Smoke and Mirrors

by Tiana Laveen

  “What I feel for you scares me too, Paris, but not enough for me to leave you alone. I can’t leave you alone, it’s too fucking late. And honestly, it’s an adrenaline rush, too.” He shrugged. “So I have no motivation to turn my back on you…you feel too damn good to me.” He pointed to his dick. “Not just for here, but here.” He pointed to his heart.

  She nodded, self-soothed so she could continue to give this gift to the man, tell him what he needed to know.

  “Smoke, for the longest, I wasn’t even convinced I knew how to give and receive love from a man in the first damn place. When I realized I was falling in love with you a few weeks ago, I panicked! You kept asking me to confirm a dinner date since I’d agreed to it, and I was busy, but I was also stalling because I knew what was happening. I figured you’d lose interest, and then I’d be safe, but you didn’t…and then, I couldn’t stand it anymore, either. So when you sent the flowers, I admitted to myself that it was too late…I knew at that point that my heart was your’s.”

  There. She’d admitted it. He remained unchanged, unresponsive, and for many women, that would have been unnerving, but for some odd reason, the guy seemed to know she didn’t desire him to make a big deal about it. No, she just wanted to set that out there, and walk away for a moment.

  “Paris.” He cleared his throat. “I understand where you’re coming from. Who in their right mind would want to fuck with something, in this case, love, that only seemed to cause pain? You’re not abnormal, that’s just being real! That’s real life, and a real ass life reaction!”

  She reached for his damn face, drew him near and pressed her lips hard into his. The man was her complete undoing. No one seemed to understand her like him. He’d warned her that only someone like him could dig a woman like her, and shit; he was right! She released him and stared back down at him as her heart beat a million miles a minute. He swiped his hand lightly across his lips, and smiled, ever so slightly.

  “As usual, you’re right.” She began. “Everyone I’ve loved, Smoke, either died, took advantage of me, ran off, or didn’t love me back. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Baby, my father didn’t love my mother. I had to grow up around that…that’s the example I saw of what love looked like…totally one sided. I thought that was how everyone’s’ parents were.”

  “My parents, particularly my father, were a damn mess. I never kept it a secret. I know you heard about it all. My mother was a prostitute and my father a pimp, you know the story.”

  “Paris, no, I really don’t know the story. You see, I only know the prologue, that’s just surface stuff.” He drew a bit closer to her. “Your mom being a prostitute and your father a pussy peddler, well, that’s survival, but that isn’t necessarily who they were. We all are more than that! That’s only a small part of who we are. I want to know everything about you, baby.” He took her hand and caressed it, pimping her emotions, but not for evil…no, this was for good.

  “My mother died of heart disease,” she offered. “The woman’s drug habit simply exasperated the issue, putting a final nail in her coffin. My father disappeared off the face of the earth with no trace after the police sought him for an unsolved murder. Word on the street was that he’d escaped to Mexico but was killed soon after his arrival. I have no idea what happened, but my heart tells me he is dead, been dead a long time. When my father couldn’t be found, I became a ward of the state…” And then she stopped herself. She clamped up, shut down, bolted closed, stapled shut and locked the windows, then pulled the fucking blinds in a snap. She simply couldn’t go there! No, not right then and there. It was too much, too painful.

  “And then what happened?” he said softly, barely audible.

  She shook all over, and tears filled her eyes as she wrapped her hands around one another, wrestling with herself, going crazy within.

  “Ahhhh, baby.” He grabbed her trembling body and pulled her close. “Paris, it’s okay. Whatever it is, you don’t have to talk about it right now. I won’t push you, baby.”

