grabbed Sean’s iPod from the center table, put his Dr. Dre Beats headphones on, and began listening to music. She fell fast asleep on the family room’s sofa with the headphones on her ears.
Chapter 16
That Sunday afternoon turned out to be a clear, sunny day. It was almost the end of October and the sixty degree weather was unusual for that time of the year. As people walked up and down Halsey Street, going to or leaving their resident churches, Sean and Milan were inside of their home, hanging out in their kitchen. They had just enjoyed a hearty breakfast but were sitting at the kitchen table in complete silence. The unusually glum Milan sipped on a cup of her favorite coffee and browsed the Internet on her iPad while Sean read Sunday’s Daily News.
“So who was the bitch at the baby shower, Sean?” Milan asked, out of the blue.
Sean put down the paper and looked at his wife. “What bitch are you talking about?”
“What’s her name? I think you said that her name was, um, Brandi! Yeah, that’s the bitch’s name. Brandi,” she said. “Who was that, Sean?”
Sean frowned at her. “I don’t know! I met her the same time you did!” he lied.
Milan walked over to the table, pulled out the chair and sat down in front of Sean. “You really think that I’m stupid, huh? I don’t give a hell what you’re telling me right now; you and that woman’s body language didn’t say that y’all just met. It said that y’all know each other, and know each other very well! Meanwhile, I know you, very well! You cannot tell me that you and that bitch ain’t never mess around with one another before!”
Sean gave Milan the evil eye. “Look, you really don’t know me that well if you think that I have or had something with that Brandi chick. You saw who she was there with! And you saw her leaving with someone else, too! You saw that shit with your own two eyes!”
Milan took another sip of her coffee and stared at Sean. He continued to read the paper, ignoring her evil glare.
“I’m gonna have to watch your sneaky ass,” she announced, pointing at him. “You and your friends are some real sneaky motherfuckers.”
Sean threw the paper on the table and stood up. “I don’t have to listen to this bullshit!” He went to grab a leather jacket from the coat closet. “I’ll see you later, Milan.”
As soon as the front door slammed, Milan ran to the window. Once she saw Sean’s truck pull off, she reached into her robe pocket. She dialed Bam’s phone number.
“So what’s up, Bam?” she asked, as soon as he answered the call. “Did you speak to Tuki?”
“I was just about to holler at you, honey!” Bam replied anxiously. “You had better pack your bags and go into a witness protection program, child!”
Milan frowned. “What the hell do you mean by that?”
“Tuki is in New York, as we speak! I called her about an hour ago and she told that she just landed at JFK. She said that she was in a cab and on the way to your house in Brooklyn!”
Milan jumped up and down. “What?” she screamed.
“You heard me!”
Suddenly, her doorbell rang.
“Oh. My. God,” Milan whispered into the phone.
“What happened?” the curious Bam asked.
Milan looked out of the front window. There was Tuki, in all of her glory, standing on the stoop of her brownstone.
“Bam, she’s here! What am I going to do?” Milan whispered.
“Is Sean home?” Bam asked. “Because if he is, chiiiild . . .”
“No! Sean isn’t here! Me and him just had an argument and he walked out!”
“Oh, Lord! He’s not there right now; that’s a good thing. You don’t have to answer the bell but what if the bitch comes back?”
“I don’t know,” Milan whined.
Bam sighed. “I don’t know what to tell you, angel. No shade but Bam done did his part. Now you need to handle your business, Miss Thang, and call me back! I cannot do this with you and Miss Shady Pants right now!”
Milan disconnected the call. Then she slowly walked to the front door and opened it. As soon as she did, Tuki ran straight into her arms and began tongue kissing her on the mouth.
“Oh, baby
, I missed you so much!” Tuki exclaimed, as she ran her hands all over Milan’s body. “I missed my baby!”
Milan didn’t respond; she was too afraid to say one word. She was just happy that Sean had left minutes before Tuki rang that doorbell. But he was going to eventually have to come back home and when he did . . .
Tuki walked right into the foyer area of the home. “Oh, my, this is so beautiful! I love brownstones! It’s so New York!”
Milan tried to smile. “Yeah, thanks, Tuki,” she replied. “What are you doing here? Why didn’t you tell me that you were coming to New York?”
