Kimora cut her eyes as she dramatically dusted off her shoulders. “I’m surrounded by player haters.”
Coco set the pumps down, settled a hand on her hip and dropped her polished Ivy League voice to inject the right amount of street cred into her tone. “Ain’t nobody hatin’ on a man you ain’t got.” She wiggled her bare wedding finger for emphasis.
Kimora dusted her shoulders again, determined not to let anyone rain on her parade. “So are you hoes coming to my party or not?”
“Not!” Courtney and Birdie answered in unison.
“Why am I not surprised?” Kimora shook her head and strolled away from them to the next aisle of shoes.
Everyone knew by the slump of her shoulders and the firm set of her jaw that a pout was on the horizon. “You guys never come to my parties.” She picked up a pair of boots, casually glanced at them and then set them back down. “It’s not like you have anything else planned.”
Birdie refused to be moved. “I’m a little too old for your freaky parties.”
“Amen,” Courtney croaked.
“We’re all the same age,” Kimora sassed.
“Our point exactly,” her friends chimed.
“You’re only as old as you feel.” Kimora smiled. “And I don’t feel a day over twenty-one.”
Courtney shook her head. “I must be in the ‘ancient’ category.”
“C’mon. It’s not like you’re doing anything anyway,” Kimora complained. “Birdie, the boys leave tonight to spend the next week at Kenneth’s place. What are you going to be doing? Drowning your sorrows in eggnog?”
Birdie lowered her eyes as her round face darkened with embarrassment. “I happen to like eggnog.”
Kimora shifted her attention. “What about you, Coco?”
“What about me?”
“What do you have planned—shoving your nose in case files or actually putting up your Christmas tree for a lousy twenty-four hours?”
“No.” Courtney refused to meet her eyes. “I plan to leave it up until New Year’s Day.”
“Sad.” Kimora shook her head. “Both of you.”
“Whatever.” Birdie selected a pair of sensible mud-brown shoes. “Oh, these have just the arch support I need.”
Kimora’s hand jabbed into her hip. “Should we also pick you up some medical support hose while we’re at it? Jeez, you guys act older than my grandmother. Who, by the way, would jump at the chance to come to this party if I invited her.”
“That’s a mental image I could’ve done without,” Coco said.
“Face it,” Kimora ranted. “You two need to get a life. Lord knows Kenneth isn’t letting the dust settle under his feet.”
Roberta’s eyes snapped up and then turned ice-cold. “You want to be a bitch? I can get bitchy.”
Kimora waved her forward. “Bring it on.”
Birdie took a step towards Kimora and Coco placed a restraining hand on her shoulder. “You two stop it. Especially you, Birdie. The last thing you need is another assault charge. I swear you’ve turned into Mike Tyson this week.”
“She started it.”
Coco rolled her eyes at having to play mother to two grown-ass women. “Kimora, stop pushing her buttons. We’re supposed to be shopping, remember?”
“All I’m saying is you two need to loosen up. Have some fun. It’s not going to kill you.”
“Now that’s debatable.” Courtney turned away from the aisle. “We’re finished here,” she announced and headed for the door.
Neither Birdie nor Kimora moved. They eyed each other, assessing whether they should pick up the fight since they no longer had supervision.
“C’mon, Birdie. You know I didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”
She did know that, but Kimora had a habit of speaking before thinking.
Kimora took her friend’s silence as a peace offering and she walked around to Birdie’s aisle and swung her arm around her shoulder. “I love you, girl. You know that.” And to prove it, she planted a loud, sloppy kiss against Birdie’s cheek.
Birdie cringed and tried to pull away. By the time she succeeded, she was laughing.
“Am I forgiven?” Kimora asked, laughing and leaning into her.
Hard as she tried, Birdie couldn’t hold on to her anger.
“Forgive me or I’m going to kiss you again and grab your butt right here in front of all these fine folks.” Kimora laughed and added, “Then the truth will really be out why you and Kenneth separated.”
