Still A Dog

by Mark Anthony

  Me and Steve continued to drink Hennessy and get drunk with each other. The more he drank the more foolishness he spoke and the more of a negative influence he became.

  “Lance, you ain’t ready to die, right?”

  I looked at him and just shook my head no as I tried to figure out where he was gonna go with his statement.

  “’Cause you know what they say about a dog that tastes blood. After he tastes blood you either gotta kill his ass or let him loose to go wild and do his thing. You tasted blood with Mashonda, and since you ain’t ready to be put down it’s time to turn your ass loose!”

  As soon as Steve was done talking, my cell phone rang and I saw that it was Mashonda. I started to let her go to voice mail because I really didn’t want to be bothered at all. But I picked up anyway.

  “What’s up, sexy?”

  I could tell that Mashonda was cheesing through the phone.

  “Nothing. I’m just checking up on you. I just got off work so I was seeing what you’re up to. Did you get my message I left you?”

  “Nah, I didn’t even check my messages yet. I got back and went to sleep so I was really in chill mode.”

  “Oh, okay, so that’s what’s up. But listen, I was thinking about coming up there this weekend to see you.”

  Oh, hell no! I remember initially thinking to myself. If there was one thing I didn’t need, it was for Mashonda to become a bug-a-boo. And she was already showing the signs of a bug-a-boo, blowing up my phone with messages and now she was asking to come check me.

  I was sure that Mashonda had picked up on my hesitation and she jumped right in to break up the awkwardness.

  “Well, I mean I got family in New York, so I was gonna come see them and then I was hoping that we could see each other again,” she added.

  “Yeah, okay, definitely. Just let me know if it’s definite or not and we’ll link up. So where does your family live, what part of New York?”

  “Oh, well, the majority of them are in Harlem. What about you, where do you stay?”

  “In Great Neck, out on Long Island, but—”

  “Oh, so you a baller for real,” she added with a little chuckle.

  Steve was signaling for me to hang up the phone and waving his hands back and forth across his throat.

  “Listen, Mashonda, let me hit you back later on, okay?”

  “Okay, baby, no problem. Just make sure you call me,” she said before we both hung up.

  “That was the Philly chick?” Steve asked.

  I nodded my head that it was as I got up and poured me another drink.

  “Yo, Lance, you already smashed that. What the fuck are you making love on the phone with her for now? Stick and move nigga, stick and move. And why the hell are you telling her where you rest at?”

  “Good pussy will make a nigga do anything!” I replied.

  Steve looked at me and tapped my drink with his, and he chuckled.

  “Yo, since your ass like to make love on the phone, I got somebody that I want you to speak to,” Steve said as he dialed a number on his cell phone and handed it to me.

  “Who the fuck is this?”

  “Just talk, nigga!”

  I looked at Steve’s cell phone and I could see the name that he had dialed: Layla.

  A big smile came across my face as Layla picked up.

  “Hey, Steve,” she said, obviously expecting it to be Steve since it was his number that was calling her.

  “What’s up, Layla? This ain’t Steve, this is Lance,” I responded.

  “Lance? Oh my God! What’s up? How are you?” She was obviously glad to hear from me.

  As the night would play itself out, I was gonna find out that not only was I gonna be glad to hear from her, but I was also going to find out that Steve was right about a dog getting that taste of blood. See, because with me, Mashonda had been that taste of blood, and I was ready to let loose and like a crazed dog in heat I wanted to taste some more blood and now I had my sights set on Layla.

  Again, I was using that unique ability that I was not proud of, to shift my feelings of guilt and thoughts of love for my wife to one side of my brain. By doing that I was able to operate as if I had no conscience at all.

  Chapter Six

  I had been at Steve’s house less than two hours and within that time I was drunk out of my mind. I had basically invited myself over to Layla’s house in Brooklyn where she lived with her teenage daughter and an eleven-year-old daughter, both by different fathers.

  Before heading over to Layla’s house, I took a shower at Steve’s crib and changed my clothes and got real fly. My one-night-stand experience with Mashonda had taught me that all I had to do was walk with the expectation of getting pussy, maintain a certain confidence, and know that I could get any woman to take her panties of for me regardless of how long I knew the woman or how close we were. The key for me was not to come across desperate to fuck or needy and like a crackhead needing a hit of crack. So when I arrived at her house, which was in Canarsie, I maintained that same sense of confidence even through my drunkenness.

  “Lance!” Layla replied with a big smile and a hug as she greeted me at the door. “I see you been hitting the weights or something, you look so good.”

  Layla and I had only met once about a year ago at a Super Bowl party that Steve had at his crib. We had chilled with each other and kicked it the whole night of the Super Bowl and although we had exchanged numbers I never pushed up on her, nor did I feed into her advances when she would call me, because I was trying my best to stay focused. But that was then and this was now, and all I was concerned with was now.

  “That hug felt good. Come here, give me another one,” I said as I grabbed her and pressed my body up against hers.

  Then we separated and just stared at each other for a moment before Layla smiled and asked me to stop staring at her.

  “You know who you look like?”

