by B. M. Hardin
Nolan sat for a long while, without saying a word.
“Okay Envy,” he finally said and with a few more words, he said his goodbyes.
Well, at least he hadn’t reacted like he had previously. Maybe it was all starting to sink in.
Whatever the reason was, whatever we had, was over.
Sooner or later if I hadn’t done it, I was sure that he would have had to.
Maybe.
Then again, men always wanted or tried to have it all.
At least, that’s the way that I saw it.
As the kids continued to play, I allowed my mind to take me to a place that I hadn’t been in quite some time.
I went back to a time of my early years with Horizon’s daddy, and my first love, Keymar.
I thought about how much I’d loved him and I also thought about how I would do anything in the world to make him happy, back then.
Even if that meant watching him have sex with someone else.
I couldn’t believe that I’d forced myself to forget about the ordeal but for some reason, I remembered it now so clearly.
It was as though it’d only happened yesterday.
It’s sad when you have so many secrets, that you actually manage to forget about a few of them; especially the ones that hurt you the most.
Anyway, Keymar and I had just moved into our first place together and it was his birthday.
I was so in love with him that if he’d told me to jump off of a bridge I probably would have.
I’m sure I would’ve.
I did everything he told me to do, when he told me to do it; except for this one time.
He’d asked me for a threesome and at first, I’d agreed.
It was his birthday and that’s what he’d wanted.
He’d said that it was a fantasy of his and my dumb ass thought that I was obligated to give him a night that he would never forget.
I thought that I was going to be able to do it, I really did.
I was young.
I was sexy.
And I was in love.
But when he’d brought the woman into our bedroom, at the last minute, I backed out.
I just couldn’t do it.
But…Keymar could.
With or without me, he still wanted to have sex with her.
And guess what, I let him.
I couldn’t believe that I’d forgotten about it all.
How could I have forgotten such disrespect?
Thinking about it now, I felt so hurt and angry.
Keymar had told me that if I loved him, I would either join in, or let him have sex with her so that he could get it out of his system.
And like a fool, I believed him.
And the craziest part of all was that I sat there and I watched.
I watched the entire time and didn’t say one word.
All I could think about was that I loved him and he loved me, and I just wanted him to be happy.
But the truth was---that wasn’t love.
That was stupidity.
I was young, naïve and stupid and I should have dropped Keymar’s ass like a bad habit; right after I’d beat him in the back with a baseball bat.
That’s what I should have done.
But I hadn’t.
I hadn’t done anything.
He’d promised that it was just something that young guys wanted to do and he swore that from that day forward that as long as I gave him the goods whenever he asked for them, I would never have to worry about another woman.
But of course that had been a lie too.
And for years, I’d stayed with him and bowed down to him and done everything under the sun for him because I thought that that’s what you did when you loved someone.
But I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Shaking away the thoughts of my past, I was almost in tears.
The memory of it all had been hidden for so long and so deep in my mind and heart, that I felt all of the emotions that I’d felt on that very day and then some.
How could he have done something like that to me?
And with the whole baby mama coming out of the blue, I figured that Keymar had probably been with plenty of women while we were together and I wondered if he’d ever really loved me at all.
Nope, I was sure that he didn’t.
I was sure that whatever we’d had wasn’t love.
At least not on his end.
But now what Silas showed me; now that was love.
It just had to be.
And I wasn’t going to do anything, other than what I was already doing at the hotel, to mess up what we shared.
That’s why Nolan’s ass had to go!
Later on that evening, once Silas was home and the kids were in bed, I made love to Silas like never before.
I tried my best to show him with ever curve of my body just how much I loved him and appreciated him for all of the things that he’d done for me and the kids on a regular basis.
He truly was a great guy, a little mysterious, maybe even questionable at times, but great nonetheless, and I could feel that his love for me was real.
And I would do anything to keep it.
Now all I had to do was get away from the hotel and things from that point on were going to be just fine.
I was sure of it.
***
“Silas what are you doing?” I laughed and clapped my hands together.
He was standing in the doorway of the bedroom, dressed like a cowboy; minus the shirt.
He was all oiled up and his body was glowing brighter than the stars that led the slaves to freedom in the midst of the candlelight.
Silas threw the cowboy hat on the bed beside me and smiled.
I was giggling and laughing like never before.
It was just the little things that he did.
He was always doing something just to put a smile on my face.
“Envy? Are you going let me ride that donkey?” He managed to ask before bursting into laughter.
He was so stupid, yet so damn cute, and all at the same time.
And I was turned all the way on by it!
Surprisingly, next, he started to dance.
He danced towards me, though no music was playing and I damn near ripped off the rest of the cowboy outfit once he was within my reach.
