Riding Dirty on I-95

by Nikki Turner

  “Keep it, because it's cost you. It cost you your son. From this day forward you are minus a son.” Cleezy turned his back to his mother and headed towards the door. Before leaving the house he called out from the door, “I mean that shit from the bottom of my heart.” He looked into his mother's eyes and then closed the door behind him as he exited the house to hit I-95.

  Cleezy listened to Jay-Z's song about how he needed a gangsta girl to ride in his passenger seat in the song “Get Yo Mind Right Mami.” As he rolled down I-95, he asked for forgiveness and vowed to himself that if he ever encountered a real chick again, he wouldn't let anyone or anything tear them apart. This time it would be until death do them part!

  CHAPTER 26

  Ms. Celebrity

  The road trip to Miami with Farmer John wore Mercy out. Tired and irritable, all she wanted was a hot shower, something to eat, and to get in the bed. After checking in and getting settled into her hotel room, she picked up the phone and called room service.

  “Hi, I would like a grilled chicken sandwich, plain with Swiss cheese only and a side of honey mustard,” Mercy said.

  The attendant read the order back to Mercy, and then she informed her that it would be brought to her room in about thirty minutes. Mercy hung up the phone and hopped in the shower. No sooner had she slipped into her silk lavender pajama short set than there was a knock at the door. The timing was perfect. It was room service with her meal. She was so famished that she didn't even wait for the guy to wheel her food into her room. She lifted her tray right off of the cart herself, handed him a five-dollar tip, and sent him on his way.

  Mercy bit into her grilled chicken sandwich. Hungry or not, it was not what she expected.

  “What the fuck?” Mercy said as she looked down at the sandwich. “Mayonnaise?”

  Immediately Mercy picked up the phone and called downstairs.

  “Room service,” the voice on the other end of the phone answered. Mercy could tell that it was the same attendant who had taken her order in the first place.

  “Yes, this is room 311, and I just ordered room service,” Mercy said, struggling to be polite, although her patience was quickly wearing thin.

  “Yes?”

  “Well, I asked for a plain grilled chicken sandwich with honey mustard on the side and instead you put mayonnaise on it.”

  “First off, I didn't put anything on it. I'm not the cook; I just take the orders,” the attendant said in a joking tone, but Mercy could tell she was serious. Oh no, this chick didn't disrespect me, Mercy said to herself. “Secondly, I'm sorry about that. If you like we can bring you another sandwich.”

  “You're not the cook, but now you deliver the food?” Mercy shot back. “I thought you just took the orders.” The attendant was about to respond, but Mercy cut her off. “Anyway, I would like very much if you would deliver another sandwich, and I'm certain that for my inconvenience there won't be a charge to my room.” Once again the attendant tried to say something, and once again Mercy cut her off. “Yes, I thought so.”

  Click! Mercy slammed the phone down.

  About fifteen minutes later there was a knock on Mercy's hotel room door. It was room service. Mercy opened the door, and this time it was a different man delivering her order. Mercy took the tray, and the man stood there for a minute.

  “I know you don't think you're about to get a tip,” Mercy huffed. “Here's a tip for you: Tell the broad taking orders to get it right the first time.”

  Mercy sent the attendant on his way. She bit into the chicken sandwich they had just brought her—and again it had mayonnaise.

  That trifling funny-sounding beyatch done this shit to deliberately get under my skin. Mercy's first instincts were to call that bitch up and check her, but she decided to do her one better. Mercy slipped on a pair of jogging pants over her pajama shorts and her lavender spa flip-flops with the silk flowers on them. She then grabbed both the chicken sandwiches and made her way down to the hotel restaurant.

  This simple bitch don't know who the fuck she playing with and the type of day I done had, Mercy said angrily to herself the entire way down to the restaurant. She even rehearsed in the elevator mirrored doors what she was going to say to the waitress. “I hope your ass is hungry, you minimum-wage beyatch,” Mercy said, pointing to her reflection in the mirror, imagining herself shoving the sandwiches down the girl's throat and making her eat it.

