by T. Styles
Not an education.
It was interesting to him that Nine kept him around despite his disrespect for authority. He went as far as to start dating her assistant, despite Nine being unaware. If she were, the repercussions would be great. Banker met Galileo, whose birth name was Gene Hatchett, at the Legion training facility the day she dropped something off for Antonius. The two had been inseparable ever since.
“I’m so wet it feels like I pissed on myself,” she answered truthfully. “I can’t wait for you to—”
Banker’s voice was trapped in the center of her chest when she looked out of the window and saw Alice’s beautiful but scratched face staring at her. Alice motioned for her to roll the window down and in a trance, Banker complied. “Yes?” She pulled her soggy fingers from between her legs, wiped them on her jeans and put the phone on her other ear.
“Hang up the phone,” Alice said calmly. “I know you know who I am…and we must talk. Now.”
Banker complied immediately. “G, I gotta call you back.”
“Something wrong?”
“I don’t think so.” She pushed the button to end the call before he disputed further.
“May I sit inside of your car? This is kind of private.”
She nodded yes.
Alice strutted to the passenger side, slid inside and adjusted the air conditioning system to her comfort level without asking. “Tell me, Banker, how does Nine treat you?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” She shifted a little in her seat, trying to button her jeans.
“You speak English, right?”
Banker frowned. “Yeah…”
“Then what part of my sentence structure don’t you understand?”
Silence.
“I don’t think about it a lot. I guess she treats me alright.” She shrugged. She took a few moments to recall the conversation she had with her earlier about Royal Babies Daycare Center. All Nine wanted to know was did she hear anything about Julius’ entrance and once again she said no. This angered Nine although she tried to remain calm as she gave her orders.
“So out of your entire employment history with Nine, she never once treated you wrong?”
“A few times she tried to seduce me but I was hip to that shit.” She looked Alice over, trying to feel what she really wanted from her. What she really wanted her to say. “Why do you ask?”
“Seduce you how?”
“You know how some women be wanting you to fuck them even though you don’t go that way. That’s what Nine does. Like one day, I was preparing her itinerary and some red juice from an orange spilled on her gown. I was taking notes when all of a sudden she told me to get it off and not to leave a drop behind. But the juice was on her breasts and she made me rub her titties to clean it off.”
Alice could tell that Banker was either attracted to Nine, ashamed, or jealous. Either way, she knew she could use her intricacies for her malicious advantage. “Nine is very sly, Banker. And I know I’ve only seen you around and—”
Her voice rose. “I was told not to speak to you if I ever met you,” Banker blurted out. “I could get fired with you just being here. So I really must know something.” She paused. “What do you want with me?”
“I’m not surprised at your reaction. Nine will do all she can to stop people from being around me and hearing the truth. But you’re not like some of the other dumb mothafuckas are you? I have a feeling that you move to the beat of your own heart.”
“Fuck no,” she said puffing out her chest. “I hate how she makes me call her King and how the soldiers be so far up her ass they can see her thoughts. She ain’t even all that pretty if you ask me,” she continued to lie. “Not pretty like people be trying to make her out anyway. Just ordinary. Plain old ordinary.”
“Wow, Banker, you’re smarter than I thought,” she said playing on her cockiness. “That’s why I wanted to meet you and introduce myself personally.” She paused. “First, I have to know, do you believe that I’m dangerous? Have her worthless warnings gotten to you?”
Banker looked her over. “Uh…not really.”
“Well you shouldn’t. The only thing I want to do is look out for you. And if we’re going to be good friends, it’s important for you to believe me.”
Banker’s naive smile spread across her face before disappearing as if it never existed. “Cut the shit, Alice Prophet,” she said through clenched teeth. “The only thing I want to hear is what do you want me to do and what’s in it for me. So save all of the other shit and start talking dollars and cents.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear.”
- William Shakespeare
Leaf and Noel strolled into a bar, grabbed two stools and sat down. Their presence said power, marked by the six men who hung in the background to protect them with their lives. After ordering drinks from the bartender, they checked out the football game on the huge TV screen on the wall, the Dallas Cowboys versus the Washington Redskins.
“I appreciate you going with me to order my tux, man,” Noel said glancing at the Cowboys making a run for a touchdown. “I’m not going to lie, unless I’m at a Prophet business meeting with Nine, I don’t do the dress up thing much. So I appreciate your help. Your wife doesn’t allow the casual dress type of outfit.”
Leaf laughed and shook his head. “Yeah, my wife can get a little extra when it comes to her rules. She grew up on them Roman books and shit. Royalty and honor is all she talks about. But she means well.”
When his phone buzzed and he saw a text message from Nine, he rolled his eyes when he saw its contents. The Coliseum is having a press conference for us tomorrow to discuss the venture. Wear your suit and tie. I’m so excited!
Irritated, Leaf stuffed his phone back into his pocket.
“You aight?” Noel asked placing a hand on Leaf’s back.
“As right as rain.”
Noel nodded. “I ain’t got no problem with dressing up, by the way,” he said as he tossed his cognac back. “My wardrobe has gotten refined since she took over the business.” He flagged the bartender for two more drinks. “So have you given any more thought to being in my wedding?”
