Whos Loving You

by Mary B. Morrison

  Returning my attention to the stage, I realized the upbeat music was great, so I ordered a bottle of champagne while we waited for this round of dancers to clear the stage. My stiletto touched Onyx’s as I nodded, indicating she should look over her shoulder.

  A stripper with fiery red hair stopped beside Onyx and shook her breasts, hoping to get a reaction. Onyx turned to face her, checked her feet, and then scanned up to her face. Then Onyx said, “You got it. Do your thing, girl.”

  The dancer was a woman of average height, with striking features—perfectly lined almond-shaped eyes, high cheeks on her face. and damn!, an incredible ass. She had long, luscious lashes and flawless make-up. Dressed in a leopard bustier, black boy shorts, and thigh-high stiletto boots, she made her way to the stage as the other girls picked up the last of their few dollars, then exited the platform.

  The lights dimmed. The men and women gathered around the stage as the announcer said, “Ladies and gentlemen, every damn body up in this motherfucker, get the fuck up out of your seats, get on your feet, and make some noiseeeee! Welcome Red Velvet up in this bitch! Aw, it’s about to sizzle up in this joint.”

  Red searchlights bouncing off of a huge disco ball centered above the stage beamed across the room, then froze on Red Velvet. The crowd went wild as Red Velvet dropped to the floor. Her legs were spread east and west as her pussy rolled north and south. The red lights vanished, and the crowd was engulfed in darkness. When the lights flashed on, Red Velvet was hanging upside down from the top of the pole. She was so far up that it looked like she was hanging from the ceiling. Gracefully, she slid down, clenching a banana peel between her teeth.

  Where was the rest of the banana?

  That was the woman’s daughter. Damn. I needed to call Alphonso and make his ass pay a hundred and fifty thousand. I could easily see how Alphonso had lost his damn mind, but how could he ignore his fatherly obligations to a woman that beautiful?

  Crawling on the stage, Red Velvet perched in front of a man standing in front of the stage. Slowly, the skin of that damn banana came out of her mouth, like a lily blossoming, and the longest banana I’d ever seen eased out of the banana skin and fell right between another stripper’s titties. Dollar bills rained like a thunderstorm had hit, flooding the entire stage. Looking at the money, all I saw were ones. These cheap assholes. I was stunned.

  Amid the dollars in the middle of the stage was a sixteen-ounce water bottle. Red Velvet took her time sqatting on the bottle. She inserted the top, picked up the bottle, then put it back down. Each time she squatted, she inserted the bottle a little more. The crowd lost all composure.

  “Excuse me. Excuse me,” one woman said, forcing her way through the applauding crowd, trying to see the performance.

  I guessed she was a fan.

  Red Velvet squatted down on the bottle again, and this time it disappeared inside of her pussy. She climbed up the pole, then slid down, and repeated this several times. Standing tall, with her legs spread wide, she squatted on the floor, bounced her ass, then rolled her pussy while spreading her thighs like a butterfly. Suddenly, she stood, then dropped her ass to the floor. I swear, I was kneeling on top of my table, next to Onyx, trying to figure out what had happened to that water bottle.

  The red, swirling lights zigzagged around the stage. I frowned as I caught a glimpse of the side profile of the woman who’d made her way to the front. Her behavior was different. Her body was twisted. Above the cheers and clapping, I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but she definitely wasn’t cheering. Seemed like she was yelling at Red Velvet.

  “Aw, shit,” I said and nudged Onyx. “Cover me.”

  Hell, I was missing the act by trying to keep an eye on the deranged woman, but I felt some shit was about to go down harder than it was raining. Briefly turning to watch Red Velvet end her performance, I saw the water bottle hit the stage. She picked it up, then tossed it in the air to Onyx. Onyx caught the bottle, which probably smelled as sweet as honey. The cap was on, and Onyx yelled, “It’s empty, y’all!”

  Well, her last name was definitely appropriate. Shaking my head, trying to comprehend how Red Velvet had done that shit, I caught a glimpse of the deranged women. I stared at her lips, reading each word. “I warned you, bitch!” she muttered as her eyes, nose, and mouth shriveled.

