by N’Tyse
“Because I am cold and tired. Are you going to let me in?” Lenora rocked back on her bowlegs and crossed her arms.
Detrick took the cigar out of his mouth and looked her up and down. “Where you coming from looking like Catwoman?”
“A job, Detrick, damn. Move out of the way.” Lenora pushed her way past the door and into Detrick’s house.
“Shorty, you got me twisted, just coming over my house unannounced.”
“For real?” Lenora started looking around his space and her eyes went to the staircase. “Who the fuck you got over here?”
“Oh, you laying claim to me now?” Detrick laughed; the rich sound bounced off the high ceilings of his home. “What you gonna do if I did have someone over here?”
“You want to try me?” Lenora’s hand went to her thighs and her cape fell back.
“Nora, you done came over here strapped? What the fuck?” Detrick plopped on his brown leather sofa, laughing. “What’s up with you, Shorty?”
“I’m about to go.” Lenora was sick of Detrick already; tired of him always laughing at her. She turned around to leave.
“You ain’t going no damn where. Bring your ass back over here.”
“Fuck you, Detrick. I had a long-ass night.”
Detrick jumped off the couch and chased after her. “Nora…” He grabbed her arm. “Why you got to be on fire like that dere?” he said with a heavy accent for a second, before switching back to his normal jargon. Detrick caught her just as she reached the door. “You know you don’t want to leave.”
Lenora pushed him back. “I ain’t come over here for this shit.”
“Well, Cutie, what you here for?”
Lenora closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. She could smell curry chicken in the house. Only Detrick kept Batman hours, eating curry chicken at close to five in the morning. “I’m tired as hell, Detrick.”
He pressed his body against hers. Lenora could smell the cigar smoke on his breath and the fragrant scent of weed on his tongue. “You want for me to put you to sleep, eh?”
His scent immediately relaxed her. Lenora put her hands on his chest. “Can you make the nightmares go away?” she whispered.
“You know that I can.” Detrick’s voice was raspy; his tongue was already on her neck.
“Make them go away, then.” Lenora met his eyes.
“I always do.” Detrick held her gaze as he pushed against her; her arms stayed at her side. He took a step back and observed her in the body leotard, tracing a finger along her inner thigh to the crown of her pleasure. With his other hand, his finger lightly trailed along her hip, danced along the curve of her belly, slid up her long, narrow torso, and rested on her breast.
Lenora unstrapped her Glocks and laid them on the floor. She closed her eyes. Her mouth fell open. Detrick’s hands and the power of his touch were second to none.
He kissed her. The feel of his lips took her breath away.
“Take this thing off.” Detrick pulled at her body suit.
Lenora met his eyes and took in his power. She had no choice but to obey and slid it down to her waist.
Detrick’s hands covered her breasts and groped them, his thumb lightly teasing her nipples. With each grope, Lenora felt a different sensation down her spine. For a second, she felt off-balance as she leaned in to his firm grip.
Detrick ran his hand down the middle of her back. He tugged the suit past her hips down to her thighs. His fingers followed, pressing against her tingling skin as his tongue traced a path along her neck. “Is this what you came over here for?”
Lenora didn’t answer.
Detrick pressed her against the door again, this time picking her up by both her arms. She easily straddled him as she stared into his black eyes. “Tell me,” Detrick’s strong accent pushed through again. “This be what you want?”
Lenora nodded. Detrick filled his mouth with both her breasts, his tongue flicking across her nipples in an erratic rhythm. She moaned and grabbed his head, her fingers laying against his close-cut hair.
“Say you want it.” Detrick’s raspy command sprinkled Lenora with delight.
“Give it to me, Daddy.”
He sucked on her breast as two fingers inserted between her thighs. “Say you want it.”
Lenora closed her eyes; the sensation of his mouth on her breasts and his fingers between her legs overwhelmed her. She couldn’t say shit.
“Say it, ma.”
“I want it.”
“How you want it?” He let go of her and she slid back down to the floor. Detrick put his feet inside of hers and spread her legs open.
