Never Keeping Secrets

by Niobia Bryant

  There was a hefty rent to go along with it. No wonder Danielle used to run through men like they were her personal ATMs. How else could she afford the rent alone?

  Latoya felt guilty at the judgment she cast on her friend. Judgment fed by the man she loved. And too much pillow talk about her friends had fed his dislike of them. And all the pillow talk had been easy because they needed to fill the gap left by their celibacy.

  But she hadn’t laid out all of her own secrets to him and had no plans to do so.

  Latoya grimaced as she made her way to the kitchen, opening the glass-front refrigerator to pull out a bottle of water. The coolness of the liquid felt good going down her throat as the heat of her dilemma burned her stomach. She turned and leaned back against the small granite-topped island as she looked down at her engagement ring.

  Taquan was going to be her husband. The head of their family. And his role as a husband could not be denied. It was clearly written in The Word: Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.

  But her friends had been there through it all. Loving her. Helping to heal her. Making sure they had her back when she felt left behind by everyone and anything else. They were in the delivery room with her during her labor. Not even her parents, who chose to believe the lies of their minister over her truths about his sexual relationship with her. Her friends had never forsaken her. Never. And now she was supposed to present them her back and shun them because they weren’t saved?

  “Be not deceived: bad company corrupts good morals. ”

  Taquan loved to quote that verse to her. He felt it was the backbone of his argument. She couldn’t lie; it was a good one. Who could dispute the Bible? The Word? Their salvation?

  Finishing her water, she quietly moved throughout the darkness of the apartment to her bedroom. Tiffany was awake and softly whispering baby talk to herself as she bent her legs to play with her chubby toes.

  Latoya smiled as she walked around the bed to look down into her daughter’s crib.

  “Ma-Ma,” she said, sounding like she missed her and was tickled pink for her return.

  Latoya’s heart swelled with love as she leaned over and pressed her lips against a chubby cheek. “Why are you up, Tiffy-Boo?” she asked, reaching down to quickly check if her diaper was wet.

  Tiffany giggled as she reached up to lightly pat her mother’s cheek. “Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma.”

  Brrrnnnggg . . .

  Latoya was startled by the sudden ringing of her cell phone. Her heart raced and pounded as she moved back around the bed to pick it up from the nightstand. She had several missed calls and a few texts from Taquan. “No wonder my baby woke up,” she said, pressing the button to answer the call. “Hey Taq—”

  “Come downstairs.”

  Click.

  Latoya frowned at her fiancé’s abruptness as she tossed the phone on the bed, pulled her pale pink robe over her nightie and then moved to scoop Tiffany up into her arms. Thankfully, her little one snuggled her head against Latoya’s shoulder and she knew it wouldn’t be long before she was back asleep. “Thank God,” she mouthed, rubbing comforting circles onto her daughter’s back.

  She came to the double doors of Danielle’s master suite at the end of the hall. She knocked twice softly before opening the door and saying a prayer that Danielle didn’t have company. Their friend was on a man sabbatical but . . .

  Latoya felt relief that she was snuggled in the middle of her queen-sized bed alone.

  “Someone better be dead.”

  Latoya paused on her path to Danielle’s bedside at the sound of the muffled words. She was a light sleeper. Like her behind was afraid she was going to miss something while she dozed.

  “Let your goddaughter sleep with you,” Latoya whispered, coming to stand by the opposite side of the bed.

  Danielle lifted her silk scarf-covered head from her pillow and lifted one corner of her black satin eye mask as she looked over her shoulder. “She has two other godmothers,” she drawled playfully, her voice filled with sleep.

  “But you’re her favorite,” Latoya said smoothly, already pulling back the crisp thousand-count sheets to ease her gently snoring daughter onto the bed.

  “Bitch, please,” Danielle said in disbelief as she rolled over onto her side on the bed and gently shooed Latoya’s hands away as she pulled the sheets up to cover Tiffany’s plump frame. She took over massaging circles onto Tiffany’s back, sending her deeper and deeper into sleep. “You are so full of shit.”