  I saw her hand ball into a fist, gripping a sharp object. Leaping from my stool, I parted the crowd. When Red Velvet turned her back to exit the stage, the deranged woman raised her arm above the still-cheering crowd. Standing directly behind the woman, I grabbed her wrist when she lowered what was clearly a knife toward Red Velvet’s back. I made her drop the knife, then proceeded to choke the shit out of her from behind so she couldn’t grab me.

  “What kind of trick are you?” I yelled. “If you hate Red Velvet so much, why didn’t you confront her face-to-face like a real woman would?”

  I tried to strangle the life out of that bitch. I didn’t want to kill her, but she needed to think about what the fuck she was trying to do. Then I felt a strong arm choking me from behind. “Bitch, let go of my wife!” a man snarled. A few seconds later, he yelled, “Uhhh!” Then he released me.

  The music stopped; the crowd parted as Onyx pulled her spiked heel out of the man’s neck. I refused to let go of whoever this bitch was.

  Red Velvet left her money on the stage, walked over to us, and looked at the woman. “You’re a day late, aren’t you?” she said. “You seriously tried to stab me in my back over a dick, and now your husband is the one bleeding to death, and you’re going to jail. You’re one dumb bitch to be that possessed by something you can never control. When are you going to get it? Tolliver does not love you, you stupid bitch. I don’t even feel sorry for your ass.”

  After sticking her middle finger inside her pussy, Red Velvet smeared her juices all over the woman’s face, and then bam! Red Velvet kicked the woman in her clit, returned to the stage, gathered her money into a large clear-plastic bag, and made her way back over to me. “Thanks for saving my life. Here,” she said, handing me the bag.

  For a moment I thought about what Red Velvet had said to the woman, who I was still holding around the neck. Velvet was right. Any man who knew his woman was mentally capable of killing another woman over him, and voluntarily stood by and watched his wife stab a woman, didn’t love his wife. Maybe he was hoping he’d get rid of his wife, that her dumb ass would end up behind bars. That would allow him to fuck whomever he wanted whenever he wanted. A part of me felt sorry for the woman, so I let her go when the police arrived, because now she was going to jail for attempted murder, smelling like Red Velvet’s pussy.

  I couldn’t believe that that woman, whoever she was, loved her man so deeply that she’d willingly take another woman’s life. What was that dumb bitch going to do? Go around killing or stabbing every woman her man fucked? If only she could’ve dealt with her emotions in a positive way and left her husband before she’d gotten to this point.

  I stared at her as the police placed her hands behind her back, then snapped the handcuffs around her wrists. Her husband was nowhere in sight, but my guess was Tolliver was on his way to the nearest hospital. Exhaling, I looked at the overstuffed bag of money Red Velvet had given me. If Sapphire was serious about getting her money back from me, I might need Red Velvet’s cash. Pushing the bag back to Red Velvet, I handed her a business card. Before I left home I’d already written a note on the back: Meet me at my office tomorrow at six p.m. You need to get out of this business. That was her mother’s request.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I told Onyx as we headed toward the door.

  A tall, charming gentleman dressed in an expensive suit blocked our path. “Excuse me, ladies. Let me give you my card,” he said. “I’m Trevor Williams, the owner. Thanks for protecting Red. She’s a good young lady. Hard worker. Don’t know what I would’ve done if anything had happened to her. Next time you come, please call me first. I want you to be my personal guests.” He paused. “Better y
et,” he said to me, “I’d like to take you out. Call me.”

  Firmly shaking his hand, I looked deep into Trevor’s eyes and said, “You’ll definitely see us again.” Then we left his club. I shoved his card in my purse, thinking if I got tired of fucking myself, he was doable, but I’d have to beat his ass into submission first.

  Onyx and I got in my car and headed toward Buckhead. “You know what I despise about Mr. Williams?” I said.

  “No. What?” Onyx asked, wiping her heel with a towelette. “This was one helluva night. That trick Tolliver made me fuck up my brand-new slides. Oh, he’s definitely buying me a new pair of Jimmy Choo shoes for sho’.”

