I circled the bar where my twelve showgirls were seated on the orange polka-dot sofa and caramel leather seats facing the Niagara-sized waterfall flowing outside the panoramic window. Dressed in miniskirts, halters, and high heels, my girls laughed, chatted, and crossed their glowing legs while sipping champagne.
Bypassing the girls, I motioned for Sunny to come to me, then escorted her to the downstairs bar. We sat in the corner at a table for two. Covering her hands with mine, I said, “Sunny, you are so beautiful. You’re smart and you’re special.”
I felt she needed to hear me say that because I so desperately wanted to hear my mother tell me the same. But Rita never did.
“Thanks, Madam,” Sunny replied, tucking her long sandy-blond hair behind one ear.
“You’ve been reserved again tonight by one of your regulars. But, Sunny, sweetheart, I want to know, what do you want out of life?”
Sunny’s mesmerizing large brown eyes traveled to the corners, then back at me as she replied, “Madam, I don’t know. When I started in this business I wanted to work a few months, make some fast money, get out, and go to college. But now I’m not so sure. Why waste four years getting a degree only to make less money?”
“You can’t do this forever, sweetheart, so tell me what you don’t want,” I said.
Crossing her giraffe-long legs, then folding her arms on the table, Sunny answered, “Madam, I don’t want rich men treating me as though I don’t have a brain, like I’m some inanimate sex object. You know, like a blowup doll.”
Oh, how well did I know?
Briefly I digressed to the blowup doll I’d left on my ex-husband’s bed. I should’ve known when he insisted on getting married at Graceland on Las Vegas Boulevard six hours after we’d met, I should’ve literally run for the hills yelling, “You ain’t nothing but a hound dog!” Anybody who dressed like Elvis, acted like Elvis, and honestly believed that Elvis was still alive obviously didn’t live in the real world. What I was sure of was any man constantly beating my ass was a reality I’d never repeat.
“And, Madam, I’d like to have a steady boyfriend, but what man is going to respect me being in this business?”
“Sunny, don’t worry. I’ll help you. All I ask is that you be patient in the process and trust me.”
Gazing into my eyes as though she saw through me, Sunny asked, “Why should I put all my trust in you or anyone else in this business?”
That fucked me up. She was right. “One day soon, I promise you I’ll explain. Now, you’ve told me before that you have family and you love them. If you don’t want to trust me, then go home to the family you do trust. Sounds to me like your parents and sister would love to have you back in their lives.”
Looking toward the ceiling, Sunny smiled. “Madam, this is a glamorous business. I feel like a big-time movie star like a Marilyn or Halle, but what sense does it make for me to pleasure these johns, then give my money to you and Valentino? I’m not thinking about going home. I’m thinking about going out on my own.”
This girl was blinded by the bright lights of Las Vegas, but she wasn’t the only one. There were lots of runaways, strays, and wannabe madams that didn’t understand street prostitution, and drugs were territorial and addictive.
“You can’t do that! Sunny, look at me!” Lowering my voice, I explained, “You’re an escort, not a hooker, and certainly not a madam. You don’t have a clue what happens to prostitutes on the street, especially the ones who have no pimp. And no street prostitute is going to let your pretty ass pimp them. Even with pimps whores get trains run on them, they get beat up. Sunny, what you’re considering is dangerous. You could end up dead.”
“Well, Madam. If anything happens to me, please contact my parents.”
Once this young lady set her mind to doing something, it was virtually impossible for me to make her see things my way.
In order to gain Sunny’s trust, I did what I’d never done before. I removed a business card from my purse, then wrote on the back If you ever need me, call me, along with my cell number and home number, and gave the card to her.
I was more convinced than ever I’d made the right decision to free this beautiful and innocent young lady, but I couldn’t sever her from the venomous emotional attachment to prostitution. Only Sunny could free herself.
Looping Sunny’s friendship present over her fingers, I released the Rolex bag. Sunny was mastering what it meant to become a woman. Knowing how to manipulate men and not relinquish pussy power separated the women from the girls. Women were confident and secure. Girls, some thirty, forty, and fifty-plus, played childish games like seeking passwords to check their lovers’ voice mail messages.
Standing, I said, “Let’s go. Nothing bad is going to happen to you, if you listen to me. And I’ll pay all of your college tuition. Accept it. You are getting out of this business.”
Enjoy the following excerpt from HoneyB’s
Single Husbands
Coming in March 2009 from Grand Central Publishing
WARNING!
Adult Fiction
Sexually Exquisite
If you are not eighteen years or older, do not, seriously, do not read this book.
PROLOGUE
Is There a Loophole in Marriage Vows?
If you are or have ever been married, does this sound somewhat familiar?
In the presence of God, and our family and friends, I offer you my solemn vow to be your faithful partner in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, and in joy as well as in sorrow. I promise to love you unconditionally, to support you in your goals, to honor and respect you, to laugh with you and cry with you, and to cherish you for as long as we both shall live.
