“Now kiss me goodbye,” I said.
He leaned in and tongue kissed my pussy, then looked up and said goodbye. I walked out of his office with the DVD in my hand. There was nothing like a good nut on a crazy night.
* * *
While I drove, I searched for the card Evengeliza Moore had given me. When I found it, I dialed her number, and she picked up on the second ring.
“Hi. I don’t know if you remember me, but I met you some time ago, and you gave me your card at a boutique. My name is Tangie. I’m about to marry—”
She cut me off as soon as she realized who I was. I could almost hear her salivating at the sound of my voice. “Yes, I know who you are. What can I do for you?”
“I’m sorry that I was so rude to you when we first met, but I have something that I think you would want.”
“And what makes you think that?” she asked, trying to sound as if she wasn’t interested. But curiosity dripped from her voice like water from an ice cube that had been left out on a summer day.
“It’s a tape . . . well, a DVD . . . of someone famous getting fucked, and let’s just say that it’s not a female.”
I heard her take a deep breath, as if she was starved for air.
“Wait, are you saying that he is fucking someone or that he’s getting fucked?”
“Oh, he’s getting fucked. So are you in or out?”
I didn’t have time to waste, so she had better act quickly. The sex tape was going to be leaked with or without her.
“Can I meet with you? Where are you right now?” she asked.
“I’m leaving the city. Just give me an address where we can meet up.”
She quickly gave me an address. I wrote down the directions, and twenty minutes later I was there. She was already waiting for me when I pulled up, and by the looks of things, she was anxious as hell. She got out of her car and got into mine once I signaled to her.
“Before we start this, I want you to give me your word that no one will ever find out who gave you this sex tape,” I said to her as I held the DVD out so that she could see it.
“No one will ever know. We have contracts for these things. You could sue us if your name ever came out in this. Besides, I will be the only one who knows that you gave it to me.”
Once she said this, I told her exactly what she was going to find on the DVD. By the end of my explanation, she was damn near jumping out of the seat.
“So how much is all of this going to cost me?” she asked.
“Well, I know that once this gets out, you’re going to make a whole lot of money on it. So just make me an offer.”
“One million dollars.” She said this as if she knew that I wasn’t going to take it.
Her doing this, it let me know that she could go a lot higher.
“Well, how about you call me when you really want the tape?” I responded.
“Okay, three million,” she offered.
I took my keys and started up my car. “Like I said, call me.”
“Well, why don’t you just tell me how much money you want?”
“Five million.” I blurted out my price with no hesitation.
“Four million,” she spat back.
“Look, I can always let this go to someone else. So either you give me four point five million or we have no deal.”
She sat in my brand-new car and thought about it, and then she extended her hand. I shook her hand, and the deal was made.
“We have a deal. I’ll take the tape now,” she said.
She should have known that I was not parting with the DVD until I had my money.
“I’ll call you with an account number, and when the funds are there, I’ll let you have the tape,” I told her.
“Aw, that’s some bullshit. I haven’t even seen the tape yet, and you want me to trust you?”
“Fine. You don’t have to do this. But do you really think that I can get away with scamming you? I am about to be Tay’von’s wife. You can always put it out there that I stole your money. So you have a choice. You can do this or not.”
Again, she sat there thinking about what I had just said. “So how and when do you want to do this?” she finally said.
I told her that in the morning I would call her and give her all the information. Once everything was right with the money, she would have her DVD the same day. Satisfied, she got out of my car and went back to hers.
I put my car in gear and drove home, feeling like I could conquer the world. Payback wasn’t for the faint of heart. Thank God I no longer had one.
Chapter 17
Rot In Hell, You Dirty Bitch
When I got home, Tay’von was sitting on the stairs, waiting for me. I walked into the room as if nothing had gone down.
“Where the fuck have you been for damn near two hours?” he snapped.
“I don’t feel like dealing with your shit right now, Tay’von. And why would you care? I’m a freak, right?”
He reached out, grabbed my arm, and pulled me to him. “You just leave, and no one knows where you are. Then you tell me that I shouldn’t care? Man, fuck what you’re saying. Where the hell have you been?”
I took a cup out of my handbag and showed it to him. “If you would take the time and look, maybe you would see where I was at.”
After I left my little meeting with Evengeliza, I had stopped at an all-night ice cream shop. I had bought a milk shake and then had thrown half of it out. I knew that I would need it to throw Tay off.
“So you just ate there in your T-shirt?”
“Oh, I’m sorry for not stopping and putting on any clothes. The freak in me must have gone to my head and clouded my judgment.”
“Come on, Tangie. You know I didn’t mean that shit.”
“Well, while I was out, I did some thinking. I don’t think that we should go on with the wedding. There are a lot of things that are not right with us, so maybe we should rethink things.”
I could tell that what I was saying was about to make him lose his mind.
“What the fuck are you talking about, Tangie? Don’t do this. I told you that I was sorry.”