“However you give it to me, daddy.”
Detrick stopped and stared at her. That was the passcode he rarely received. He looked deep in her eyes to make sure he wasn’t hearing things. “You sure, Nora.”
Nora knew what she was asking. She was requesting Detrick hit that spot that no other person had ever had access to. The night had been too much; Lenora felt the need to surrender herself completely to someone else’s will. Detrick exuded power anyway, but to give him anal access, she had to completely release her mind to him. It was the only way to get past the pain. And once he was completely in her head, the pain was a weird exotic pleasure that tap-danced across every nerve ending up and down her spine until she couldn’t take it anymore, until the sensitivity of it almost made her pass out in pleasure. Detrick caused her a different type of orgasm—one that overloaded her brain and caused her to scream in pleasure. “Give it to me, baby. I want you like that.”
Detrick didn’t wait to hear anything else and he definitely wasn’t going to give her a chance to change her mind. He turned her around and pressed her against the door, her breasts pushed against the thick wooden frame.
“Slow, Detrick, go slow.”
“I won’t hurt you, baby.” Detrick slid a condom out of his pocket and tore the wrapper off.
“Hurry up,” Lenora whimpered.
Detrick rolled the condom down on his length, then he wrapped his arms around Lenora and again pushed his fingers in the top of her thighs as he bit the back of her neck. “You’re so damn sexy.” His thick erection lingered on her behind.
She groaned. Detrick was the only one she trusted like this, the only one who she had opened up her mind to like that. She knew deep in her heart that she could trust Detrick; he would never hurt her.
He kissed the back of her neck again. “Are you ready?” He pulled her body away from the door and flush against his own; her curved back was just inches from his chest as her behind rested fully on his pelvis. Detrick grabbed her onion bottom and caressed it, his touch interchanged from a feather stroke to a heavy grope.
“Do it, baby, please.”
“Relax.” Detrick’s voice in her ear was hypnotic; his hands still groped a beautiful rhythm on her breasts and her front inner petals until her wetness covered his hands and seeped back on his centered mass, giving him the lubrication he needed.
Detrick pressed into her tight space. Lenora grunted out loud and called his name, the lust in her voice for this unique craving that she only had with Detrick turned him on more. He spread his legs wider, which spread her legs wider, and pressed her flush against the door again. Lenora turned her head to the side to breathe. Her nails scratched at the door. Detrick kissed her ear, earlobe, the side of her face. Detrick placed his hands flush on the wall as he pressed again, slowly, inch by inch, into Lenora’s forbidden space.
“Ow, baby, stop. I can’t do it.” The pain was always greater than Lenora remembered. “I changed my mind.”
“Relax, baby, just relax.” Detrick stuck his tongue in her ear. “I won’t hurt you.” He pushed in a little further.
She groaned louder.
“Do you need me to stop?”
“No, baby,” Lenora grunted, her breathing heavy. “Don’t listen to me. Don’t stop.”
He pushed again, going deeper. She screamed and in that second, pleasure replaced pain, as she claw
ed at the wall. “Right there, baby,” Lenora gasped.
“Nora, baby, you just don’t know…” Detrick found his rhythm and lost himself in her tightness.
5
Sunlight peeked through the blinds and tapped across Lenora’s closed eyelids. She lay wrapped within Detrick’s body, both of them naked, on the long brown leather sectional. Trying to ignore the sun, Lenora turned on her side and buried herself into Detrick’s thick frame. They had lost track of time, between exploring each other, washing one another, and then going at it again until they both passed out.
But Lenora needed to go to work. She sighed as her mind released sleep and her eyes opened.
In front of her, on the coffee table, were stacks of bills that Detrick must have been counting when she interrupted him in the wee hours of the morning.
Detrick’s eyes were already open; he was looking at the ceiling as if he were going over a mental checklist of things to do.
“I got to go,” Lenora said.
“You can stay a minute.” Detrick smacked her bottom. “Always trying to rush off somewhere.”
“Unlike somebody up in here, I actually work a job.”