I encourage you to reread the above paragraph word for word. But don’t stop there: read all the marriage vows you can find, and e-mail me any preexisting marriage vows where it states married couples cannot have sex outside of their marriage. If you choose to quote the phrase “vow to be faithful,” I ask that you first seek the definition of the word faithful; then pay close attention to how the word faithful is being used.
There are beliefs rooted in Christianity, like “Thou shall not commit adultery” and “Thou shall not covet his neighbor’s wife,” but to my knowledge, correct me if I’m wrong, none of the ten commandments are quoted in marriage vows. So I must ask you, the reader, because you are intelligent, is there a loophole in wedding vows regarding infidelity?
The three couples in this story made a commitment to one another, but somewhere along their journey, after saying, “I do,” Herschel Henderson, Brian Flaw, and Lexington Lewis took detours. Now take a moment to think about how people change after they get married. These three men didn’t honestly deviate from their premarital behavior. Most people don’t. What happened was the women they married thought that signing a marriage license would miraculously make their unfaithful fiancés faithful husbands.
Have you ever thought about the definitions for marriage and license? Marriage is the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law. There are no prerequisites to getting married. In reality it doesn’t matter if the parties exchanging vows even respect or love one another. Who cares? The law rules above all hearts. The law doesn’t care if one is miserably or happily married. One’s IQ and bank account can be below zero, and one can still find someone to marry.
Moving along, a license is permission granted by a competent authority to engage in a business, an occupation, or an activity. It is a document, plate, or tag that indicates such permission was granted.
A license is a document. Every license—except a marriage license—must be renewed and can be revoked, suspended, or terminated. A marriage license can either be annulled (reduced to nothing) or dissolved (decomposed or made to disappear), which means the marriage ends in divorce.
A marriage license is a façade. It’s a piece of paper granted not by the parties involved but b
y an authority (the law) to the parties, who have no enforceable control over their spouse. In many cases, people marry strangers. What’s my point? People who decide to get married are disillusioned, because they believe they have entitlements when, in actuality, they have zero authority to hold the other person accountable to anything that that person does not desire to commit to. You don’t marry a piece of paper. What you commit to is a union with an imperfect being, who you somehow expect will become perfect when you hear, “I now pronounce you husband and wife.”
A marriage license to me is synonymous with the enforcement rights of a birth certificate. It simply identifies a person’s legal commitment, but the license does not, cannot, will not, shall not make anyone whole, complete, or happy. One can literally break all the laws of marriage and never be penalized. Which brings me to the question, what are the laws of marriage? Hit me up with your responses.
One can throw in the towel and cut one’s losses, but one cannot bring forth charges against a cheating spouse unless one is perhaps married or living in the state of Florida. I ain’t gon’ mention no names, but I wonder if that’s why that famous, multimillionaire couple’s affairs suddenly became hush-hush when a baby was allegedly conceived out of wedlock. Hmm? I’d better shut my mouth. Anywho, what good is a marriage license? Now if you marry the right person, a license may make you wealthy, but how much will it cost you?
The law cannot make any person accountable; it merely grants an immeasurable tool with no accountability. Every license in America, except a marriage license, has built-in requirements for renewal, or else it does what? It expires. So when a couple decides to get married, they need to determine with their heads if the commitment is one they’re willing to keep forever. Not many couples stay married forever, and of the ones that do, many die unfulfilled.
What the women in this novel get is what they have had all along. Instead of dating a single man, these women voluntarily consent to…Single Husbands.
Single Husbands…Three men who married for all the wrong reasons.
Herschel Henderson said, “I do,” to have access to his wife’s money, Lexington Lewis vowed for his better and her worse, and Brian Flaw meant until death do us part. Herschel has a mistress that he sexes more than his wife, Lexington is making love to as many women as he can at the sex clubs, and Brian is fucking women of every ethnicity because he’s become bored with his sex life. The one thing these men share is despite being married, none of them will give up the sexual freedom they enjoyed as single men.
CHAPTER 1
Brian
—I, Brian Flaw, take you, Michelle, to be my lawfully wedded wife….
First Sunday, three o’clock, after church, before Michelle’s mother dropped off the kids at eight, it was yoni massage time. The one day of every month that Brian reaffirmed his love for his wife.
Brian absolutely adored his wife. She was the mother of his two children, his very best friend, and his confidant. Brian told Michelle everything that he considered significant, but there were a few things not worth mentioning.
Red satin sheets covered their king-sized bed. A goddess of heavenly beauty stretched from the headboard toward the foot of the bed. The softest cocoa skin he’d ever laid hands upon wrapped around her flesh, making him the happiest man alive.
Michelle’s yoni was a precious space and sacred temple. She’d taught him to love and respect her pussy before the first time they made love, before their wedding, and before she gave birth to their children, saying to him, “Baby, it’s solely my responsibility to teach you how to appreciate and pleasure my entire body.”
