by Roy Glenn
Travis wandered casually through the store and picked up the things he wanted. He threw some steaks, T-bones and Porterhouses, in the cart, then he proceeded to the seafood counter. He wanted to get ten pounds of fresh shrimp. He loved shrimp and was determined to make sure he didn’t run out like they did the last time. Maybe he’d get some scallops as well.
Travis waited patiently with the crowd of people gathered around the counter for his number to come up. Each time the number on the Now Serving sign changed, he’d look at his number and think, Damn, how long is this going to take? Finally his number appeared on the screen and he stepped up.
“Can I help you, sir?”
“Yeah, let me have ten pounds of your tiger shrimp and two pounds of—Ouch!” Travis screamed as someone ran a shopping cart into the back of his ankle.
“Oh, I am so sorry. I wasn’t looking where I was going,” the woman said.
“Well, maybe you should look,” Travis started to say angrily until he turned and saw her. She stood before him looking so innocent and very apologetic with a box of cereal in her hand. “That’s all right,” Travis said with a brand-new attitude. “I shouldn’t have been in your way.” But in his mind, all he could think was, My God, she is so beautiful.
“Say, you want ten pounds of your tiger shrimp and two pounds of what, sir?” the counter attendant said to snap Travis back to reality.
Travis turned to face the attendant. “That was two pounds of scallops, please,” Travis said quickly and turned back to the woman, but she was gone. He left the seafood counter and walked across the back of the store, looking down each aisle as he passed. “Where did she go so quick?”
Travis returned to the seafood counter to pick up his order and headed toward the front of the store. All the while he kept looking for her. Damn, Travis, the least you should have done was ask her name.
He searched up one aisle and down the next, but she was nowhere to be found. He finally gave up and went to the cashier. Travis paid for his items and headed out of the store to his car, still looking. He couldn’t get the picture of her out of his mind.
She was the prettiest woman he’d ever seen. She stood about five feet seven inches tall, about 150 pounds, he guessed. She was dressed very conservatively in a blue pants suit and modest two-inch heels. And she had pretty feet; he loved a woman with pretty feet. Her skin was the color of coffee once the cream was added. Her hair was jet black and pulled back in a ponytail. She had very pretty eyes, even though she hid them behind small-framed glasses that sat on the end of her nose. The sound of her voice floated around in his mind as he drove home.
Oh, I am so sorry. I wasn’t looking where I was going.
Travis was hooked and he knew it. Only problem was, he didn’t know her name; he didn’t know where or how to find her; he didn’t know anything about her. He just had a picture of her that he couldn’t get out of his mind, and the sound of her voice rang continuously in his ears. He stopped at a red light and closed his eyes. Like a movie playing in his mind, he saw her standing there with that box of Special K in her hand. Oh, I am so sorry. I wasn’t looking where I was going. The sound of horns honking behind him quickly brought Travis back and he drove on.
When Travis got back to his house, Jackie and Ronnie were not only there, they were inside the house waiting for him. That was cool, since they all had a key to each other’s houses.
He entered to find Ronnie in the dining room, seated at the table with an ounce of weed and four boxes of Phillies in front of him. “What’s up, Ronnie?” he asked.
“Yo! I was starting to wonder if you were comin’ back in time for tonight’s set.”
“Been back for a couple of hours,” Travis said as he put the beer in the cooler. “Just ran to the store to pick up some meat to throw on the grill. Where’s Jackie?”
“You know grill master Jay is outside firing up the grill.”
“Good. I wanted to talk to you alone,” Travis said. He had wondered how he was going to approach the subject with Ronnie. He didn’t want to come right out and say, “If you keep fuckin’ up, Freeze is going to kill you.” All that would do is make Ronnie want to confront Freeze, and that definitely wasn’t the way. Travis would have to find a less dramatic way to go about it.
“What’s up?” Ronnie asked as he continued to roll blunts.