“Go on with that.” Detrick lit the cigar in the ashtray next to the couch and took a puff. Lenora sat up and inhaled the smoke. “I work, too.”
Lenora leaned back and looked at her leg wrapped around Detrick’s. It was a good thing she had thought to shave; she hadn’t planned on coming over here and getting it in like that.
It reminded her of the real reason for her visit. “There was something that I had to tell you, which was why I came over here like that.”
“You mean without calling first?”
“Yeah, you are stuck on that, I see. What you got going on that’s got you so funny-actin’?”
Detrick exhaled. “Whatever.”
“You better check your other bitches, Detrick, if it’s like that. If I’m knocking on the front door, they need to be creeping out the back window.”
“Ahh, you like that, huh?
“Don’t act like you don’t know.” Lenora smiled at the silly expression on his face.
“It ain’t like that, Nora.” He said her name slow and playful. “I always want to know when to expect someone, don’t just be having anybody drop by my crib. You know it.”
“Yeah.” Lenora took a puff of the cigar as Detrick held it between his fingers for her. “The job you gave us last night was a fucking mess, Detrick. Tandy is charging double.”
“Double what?”
“Double the fee. Forty, she said.”
“Forty g’s?” Detrick laughed. “I’ll be damned. Glad I ain’t stuck with that.”
“What?”
They stared at each other for a moment, confusion wafting in the air between the two like thick smoke.
“What are you talking about?” Lenora said.
“What are you talking about, ma?” Detrick sat up and handed her the cigar.
“Detrick, the job you had us do—it was all fucked up.”
“That’s where you got me fucked up, Nora—I ain’t give y’all no job.”
Lenora sat straight up. “What?”
“Naw.” Detrick lay back down. “Check with Tandra.”
“Listen, she said to tell you double. After she called you an asshole, again. So I know she was talking about you. What the fuck?”
“I be’s that,” Detrick said, imitating the hook to the Redman anthem. “Tandra got it fucked up, though. Asshole or not, I ain’t give her no job yesterday.” Detrick shrugged again. “You hungry?”
Lenora shook her head no. “You better not be fucking with me, Detrick, just trying not to pay. I ain’t going back to Tandy looking stupid.”
“Never that, baby girl. I wouldn’t do you like that.”
They lay in silence for a long time. Lenora tried to figure out what was going on. Tandra had said charge Detrick double, but Detrick clearly had no idea what she was talking about.
“You want some breakfast?” he said, after a long while.
“No.” Lenora rubbed his stomach. “I can’t eat after that mess I cleaned last night. It was too much.”
“Damn, that bad?”
Lenora nodded.
With his eyes, Detrick followed the trail of smoke that flowed from his lips. “I ain’t hear no buzz about nothing going down last night.”
“That’s wild.” Lenora closed her eyes, trying to forget the faces of the bodies from the night before. She had tried to keep from looking at dead folks when they cleaned—tried to just do her job and keep herself unattached—but she was never able to. “She said it was Crown’s spot. You should have at least heard something about it.”
Detrick sat up. “What?”
Lenora hesitated. She didn’t talk about her cleaning duties with anyone. But Detrick was her man, kind of sort of. He could be trusted. And she needed to confide in someone about it or she was going to explode.
“I know for a fact it was Crown’s spot, cuz Tandra said it. And she said to charge you double for it.”
“Crown called in a cleanup without telling me?” He sat back, the cigar burned in his mouth without him taking a puff. “Who all was up in there?”
“I didn’t know them.” Lenora shrugged. “Lots of bodies, though, more than most.”
“Yeah,” he said it easily, as if the knowledge were no big deal to him.
Lenora looked at him, trying to figure out what he was thinking. But his gangsta mask was in place now; there was no reading the facial expression or those deep black eyes. His nonchalance eased her tongue—he didn’t seem worried about it, so she kept talking. Lenora figured that since it was Crown’s place, Detrick would know about it sooner or later, anyway.
