“I’m good. I told you this is fine. That’s like watching Saturday morning cartoons to me. Dude can’t handle neither one of them, like that robe can’t handle your big ass and those titties. No disrespect, Ms. Betsy, but I’ve been checking you out. You don’t have to play with that pussy. I’ve been wanting to feel you on my dick. Even with clothes on, I could tell your body was going to be bad.”
He rubbed his meat out of habit, and she caught the move.
“Boy, you are going to talk yourself into a world of trouble.”
“Then fuck talking. You don’t have to be shy about that pretty pussy throbbing. It’s natural. I just don’t see a need for you to use your fingers when you can get this dick. I’d love to satisfy your pretty ass.”
“Thank you for the compliment, but I don’t think you’re up for the task of handling all this,” she said, then gave a laugh.
“Yes you do. That’s why you gave me a sneak peek at it. If you really want it, get on all fours and make her smile at me.”
“And now what?” she questioned once she was in the requested position, tail up.
“Shit. What do you think happens next? You cum.”
Devin beat her down until the credits played on the flick. He was fine while he was hitting her from the back, but when he flipped her over and dug her out while she lay on her back, her legs spread, he knew he fucked up. They began kissing like they meant something to one another, and when he needed to catch his breath, he sucked on the nipple nearest to his mouth.
From that night forward, his friend’s mama was sneaking him in and out of her bedroom while her son slept down the hall, until she realized Devin had grown feelings for her. It was only a ride on a big dick that could last all night for her, but to Devin, he was damn near engaged. He started hustling and dropping money off on her bills and treating his boy Jamal like he was his son by making sure he kept money in his pocket. Ms. Betsy thought it was cute at first, and then she didn’t.
“What’s all that stuff?” she asked him one night.
“My clothes. I thought I should just leave some over here, since I’m here almost every night. I might as well keep a few things over here, so I don’t have to leave in the middle of the night,” he said as he continued to unpack his bags and fill an empty drawer he had found in her dresser.
“You can’t leave stuff here. Jamal would have a fit if he knew what we had going on. That’s why I tell you to leave after we’re done. If you want to spend the night with me, we need to get a hotel room somewhere.”
“Why pay for a hotel when I help pay bills here? And I was thinking maybe we should tell Jamal what’s been going on between us. I’ve been keeping money in his pocket and making sure he’s straight while we are at school. We should tell him that we are in love. I’m tired of hiding it.”
“In love?” She laughed so hard after repeating the words that tears rolled out of her eyes. “Devin, I’m in love with your dick and head, baby, not you. We are just having fun. Don’t mess that up with feelings. I don’t want to have to call it off with you, because you can’t handle our situation.”
“Ain’t no feelings involved. I was just making sure you didn’t have them. I didn’t want to seem fucked up because I didn’t.”
The lie didn’t flow or sound like the truth, and it didn’t matter, because after he fucked her good that night, he never called or came over again.
* * *
It must have been history repeating itself, with an added twist, because the time had come for Meagan, aka Tammy, to call it quits, too, with the aspiring rap artist because the sex was making her grow attached to him. Out of all three men she cheated on her husband with, Devin was the most skilled with his tool and had her hooked. When she found herself scribbling his name with hers in a heart, like a teenager in love, during an idle period at work, she realized it was time to grow back up. The only adult way to handle it that came to mind was for her to call it quits. She decided to give him one more taste of her goodies before she did.
“You got her sore again, little daddy. I need you to kiss her and apologize. Can you do that for me?” Meagan purred at him.
“Hell yeah, sexy. Your big daddy will do whatever you want,” he said, correcting her reference to their age difference, seeing that he felt it would have been smarter for her to reference the size of his dick. “Make her smile at me.”
