Wives, Fiancées, and Side-Chicks of Hotlanta

by Shereé Whitfield

  Once again, Sasha’s insides melted. If this man kept it up, she’d be a puddle of caramel right there on that stage, or butt naked in his bed . . . whichever came first.

  Not able to accept the compliment the same way she’d been accepting glass after glass of spirits, Sasha shrugged it off. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”

  “What girls?” Terrance asked on a more serious note. “Not all ball players have hoes in every area code, you know.”

  Sasha looked Terrance dead in the eyes. “No, I don’t know.” She sipped her wine. More like guzzled, because now the glass was half empty. “You want me to believe that a fine-ass brother like yourself, with a job that pays millions, not married, no kids . . .” Sasha paused and hiccupped. “You don’t have any kids, do you?”

  “Not even a maybe baby,” Terrance assured her.

  Sasha couldn’t help but stop and mentally check off one more thing on her list. No babies, which meant no baby momma drama. Yasssss! She had to keep her excitement at bay. “Well, that even makes you more of a catch. So why haven’t you been caught?”

  Sasha watched as the proverbial wheels in Terrance’s head turned.

  “Fear,” he said plainly and simply.

  “Fear?” Sasha questioned. “What are you afraid of?”

  “It’s not me who is afraid.” Terrance finished up his wine and sat the empty glass down on the table. He then made his way up to the stage. “It’s you,” he said to Sasha in her face, then eased his way behind her.

  “Me?” She went to turn around, but his body pressed behind hers and wrapped around her prevented her from doing so.

  “You heard me,” he leaned down and said in her ear. “You. Women like you, you’re afraid to just take me for who I am. You’re afraid that I’m going to turn out to be the last man, or even your father. Afraid to just take me at face value and just . . . well . . . let me love you.”

  For a minute there Sasha had thought she’d peed herself. Or hell, maybe she’d even come. Something was running down her leg. But she looked to realize that Terrance’s words, his presence, his aroma had weakened and hypnotized her. While he was pouring out his heart, the little bit of wine she had left was pouring out of her glass, down her leg and onto the stage.

  “Damn it!” Terrance snapped, realizing Sasha had wasted the expensive wine.

  “Oh, no!” Sasha said, jerking around, now facing Terrance, and staring at the mess she’d made. “It’s going to mess up my shoes.” Why of all days had she worn those midnight-blue suede pumps? She looked up at Terrance. His facial muscles were tight. She hoped she hadn’t ruined the mood with her clumsiness. She’d already ruined her shoes, that was for sure.

  Terrance stared at the spilled wine as if he was counting down his anger. Sasha couldn’t blame him for being upset. Let someone come spill some red wine up in her spot, carpet or no carpet. Sasha swallowed hard as she waited to see how Terrance was going to handle things.

  “I’ll just go get some napkins and clean this up.” Sasha went to move, but Terrance grabbed her by her arm.

  “No,” he said as he continued to stare down at the mess. He then looked up at Sasha.

  She watched as his eyes softened before he spoke again.

  “Let me,” Terrance insisted as he kneeled down. He began removing Sasha’s shoes, one by one, as she balanced herself on the pole.

  He didn’t appear mad. That was a good sign for Sasha. But she felt bad. She couldn’t let this man clean up after her like this.

  “I’m so sorry. Let me clean this up.” Although Sasha was sure that Miss Hart had cleaned up more than her share of messes, there was no need to bother her for this one. Sasha was used to cleaning up her own messes. No one had ever run behind her and cleaned up after her.

  “I’ll clean it up,” Terrance said. He grabbed Sasha’s bare foot. He looked her in the eyes as his tongue began licking traces of the wine that had spilled on her leg.

  “Terrance,” she said, but that’s all she said. There was no “don’t” or “stop” behind her plea. And so he didn’t stop.

  A moan escaped Sasha’s mouth as she gripped the pole so tight that her hand was starting to sweat. Terrance’s tongue danced all up her leg as he lifted it over his shoulder and began to lick and kiss her thighs. He definitely wasn’t mad. Sasha no longer had any doubts about that.