Travis sat down at the table across from Ronnie and looked at his friend. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking these last couple of days. Thinking about how things went down in the jewelry store.”
“I kinda figured that was what this was all about, and before you say anything, I want you to know that I’m sorry. I lost my head and that will never happen again. Jackie was right, those extra fifteen seconds I spent kickin’ old boy in the face was the difference between us walking away with no problems and us having to shoot it out with the rent-a-cops and gettin’ chased by the cops.”
“Not only that, it cost us big with Murray,” Travis added.
“Yeah, I know.” Ronnie laughed. “Now I got to be on a budget. Couldn’t get my after the job freak on the way I like to. Got to make this money last until the next job.”
“I been thinkin’ about that too.”
“You got something planned out already?”
“No. I been thinkin’ about gettin’ out,” Travis said.
“Hold up. You ain’t thinkin about quitting because I fucked up, are you?”
“It’s not just that, Ron. It’s a lot deeper than that. Maybe I’m slippin’. I should have had a contingency plan in place if anything went wrong while we were in the store. It wasn’t the tight timeline; it was my failure to plan for the manager having a weapon and include that in the timeline.”
“You ain’t still blaming yourself for that, are you? I’m tellin’ you the shit was my fault, plain and simple.”
“That and my lack of contingency planning once the alarm was triggered.”
“That shit went without saying. Get the shit as quick as we can and get the fuck out of there. It don’t get no clearer than that. We didn’t need no contingency plan for that.”
“Yes, Ronnie, we did. We need to have a plan in place to counter anything that could possibly happen.”
“Okay, I can see where you’re right about that. So what’s up, Travis? You in or out?”
“I’m still down. I don’t have enough money to retire. All I’m sayin is that I thought about it, and we—and that definitely includes my planning—need to tighten up.”
“Tighten up on what?” Jackie asked as she came in the house.
“Nothing, Jackie,” Travis said quickly, and Ronnie gave him a look.
“What’s up, Travis? I hope you got meat, ’cause the grill is hummin’.”
“It’s all in the kitchen waiting for you, Jackie,” Travis said.
“Travis talkin’ about quitting, Jackie,” Ronnie said with an attitude.
“What?”
“That we need to tighten up,” Ronnie said, looking very seriously at Travis. It was obvious that he was angry and bitter about what he had just heard. “More to the point, I need to tighten up.”
“No, both y’all niggas need to tighten up. Ronnie, you need to stop your bullshit and stick to the plan. No deviation, just do what the plan calls for,” Jackie said. “Travis, you need to do a much better job at planning for contingencies. You got to have a plan, and a contingency plan for that plan. And then you need a contingency plan for that plan, just in case any one of us fucks it all up,” she said as she began to season the steaks.
Ronnie and Travis sat across from one another at the dining room table and stared. Other than the sound that Jackie was making in the kitchen, silence and tension filled the room. Ronnie extended his hand. Travis reached out and grabbed it. “You know, it’s funny, Travis. Jackie said exactly what you did, but I was mad at you for sayin’ it. All you were tryin’ to say is that we both need to tighten up, and I took it like you were just comin’ down on me. I’m sorry, man. I d
on’t know where my head was. Probably been smokin’ too many blunts. But I got it in check, Travis.”
“Good,” Jackie yelled from the kitchen. “Glad y’all two got that settled.”
Ronnie picked up one of the blunts he had rolled and lit it. He took a drag and handed it to Travis. “Let no man break up what we built,” Ronnie said.
So now it was party time. They usually invited six women to the party. Three would be dancers, and the other three would be, for lack of a better word, regular women. The dancers were there to set the tone for the evening and get things started. They usually left around 11 o’clock to make it to the club in time to make money. The other women were invited to close out the evening.
This night was a little different. Since Travis had been out of town, he didn’t invite anybody. He did tell Jackie to make sure Mystique was there, and Ronnie said in his message that she would be, but she was a no-show.
