“Yeah, bitch, he was at my crib. We fucked. And what?” Nicole growled, “Silly ass.”
“You’re silly, bitch.” Christina lunged at Nicole and hit her in the face.
Nicole tried to lunge back but instead hit one of the cops.
“All right, that’s it!” an officer announced. “Everybody’s under arrest!”
“Whoa, wait a minute,” Jaise said. “Can we try and handle this another way?”
“I have no choice,” the officer said, “but to take them in.”
“Bilal,” Jaise turned to him. “Can you talk to them? Please.”
Silence.
“My kids!” Nicole screamed, as one of the officers pulled her hands behind her back and began to read her her rights.
“My daughter’s in the car,” Jabril said, in the midst of an officer handcuffing him.
“Kids?” Jaise said put off. “Daughter?” Jaise looked toward Nicole’s car and three small children, the oldest no more than six and the youngest no more than two, were in the backseat.
“Are you two getting high?” Jaise said pissed and in complete shock. She looked Jabril dead in his eyes. “You on crack or some shit? Really. Are you? ’Cause that’s the only goddamn thing that would make me understand why you’ve crumbled to shit.” She looked at Nicole. “More than the damn police need to be called on you! A set of dumb motherfuckers trying to raise kids!” Jaise gawked at her neighbors, who stood around watching. “What the hell are you all looking at?”
She walked over to Nicole’s car and opened a back door. She reached for the baby girl, who was the spitting image of her and Jabril, and took her out of her car seat. There was no way Jaise could be in denial anymore about this being Jabril’s child. She knew at that moment that she was. Her heart told her there was no need for a blood test.
The baby smiled at Jaise and instantly melted her heart. Jaise squeezed the baby and smelled her hair. She kissed her softly on the forehead. After taking in that this was the first time she held her granddaughter, she extended her hand to the other children. “Come on, babies.”
“No,” the oldest child, a boy, whined. “My mommy said me, my brother, and sister not sposed to talk to strangers.” Tears ran from his eyes and snot from his nose.
“It’s okay, Nigel,” Nicole said. “You can go with her.”
“Let’s go home, Mommy,” he whined.
“I’ll be home in the morning,” she assured him.
A knot caught in Jaise’s throat as she thought about smacking Jabril in his fucking face again and then slamming Nicole a good one. The children cried and screamed, “Mommy!”
“Shh, it’ll be okay,” Jaise comforted them. “Now, come with me, please. It’s okay.”
Reluctantly, the children eased out of the car and clutched Jaise by the hand.
“Bilal,” Jaise said. “Can you help me—”
“Not this time,” Bilal said as he walked toward his car, got in, revved the engine and pulled off before Jaise could protest.
“Get the kids …” Jaise said as if someone had deflated the air out of her balloon.
Doing her best to swallow her embarrassment and shake the shame, Jaise walked over to Nicole and for the next few minutes jotted down information about who she needed to call to come and get the children, while the police gathered eyewitness accounts from the neighbors. Carl walked over to Jaise and zoomed the camera in. “Does this qualify for down low, tow-down, and country?”
Jaise looked at Carl and shoved the camera out of her face.
Vera
The sultry sounds of Eric Roberson and the scent of Taj’s hand-rolled Cuban cigar floated beneath his office door into the foyer like a trail of seduction as Vera locked their apartment door behind her. She clutched her keys to her chest and wondered what to do next. Her mind told her to make a point by going straight to bed.
Quietly.
No stopping.
No second-guessing.
Simply walk past Taj’s office and give him all the time he needed to marinate on the way he’d been acting. But her heart and her horniness told her to drop it, that maybe she’d proven her point.
The reflection of the foyer’s river-rock water feature danced in the adjacent all-glass wall as Vera slipped her stilettos off, held them in her hands, and stared into the indigo of the New York skyline. At least a million lights shimmered over the city as she internally debated how to end their argument without being the one to fold.
He doesn’t listen.
He doesn’t. She stared at the blinking red and green lights of the Empire State Building. Let him wallow in his shit.
