by Nikki Turner
“I feel ya,” she said after a big sneeze.
Bam handed her a tissue. “So to protect myself from that shit, I can keep that place good and booby-trapped just in case a nigga wanna try his hand. Usually when I get calls, I have to drive up here and meet dudes, but now that I am here with you, it’s been more convenient. I like the company. Plus, you got a nice little place—no kids, nothing.”
She smiled but thought about how much longer she would have her place. Her rent was already one month behind before the funeral, and then she got sick, and now with her missing over two weeks of work, she had no idea how she was going to play catch-up. “So you don’t like kids, huh?”
“Naw, I am not going to say that I don’t like the li’l monsters, but I don’t want any right now.”
Isis seconded his opinion. “Me either. I need to get my shit in order first.” She opened up a new box of tissues.
“That makes two of us.”
“You seem like you got your shit together: nice car, you making money. What more could you want?”
“There’s always more to be had. I want more out of life than drug money and trick bitches.”
“That sounds like a plan.” She blew her nose.
“Yeah, so bringing kids into this world isn’t a good look for the lifestyle I’m living right now.”
“I agree, but are you protecting yourself?” Isis had no idea why she was asking such personal questions, but she kept firing. “If it happens, then what?”
He smacked his lips at her as if she was asking him a crazy question. “That cold must really got you delirious. Damn right I’m wearing armor. I’ve got to look out for me.”
“That’s good. I was just checking.”
Over the next few days, Bam slowly nursed Isis back to health. But as she grew stronger, Bam got weaker—she’d passed the virus on to him. So the next thing she knew, their roles had reversed, and now she was being his nurse.
Finally, after about a week, Isis felt well enough to return to the jewelry store where she worked. She worked the entire day with her boss, Bob. She was still busy even after she had finished her official eight-hour shift.
“Isis, what time had you planned on leaving today?” Bob asked.
“Well, I have so much to do to try to get things back on track.”
“Like what?”
“I really need to follow through on all of the special orders to see when they will be in and call my clients to let them know the status so they won’t be left in the dark.”
He nodded, and Isis continued. “Then I have to find a company that we can order an eight-carat trillion tanzanite ring from for another customer, but because it may be hard to get, I am going to get the price of the same ring in sapphire because it may be another option as far as the look. Plus, I’m sure it would be a lot cheaper.”
He nodded again and smiled. “That’s awful nice of you.”
“I do what I have to do to make sure that we keep them coming back. With all the competition out there, they can go anywhere they want to purchase their gems, but it’s important that we treat them as valued customers so that they’ll choose us.”
A huge smile covered Bob’s face. Isis had learned well. “That’s right. So how long you think before you’ll be finished up?” Bob asked.
“Well, I’m going to do as much as I can here, then I will do some research from home.”
Bob looked at his watch. It was after six. He left and went to dinner. When he returned, Isis was putting the clearance items out.
“After I get all of these clearance items tagged and ready to be put out tomorrow, I’m going to go ahead and head out, Bob.” Isis felt good about her day. It had been very productive. She had caught up to the point where it was almost as if she had never been gone.
“Make sure you come and see me after you have everything done,” Bob instructed her.
Isis finished up a couple more things and then went to see him.
“Hey, Bob, you wanted to see me before I left for the day?” Isis said as she entered his office.
“Listen, you are one of the best workers that I’ve ever had. I’ve never seen any one of my employees work the customers as you do. Even if they come in with no money, you treat them so well that they come back when they do have money.”
She smiled. She knew what all of this was about, why Bob wanted to see her. One day back on the job, and already they giving me a raise, Isis thought. They must have really missed me. Sales must have been at an all-time low, which they always are when I am out or on vacation. Isis was pumping herself up big time. If she’d had a dick, she could have sucked it herself.
“Working with jewelry is a gift that you possess, and I am sure your next employer will appreciate it as well. I’m sorry, Isis, but I’m going to have to let you go.”
Isis snapped out of her thoughts. “What? Excuse me? Did I hear you correctly? You’re letting me go? But you just said—”
“And I meant it,” Bob assured her. “The problem is that I need someone that I can rely on to come to work consistently. Sorry, but I’m going to have to let you go.”
“You can rely on me, Bob, I swear. It’s just that things have been crazy lately.” Isis pleaded her case. “But you can trust me, Bob.”
“Not anymore. I have no idea what has happened to you in the past few weeks.”
“I had a death in my family and then I was sick.” None of this seemed to matter to Bob. “What about the four years that I’ve been working where I hardly ever missed a day? Sometimes I even came in on my days off.”
“That was then; this is now. As I said, your services are no longer needed, and I’m going to have security escort you to your car after we check your bags.” Employees getting their bags checked was standard procedure.
Isis was pissed off and hurt and cried the entire way home, only to be greeted by an eviction notice at her front door because she had missed her housing court date. Funny how things worked. She had never missed one of Dave’s court dates, and now she had missed her very own. When it rains, it pours, she thought.