Leaf shook his head in slight irritation because they’d had this conversation before. He dug in his pocket, took out his cell phone and looked at the screen. He was expecting an important text any minute now. “Come on, man. I fucks with you but I can’t get down with the Prophet politics. I already told you that.”
Noel frowned. “Fuck that ‘sposed to mean?”
“Sisters marrying brothers and shit.” He laughed. “No offense, man, but that’s ya’ll thing not mine.”
“Says the man who’s married to his cousin,” he chuckled.
“It isn’t the same thing.”
“Keep it real, Leaf, you a Prophet too. The worst job you can do in life is making a profession of shunning your own people. Fucked up or not, at the end of the day, we’re all you got.”
“I’m not a Prophet,” Leaf said pointing to himself. “My last name’s Lincoln and when I met my wife, I didn’t know she was my cousin. My father, who I don’t fuck with no more, didn’t tell me. By the time I found out, I was already in love.”
“So why didn’t you end the relationship?”
Leaf shook his head, unwilling to recognize the similarities. “Like I said, it ain’t the same thing.”
Noel laughed. “When are you going to realize that there’s something in the Prophet blood that makes us favor our own? Whether your last name is Lincoln or not, if you came from Kerrick and Victoria you’re a Prophet. Look at your complexion. Yellow skin and curly hair. Intelligence. All Prophet traits.”
“Drop it,” Leaf said, uneasy with the topic of discussion.
“What’s up with your father?” Noel asked, only having met his uncle briefly when Kerrick was alive.
Leaf moved uneasily. “He hasn’t talked to me since me and Nine got together.”
“Damn, tha
t’s fucked up.” He scratched his jaw.
“I tried to kick it with him but he made his position clear so what could I do?” he shrugged. “Anyway, I got too much on my mind to be thinking about that type shit.”
“Wouldn’t happen to be about Gates would it?”
Leaf’s eyebrows rose. “How you know?”
“Because his old ass is always hanging around. Don’t make no sense if you ask me. The nobles already said she should keep him at a distance.”
“I understand that she’s playing the nigga close to get Baltimore out from up under him, but the way she going about it is foul. Inviting him outside of our crib and shit like that.”
“He be in your house?”
Leaf laughed him out. “Come on, Noel, the nigga not crazy enough to come in my house.”
“So why don’t you tell her to stop seeing him?” He paused. “On second thought, she probably wouldn’t listen anyway. How do you control a woman with power?”
Leaf positioned himself so that he could clearly see his cousin’s eyes. “I don’t know what you got going on with your sister-slash-wife on that side of town, but anything I ask my wife to do, she does.” He pointed a stiff finger into the bar. “No questions asked.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“I don’t activate that type of power unless I must. I want her to do what’s right because she wants to, not because I told her. On the block ya’ll salute her but at home I’m king.”
Noel nodded. “Fair enough, King, but I will say this, never allow a man with affluence to spend too much time around your wife. You don’t ever want to test that type situation. You may lose.”
****
Galileo and Banker
Galileo lay face down on his bed as he pumped into Banker’s mouth as if it were a pussy. As he rose in and out of her throat, he pawed one side of her head like a basketball. There was no sense of how his girlfriend felt or even if she could breathe. He was going to reach his orgasm. That was the bottom line.
Banker lay face up, naked, with her knees pointed to the ceiling as she tried to remain calm and not die. Thick lines of vomit rested on the sides of her cheeks and mixed into her hair. On several occasions, she couldn’t breathe and choked and not one time did he stop.
After a few more pumps, when she felt a thick salty substance run down her throat, instead of being disgusted she was relieved.
It was finally over.
“Go wipe your face and bring me a washcloth,” he said as he lay on his back, grabbed the remote and turned the TV on. He placed one hand behind his head, crossed his legs and was glued into the football game. He had already forgotten about how good she made him feel even though he was still sore.
When she came back into the room, she handed him the rag and looked over at him. She was horny and her clitoris throbbed and she wanted him to offer her relief. “So you not gonna hook me up?” She sat on the bed, with her bare ass on his pillow and back against the headboard. She covered her body with the damp sheet.
Galileo wiped his dick and tossed the washcloth on the floor. “I’ll fuck you later,” he said preferring to see men in tight pants play football instead of his naked girlfriend.
In a weak voice, she said, “Come on, baby, I want you to kiss it for me.”
He frowned. “Nah, shawty.” He paused. “I don’t feel like all that shit right now.”
Defeated, Banker sighed and rolled a blunt to ease her mind. If she couldn’t cum, at least she could get high. When she ran the fire over the edge of the blunt, and it was good and hard, she handed it to him. He snatched it without saying thank you. “Nine is in my business too much lately,” he said as he lit the weed and inhaled before handing it to her. “I can’t take it no more.”
“So what you want to do?”
“First, are you sure you can do that thing you was talking about?” he asked looking over at her seriously.
“With getting into her bank accounts?”
“Yeah.”
“I know I can,” she said confidently. “Why?”