Meagan turned on her stomach and got on her knees. Her ass sat high in the sky, like two mountain peaks unreachable by any mountain climber, but he rested a hand on each of her peaks, confident that his climb would be victorious. Placidly, Devin stood behind her, slow to attack the hurdle before him due to him seeing her mountains as nothing more than speed bumps. Meagan didn’t know it, but he was in love with her and would do anything to get her to take the next step with him. He had picked up more hours at Walmart to buy extra studio time so he could record a track that would make enough noise to get him signed by one of Atlanta’s many record labels. When that happened, not only did he have plans to give Meagan the world on a platinum platter, with a chain to match, but he’d also ask her to marry him and birth his child. He didn’t know much about her, because the secrecy of their relationship turned her on, and he liked that it did, yet it didn’t stop him from feeling like she was the one for him, and his dick agreed.
He attacked her face-first now, with the thought of their wedding night on his mind. Tammy, you will be mine, no matter what I have to do, he thought as his tongue went into overdrive.
* * *
The restaurant was packed with partygoers. The crowd ranged from Atlanta’s big-name celebrities and athletes to Meagan’s employees from her modeling agency and the restaurant’s regulars. Georgia Peach’s on Peachtree was always packed, due to the restaurant having the best food in the city and the hottest live entertainment around, but only once a year was it packed in honor of Meagan’s birthday. She had made it to forty, and although she didn’t look it, her private battle with rheumatoid arthritis made her feel every bit that age.
She had left Devin at the hotel early enough to make it on time to brunch and her hair and nail appointments, but she intentionally arrived late at her own party. It was not that she wanted to make an entrance; she stalled to ensure she that was the best dressed at the party. She had the limo driver park across the street, in one of the empty business offices’ parking lots, so she could check out her guests, just in case one of them outshined her in her black, knee-length designer dress with the V cut to the belly button. On the limo’s backseat, she had backup outfits that were just as fabulous, but as it turned out, they weren’t needed, because no one she saw could hold a candle to her.
“Okay, Mr. Hurley. You can drop me off at the door now. And remember, if you leave, don’t go far, and return quickly. When I’m ready to go, I don’t want any delays, or your ass is fired, like the last three drivers. You understand me?”
“Yes, ma’am.” The driver let the words drag off his tongue to give her more of his country accent, since she seemed to like to talk to him as if he were her slave.
“What have I told you about calling me ma’am? Either your ass is stupid or you’re slow. Which is it?”
“Neither. And I apologize, but I never know when to call you Mrs. Tolliver, Ms. Meagan, or Ms. Tammy. No disrespect, but can you give me an update before each trip? Because it’s hard to keep up with who you are for the day.”
“Don’t worry. You won’t last long enough to get an update, Mr. Hurley. Now take me to my destination,” she yelled.
“I have to call you by what you want to fucking go by on any given day, but you can’t call me Angelo, like I asked,” he mumbled, not caring if Meagan heard him or not. She threatened to fire him every time she opened her mouth. He wished she’d just get it over with at this point.
“Excuse me? This isn’t a friendship, nor are we on a first-name basis, Mr. Hurley. You’re the hired help. Know your place. I swear, if I had time to hire another driver, I’d fire you
r ass right now. I knew you wouldn’t make it ninety days with that smart-ass mouth.”
Angelo cranked up the limo and then stopped in front of the restaurant. He rushed to open her door. When she was about to step out, he said, “Enjoy your birthday, Ms. . . .” He paused, not knowing what to call her.
“Mrs. Tolliver, and I plan to.” She exited the limo, took two steps toward the door, and stopped, in a panic. “Mr. Hurley, you haven’t expressed concern to my husband in regards to my names, have you?”
His thick, beautiful lips, which Meagan hadn’t noticed until that very moment, curved into a crooked smile that revealed a mouth full of white teeth and a slight overbite.
“Nah, I haven’t mentioned it,” he said as his dark brown eyes looked her up and down like she was nothing more than a skank and then fixed on her eyes. “I know what you got going on. Your secrets are safe with me. I’m just the hired help.”
He didn’t afford her the opportunity to respond. He shook his head at her, got back in the limo, and drove off.
