by L. A. Banks
Her mother patted Paloma’s hand. “You wouldn’t have listened. I made a decision to keep quiet and just be around to pick up the pieces. And I thank God every day, you didn’t have children with that man.”
Paloma looked at her mother surprised. “I beg your pardon. You have nagged me every day of my marriage about children.”
Her mother held up a hand, smiling. “You are so stubborn and so defiant, I knew if I nagged you every day, you’d never have a baby.”
Paloma glared at her mother. “You played me.”
Her mother smiled. “Nobody on this earth knows you better than I do.”
Keith had never liked Marianne and begrudged Paloma every minute she spent with her family. The harder he tried to pull her away, the harder she’d clung to her family.
“Are you upset with me?”
“I was, for about five minutes, until I realized all you’ve ever done or said had my best intentions at heart.”
She’d wasted fifteen years with Keith. Why hadn’t she seen him for what he was earlier? She tried to think back to what about him had first captured her attention. She remembered the fiery ambition he’d had and how they would set the world on fire with her music. When had that changed? As the years went by, she’d stopped listening to him as he became more interested in her money and motivated by her success.
“What did Miss Odile give you?” her mother inquired.
Automatically, Paloma’s hand went to the charm. She removed the cord and held the shell out to her mother. “This.”
Marianne shrank away from Paloma. “Put it back. If I touch it, the magic will be broken. Only you can activate its power.”
Paloma replaced the cord about her neck. She jumped to her feet to gaze out the giant picture window overlooking the city. Las Vegas sprawled outward encroaching on the brown desert in colorful ribbons. Traffic poured down Las Vegas Boulevard and pedestrians flocked along the sidewalks stopping to admire the water show at the Bellagio, or going into the M&M museum. Paloma turned away to face her mother. “The price I have to pay is my voice.”
“There’s always a price,” her mother said sadly as she touched her head. Her fingers probed at the wig, her eyes unfocused for a second, then sharpened to look at Paloma.
“This isn’t how I wanted things to work out. I wanted life to turn out better for you and Matthew.”
Paloma stared at her mother remembering the gloriously thick, black hair Miss Odile sported. “You went to Miss Odile, too. You sacrificed your hair, didn’t you?”
Her mother’s bottom lip trembled. She seemed to turn inward for a second, as though looking down a long tunnel from the present to the past. “My hair was beautiful, but you and Matthew were so much more important.”
“What did you want for us?” Paloma asked, humbled by her mother’s sacrifice.
“What every mother wants, my children’s happiness and success.”
Paloma touched her throat. Her voice had brought her mother security, could she take that away from her? She glanced around the penthouse. Her voice had brought all this, as well, but the apartment was a thing, a possession she didn’t really need, yet something that Keith so dearly prized.
“Paloma—” Marianne touched her daughter’s arm “—I will take care of you if—”
The door to the penthouse was flung open and Keith entered. A shaft of sunlight touched him as he walked into the living room and Paloma’s breath caught in her throat. He was so handsome with his cocoa-colored skin, brown eyes and well-built body. And for just a second, she remembered the way he’d been when they’d first met and his dreams had coincided with hers.
He flashed a grin. “Your flight landed an hour ago and when you didn’t show up at home, I thought I’d check here.”
He didn’t even know she’d come back and left again. “Yes, I’m here.” Been bouncing on top of that bitch again?
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Marianne picked up her purse and headed to the door. “We’ll talk later.
Keith turned to kiss Marianne on the cheek, but she ducked and his kiss landed on air. He set his briefcase down on the table and studied Paloma. Something was different about her. Her eyes glowed and her skin seemed almost iridescent. A flush of desire radiated through him, reminding him of the blatant sexuality that had first attracted him to her. He remembered the first time he’d seen her on a side stage at the Texas State Fair, belting out an over-wrought ballad and looking like a reject from a second hand consignment store. Even then, he’d seen the talent and knew he’d found his meal ticket.
