Right now, Duke couldn’t even picture Milan’s face that he’d been kissing more than half his life. His brain drew a blank when he tried to remember what he thought was the finest face in the hood, and the world, for a while. Now, all he felt was evil, like the taste of cold, hard metal, making him remember the time Knight shoved a gun in his mouth to scare him. His big brother was trying to toughen him up, saying something about what that philosopher, Nietzche, said, “If something didn’t kill you, it would make you stronger.”
Knight loved that quote so much, he had it tattooed over his left bicep. And it proved true for Duke, because the next week, he got jumped by some thugs from a hood across town. They pulled a gun, but Duke was one fearless ma’fucka. Now he couldn’t say “Boo!” to those same punks without them shitting on themselves.
But fearlessness in Milan’s case was what made her so dangerous.
“You was mad about e’rything under the sun,” Duke said, “but soon as I show you some love, you had a coincidence an’ found the book and my twennie-five K you had los’ wit’ it. So play e’rybody else, Milan, but you don’t play The Duke, ’less you wanna lose in the wors’ way.” Duke glanced down the hallway. The shower was still running behind the closed door.
“You don’t scare me, Duke. But if you even think about getting with some dejected suburban slut who’s whiter than me, I will show you crazy.”
Duke scarfed down another cookie and guzzled milk. “I don’ know nobody like that. You an’ me ain’t married, an’ you ain’t got no claim on who I talk to or work wit’.”
“You belong with me, Duke, the lightest, prettiest girl on the block who gave you two babies and believed your promises that we would get married and rule Babylon.”
The hiss of the shower stopped. Duchess would be walking in soon, and she never needed to even hear the name Milan, much less meet the bitch.
“Milan, you need to look in the mirror and see how small a speck you is in Duke’s big picture. We grew up together, fucked around, had some kids. Now you work for me. Don’t act right, and you know I will pull the plug on your glamorous life.”
“I’ll get immunity and you’ll get life,” Milan said.
“Now you really crazy,” Duke said. It was time to take care of her for good. “Maybe you forgot what happened to Sunnie.”
“I want to know what happened to us,” Milan said. “You don’t even call me to check on business.” She sounded white as snow until she said “business.” It came out “bee-yass-niss,” like a certified sista.
“Duke, how do you know I haven’t been dealing with a crisis here with the Sex Squad?”
“You woulda tol’ Beamer when I was in my meetin’.”
“I need to tell you something very important, Duke.”
“Tell me.”
“In person.”
“Milan, if you tryin’ ta script anotha soap opera scene, I ain’t comin’ to the set. So jus’ say it.”
“I’m not going to play by your bad rules right now. I’ll brief you on everything, including the baby, if you can schedule me into your rotation.” Click. Baby? The baby she wished she could have.
Ain’t no way her skinny ass could get pregnant again. The way her hip bones were sticking out lately, that womb was nothing but a hostile environment for his sperm. And as little as they been fucking—he was just turned off by how she was wasting away, a sack of bones with no ass to hold on to—no way she could be knocked up.
This jus’ anotha o’ Milan tricks. Work wit’ tricks all day, schemin’ wit’ her own the rest o’ the time. I ain’t got time fo’ no drama.
Footsteps in the hallway made his heart hammer, and his skin prickled with sweaty excitement to see Duchess. They’d been apart fifteen minutes and it felt like forever.
She walked toward him wearing the baby blue velour warm-up suit with matching satin gym shoes and a white tank top that held her titties up just right. She was drying her hair with a big, pink towel. Her face was clean and shiny. Her cheeks and lips were naturally red.
“A shower never felt so good,” she said. “I was so dirty.”
“Come in here,” he said, guiding her to the family room off the kitchen, where he sat on a plush, pale green couch.
“Duke, who lives here?” she asked, lowering her ass to the cushion beside him. “Would they mind if I spend the night in that guest bedroom? I mean, just one night. Then tomorrow I’ll figure out where I’m going.”