Bam, who was still sick and laying up at Isis’s spot, heard her in the kitchen as she was putting water in the teakettle.
“You finally off?” he called out from her bedroom. She had been sleeping on the couch so that he could rest and try to get better.
“They fired me,” she said, keeping her back to him because she didn’t want him to see her tears.
“How they gonna fire their best employee? I saw your employee-of-the-month plaques in the other room.”
“They don’t care about that. I guess they didn’t like it that I’d been out three weeks, and I was going to be working only two more weeks before my scheduled vacation.”
“Where are you going?”
“Where was I going, you mean?” She started to wash the glasses that sat in the sink. She really just needed an excuse to keep her back to Bam. Slowly she pulled herself together. “I was going away to a weeklong jewelry seminar to learn about becoming a professional jewelry designer. I’ve been sketching different designs for years, and I thought now was the time to finally make my dream a reality.”
“That’s what’s up!” Bam said, impressed that Isis was a chick who wanted to do something and wasn’t depending on a man to come in and take care of her.
“I know, but it seems like one thing after another keeps pulling me away from my true love. I gave so much time to Dave that I put my dreams on hold, and now…” She finally turned to face him.
“You shouldn’t let anyone get in the way of following your dream,” he said. “I wish I could do something other than sling dope.”
“You do have other options, Bam. Stop selling yourself short. You’re smart and are a natural leader.”
“Maybe you are right, but this convo isn’t about me; it’s about you. Why can’t you go to the class now?”
“Because like I said, something always comes up. Like…,” she began, but she couldn’t quite
get the words out, ashamed of her reality.
“Like…?” Bam egged her on.
“Like Dave and having to plan funerals. Getting sick and losing my job. I was already late on my rent and other bills before I lost my job, but I’ve always managed to hold it together,” she confessed. “I don’t know what I’m going to do now.”
“I understand more than you may think. I do have a mother and two sisters.” He paused before saying, “It’s hard out here for a woman trying to hold her own. Taking care of everyone else and putting herself last. I feel you, baby. I know times are hard.”
Isis didn’t respond, so Bam broke the silence. “Shit, the world is in a damn recession: gas high, milk high, everything. Shit, times is real fucked up for all of us—even the damn dope man.”
Isis laughed. She was grateful for Bam’s humor. Somehow he made things seem doable.
“Hard times are definitely in our city, baby. You better believe that.” He sat down at Isis’s breakfast bar.
“I know that’s right,” she agreed, joining him.
“Well, look, I know what I am about to throw at you may seem like it’s coming kinda quick, but I’m goin’ to put it out there anyway.”
She looked at him. “I’m listening.”
“I have a confession of my own to make. You know I’ve been feeling you since the first time I laid these pupils on you.”
“That’s what someone told me,” she said, “but it’s the first time that I ever heard it from you.”
“Well, it’s absolutely true. Now you’ve heard it straight from the horse’s mouth. I’ve always been in love with you.”
It hadn’t even been a month since she had put Dave in the ground, but she couldn’t deny that she had developed feelings for Bam. Isis really didn’t know how to respond, so she simply said, “Damn.”
But Bam wasn’t finished. “And being around you these past two weeks has made me want you even more.” He paused for a minute, hoping she would say something, but she didn’t. “What I’m about to say may sound fucked up, but I got to say it.”
“Just don’t say anything that you don’t mean,” she warned.
“My momma always says shit happens for a reason. Even when the shit is fucked up, it happens for a reason.” Bam looked at her. “There is always something good that comes along with the bad.”
“Bam?” she asked. “What are you getting at?”
“My aunt is always on my ass for money, acting like I’m her personal ATM, which is driving me to get a place. You getting fired is going to allow you more time to chase your dream; it’s destined that way.”
Bam saw that after all these years he finally had her ear, so he didn’t let up. Next, he wanted her heart. “I mean, let’s face it: There was a reason for Dave being in both of our lives.”
“Why you say that?” she asked, not really liking Dave’s name coming up in the conversation this way.
“Because Dave was the bridge that connected us. He was the reason we met. Him dying was the reason I’ve been able to grow on you.”
“Who said you’ve grown on me?”
“I can see it in your eyes,” Bam said, “and if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Well, I was just trying to help a person that had my back when I was down and out.”
He laughed and then took her hand. “I feel like the timing is perfect. You and Dave never had a real man-and-woman relationship.”
“That’s not true.” Isis pulled her hand away. “Don’t try to diminish what Dave and I had.”
“Hold your ponies; let me finish. Don’t cut off my head just yet.” Bam cleared his throat and continued. “No one can deny that you two had a strong bond and that you were a hell of a friend to him—probably the best friend he ever had—but you never had a real relationship because you had only known him a few months when he caught his case, and you both were so young.”
Isis had been thinking over the past few weeks about her relationship with Dave and knew that what Bam was saying was correct, but she wasn’t ready to admit it to him. “Yes, we were friends, and I loved Dave very much.”