  Although she knew Danielle was joking, Latoya still bristled at the use of profanity. The old Latoya who played it loose with her salvation wouldn’t have cared, but the woman of God she was now had asked her friends several times to refrain from all the cussing and carrying on around her.

  She bit her bottom lip to literally keep from reminding Danielle about it, especially around Tiffany. There were many times just in the last few weeks that she found herself cringing in her friends’ company.

  Just before she left the room, Latoya gave her daughter and Danielle one last glance over her shoulder. She moved down the hall and through the living room to leave the apartment. Her slipper-covered feet slapping against the hardwood floors echoed in the quiet of the long hall to the elevator.

  Latoya’s curiosity over Taquan’s sudden late-night appearance was piqued. It wasn’t like him to be out and about that time of the night and if he made the drive to Livingston she knew it was more than a desire to see her smiling face. These days they barely kissed heavily because they were afraid they would slip back to the days they would masturbate in front of each other.

  The image of Taquan jacking off as she lay in the middle of the bed pressing a vibrator against her clit flashed. Latoya swallowed over a lump in her throat and fanned herself a bit as she forced the temptation away.

  Ding.

  “No sex until marriage. No sex until marriage,” she repeated softly to herself as the doors to the elevator slid open. She stepped forward.

  “Fuck me harder, Frank.”

  “Fuck back, Mindy.”

  Latoya moved backwards with her eyes wide and her mouth even wider at the sight of a young blond woman bent over with her dress wrapped around her waist getting furiously filled with the dick of the man standing behind her. The smell of their sex and the sounds of their moans were in the air. Their motion was steady and fast. Each thrust sent his long reddish balls and her breasts swinging back and forth. The smack of flesh echoed like claps.

  Whap-whap-whap . . .

  Frank was killing it and they didn’t even see Latoya standing there. Shocked by them. Watching them. Turned on by them. It felt like she was at the taping of a bad porno flick.

  Latoya’s heart pounded . . . and so did her clit. She gasped in surprise at herself getting aroused. Frank and the nameless blonde both looked over at her but they didn’t stop. Or look away. He bit his sweaty lip and pounded away harder.

  Whap-whap-whap-whap-whap-whap . . .

  Latoya was grateful when the elevators doors finally closed and the freaky moment came to an end. “Sweet Jesus,” she sighed, finally feeling like her feet were unglued from the spot in which she stood.

  Truth be told, Latoya’s biggest fight with her spirituality was her celibacy. It was hard listening to the girls talk about their sexual adventures when she was clutching nothing but her Bible at night.

  “Girl, Corey put it down last night.”

  “Cameron ate the pussy so good I passed out.”

  Big dick this.

  Hard dick that.

  Dick. Dick. Dick. Dick.

  Here a dick. There a dick. Everywhere a dick dick.

  Latoya sighed in frustration as she turned and fled for the stairwell, her robe fluttering out behind her like a cape as she descended the steps. Floor after floor after floor. She never stopped. Never even paused. By the time she jerked open the door to the lobby her heart was pounding so hard that she felt like it was punching to free itself from her chest.

&
nbsp; Latoya could see through the wide glass doors that Taquan was parked outside the building. She slowed her steps and forced herself to calm down as she walked across the tiled floor, left the building, and climbed into the passenger seat of Taquan’s black SUV.

  His caramel handsome face instantly filled with disapproval. “You’re roaming the building in your nightclothes?” he asked. “That’s not appropriate, Toya.”

  Her eyes flittered over the sweatsuit he wore. The lights from the overhang of the apartment lit the cross dangling from the end of his gold chain.

  She thought of the interlude she witnessed in the elevator and she was filled with guilt because in that moment she wished it was her getting chopped down. She missed sex. She missed masturbation to relieve the pressure of not having sex. It didn’t help that she knew Taquan was blessed.

  Her eyes dipped down to his crotch and she could just make out the imprint of his penis against the top of his thigh.

