Red Light Special

by Risqué

  He sat up and looked into her face. She was pretty, long eye lashes, about a size ten, attractive enough to command some attention. He smiled at her and she returned the gesture. He could tell that she was diggin’ him. No matter the anguish he felt inside, on the outside he was still sensually brown and beautiful. “Yeah,” he said, his deep voice radiating with sadness, “I was thinking. It’s cool, though. How are you?”

  “I’m fine.” She blushed, and immediately his mind flashed back to the first time he met Collyn. As he fought off his memory he heard her say, “I’m Tina, and you?”

  It took a few moments for him to answer; Earth, Wind & Fire’s preaching was so intense that Bless had to contain himself and remember that it was a song and not a sermon. He noticed Tina trying to get his attention. She waved her hand, “Did you hear me?”

  “Nah,” he cleared his throat, “my fault, what’d you say?”

  She smiled, “I asked your name.”

  “Bless…Blessing, as a matter of fact.”

  “What a powerful name.” She looked him over as the bartender stopped in front of her and asked what she was drinking. “Amaretto sour please.”

  After receiving her drink, she pressed the glass to her lips, took a sip, and then proceeded to talk to Bless. He was doing his best to listen, but the music seemed to be speaking directly to him, and he wanted to hear what Philip Bailey had to say, after all he seemed to be going through the same things.

  As Bless listened, he wondered where Collyn was, what she was doing, where she was going, and who she was with. The tips of his fingers could still feel her soft skin pressed against his, causing him to shudder at the memory of what she felt like.

  Bless knew he was fucked up, but he needed a way to get out of feeling like this. For the longest he’d sat in front of the building where Collyn lived or across the street from her gallery, waiting for the right moment for it all to click and he would be able to walk away peacefully.

  Which is why he was here at the bar, because he figured…fuck it…and fuck her. He could drink a couple of beers and somehow learn to live without her. Hell, if nothing else, he had pride. And besides, she wasn’t the only one who was hurt. What about him? He confessed everything to her. Told her all that she needed to know. Risked his career, his life, and everything that he worked hard for to save her. And what about the jokes he told her, the times he called her and told her he loved her? What about how he would massage her feet and make love to her like the world was coming to an end…and still she didn’t appreciate him. What about the Chinese food, how he took care of her when she was sick, and was right there whenever she needed him…and still none of that was good enough. So to hell with it then. What choice did he have other than to pack his emotional bags and keep it movin’.

  “So are you single?” Tina interrupted his thoughts, “You look like a nice man, I’d like to call you sometime.”

  Bless saw her lips move, but he didn’t respond. How could he? He’d just convinced himself of some bullshit he knew didn’t exist, and at that moment he knew he couldn’t go another day without seeing the only woman he ever wanted in his life. He had to try, at least one more time, and if it didn’t work, then fuck it. Fuck…it…

  Collyn’s face glowed in the summer sun as she spoke to the customers walking around her art gallery. She laughed as Taryn told her a story about what her daughter had done in day care the other day.

  Collyn’s life, with the exception of the painful regret that danced on her heart, had completely changed. She no longer ran her family business. Red Light Special had come to an end, and now she was into simple shit: HGTV, Chinese food, and the local news. She’d even put her apartment up for sale and started looking at houses in Jersey, which she hoped would be someplace she could escape to and pretend that the loneliness she felt every night before going to sleep didn’t exist.

  A customer walked over to her and asked, “Hey, Collyn, can I place my order with you now?”

  “Of course.”

  She took the order and glanced up with a smile as she handed the customer his receipt and he walked away. Suddenly her heart raced in her chest and her bottom lip trembled. She swallowed and nervously stroked the sides of her hair as she looked directly into Bless’ face. They locked eyes for a moment, his expression telling her that he knew he was taking a chance being here.

  “Beautiful,” he said, “I tried, and it didn’t work out for me.” Bless spoke as if he were exhausted.

  Collyn remained silent, doing her best to hold the tears in the back of her eyes at bay.