She swallowed as she walked past Taj’s office and into their master suite, closing the double doors behind her. “Fuck him,” she mumbled to herself, her voice bearing a trace of uncertainty. “Do I love him? Hell yes. Am I going to be ruled by him? Hell no.” She slipped her clothes off and headed for the shower.
She stood under the rainspout and as her hair melted to silk and beads of hot water rolled over her breasts and dripped off her nipples, she wished Taj was there to encircle them with his heated tongue. She loved the way he sucked her breasts: soft, sensual, yet with hard lollipop pulls.
As she closed her eyes and squeezed a nipple with one hand and made her way down her thigh with the other, the bathroom door opened and Taj leaned against the doorway. His silence spoke a million words, and his eyes followed with a million questions, none of which Vera answered.
Fuck him, her thoughts reminded her. Fuck. Him.
She could see Taj’s eyes inching their way over her naked ass to the slither of hair covering her vagina to her double Ds to her face. “Seven years of marriage, thousands of sessions of making love and making up comes down to you going on TV and telling everybody in America what the hell you’re supposed to tell me first?”
Silence.
Don’t say shit. Fuck him.
“And then you come in the house,” Taj continued. “And you don’t say a damn thing to me. Nothing.”
Fuck. Him.
“How the hell am I supposed to feel about that?”
More silence.
“You said I never listen. I’m listening.”
Nothing.
“You’re not going to say anything? So I guess we’ll be up all night. ’Cause I feel like I don’t know what’s going on. But one thing I do know is that I love you. I’ll be damned if I’m going to throw away what we got and all we’ve built for some TV bullshit. I love you too much for that.” He lifted his shirt above his head, dropped his pants, and stepped into the shower. “Talk to me.” He leaned against the marble wall. “Please.”
Vera scanned Taj’s delicious brown, muscular body, stopping, staring, and appreciating his immeasurable hard inches. Usually she wouldn’t hesitate to slide down the shower’s wall and take him into her mouth, sucking every thick and fat inch of him. She loved to lick the muffintop head that always had just the right amount of precum to tease her tongue. She loved the taste of him, the feel of his dick in her mouth, in her wetness, or simply rubbing against her skin. She loved it, and no matter how many times they made love he always topped the last time. And yeah, she wanted to give in to him, become one with him again, but she knew his hard dick being exposed like this was entrapment. A clear setup, and she knew it was only a matter of time before the desires of her pussy took over and fell for the shit. Damn.
“Talk to me. Please.” He stood under the rainspout with her, his hands on her ass cheeks, rubbing and squeezing. Her hard nipples were pressed into his chest as he looked into her eyes. “Because I don’t want you to ever think I don’t hear you. Or listen to you. I love you, and right now I need you more than you’ll ever know.” He whispered as he placed kisses on her nose, her lips, and her chin. “Talk to me.”
Just give in.
Fuck him.
Fuck. Him.
“Don’t say ‘fuck him,’ ” Taj whispered to Vera as he slowly slid to his knees.
Is
he reading my mind again?
“Talk to me,” he said as his wet tongue graced everything in its path: her nipples, her navel, her clit.
Unable to resist a moment longer as he lapped her pearl, she said, “I love you but you don’t own me.”
“I know.” He licked. “And I love you more than I think you know.” He licked again. “And this arguing—” He gripped her clit and sucked, and mopped up the lining of it, “—is not for us.”
Vera pressed her hands into Taj’s broad shoulders. “Taj—” She paused and dug her nails into his skin. Her wetness eased onto his lips like sticky gloss as he worked his fingers and tongue simultaneously.
“We gon’ get this shit back on track.” He stood up and backed her into the corner, where she quickly waltzed around him and switched positions, his back now pressed against the wall. “I didn’t know you felt like you do, and I’m sorry. I’ve been way out of line.”
She locked eyes with him and wrapped her legs around his waist. She glided onto his dick, guiding it into her heated sweetness. He carried her out of the shower—dripping a trail of water behind them—to their bedroom.
