by J. D. Mason
“We can go upstairs,” she whispered, caressing the nape of his neck with her thumbs. “We can work on making some babies.” She purred.
Claire pushed her perfect hips deep into his crotch. Disappointment quickly shadowed her eyes when she realized that his body wasn’t responding the way she’d hoped it would.
Jordan’s cell phone rang, giving him a way out of having to deliver a brutal truth to her. That he wasn’t in the mood.
“Yes,” he said into the phone, staring into her eyes.
Claire’s eyes pooled with disappointment as she pulled away from him and left the room.
It was Sunday. Jordan had no other reason to leave the house that afternoon except that he wanted to. Claire wasn’t the problem. She’d come into this marriage with her eyes wide open. Jordan had never told her he loved her. He’d made it clear that he had one daughter already, and that he had no intention of having more children. He wasn’t the kind of husband who cut the grass, walked the dog, or who would take long walks with her through the park holding her hand. Claire was an image booster. That’s all. She was the other person in the picture when he was photographed, the dutiful and beautiful wife by his side at cocktail parties and fund-raisers. Sometimes she understood that, and accepted it. Most times, especially lately, she sadly seemed to want more.
* * *
“I swear you must be psychic, woman.” Jordan smiled and leaned inside the doorway of Lonnie’s condo. The signal was that Lonnie would call him, and when he answered, she’d hang up. Her idea. Not his. “How’d you know I had a Sunday afternoon to spare?”
Lonnie leaned against the door and shrugged. “I felt that vibe coming from you floating on the wind begging me to make that call,” she joked. “I just hoped that today wouldn’t be the day that you decided to dump me, break my heart, and leave me begging for you to take me back.”
She was lovely to him, exotic, sexy with an edge to her that always kept him guessing. And if anyone was going to be doing any begging in this relationship, Jordan was sure that it would be him.
“Me break your heart?” He came inside and closed the door behind him. “We both know that it would be the other way around.”
Lonnie was her name, short for Yolanda. And she was everything that Claire wasn’t. She wore her hair cut short and natural. She answered the door wearing a white tank top, and faded tattered jeans. The scent of sage filled her apartment, and the sounds of Jill Scott played from her stereo. A book lay casually strewn facedown and open on the coffee table.
“Please tell me that you didn’t leave Mrs. Jordan sitting at home by her lonesome,” she said sarcastically as she walked past him.
“Like you really give a damn.”
He wanted to reach out and grab ahold of her, but Lonnie wasn’t the type to be manhandled by anyone. If she wanted you, she came to you.
She sat on the sofa and curled her legs under her. “It could be.” She smiled.
Dark almond eyes seductively glossed over him. “There’s wine in the kitchen. Help yourself.”
Another woman would’ve offered to get up and pour him a glass. “Would you like some?”
“Yes. I would.”
They’d met at the Dallas Urban Center for Boys and Girls at a dedication ceremony. Jordan had paid for the new gym, had been asked to give a speech, and cut into a ribbon. The beautiful woman in the audience looked like she should’ve been the one having her picture taken.
“Does my heart good to see big business stepping in to help the community.” Lonnie approached him after the ceremony and greeted him with some purple concoction in a plastic cup.
“Does my heart good to do it.” He smiled, took a sip of his drink, and grimaced. “What is this?”
Lonnie shrugged. “Kool-Aid.”
Afterwards, he offered to buy her a drink. She refused, but begrudgingly took his business card. A month later, he got a call.
“I think I’ve changed my mind,” she said, coolly. “Is that offer for a drink still on the table?”
“It is,” he said, smiling. “Meet me at Devina’s?”
Devina’s was a bar a few blocks down from his office.
“How about you meet me at Barney’s, instead?”
“Barney’s?” He asked, caught off guard by her suggestion. It wasn’t Barney’s he had a problem with. It was this woman, who seemed to be the one making up the rules to this game, his game.
“It’s more discreet,” she told him.
Jordan nodded. “Discretion.”
“Discretion is gold when you’re Jordan Gatewood and you have a wife.”
Touché.
“See you at seven,” Lonnie told him, and then hung up.