  “That’s why I really want to shut Trevor’s strip club down now…for exploiting women. I could fuck him, then fuck him over the same way he’s doing to those young girls. Trevor doesn’t care as much about Red Velvet as he does his income stream. He didn’t even bring his punk ass over to see what was going on until the police arrived. If Red Velvet wasn’t working for him, that club would be empty every night. And there’s no way Red Velvet should’ve had a stage covered with one-dollar bills. I bet she barely made two hundred. As talented as she is, she should’ve had all one-hundred-dollar bills on that stage.”

  When Onyx didn’t answered, I glanced over and saw she was asleep. I tuned my radio to 102.9, then set the volume to low.

  “I can’t make you love me if you don’t,” streamed through my speakers.

  Tears clung to my eyelids as I thought of Grant. With the exception of the last day I spent with Grant, all of my memories of him were good. What I wouldn’t give to hold him in my arms again.

  Tapping Onyx on the shoulder, I whispered, “We’re home, baby.”

  Entering through the garage, I helped Onyx upstairs to her bed, then went downstairs and opened the door to my room. I flicked on the light. “What the hell!” I yelled, quickly drawing my gun from my purse.

  “Whoa, it’s me, baby. Put that away. I thought you’d be happy to see me,” Grant said, frowning, with his hands held in front of him.

  I wanted to say, “You could get a bullet in your head doing some unexpected shit like this.” I wanted to wake up each of my girls, except Onyx, make their asses come downstairs, and seriously beat all of them for letting Grant or any man into our home without calling me first. But all I did was place my gun on my dresser, quietly close the door, then stand in the middle of the floor, waiting for Grant to come to me.

  CHAPTER 16

  Sapphire

  There were no accidents in life. Some men were unarguably mentally fucked up, and they needed to be put to rest for the greater good of womankind.

  A husband dehumanizing his wife, a pimp mercilessly beating into submission women he claimed as his whores, and a whole gang of evil men who raped women and children had one thing in common, a disillusioned desire to control females by any forceful means necessary. What gave any man the right to abuse women? His dick? His balls? His barbaric strength? His inability to maintain or obtain what he desperately fought to acquire, namely power?

  Standing over my king-sized bed, which was covered with a blue comforter, blue silk sheets, and matching pillows of different shapes and sizes, I stared at Girl Six. She was a true sleeping beauty, but I wasn’t going to miss her. I tapped her shoulder. “Get up. It’s time to get you to the airport.”

  After hanging up with Lace, I’d booked Girl Six a red-eye flight that would get her into Atlanta in the morning. I had to sever her emotional attachment to me; Girl Six had to go.

  “Huh?” She yawned, stretching her hands toward the wooden headboard. “What? I’m leaving right now? What time is it?”

  I peeled away the covers to take in the image of her perfect body. This was probably the last time we’d see one another. “Come here,” I said, opening my arms to her. “You know I’m going to miss you terribly. I promise not to leave you in Atlanta one second longer than necessary.” I held her chin so it faced mine. “If any one sneezes on you or looks at you the wrong way, you’d better let me know.”

  I tried to give her the reassurance she needed to get on that one-way flight to a place she’d never been. I imagined that could be frightening for any nineteen-year-old.

  Smiling, she made her way to the edge of the bed and hugged me. “Go,” I said, ushering her into the bathroom. I poured myself a goblet of merlot, then sat in the living room, on the sofa. My body shivered when I saw what was on television.

  The commentator said, “More than four million women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have been massacred. Millions more have been raped in front of their powerless husbands and their empathetic brothers, who have died for refusing to follow military orders to rape their wives or sisters.”

  Oh my God. Women were being raped by one bitch-ass man after another after another after another, gang-raped every day for months and months, and somehow they managed to survive. Ejaculating inside of a woman’s uterus as target practice for her unfertilized eggs wasn’t enough for these men. I heard the commentator say, “After raping the women, the men take machetes and slice the women’s vaginas. Or even worse, these military men shoot the women between the legs, leaving them for dead, or they impregnated and abandon the women.”