Taj laid Vera in the center of the bed and she quickly wrestled her way on top. She thought about making him apologize for his behavior while she rode his dick and led him to space. She placed a nipple in his mouth and thought of telling him, “Tell me you’re sorry and you’ll never do that shit again.” She paused, caught up in the rapture of their erotic dance—tongue exchanges, strokes, sucks, nibbles, nipple pinches, and hard thrusts—and within an instant they’d switched positions. Now instead of her pinning his shoulders to the bed, she lay on her back with her legs wrapped around his neck. Sweat baptized both their foreheads, ran along the sides of their faces, down his chest, her breasts, and both their backs. Chilling sensations sent shock waves so intense Vera could swear her DNA had been rocked.
She bit her bottom lip and pain shot through it. “Ssssssss …” She pushed her breasts together and he licked her chocolate nipples as if milk were oozing through them.
Roll his ass over.
I can’t.
She caressed her clit as her sugar walls melted like sweet butter over his dick. He pulled out, slid his fingers into her slit, and eased back down her belly. His tongue generously lapped her jelly. “Whose pussy is this?” He eased back up her stomach and entered her again.
“That’s not the question.” She took control and rolled back on top. “The question is, whose dick is this?” She squeezed her inner walls. Her thighs popped and slapped against his.
His eyes rolled to the back of his head and he grunted, “I love this fat pussy.”
“That’s not an answer,” she said, as he lifted her off his dick, held her slightly in the air, and moaned. “Look at that shit.” He squeezed the base of his dick and a few moments later they found themselves dancing again. He now had her positioned doggy-style, ass up, head down.
“Taj!” Vera panted.
“I’m here, baby.” He pulled her ass onto his shaft, thrust into her, and made drum beats as he pounded her with all he had.
Vera’s mouth fell open. You’re supposed to be riding this motherfucker.
Fuck—fuck—fuck—damn—damn—damn—this shiiiiit—izzzzzz—goooooood. “Jeeeezus!”
Taj pounded and slapped her on the ass, her behind jiggled against his shaft, and her pussy popped and exploded all over his chocolate log.
“You didn’t answer my damn question.” He yanked her hair back, the way she loved for him to do. “Whose pussy is this?”
And you didn’t answer my question, “Whose dick is this?”
“Answer me.” He pounded.
You answer me!
“Dick got your tongue?” he said, and that’s when it clicked that she’d been talking shit in her head but the only things escaping from her mouth were moans, groans, oohs, and ahhs.
“Don’t I give you everything you want?”
“Oh, God!” I don’t want you to give it to me. “Damn … ummm.… right there … right there …”
He bit her on the shoulder. “I love you.” He pounded.
I love you too. “Fuck!”
“And you know this is your dick, but you haven’t told me yet whose pussy this is.”
It’s mine. “It’s yourzzzzz, baaaaaaby!” she screamed as he made a pathway through the back wall of her pussy.
“So why are you always talkin’ shit when those cameras are around?” He pounded and slapped her ass cheeks. “You have to stop that.”
I don’t have to do a motherfuckin’ thing but stay black and be a woman. “And cum,” she hissed. “I’m cummmmmin’! Fuck.” She tried to dance her way back on top of him so she could sit on his face and smother his mouth while he drank her nectar. But his dick, the shifting of his hips, and his movements, all halted her for the moment, turning her words to mush as he flipped her around, laid her on her back, tossed her legs to the sides of his neck and laced her pussy with a sea full of pearls.
She watched him collapse on top of her, his chest to her breasts, his head in the crook of her neck. “I don’t own you,” he said as he gathered her close. “But you belong to me.”
She moaned softly, though she suspected his words had a double meaning. “I know you love me. I know you do. I love you too.”
Jaise
Jaise stood in her butler’s pantry as her granddaughter, Jaden, cooed in an antique highchair while the other two children, Nigel and Tabari, sat wired at the kitchen table. Jaise had been asked three times if they were on Cops, MTV Cribs, or Hell Date. The last time the children asked the question she gave up, pointed to Carl and said, “Ask him.”