“We’ll see how it go when you meet the owner,” he said, keeping his voice low and steady to mask his excitement. “You handle ya bidness just like me. The mo’ shit come at cha, the cooler you get. E’rybody know, when Duke calm and quiet like a lion, I’m thinkin’ about how I’ma pounce somebody or something. An’ I get my way e’rytime.”
“I noticed that,” Victoria said, sitting Indian style on the couch cushion, facing him so that her knee was touching the side of his thigh.
Timbo was pounding, but this was the last place he needed to get busted trying to mix ebony and ivory. Yet.
“During dinner,” she said, “when you were watching me eat and walk and talk, you get so still you’re like a mannequin. I wanted to reach over and take your pulse.”
Duke let out a low, sexy laugh. “Oh, my pulse ’bout as strong as it’s gon’ get.” He raised his hips slightly, shifting to let huge, hard Timbo roll to a looser spot under his white cotton briefs. “My pulse poundin’.”
Her big blue eyes cut at him in a way that only a sista could do. She just didn’t know it yet. “Please,” she said with her white girl business tone, “whatever private detail you were about to share, keep it to yourself.”
Damn, her sexy-ass voice, especially with that prim and proper in-the-boardroom talk, put his dick on swole. Her voice was deep, kind of raspy, not slow but not fast, just right, and every word came out like she was in complete control of how she pronounced each letter. If she could suck his dick into her mouth as elegantly as she blew out words and sentences, Duke was in for one helluva treat. One helluva life.
“You walk like a panther, too,” Victoria said. “Like every step has this feline grace, like your joints are liquid and you’re just flowing along silently. Like the most powerful, most treacherous king of the jungle.”
“Make a nigga scared, too.” He laughed, remembering how he pounced on Izz this afternoon. It was exactly how she described it, and she didn’t even see it. “Callin’ me a treacherous panther. Miss Animal Planet. Baby girl, I could listen to you talk all day long.” The lust in his voice hung in the warm air. A fresh waft of hot, clean pussy made him dizzy.
Damn, that girl horny as hell. Prob’ly made herself cum in the shower and she still hot an’ bothered.
“You a virgin?” he asked.
She got perfectly still. Her thick black eyelashes lowered then that giraffe neck turned with a slight jerk. She pulled all that black hair to the opposite shoulder and fixed her gaze on him.
He stared back. Her unblinking eyes were like blue ice, cold, hard as picks. That would come in handy when she was negotiating for him. Otherwise, all he would have to do was blow on her horny ass and she’d melt in a creamy puddle all over his face. Yeah, someday very soon she was going to squat on his face, take some tongue up that virgin pussy, and blow her nut all over his nose, cheeks, mouth, and eyes.
“Baby girl, if you think you can beat the Duke in a stare-down. . .”
“You have panther eyes,” she said in a way that made her lips look extra sexy. They stuck out, pouting, and shining like she had just licked them.
“I won!” she laughed. “You looked at my lips!”
His body and eyes were still, facing her as she tossed her head back, laughing.
“Tough guy.” She giggled. “But seriously—”
“Seriously my ass.” His hard voice cut her off. “Don’t trick me.”
“Don’t lose your own challenge,” she said with a slight neck jerk. “See, look at your eyes right now. They shimme
r like a panther’s eyes. Like, they’re so rich in color and texture. During our stare-down, they were tough and like, aroused. Now they’re analyzing the situation.”
Timbo was jumping with every word.
Someday I’m gon’ fuck her while she talkin’ just like that. “Damn,” he exclaimed. If she kept it up, he was going to have to taste that intelligent language. Kiss her. Suck that skill right out of her mouth and try to pull it into himself. That was why she was going to work for him, so she could literally be his mouthpiece; an extension of his brain.
“My dad was like that,” Victoria said slowly. “After my mom died, he would just sit and stare at people. Like he was figuring out who was on his side, and studying people. Then, boom. He put everything he’d learned to work and built his business bigger and better.”
“That’s my plan for Babylon,” he said, his lust now turbo charged by exciting visions of her at his side, building their kingdom bigger and better than any inner city thug could ever imagine.
