Never Keeping Secrets

by Niobia Bryant

  “No the hell we don’t.”

  Keesha stepped back out of the bathroom, the steam from the shower swirling out around her naked body. “Yes we do. I don’t have time to keep the house up.”

  “It’s a townhouse, Keesha, not a mini-mansion,” Corey said, turning to leave.

  “It’s five times bigger than that roach trap your ass was living in,” she snapped.

  Corey turned. “And before you thought you became the next Terry McMillan that roach trap was all your ass was used to, too.”

  Keesha waved her hand at him dismissively. “So I ain’t supposed to want better?”

  “Yeah but don’t forget where you came from.”

  Keesha sucked her teeth. “We’re getting the maid,” she told him, turning to walk back into the bathroom.

  Corey appeared in the doorway. “We can’t afford that.”

  She glanced at him over her shoulder. “No, you can’t,” she said before she stepped inside the shower and closed the glass door in his face.

  He slammed the bathroom door on his way out.

  Money—or rather her money—was the biggest cause of arguments between them. And Keesha couldn’t understand what his problem was. She grew up in the projects, stripped to raise her child, and fought back from a drug addiction. Now was the time to live and live well. Why not spend it and enjoy?

  Corey had been fully behind Keesha’s dreams of writing her book. He purchased her a computer, encouraged her to finish the book, and even kicked ideas around with her. It was Corey who made her take getting her book published seriously. He made her believe in herself. And that made her hustle harder. For herself, her daughter, and for him.

  All of the happiness they shared the day she got a call from a New York agent offering to represent her disappeared a long time ago. Happy don’t live in this bitch anymore.

  Keesha finished her shower and dressed in yoga pants and a tank, prepared to finally start her day. She grabbed the wallet she kept her cigarettes in. As she left their bedroom she eyed the closed door to her office. She really needed to get in at least twenty pages that day if she was going to meet her new extended deadline. “After I eat something,” she said, continuing on down the stairs and into the kitchen.

  At the sound of girlish giggles she looked out the window. Kimani and a couple of the girls from the neighborhood were playing in the inground pool.

  Keesha made herself a sandwich and took it with her outside to lie on one of the patio chairs. She waved at her daughter and her friends, hoping they stayed in the pool. She was not in the mood to hear nary nothing about whatever little boys they were crushing on.

  Not when she needed to figure out the big fight scene at the end of her book. Keesha felt like she wanted to do something with her lead character, Lick Me. She wanted to give her readers an ending that left them with their mouths opened. Something that would shock them.

  “Hey, Keesha.”

  She leaned up and looked over her shoulder. She smiled as their neighbor Jeremiah came down the steps of the deck to sit down in the patio chaise beside her. He moved into the townhouse four or five months ago and Keesha had instantly clicked with the man. “How’d you get in?” she asked, sitting up to pull a cigarette and her rhinestone-covered lighter from its case.

  “Corey let me in on his way out,” he said, reaching over to take half of her sandwich.

  Keesha frowned. Where the fuck he going?

  “When did you get back?” she asked him even as she reached over to where Kimani had the cordless phone sitting. She dialed Corey’s cell phone number so quickly that the beeps seemed to run together.

  “I just got in yesterday. I would have come over but I had to get over that long flight from Hawaii,” Jeremiah said.

  Corey never answered. The call went to his voice mail and Keesha hung up at the sound of the automated message. “Next time you and your boo take me with you,” she said, sounding as distracted as her thoughts.

  Is Corey fucking around on me?

  She tried calling Corey’s number twice more and neither time did he answer.

  “Marcus won’t mind,” Jeremiah said, leaning over to lightly tap and free the ashes from her forgotten cigarette.

  “Huh?” Keesha asked, turning her head to look at him.

  “I said Marcus won’t mind,” Jeremiah repeated. “He loves your books.”

  Keesha smiled even though her nerves were shot. “You’ll have to bring him over to meet me one day,” she said.