Jordan gazed up admiringly at the exotic woman straddling him. He held handfuls of her voluptuous behind rolling in wide circles on top of him. Full breasts bounced inches from his lips, and his mouth watered at the thought of tasting them. He raised a hand to her back and pulled her closer and wrapped his lips around each of them, savoring them like sweet fruit.
“Mmmmmm,” she moaned, luxuriously.
Hot juice from her pussy soaked his balls and the sheets underneath him. Jordan reached up and cupped her head, wrapped an arm around her waist, and rolled her over on the bed onto her back without breaking the rhythm of their lovemaking.
“Shit, Lonnie,” he growled, low and deep into her ear. “I’m coming already.”
Lonnie squeezed the inner walls of her vagina, and Jordan dove deep into her and exploded.
* * *
Jordan left Lonnie’s and showed up at his office a little after four. Frank was already there, waiting.
“Sorry to interrupt what’s left of your Sunday, Frank,” Jordan said, sitting down behind his desk.
“Not a problem. The wife made meatloaf for dinner. I hate her meatloaf. Wanna fire up the laptop for me?” Frank took the phone from Jordan, while they waited for the laptop to load.
Jordan clicked on his e-mail icon. “I’ve got another one. It’s got a file attached.”
Frank came around the desk and stood over his shoulder. “It was sent from a bogus e-mail address. Mind if I take over?”
He switched places with Jordan.
“Click on the link,” Jordan told him.
“Jordan, no decent IT guy worth his weight in gigabytes would click on a file from an unknown source.”
Jordan reached over him, took the mouse, and clicked the link.
CLEAN UP YOUR RAP, YOUR STORY’S GETTING DUSTY
WASH OUT YOUR MOUTH, YOUR LIES ARE GETTING RUSTY
It took several beats before he realized that it was Nina Simone’s voice in that recording. An image of an old black-and-white photograph began to fade in on the screen, of a very young and beautiful woman sitting behind the wheel of an old Buick, and of a man leaning against the car with his arms crossed, with a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.
“You recognize those people? They mean anything to you?”
Yes. He recognized them, and yes, they meant plenty to him. “No,” Jordan lied. “Can you track it back to a source?”
“I can try,” Frank said, sounding defeated. “But whoever’s sending this crap, so far, has managed to stay one step ahead of me.”
“Only one?” Jordan quipped. “So what’s the problem, Frank?”
“It’s a big step, Jordan. A very big step. And I may just be out of my league.
Lean On Me
Jordan was the Goliath to Desi’s David. On the surface, Goliath was the monster, the unbeatable giant, and David was an underdog, a nobody. The only person in the universe who didn’t see it that way, though, was David. The trick, as far as Lonnie was concerned, was getting Desi to understand that her perceived weakness was her greatest strength.
Jordan came into the arena baring talons and teeth, bearing down on Desi like a lion ready to gobble her up. Desi cowered in the presence of him like a frightened and vulnerable slave, crouching in the corner, whimpering and crying.
The lion came with lawyers and injunctions roaring with threats and spewing obscenities.
“I don’t even want the money,” Desi had cried to Lonnie. “It’s not worth it, Lonnie! I’ve been through enough, and I’m tired of this shit!”
Lonnie despised weakness. And she sometimes despised Desi for wasting so much energy and time being the victim. She made some calls to a news producer friend of hers in San Francisco who owed her a favor, and a few days later, the cavalry, in the form of two of the best estate attorneys the country had to offer, showed up at Desi’s doorstep. All she had to do was sit back and wait for the pennies to literally rain from heaven.
Lonnie stepped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around herself, and went into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of wine. Jordan was a great lay and a good and obedient boy, but then, men were simple. Dangle a moist and eager pussy in front of their faces and they came running, tales wagging, and tongues hanging out. She stretched out on the chaise in her bedroom. Desi needed Lonnie. Poor girl. How she ever made it through twenty-five years in a federal penitentiary was a miracle, because she was a doormat. But it was all good. Lonnie was here to take care of it, and her motivation was simple. She loved Desi. Loved her like a sister. Loved her like … Desi needed her. And she would be there for her as long as she did.