He was still in character and he whispered naughty things in my ear that damn near drove me crazy.
I practically begged him to stop talking and forced him to enter me.
Once he filled me up, I was ready for the ride!
And I was going to enjoy every second of it…
“You were reserved for the entire day, but he isn’t here yet, so I guess you can hang out in your room or do whatever whores like you do, until he gets here,” Carmen said without so much as looking me in my face.
She was being so disrespectful!
And that statement should have offended every executive maid within listening range, but none of them said a word or even acted as though they’d heard her comment.
I wanted to take of my shoe and throw it at the back of her head as she walked away, but she was going to get what was coming to her.
It was obvious that she was just taking shots because she was jealous of what Silas and I had.
At this point, I was sure she hated me.
It was all in her voice but I was glad that we were finally on the same page.
The feelings were mutual.
I couldn’t stand her.
If she was on fire, I wouldn’t even spit on her to try to help her out.
But she was just going to have to get over herself, get over Silas and move on with her life because I was definitely moving forward with mine…with Silas by my side.
But on a serious note, I wondered why she was still so jealous about him after all these years.
Or maybe it was just the fact that he was with me.
Yeah, I was sure that was it.
Maybe she thought a
woman like me didn’t deserve him.
But that was her problem, not mine.
Since I hadn’t had much sleep because of Silas and his little show, once inside Room 313, I decided to take a little nap.
But just as I started to drool, I heard the room door open.
Carmen said a few words to the client and then stuck her head in.
“Slut get up,” I heard her say.
I was about to call her everything but a child of God, but just as I opened my mouth to speak, he appeared.
Taking a deep breath and rubbing my eyes, I stared at him.
My first thought was…eww!
Something about him just seemed off.
He just looked weird and not to mention, that he was butt ugly!
He had a nice body and all; tall, broad shoulders and he was even a mouthwatering chocolate complexion, but he just wasn’t much of a looker.
I was totally disappointed that he’d reserved me for my entire shift.
Now I had to spend hours with someone that I could barely even look at.
Carmen closed the door as he came closer to me.
I smiled in an attempt to hide my disappointment as he sat on the other side of the bed.
I could tell that this was his first time.
He just sat there, looking at the floor.
He wasn’t saying anything so, I guessed that it was time for me to play my part and do my job.
I was hoping that he didn’t want to do anything strange, because ugly and strange just wasn’t a good combination.
“I’m Envy,” I said.
“I know who you are,” he said with a sort of dry tone.
Ugh, he even talked ugly!
Oh my, this was going to be a long day!
“So, I’m all yours, all day. So do you want me to go change into something specific? Since you reserved me, I wanted to wait and go off of whatever it was that you had in mind,” I said trying to sound sexy.
I stood up so that he could get a good look at me and my curves but he didn’t seem all that interested.
I smiled at him, but he frowned at me.
What’s his problem?
I came closer to him, but at my touch he flinched and then he stood to his feet.
Without speaking, he opened his blazer and there it was…a silver badge.
He was the police?
Oh hell no!
********************************************
Chapter TWO
I backed away from him and I sat down in one of the chairs with my mouth hanging wide open.
It seemed as though showing his badge had given him some kind of ego boost or something, because suddenly he was talking non-stop.
He went on to explain that he was an undercover cop; a detective actually.
Uh oh!
His name was Detective Wiley…but Detective Ugly would have been a better fit.
“Envy, we’ve been watching you for quite some time now. We’ve known about this hotel operation for a while but with so many people on their payroll, so to speak, bringing them down hasn’t been easy. But we finally got some big leagues in our corner, and finally we got the greenlight to build this case. Being as to that I’m here, on the thirteenth floor, supposedly paying for sex, it’s clear that we were right. But we need more. We need the people at the top of this chain and all of those that are involved along the way. That includes Carmen, her boss, and even her boss’s boss. And hell if he has a boss, we want him too. We want them all. You’re the only one of the girls that we have ever seen out in public with Carmen, so we can only assume that you guys have some kind of relationship or type of friendship,” he said.
Immediately, I shook my head.
“Oh no, we hate each other. You have it all wrong.”
“Haven’t you guys gone out to dinner after hours?”
“Yes, but that was some time ago. Things are very different between us these days.”
“Didn’t she just attend your sister’s funeral?”
Damn.
I guess he wasn’t playing when he said that he had been watching me.
“Yes, but…”
“Look, if you help us, of course you’ll walk away from this with your freedom. We won’t press any charges against you. Yes, you’re facing them too even though you are a small fish in a big pond, you’re still apart of this. But I can help you, if you help me. But if you don’t, you will go down with everyone else on this sinking ship.”