“Kimmy—”
“I’m going to count to two. One—”
“I forgive you.”
Kimora kissed her anyway. At least her butt was spared.
“So what exactly is a key party?” Birdie asked.
“A singles’ key party is just that,” Kimora informed her girls, clustered around a cheap iron table in the middle of the mall’s food court. “When the men arrive, they deposit their keys into a bowl. Everyone networks, plays games—”
“What sort of games?” Birdie asked above the rim of her giant grape drink.
Kimora’s smile held a devilish glint. “Fun games.”
“Sex games,” Coco corrected, shaking her head. “You can count me out. I have a little more self-respect than that.”
“Relax. You don’t have to do nothing you don’t want to do. It’s not that kind of party, Coco.”
“Uh-huh. What happens with the keys?”
Kimora’s smile widened as she leaned forward for the juicy part. “Toward the end of the party, after everyone has finished networking, I bring the bowl of keys to the middle of the room. Each woman has to reach in and select a set of keys. Whosever’s keys you draw, he’s your…date for the rest of the evening.”
Birdie and Coco looked at each other for a long moment and then burst out laughing.
Kimora rolled her eyes and waited out the tide of their laughter. “Yeah, yeah. Chuckle it up. At least I’m enjoying the holidays. I’m enjoying life, living in the moment.”
It was Birdie’s and Coco’s turn to roll their eyes.
“But you should come, Birdie.” Kimora tried to sound nonchalant. “Stephen will be there.”
Birdie’s mouth had just settled around her large corn dog, but she stopped from taking a bite.
Kimora’s eyes dropped as she cleared her throat. “You know, he’s always had a thing for you.”
“I knew it.” Coco chuckled into her drink.
Birdie’s eyes narrowed as she ripped into her corn dog.
“And you know he really came through for you the other day,” Kimora continued.
“So you told him I would sleep with him for bailing me out?”
“No!” Kimora protested a bit too hard and a bit too loudly. In the ensuing silence, her eyes darted from Birdie to Coco. “Well, not in so many words.”
“I don’t believe this.” Birdie dropped her meal-on-a-stick back down onto her plate and leaned back in her chair. “Are you my friend or my pimp?”
“Are you sure you want to know the answer to that?” Coco whispered out the side of her mouth.
“I’m your friend,” Kimora snapped, managing a flush of indignation. “All I told him was that you’d be there. I have no control over the set of keys you’ll draw. What’s wrong with giving the man a little hope?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Coco asked.
“C’mon. Birdie had a real emergency and I played the only card I had.”
“Well, you can just call him and tell him that I won’t be there. I may be lonely, but I have a little more dignity and self-respect than to jump on the first man that crosses my path.” With that, Birdie snatched up her tray from the table and stalked over to the trash bin to dump its contents.
Coco shook her head, but when she glanced up, she was stunned at Kimora’s expression. “What are you smiling about?”
“Birdie.” She chuckled softly. “She’ll be there.”
Coco glanced over her shoulder and watched her best friend before she sighed.
“Maybe.”
“So…” Kimora gave Coco her full attention. “What’s going on with you and your hunky boss?”
Coco met her friend’s gaze dead-on. “There’s nothing going on. You know I can’t stand the man.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I need to quit that place. I’m so sick of his micromanaging I don’t know what to do. I mean it. I’m overworked, underappreciated, underpaid,” Coco continued, on her soapbox. “Uh-huh.”
“When I’m gone, then he’ll know what a good thing I was.” Coco glanced over at her friend. “What are you smiling about?”
Kimora shrugged. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
You’re cordially invited to Kimora’s Christmas Singles’ Key Party
Rules: There are no rules.
Leave your inhibitions, your cell phones and cameras at home, because what happens at the key party…stays at the key party.
Patrick
It’s Christmas Eve and I have a mind not to climb out of bed. What’s the point? The prospect of dealing with my large, loud and meddlesome Irish family already has my temples thudding with an early-morning migraine. Where in the hell am I going to find the energy to plow through the next two days?