  She blinked to remove an image of Corey’s dark and naked body sweating as he grinded between the legs of some faceless whore.

  “I will. He still isn’t willing to admit to anyone he’s gay.” Jeremiah looked over at the girls in the pool.

  “So he’s manly like you?” Keesha asked, putting out her cigarette butt on the concrete and reaching for another one.

  Jeremiah eyed her.

  Keesha waved her hand dismissively. “I mean none of that finger-snapping, lip-smacking, honey boo-boo shit,” she said.

  Jeremiah still eyed her and cocked his head to the side.

  “Hell, you don’t look gay.” She threw her hands up in the air. “You’re not flaming—”

  “You’re going to need a ladder and a prayer to get out the hole you’re digging,” he said, before finally smiling.

  Keesha realized he had been joking with her. “Ooh fuck you,” she said.

  “No thank you.”

  Brrrnnnggg . . .

  Keesha snatched up the cordless phone, thinking it was Corey calling her back. “Where you at?” she asked.

  “So you finally answering your phone?”

  Keesha held the phone away from her head and gave herself a five count at the sound of her mother’s voice.

  “Something wrong, Keesha?” Jeremiah asked.

  Taking a deep breath she looked down at the phone with her thumb poised above the button to send Diane back out of her life. After the way her mother acted a complete fool at the cookout, Keesha had decided that she had enough of her. Diane was on the no-call/no-answer list at the Lands-Miller household.

  She heard Jeremiah’s concern but didn’t answer him as she finally pressed the phone to her ear. “What do you want, Diane?”

  “So you just forgot you got a mama again?”

  “What do you want, Diane?” she repeated.

  The line went quiet.

  Keesha knew what was coming next.

  “I’m on the list to be evicted and I need to borrow money to catch up my rent.”

  I knew it.

  “They gonna put my shit on the curb next week, Keesha.”

  She pulled her knees to her chest. “Diane, I don’t have—”

  “Or I could just put my shit in storage and move in with you.”

  “Fuck no!” She knocked her hand against the armrest, causing the fiery end of her ashes to break off and drop onto her thigh. She yelped as it burned a hole into her pants and then singed her skin.

  “Ain’t this ’bout a bitch,” she snapped, wetting her thumb and pressing it to the burn.

  “Did you call me a bitch, bitch?” Diane asked.

  “What’s wrong, Keesha?” Kimani called from the pool.

  “You call your mama by her first name?” one of the kids asked.

  “Your mother’s fine,” Jeremiah called over to Kimani.

  “Look, Diane, I can’t keep bailing you out. I got my own bills,” Keesha said into the phone.

  The line stayed quiet.

  Keesha dropped her head into her hands. I’m so tired of her shit.

  They both knew she would catch up on the rent because they both knew that Keesha had no plans of moving her mother into her home. She would never inflict Diane’s ratchetness on the neighborhood. Never.

  “How much?”

  “Eight hundred and eighty.”

  Keesha’s eyes got big. “Your rent is under a hundred. When the last time you paid your shit?”

  “And you’re talking to
your mother?” Jeremiah asked.

  Keesha waved her hand at him.

  “I kicked Doc to the curb, lost my job at the Dollar Store, and my unemployment ran out,” Diane explained.

  Keesha squeezed one eye shut and arched the brow over the other as she fought not to lose it. “I’ll take the money straight to the office tomorrow. I have to go.”

  Click.

  And Diane was gone. No thank you. Nothing.

  Keesha dropped the phone. “Crazy bitch,” she mumbled.

  “That was . . . different,” Jeremiah said.

  Keesha lit yet another cigarette as she laughed a little. “That’s one word for it,” she said. “So are dysfunctional, debilitating, and damaged.”

  Jeremiah remained quiet.

  “I think my mother is crazy. Like seriously, needs-to-beon-a-pill type crazy,” Keesha admitted, looking off into the trees and garden surrounding the edges of the backyard.

  “I remember the scene at the cookout,” Jeremiah said. “You should get her some help.”