  He squeezed her a bit tighter; his touch showed his understanding as she latched even tighter to him, the silent tears falling. She changed the topic, offered to get up and get them something to drink, but he insisted on going himself after she gave instructions as to where her kitchen was. Once the man disappeared, she was left alone with her damn filthy thoughts…the place in time in her life that had destroyed whatever self-esteem she’d possessed, ripped it right from her grip and tossed it aside as if she and it were never to be reunited again…

  She’d been a ward of the state until her uncle stepped up and retrieved her, at the age of thirteen. Little did she know that being with him would be worse than being the love child of a strung out prostitute with a bad ticker and a heavy handed pimp with a trigger happy temper…

  During that time, she’d miss her mother the most. She was the only person in the whole world that she felt truly had her best interest at heart. One thing her mother had instilled in her was something that Paris refused to ever part with. To her, it was a gift wrapped in spun gold and the softness of a loving kiss. The woman had stressed the importance of an education, and how smart she thought her little girl was. That kept her whole, something she held tight to, even while her uncle berated her and tried to convince her of the exact opposite. When her mother was sober, she would read her books with big words—not the kind designed for kids, but novels about real world travelers, black history icons like Frederick Douglas and poems by Maya Angelou. She’d shove all kinds of educational things in her face, giving her food for thought, things that would mold her, nourish her for a lifetime and stick to her bones forever and a day. Mama had old, VHS tapes of science programs and National Geographic, and she’d sit there and watch them with Paris, smiling all the while and encouraging her to make something of herself. Yes, Mama was important, one of the best people in Paris’ life, one of the few people that still made her smile, even after death…

  Smoke returned and casually strolled by her, dislodging her from her thoughts and memories. As he got back in the bed, he handed her a glass of water, the ice in it clinking about. She took a careful sip, then set it down on the nightstand. He drank a bit of his as well, and sat there thoughtfully, his massive, firm chest rising and falling as he breathed.

  “Smoke, I was just sitting here thinking about my mother,” she offered. “I’d like to talk to you about her.”

  He nodded, placed his glass down and took her hand, staring into her eyes. “And I want to hear what you have to say…”

  “My mother was smart, but she’d lost her way. Perhaps for that reason, the woman wanted me to achieve what she never had and never could. She was kind and warm.” She looked down at the disheveled sheets, tossed about from the rambunctious lovemaking. “I know now as an adult what had been going on in my house as a child. Namely, that my father was keeping my mother strung out from sun up to sun down. He controlled her, terrified she’d leave him. But she left anyway, for she died of a broken heart…”

  Smoke gripped her fingers a bit tighter, and remained so quiet…so very quiet.

  “Smoke, there is something else you should know about me, something serious.” Her voice dropped and she knew that in this confession, she could lose him altogether, but she had to tell the man the truth; he deserved nothing less.

  “Yes?” He looked at her thoughtfully.

  “I believe for quite some time, I honestly hated men.”

  “Is that supposed to be some surprise, Paris?” he grimaced. “You can calm down, now. That doesn’t surprise me at all.”

  “Why doesn’t it?” She was fucking shocked, yet relieved, but she kept her tone even.

  “Because no prostitute gets out of the life without having something foul happen to them. There are too many crazy motherfuckers running around trying to get a hold of a pretty girl and hurt her. I chase these sickos for a fucking living, baby. It is not an everyday, or even every week thing, but I can rarely go two months withou
t some john trying some fucked up shit. Now look, when I left to go get something to drink for us, I was trying to give you some space, too. I could see you felt backed into a corner. You’re like me, when you upset, you just want to be left alone. You don’t have to tell me shit right now that you don’t want to, but if we are going to do this,” he said, pointing between the two of them, “then we will have to come clean to one another, sooner or later. I love you, damn it, and I know some shit has happened to you. I can see it in your eyes.”

  She nodded, swallowed and lowered her head. “I wish…I wish I could tell you everything right now, but…” she sniffed, “…but, some of it is just too much! I need time.”

  “And you’ll have that time. I know you don’t talk about things like this. I feel really special right now that you are letting me in.” He smiled, reached closer and caressed her face.

  “I felt in danger when I was out on the streets.” She stuck her hand in the grab bag, deciding to keep on, release more of her demons. “So much so, I went to another prostitute, a renegade, and asked her to teach me how to shoot and stab, as well as how to hide a razorblade.”