  Unfortunately for Mercy, 'cause she wanted to tear into that ass, but fortunately for the attendant who took the order, the woman's shift had just ended. Mercy missed her by less than a minute. The new guy on duty had to bear the brunt of Mercy's complaint. As Mercy stood at the end of the bar raising holy hell about the food, she didn't pay attention to who was sitting at the other end of the bar.

  “Damn if ain't Ms. Celebrity,” she heard a male voice say.

  “Oh, my God,” Mercy said, surprised to see who the voice belonged to. Although she hadn't seen him in two years, she ran over and gave him a hug. “Hey, how are you?”

  “I'm good, now that I see you,” he said, as smooth as Billy Dee Williams.

  Mercy couldn't help but blush. “Stop trying to play me, C-Note.” She smiled.

  He looked deeply into her eyes and said, “I'm serious, and call me Cleezy. The last time I saw you shit was crazy, and due to circumstances beyond my control, I pushed you away; C-Note pushed you away. However, I'm a new man, and Cleezy will never let a good woman like you get away.” He winked at Mercy and took a sip of his drink.

  “I hear you,” Mercy said, impressed by his words. He looked the same, but there was something different about him. She couldn't put her finger on it, but she liked it.

  “Don't just hear me, believe me.”

  The attraction between the two of them was magnetic. Mercy had only had those feelings three times in her life, and none of them was with him—until now.

  The dominating aura that hung over his head like a halo just swallowed Mercy up. He seemed to encircle her in an unspoken comfort zone. It was almost uneasy for Mercy, because it was a feeling like that of a father figure, like he could be her protector, the same way her daddy used to be. But then again, what little girl from the ghetto wasn't on a quest for daddy?

  She didn't know how to take Cleezy's last comment, so she changed the topic of the conversation. “So what you doing in Miami?”

  “Business,” he quickly said. “And you?”

  She smiled and replied, “Business.”

  They continued the small talk, but the lust between them was thick.

  “Are you taking your food back up to your room, or will you stay down here?” the bartender asked Mercy.

  “Excuse me?” Mercy said, forgetting why she had come downstairs in the first place.

  “Your chicken sandwich?” the bartender asked.

  “Oh, yeah. I'll take it to my room, so please give it to me to go.”

  “Yes, ma'am,” the bartender said, turning away to oblige Mercy's request.

  “My man,” Cleezy called to him. “Please let me get my check.”

  By the time Cleezy settled up his tab, the bartender had handed Mercy's food to her. “Again, I'm sorry for the mix-up,” he said sincerely.

  “No problem,” she said to the bartender and turned to Cleezy. “Are you staying at this hotel?”

  “Are you?”

  “I am, but we ain't talking about me.”

  “Do you like this hotel?”

  “Yes, it's cool. Why, where are you staying?”

  “With you. Wherever you want to stay. If you want to stay here, we can go up to my suite. If you want to go somewhere else, we can do that.”

  Mercy didn't want to seem like a skeezer, but she wanted more than anything at that moment to go with Cleezy. What she didn't want, though, was to be just another Miami fling, so she went with her first instincts. “I am not trying to go with you.”

  Sensing Mercy's lips saying no but her eyes meaning yes, Cleezy said, “Look, bottom line i
s this, shawdy: Life is too short and time is too precious a commodity to waste another minute without you, or better yet, for you or I to not be us.”

  That comment was as smooth as silk to her ears. Damn, this nigga game is airtight, Mercy thought.

  “Yo, I know you think it's game, right? But it ain't. I am dead-ass serious. We've been trying to make this shit happen for longer than a minute. I know a good girl when I see one, and I am not letting you get away from me again.”

  She looked him over, searching his face, hoping for something to show her whether he was just trying to get his fuck on or if he could possibly want her for her. Did he know her reputation for being one of the best and most loyal mules to ever leave her mark on I-95? And if so, was he looking to recruit her?

  Mercy sighed. “Look, I'm hungry and tired. Let's just do breakfast in the morning, all right?” Mercy started out of the restaurant, and Cleezy walked beside her.

  “Yo, you think I'm playing? I ain't letting you get away from me.”