His ass is fired, Meagan thought as her husband, William, planted a kiss on the back of her bare neck. He had snuck up on her.
“Happy birthday, beautiful.”
Meagan scanned the area for onlookers before she spoke. “What did I tell you about putting your mouth on me, William? Only God knows where it’s been this week.”
“There you go with that shit again. Can we please enjoy your birthday without all the accusations? I fucked up in the past, I’ll give you that, but you want to hold the shit against me for life.”
“Don’t make it sound like it was only once,” Meagan retorted. “Your cheat list is twice the length of your dick. Just because old age has sunk in and you can’t sling him around Atlanta like you used to, don’t think for a second that I have forgotten.”
William shook his head and wrapped his arms around his wife’s waist. “I love you, baby, and I hope you enjoy everything I put together for you tonight.”
Meagan tried to maintain her defensive attitude, but she knew William must have gone out of his way if he was saying that. She couldn’t stand him for all the bullshit he had put her through over the past twenty-one years. If she wasn’t in his ass about his other women, she was healing from the beatings he would give her. Their main issue was that William couldn’t decide if he wanted to treat Meagan like his wife or his goddaughter. Since history provided the evidence that she held both titles in his life, William treated her both ways and beat her whenever he felt it was necessary.
Whenever she thought she could have a heated argument with him, like most married couples did, he reminded her in a heartbeat that he was the closest thing to a father in her life and disciplined her as his child. Sometimes he beat her with a belt across his lap to keep it authentic. However, the majority of his beatings were with his closed fist. Meagan had to admit that through her hate, he still had her heart, and after all the hell-filled years, when she had often had a sore bottom and needed to wear sunglasses to hide the bruises, she was still physically attracted to him.
Though he was sixty-one years old, William didn’t look a day over forty. He kept his salt-and-pepper dreadlocks freshly manicured and tied in the back. His had perfectly trimmed sideburns, and although he was extremely hairy, William kept his face hairless and smoother than a newborn’s booty. Only the rings encircling his light brown eyes marred his looks, giving him a slight raccoon look. Those circles were evidence of his ongoing battle with diabetes. Still, no one could say he wasn’t handsome and well kept for an older man.
The way he sauntered in his shipshape attire, even if it was only his master chef uniform, was what had caught Meagan’s attention so many years ago. He had a style all his own—one that didn’t quite fit the country air of the little city of Albany, Georgia—and he had Meagan’s nose wide open to it. William wasn’t the first older man she had slept with, but he was the first one she had lusted for. She had slept with men who had twice the looks he possessed, but she had never drooled over them, because sex with them had been strictly business.
When Meagan was younger, her mother, Rita, had told her about a game she used to play with Clara. In reality, it was more of a hustle than a game, and the older men in Albany were the hustled. The way the game worked was they’d get the older, hopefully married men to do something inappropriate with them and then would blackmail them for money. It wasn’t a new game. Women had been pulling “the cry wolf and beg for dollars as Kleenex” stunt for years, but for a woman to teach the game raw to her eight-year-old daughter was rare.
“When men look at us, do you know what they see?” Rita asked Meagan while the little girl sat Indian style on the carpeted floor of their home, brushing her doll’s hair.
“Yes, ma’am. They see ass, tits, and two wet mouths.”
“Good girl. They see fuck tools. Which is why we see what when we look at them?”
“Paydays and deposit slips for them depositing their dicks in us. No matter where they stick it in us, there’s a price they got to pay for the poking.”
“I know I taught you better than that. Put that damn doll down and pay attention.” Rita snatched the doll out of Meagan’s hand and tossed it over her shoulder like salt. “Now finish answering the question.”
“We charge for the poking, but a real woman gets paid for her time, attention, conversation, and pretty face. The goal is to get the payday without the poke.”
“Now, that’s better. What type of men give the best paydays?”
Meagan folded her fingers into the palm of her hand and then stretched her arm out in front of her mother. As she named the types, she released her folded fingers one by one and counted.