The day Michelle let him watch her masturbate was etched in his mind forever, but it didn’t have to be. The videotape was safely tucked away in their safe, along with the other XXX-rated home videos they’d done during their ten years of marriage. Brian knew Michelle was especially unique, because she was the only woman that had taught him how to make passionate love to her without fucking her.
Sitting on the bench at the foot of their bed, Brian buffed his fingernails as he admired his wife. She’d taught him that it was a man’s responsibility to make certain his fingernails didn’t cut or scratch a woman’s delicate pussy, leaving her miserably sore and with painful scars that would hurt her so much she’d resent him and regret having allowed him to touch her sacredness. He’d learned so much from his wife. Michelle was even more beautiful than the day they’d met.
Brian’s dick got hard. Moving about their spacious bedroom, he lit twelve white candles, dripped a few drops of cinnamon oil on the lamps beside the bed. Then he walked over to their patio and opened the glass door. The salty, warm summer breeze off the ocean engulfed their bedroom.
Returning to her, he softly kissed her forehead. “Are you relaxed, baby?” he asked Michelle.
“Yes, baby. I’m relaxed and patiently awaiting my wonderful husband.”
“I’m here to please you, not just today, but every day. Whatever I have to give, I freely give it unto you.”
Carefully, Brian placed two red satin pillows under his wife’s head so she could comfortably watch him whenever she desired. Then he put a pillow under both of her knees and one under her curvaceous hips. Once he started massaging his wife, she always got extremely wet, so as a wedding gift, he’d had a tailor make a washable pillow covering, which he put on top of the pillow before placing the pillow inside the satin case.
Seated at the foot of the bed, Brian whispered, “Spread your legs and bend your knees so I can look at my pretty pussy.”
Together, they inhaled deep into their bellies, then exhaled as much air as they could, like they did in yoga classes on second Sundays.
“Inhale again,” he said as they began to breathe deeply two more times.
Careful not to touch her yoni, Brian’s strong yet smooth hands journeyed up Michelle’s thighs, passionately massaging her legs, abdomen, thighs, breasts, nipples, and other parts of her body to arouse her. Picking up the bottle of Wet, he squeezed a few drops of lubrication in the crevice of his wife’s thighs and on her outer vaginal lips.
Slowly, he caressed her pussy, starting from the outside, massaging her outer lips between his thumb and index finger. He gently twirled her outer vaginal lips all the way up then all the way down. He took his time before he began massaging her inner lips. The time had not yet come to penetrate his wife.
Noticing Michelle’s shallow breaths, Brian softly said, “Breathe a little deeper, baby.”
Their yoni massage ritual was a treat Brian never grew tired of doing for his wife. He wanted to make sure Michelle was always sexually pleased beyond satisfaction, as he was on the third Sunday of each month, when Michelle gave him a lingam massage. Brian’s dick went from limp to hard as he imagined his wife’s hands all over his body.
Brian kept his thoughts inside his head; he knew it was best not to talk too much. Excessive talking by either of them would detract from maximizing his wife’s pleasure. Michelle’s eyes rolled to the top of her head, exposing the whiteness of her eyeballs through the tiny slits in her lids. She’d told him that was the moment when she could feel his energy moving from her feet to the crown of her head.
That was the perfect time for Brian to massage her precious pearl. Brian had once admitted he was slightly jealous that a woman’s clitoris was four times more sensitive than a male’s glands, and that a woman could easily have five times more orgasms per session than a man. He remembered what Michelle had told him. “Look at me, Brian. I want to make myself clear,” she said. “A woman’s precious pearl has only one purpose, and don’t you ever forget it…and that’s to give her pleasure, pleasure, and more pleasure. So don’t ever overlook touching, stroking, and kissing my clit.”
Adding a little more lubrication, he stroked his wife’s clitoris in tiny clockwise and counterclockwise circles, then gently squeezed her clit between his thumb and index finger, using various rhythms.
“Breathe, baby,” he reminded her again.
Lifting her head, Michelle gazed into his eyes.
Brian softly said, “Thanks for letting me hold God’s greatest gift to mankind in the palm of my hand. I cherish your mind, body, and spirit.” Then he caressed his wife’s breasts with his left hand, pausing for a moment to feel her heartbeat.
Michelle’s hips jerked. Silently, tears streamed down her cheeks, as though it were their first time bonding. Brian closed his eyes and said, “Thank you, God, for trusting me with the most beautiful woman in the world. Baby, I love you.”
Concluding the massage, slowly, gently, respectfully, and passionately, he eased his fingers out one at a time from inside his wife, holding his left hand against her heart until all of his fingers were removed. Then he lifted his left hand away from her body. Joining Michelle in the afterglow of her yoni massage, Brian cuddled her in a spoon position, telling her, “Baby, I appreciate and respect you.”
Michelle had greatly enriched Brian’s life, and there was no way he could repay her. Therefore, no matter what happened in their lives, Brian would never divorce his wife.
CHAPTER 2
Herschel
—I, Herschel Henderson, take you, Nikki, to be my lawfully wedded wife….
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