  “Terrance, I—”

  “You’re afraid?” he asked in a challenging tone, already hip to Sasha’s reaction to a challenge.

  “N . . . no,” Sasha stammered. “I’m not afraid.”

  Sasha figured that when she didn’t say anything else, Terrance took that as permission to proceed. He began placing kisses on Sasha’s womanhood through her panties. He had managed to lick dry the spilled wine that ran down her leg, but now he was indulging in a whole other kind of wetness.

  “Umm, umm,” Sasha moaned at the heat of Terrance’s tongue emanating through her panties. The wineglass dangled between her two fingers before it dropped to the floor.

  The crashing sound and the music were the sound track for the sensual display the two were engaging in. Terrance rubbed the leg that he had thrown over his shoulder with one hand while he slipped her panties to the side with the other. The flesh of his tongue was now on the flesh of Sasha’s clit. Sasha grabbed the back of Terrance’s head and just began to guide it. He was already coming in for a landing; she might as well guide the plane.

  “You taste so good,” Terrance said. “Like fine wine . . . No pun intended.”

  “Don’t stop,” is what Sasha said out loud although in her head she was saying, “Shut the fuck up and don’t stop.” Dudes were good at screwing up a moment by talking too damn much or saying the wrong thing. She was on the verge of climaxing. No way could she let this moment be in vain by allowing him to mess up the mood by using his mouth in all the wrong ways.

  “Mmmm.” Terrance was slurping and slapping as he ate the kitty, and Sasha was purring like she was a kitty; a kitty being stroked just right. The faster his tongue flicked and sucked, the more and louder she meowed until she erupted in his mouth.

  “Oh, uh, ah,” Sasha said as she now gripped the pole with both hands. Her eyes were still closed as she allowed the sensational feeling she’d just experienced to marinate.

  Terrance took Sasha’s leg off of his shoulder and stood up. He began kissing her neck. She had barely been able to come to grips with how good his tongue had felt on her private parts, and now he was putting it to work on her neck.

  Sasha could feel Terrance’s hardness against her. Then it hit her. I hope this nigga don’t think I’m ’bout to return the favor. Didn’t nobody tell him to eat my pussy. That raunchy thought stayed in her head, but she meant it and would unleash it if he dare tried to put his dick in her face.

  “I’ve tasted you, now I want to feel inside of you,” Terrance whispered in her ear before tracing it with the tip of his tongue.

  Sasha’s body tightened with sexual tension. The irony of it all was that the first song Terrance had played on the jukebox was coming to pass. Her mind was telling her no, that giving up the cookies to this man on the first night would have her singing Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam’s hit song. But her body’s reactions were screaming yes.

  She hadn’t been intimate with a man in almost a year. She needed this. Hell, she deserved this. And besides that, no one would ever have to know. What was so wrong with Terrance just being the guy she went home with and screwed? It wasn’t like she was going to marry him or anything, even though he was making the cut according to her checklist. She couldn’t marry him now. No way could she humiliate herself by having to share stories with their children of how they’d met . . . and had sex on the first night.

  Five minutes later as Sasha scratched her nails down Terrance’s bare back as he thrusted in and out of her, she realized that she’d just thrown all her inhibitions out of the window. Oh, and that thought about her not wanting Terrance thinking she was a desperate ho . .
. that was out the window, too. But little did she know, now there was one other thing dangling on the window’s ledge as well: her dreams.

  Chapter 10

  “Okay, bitch, what’s his last name?”

  His last name? Even when Sasha had called her mother up to tell her about the nice basketball player she’d met, her mother hadn’t quizzed her as much as Norman was now quizzing her.

  Sasha sat on her couch with her feet tucked under her. She eyeballed her cell phone, which was right next to her on the end table. Since arriving to Atlanta, Sasha had saved up some of her coins and invested them in a nice living room suite; well, a partial one, anyway. The entire set she’d eyeballed in the store consisted of a couch, loveseat, chair, ottoman, a coffee table, two end tables, and some throw pillows that had been situated on the display for show. Sasha had only gotten the couch and one end table. She was going to go back and get the chair and ottoman once she’d saved up enough money. The store clerk who’d assisted her suggested she apply for a credit account so that she could take everything home that she wanted that day. But that wasn’t how Sasha did things. She refused to get pulled into the black hole of living off of credit. If she couldn’t afford to pay for it now or within the next thirty days, she wasn’t getting it. She knew that once she was ready to open her own boutique, she’d have to take out credit then, so she had to make sure she had credit score swag by keeping her credit on fleek.