“What’s that?”
“My company. You’ll see, tomorrow, when you agree to work for me.”
“I can’t work for you,” she said, crossing her arms. “Don’t say that again.”
His heart skipped a beat then pounded harder than ever. The hot surge of blood went straight to his dick. It made Timbo hurt.
A nigga could get some lead pointed toward his head, just to scare him, for talking to Duke Johnson like that. Cussed out, beat down, showed out. But this white bitch was talking to him like she was the boss, and that hard glint in her eyes, sharp as a knife blade, as she sliced a look his way.
“Damn, baby girl, you like that movie, Clueless, about them valley girl chicks in California. Ain’t got no clue. You got balls as big as mine, and ain’t scared to swing ’em right in Duke Johnson face!” His voice rose on his last name in a mock shocked tone.
Her cheeks turned almost as red as her lips. She crossed her legs, squirmed her ass deeper into the seat. The idea of that hot pussy cradled inside the baby blue velour, shooting flames against the couch, made Duke want to lift her up and pull her down on the telephone pole that was jolting so hard it felt like it could split his pants.
But footsteps in the hallway made his dick deflate. Instantly.
Chapter 14
Victoria felt more hope than she had in a week when an older woman’s cheerful voice echoed into the family room. Maybe it was Duke’s mom or his aunt, and she would let Victoria stay there until she figured out where in the world she was going to live. Anywhere but that horrible house of hell on Babylon Street.
“My baby boy,” the woman called.
His expression was still cool and calm, but his eyes flashed something different than she’d seen all afternoon and evening: nervousness. He stood, smiling like a kid who wanted his mom to tell him he’d been a good boy.
“Lawd ha’mercy,” the woman called. “Ma baby boy come see his momma.”
Victoria smiled, letting all the love in the room give her the hug she’d been aching for all week. Not that she expected a hug from Duke’s mom, but she was giving off such strong mother love, it was enough for Victoria too.
The woman, who was a good foot shorter than her son, whisked toward them, raising her hands to grasp Duke’s cheeks. She was wearing a pink straw hat with big flowers on top and a delicate net covering her full, bronze face. Her pretty pink dress was belted against her trim hourglass. Its chiffon skirt floated behind her as she approached on white pumps and stockings that matched the satin gloves dangling from the pink straw purse over her shoulder. Her face glowed as her dark brown eyes focused only on Duke, as if Victoria were invisible.
“My baby, Knight! You come home early!” The woman’s sing-song voice echoed with gratitude so strong it gave Victoria goosebumps.
“Naw, Momma, it’s me, Duke,” he said as her hands cupped his cheeks and he wrapped his arms around her back for a hug.
“Lawd ha’mercy. I miss that boy so much I be ’lucinatin’ my baby boy done turnt into my biggest boy,” she exclaimed, stroking the back of his bald head. “Call me bad as e’rybody else, mixin’ the two o’ you up like you one an’ the same.”
Duke’s jaw muscle flexed and something bad flashed in his eyes. Did he resent that he looked like his older brother?
“That’s okay, Momma. Two more weeks you’ll have him back.” He glanced at that brown leather backpack on the coffee table. “I brought—”
“You brought Ellie Mae wit’ a suntan up in ma home, boy.” She kept hugging Duke, but her voice turned from sweet and soft to razor-sharp. “You tryin’ to follow in yo’ big brotha footsteps? How you ’spect me to love somebody who look like the reason Knight in jail? Ain’t no half-white girl welcome in ma house.”
“Momma, she black.”
Victoria’s brows drew together. I am? If that was what it would take to sweeten this lady’s voice, then—
“Can’t nobody who grew up that white be black in they heart,” she said. “She might could be mulatta, but hist’ry show you can’t neva trus’ somebody wit’ that much enemy flowin’ through they blood. Knight the locked-up proof o’ that.”
“Momma!”
“You wanna see twenty-one next week, don’t let Knight hear ’bout ya new little friend. An’ don’t ev’a let ’im see you makin’ a mockery o’ his sit’ation.”
