“Yeah, I know what you mean. This may sound funny coming from me, but I’m not really feeling this.”
Liana looked at her shocked. “You’re right, that does sound funny coming from you. You practically lived in the clubs.”
“Yes, but that was a long time ago.”
“Eight months, Reese?”
“Eight months is a long time. Just ask them inmates in Albany County jail.”
“You so stupid, Reese.”
“How are you ladies doing tonight?” The brother from the bar asked them, as he stood in front of them in a Rockawear suit, and platinum chains.
“We were doing just fine,” Reese fired back, taking him by surprise. Liana watched as he mentally staggered back, trying to recuperate. He was a deep brown, but his complexion couldn’t hide the redness in his face.
“How are you doing? My name’s Liana,” she stuck out her hand.
“My name’s Vincent, but people call me Vince,” he said shaking Liana’s hand. He turned to Reese. “I didn’t mean to intrude. I’m just trying to have a good time like everybody else. If you want me to bounce—”
“As a matter of fact—” Reese started, but Liana cut her off.
“As a matter of fact, how about you and I go on down to the dance floor, and continue this conversation?”
Vince was shocked at Liana’s forwardness. All he could do was nod as she grabbed him by the hand. She winked at Reese as she led Vince to the dance floor. When they got there, they blended right in. Liana turned her back to Vince, giving him a full view of her apple bottom, as she waved at some familiar faces she hadn’t seen in seven months. She tensed up when she felt Vince’s hands land on her hips. She looked over her shoulder at him, and smiled as she put her arms in the air and clapped to the music.
She caught Elizabeth’s attention and smiled. When Elizabeth saw whom she was dancing with, she rubbed her left forefinger back and forth over her right one. Naughty, naughty, she mouthed as she turned away from her, and backed into her dancer’s arms.
Liana turned around to face Vince, and couldn’t wipe the devilish grin off her face when she realized he was still staring down at where her butt was just a second ago. He looked up at her, and smiled. She was surprised Vince could actually dance. He didn’t just move from side to side nor was he doing that hold-your-nuts-and-bop-your-head thug dance. Not only was Vince a good dancer, but he could also hold a conversation, and most of all, he kept Liana laughing.
Two hours, and three drinks later, Liana was winding and grinding on him, not able to remember the last time she had this much fun. Reese even loosened up and was dancing with a kid she went to school with back in the days. The DJ slowed the music down, and Liana wrapped her arms around Vince as they slowed danced. Liana could see the lust in his eyes, and feel his lust poking her in the stomach. Vince twirled her around, and with her back facing him, he pulled her back into his arms. Vince’s lips grazed her neck as his hardness rested on the crack of her butt. Liana closed her eyes and went with it. Fuck it. I’m not going to see him after tonight.
She arched her eyebrow when she felt Vince’s tongue glide across her neck.
“I know you’re not licking the sweat off my neck,” she said, as she leaned back on him.
“Baby, I’ll lick the sweat off your toes if you let me,” Vince whispered in her ear.
“Only if you promise to lick everything in between,” Liana said playfully.
“And then some,” he said, as he nibbled on her ear.
Liana grabbed his wrists with both her hands, stepped out of his embrace, and fanned herself. “I need to go to the bathroom.”
“I’ll be here waiting for you,” Vince said with a wink.
Liana took her time getting to the bathroom, but when she walked in, she rushed to the sink and splashed cold water on her face. What am I doing? In a few more seconds, I would’ve been all over him. She spruced herself up in the mirror, and walked into the stall. She peed for like twenty seconds nonstop. On her way back to the sink, she started thinking about Vince and felt herself heating up again. She shook her head and splashed cold water on her face again. When she looked up in the mirror, she spun around in shock. Vince jammed his tongue in her mouth.
Liana surprised herself when she didn’t try to bite it off or knee him in the nuts. She was even more surprised when she moaned and kissed him back. Vince broke their tongue lock, sucked on her neck, and squeezed her breasts through her shirt. What am I doing? Liana heard herself repeat over and over in her head. Vince started guiding her to the stall she’d just come out of, and she wasn’t stopping him. Stop this right now. You don’t even know this man, and you’re just going to let him take you into a pissy bathroom stall and have his way with you?