  “Stop playing.”

  “Look, three strikes and you're out, and this is our third encounter and I ain't trying to be out.” They stopped in front of the elevator. “So we like glue now, baby. We stuck.” He pressed the button to go up. “We like shoes, a pair.” The elevator door opened, and he motioned for her to get in. She did. He put his key card into the slot so he could gain access to the presidential floor where his suite was located. “We like those Gucci jeans you had on that night—tight.”

  “Damn, it's like that,” Mercy chuckled. She knew right then and there that she wasn't about to push button number three. Room 311 would remain vacant that night as the elevator rode to the top floor.

  CHAPTER 27

  Me Plus You Equals Us

  They stepped off the elevator and into Cleezy's suite. It was the largest hotel room she had ever seen. Even bigger than her three-bedroom apartment. It looked like Cleezy had made this room his home away from home. Mercy looked around at all of the shopping bags with items still in them and the clothes all over that place that still had tags on them. Hassim had put Cleezy on hold for the last five days because his people had him on hold, so Cleezy had made himself at home. He did all the things that Miami offered ballers like himself. He had been living like a king, shopping every day funning out of control, Jet Skiing, windsurfing, partying on yachts, eating and drinking the best money could buy. Being able to splurge in Miami came with lots of perks, including the occasional ménage à trois with some of the baddest bitches in the city that didn't cost him an iron dime because he looked and played the part. The broads had the disease to please, hoping to luck up and cash out on him as one of his long-term bitches. They felt like their pussy was crack. Their scheme was to give it away at first, just to hook a nigga, but then he'd have to pay. Too bad broads had it all fucked up, because Cleezy wasn't taking none of them hoes home.

  Cleezy and Mercy rented a couple of pay-per-view movies and kicked it about this and that while catching up. Mercy took off her jogging pants and sat next to Cleezy on the couch, then got up to get herself something to drink and turned and asked, “C-Note, what you want to drink?”

  “Look, baby, come here for a minute,” he said softly.

  She walked over to him. She could tell something was wrong by the look on his face. “What's wrong?” she asked.

  He grabbed her and put his arms around her. “Come here,” he said, embracing her with a warm hug.

  She could tell that something was on his mind by the way he chose his words. “Look, baby. Please don't call me C-Note. I feel it's a form of disrespect when people call me that name.” He took a deep breath.

  Mercy was surprised. She felt uneasy, but she tried to play it off. “I apologize, but when I met you that was your name.”

  “Cleezy is my name now, and everybody calls me that, even my momma.”

  Downstairs she hadn't really paid it that much attention. But this time the way he called himself Cleezy, with such strength and conviction, got her panties wet. It dawned on her right then and there: She had heard talk all over Richmond how Cleezy's name was ringing, but she'd had no idea that C-Note was the person they were talking about and that C-Note or Cleezy or whoever he was had been living a double life.

  “Okay. I really didn't know, but if I am so special why I gotta call you what everybody else does?”

  “As a matter of fact, you can call me Conrad. That's my government name, and nobody calls me that. Nobody.”

  “Wooowww!”she said, trying to be funny. “I feel so important.”

  “You should always feel important when I'm concerned.” He leaned in to kiss her. Mercy couldn't help but to kiss him back.

  Before she knew it his hand was down her shorts. At first, when he touched her private place, Mercy was almost embarrassed. She didn't want him to know how wet she was, how wet he had made her just by being him. He looked up at her.

  “Damn, baby,” he said.

  Mercy leaned in and began tonguing him to get his mind off of her wetness, but that was to no avail as he continued to play in it, only making her wetter.

  “Take these off,” Cleezy whispered as he helped her slide her shorts down her legs and off of her ankles. Still fully dressed, he got on top of her and continued kissing her, his hand separating the two of them as he began fingering her. The faster he plunged his fingers in and out of her, the more Mercy groaned and ground herself against his hand.

  Cleezy knew Mercy was on the verge of coming, but he wanted to be in her so she could come on his dick. He undid his pants and pushed them down just enough to pull himself from out of his pants and place it against Mercy's wetness.