By the time 10 o’clock rolled around, the party had gone to another level. Everybody was having a good time; everybody but Travis, who try as he may, couldn’t seem to get involved. And when he did, it wouldn’t hold his attention for very long. No matter what he did, he kept thinking about the woman he met, or at least saw, at the store. He had made up his mind that somehow, some way he would find her.
By 11 o’clock, Ronnie had disappeared with two women and hadn’t resurfaced. For her part, Jackie had a little dancing orgy going on in the living room with one of the dancers who called herself Crème. The woman she invited left earlier because the action was a bit much for her. Jackie said she understood the set was a little overwhelming, but still gave the woman a sample of what she was missing before she left.
Travis had settled onto the chaise lounge and was watching boxing when the doorbell rang. He wondered who was coming to his house unannounced and uninvited. He got up to answer it, since Jackie appeared to be in no position to do so. She did, however, lift her head. “You got that, Tee?”
“Yeah, Jackie, I got this. Go back to what you were doing,” Travis replied as he made his way to the door. He looked out the peephole and couldn’t tell who it was. Whoever it was knocked loudly on the door. Reluctantly, Travis opened the door.
“Hello, Travis.” A female voice came from the shadows. As she stepped forward, Travis was surprised but not shocked to see that it was Mystique.
“Hello, Mystique. Come on in,” Travis said.
Mystique stepped inside dressed in a black leather jumpsuit and black boots. “I see I’m not too late,” she said, watching Crème wide-eyed and shaking as Jackie applied her skills.
“Not really. As far as I’m concerned, you’re just in time. Make yourself comfortable.”
“I’ve heard a lot about these parties of yours, Mr. Travis Burns. I was starting to wonder what you had to do to get an invite to one of these things.”
“Well, it helps if I know you exist, which I didn’t know about you until the other night,” Travis said as he reclaimed his spot on the chaise and resumed watching the fight. Once Jackie and Crème acknowledged Mystique’s presence, they too made a quick departure, leaving Travis alone with Mystique.
“Do you want me to dance for you, Travis?” Mystique asked as she took off her boots and pulled down the zipper of her jumpsuit.
“You can if you want to,” Travis answered and glanced in her direction.
“You don’t seem like you’re in a very good mood. Maybe I should go.”
“No!” Travis said quickly and much louder than he needed to. “Please, I want you to stay. I didn’t mean to be rude.” He smiled. “I know you want my undivided attention.”
Mystique laughed too. “I did say that, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did. And I’m sorry if I seem a little distracted. I just have a lot on my mind. But believe me, that has nothing to do with you.”
“Is it something that you can talk about?” Mystique asked and sat down on the chaise next to Travis.
“No, it’s nothing I can talk about, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t just sit here for a while and talk about other things,” Travis said.
“That would be nice,” Mystique said. “Nobody ever wants to just talk to me. It’s always dance, dance, dance.”
So they talked. Every now and then a song would come on that Mystique liked and she would get up and dance for him. For the most part, she seemed content just to sit and talk. Mystique was beginning to like Travis, not as a client or someone she just danced for, but as a person. Travis was enjoying talking to her, too, but he had already made up his mind that there was no future in a relationship with a dancer. Still, he was always polite. Besides, Mystique was fine as hell, could dance her ass off, and she was a whole lot more intelligent than he thought she would be. Their conversation jumped from one subject to the other while the two shared drinks, blunts, and old stories. And they laughed; they laughed like little children playing in the park. Each was really starting to dig the other’s vibe.
As midnight rolled around, the main event on boxing started. Mystique had danced her way completely out of her clothes. “I wanted to watch this fight, too,” she announced.
“Why don’t you sit down and watch it then?” Travis suggested. “But the leather on this chaise can get a little hot and sticky if you sit on it naked for a while,” Travis said, and took off his shirt. He laid it out on the chaise and Mystique stretched out across it, easing her way close to Travis.