“Vince, wait,” Liana finally said.
He stopped and looked at her.
“I can’t… not like this.”
“It won’t take, but a minute.”
Liana blinked. “I don’t care how long it takes.” Liana felt an icy sliver of fear run down her back when she saw Vince’s face twist into a mask of anger. “I’m not saying it’s not going to happen between us,” Liana said, hoping that leading him to believe that there was a chance of him getting some would get her out of the bathroom unmolested. “All I’m saying is if you’re really feeling me the way I’m feeling you, you would respect me, and you wouldn’t treat me like some club ho.”
Vince smiled. “You know what really amazes me? You dance like a club ho, you sucked down the drinks I bought you like a club ho, and you were slobbing me down just now like a club ho, but when it comes to putting out, all of a sudden you want me to respect you?”
Liana brushed his hands off her and attempted to get away from him. Vince grabbed her by the neck, and slammed her against the stall. Liana clawed at his hands as she struggled to scream for help.
“You think I’m some lame-ass trick you can rub your ass on and think I’ll be satisfied?” He reached under her mini-dress and grabbed a handful of her panties. The more Liana struggled, the tighter he gripped her around her neck. She stopped struggling. Vince watched as she dropped her hand to his crotch and started massaging him through his pants.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” he said licking his lips, and releasing his grip.
“It’s only going to take a minute, right?” Liana asked, seductively.
“Sixty seconds,” Vince licked her cheek.
Liana focused all of her adrenaline and fear into the heel of her right palm and brought it up in a blur. She caught Vince smack-dab under the chin, causing him to bite his tongue. He bent over and put his hands over his mouth as he howled in pain. As Liana tried to run past him, he grabbed her by the waist and flung her against the stall.
“You fucking cock-teasing bitch,” he slurred as his tongue swelled up. He groped at her panties while jamming his shoulder into her stomach, forcing her lungs to fight for every ounce of air. As she started losing consciousness, a disturbing vision came to her mind. The vision of her mother in a bathroom, struggling against two crack heads trying to rape her as her father was high, out of his mind, in the next room. Here she was, in a club with over a hundred people not even thirty feet away, and she was about to suffer the same fate as her mother. She could feel her body going numb and her mind taking her someplace else, preparing her for the inevitable.
Both their eyes popped open when the bathroom door crashed against the wall. Wayne was heaving, more from rage then from being out of breath. The look on his face went from rage to confusion. Seeing the horror on Liana’s face, and the blood on the front of Vince’s shirt, set him off.
“What the fuck is going on?” He locked onto Vince, like a bull seeing red, and charged. Vince let go of Liana and tried to defend himself against Wayne’s attack, but Wayne had gained too much momentum. When their bodies collided, Vince’s feet dangled in the air as his body sailed into the wall. Wayne hit him with sledgehammer blows to the side of the head. Vince made a feebl
e attempt to cover up. Liana nearly got hit with one as she stepped in front of Wayne to deliver two calculated kicks to Vince’s groin. It was his body’s instincts of knowing that death was imminent that compelled Vince to scramble to his hands and knees and scuttle out the door. Wayne ran to the door, but knew he wasn’t going to catch him. He put his hands on his knees and took deep breaths. He looked up when he heard a girl scream. Taz, seeing Vince busting out of the bathroom with Wayne on his tail, grabbed a wine bottle off his table, and waited patiently as Vince ran toward him. Vince turned around to see if Wayne was chasing him. When he turned back around, the last thing he saw was a bottle connecting with the bridge of his nose. Taz got a few stomps in before the bouncers tackled him and pinned him to the floor.