He opened his briefcase and pulled out the contract. He also removed a small gift box and handed it to her. “I brought you a coming home present.” She loved jewelry. Maybe now she’d sign the damned contract. His palms itched with the need to smash the pen into her hand. “Baby, you know I miss you when you’re gone.”
She opened the box thinking he hadn’t missed her enough to stay away from Syrah. “I was only gone for five days.” She pulled out a gold pendant shaped like a summer daisy. “How nice.” She replaced the pendant in the box. “How is Syrah’s recording coming along?”
Did he sense something in her voice? “Taking longer than I want, but everything must be perfect.” More than perfect. Syrah wasn’t Paloma and he had to work harder at bringing her image up to the standards he exacted of his girls.
“Whatever you need to do, get the job done right.” She smiled. “God knows, you brought out the best in me.”
Didn’t he know it. But she was aging. He thought he detected crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes, and when she smiled, did he see a little too much chin? He wished she’d do as he’d asked and get some work done. She needed to look fresher, dress younger, update her look to appeal to a younger audience. Her body was fine and she could wear the midriff baring fashions without being ashamed. Her breasts were perky but too small, implants would solve that. Thank God, he’d resisted her desire to have children. Another mouth to feed with a hand out for his money. Besides, a baby would have ruined that almost perfect body.
She reached out to touch his cheek, eyes sparkling. Heat came off her like a furnace and he felt himself hardening. Keith couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t been anything more than booty call for him in between his mistresses. She was his last cookie in the jar, but he suddenly wanted her like never before. And he’d just spent the last five days with Syrah humping her as often as he could.
Was he possessed? What was so different about Paloma tonight? He ran his finger down Paloma’s shoulder to her breast. A little too soft, unlike Syrah whose breasts were hard and easy to grab with nipples he loved to suck and bruise.
Paloma raised her lips to kiss him and he covered her lips with his. She was warm and willing and all he could think of as he led her to the bedroom was wild, animal sex in as many positions as he could coax out of her.
For some strange reason he found himself so hard, he could barely walk. Her skin burned next to his. And a sultry, musky scent surrounded her. She smelled like sex. Hot, sweaty, nasty sex. Perhaps, he ought to send her to L.A. more often.
Paloma flung the door to the bedroom open. She wanted to fuck him. Which totally surprised her. She hadn’t wanted to even touch him for months. Now her body craved him.
She pushed Keith toward the bed, making quick work of unfastening his belt and unzipping his pants. His pants fell and she yanked his briefs down. His erect cock sprang free. He was swollen and the veins popped out. He was so hard for her. A smoldering expression filled his eyes and for an instant she had to fight the urge to attack him instead of fuck him. But as the excitement built, she knew she had him in her power. Cheating on her was gonna cost him everything he valued.
Paloma pushed him down to lay spread-eagle on the bed. She knelt next to him and cupped his penis. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”
Keith gulped. “He’s happy to see you, baby.”
“Poor baby, nobody’s been taking care of you.” For a secon
d Keith looked uncomfortable.
“He misses you, baby.” Keith twisted his hips a little, bringing the head of his penis closer to her lips.
“We don’t want him to be lonely,” Paloma said as she gently licked the head of his penis, skimming her lips up and down before she sat back. The voice in her head egged her on. And amazingly she wanted him in her mouth. Until this moment she never understood that giving a man a blow job gave her all the power. His most precious possession was this close to her teeth. Just a little pressure and John Wayne Bobbitt would be his new best friend. “I’m going to eat you all up.”
Sweat popped out on Keith’s forehead. And his eyes grew wide. Paloma loved the glimmer of fear in his eyes and couldn’t prevent the smile that tugged at her. This was gonna be good. She ran her fingers around his balls and they clenched under her touch.
His whole body spasmed. Slowly she slid her lips over his cock, taking the tip inside her mouth. His salty taste rolled over her tongue. A heady sensation surged through her body. Heat and ache overwhelmed her.