  She paused, gathering her nerve before she proceeded. “A crazy john had taken a liking to slapping me around during the act. When I told him to stop it, he decided to get even rougher. That was the final fucking straw, Smoke.” She stared off into the distance, feeling as though it had all happened yesterday. “I removed the razorblade from my ponytail wrap and slashed the bastard right across his blubbery face. He cried out and bled all over the damn place and I got the hell out of dodge. I hated my johns, Smoke. But not as much as I hated myself… I got my own firearm a few years later, but those lessons of protection stayed with me, especially after I’d been viciously assaulted yet again. This time,” she rasped, swallowing harshly, “I’d been beaten unconscious and left in a dumpster for dead…”

  Smoke placed a delicate kiss across her cheek, then her lips. She kept her eyes wide open as he administered the affection, and he watched her, too. She’d never told anyone these details before; this was the first time and, she hoped, the last.

  “Do you mind if I ask you a question, Paris?” He leaned back, an easy smile on his face. “Nothing heavy.” He threw up his hands.

  She slowly nodded, bracing herself nevertheless.

  “How in the hell did you turn this shit around? I’m so impressed with your resilience.”

  At that, she laughed lightly, so glad he was willing to let her skip away somewhere else, somewhere safe.

  “Well, after graduating with a 3.8 GPA from college, I moved back to L.A. and rented a small house. I got a job working at a law firm as a receptionist until I could find something that paid more in my field of business administration. It never came to be.” She grimaced. “All I did was answer that damn phone. I couldn’t decide on which way I wanted to go. I wanted to be a paralegal, and then a lawyer, but that receptionist job? I hated it. I detested serving coffee to those pompous assholes in the mornings and listening to their demeaning sexist and racist jokes that they assumed I was too dumb to understand. Smoke, I was so disappointed. What had I worked so hard in school for?! And then, it happened.”

  “…The street called you back.” He smirked.

  She laughed. “You’re damn right. My inner hustler protested, my wicked roots pushed upward from the frozen ground, tapped on my damn shoulder, and screamed in my ear, ‘You will never get rich doing this! You better make that money, bitch!’ That voice in my head haunted me like an old tape that played and refused to pause, rewind or stop. It recorded everything I did, every mistake I’d made, and mocked me, teased me. I know I sound dramatic,” she smirked. “But I’m serious! And to prove I had what it took, I needed to not only make some serious cash, I had to devise a plan to make the cash stack higher than a skyscraper…”

  “When we first met, you called me Casper as—” he started out of the blue.

  “Oh Smoke, I’m sorry about that, really! I’m not racist…and me saying that just now made me sound even more racist.” She chuckled as she closed her eyes and shook her head back and forth.

  “No, it’s cool, really,” he said sincerely. “I am bringing it up because you discussed your first white John, Adam, and I wanted to talk about that again. You saw a kindness from him that is uncustomary of johns, hell, of people, period. But, the fact that you called me Casper,” his brows dipped as his voice lowered, “shows you might have some racial feelings, you know? So, I just want to know.” He shrugged. “Maybe we could talk about it, get it out the way.”

  “Everyone has prejudices.”

  “That’s true, and calling me names based on my race, or anything else for that matter, honestly doesn’t mean shit to me, Paris. I’m not that soft.” He smiled. “I just want to know where you stand on this, because as far as I’m concerned, you’re my woman,” he said, winking at her. “And I am trying to figure you out, even if it takes a lifetime. I don’t want to just know your body…make that pussy talk, baby…understand the vibe between your thighs, I want to know what is going on between your ears, because that’s just as exciting to me.”

  So. Damn. Sexy!

  “Fair enough,” she grabbed her water, took a quick swallow and continued. “I had been told as a child that white men were the devil,” she began. Once again, Smoke wasn’t phased. “Funny thing was, my pimp was black. No white man had placed me on the sidewalk to sell my little semi-virginal pussy to dirty old men who fantasized about poking a minor. No, a black man had! So Smoke, please rest assured I am not anti-white. I was mad that day, and trying to get you to leave me alone. When I’m mad, I don’t always fight fair and sometimes say things I shouldn’t say. Fact of the matter is, men are men. Whether the john is black, white, Latino or Asian, they all want pussy, their dicks sucked, or just a listening ear. Plain and simple.”