Wayne turned his attention toward Liana, who was standing in the middle of the bathroom floor hugging herself and shivering. Unbeknown to Liana, Wayne was in the club that night. He spotted her as soon as she walked in with Elizabeth and Reese. He also spotted her on the dance floor doing everything short of having sex with the dude that had her pinned against the bathroom stall. When he saw her go to the bathroom, and Vince following behind her, he was furious.
“I can’t believe she’s going into the bathroom with that motherfucker.” He remembered telling Taz.
“What are you going to do? Bust up in there on them?” Taz had said.
Wayne sat at the table, shaking his leg. He pictured Liana in the bathroom with Vince bending her over a sink or a toilet. He slammed his fist on the table and headed to the bathroom. He didn’t care that she wasn’t his woman anymore, he just wasn’t going to allow her to disrespect herself. “You all right?” he asked her. When she didn’t respond, he walked toward her. “Liana? You okay?” When he touched her, she flinched. “Liana?” Without warning, she hugged him around the waist and buried her face into his chest as she cried like a baby. Wayne, slowly put his arms around her, and rubbed her back. Women were piling up in front of the bathroom to see what was going on.
“We have to get out of here,” Wayne said, but she refused to move.
“Wayne, what’s going on?” Wayne’s rigidity made Liana look up. Although she hadn’t seen Tammy in years, she recognized her standing at the threshold of the bathroom. Reese was right. Her tomboy body did soften up, and her curves bore witness to her femininity.
Wayne looked at her and then back to Liana. Liana’s eyes pleaded with him not to tell her about the humiliation she just suffered.
“Wayne!” Tammy said, starting to jump to conclusions.
“Nothing’s going on,” Wayne backed away from Liana. He brushed past Tammy. The police had Taz and Vince handcuffed, and were leading them out of the front door.
“Wayne, what’s going on?” Reese asked him, as he walked towards her.
“Go to the bathroom, and check on Liana.”
Elizabeth and Reese raced to the women’s room.
“Yo, hold up,” Wayne shouted to the officers. “Yo, yo, hold up,” he said again, trying to get their attention as they escorted Taz and Vince to two separate police cars.
One of the officers following his partners turned around.
“I know that man,” Wayne said, pointing to Taz. “He didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Witnesses say he bashed that guy in the face with a wine bottle. I call that something wrong.”
“That’s only because—”
“Fuck that, pig,” Taz shouted, as the officers tried forcing him into the back of the police car. “Don’t tell him a motherfucking thing.”
Wayne watched as they shoved Taz in and slammed the door.
“That’s why we’re arresting him,” the officer said to Wayne. “He’s got a feisty mouth.”
“I’ll be out by tomorrow morning, and I’m suing all you bitches for harassment,” Taz screamed at the top of his lungs. “Yeah, you, you fat motherfucker,” Taz said to the officer who just sat in the driver’s seat.
Wayne waved his hands in the air to get Taz’s attention. “Chill, yo,” Wayne said to him.
Taz cut his eyes at him and quieted down.
Wayne locked eyes with Vince, and was shocked when Vince ice-grilled him like he was tough. Wayne nodded at him, letting him know that wherever he saw him, it was on.
“Wayne, what happened in there?” Tammy asked, as she walked outside toward him.
Wayne exhaled hard about to explain what he walked in on when Tammy stopped him and grabbed his hands.
“My God, what happened to your hands?”
Wayne looked at his hands, surprised that they had swollen up like balloons. He closed his eyes, thanking God that the officer he’d just talked to didn’t see them. “Listen, Tammy. You got to promise me you won’t say a word.”
“I promise, what happened?”
“Dude was trying to rape Liana in the bathroom.”
Tammy’s eyes widened. “Are you serious?”
“I was on my way into the men’s bathroom when I heard her screaming for her life.” Wayne felt bad having to tell a small lie, but he couldn’t tell Tammy what made him really bust up in the women’s bathroom. “I opened the door, and I saw this dude… trying to rip her clothes off, and…”
“We have to tell the police what happened.”
“No, Tammy,” Wayne said, grabbing her.
“No?”