I sucked my teeth as if I didn’t care about what he was saying. “If you’re really sorry, I can’t tell. I’m sure this shit is going to happen every time you even think that I have been with someone else, and I will not be able to take that. For you to even bring up Amira’s name is so fucked up. I thought that we were trying to get past all of that?”
“I know, I know, Tangie. Please don’t put this wedding on hold. I know that I was wrong. We’re only a week away from being married. I’m not even going to have you sign this prenuptial agreement that my lawyer drew up. That’s how much I trust you, baby.”
“What! You were thinking about having me sign a prenup?” I crossed my arms in front of me and waited for his answer.
“It wasn’t me. My lawyer thought that it would be a good idea. It’s not about you. It’s just a precautionary measure that most people with money take.”
“So you weren’t going to marry me unless I signed it?”
“Baby, as soon as I saw you, I knew that I wasn’t going to ask you to sign it. I know you love me for me and not for my money, so fuck what everyone has to say.”
I knew that he had people in his ear about me, but fuck them. I would call off the wedding for real before I signed a prenup. But since it seemed that I had him right where I wanted him, I let everything go and stopped playing with his mind.
“Did you talk to Carl about things?”
He nodded. “Yeah. We’re cool.”
I walked away from him and said nothing else on the issue. What most people didn’t know was that there was an art to deceit. You just couldn’t sit around hoping that things would go your way. You had to make them go your way, without any detours.
I went upstairs and found Shamika still packing her things, and it pissed me off. She should have been gone by the time I got back. But as I thought about things, I realized that I could
get back at her a better way. I asked Black if I could speak to him. He said yes and followed me into my bedroom. I told him that what Shamika had done was fucked up, but since we were leaving for Miami soon, they didn’t have to leave the house. I also let him know that what little friendship Shamika and I had shared was over. I let him know that I wouldn’t be a bitch to her, but that I really didn’t want to be around her.
The real truth was that I wanted to see what happened when the DVD got leaked and Black found out that it was all her fault.
* * *
The next morning I met with Evengeliza again. Within thirty minutes, the money was in my account, and I couldn’t have been happier. I handed her the DVD, and we determined when the best time would be for the story to break. That bitch Shamika had some shit coming her way that she would not be able to handle. After my meeting with Evengeliza, I made sure to stop and get my hair done so that I would have an alibi. Then I went home, and an hour later, we were on our way to Miami.
The weather in Miami was wonderful. As soon as we landed, fans and photographers bombarded us. We fought our way through the crowd with help from Carl, Tony, and airport security, then made our way to the limo.
“How in the hell did they find out that we would be here?” I asked, as if I didn’t know.
I had made sure that Evengeliza knew where the wedding was going to be held. I wanted cameras there just in case Black killed Shamika. I wanted everyone to see the madness that happened when you crossed the line with me. I wanted it to be a silent warning. Although no one would know that she had fucked with the wrong bitch, I would know, and that would feed my ego big-time. It would bring me much satisfaction to see that bitch lying there, murdered in cold blood.
I went on. “I made sure to keep everything low profile. I don’t know how this could have happened.” I was laying it on thick.
Tay laughed because he knew that this pleased me to the core. “Oh, please, Tangie. You know that you’re happy that everyone is treating this wedding like you are Princess Diana and I’m the prince. You know how these things are. They always find things out that you don’t want them to know.”
I wanted to laugh, but I held it in, making sure my face didn’t show my real feelings. The press was about to get their hands on the story of the decade.
* * *
The house that we were staying in, in Miami was gorgeous. Walking through it made me want to move into it. I knew that I had always said that I’d never move to the South, but this house was calling my name. I thought that maybe I could convince Tay to get me a beach house down there. The week was going to go by fast, so I put that thought on the back burner.
People started flying in, and of course, we put them up in the best hotels. They were all the best players in their field. Singers, rappers, basketball and football players, actors, and even a few talk show hosts came. We had to treat them to the best things a privileged life had to offer. This wedding was starting to look like the event of the year, and we weren’t going to let them down.
I really hadn’t said much to Shamika lately, and it seemed as if everyone else had been giving her the cold shoulder too. Even Carl’s forgiving ass wasn’t talking to her, and with all the running around I was doing, I didn’t have time to pay attention to the drama that surrounded her.
* * *
Friday night had finally come, and Tay’von and I got ready for our dinner party the night before the wedding. Not only was the press hounding us, but they were also after anyone on our star-studded guest list and tried to corner our guests as they flew in. Miami was buzzing outside the norm, and it had everything to do with us. You couldn’t turn on the TV or a radio without hearing about our wedding. We didn’t think that the week would go by so fast, but the next day we would be married, and I couldn’t wait to get that ring on my finger. I put on a scandalously tight little white Dior dress for the dinner party. I dressed it up with a lot of gold bangles and other heavy gold jewelry. I moussed my hair and wore it in a wet, curly look. Hey, I was in Miami, right?