  Here a dick. There a dick. Everywhere a dick dick.

  “Father, forgive me,” she mouthed quietly, shifting her eyes back up to his face.

  “I’ve been thinking about what we talked about earlier,” he began.

  “Me too,” she admitted.

  “I realized I was asking too much of you without offering a real solution to the problem,” he said, reaching over to stroke the back of her hand.

  Latoya’s brow wrinkled a bit in confusion.

  “You live with your friends and it just doesn’t make sense for you to distance yourself while you’re still living under the same roof as them—”

  “I’m not moving back in with my parents,” she protested. “I mean, we’re cool now, but I am never—”

  “Latoya.”

  “I guess I could get my own place,” she said, as if thinking aloud to herself.

  “Marry me.”

  “I would have to find a place, buy furniture, be ready to take on a household of bills—”

  Taquan reached up and lightly grasped her chin, turning her head towards him. “Marry. Me,” he repeated with emphasis.

  Latoya frowned. “We’re already engaged,” she said, raising her hand to show him the engagement ring on her left hand.

  He shook his head as he leaned forward to taste her lips. “No, marry me now. I don’t want to wait for the big wedding next year. I want you as my wife and in my life now. And then you and Tiffany can move in with me.”

  Latoya’s eyes widened a bit and her mouth felt dry until she drew her tongue against it.

  “We’ll get the license and go to the courthouse after the waiting period and then we’ll start our lives together,” Taquan said, his eyes locked on hers.

  Latoya bit her bottom lip. She let the truth of her feelings settle. In two or three days I can be married and living with this man . . . and having all the sex I want.

  “We can still have the big ceremony later on if that’s stopping you,” he added.

  She felt all the love she had for him as she smiled and nodded, leaning forward to cover his lips with her own before she traced the outline of his mouth with her tongue. She felt the tremble race over his body. She wanted to know what other reactions she could evoke from him. She wanted to deepen their love.

  She wanted him deeply inside of her.

  As they both moaned in pleasure and brought their hands up to wrap around each other’s body, Latoya pushed aside the elephant in the car. Her soon-to-be husband was so serious about ending her relationship with three women she knew since high school that he just moved their wedding date up. His insistence for the ties to be cut would know no end and she still didn’t know if she was prepared to do that.

  Chapter 4

  Danielle a.k.a. Cristal

  “It’s really a shame how you are letting good pussy go to waste.”

  Danielle Johnson shifted her slanted eyes from the message pad she was filling out to find Carolyn Ingram standing in front of her receptionist desk in the grand lobby of the offices of Lowe, Ingram, and Banks. She stiffened her back as she set down her pen and met the woman’s leering gaze. Danielle felt herself cringe. “No, the shame would be your husband finding out his socialite wife is nothing more than a coke-sniffing dyke who could care less about his dick going to waste,” she finally countered, not caring one bit that the woman was the wife of one of the founding partners of one of the largest law firms on the East Coast.

  Months ago, Cristal had let her ambition of becoming more than just a foster kid from Newark with champagne dreams and Kool-Aid money lead her into becoming the protégé of the socialite. In time she discovered the woman’s true intentions were not to groom her and introduce her to society.

  Most definitely not, Danielle thought, shivering a little at the memory of Carolyn trying to finger-fuck her during a vacay in the Hamptons. She refused to remember the rest of the fuckery that went down that night and didn’t care to even imagine what else occurred after she fled the estate.

  Only Carolyn’s fear of being outed to her wealthy and generous husband kept her from causing a stink about Danielle still working at the firm. Still, Danielle was sick of the snide comments and leers whenever they encountered one another.

  Carolyn Ingram could pretty much buy anything in the world she wanted except for Danielle’s pussy and she hated that.

  “It’s really a shame you have such a smart mouth when you’re so fucking stupid,” Carolyn hissed, leaning in close so that her words were low and just for Danielle’s ears. “With my connections and your looks I could have made you into something.”