“I mean not right now. Liana’s kind of shaken up, and I’m quite sure she doesn’t want people knowing what happened to her.”
Tammy looked back at the entrance, and then back to Wayne.
“We got to respect her privacy,” Wayne said. “If she wants to come forth in a day or two, that’s up to her.”
“But you’re okay, right?” Tammy caught him staring at the entrance. She turned around and saw Liana, flanked by two other women. Liana locked eyes with Wayne. Tammy noticed how Liana’s initial reaction was to start toward him but she stopped and allowed her friends to lead her down the block.
“Ouch.” Wayne winced when Tammy squeezed his hands, to remind him she was standing there.
“Let’s go home.” She was referring to his place. “We have to clean these cuts, and soak your hands so the swelling can go down.”
“I’m all right, Tammy.”
“What did I say?” she squeezed his hands.
“All right. Let’s go.”
CHAPTER 12
Wayne looked both ways before entering the precinct. He tossed and turned all night when Taz called him from the police station and told him that Vince had told the police some bullshit.
“Yo, man. This motherfucker is trying to say I approached him, drunk out of my mind, with an empty bottle in my hand. He said when I told him to buy me another drink, and he refused, I cracked him in the face with the bottle.”
“That lying coward.” Wayne explained to Taz what happened in the bathroom last night.
“That motherfucker. If I would’ve known that when he was running toward me last night, I would’ve broken the bottle first, and then stuck it in his neck.”
“I’m going to keep it real with you, Taz. I don’t think Liana’s going to come forth, and press charges.”
Taz got quiet for a minute. “Fuck it; I'm not mad at her. The newspapers would be all in her business, digging into her past, and all kinds of dumb shit. Then the courts will make her take the stand and re-live the whole shit, and after all that, they’ll probably find that piece of shit not guilty.”
“Well, we still have to do something. Right now, it’s his word against yours. With your criminal record, street rep, and the fact that every policeman in Albany can’t stand you, they’re going to try and send you up north for this.”
“Fuck it; at least I'm not going up for no bullshit.”
“You’re not going up, at all. I’m going to talk to Harris.”
“Wayne, don’t go running your mouth. It doesn’t make sense for the both of us to be going up north. Who’s going to send me packages and money for commissary?”
“You’s a funny dude, Taz. I’ll come and check on you in the morning.”
The following morning as Wayne walked up to the officer’s desk, it dawned on him that this was a bad idea, but it was too late to back out. The desk officer had looked up from what he was doing, and was now staring at him.
Wayne cleared his throat. “Can I speak to Detective Harris, please?”
“Maybe I can help you out. What do you need?”
“It’s a private matter, and—”
“Say no more,” the officer said, holding his hand up, and picking up the phone with the other. He dialed a number and then spoke. “Yeah, tell Harris one of his CIs is at the front desk.”
CI? Wayne quickly deciphered the initials confidential informant, a.k.a. snitch and almost lost his cool. He held his head, hoping he wouldn’t have to wait long. Before the cop had time to slap any more labels on him, Detective Harris stuck his head out of an office. He cocked his head at Wayne, and then waved him over.
When Wayne walked into the cramped office, he noticed that Harris was putting on his jacket, and reaching for a folder.
“You kind of caught me at a bad time,” Harris said, grabbing his 9mm out of his desk draw, and shoving it in its holster. “What brings you down here, anyway?”
“I don’t want to take up too much of your time. I just wanted to speak to you about a situation that happened last night at Sneaky Pete’s.”
Harris grabbed his mug off his desk and sipped his lukewarm coffee. “You got to fill me in. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“A friend of mine was arrested for supposedly picking a fight with someone there.”
“Well, that’s why I don’t know what you’re talking about. I strictly deal with homicide. Nobody died last night so it’s none of my business.” Harris tapped the folder against his leg, signaling Wayne that his time was up.
“Detective Harris I know you’re busy and all, and it’s true that no one died last night, but in my opinion, something far worst happened.”
“Wayne… I really don’t have time to—”
Soul Dancing Page 13
