by Suz deMello
“Right in one. I’m very proud of this place. It was a wreck when I bought it. Renovated it myself.”
“You did a terrific job.” The elevator opened into the casino, which was quiet for the moment. It looked like an exceptionally luxurious living room, with wood paneling, a plethora of large indoor plants and red patterned carpet. A few early customers schmoozed around a bar placed at one end. Gaming tables with tuxedo-clad croupiers filled the rest of the card room. Her trained eye quickly took in everyone, but nobody matched Sindie Keller’s description or photo.
“It’s early, so it’s pretty quiet now. By nine p.m., it’ll be hopping.” He led her through the casino to a foyer with a pale yellow marble floor.
“Was the Chinatown house your first property?”
“Actually, that house has been in my family for generations. The Lis have lived in San Francisco since the Gold Rush, when my great-great-grandfather came over to make his fortune. He earned nothing in the gold fields, but became a merchant and bought up a lot of property in the city. I run three houses and am thinking about opening two others. Each conforms to the same basic plan.”
Liza remembered details of the Chinatown house where she’d busted James months before. “The lower floors have a card room, bar and restaurant. There’s a floor with your whores, and a penthouse flat. Your flat.”
He opened one side of a huge wooden double door, ushering her outside. “Correct, except they’re not my whores. I don’t pimp out anyone. They rent rooms here. Of course, the rents are so high that few people but high-class prostitutes can afford them, but anyone paying me twenty thousand dollars per month can rent from me. Except for a drug dealer. The federal penalties for that are too steep, and we’d lose our properties. Other than drug dealing, I don’t care how they come up with the rent as long as they pay it.”
The misty air was cool, with San Francisco’s usual fog dampening the night. She took his arm to descend several stone steps to the sidewalk. “Does anyone else ever rent rooms from you?”
“Every once in a while. A year or two ago, a Russian chess master was in town preparing for a big match. He stayed here for about six months. He didn’t do anything except fuck, eat, and play chess against a computer. I thought it was a little wacko, but hell, he paid the rent and made a lot of the girls -- and several of the guys -- very happy.”
“It’s all perfectly legal,” Liza said slowly. “That’s why we’ve never managed to make a bust stick.”
“Exactly.”
“Very clever.”
“Thank you.” He sounded smug, damn him.
Parked at the curb was a cream-colored Bentley limo. “We’re not taking the Jag?” she asked.
“No, the limo’s more fun.” His voice was sly. “You’ll see.”
The chauffeur helped her to slip inside, and she settled herself on the back bench seat. The limo was so large that she could stretch out her legs. James scrambled in after her and immediately pushed the button to raise the smoked-glass panel between them and the driver, affording them complete privacy. With the tap of another button, soft jazz filled the space.
The chauffeur closed the door. With James inside, the limo’s interior suddenly felt too small; his overpowering male presence enveloped her. She leaned back and tried to breathe rather than pant, but it was tough. When she moved, the ginger stick wiggled in her ass. The whip’s marks, though they’d ceased to hurt, now itched. She couldn’t forget for a moment that she belonged to him.
She smiled. She felt good, sexy, relaxed, but with an edge of anticipation and excitement. After all, she was with James, so who knew what would happen?
“Knees apart, sweetheart,” he said. “Remember?”
She did, and obeyed. The flap of silk between the two slits dropped between her parted legs. He flipped it aside, baring her lower body clad only in the tight thong panties. Trapped in the thong’s narrow slit, her clit twitched, sending arousal shooting through her pelvis.
The car started. James opened a small refrigerator at the front of the limo and took out a bottle of champagne. “It’s not Domaine Chandon, but I think you’ll like this also.”
She looked. “Cristal. Yes, I think I’ll like that a lot. But how did you know that I like--”
“Hold the flutes, will you?”
While she held the glasses, he popped the cork and filled them. “To an extraordinary weekend with an extraordinary woman.” He toasted her with a gleam in his eyes she didn’t understand.
“Hmm. Am I supposed to drink to myself?”
“I’ll let you get away with it.”
“How about, to an extraordinary weekend and the man who’s made it possible.”
“Yeah, baby.” His smile was genuine -- she hoped.
They drank, with Liza unable to tear her gaze away from James. He was such an enigma, with his open, boyish smile and dark eyes hiding secrets she couldn’t begin to imagine. And she was his for another twenty-four hours. What did he plan for her?
He took the glass out of her hand and set both flutes into cup holders. “Let me show you another advantage of your gown.”
He reached for the frog fastener at her throat and slipped its knot out of the loop. Then he undid two others, and the dress fell open to the waist.