At this moment she couldn’t get enough of him. Did she still want him or was this a fringe benefit of revenge? They said revenge was best served cold, but no one ever told her it would be this sweet. Her hand caressed his balls making them tingle. Her manicured nails lightly brushed over his sack.
Her head began to swim as blood rushed to her vagina. She wanted to fuck him. Hell, she wanted to fuck him until he screamed in submission. As her heart rate sped up she opened her mouth wider and took him deep inside.
Keith moaned as her tongue caressed the slit of his cock’s head. She squeezed him, milking him. How come sex had never been this good before? In the past, Keith always acted as though he was directing traffic. Do this. Do that. Move faster. Move slower. She didn’t even know what to do anymore when they had sex. Not like he’d touched her in the last several months.
He nearly bucked her off the bed when she sank her teeth into the hard flesh of his dick. Where had this side of her been all their married life?
She’d never felt so strong a need to fuck him before. Her head bobbed up and down as she worked his shaft between her lips and tongue.
For an instant, she swore she heard her aunt laughing in the background, but quickly dismissed the thought as she bent back down and her greedy tongue moved down the length of his penis. She worked her lips around his testicle and took it inside her mouth while she stroked his cock with her hand.
“Shit, honey,” he said, “welcome home.”
She’d never been so…so free before. She took the other testicle into her mouth and gave it the same treatment.
Keith yanked on her hair and she brought her mouth back to his penis. Part of her wanted to raise up her skirt and plunge right onto him as though she were still a teenager and the sex was fresh and mysterious, yet she held back to keep control and remembering that this was about revenge.
Sweat poured off his skin. And she could tell he wanted to come, but she wouldn’t take him over the edge just yet. She wanted him to feel as powerless as she did.
Paloma was on fire to her very core. The rough texture of the skin of his balls caressed her hot tongue. She could hear her own slurping sounds coming from her. God that kicked up the temperature another few degrees. Keith let out a tormented wail.
Good she thought as she raised her head. “Enjoying yourself, baby?” she asked in a low, mysterious voice.
“Hell, yeah,” he panted, “where did you learn that trick?”
“Isn’t this what you want? A wife who fucks like a whore.” Her voice was hot and sultry and filled with promise.
“This is more than I ever hoped for.”
The tip of her tongue begin to glide along that seam on the sack as he tightened up. She followed the seam until she was at the base of his hard, throbbing cock. Then she deep throated him taking the entire length of his penis in her mouth. His jaw fell open. Her sucking quickened and his hips started thrusting.
She grabbed him, digging her nails into his skin. He wasn’t going to last much longer. When she reached for his testicles and palmed them, it was over. She sucked his cock and squeezed his balls and he came. His hot juices sped through his hard shaft and exploded in her mouth.
Keith couldn’t hold on any longer. The sweetness, the pain, the pleasure gathered inside him and erupted like a fireworks display. He pumped hard, harder and finally his whole body tensed, then shuddered.
Something in him shattered. His whole body went into a spasm and still he pumped into his wife’s mouth.
He could barely breathe. A black wave crashed over him hitting against him like a jackhammer. Deep in the recesses of his orgasm, he thought he heard a woman laughing. The laugh was harsh and cynical, and finally finished, his body went limp and he stared at Paloma with his semen on her mouth as she sat back on her heels and stared at him. Again her eyes took on an odd light. Blackness hovered at the edge of his vision and before he could gasp or collect his thoughts, he passed out.
Paloma sat in her brother’s office staring at her hands. Her wedding ring winked back at her. She’d wanted to take if off, but worried that Keith would notice and demand an explanation. He might be banging Syrah, but he still considered Paloma his wife—lock, stock and barrel.
What had just happened to her? Not an hour ago, she’d gone down on her husband, and here she was perfectly composed as though that little scene had been nothing but a brief, somewhat unpleasant interruption to her day.
She couldn’t shake the heady sense of power she had felt giving Keith a blow job. She tried to analyze her feelings, but numbness spread through her and she worried at the state of her soul. Did being bad always make a person feel so out of control?