  “I promised myself that I wasn’t going to bother you. You know, I figured you hated me, that I was shit to you. And I know I deserve that, and that’s why I bounced, but every day I thought about you. Every waking hour. I wanted to smell you, make love to you, hold you and never let you go. And every day I try to let you go and say, ‘This is the day that I’ma get over you.’ It never happens, and the next thing I know I’m making the same promise to myself all over again.

  “I knew I was taking a chance coming here, but I waited long enough and I had to say something. At least try one more time.”

  Although the gallery was filled with people, all Collyn could see was Bless’ face as his words soared through her heart.

  Collyn walked from behind the counter, and Bless’ eyes immediately locked on her six-months-pregnant belly. “You kept the baby,” he said in disbelief as they moved toward each other.

  “Listen.” She cleared her throat, remembering where she was, “Now is not a good time.”

  “Well, when is a good time?” he asked. “Because I need to talk to you.”

  “That may be true, but you have to give me some time. I will call you.”

  “I’m not leaving. Ain’t nothing for me to wait. You had a better chance of me leaving before you came out from behind that counter.”

  Collyn sighed and looked at Taryn, who signaled with her hand that she could call the police on his crazy ass. Collyn shook her head and said to Bless, “Come with me to my office, please.” She turned back to Taryn and held her index finger up as a signal that she needed a moment.

  Once they reached her office and she closed the door behind them, she said, “What do you want?”

  “I want you.”

  “You can’t have me.”

  “But I already do. You gon’ tell me you don’t still love me?” He moved in closer to her.

  As she went to move out of the way, he stepped into her path. “Look at me. If you look at me and tell me to bounce, I’m out. I’m done. We’ll make arrangements for the baby because I’m not leaving my child, but I won’t bother you if that’s what you want. But I won’t stop loving you, because I can’t. I tried and the shit won’t go away.”

  Collyn wanted to tell him to leave, but she couldn’t get the words to fall from her mouth. Tears fell from her eyes as he walked up close to her, her protruding belly rubbing against his body. “It doesn’t have to be like this. Just give me a chance.” He placed his lips against hers. “Give me a chance.” He took the back of his thumb and wiped her tears away.

  “Why is everything with you so urgent? I need some time to think.” Collyn took a step back.

  “Let me tell you something,” Bless said. “Me loving you is urgent. Me needing you back in my life is an emergency. I need you right the fuck now and I ain’t walking away without you.”

  “But Bless—how am I supposed to get over this hurt?” Her voice cracked.

  “By letting me love you.” He walked up to her and whispered while looking into her eyes. “I swear I will never lie to you again. I put that on my life. But I love you and yeah, maybe right now I’m being pushy, and selfish, and a pain in the ass—but I need you to understand that I love you and it ain’t shit more urgent than that.”

  “How are we supposed to do this? Where do we begin?”

  “Right here.” They began to kiss passionately. “We begin right here.”

  The sun crep
t into the sky, and the first light of dawn shone over Mehki’s and Monday’s brown bodies as they moved in tune with each other.

  Their lovemaking was sweet, soft, and easy, and they moved in a sensual dance with each other, their bodies making promises that they would see each other again, but their minds knowing that this had to end.

  Monday gasped as her body quaked beneath his, rocking to their own rhythm. While Najee played softly on the clock radio as they bathed in heat and dripped with the physical evidence of their passion, their screams echoed through the apartment, intensifying the orgasmic gifts they were leaving with each other.

  Monday lay her head against Mehki’s chest as her mind tripped over the many memories she had. Her life as Monday Smith was no more. It was time for her to redefine who she was, which was why she wasn’t moving. She was staying in New York to face the music. She’d taken the bar, passed it, and had accepted an offer at a criminal law firm. She didn’t know what awaited her, but that was the chance she was willing to take.

  “If you ever decide to come back to me, I’ll be waiting for you with open arms.”

  Smiling, Monday said, “Who knows, maybe one day I just might run into those arms.”

  Hudson stared at the aged and smeared Plexiglass that held a ghostly remanence of fingerprints from everyone who’d journeyed through here. The buzzing and constant chatter of people around them provided a melodic version of the new level their love had reached. She saw Kenyatta going to jail as a way for a renewed opportunity. A way to put a halt to him loving Monday and perhaps pay her more attention; especially since all he’d heard from Monday was that she was divorcing him.