Desi wasn’t by nature a fighter. Lonnie was the opposite. When she set her sights on something, she hung on like a pit bull, until she got it.
“You’re so hard-headed, Lonnie!” her mother used to complain about Lonnie’s determination and drive. Her mother could never see past the walls of that old house they lived in, but Lonnie wasn’t about to be boxed into that place. A woman should own who she is. She should expand on what everyone else tells her she should be. She should blow the minds of everyone around her, and leave them speechless. That was the code she lived by, and whenever somebody had the nerve to tell her she couldn’t do something, Lonnie would flip them the bird, and tell them, “Watch me.” Desi needed to learn that. Lonnie would teach her.
Jordan was a wise man and he had good instincts. She had to be careful around him, so careful. To him, Lonnie was a piece of ass that bucked the system and challenged him. She wasn’t a Gatewood groupie, willing to jump through hoops to appease him or please him. A man like him didn’t know what to do with a woman like her because he’d never had one. That pretty wife of his knew what kind of man she’d married, and because of who he was and what he had, she turned a blind eye to his indiscretions. If Lonnie had been his wife, she’d have cut his dick off and served it up to him on a platter. He was lucky he hadn’t met her first.
Jordan was a man with secrets. All rich men had secrets. Lonnie knew it and she went looking for his and found it. It was the kind of secret a man like him would take to the grave, because to do anything else, would mean the end of the world as he knew it.
Your story is getting dusty
Your lies are getting rusty
She smiled and took a sip of wine. “Goliath ain’t so bad, Desi,” she murmured. “He ain’t so big.”
What is Taboo?
“Jesus! Don’t you people ever stop?” Desi asked, exasperated, into the phone. “I don’t talk to reporters. I never have!”
“And again, Miss Green, I am not a news reporter,” Sue explained. “I’m a true-crime writer. My specialty is books, not news articles.”
“I don’t talk to true-crime writers, either!” Desi said sarcastically, and she started to hang up on the woman.
“The state of Texas found you guilty of murder, but I don’t think it’s that simple,” Sue blurted out, expecting to hear the line go dead. It didn’t. “The state has taken every opportunity to tell their side of the story, Desi. I just want to give you the platform to tell yours.”
The only assurance Sue had that Desi hadn’t hung up on her was the fact there she wasn’t talking to a dial tone.
“It’s been twenty-six years,” she continued. “You’ve been through a lot and you’ve kept quiet. Nobody knows what really happened the night Julian Gatewood was killed, and nobody knows what you’ve been through.”
“Nobody cares.”
“I do. And Ida? What was it like for her seeing her daughter…”
“Leave my mother out of this!”
“I’m sorry! Please, don’t hang up,” Sue pleaded. “I’m just saying that she seemed like a lovely woman, Desi,” she said, sincerely. “Lovely and broken hearted.”
Desi was silent on the other end of the phone.
“More than one life was lost that night, Desi. And more than one family suffered loss. Isn’t that true?”
There was a long pause before Desi finally answered. “You want to write a book about loss?” Desi asked, hesitantly.
Sue sighed. “I want to write a book about truth, Desi. All of it.”
It was Sue’s most passionate and fevered pitch and regardless of the outcome, she owed herself a firm pat on the back for it.
Of course, Desi was reluctant. Reporters from all over the country had flown into Texas and had camped out in front of the police station, the courthouse, and even on her mother’s front lawn during that trial. It wasn’t until they found out about the money that they came crawling out of the cracks again like roaches.
CONVICTED MURDERER INHERITS MILLIONS FROM HER VICTIM!
“How’s it feel to be a rich woman, Desi?”
“The Gatewoods have said that your inheritance is a slap in the face and another kind of crime. How does that make you feel?”
“Are you going to spend it, Desi? How can you accept that money with a clear conscience?”
Sue had stumbled across the news footage on YouTube. Desi’s story wasn’t making national headlines like it once did, but at least in the south, the news of her inheritance was a big deal, and had been the perfect selling point for Sue to make her pitch to Jeremy.