Now they were all over Carl, dancing, singing, and doing somersaults for the camera. Jaise tried not to complain. Hell, they’d just seen their mother carted off to jail along with Christina and Jabril. And Bilal had just run off to God knows where, so after they each shed a few tears, they all mourned in the best way they knew how: the children showed their asses and Jaise retreated to the pantry in search of something to eat.
She peeked into the kitchen where the boys had just pointed their hands like guns and told Carl to hand over his wallet. “What should we eat?” she asked, not knowing if they would answer the question or not. Predicting that they wouldn’t answer, Jaise took out two cans of apples and said, “Homemade applesauce.”
“Ms. Jaise,” Nigel said. “You just cashed your WIC check?”
“My who?”
“Yo’ WIC check, ’cause that’s the only time we eat applesauce.”
“Oh … kay.” Jaise placed a hand on her right hip. “So what do you suggest?”
“Some cookies,” Tabari said, pumping his fist at Carl. “Chocolate chip.”
“I want some too.” Nigel smiled. “Ms. Jaise, my babysister loves cookies.”
“She does,” Jaise said taking the ingredients she needed to make chocolate chip cookies from her pantry and placed them on her center island.
“Umm hmm.” Tabari rubbed his tummy. “Me too.” He quickly looked at Carl. “Didn’t I tell you this was a stick up, you’re not ’spose to move.”
“Tabari,” Jaise called. “Why don’t you and Nigel help me make the cookies? And I tell you what, if you’re still here and your grandmother hasn’t come to get you, then you two can help me bake a cake for Mr. Bilal. His birthday is tomorrow.”
“It is?” the boys said excitedly.
“I love birthday cake,” Nigel said. “I love everything!”
“I see,” Jaise said, praying the tears she felt clogging her throat and stabbing her in the chest wouldn’t take flight, flee from her eyes, and ache their way through her mouth. Otherwise she knew she’d be no more good, and instead of standing here acting like Florida Evans, she’d be balled in the corner and crying into her knees. Jaise measured the ingredients and handed the boys what she needed them to dump into the bowl. The children were excited as they mixed their ingredients, scooped the batter out of
the bowl and placed the mounds on the cookie sheet.
As the cookies baked, the boys chatted away about how their mommy made them cookies and how their grandmother, Linda, made the best spaghetti in the world. Jaise laughed at their corny jokes, and even sang a few songs with them, but then like unexpected bolts of lightning, thoughts of I’m losing my man crept up her back and slammed like raging cymbals into her mind.
You finally met the one … and it took you fourteen months, two days, five hours, thirty minutes, and about five point six seconds to fuck. It. Up!
“Ding!” The oven’s timer went off and water sprung into Jaise’s eyes. She wiped them with the corner of her apron as she slid the cookies out of the oven, put them on a plate to cool, and placed them in the center of the table.
“Can we have a glass of milk?” Nigel asked, as Jaise handed the baby a cookie.
“You sure can.” She said, thankful her voice didn’t tremble.
She poured the milk and her thoughts continued. Welcome back to your element—misery, despondency, discouragement, where nothing goes right, relationships are a disaster, and men always leave you in tears.
“Ms. Jaise,” Nigel interrupted her thought. “Your bell’s ringing.”
“I betchu that’s your grandma.” She looked away from the boys and headed toward the front door. She stopped in the guest bathroom along the way and washed her face. The bell rang again as she patted her face dry and said, “Just answer the damn door. And pray like hell she is not another Al-Taniesha.”
Jaise looked through the peephole to confirm her guests. A short, older woman who resembled Nicole stood there.
She looks like she may have some sense. Jaise opened the door. “Are you Linda?”
“Yes.” The woman smiled. “Jaise?”
“Yes, I’m Jaise. Come in.”
“Grandma!” Nigel and Tabari ran down the hall and hugged Linda around the waist. “Did you know that the cops came and took mommy away? Are we going to pick her up now, grandma?”
“Yes, I know about your mommy and no, we’re not going to get her right now,” Linda said. “Now, tell Ms. Jaise thank you,” she instructed the boys.
Money Never Sleeps Page 13