“Yeah, couple of ’em was killed execution-style. One’s neck was slit. It was all fucked up. Those motherfuckers raped this girl, though, so I ain’t have no pity on none of them.”
“What?” Detrick stared at her. “You found a dead girl up in there?”
“I guess you could say that.” Lenora wiped at her eyes. “She was pretty. Light-brown, brown eyes. Long weave, professionally done. At least six hundred for the hair and all. They had her handcuffed to the bed.”
“Damn.” Detrick looked straight ahead. “What the fuck—”
“Tandra didn’t think she had been raped. I don’t know what was with Tandy; you could tell the chick had been fucked up, Detrick. Blood was everywhere on her. She looked so fucked up, I couldn’t believe it.” Lenora’s eyes watered. “I have seen some shit in my life, but I ain’t never seen nothing like that. Tandy wanted to dismiss it, just cuz the girl had track marks on her arms. But even a fiend is somebody’s momma or daughter or something. I tried to ask the chick what had happened—”
“Wait, she was alive?” For the first time, his mask was gone, replaced with a look of panic. “I thought you said she was dead.”
“Huh?” Lenora felt her heart dropped. She had said too much. Way too much.
Detrick pressed, his hands clenched Lenora’s thigh. “What she look like, again?”
“Normal. I mean pretty.”
“Long hair. Tracks on her arms. A tattoo on her wrist?”
Lenora blinked.
“Did she have a tattoo of a bracelet that said—?”
Lenora could see the tattoo in her mind’s eyes, the beautiful delicate ribbons intertwined with the scripted colored words: “Poetic Justice Reigns Eternal?”
“Fuck!” Detrick’s roar sent a chill of panic through Lenora. He was up, off the couch, grabbing his cell phone.
While he punched numbers in the phone, Lenora ran over to her clothes. She had been sloppy to wear the same clothes over there that she had worn to the scene of the crime. Breeze would kick her ass for that alone. And the thought of putting the clothes back on made her blood curdle. But she couldn’t stay, that much was clear. Detrick was acting like a madman, dialing and texting.
Detrick dug another phone out of his pants poc
ket and dialed. “Jose, get at me, man. Call me back as soon as you get this message.” Detrick left another voicemail.
Lenora strapped her heat back on her thighs.
“Detrick, what’s happening?”
“Nora, some shit went down between me and Crown. Me and my men…we are on our, on my own. I don’t know. I got to make sure that wasn’t my peoples up there.” He left another voice message for another person. “Not my girl.” Detrick’s deep voice was soft and light, like he was talking without oxygen.
“What?’ Lenora’s mind felt scrambled. “Your girl?”
“For real…” His tone rose as if he were completely out of patience with her. “This ain’t even time for that type of shit, Nora.”
“No, I mean, you think Crown would do this to you—to your crew?”
Detrick didn’t answer. He gave her a look that told her she was still the naïve little girl that he always teased her about being.
Detrick scrambled to the coffee table and pulled out the narrow drawer. He pulled out the guns that lay in the drawer and sat them on the table amongst the stacks of paper. Then he snatched out another phone and dialed as he jumped into the jeans that lay on the chair. “I got to go. I got to check on her and she ain’t answering her phone.”
Lenora’s hands trembled. She remembered Breeze standing there weighing out her options at the job, recalled the turmoil in Tandra’s eyes. Truth be told, Lenora didn’t want any static from either Breeze or Tandra; both of them were professional to a fault and she would have to kill them or be killed if word got to them that she had run her mouth. “Detrick, listen, I wasn’t supposed to tell you nothing about that spot. You can’t say nothing to no one about what I just told you. If it ever got back that I said something—that I told…”
“Lenora, that shit ain’t nothing to me right now—”
“No, listen. You can’t ask Crown about the shit; you can’t say nothing to no one!”
Detrick ignored her as he pulled on a jacket over his T-shirt.
Lenora rubbed her eyes. “What if it was…your girl? What are you going to do?”
Detrick met her question with eyes of black steel. Terror flooded Lenora’s veins like a needle full of heroin.