Tuki put down her oversized Louis Vuitton duffel bag on the floor. “I wanted it to be a surprise, baby! Don’t I always tell you how much I miss you?” she said, wrapping her arms around Milan’s small waist.
“But you never called to say that you were coming to New York, Tuki. You just popped up at my house and I live in another state, another city. You don’t think that that’s a little crazy?”
Tuki let go of Milan. “Are you saying that me being here is a problem?”
“Yes! It’s a problem, Tuki!”
Tuki rolled her eyes at Milan and began walking around the house. She walked into the living room to inspect the pictures that were hanging on the wall and on the mantel of the fireplace. When she saw Sean and Milan’s wedding picture, she almost gagged.
“What in the fuck, who in the fuck is that in that picture?” she screamed, pointing at the picture.
Milan took a deep breath. “That’s my . . . that’s my husband,” she whispered.
Tuki walked up to Milan and pushed her to the floor. “Bitch, you’re fucking married?”
Milan tried to get up from the floor. “Yes, I’m married, Tuki, but I wanted to tell you—”
Tuki screamed like a madwoman and began punching on Milan. She wrapped her hand in Milan’s hair weave and tried dragging her across the hardwood floors.
“You bitch! I should kill your ass!” Tuki yelled, as Milan begged for her to let go of her hair. “Do you realize who you’re messing with?” she asked, with the vice grip on Milan’s weave.
Milan felt the braid from her sewn-in weave being lifted from her head and she tried hard to pry Tuki’s hands off her hair without success. Instead, she got hit in the face with a few right hooks.
“I’m not up for a bitch playing me,” Tuki said, through clenched teeth. “You and that Professor Sterling bitch.”
Milan was in too much pain to make sense of what Tuki was saying or who she was talking about.
Tuki kicked her in the face with her Ugg boots. Milan’s head slammed against the wall, causing her wince in pain. She spit blood from her mouth and onto the floor, as the love-crazed Tuki stood over her.
“Why did you lie to me, Milan?” she asked, with tears in her eyes.
Milan looked up at Tuki, who had a sinister look on her lovely face. She didn’t have the energy to fight back. “I didn’t want to tell you that I was married because I like you.”
Tuki stomped her foot and huffed. “Oh, you like me, huh? That sounds like you’re talking to one of your friends!” She walked back and forth for a few seconds. Tuki pointed to her heart. “You don’t play with this right here! You don’t do that, Milan! As a matter of fact, I’m going to need you to pack your shit and come back to my hotel room with me.”
Milan was still holding her swollen face. “Come with you to your hotel room?”
“I want you to stay there with me until I leave for Atlanta on Wednesday.”
Milan wiped some of the blood from her mouth. “What the hell am I supposed to tell my husband?”
Tuki bent down and grabbed Milan by the face. “I don’t care what you tell that bastard! As a matter of fact, why don’t you tell him the same got damn lies that you’ve been telling me?” She mushed Milan, making her fall back on the floor. “Get upstairs, pack your shit and let’s go!”
Milan attempted to stand up and Tuki gave her a hand, by grabbing her by the collar of her robe. “And if you think about calling any cops or getting funny on me, not only will I tell your husband about us but I will have your entire life ruined. Your career, your marriage, and your fucking reputation will be shot to shit!”
The nervous Milan made her way up the stairs with Tuki following closely behind her. Tuki watched as Milan reluctantly packed a bag of clothing, cleaned herself up, and got dressed for the day. By the time they left the house together, Tuki had softened up a little.
“You know why I don’t fuck with y’all bisexual bitches? It’s because y’all bitches are all over the place, playing for both teams and leaving a whole lot of angry, bitter lovers behind. But for you, I will make an exception this time because I’m in love with you. And you’re so lucky that you only caught that beat down, boo. ’Cause if I would’ve just wrapped my hands around your got damn neck and squeezed,” Tuki said, grabbing Milan by the neck. “Your ass would have been dead!”
At this point, Milan was deathly afraid of what the seemingly unstable Tuki might do. She wiped the remnants of tears from her cheeks and walked out of the front door of her house, locking the door behind her. As she marched down the front steps, she realized that her lies were unraveling before her eyes.