So that meant I had to wear things that I couldn’t get away with in New York. Tay’s attire was also all white, with his hip-hop swagger on full blast. He looked just as good as I did. He always knew what to wear, and he always made it look too easy to be the sexiest man in the room. I guess it came naturally to him. When we were done dressing, we looked at ourselves in the mirror and smiled at what we saw. You could say a lot of things about Tay and me, but the one thing you couldn’t say was that we didn’t look damn good together.
“Look at us, Mr. and Mrs. Miller,” he said with a small smile on his face.
“Are you ready for this?” I asked him. “’Cause once we do this, one of us has to die for this to end.”
He laughed at my statement, as if I wasn’t telling the truth. “Listen to you sounding like me.”
I gave him a serious look. “You said that this was for life. I just need you to understand that what you said is true. There is no going back. This is till death.”
He looked me in the eyes, then pulled me close. “Till death, baby. Till death,” he whispered before wetting my lips with his.
I had hired one of the biggest cruise ships to host our dinner party. It had cost Tay an arm and a leg to guarantee us the entire ship to ourselves, but we didn’t care. It was worth it. We got to the cruise ship an hour before our guests, and then I watched the people’s facial expressions as they got on the ship. I could tell that they were all impressed as they pointed and nodded their heads at the decor. I overheard a few talk of my exquisite taste.
Before dinner, some of guests sat around listening to the live performers or gambled in the ship’s casino, while others stood around sipping on fine liquor and mingling. At seven o’clock we all settled in our seats and ate dinner. While we dined, some friends stood up and wished us the best of luck and much happiness. The liquor flowed, and everyone was having a good time. We even let some of the paparazzi in to snap some pictures. Finally, dessert was served, and it was almost time for the men to leave the ship so that the ladies could get the bachelorette party started.
Over dessert I looked up and saw one of the photographers talking to Black. I watched them talk; then Black scrunched up his face. I could see him mouth the words, “What are you talking about?” That was when the man pulled out a mini DVD player. They stood there as Black watched the footage. On his face was disbelief. He looked from the DVD footage to Shamika and back to the footage again. She didn’t even notice him looking at her.
This photographer walked away from Black and approached a man who was working on a computer. The computer guy had been posting pictures of Tay and me on all the flat screens that were around the dining room. The photographer, whom I had hired for this exact purpose, earned his money by plugging the mini DVD player into the computer. And in front of everyone on the cruise ship, the footage of Shamika fucking Black popped up on all the TVs. Everyone watched it in shock, and I made sure to catch all their reactions when Shamika pulled out the big black dildo. I knew that they were all asking themselves what Black had been thinking when he allowed her to film their sex play.
Now was the time for me to put my acting skills on blast. I ran over to where the computer through which the DVD was being played, and I yanked the plug out of the wall. The screens in the dining room went blank, and so did everyone’s faces. I thought that Black had lost his mind for the moment. He just stood there, so still, with glazed-over eyes. Then he just charged Shamika like a football player on Super Bowl day, and no one made a move to stop him. Everyone knew and felt that she needed her ass whipped. Finally, Carl stepped up to stop him, but Tay held him back. Tay’von was mystified by what Shamika had done. When Tay glanced at me, I put an “Oh, my God” look on my face. Black attacked Shamika ferociously, and one of the guests from the party stood up and pulled him off Shamika before he killed her. She lay on the floor, bloody and hurt. Tay let go of Carl, and Carl went over and helped her up out of pity.
&n
bsp; “You fucking bitch! I’m going to kill your ass! Let me go,” Black screamed as the guest held him back.
I walked over to Shamika and acted like I was going to help her as I told Tay to call for a car. I pulled her hair back from her face and handed her a napkin for her bleeding lips.
“Now, pull yourself together, Mika. Everyone is watching. Don’t let them see you break down,” I whispered. “Tay’von called a limo for you. I want you to go back to the house and get your things packed.”
She looked at me as if she didn’t want to leave Miami just yet.
“Now, you know that you can’t stay anymore,” I told her. “Black is going to try to hurt you if you do. Just give him some time to cool off and get his mind right. But there is one favor I need you to do for me. After all that has happened, there’s just one thing that I want you to remember—”
She cut me off before I could make my grand statement. “But, Tangie, I don’t know how this got out. I didn’t make a copy or anything. The only one who could have put this out is you know who.”
I put my arms around her and got real close to her. “You may not know how this got out, but I do.”
She looked at me with shock on her face. I wanted to spit in it, but that was too low class for me.
“Come on, Shamika. Don’t look so surprised. Try to look like we’re having a normal conversation. If you don’t, I won’t tell you what I know.”
She tried her best to keep it together, but her body was shaking uncontrollably under my hands.
“Look at me, Shamika, ’cause I’m responsible for the tape getting leaked. That’s right, bitch. I did it.”
She strained to pull away from my grip, but I held on tight.
“It fucking hurts, doesn’t it?” I said. “I have been setting this up since we were on the road. You fucked me over, so now I’m fucking you with the biggest dick I could find. Tell me, how does it feel? Because I’m feeling damn good!”
“You bitch!” she screamed, but I didn’t break.
I still kept the concerned look on my face and made myself look confused and hurt.
The Art of Deceit Page 26