  I turned off the television. I’d heard enough. Like many of the African women, some of the prostitutes in Las Vegas would end up carrying, from conception to birth, a child conceived in hatred. And if the children weren’t taken away, or given away, they’d end up at the bosom of their mothers, fatherless.

  I knew what I had to do. I’d been contemplating this way too long. Their time had come. I was going to kill each pimp that I had on my list to arrest. I knew exactly what I was doing. In the line of duty, I was getting ready to save generations of women from suffering. A part of me wished I could journey to the Congo villages, with war paint splashed across my face and semiautomatic weapons strapped across my back. With tears of blood streaming down my cheeks, in broad daylight, I’d wrap my fist around the handle of the sharpest machete, the same machete they’d used to slice those beautiful women’s vaginas, and I’d cut off the dicks and sever the balls, one at a time, of every man that had raped or mutilated a woman or a little girl. Then I’d cast their naked, dickless bodies into a venomous-snake pit laced with gasoline and burn them like trash, because they were the filthiest kind of trash, and they would leave an unforgettable stench embedded in the hearts and souls of innocent women and children.

  A flutter in my heart made me pick up my home phone and dial a number I hadn’t forgotten in more than a decade. Waiting for someone to answer, I wondered what I would say. Where would I begin? How could I explain the things I’d done? Why should I have to? So much had happened since the last time we’d seen one another. I couldn’t deny or confirm that I was a cold-blooded killer preparing to kill once more. But killing was in my job description.

  I had a reason and had to exercise my license. The strange thing was, I knew I’d kill again tonight, but I couldn’t harm the person I was calling in any way. I’d die first. What made me capable of taking a person’s life without remorse yet love someone I didn’t truly know with the same heart? The dichotomy of my heart and my brain terrified me. Perhaps I’d come back home after dropping off Girl Six. Maybe I wouldn’t kill anyone tonight, that is, if the right person picked up the phone.

  “Hello,” a deep voice answered.

  Speechless, I froze. Instantly, my feet and my hands felt like they had been soaked in gasoline and then had accidentally touched a flaming match. Heat raced up my arms, all the way to my face, my brain. Hot flash! No, I was too young. I was mad as hell. Sweat beaded at the crown of my skull, wetting my hair, neck, and shoulders. My dress clung to my body.

  “Hello,” he repeated.

  It was him. I hadn’t wanted him to answer. Ooh, if I could have killed him through the phone, I would have. I wanted to hear my mother’s voice. I opened my mouth. Not even air escaped my lips. All I could think was I shoul
dn’t have called. Racing into the kitchen, I grabbed the entire roll of paper towels, turned on the cold water, held the roll under the faucet, then pressed the clumped, cool, wet towels against my forehead.

  Click.

  He’d hung up. Probably best, I thought. I didn’t know why I’d called my mom, but I regretted it the moment I heard Alphonso’s voice. Turning on the shower in the guest bathroom, I removed my wet clothes, then stepped in, letting the cool stream soothe my body.

  “Ah, cold water feels so good. Oh, damn,” I said aloud. Stepping out of the shower, I stared in the mirror. “Wait a minute. Had Lace answered her phone, ‘Grant, is that you?’ She had. Couldn’t be. There is no way she could know the same man. I sucked his dick twelve years ago. No fucking way.”

  I wanted to call Lace back, but how could I ask her if she was referring to Grant Hill? I didn’t have enough information to track him down. Then again, if he still lived in D.C., maybe I did know enough to find him.

  “I’m ready,” Girl Six said, standing in the doorway, dressed in a sharp all-black pantsuit, white stilettos, and a matching bustier. Her hair was partially up, with the hanging portion flowing down her back.

  “Damn, you clean up good. Let’s get outta here before I change my mind.”

  The drive to the Las Vegas airport was less than fifteen minutes, but it gave me time to lay out my instructions.

  “When you get to Lace’s house, act normal,” I said, glancing at Girl Six. “Do not tell her you ever stayed with me. Pay attention to everything, but pretend not to. Don’t ask too many questions. If you get a glimpse of a bank statement, a deposit slip, or anything pertaining to where she keeps her money, memorize the name of the bank and, if you can, the account number. Oh, and if you hear her mention the name Grant Hill, call me immediately.”