  “I see you looking at that phone,” Norman griped. “You better not pick it up and try to Google that man’s last name.”

  Sasha bit her bottom lip. She’d been busted, because that’s exactly what she had been about to do. “Uggghhh.” Sasha buried her face in her hands. She was embarrassed and humiliated.

  “Umm, hmm, you just ought to be hiding your face in shame. Not only do you sleep with the man on your first date—”

  “It wasn’t really a date,” Sasha corrected, removing her face from her hands. Ironically, it was as if she was about to save face, her own, to some degree. “We were just out grabbing a drink . . . at the same place.”

  “Even worse,” Norman snapped. “You sleep with a man the first night you see him—”

  Once again Sasha cut Norman off. “Was introduced to him. Remember I told you that he saw me at that charity event?” Sasha nodded as if that made the scenario all the better.

  “Whore, for real?” Norman tilted his head to the side, smacked his lips, and sucked his teeth.

  “I am not a whore,” Sasha said adamantly.

  Norman tilted his head in thought for a moment. “Yeah, you right. You ain’t a whore. A whore got enough marbles to get paid for giving up the cookies. You just a plain ole ho!” Norman said. “I thought you had a better business sense than that.” He frowned. “You been running around here scoping out other boutiques to see how they have their stores set up, how they are running their businesses and what not. You’ve been going to business seminars, sketching, tagging along with me on my gigs; all in the name of being Miss Business Entrepreneur Extraordinaire. And you don’t even pull out your tin bucket to collect when you hit the jackpot? Or should I say when you let the jackpot hit you?” Norman pretended he was humping and smacking ass. “Pow! Pow! Pow!”

  Sasha looked around for something to throw at him. She wasn’t about to risk destroying her iPhone. Damn, why hadn’t she just splurged for the matching toss pillows that had decorated the couch in the store? She could have definitely stood to toss them right about now. “I knew I shouldn’t have told you.” Sasha crossed her arms and pouted.

  “I know you don’t call yourself being mad at me, girlfriend,” Norman said. “You know I speak the truth. You only told me because you wanted me to confirm the truth that you were feeling about yourself, which is that you’re a ho.”

  Sasha couldn’t help but let out a laugh at Norman’s bluntness. “You are so stupid.”

  “No, you are. You don’t give it up to a baller the first night and don’t get shit but a damn drink and reputation as a jump-off in return. If you think he’s not gonna tell everyone around town about tapping your fine ass, you’re crazy.”

  “What was I supposed to do, sleep with the man and then ask him to pay my car note?”

  “Absolutely not,” Norman said. “You’re supposed to sleep with the man and then ask him to pay your car note and your rent.” Norman exhaled. “I can see you have a lot to learn if you plan on hoeing around Atlanta.”

  “Well, I don’t plan on hoeing around Atlanta,” Sasha said, offense now reflected in her voice. “I hadn’t planned on sleeping with him; it just happened.”

  “Just happened, huh?” Norman said, not completely buying it. “First Casey takes you to a strip club, then she introduces you to a guy you decide to screw immediately?”

  “Yes, it just happened,” Sasha said, then cast her eyes downward. After a couple seconds she looked back up at Norman. “And I wanted it, too. Is that so bad?”

  Norman’s face transformed as if he was coming to a realization. “Oh, my Lord Jesus, Mary Mother of God.” Norman stood up and stared at Sasha. “You done caught feelings for the dick.” He snapped his fingers. “Just that quick . . . and on the first hump!” Norman began pacing. “What in the world am I going to do with you?”

  “Not just his dick, but I’m digging on him,” Sasha said. “Terrance is a really nice guy.” Sasha looked down.

