“What do you want to do today, Tay?” I asked casually feeling out my situation.
He shrugged. “Work texted during service askin’ if I’d cover that dude Tarique’s shift. They caught this fool unloadin’ cases of merchandise into the trunk of his car. Been watchin’ him for like six months and finally pulled him in this morning. He worked the overnights so it’s gonna get crazy. Plus we’ve been shorthanded. That boy Allen got let go for beatin’ down the nightshift manager, called him a racist and Santiago went to lunch and never came back. I’ll probably take a quick nap and roll out. It’ll take me a minute to get used to the new shift.”
“So now you’re gonna work overnight, Dontay? I won’t have a car all night? What happened to finishing school?”
“What’s up with all these questions? School ain’t payin’ the bills, I am. Where the hell you need to go in the middle of the night?” he barked.
I glanced back at Jada but she could sleep through anything. “What if Jada gets sick or I get sick, Dontay?”
“That’s what 911 is for. I’ll work the car thing out after tonight; damn, it’s no big deal, man,” he snapped at me indicating the conversation was over.
I smirked. It always worked my last nerve when he called me man, or dude, any of that mess. I texted Bear: Where’s Dick Slater?
My phone dinged almost instantly and I hid a smile glancing over at Dontay to make sure he wasn’t paying me any attention. Which he wasn’t of course. I read Bear’s reply.
Waiting to make you tap out again, was that my Bat Signal?
That almost made me lol, good one. Yes, that was your Bat signal
I kept my phone close to me once we got inside. My nerves were making me feel breathless and happy for no reason. The last thing I wanted was for Dontay to walk by my phone and see one of Bear’s texts pop up on the screen. I started some lunch for Jada and tried to straighten up while I waited on Bear to reply. Since Dontay would be working six at night until six in the morning it seemed best to just hang out at the house. That way I wouldn’t have to bother with a babysitter and we wouldn’t have to worry about running into anyone.
I was laid up with Bear on the couch. We were watching a movie when my phone went off making me jump.
“What’s wrong?” I blurted out as soon as I hit ANSWER. Storie never called for no reason. Storie was one of those chicks with a $700 phone who acted like all it could do was send texts and troll Facebook. She’d probably text you to tell you that your house was on fire. She literally acted like her phone couldn’t make or receive calls.
“Giiiirl, are you sitting down?” she asked in her “cat with feathers hanging out of its mouth” voice.
“No, I’m just watching a movie.”
“Giiiirl. Why am I at the Sushi spot on Granby and . . .” Bear had dozed off. He mumbled in his sleep tightening his arm around my waist. I put my hand over the mouth piece and turned away from him.
“Anyway, let me tell you what a bitch done told me
. . . Hold up.” She started talking to someone in the background moving the phone away from her mouth. “Is that our waitress? What the hell was her name High Kick
. . . Chun Li? They be talkin’ about black folk, and these heffas is walkin’ around looking like clones. All I want is some more wasabi. Ask one of ’em. . . Oh, anyway so why this bitch just tell me Bear’s cheating on me?”
The phone almost slipped out my hand. “Huh? Storie, girl, no, not him. Who . . . what would make someone say something like that? I mean, I thought y’all did that whole open thing first of all. But, what makes you think that? And with who?”
My nerves were immediately on edge. I debated on waking Bear but he felt so comfortable. I was being selfish and I knew it.
“This her, I’ma call you right back, boo.”
Storie, clicked over and I was left sitting there stuck in limbo.
I decided to keep Storie’s phone call to myself for now. At least until I could figure out everything she knew. Bear woke up and was up. We decided to try a little role playing. I wanted him to pretend to be Brother Hall. He had gotten so into character he was whispering scriptures I didn’t even know. He was preachin’ while he was strokin’ it all in his reverend, doctor, bishop voice taking me to church when Jesus shook the whole building. It hadn’t occurred to me that it might be wrong to have someone else’s man pretend to be a man of the cloth until I was callin’ Jesus and Jesus tried to break the front door down. Once again, Bear demonstrated common sense and to my immediate disappointment hopped up and ran into the front room.