  “I completely agree.”

  They looked at each other for a long while. Smoke was doing something to her, changing her…

  Though she had an almost karmic attraction to the man, she felt there may be even more at play. His tongue was coated in silver, flashy and witty as he was, but he had a gentle demeanor. He would slip from common pimp vernacular to a down-home-slow gin fizz comfort all in the same breath. And though she’d mentioned this to him a couple of times, it was the thing that kept drawing her to him. He seemed to know when to cut a person down, and when to back off. He was a forever-balancing act, and he did his acrobatics oh so well. They had so much in common, they ran their stables in a similar fashion. That was something she could surely appreciate, for it was not the norm. Not only that, something in his eyes told her the man was sincere. She realized at that moment, he wanted exactly what he said he did. HER.

  No man had offered her that. They either just wanted to fuck her or use her, usually both. None of them were the least bit concerned about finding out who the real Paris Raven was. And for a while, she was just fine with that. Now, things were different. She wanted to expose her inner most secrets to this bastard like a fresh romance novel she’d just cracked open, and turned to Chapter One. She wasn’t used to that, so if he could just remain patient, she’d be able to navigate past her own self-imposed limitations, and reach the point where he read her from cover and cover, and she not feel the least bit worried. She wasn’t there yet, but she’d get there…she was determined.

  “I love you, Smoke.” Yeah, it was time to repeat it, let the man know she wasn’t playing around. His lips curved upward, enjoying her declarations. She gave him a delicate, soft kiss along his cheek. “I have a confession.”

  “Does it require me to have the police on speed dial?” he joked.

  “No!” She chuckled. “I was always thinking about you, felt happy when you’d call…I’d wait for that moment. And sometimes I’d stand a bit longer outside, hoping to see you looking at me from your window.”

  “You couldn’t see that far. You’re putting me on.” He smirked.

  “Yeah, but
you told me a while ago you liked watching me, so, I would imagine you there. Over time, I knew when you were because the curtains would be open…always in the mornings.”

  He laughed lightly and nodded.

  “Yeah, so I’ve been enjoying you for a while now.” She paused, took a deep breath, and smiled. “I cherished our conversations. You have no idea. I never got tired of talking to you. You make me laugh, make me happy. Those phone calls made my day and over the course of time, seeing you, talking with you…” She swallowed. “I knew it was more than like. I knew I’d ventured somewhere else…and now, I’m glad.”

  The corner of his upper lip lifted ever so slightly into his customary smirk. He stroked her hair, no doubt wild and out of control from all of their romping about.

  “So, are you staying the night?” she inquired, feeling like a young girl with a huge crush on the captain of the football team.

  “Yeah, if you want me to.” He yawned. “Let me call my security department and Felicia, and make sure they know I won’t be making my usual rounds tonight.”

  “Okay.”

  He slowly slipped away from her and got to his feet. She couldn’t help but continue to stare at that man’s glorious naked physique as he crossed her massive bedroom and retrieved his neatly folded pants from a chocolate brown and tan striped Papasan chair in the corner of the room. Reaching inside the pocket, he pulled out his cellphone.

  “Hey Felicia, what’s up? Look, I need you to watch the cameras tonight. I won’t be back for awhile… You have an appointment? What time? I didn’t schedule you for anything tonight for a reason. I told you I was goin’ out.” She could hear the agitation in his voice, and inside, she feared he’d have to go back to his ho house and put in work.

  “I don’t give a shit about that. Why in the fuck would you do some shit like that?” The man’s voice rose, but his icy tone jarred her the most. “You did this shit on purpose… What do you mean where the hell am I? I better do what?! Who do you think you’re talking to like that? I’m at where the fuck I’m at! You’ve lost your goddamn mind. Stay the fuck out of my business!”