  “Yeah, I know, the actress Lauren London who played in the movie This Christmas,” she replied as if she had been told that a million times.

  “Nah, but really, you do. I mean, you’re sexier than she is, but you still look like her.”

  “Whatever, she’s younger than me so she looks like me,” Layla joked.

  She invited me in to see the rest of her house and asked me if she could take me on a quick tour of her place. Of course I didn’t mind, so I followed her around as she took me from room to room. In the process she introduced me to her daughters. They both were cute and looked just like their mother.

  Layla was renting one half of a two-family house. She had three bedrooms, a living room, a dining room, a nice kitchen, and two bathrooms, and she kept the place immaculate, and it was well-decorated.

  “And this is my room, my little oasis,” she said, smiling as she opened the door to her room.

  “Is that ocean sounds?” I asked.

  Layla nodded her head yes and explained that she kept that ocean sounds CD playing all day long because it helped relax her and instantly removed any stress that she might be feeling.

  “That’s different, I like that,” I said as I took hold of her hand. “This takes away stress too,” I said and without asking I leaned in and started tongue-kissing her. And without any resistance she began kissing me back. She was really getting into it as she hugged me as tight as she could and kissed me as hard as she could for about two minutes straight.

  “Whoa, whew,” Layla said as she shook her head and smiled and stepped away from me. “I definitely didn’t see that one coming.”

  I didn’t say anything. I just looked at her.

  “Um, yeah, we need to go into the kitchen or the living room or somewhere, anywhere but here,” she said to me as she headed out of her room. Layla was walking in her bare feet and she was wearing what looked like a large head scarf with some kind of African print on it that she was using as a body wrap.

  “You want something to eat?” she asked as she walked in front of me with her ass looking sexy a
s hell in that wrap thing she was wearing.

  I was starving, so I took her up on her offer. She sat me down at her dining room table. The next thing I knew I had a full plate of food in front of me: baked macaroni and cheese, candied yams, collard greens, fried chicken, and cornbread.

  “Damn, you cooked all of this?”

  “I love to cook, this is everyday for me,” Layla explained as she got a bottle of red wine and filled a glass for me. She sat Indian-style in the chair that was directly across from mine. While I ate she looked at me and seemed to be enjoying the fact that I was enjoying her food, and then she took out a bunch of papers and turned on her laptop and started typing some stuff.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Just working on this case I gotta finish by tomorrow.”

  “What kind of case? What do you do again?”

  Layla explained that she worked from home, and that she had her own business where she provided freelance paralegal services to immigration lawyers and attorneys who handled accident cases.

  I nodded my head and told her that I was impressed.

  “You know you breaking all the light-skin girl stereotypes, right? I mean, you can cook your ass off, and you got a head on your shoulders, and a nice ass and nice titties! You’re three for three!”

  “Boy, I will stab you with that fork! No, you didn’t just say that,” she said while she laughed at me.

  “I’m saying, you know I’m right. Pretty, light-skin chicks usually have either a fat butt or big titties, not both. And I have yet to meet one that can put their foot in some food like you did with this food.”

  Layla just shook her head and smiled.

  As I ate we started talking about everything. She complained to no end about her deadbeat ex-husband and I untruthfully told her about my issues with Nicole. Before long it was approaching ten-thirty and we were sitting on her living room couch watching a movie with all of the lights off. Somehow my hand made its way underneath that wrap thing that she was wearing, and I eventually located her pussy and started rubbing on it. Right from the first touch I noticed that she was soaking wet.

  “Lance, I love the way you touch me,” she purred with her eyes closed.

  I continued to finger-fuck her and her pussy continued to get wetter by the second. As she gyrated her hips I pulled her wrap all the way up so that her pussy was fully exposed. Since I had drank a whole bottle of wine, which was combined with the Hennessy that I had from earlier, I was feeling so intoxicated that I didn’t give a shit about anything. So the next thing I knew, my bald head was in Layla’s crotch and I was eating her pussy for dessert.

  I sucked on her clit while I slid my index finger in and out of her pussy, and within seconds Layla was grabbing my head and squeezing it as she gyrated her hips and came hard as hell. I was shocked that she was just letting herself go like that. I mean, she was hollering like a porn star while she was cumming, and it was all good but she also had her two daughters in the other room, which was all of twenty feet away from where we were sitting.

  I sat up to get some air and I looked at Layla and she was breathing really heavy and panting as she said, “I swear to God, ain’t nobody ever make me cum that quick in my fucking life! Shit!”

  I chuckled, and then I told her that we had to stop since her daughters were right there in the other room and could hear us.

  “They’ll be okay, don’t worry about that,” she said to me as she stood up and straightened out her clothes. “You eat my pussy like that, you know you gotta fuck me now,” she added rather matter-of-factly.

  “Where at? We can’t do that right here,” I said, trying not to talk too loud.

  The next thing I know Layla had untied her wrap and her naked body was fully exposed. She opened her legs and spread her pussy lips apart, just inviting me to come fuck her.