“Because we gonna need money if we kill her like we talked about.”
“That’s kinda what I wanted to tell you. I know the plan was to kill her but I may have an even better way. One that can give us even more money if the plan goes through.”
“How much more?”
“About one hundred thousand dollars.”
Suddenly she had his undivided attention. With wide eyes, he asked, “So what’s the plan?”
Banker told him everything Alice wanted done, down to the last detail. When she was finished, something miraculous occurred. He was inspired to ease between her legs, to lick her clean. As her eyes rolled to the back of her head, she thought about Nine, and the feel of her breasts.
CHAPTER SIX
“No grace? No womanhood? Ah, beastly creature!”
- William Shakespeare
Gates sat at a private table in the corner of an elegant, dark restaurant, beneath the beams of the soft lights against the wall. A half-eaten prime steak sat before him on a beautiful cream-colored plate with gold accents surrounding the perimeter. Blood poured slowly out of the center of the meat and spilled onto the plate.
Preparing to finish his meal, he was bewildered when the most notorious Prophet of them all pulled a chair from a neighboring table and perched in front of him as if she’d been invited.
Stabbing a piece of juicy meat with his fork, he aimed it in her direction and asked, “Steak?”
“I’m a vegetarian,” she said crossing her legs. “Don’t believe in harming animals.” Although in her mind, that didn’t include her aunt’s pesky cats.
He chuckled softly. Having limited knowledge of Nine and Alice’s plight against each other, he couldn’t imagine her not harming anything in her way. “And still I learn something new every day.” He placed the meat into his mouth. With a gullet of food on the center of his tongue, he asked, “Tell me, Alice Prophet, what can I do you for?”
“It’s not what you can do for me but what I can do for you.”
He laughed. “I must tell you, I’m not a man who enjoys to be teased. Forgive me if I’m being brash. I guess you can chalk it up to old age. Whatever my rationalization, I don’t have a lot of time. So what the fuck do you want?”
“Wow…I was hoping that you could at least invite a girl to your home. And give her the option of a good fuck, like I’m sure you would my cousin if I were her instead of me.”
Gates sat his fork down, leaned back in the chair and looked her over. The powder blue dress with the bow underneath her neck made her appear sweet even though he knew she was as far from innocent as the seat of hell. He grabbed the white cloth napkin off the table and wiped his mouth. “Okay…I’ll play. Let’s go.”
****
Gates tossed a log into the fireplace and took a second to be calmed by the flames and soft crackle before facing Alice. When he was awakening from his soft trance, in a Shakespearean tone, he said, “O keep me from the worse than killing lust.”
Alice, flummoxed by his statement, tilted her head and said, “Excuse me?”
“It’s Shakespeare,” he said turning around, placing the fireplace poker against the side of the wall. “My apologies, Nine spoiled me. I assumed all Prophets were well-read.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you but you thought wrong,” she admitted. “I’ll leave Nine to the world of tales and folklore that seems to consume so much of her mind space. I much prefer to focus on what’s in front of me. The here and the now.”
He laughed and sat in the recliner across from her. Folding his legs, he examined her slightly scarred face and said, “Looks like someone punished you. May I ask what for?”
She rubbed her hand over the wounds. “I wouldn’t say they punished me. Rather they were a little too aggressive over a disagreement. But it’s okay. All’s well that ends my way.”
Gates nodded. “So now that we are here, be clearer, Alice Prophet. What do you wan
t from me?”
“What I desire won’t cost you a thing.”
“And still I don’t believe you.”
She giggled. “My cousin Nine is really beautiful isn’t she? Even with her blackened skin.”
Gates smiled and shook his head. “What makes you think that her dark skin makes her less attractive?”
“Doesn’t it?” She smirked. “Grandfather used to bleach his skin so it must be true.”
“What happened to you? What turmoil do you live with every day that has caused you to see people of your own race so poorly?”
Alice grew slightly uncomfortable at Gates’ successful attempt to penetrate the first layer of her internal pain. She was taught to hate herself and expressed herself in her views of other people. “You’re blinded by Nine.”
“And your point?”
“My point is that you’ll never have her moving at the rate that you are. If you truly want my cousin, I can give her to you. And all you have to do is listen and do exactly as I say.”
Gates knew she would be interesting, as all Prophets were, but her arrogance about being able to give him anything he couldn’t afford was farcical. “What makes you think that I want Nine Prophet?”
“The look in your eyes every time I say her name is enough reason.” Alice laughed. “So let’s stop the distractions and get on with the truth. You want Nine and I can help you.”
Silence.
He uncrossed his legs and poured two glasses of wine from his bar in the corner of the room. “Say that I want Nine. And say that you are in a position to give her to me, what would I have to do? And what do you want from me in return?” He handed her a glass and kept the other for himself.
“I don’t want much.” She crossed her legs. “Not right now anyway.” She winked. “And I don’t proclaim to be a matchmaker. But I do know that if you’re interested in a woman like Nine Prophet you must first break down her confidence if you want to possess her. Make her self-conscious about her beauty and most of all her intelligence. You do that and in a month’s time, she will belong to you.” She sipped her wine.