“One, a married man. He has more to lose and will do anything to lose you first, so he won’t lose his family. Always set your eyes on them first, but be careful of the lurking wife. If it’s easy to get his attention, the wife might already know he isn’t shi . . .”
“Go ahead. You can say it. I told you, say what you want when you want, baby. Just don’t talk that shit to me. Finish it up. What might the wife already know?”
“That he isn’t shit,” Meagan replied, and her mother gave her an approving nod.
“Don’t forget that every woman knows her man, even the bitch that likes to play dumb. Never drop your guard when chasing him down. And if you get caught, remember that no matter what that bitch says, she isn’t your friend. You will learn that hoes like to team up against men. But you are your own army. Understand me?”
“Yes, ma’am, I understand.”
“Now, who is number two?”
“Number two is any man over twenty-five with a job. It doesn’t have to be the best paying. Money is money.”
“And why is a man twenty-five and up with a job number two?” Rita quizzed.
“Because I’m not eighteen, and no man wants to go to jail for touching or fucking on a little girl.”
“Okay, that’s right. Keep going.”
“Number three, a man with deep ties to the church, like a bishop, pastor, or deacon.”
Rita laughed. “That’s your godmama’s favorite type. She gets them all the time because she knows that Bible forward and backward. She starts asking for help with saving her soul, and next thing you know, she’s sucking their souls out of them and filling that pocketbook up. What’s four and five?”
“Four is a man in a position of power, like a judge, senator, or mayor. And five is a man with long money.”
“Good girl.”
Meagan was sure that no other eight-year-old had ever been trained to be a ho by her mama during nightly bedtime stories. As a child, she was smart, and from spending nights over at her classmates’ houses, she figured out that what her mother was teaching her was wrong. But the stories her mother told were more interesting than those lame-ass children’s books that were stacked up next to her bedside. Listening to her mother’s version of blowing hard things down kept her attention more than the big bad wolf’s huff
s and puffs. Thanks to those stories, by the age of twelve, Meagan knew how to fake pregnancy symptoms, the going rate for abortions, and how to smear lipstick on a man’s collar to taunt his ever-so-faithful wife, but she refused to use those skills on her own.
Her first go at the game was by force. Bills were piling up, and her mother was dating a guy who could quickly catch them back up. Rita knew she couldn’t boldly offer her daughter in exchange for his money to pay the bills and continue to enjoy his respect, so she back doored it. She forced her daughter to play the game and taught her how to dress to play the part. Meagan started slowly, with long drawn-out stares at the guy, and then progressed to walking through the house dressed inappropriately. By the time she offered to suck on Charles’s meat, like she had done to her corn on the cob as he watched in awe, he was already debating about making the first move.
She soon began asking him for money, and the first time he said no and began to threaten that he would tell her mother about their three-minute fuck sessions. He came out of pocket for a while, but when he could no longer afford to, she told her mother he had sexually abused her. Since it was Rita’s plan in the first place, she cut his ass off, pretending to be distraught. Meagan began to enjoy playing the game once she saw it was profitable, and this sent her right into the arms of William. Her plan was to cash in on him behind her mother’s and godmother’s backs, but it backfired, and after twenty-one years, she was still in love with him.
As Meagan made her entrance into the restaurant now, William at her side, she was greeted by the sound of “Happy Birthday” being sung to her by a female neo soul artist. The woman sat on a tall bar stool at the center of a stage. The overhead lights grew dimmer in the room with each step Meagan took, but the lights that surrounded her five-tier birthday cake got brighter. The cake caught her attention, but the gifts that adorned the tables took her breath away. She was impressed with the details her husband must have worked out when it came time to decorate the restaurant. Everything was about her. The front of the menu explained how the restaurant was named after the nickname William had given her, and the back of the menu displayed only the items that were Meagan’s personal favorites. Pictures from her modeling days hung on the walls, and the biggest picture in the house was of her cutting the red ribbon at the grand opening of her modeling agency.
Disrespectfully Yours Page 3