  I was drunk but I wasn’t crazy. There was no way I was gonna fuck Layla right there on her living room couch and get busted by her daughters. They didn’t need to see nothing like that. So I grabbed Layla by her hand and led her to her bedroom and closed the door.

  “Please tell me you got a condom,” I said to her.

  “I got you, don’t worry about that,” she said as she took my shirt off and kissed on my chest while unbuckling my pants. “Layla, I’m not fucking you raw!”

  Layla didn’t respond, she just looked up at me and held her index finger to her mouth and went to the other side of her room. When she came back, she started sucking on my dick, and while both of our hands were interlocked with each other’s, she managed to put a condom on my dick by using her mouth and nothing else.

  “Oh shit, where the fuck you learn that?” I asked.

  Layla didn’t answer me, she just got on her bed and she was on all fours waiting for me to get behind her and fuck her and that was exactly what I did. I pushed her head into the mattress so that her face was down and her ass was up in the air and I wore her ass out doggystyle.

  She tried her best to keep quiet while she bit into one of her pillows, but every time she came she would let the whole fucking neighborhood know that she was cumming. I know that her kids had to hear everything that was going on because the house was basically quiet, and they were in the bed since it was a school night.

  “I wanna feel that shit on my face when you cum. Okay, baby?” she turned and said to me while I fucked her.

  I nodded my head and kept fucking her as hard as I could until I felt myself ready to erupt.

  “Ahhh yeah, it’s cumming, baby!” I said as I pulled out of her pussy and quickly took the condom off.

  Layla turned around and laid on her back and then quickly scooted herself closer toward me so that her face was right near my balls. When I bussed I came all over her face, in her hair, and in her mouth.

  She smiled as she licked some of my cum with her tongue and played with it in her mouth before spitting it back out.

  I sat up on her bed and caught my breath. As I contemplated whether I should spend the night with her or go back to Steve’s house, I realized that I was living totally out of control. But at the same time I really didn’t give a shit. I was who I was and I was doing me. The way I was living was in my DNA since birth, and I was starting to love every minute of my lifestyle that was quickly spiraling out of control.

  The first time I had cheated on Nicole I battled continuously with guilt and trying to do what was right for her and trying to do right by God. But it was like I was at the point now where I was saying to myself that it was pathetic to constantly be sitting on the fence. I knew that I had to either shit or get off of the pot. And getting off of the pot to me meant getting a divorce. But regardless of my actions, which seemed to prove otherwise, I still loved my wife and my son a great deal. Therefore, I knew that my only option was to stay on the pot and shit. Even if I was shitting on myself I was cool with that because there was just no way I was going to stay in that same wishy-washy state of mind of trying to do right and burning to do wrong.

  Chapter Seven

  The next morning when I woke up, I was feeling hung-over and I had no idea where I was until Layla came into her bedroom with breakfast for me.

  “What time is it?”

  “It’s nine-fifteen,” she replied as she handed me a tray full of food. “Layla, you didn’t have to do this.”

  “I know, but I wanted to do it. I told you I love to cook.

  When people come to my house, they eat. I take care of everybody that walks through my door.”

  Layla was really no joke. She knew exactly how to treat a nigga and she pushed all the right buttons. She had made cheese grits, bacon, scrambled eggs, and French toast. And not only had she made breakfast for me, but she had also washed, dried, and ironed the clothes that I had on from the day before.

  “When the hell did you do all of this?”

  Layla didn’t respond directly to my question. She just smiled and told me to take my time eating and that she was going to finish up that case that she ha
d been working on from the night before.

  “I put a towel, soap, lotion, a brand new toothbrush for you in the bathroom when you’re ready to get dressed. The girls already left for school so just feel at home. Okay?”

  I smiled and thanked her. As I ate the food that she had cooked for me, I couldn’t help but think about how Nicole used to treat me this good way back when we had first gotten married. But unfortunately for me and Nicole, life got in the way and all of the pampering that I used to get just disappeared along with the sex. So by nature Layla was scoring big points as far as I was concerned.

  As I ate and then prepared to take a shower and get dressed, I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t feeling deeply conflicted. Because on one hand I wanted to snatch up Layla and fuck the shit out of her again, and on the other hand I wanted to see my wife and make love to her and tell her that I was sorry for screwing up. Yet the thing that was troubling me the most was that I knew that my son was probably wondering why I hadn’t spoken to him since his game.

  I knew what I needed to do. After I had taken my shower and gotten dressed, I thanked Layla for treating me like a king and for showing me an amazing time. I kissed her on the lips and told her that I really had to bounce.

  “You sure you don’t wanna stay?”

  “I want to, but I really got moves that I need to make.”

  “Okay, so listen. I hope it’s not gonna be a whole year before I hear from you again or see you again.”

  I shook my head and explained to her that she had a license to call me and see me whenever she wanted to, and that I would get up with her in a few days.

  “Yeah, we gotta hang out real soon,” she said tome.

  “Definitely,” I replied as I kissed her again on her lips before walking out the door.

  I jumped in my all black Range Rover and headed straight for my son’s school. When I got there I headed straight for the principal’s office and explained that it was an emergency and that I really needed to speak to my son for a few minutes.