  “Been there, done that,” she said, her voice sad and tired. “I used to get high and I, uh . . . overdosed. I had to go to therapy and my mama issues came up.”

  Again Jeremiah stayed quiet.

  “My mama taught me how to smoke weed and how men were only good for money. When I told her I wanted to strip she gave me that bullshit line from The Player’s Club.”

  “ ‘Make the money, don’t let it make you.’ ”

  Keesha nodded as she took a deep inhale of her cigarette, enjoying the feel of the smoke against her tongue. She went on to tell him she started therapy while in rehab. Her therapist had suggested inviting Diane to a session. In the beginning their relationship had improved. Diane started acting less like a friend and more like a mother. Her mouth had become less reckless and she had seemed genuine in asking Keesha to forgive her for playing Russian roulette with the choice of her father.

  “That shit lasted all of two or three months,” Keesha said with another release of a long stream of smoke. “Diane told the therapist to lick every bit of black off her ass before she left the session and never returned.”

  Jeremiah looked apologetic. “That’s . . .”

  “Different,” they said in unison.

  Brrrnnnggg . . .

  Keesha picked up the phone but this time she checked the caller ID. “Where are you?” she asked Corey, standing up to walk out of earshot. “How you just gone up and leave without saying anything?”

  “Let you tell it, you don’t need me around there.”

  Something in his tone filled her with guilt. “When will you be back?” she asked.

  “Whenever I get the fuck back.”

  Click.

  Keesha raised her brows in surprise. Humph.

  Jeremiah stood up. “You cool? I have to get to work.”

  He worked nights as a security guard.

  “I’m good. Be sure to bring the photos of your trip next time you come over,” she said.

  He waved to the girls in the pool and disappeared through the opening in the wooden fence separating their properties.

  She tapped the phone against her chin as that image of Corey and another woman sexing each other flashed again. Turning the phone over she dialed Shawn’s cell number.

  “Whaddup.”

  “You,” she said, feeling some of her stress release. A side dick was a welcome distraction.

  Chapter 11

  Danielle

  “Ms. Johnson . . . Ms. Johnson. We’re here.”

  Danielle lightly smacked her lips as she opened her eyes and sat up. When her vision focused she looked into the smiling face of her driver. “Thank you,” she said, smoothing her hand over her slicked-back ponytail before she picked her tote up from the floor of the limousine.

  She stepped out onto the sidewalk in front of The Top. It felt good to lay eyes on the building. It felt like home and for a former foster kid that was huge.

  “Thank you,” she told the driver again, a burly man with flaming red hair and startling green eyes. She passed him a tip.

  “Good night, ma’am,” he said, sounding more Kentucky than Jersey.

  Danielle entered the building with a yawn. It was just after nine but she felt exhausted. First her flight from Los Angeles and then the ride from New York to New Jersey.

  She was in town to attend a movie premiere and had her own junior suite at the Hotel Gansevoort in New York, but she had wanted to check on her apartment. For the rest of the weekend her day would be filled with preparations for the premiere. Hair. Makeup. Wardrobe. Going over the facts the producers provided to make sure she asked the best questions on the carpet. Reading up on the details of the movie.

  “You’re late.”

  Danielle looked over to her left at the sound of the deep voice. Pleasure sat in one of the leather club chairs surrounding a low-slung wooden table. He was dressed in black track pants, a snug-fitting tee with a baseball cap over his thin dreads. Just like he was every time she saw him. She decided to meet him at her apartment and not at the hotel where the rest of the A-List staff were staying. Her business was her business. Especially sex for pay. “My dime, my time.”

  He smiled and he rose to his full height. “Tick-tock.”

  They walked together to the elevator. Danielle was relatively tall for a woman at five foot eight, but a tall and well-built man like Pleasure made her feel delicate and small. “I thought you weren’t coming,” she said, as they stepped into the elevator like two strangers.

  “Last-minute cancellation.”

  She cut her eyes up at him. “You’re a busy man.”