“Eva, I think that was Dontay,” Bear called out while peeking out the living room window.
He was just about all the way back in his clothes and Dontay was halfway across the parking lot headed toward the building by the time I got up there to look.
“Oh Jesus,” was all I could get out.
I rushed him back toward the bedroom once he got his feet in his feet in his shoes. I slid Jada’s crib out and pulled the stick out the sliding glass balcony door. He’d have to find his own way down, but we were only on the second floor he didn’t have too far to go. Dontay was pounding at the front door and it was only going to be a matter of time before he kicked through the chain. Bear screamed when he hit the ground. Yes, I was certain that was a scream. I just knew he’d jumped and landed wrong spraining his ankle. Black folk don’t usually turn white but when I saw Storie standing there beating him I was pretty sure I lost about three shades of brown. She caught one glimpse of me and went four shades of magenta.
“Hold up, you was up there with my bitch?” she shouted at him punching him in the chest. “Bitch, you supposed to be my bitch. And you got my man up over here climbing out windows and shit? You done fucked and fucked with the wrong one,” she screamed up at me.
The front door burst open slamming up against the opposite wall.
Oh dear God, please don’t let me get killed today.
“Where you at, Eva?” Dontay shouted through the apartment waking up Jada and I wrapped the sheet from the bed tight around myself before picking her up.
He charged into the bedroom like a crazed maniac. His eyes were bloodshot and the vein in his temple made him look like Frankenstein’s monster. He looked at Jada then back at me in nothing but that sheet and went slam the fuck off.
“You was fuckin’ that bitch-ass brother whoever motherfucka with my baby up in here, bitch? What you trying to do teach my daughter how to be a fuckin’ ho’ or some shit?”
Dontay thundered toward me screamin’ in my face; fear paralyzed my feet. I shook my head back and forth covering Jada’s head. I could barely hear Dontay over her high-pitched shrieks in my ear.
“Answer me!” Dontay screamed.
I was shaking my head no. What other kind of answer did he want? I could barely look at him, let alone answer him. Spit hung from the corners of his mouth hitting my face like burning exclamation points. As if Dontay alone wasn’t enough.
Storie’s shrill voice rang out from the living room. “Bitch, I’m gonna fucking kill you! I trusted you and this is what the fuck you do? You was like my fuckin’ sister. Bear should have been like a brother to your trader backstabbing ass. Where the fuck are you?”
Lord, you delivered Daniel, Jonah, umpteen others; please get me and my baby out of this mess alive. I’m sorry I didn’t listen.
“Storie, just stop; it wasn’t her it was me, and it ain’t like you wasn’t doing your own shit. This is between us; let’s go.” Bear was trying to talk her back out the front door.
“Don’t touch me. Your hands smelling like another bitch pussy! You low-life dog-ass motherfucka, I’m gonna have one of my homeboys put you the fuck down, Vaughn!”
I saw the moment of realization. When Dontay figured out there was no Brother Hall and the actual object of his hatred was now within his reach. His face became stony and emotionless, his eyes glazed over as he looked back toward the living room. And that’s when I noticed the gun in his
waistband. I didn’t even know Dontay had a gun or knew how to shoot one.
“Storie, Bear, just go now please. I’m sorry,” I called out to them my voice breaking.
Dontay turned, intending to take his anger out on Bear when Storie flew past him with all her hatred, anger, and bitterness directed at me. She didn’t even care that I was holding Jada. Instinctively I backed up and hit the nightstand knocking the candle over. It rolled setting the curtains on fire before rolling into Dontay’s mountain of shoes. Dontay and Bear both grabbed Storie. She reached for Tay’s gun. It went off and the blast was so loud it might as well have been a freight train going through the walls of the building. Storie’s eyes went out of focus and she slumped forward in Bear’s arms. There might as well have been a hole in all of our chests. We were all hurt, broken, or torn up in some way. I fell to my knees beside Bear, crying, rocking Jada in my arms. I wound up losing two best friends that day. Storie was gone forever and Dontay was just gone.