I push off the bed’s blankets and ignore the massive army of goose bumps marching across my flesh. The alarm clock blares out from the nightstand, and out of reflex I slam my fist down on the off button and push myself out of bed.
Christmas hasn’t always been like this. Once upon a time, I’d looked forward to the holidays. I’d anxiously participated in the unspoken but understood annual competition with the neighbors over who can squeeze the most Christmas lights on their house. No electric bill was too high. Death by building an elaborate nativity scene on the roof was deemed honorable and a worthy cause. But the real game was who had the best tree. Fake, spinning and prelit trees were automatically disqualified. A real tree was the only way to go.
Of course, everyone tried for the trifecta. But in truth, Lydia and I were the only ones to ever win that honor.
Lydia.
A river of guilt streams through my heart. Guilt. Not longing or pain—the emotions I should be feeling as a widower. What did it say about me when after six years I no longer missed my wife? In truth, each day it grew harder to remember the small details of Lydia’s face or the exact musical notes of her laughter.
Does that mean I didn’t love my wife—that she hadn’t truly been my soul mate? And worse, what does it say about me when another woman’s face fills my thoughts and dances in my dreams?
Laughing, I doubt Assistant District Attorney Courtney Brown has ever danced in her life. She is so strong, regal and serious. Her smiles are rare and her laughter nonexistent. Yet there’s still something that entices, draws me like a magnet.
As quickly as the thought enters my mind, I dismiss it and turn on the bathroom shower. There is no point in fantasizing about Ms. Brown.
The woman hates me.
She also has a way of pushing my buttons. Every time I walk into her office with the full intention of being polite and charming, I end up walking out ready to smash something against the wall.
Women.
I step into the shower and dunk my head beneath the steaming flow of hot water and reach for my bottle of liquid Dial soap.
Ms. Brown resurfaces in my mind. Her wide onyx gaze triggers something raw and primal in me. I imagine waltzing up to her, in her tight gold pantsuit (my favorite color on her), and snatching open the jacket.
Even in my dreams Ms. Brown is no pushover. She slaps my face—hard, leaving a bright red handprint. Her reaction doesn’t cool my passion but inflames it. Pushing her up against the desk, I rip open her blouse and devour her full lips. Her tongue draws circles on mine and arouses a deep guttural groan.
Entrenched in the daydream, I mindlessly lather my body. Somewhere along the way my large, rough hands have transformed into small, black, graceful ones with French-manicured nails.
In my mind, I free Courtney’s dark breasts from her lacy black bra and fill my mouth with her even darker nipples.
When the queen sighs in ecstasy, I harden into smooth steel. With superhuman strength one is only blessed with in dreams, I yank off her pants and I’m pleased to see a lacy thong. Along the edges I catch sight of her black, downy nest of curls and I almost feel like a kid in a candy shop. Yet at the same time I want to hear her beg for it—to hear some solid confirmation that she wants it as bad as I do.
Then finally “Please” falls gracefully from her lips.
I push the small string between her legs aside and I quickly glide into her.
Vaguely, around the periphery of my mind, I’m aware of the shower turning cold. Just as I’m aware that it’s my hand locked around my shaft and pumping wildly away like some prepubescent teenager.
Pushing reality out of my mind, I concentrate on my regal queen, whose head lolls back while her husky sighs play like sweet music in my ears. I’m lost in her feminine curves and soft, lush mounds. Tight. Wet. Perfect.
Suddenly it’s difficult to catch my breath. My orgasm, originating from my toes, ruptures so fast and furious that I have to brace my weight against the shower’s wall.
In my mind, I spill every drop of my passion into Ms. Brown’s tight, hot body. But in truth, it and my courage swirl down the drain.