Duke’s tall, broad shoulders appeared shorter and narrower as she spoke, as if his mother’s words were hammering him down.
“Momma, she different,” he said softly. “This the girl we seen on the news when I brought you Chinese food Tuesday night. You said—”
“Boy, don’ tell me what I saw or said. That was in general, not a invitation to come up in here wit’ her an’ you lookin’ all love-struck. Now y’all go ’head.”
Victoria’s heart was pounding. She was almost as scared as when that pit bull came at her, when the police approached outside the restaurant. What in the world happened between Knight and a white girl that got him sent to prison? And how could this lady in pink who looked at Duke with so much love possibly transfer her hate for Knight’s white female friend onto Victoria?
She doesn’t even know me. She’s letting the bad feelings she has about the whole White race taint her view of me. Just like Brian’s parents and Tiffany’s parents. They did know me, like a daughter, yet their negative attitudes about the Black race made them hate me too. And all of them, just like Duke’s mother, said they couldn’t trust me.
The white people who used to love her hated her blackness. Now this black lady wouldn’t love her either, because she hated white. And all of them were hating her based on their malice toward the whole race, not her personally. She hadn’t done anything but show and crave love.
This is so unfair. It had nothing to do with what a sweet, intelligent, polite girl she was. And judging how big, bold Duke had that wimpy expression and even wimpier posture under his mom’s disapproving glare, Victoria was going to keep her lips zipped.
Chapter 15
Duke could not believe he exposed himself like that. He never let anybody see the power his mother had over him. Nobody. And the only person who had even more juice over him than Momma? Knight. Momma was wrong comparing Duchess to that bitch whose family went crazy when they found out she was trying to kick it with Knight.
Duchess one o’ us. Momma gon’ see. Soon.
As for now, the sooner he and Duchess drove away, the better. Maybe when Momma opened the backpack and saw the cash, she would feel better.
It was just a matter of Duke bringing out the black in this beauty, and Momma would warm up in a Motor City minute.
Something pink flashed to his right. Duke turned. Momma was in the front doorway, throwing Duchess’ sweater, jeans, pink panties and bra and red sandals out on the front walk.
“Oh my God,” Duchess gasped with huge eyes. Momma slammed the door.
Duke walked up to collect her clothes. He folded them and put them in the trunk.
>
“I’m sorry she actin’ like that,” Duke said softly as he drove away from the curb. “In time she’ll see.”
“I guess I should get used to arousing hatred in complete strangers,” Duchess said in a way that made his heart hurt. “Now what? I am not going back to that filthy house with dogs, smoke, and roaches.”
“I know a spot where we can talk and relax for a minute.” Duke turned onto five-laned Jefferson Avenue, driving past apartment buildings on the river to the Belle Isle Bridge. He loved how the bridge’s white arcs extended across the deep blue Detroit River to the lush green island park. It was city folks’ only place to play on a hot September night like this.
“Did you say relax?” She turned to him, glaring as if he were crazy. “Take me to my grandmother’s. They find bodies on Belle Isle. People get shot there!” Her head snapped and a sista-rhythm rang in her words. “And if black people hate my appearance so much, I am not tryin’ to be somebody’s target practice.”
A laugh from deep in his gut made Duke toss his head back. He cracked up at the deep blue sky.
“This gon’ be quick,” he said.
“What! Turn around!”
“It’s your transition, baby girl. Your fade ta black. Know this at all times: Anyplace you go wit’ The Duke, anytime, you safe. I rule D-town. Don’t nobody mess wit’ The Duke.”
He pulled into the first parking lot near the river’s edge. The setting sun was a huge orange fireball casting a wide red stripe over the rippling river. The mirrored round towers of the General Motors world headquarters in the Renaissance Center looked like five gold fingers stretching into the pink sky.
“What if people decide to mess with you if they think you’re havin’ jungle fever?” Victoria glanced around at black folks barbecuing at picnic tables, fishing, and rolling past in SUVs with the jams blasting. “If you expect me to sit here chit-chatting—”
Sex in the Hood Saga Page 11