ACT II
Chapter 20
Jail Bait Blues
Small white candles flickered on a table off to the side. Inhaling, my senses were bombarded with the scent of lime and coconut.
What in the Lord’s name kind of sacrificial mumbo jumbo was this? Tay never lit candles or did any of that romantic foolishness and he especially didn’t do it after the baby. We got it in when we could and suffered when we couldn’t. There were candles everywhere and they made shadows shift and dance on the walls.
He came to me out of the shadows that were dancing in the corner. It was as if he were a shadow himself. The lone dark figure strode toward me and fear paralyzed my feet, froze my vocal chords. It wasn’t until he was standing over me that I got the nerve to look up. I was afraid I’d see the face of death in those shadows, finally coming to take me away. But, there wasn’t anything cold or deadly about the man who seemed to have appeared out of the darkness.
He was so tall I had to strain my neck to look up into his face. He smiled and the darkness melted away like fog in the sun. I smiled a shy smile back and instantly fell in love with his cinnamon-brown skin, perfect white teeth, and deep dimples. He stretched out his hand and directed me to have a seat in a chair that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. I smoothed the back of my dress and did as I was instructed. I was mesmerized as this tall tree of a man knelt down before me. His head was bald and looked baby smooth to the touch.
There was a knowing light in his gray eyes that reassured me in the quiet darkness. My breath caught in my throat as he slowly trailed his hand up my inner thigh. He didn’t break eye contact. His fingers followed the tiny goose bumps that rose on my skin like they were Braille instructions. He wasn’t shy or nervous; it was as if we’d known each other forever, and I was his. I held my breath as he looked away from me to lower his head.
His lips touched a sensitive spot on the inside of my ankle and it felt like I’d been hidden away for years in a cold, dark cave and his touch was my first sunrise. I closed my eyes, silently telling myself, girl, breathe before you fall out. His lips felt like warm honey as they trailed wet kisses up my calf and inner thigh. The heat from his long fingers scorched my skin as he began slowly pushing my panties to the side. Involuntarily my head fell backward and a soft moan somehow snuck out from between my lips just as I felt his lips close in on my clit.
Oh, Lord, this nigga was not playing around. He went straight for the gold. My hands had a mind of their own and somehow they found their way to his ears. I caressed them, dug my nails into the skin around them, and then I was holding on for dear life. He was busy introducing himself to my pussy. Telling her she was his favorite color, and she was his favorite food, and how much he’d missed her. He said all that with his tongue in between softly licking and sucking on my clit. My body was loving his introduction and I pulled harder on his ears, begging for him to tell my pussy his life story. Hell, he could tell her about nuclear physics if he wanted to, just as long as he didn’t stop.
I moaned again, but this time the sound alarmed me. It sounded like I was outside of my own body, like the moan came from someone beside me. I glanced down to see if he’d noticed, but the lighting in the room had changed. The shadows were back and darker than they were before. It was too dark for me to see him, but I could still feel the warmth of his hands and his mouth. I was getting closer and closer but something was pulling me away, throwing me off. There was an odor in the room that I couldn’t ignore any longer. It smelled like sour sweat and old urine. I opened my mouth to breathe but couldn’t get air. Panicked, I tried to tell him to stop, but I couldn’t see him and his head was no longer in my hands. Reaching out for him my arms only caught cold, empty air, and I felt a sharp pain across my cheek.
My dreams were strange now. They’d probably seem boring to most people maybe, but they were strangely appealing to me. There were always candles and soft music or I’d wake up tasting the sweetness of strawberries and the dry bitterness of champagne. I’d have these erotic dreams where I’d take warm glowing bubble baths that smelled like Hawaiian ginger. I’d float away carried by strong arms to a bed covered with yellow silk sheets and gold-dusted rose petals.