  Pleasure cut his eyes down at her. “Business is good.”

  “I bet it is,” she said.

  He chuckled.

  “I’m curious,” she said, turning to lean against the rear wall of the elevator and look up at him. “Ever fell for one of us?”

  He looked down at her briefly before turning his head back to look out toward the closed elevator doors. “Almost.”

  “Free dick and all?”

  A broad smile spread across his handsome chocolate face. “Free dick and all.”

  “Does she know?” Danielle asked as the elevator stopped on her floor.

  He shook his head.

  “Still . . . seeing her?”

  “She no longer needed my services.”

  They walked to her door.

  “Did that bother you?” she asked.

  “Nope, because I made sure she wouldn’t want my services anymore.”

  Danielle nodded in understanding. “You set her free.”

  He didn’t say anything else. That was fine because Danielle was done with her questions. Whatever fatigue she felt had already began to dissipate when she laid eyes on him. Whatever fatigue was left after completely vanished as she turned on the lights inside her apartment.

  Pleasure dropped the athletic duffel bag he held and instantly picked her up into his arms. “Bedroom,” he said.

  Danielle pointed to the hall as she splayed her fingers against his strong shoulder and used one foot to kick off the shoe of the other. They dropped with resonating thuds as he carried her across the living room and down the hall to the room at the end.

  He set her down on her bare feet and then sat on the foot of her bed, pulling her body between his thighs. And she stood as he slowly undressed her of the sheer blouse and pencil skirt she wore. Next were her lace bikinis and demi-bra. With each layer of clothing he removed and let drop to the floor he pressed kisses to her skin.

  And when she stood before him naked and exposed, he rose and lifted his arms high above his head for her to undress him. She did; repaying him in kind with heated and moist kisses to his skin as she exposed every inch of the hard contours of his body.

  They fell on the bed together and he used his body to press her down into the softness before rising to his knees. His dick was hard and curving from his body like a strong upper arm as he began to massage
her body from head to toe.

  Danielle lay back and gave in to the pleasure.

  He was worth every cent and she needed it. He knew how to take his time and miss not one spot on a woman’s body. His focus—his aim—was to please. His name suited him well.

  Danielle hollered out as he slid the first few inches of dick into her from behind, his hands twisted in her hair, pulling her head backward as he delivered delicious thrust after thrust.

  “You need this dick, don’t you?” he asked, his voice deeper than his thrust—and that was no small feat.

  “Yes,” Danielle cried out, feeling his sweat drip from his body onto her buttocks.

  “Tell me,” he ordered, his voice steady but determined.

  “I need that dick,” she whispered, her voice tired from the exertion of being fucked well.

  “I’m fucking the shit out of you, ain’t I?” he asked, sucking his thumb before he gently worked it into her ass.

  “Yes,” she moaned, biting her bottom lip.

  “What’s my name?”

  “Pleasure, motherfucker.”

  He chuckled and slapped her fleshy and full ass. WHAP. “What’s my motherfucking name?” he asked with a deep, hard thrust that caused the soft hairs surrounding his dick to press against her pussy from behind.

  “Pleasure,” she cried out.

  “And what do I give?”

  Danielle bit her bottom lip as she grabbed a pillow and pressed her face into it. “Pleasure,” she mumbled into the sweet coolness.

  Ding-dong.

  Danielle lifted her head from the pillow.

  Pleasure kept plowing away behind her. Thumb still in ass. Dick steadily filling her as he bent over her to massage her nipples the way he knew she loved.

  She got lost in him again as he pulled his condom-covered dick out of her just long enough to slap it soundly against her ass, slide it up and down the length of her open core before he slid back in her in one hard thrust. “Shit,” she swore, as he moved to squat behind her with his hands pressed into her shoulders as he delivered tiny thrusts that were just as lethal as anything in his sex arsenal.

  Ding-dong.

  Danielle lifted her head from the sweat-soaked pillow again.

  “You want to get that door or get this dick?” he asked, patient as ever.