By round five of what was turning out to be a pretty dull fight, Mystique had snuggled up close to Travis and was running her fingers through the hair on his chest. By round seven of what was now definitely a very dull fight, Travis had put his arm around her and began to caress her back. Mystique started making circles around his nipples then quickly flicked her tongue at one. His body shook. Mystique inched closer to Travis and put her leg in between his legs. She ran that leg up and down, which made him harder with every stroke.
Halfway through round nine, Travis turned off the television. Mystique took off his pants and put a condom on him without using her hands. She got on top of him and rode him very slowly, grinding her hips and using her muscles until she could feel Travis begin to expand inside her, then she’d stop. Mystique did this again and again until Travis could no longer contain himself. He pushed her off of him and stood up. Mystique smiled; she knew she had his undivided attention now.
She turned her body away from Travis and crawled up on the chaise. “You’re not afraid of me, are you, Travis?” she asked, looking over her shoulder.
Travis took a deep breath and looked at Mystique’s wide hips and glistening bush. Then he laughed and said, “I ain’t afraid of shit.”
He stepped up and grabbed Mystique by her hips and entered her slowly. Mystique began to moan and squirm as she took in every inch. Once she had taken all of him inside her, she began winding her hips. Travis let go of her hips and allowed Mystique to move her body freely. Every once in a while, Travis would grab and squeeze one of her cheeks as Mystique began to buck harder and harder. Travis leaned forward, grabbed Mystique by the shoulders, and began to pound furiously on that ass until her body started to tremble.
“Ooooooooh!”
Mystique tried to move and change positions, but Travis wouldn’t allow it. He slowed his roll and reached between her legs, fingering her clit with one hand and squeezing her breast with the other. He got into a long, rhythmic stroke, pulling almost completely out of her then slowly easing himself back inside of her. Each time he entered her fully, he smacked her ass. Not hard, but firm.
“Ooooh, Travis, I like it like that,” Mystique said as the steady motion gave her a chance to catch herself. She separated herself from Travis and rolled over on her back.
Mystique lifted her legs and grabbed her ankles. “Come get this pussy, Travis.”
With the weight of his body on his arms, Travis once again eased himself inside Mystique. He began the same slow and steady motion and Mystique wrapped her legs around his waist. Their bo
dies melted into a rhythm, with Mystique working her hips and inner muscles while licking his nipples. Now it was Travis whose body began to tremble and Mystique who was pounding her hips furiously into him until they both reached a very loud and violent climax, then collapsed into each other’s arms, laughing.
“Damn that shit was good,” they both had to agree.
Chapter Six
It had been exactly one week since Travis saw the woman at the grocery store, and he still couldn’t get her out of his mind. Whenever he closed his eyes he would see her standing there just as she had been that day. Travis could still hear her voice echoing in his ears. Oh, I am so sorry. I wasn’t looking where I was going.
In his dreams, however, his subconscious mind added more to their encounters. He dreamed about her almost every night since the first time he saw her. The dreams were always different, but the theme was always the same. Travis would try to get to her, and something would prevent that from happening, then her image would fade just out of his reach.
One night, Travis dreamed that he was in a park and saw her walking alone down a path. It was a windy day and she was draped in white silk scarves that flowed freely in the wind. As he approached, a crowd of men began to form around her. They were thankful to be in her presence. They told her how beautiful she was and how much they would love to love her. Travis worked his way through the crowd with the hope of getting close to her, but the crowd was too thick, and he couldn’t reach her. He struggled against the crowd, but she got farther and farther away.
All at once, the crowd separated, leaving him with a clear path to her as she continued her walk. Travis started to walk faster then broke into a trot in an attempt to catch up with her. Suddenly, the seafood counter attendant, dressed like he was in a Men In Black movie, appeared from out of thin air. He held out his hand and Travis ran into it, falling to the ground.