  Danielle arched a well-shaped brow.

  “And we both know you want that more than anything, don’t we?” Carolyn offered, the tip of her tongue darting out to touch the middle of her bottom lip lightly before disappearing again. “Little sad poor kid with no parents, raised in foster care, no education past high school but speaks proper English like you sipped from Shakespeare’s cup, fucking celebrities and athletes to help pay for that lovely little apartment in Livingston.”

  Danielle’s surprise was evident. Her anger came quickly after that. “You’re stalking me?” she asked, her heart pounding.

  Carolyn straightened her rail-thin frame and smoothed her hands over her bob even though a hair wasn’t out of place. “Research, bitch. Just research.”

  The elevator doors opened behind them and Carolyn’s face became distant and composed. “Please tell my husband I’m here to see him,” she said, looking down her nose at Danielle from where she stood.

  She picked up the phone as a trio of paralegals breezed past her desk. She dialed the extension directly into Mr. Ingram’s office. “Sir, your wife—”

  Click.

  A perfectly red lacquered nail ended the call.

  Danielle looked up at the older woman in irritation.

  “You have a face that should be on television, sweetheart,” she said earnestly, her eyes glistening bright enough to put her sobriety in question.

  Danielle jerked her head back when the woman raised her hand from the phone and quickly traced her jawline. “Don’t put your pussy-smelling finger in my face again or I will snap your bony ass in two.”

  Carolyn flung her head back and just laughed.

  Danielle knew right then the bitch was high. Quickly she picked up the phone and dialed Mr. Ingram’s extension again. “Yes, sir. Your wife is on her way back,” she said quickly, wanting the hag gone from out of her face and her life.

  Click.

  This time Mr. Ingram ended the call and Danielle just leaned back in her chair as she waved her hand toward the door leading to the inner offices. Carolyn just chuckled as she hitched her Birkin up onto the crook of her slender arm and walked away.

  Danielle felt sweet relief flood her. She was so sick of these little interactions and interludes with the woman. Either she was tearing Danielle down with slurs or raving about her looks. Just crazy.

  Bzzzzzzzzz.

  Rolling back in her chair she reached down to
pull her cell from her purse on the floor. She checked her caller ID. She gasped in surprise as pleasure filled her. “Mohammed?” she asked herself quietly.

  She hadn’t talked to her ex in weeks. More than weeks.

  Trying to climb the social ladder on Carolyn’s Hermès wings had caused major friction between Mohammed and her. Major. It weakened a bond she thought couldn’t be broken after she chose her love for him over her love of the money of a wealthy man. Choosing to put some focus on herself and stepping away from their intense relationship had been the hardest and most grown-up decision she had made in all of her twenty some-odd years. Still, it didn’t mean she no longer loved and missed him. And wanted him.

  Even though he still worked as the handyman for the apartment building where she lived, she barely saw the sexy dreadlocked man who turned her on with his Jamaican lilt and rock-hard body.

  Bzzzzzzzzz.

  She hit the button to send the call to voice mail and then quickly sent him a text with trembling fingers:

  AT WORK. CAN’T TALK RIGHT NOW.

  CALL YOU ON MY BREAK.

  Danielle held the cell phone in her hand even as she answered and transferred three work calls.

  Bzzzzzzzzz.

  A deliveryman walked up to her desk and she held up her hand with a polite smile as she opened the incoming text with her hand under her desk.

  Really need 2 talk 2 U. Stop by my

  house after work?

  Danielle’s pulse sped as she stared at the words.

  Talk to me about what?

  What could he want?

  Should I go?

  We both have moved on and so much time has passed. Why revisit any part of it?

  “Ma’am?”

  Danielle looked up at the deliveryman, her eyes and smile contrite. “I apologize,” she said, rising on her Jimmy Choo pointy-toe kitten heels—the same ones she saw Michelle Obama wearing on television. She figured those weren’t a bad pair of shoes to walk in at all if her husband succeeded in November in becoming the first African-American president of the United States of America.