  “I can’t take all this puppy-dog sadness,” Norman said. “Yes, if I wanted I suppose I could spend the next few minutes beating you up, or I can be your gay boyfriend and comfort you.”

  Sasha looked up at Norman, hoping he chose the latter. She was out of cocoa butter to rub on the bruises that came with one of Norman’s tongue whippings.

  “Oh, princess,” he said as he went and sat next to Sasha, putting his arm around her. “It’s okay. Nectarines come to Atlanta all the time and get caught up before they’ve earned their peach fuzz. It’s happened to the best of us, trust and believe. Sexing a baller will give you some fuzz. It’s how half the girls in Atlanta get down at some point.”

  “But now that you’ve put everything in perspective, I do feel stupid,” Sasha said. “And I am a ho.” She made a face as if she’d just eaten something disgusting. “I don’t even know his last name.” She whined as she allowed her head to drop on Norman’s shoulder.

  “Chile, you don’t need me to beat you up. You’re doing a fine job of it yourself.” Norman exhaled. “But if it will make you feel any better, his name is Terrance McKinley.”

  “McKinley, yeah, that’s it!” Sasha said excitedly. She now remembered Miss Hart calling him Mr. McKinley. In that moment she felt even more ashamed that she knew his housekeeper’s last name and not his.

  Norman continued on. “His position is starting point guard. He plays offense, too. He attended Florida State for his freshman and sophomore year of college. Very smart. Was actually one of very few, if any, college basketball players drafted to the NBA that were on an academic scholarship instead of a basketball scholarship. Chose to throw his name in the hat for the draft after his sophomore year. His mom had learned she had breast cancer and he wanted to guarantee the family had the money to save her life.”

  It touched Sasha that Terrance had been willing to do whatever it took to save his mother. He probably would have gotten to that part in his rant last night outside his house if Sasha hadn’t cut him off.

  “He lives a hop, skip, and jump from Buckhead. Signed a new contract with the league last year for several million dollars. Has a few endorsements under his belt, which is mad money, so he’s not struggling. Never been married, no kids, not even a maybe baby. There. Now you know pretty much everything you need to know about the man you slept with.” Norman shrugged.

  Sasha’s eyes burned a hole through him as he spoke.

  He looked down at her as her head still rested on his shoulder. “What?”

  “I’m afraid to even ask how you just happen to know so much about Terrance.” There w
as a look of pure fear in Sasha’s eyes.

  Norman stared at her for a moment, then busted out laughing. “Oh, no . . . You think . . . Chile, please.” He pushed her head off of him. “He is not my type.”

  “Whether or not he’s your type is not my concern,” Sasha said. “It’s whether you’re his type that gives me pause.” Sasha swallowed, hoping, waiting, that Norman would put her mind at ease.

  “The man’s not gay, if that’s what you’re wondering. He’s not bisexual, either. He’s not looking for a woman to be his beard, either.”

  “Beard?” Sasha questioned.

  “Chile, yes; that chick, that trophy, that arm piece that a man uses to project to the world that he’s a heterosexual knowing all the while he’s allergic to fish.”

  Sasha nodded her understanding. “Well, you know so much about him, I was just wondering if he, you know, ran in the same crowd as you.”

  “That would depend on which crowd you were referring to,” Norman said. “Call me the melting pot of Atlanta. Honey, I can mix in with the best of them. But the crowd I know ya boy from is Atlanta’s elite. I’ve dressed him before.”

  That fact didn’t put Sasha’s mind at ease.

  “Not like that, silly girl,” Terrance said, swatting her leg. “His publicist hires me from time to time to make sure he’s crisp when he has a photo shoot or television interview or something. I do my research on my clients. The way I dress them has to be cohesive with who they are as a person. You know what I’m saying? What a person wears is an extension of who they are. I have to be on my A game. So he either keeps his shenanigans real close to the chest, unlike ya boy Eric apparently, or he’s not a closet freak. We hope.”

  Sasha learned something new from Norman every day. But the one thing she was truly glad she’d learned was that the man she’d had a one-night stand with was straight.

  “So let me ask you something,” Norman said. “Was there at least protection involved when you let a complete stranger hit it?”