Matthew’s office was plush, but not ostentatious. His wife, Brandi, had a way of making things look expensive when they weren’t. Her brother sat on a sofa with a folder in his hands. His wife sat in a wing-backed chair, a carton on the floor next to her. She was a tall, slender woman with caramel-colored skin and large brown eyes dominating a heart-shaped face.
“I paid your car insurance,” Matthew said. He handed her a bill and she glanced at it. “So at least you can drive again.”
“Thank you,” Paloma said, glad to know she wouldn’t have to rely on cabs anymore. She turned to Brandi who sat across from her, a sad expression on her pretty face. “What do you have for me?”
“The jewelry is gone.” Brandi held out an open necklace box. A diamond necklace lay nestled against the red satin. “At first I thought everything was there, but then I thought things didn’t look quite right. So I took every piece to a jeweler I know at the Bellagio and he confirms your jewelry has been replaced with fakes. Excellent replicas, but still fakes.”
Paloma wasn’t the least bit surprised. If Keith was bold enough to empty her back accounts, he would be bold enough to take her jewelry. She would never notice because she so seldom wore those pieces. Keith had chosen them and to Paloma they were vulgar.
She cradled an emerald bracelet in her hand. Now she knew—she could see that the luster of gems just wasn’t there. How clever of Keith to have such excellent copies made. They probably had some value just because of their exquisite workmanship. “Can I sell these?”
“You can,” Brandi said, “but do you want to? My jeweler friend says you’d get maybe eighteen, twenty thousand for everything, but I don’t think you want to sell just yet. One piece on the market will probably bring attention from the tabloids and you know how ruthless they can be even when they don’t have a shred of evidence to back up a story. Everything will break before you’re ready to file the paperwork and then Keith will know what you intend to do.”
She couldn’t have the tabloids sniffing around her at the moment. Though she could feel the vultures hovering around her already. Paloma took a deep breath reeling from this second hit to her pride.
Brandi patted her hand, her face filled with empathy. “We’ll get through this together.”
A tear slid down Paloma’s cheeks. “I know. Thank you.”
“I hired a private investigator to look into Keith’s affairs,” Matthew said.
“I can’t afford something so expensive.”
“Reduced fee,” Matthew said. “Cousin Jean-Luc from Baton Rouge volunteered. He’s never liked Keith and when Keith dissed you, he dissed the family. Now he’s going to deal with the family.”
Paloma was overwhelmed. Her cell phone rang and she dug in her purse to answer it. Keith, her low-down, cheating, rat-bastard husband was on the other end. “Hello, Keith.”
“Baby girl,” he said, his voice choking as though he were crying, “I’ve been in an automobile accident. I’m at Sunset Hospital.”
Strangely, Paloma felt nothing. “Are you hurt?”
He slipped into a sob. “My Bentley is gone.”
Too bad, she thought. The Bentley was a manifestation of his pride. “We’re insured. You can get another one.” Silence from the other end spoke volumes. She thought he might fess up about the insurance, but he said nothing.
“Yes, of course,” he finally answered. “Can you pick me up?”
“I’m in the middle of a business meeting.” Did he really expect her to drop everything to take care of him?
“Are you talking about the contract?” The Bentley forgotten, he sounded a little too eager. “Don’t worry then, I’ll call someone else.”
She didn’t think so. Her voice softened, “Your welfare comes first. I’ll be at the hospital as soon as I can.” She disconnected and stood. A burning had started in her throat and she knew she needed a moment alone before she left for the hospital. “I need to use the bathroom.”
Inside the bathroom, she wrapped her hand around her throat and fell on her knees. When she opened her mouth no sound came out. The burning grew until her throat felt on fire.
Sweat broke out on her body. Images of Miss Odile ran through her head. She heard distant chanting. The sound of drums throbbed on her skin and started an ache in her bones. In her mind, she saw a bonfire and a woman swaying to the snap of the flames and the pounding of the drums.