Joel
I’ve always had this thing for older women—and an even bigger thing for plus-size women. I don’t know. There’s just something to the adage “more cushion for the pushin’.” Sticks and bones do nothing but bruise a brother, if you know what I mean. I need a little girth to stay warm in the winter.
Anyway, Christmas is looking out to be a real pisser. I’ve only been in Atlanta for a couple of months. I’m a rapper looking to hit it big in the A-T-L. My plan is to drop my little demo on Jermaine Dupri and then just blow up. But until that happens, I’m baggin’ groceries at Publix.
It ain’t so bad. Flexible hours, meeting new people and, starting at the first of the year, a brotha will even have health insurance. Medical and dental.
Anyway, because it’s Christmas Eve, Publix closes early—and the place is a madhouse. It’s cool, though. It keeps me busy. I don’t even mind sporting the cheap red-and-white Christmas hat. ’Tis the season to be jolly.
“Paper or plastic?” I ask the next customer before glancing up. When I do, it’s like—whoa! A sistah with the face of an angel, a creamy peanut-butter complexion and a thick-in-all-the-right-places body is standing before me.
“Plastic,” she says, not bothering to glance in my direction. She frowns as she digs through her purse. “Where in the hell did I put my debit card?”
“Momma.” A little boy with her beautiful eyes tugs her arm. “Can I get some candy?”
She gives a dramatic sigh, obviously trying to remain cool. “One piece,” she announces.
“Me, too?” Another child pops up from the candy rack.
My gaze quickly searches her fingers for a ring, and my heart drops a few inches when I spot the gold band and sizable diamond twinkling back as if commanding me to back off. Hell, one thing I’ve learned about these well-to-do suburban women: their man ain’t got nothin’ to do with me. I’m all for hittin’ and quittin’ it. Then again, this sistah could get a brotha caught up.
“You each can have one piece,” she tells the child, doing a great job of keeping the irritation out of her voice. “Here it is.” She extracts her card from her purse and hands it to Shalonda, the cashier.
Shalonda, whose skinny ass has the hots for me, clears her throat, and I remember my job. I start cramming food into the bags, every now and then sneaking side glances at this angel’s bodacious ta-tas. A brotha could feast for weeks off those things—for real!
The great thing about older women is that they always want to teach a young thug a few things. In my short lifetime, the school of Find My G-Spot has been the only place I like to get my learn on, if you know what I mean.
These are things I’m more than willing to find out—if given the chance.
I place all her bags back into the grocery cart and wait for her to show me to her car. She takes her receipt, promptly grabs her children’s hands and begins to lead the way—still not sparing me a glance. However, I forgive her for it the moment she moves in front of me and blesses me with a glorious view of her tight pear-shaped bottom.
Lord have mercy.
Tears pool in my eyes. What I wouldn’t give to touch, feel and kiss every inch of it. I am casually wiping the corners of my mouth to make sure I’m not salivating when the little man glances over his shoulder at me.
“What’s up?” I say.
The boy eyes me suspiciously, but I hold my smile. Hey, I love kids, and a lot of times if you get along with a woman’s kid, you’re in like Flynn. I get no such chance today since my peanut-butter baby is obviously preoccupied.
“Momma, how come Daddy can’t come to our house for Christmas?” the oldest child asks.
“Honey, we’ve already talked about this,” she says, releasing his hand to work the automatic unlock button on her key chain. She pulls open the trunk of a nice white S-series Mercedes. I load the groceries while trying to keep my eye on the prize.
When she bends over to buckle the children in their car seats, my hard-on throbs out of this world. Finished loading the car, I close the trunk and wait. What am I waiting for? I’m not sure—a tip, a glance or a smile.
“Thanks,” she says, still not bothering to look at me as she climbs into the driver’s seat.
“No problem,” I reply, but it’s too late. She’s already slammed the door and started the car. I step aside, mainly to make sure that I don’t get run over—and it’s a good thing, too. Baby girl doesn’t even look in her rearview mirror before backing up.
Holiday Fantasy Page 3