  “No, no,” Mercy said, pressing her hands against Cleezy's chest and softly pushing.

  “What's wrong?”

  “This. I don't want it to be like this.”

  Cleezy sighed. “I feel you, ma,” he said as he got off of Mercy and zipped his pants up.

  “You mad?” Mercy asked, afraid he would think of her as a tease.

  “Hell, no. I ain't trippin' like that, ma,” Cleezy said.

  “You sure?”

  Cleezy looked down at Mercy, who was sliding her shorts back on. He then extended his hand to her to help her up off the couch. “Come on. Let's just go to bed.”

  He turned the television off, then led Mercy into his bedroom, where the two just lay in each other's arms. Mercy had her back to Cleezy's chest, and he had his arms around her. It was dark. Their eyes were closed. Neither spoke, but neither of them was asleep. They were too busy thinking about being intimate with one another. It was a feeling neither of them could seem to control.

  Softly and slowly, Cleezy began rubbing his hand up and down Mercy's leg, causing chills to run all over her body. Just his touch made her want to come. She moaned and squirmed against him. She felt his nature rising. His hardening dick against her ass only made her wet all over again. Cleezy's hand managed to find its way down Mercy's pants again to her crotch. Once again, her wetness only made him horny.

  “No, don't,” Mercy panted as Cleezy began to remove her pa-jama shorts.

  “Come on, I ain't going nowhere. I promise, this ain't no hit-and-run.”

  “I hear you, but whatever,” Mercy said doubtfully.

  “It ain't about no whatever,” Cleezy assured her, pulling her face around gently, then reaching over to kiss her softly on the lips. The kiss put her over the edge, and it was as if that was the kiss that sealed the deal. Mercy turned over on her back and opened herself up to Cleezy. He dove deep inside her, drowning in her wetness.

  “Oh, Cleezy,” Mercy moaned.

  Cleezy paused briefly. He quickly rammed himself in and out of Mercy. She tried to throw her hips at him, but couldn't seem to keep up. She still felt good, though, good enough for Cleezy to explode inside of her.

  Although the sex wasn't mind-blowing like it was with Paula, nor did Mercy have shit on the freaks of the week that he had encountered in Miami, Cleezy didn't care
, because he and Mercy had something else. She was smart and funny, and he knew he had found his true equal in Mercy. He wouldn't make a mistake again. The physical could come later, but it was the mental Cleezy was wrapped up in. They had great chemistry in every other way, and it was a meeting of the minds—a meeting that, if he could help it, would never be adjourned.

  CHAPTER 28

  Hugging the Block

  The next morning Mercy and Cleezy lay in each other's arms. Right in the middle of their pillow talk Mercy's cell phone rang. She looked at the clock and knew that it was Hyena.

  “Daggone, I forgot I got to go this meeting,” Mercy said, pressing a button rejecting Hyena's phone call. She wasn't about to talk about work in front of Cleezy—not the work she was doing for Hyena.

  “Let's get up and get dressed and go to the meeting, then. I'll roll with you,” Cleezy said in a scratchy morning voice.

  Mercy didn't know what to say. Cleezy was pleasure. This was business. “Ummm, you can't go,” Mercy said straight out, not bothering to fumble for words.

  “Why? I could just sit in the waiting room,” Cleezy said.

  She slowly said, “It ain't that type of party.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look, I want to keep it real with you, but I can't right now,” Mercy said, getting up and going for her jogging pants.

  “Mercy, you made me jump through hoops to make you understand how I want to be with you and now you tell me you can't keep it real. Who's gettin' played here?” He sat up in the bed and looked at her. “This is some real bullshit, you know that, right?” He got up and slipped his boxers on and proceeded to the bathroom.

  “No,” Mercy said, feeling bad, following behind him. The last thing she wanted him to think was that she was trying to play him, that she had somebody else she was kickin' it with that she had to get shit straight with.

  Not realizing that Mercy was following him, Cleezy went into the bathroom, pushed the door behind him and proceeded to sit down on the toilet and use the bathroom.