Milan was a cocaine addict and had been since she was in college. She was bisexual but that wasn’t the extent of it. She used to sell her body for money to well-to-do white businessmen. Milan fell in love with the material items that was gifted to her and she used the cash from her extracurricular activities to fund her lifestyle. Even her career wasn’t off-limits. Thanks to one of her well-connected clients, she was able to screw her way into the Universal Music Group, as well.
Now Tuki was threatening to expose her for who she really was. Milan had to think of a way to get herself out of the mess.
They hopped into Milan’s car and pulled off. As they sat at the corner of Halsey Street, waiting for the red light to turn green, Tuki grabbed her hand.
“Do you love me?” Tuki asked, with a serious look on her face.
Milan looked at the gorgeous woman sitting in the passenger seat of her Mercedes-Benz. What else was she going to say but yes?
“Yes, I do, Tuki. And I’m so sorry for lying to you,” Milan replied, hating herself for getting caught up with the lovesick lesbian.
Tuki smiled. She leaned over and kissed Milan’s bruised cheek. “That’s what I wanted to hear, babe. I love you too.”
Sean sat in front of Brandi’s apartment building and contemplating ringing her doorbell. On the way to her house, he had tried calling her phone a few times but she just wouldn’t answer him. Sean made another attempt at calling her. When he finally heard Brandi’s voice on the other end, he did everything to keep from smiling. It felt good to know that she wasn’t done with him, as of yet.
“What’s up with you, Brandi?” Sean asked, getting straight to the point. “What the hell was that stunt you tried to pull last night? And who was that dude you left with?”
Brandi instantly got on the defensive. “I don’t owe you any explanation, Sean. You’re a married man so it’s no need for you to worry about what stunts I’m pulling and who I left with!”
Sean chuckled at her sarcasm. He had expected her to say that to him. “Are you crazy? You do owe me an explanation! You’re fucking with one of my homeboys!”
“And if I am, what are you gonna do about it? Don’t you think that you need to be worrying about who your wife is screwing and not who’s screwing me?”
“You know what?” Sean paused for a moment. He got out of his parked truck and locked the door. “Buzz the door. I’m coming upstairs to talk to you, face to face.”
“Go home, Sean!” Then she hung up on him.
Sean shook his head. He was determined to get upstairs so that he could straighten things out with Brandi. He was also anticipating having some makeup sex with her after he smoothed everything over.
Instead of ringing her intercom, Sean waited downstairs for a few moment
s. When someone walked out of the door, he walked right into the building. In less than five minutes after getting hung up on, he was standing outside of Brandi’s apartment and ringing her doorbell like crazy.
An annoyed Brandi swung the door open, with a visibly irritated look on her face. She stepped into the hallway and quickly closed the door behind her. “What do you want, Sean? Didn’t I tell your ass to go home?”
“Let me come inside the house, Brandi. We ain’t gonna do this in the hallway right now!” Sean tried pushing her to the side and put his hand on the doorknob but Brandi slapped his hand away.
“We’re going to do this wherever I want us to do it!” she replied, pushing him back. “I’m tired of being nice to you, man. I’m so tired of men thinking that they can have their cake and eat it, too!”
Sean shook his head at her. “Wait a minute. Weren’t you the one who mysteriously appeared on my doorstep? Oh, you don’t remember that, do you? You didn’t seem to care about me having my cake then, right? You wanted what you wanted and you got it! Now do you think that I’m gonna stand by and watch you fuck with one of my friends? Hell no! I want you to call that nigga, Kane, right now and tell him that it’s over!”
The defiant Brandi crossed her arms. “You get a fucking divorce and then I’ll tell Kane that it’s over between me and him!”
Sean began backing away from her. “A’ight, cool! I see how you’re getting down. Don’t tell Kane nothing. I’m gonna tell him that it’s over between y’all two! I’ll talk to you later, Brandi.”
Sean began walking toward the elevator but Brandi grabbed his jacket. “Wait, Sean.”
He pulled away from her grasp. “What?”
She rolled her eyes in her head. “You don’t have to tell Kane anything,” she said.
Sean stood there, staring at Brandi. “Oh, I don’t, huh?”
“Come here.”
Sean walked back to Brandi and she gave him an intimate kiss. She got on her squatted down, undid his zipper and pulled his dick out of his pants. Then she started giving him head on the spot, right in the center of the hallway. He fell back against the wall, as she took every inch of him in her mouth. Sean felt the head of his hard dick rubbing against the back of her throat.