* * *
Desi never said a word to any of them, and it about ate her alive to keep her mouth shut, but she’d been trained to do just that. If they had any kind of investigative skills at all, they’d know that it wasn’t Mr. J’s money that she’d inherited. It was Ida’s. Mr. J hadn’t left Desi a dime. But he’d left Ida Green a trust fund, under the umbrella of an entity called the IG Foundation. He’d been putting money into that trust for years, in small enough amounts to keep from drawing attention to it by board members of his corporation, and his family.
Ida never touched it. She could’ve, but she never did, and over time, it had accumulated to over twenty million dollars. She left every cent of it to Desi in her will. “I’ll bet you could sell snow to an Eskimo,” Desi finally said.
Sue laughed. “If I wanted to bad enough, yeah.”
Desi started to read off a list of Sue’s titles. “Brother Rob: The Story of the Convent Rapist, See No Evil: The Last Days of Beth Andrews, No Pain, No Gain: Confessions of the Marlborough Serial Killer. What do you plan on calling my book, Ms. Parker? Brown Sugar is Sweet: True Confessions of Desi Green?”
Sue was offended. Obviously, while she was busy begging and pleading Desi Green for this opportunity, she’d been Googled. “Now you’re just being ridiculous,” Sue snapped.
“No, you’re the one being ridiculous for even calling me in the first place about this bullshit.”
“Bullshit!” Sue shrieked. “I’m giving you a chance to tell your story, Desi! This is a shot, a shot for you to open your mouth and finally say something, for crying out loud! A chance to speak up for yourself instead of sitting back like a slug and letting everybody else do it for you!”
“You almost sound like you think I’m innocent,” Desi said, sarcastically.
Sue couldn’t believe she’d just said that. It was a strange thing to say, and even stranger to hear. “Are you?”
Again, there was dead silence on the other end of the phone, but … what if?
“I know that your life hasn’t been easy,” Sue Parker added. “You’re trying to make a fresh start. So, why
not close out that part of your life by telling your side of the story,” Sue said, quickly. “I believe that there’s more to your story than meets the eye. I believe that your mother loved Julian Gatewood, and that he loved her, and you.”
Desi cleared her throat. “My mother wouldn’t want me putting her business out there like that, Ms. Parker.”
“Call me Sue, please,” she said, sincerely. “You mother was a private woman?”
“Very.”
“Now I see where you get it from. But don’t you think that people have tainted her memory long enough?”
“I thought you wanted to write a book about my life. Not my mother’s.”
“Aren’t they intertwined? Ida Green deserved so much better than what she got, Desi. She lost her daughter, her dignity, the man she loved, and eventually her life. You lost your mother, your freedom. Has anyone ever asked you why you did it?”
Desi didn’t answer.
“I’m offering you a chance to set the facts straight. You didn’t just shoot him for no reason, Desi. Something made you pull that trigger, and the moment you did, the course of your life changed forever.
The Gatewoods are powerful people. The media has always been on their side. They’ve told their story, and they’ve made it clear that theirs is the right one, and that yours isn’t worth hearing. They pointed fingers at a teenager, and placed the weight of everything that happened on her shoulders. How could you have been responsible for Julian Gatewood’s affair with your mother, Desi? And what made you pull that trigger?”
Sue waited again for Desi to say something.
“I’m not asking for an answer right now,” Sue continued, calmly. “I’m asking you to just think about it. If you really want to close that chapter of your life, once and for all, just think about it.” She paused again. “Desi? Are you there?”
“I’m here,” she said, softly.
* * *
Sue Parker went on to say that if Desi agreed to do this, she could have the publisher put her contract in the mail. Desi stood on her back patio and lit a cigarette. She’d been trying to quit, but times like this called for a smoke. A pattern was definitely starting to emerge. What the hell was going on? It was like somebody was standing behind her, pushing her towards places she’d have never thought she wanted to go. On the one hand, she had Lonnie with all her conspiracy theories, and vendettas, judges, and now this Sue Parker and her book. In the middle was Desi, wishing she could forget that her whole life had happened. Standing over her was Jordan Gatewood, looking down on top of her ready to pound her on top of the head with his fist.