  The plan for Hudson was to stick by him, help him beat the charges, take the baby, and they would ride off into the sunset.

  Ever since she dropped the anonymous tip to the FBI about Tracy Robinson and he quickly turned state’s evidence, along with Collyn’s testimony Kenyatta was right where Hudson wanted him. In an orange jumpsuit, a black-painted number across his left pec, a turned-up palm pressed against the bulletproof plastic, and a chipped black-painted phone receiver held to his ear.

  “I gotta get the fuck outta here,” he spat at Hudson with a glimmer of tears in his eyes. He banged his head against the plastic, “I swear to you I didn’t kill this bitch!”

  “I know you didn’t,” she said sorrowfully, pressing her palm against his, “because I know you, and I know what type of man you are.”

  “Then get me out of here!”

  “I’m trying, but they won’t give you bail.”

  “GODDAMN!” he screamed, banging his fist on the table in front of him; the correction officers gave him a warning eye as they moved closer to where he was.

  “Calm down, baby.” She looked at the officers and gave them a reassuring smile. “We don’t want to alarm anyone.”

  “Have you found me another attorney, since Mehki’s ass quit? Dumb motherfucker.”

  “All of your assets are frozen, and the best I was able to do was get you a public defender.”

  “Public defender? What, are you trying to keep me in prison?”

  “No, baby—”

  “Don’t baby me—you don’t give a fuck about me. Monday would’ve never done no shit like this. She loved me. She was ride or die for me. What good are you? You’re useless. And I’m sick of your bullshit. Now, you get me a real attorney.”

  Hudson stared at Kenyatta, refusing to let a single tear slip from her eyes. Here she was again. With him spitting vicious venom, never acknowledging how much she tried and how much she had to deal with. Didn’t he know how much she loved him or was this the part where she figured out that love didn’t have shit to do with this? “You never loved me, did you?” she asked him.

  “Hudson,” Kenyatta said, attempting to calm down, “do you know what I’m looking at here? Along with all the other shit, I have a murder pinned on me that I didn’t commit.”

  “I have done nothing but try and be good to you.”

  “Now is not the time for this.”

  “And I watched you as you looked at Eve, like you loved her. A look you never gave me.”

  “What…are you…talking about?”

  “And you fucked her over the sink, just like you did me that night. You stroked her with passion and fire, and I watched you desire her while I sat in the shadows crying.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I cried when I found out you had a secret spot that you took her. I cried and cried and you never cared. All you thought about was you. I followed you there a thousand times, and the night I was able to get in I couldn’t take it any longer. And I had to do it. I had to.”

  Kenyatta stood up and started banging on the Plexiglas as if he would be able to get to Hudson. “You killed her!” he screamed. “You bitch! You killed her!”

  “It was the only way I could get through to you…but what did you do?” Hudson spoke mechanically, almost as if she were remote controlled, “You used me and you played me. And so I say touché.” She stood up from the hard metal chair and straightened her skirt out, smoothing the wrinkles with the back of her hand. Kenyatta continued to scream as she let her end of the receiver dangle off the hook. She placed her purse on her shoulder, lit a cigarette, and left Kenyatta standing there screaming.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  RISQUÉ is the erotic pseudonym of an Essence bestselling author. The Sweetest Taboo was her first work of urban erotica. She lives in New Jersey where she is working on her next novel. Visit her online at www.myspace.com/risquetheauthor.

  Also by Risqué

  The Sweetest Taboo

  Red Light Special is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A One World Books Trade Paperback Original

  Copyright © 2008 by Risqué

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by One World Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  ONE WORLD is a registered trademark and the One World colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Risqué.

  Red light special : a novel / Risqué.

  p. cm.

  1. Prostitutes—Fiction. 2. Police—Fiction. 3. Escort services—Fiction. 4. Undercover operations—New York (State)—New York—Fiction. 5. Manhattan (New York, N.Y.)—Fiction.

  I. Title.

  PS3618.I736R43 2008

  813'.6—dc22 2008027397

  www.oneworldbooks.net

  eISBN: 978-0-345-50991-8

  v3.0