My eyes snapped open. Ivory soap-scented fingers were but a half inch under my nose covering my mouth; nails were digging into my cheek. My senses were coming to me too slowly. It was cold. It was dark. My heart was speeding in my chest as the haziness of the dream I’d been having faded. Dontay had been there. The rough wool blanket on the floor underneath me felt scratchy against my bare skin, but that dull achy feeling was still there. My storyteller was still talking; I just couldn’t see who it was. I was about to cum and my head rolled back against something cold, metal, and hard. I reached out again and my fingers tangled in long, silky, thick hair.
Smack. It was too dark to see the hand that struck my face.
“You better stop that shit and be quiet.” Her voice trailed off as I felt warm breath and fingers spreading me open.
My mind was reeling and the slow throb building between my thighs was clouding my ability to think clearly. With timid fingers I slowly slid the edge of the blanket off my face. Aeron, my cell mate, sucked my clit hard between her lips sending tiny explosions through my body wiping away all the haziness from my sleep at the same time. All the misery from the prior months flooded me in a wave of memories that made me want to curl up into a ball.
Six months ago I was arrested for embezzlement. The FBI came to my office, handcuffed me, and read me my rights in front of my employees, some of whom were people from my church. Did I do it? Of course not, but I should have known from the smug looks on the agents faces down to the disapproving glares of people I worshipped in church with that I’d already been judged.
Apparently I was a millionaire to the tune of around $2.5 million and I didn’t even know it. “Ghost money” was what I’d started calling it since no one seemed to know where the hell it had vanished to. Transia was my company. I’d started it my senior year in college. After taking out a small business loan I bought a shipping container and leased a Mack truck. Dontay drove the wheels off of that thing and we undercut the prices of nearly every competitor in the area until we had enough customers to afford another truck. Those two trucks turned into a fleet that serviced the entire US shipping anything from Audis to office equipment. Someone had been stealing money using my company and they were trying to make it look like I was doing it.
It’s bad when you have to learn about your alleged crimes one by one, piece by piece as they’re laid out in front of you like a mine field. Every time you acknowledge a “mine,” a small explosion goes off in the heads of everyone listening, and the shrapnel spells out the word “guilty.”
Yes, the company is mine. Yes, the invoices are mine. Yeah, that account has my name on it, but it’s not mine. Boom.
“Evaline, Transia invoiced three specific and I dare say affluent warehouses for transit charges, weight fees, and container rental. All of your paperwork shows
that this happened. When the warehousing records for those companies are pulled it’s peculiar that there were in most cases no pickups by Transia on those days. In addition to that, in the event there was a pickup the amount on your paperwork doesn’t match the inflated invoices that these warehouses received and paid,” Brimmer, the prosecuting attorney, had stated in his condescending high-pitched nasal tone.
The public defender I was assigned turned out to be about as useful as snow to an Eskimo. His off-white dress shirts were stained yellow at the armpits, drawing attention to the rivers of garlic scented sweat that rolled off him at each proceeding. We’d gone over my case briefly; he’d simply nod causing the third chin underneath his second chin to jiggle in agreement. There was no way to explain how funds were wired to various accounts in my name or how invoices were sent out at nearly triple what they should have been.
Jabber Jaws, my public defender, would only tell me but so much, but Dontay was picked up on separate charges and tried separately. They had him for stealing cargo, as well as “assisting me.” That idiot sold me out as a plea bargain, he admitted to everything, damning me in the process. That bitter little pill of information settled itself in my stomach and began to slowly poison me with anger from the inside out. I’d sacrificed so much for love and at the end of the day love didn’t give a damn about me. The only good thing I’d gotten out of love was my daughter Jada.
I was sentenced to six years in the East River Correctional Facility in Suffolk, Virginia with the option for parole in three. Now, despite everything my life was being ripped away from me slipping through my desperate fingers like smoke rings. Jada was four now and Dontay had missed the first two years after she was born because I was weak in my spirit and in my faith. I cheated on him in anger and I regretted it every day since. He eventually forgave me, said he couldn’t live without me, and I forgave him as well. We fell back into our routine like synchronized swimmers.
Church Girl Gone Wild Page 14