“Yes, but he could never fully be your man from behind bars. He was distracted by his case, knowing that he was going to die, knowing that he could never truly be with you.”
“But—” She tried to defend their love, but he cut her off again.
“I just feel that you deserve a man that could give you the world and everything in it. I feel like I could be that man.”
Isis put her head down, but Bam put his hand under her chin and lifted it back up.
All she could say to that was “Really?” She was confused. She had loved Dave, but it had been a young girl’s love. She was a woman now and felt guilty about moving on.
“Really. And like I said before, there is a reason you lost your job, a reason why we connected, and a reason why they decided—today—to put that eviction notice on your door.”
“Please share that reason with me, then, because I can’t see a good reason for getting thrown out on the streets.”
“I thought you’d never ask.” A big smile took over Bam’s entire face as he began to run down his theory for her. “The reason is because I am going to get my own double-wide trailer in the country, and it would be the perfect place for you to concentrate on designing your jewelry. And we can take care of each other. We could have the best of both worlds with each other.”
The teakettle started to sing. Isis got up to cut off the burner and make them both a cup of tea. Heading over to the stove, she glanced at the eviction notice and reality hit her. Where was she really going to go? No money. No job. Where? She wouldn’t be able to get another apartment. Who would rent to her? She had no job, no money, and a bad rental history. She didn’t want to go back to Aunt Samantha’s house, because her aunt would rub it in that she had told Isis that she wasn’t ready to move out on her own when she had. Then there was her sister, who was in Texas, and when she wasn’t, Phoebe lived with her crazy mother. Brenda hated Isis with a passion.
Bam came up from behind and wrapped his arms around Isis. She wanted to resist, but it had been five years since she last had a man’s arms around her.
He pressed her. “So, is it a deal?”
“I don’t know. That’s a lot to think about.”
“Is there any way that I can persuade you?”
“No, I just need to clear my mind and think this through,” she told him.
Bam started to kiss her neck and run his fingers down her shirt. Because it had been a while since she had had sex—five years, in fact—his first touch had her soaking wet.
“Stop,” she moaned.
Instead Bam stuck his hand in her pants and began caressing her clit. He didn’t stop until she reached that point of ecstasy. He then led her over to the sofa. Isis didn’t want it to go down like this—sex this soon after Dave’s death. She had to stop Bam, regardless of how good it felt, regardless of how much she wanted it to go on forever. She thought about what Samantha had taught her: When someone knows that you need them, they are already in control, and this puts them in the position to take your neediness as a weakness.
But Isis’s thoughts were clouded by lust, so she decided to dismiss her aunt’s advice. Bam laid her down on her back and removed her underwear, using his tongue to make her come over and over again. Dave had never pleased her like that. He never put his mouth down there. Once she had come, Bam got on top of her, putting his skinny, short dick where his tongue had been just seconds before. After four and a half strokes, he exploded.
From that day forward, Isis knew there was no turning back.
Ronald “Bam” Michaels
What you have in your possession is blood money. A lot of blood was shed in order to obtain it. I sold my soul to the game when I started hustling, and a contract comes with that…. There are consequences and repercussions that come with it.
Chapter 5
April Showers
April showe
rs cascaded from the overcast sky, giving the newly birthed leaves of the century-old trees their first baptism of the season. Caroline County was only a hop, skip, and a jump away from Richmond, but for Isis, a person who had spent her entire life in the city, it was a world away.
Just a few days earlier, she had lost her job and had been facing eviction. Now she was starting a new life in the country with Bam. Isis still couldn’t believe how quickly things had transpired between the two of them. She was staring out the window, watching a family of squirrels hide from the spring rainfall, when her cell phone rang. “Damn,” she said to herself, upset about the interruption, before glancing around the small place she now called home, in search of her phone.
She followed the ringing down the tiny hallway and into the bedroom. The bed was a mess. Actually, the entire room was a disaster; she and Bam hadn’t unpacked completely yet. The ringing was definitely coming from underneath the comforter. She felt around the tangled bedding but came up with nothing.
Whoever it is on the other end of the phone must really want to talk, Isis thought. The phone had been screaming with at least four or five back-to-back phone calls now.
She picked up a handful of bedspread and shook it—nothing. She shook the spreads a second time—still no luck.
Trying to find the phone was beginning to feel like trying to locate a lost ship in the Bermuda Triangle. Enough was enough; she snatched all the top covers and linen from the bed, and the cell phone fell to the floor. The caller ID read: “Sister.”
Isis was elated that it was Phoebe calling, although she was a little upset with her as well. She had left messages on Phoebe’s machine for two days but had gotten no return call. They always kept each other up on what was going on in their lives, regardless of how big or small, usually talking four or five—and sometimes ten—times a day depending on how much drama was in the air.
“Hey, sister,” Isis answered the phone. “Where have you been?” She didn’t give Phoebe a chance to answer before continuing. “I’ve been tryin’ to reach you for more than two days.”