No! I couldn’t go to jail. I had Horizon, and the baby to take care of.
Who would take care of them if I was gone?
They needed me.
With two months barely left to go, here comes something like this.
My contract was almost up and I was almost through.
I was almost out of here and I couldn’t have anything keeping me around even a day longer than I had to be.
But clearly, in order to keep my freedom, my cooperation was going to be a must, I suppose.
“They know a lot of people. They have connections everywhere. It’s going to be impossible to bring them down. It’s going to be impossible to even get your case in front of a judge. A lot of them are involved in this too,” I said to him softly.
Carmen had briefly given me a rundown when I first started of some of the higher connections that they had and to be honest, in my opinion, this detective was in way over his head.
I didn’t have even a little bit of confidence in him that he was going to succeed in bringing down this operation.
There was too much power involved.
But there was a slight possibility that he actually did pull it all off, and if so, I needed my freedom.
I hated Carmen so throwing her under the bus to save myself was going to be my pleasure, but I knew that it was going to be one hell of a task.
And I didn’t have long to do it.
“You let us worry about all of that. We just need you to get in as close as possible and find out as much information as you can about the operation. We need names, connections, and contacts. We know it’s not going to be easy but we are going to have to try our best to get as much as we can. This is bigger than prostitution and the smaller things that you may have in mind. We believe that there could be murders and maybe even mob ties to this operation. We’re not for sure, that’s why we need your help,” he said.
Damn it!
I definitely didn’t like the sound of possible murders or even possible mob dealings being in the mix.
Was he trying to get me killed?
I don’t care what they tell you, somebody, somehow, always finds out who the rat is, and if I take his offer, the rat was going to be me.
Oh my, why me?
But I knew that I didn’t have a choice; not if I wanted to be there for my babies.
I could tell by the way that he talked that he was going forward, with or without me agreeing to help him.
So, in other words, I had to do this; which meant that I now had to be nice to Carmen and I had to find a way to make her trust me, in hopes of finding out enough information to guarantee my freedom.
He’d made it crystal clear that Carmen was the key.
But even if I tried to fake it or tried to establish a newfound phony friendship with her, at this point, I was sure that she wouldn’t want to be friends or have any type of personal dealings with me; especially since it was obvious that she despised me for being with Silas.
So how was I supposed to get close to her?
Leaving Silas wasn’t an option; but then again, that was nothing that a little lie couldn’t fix or cover up.
Yes, maybe that would work.
Maybe I could lie to her about my relationship with Silas.
What better to bring two women together than bashing and talking down about an “ex”?
And I was sure that Carmen would be all ears to hear that Silas did something as foul to me as he’d done to her.
It was a brilliant idea!
; “Okay, so where do I start? What do I do?”
“You start digging. You start asking questions. You have to make them trust you; Carmen and the clients. If they trust you, someone is bound to make a mistake, and start talking. You just don’t know what one of the men that you’ve been sleeping with knows. Hell, you never know, one of them could very well be the man in charge or maybe one of them knows who the boss is. Somebody knows something,” he said.
I listened attentively for the next hour or so.
It was obvious that I was going to have to board this train and hope for the best.
It was the only choice that I had.
After he was done talking and since he’d ordered me for the entire day, with nothing left to do, he fell asleep sitting in a chair and I stretched out for a nap on the bed.
He had to stay around so that Carmen didn’t get suspicious.
Briefly I’d wondered who else was on his team. Somebody had to be working with him in order for him to even be on the thirteenth floor.
But of course he hadn’t gone into details about that.
Hours later, he woke me up and after making sure that I had all of his contact information, he exited the room.
Soon after, I followed.
Instead heading to the lounge, I prepared to leave.
“I wonder what Silas would think of you if he knew your little secret. What would he think of you if he knew that you spent hours most days, lying on your back? Anyway, here’s what you earned for a whore’s day of work,” Carmen said and dropped the envelope full of money to the floor in front of me, just as I reached out my hand.
Please keep me near the cross!
Somebody, anybody, pray for me!
I know damn well she didn’t just drop some money on the floor like I was some two-dollar hoe or something.
I was trying my best to keep my cool, especially since I’d recently found out that I was going to have to be nice to her, but enough is enough!
“I don’t have long to be here you know that right? But I tell you what, on the day that my contract is up, I’m going to drag your ass all over this office. And that’s a promise that you can take to the bank,” I said to her as I stepped over the envelope and walked out of her office.
Technically, I hadn’t earned the money any damn way, and I sure as hell didn’t need it.
I had to take a few deep breaths to calm myself down.