With her legs parted and the skirt’s panel tossed to one side, she was now almost completely bared and available for his pleasure. Cool air washed over her breasts, tightening her nipples. She sucked in a breath. “I see what you mean, by, umm, an advantage.”
He knelt between her legs. Cupping her naked breasts, he kissed the valley between them, then transferred his attention to her left nipple, tonguing and nibbling until she moaned and dug her fingers into his hair, drawing him in closer.
“Yeah, baby,” he said again, sounding appreciative. “I’d kiss your sexy mouth but I don’t want to ruin your makeup.”
“Later, maybe.”
“Later. But now I have a gift for you.” He took a golden chain out of his jacket pocket.
“More jewelry? For me?” Her heartbeat quickened.
His smile took on a lascivious edge. “For us.”
She checked it out. At each end of the foot-long chain was an odd wire part shaped like a U, with a dangling charm in gold and jade. It looked like the one he wore from his nipple ring. “What’s that?”
“I’ll show you. Lean back, and spread your arms over the top of the seat.” The position forced her to arch her back a little, pushing out her breasts. He kissed her left nipple again, turned the U upside down, then pushed it over her nipple’s engorged point. The golden wire hugged the tender flesh in a relentless grasp.
This was a sensual torture which, like much of what had happened during the past twenty-four hours, she’d never before experienced. She tried to keep her equanimity but couldn’t help digging her fingers into the upholstery. “That’s, uh, a nipple clamp?”
“A clip, if you want to get technical about it.” He sucked on her other nipple and tugged the tip, stretching it before he shoved the swollen bead into the curved wire on the other end of the chain. He tugged on the chain, and twin fires lit in the very tips of her breasts. “The gold looks beautiful against your skin.”
She started to sweat, and her breath came short as desire built. He pinched her exposed clit, then tugged on it. Her arousal had subsided while she’d dressed and they’d bantered, but he’d renewed the craving, which gnawed her from the inside out.
Her hips jerked, and she bucked, gasping.
“I think I need to calm you down.” He picked up the champagne bottle and pressed the cool, damp glass onto her throbbing clitoris. Her skin danced with awareness. She breathed deeply, her heartbeat slowing. Outside the dark window, she could see the lights of the city recede as they crossed the Bay Bridge into Oakland.
“That’s better. Now button up and have more champagne. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”
* * * * *
The sports bar LaDonna managed was in Rockridge,
a lively neighborhood tucked between Berkeley and Oakland. Despite the financial stress, she moved there from the Fruitridge area after Liza’s foray into the gang life nearly got them both killed.
Liza, with her dress now properly buttoned and her lipstick freshened, stepped out of the limo using James’s hand for support. He took her elbow and escorted her inside. Even without her hand in his, every step reminded her of him. Her butt clenched around the ginger stick, her needy clit wanted his tongue, and now, her sensitive, imprisoned nipples rubbed against her dress with every movement. She remembered what Veronica said, “Head high, pretty titties to the wind ... walk proud; you’re James Li’s woman.”
Though early in the evening, the place was already busy, jammed with a mixed-race crowd that accepted James and Liza without a second glance. The jukebox played Beyoncé, competing with big screen TVs showing basketball playoffs. At the big, oval wooden bar, rowdy groups downed pitchers of brew, betting on the games’ outcomes while in the darker corners of the room, twenty-something couples shared kamikazes and Jell-O shooters. The aromas of fried bar food and beer thickened the air.
“Oh. My. God.” LaDonna Bowman came out from behind the bar. “My daughter with James Li? The Lord surely does work in mysterious ways ...”
Liza’s mouth fell open. She watched, astonished, as James lightly kissed her mother on both cheeks. LaDonna then embraced Liza.
“I-I didn’t know you knew James,” Liza stuttered, her mind in a whirl.
“I didn’t know you knew him either, but I shouldn’t be surprised by anything he maneuvers,” her mother said.
“Well, that’s a fact,” Liza said.
“James, I have to talk to my daughter.” LaDonna gave James a commanding glare.
She was a strong, shapely woman who looked like a mature Queen Latifah. Few disobeyed her, and James was no exception. He threw up his hands. “Message received. I’ll be at the bar.”
After leading Liza into the small back room where she handled the bar’s accounts, LaDonna pushed Liza into a chair, then sat behind her desk. On it, a laptop glowed and flickered with a Windows screensaver.
“Spill,” her mother said.
Liza rubbed her forehead, then recalled that she was wearing foundation. She didn’t want to smear it, so she stopped, reaching for a tissue from the box on the desk. She dabbed it on her forehead while trying to decide what to tell her mother. Nothing, if she could get away with it. “I, uh, don’t you like James?”
“I like James, but he’s not your type.”
“Maybe he is.”
“He’s not white.”
“Do I have to go only with white men?”
“Not by me.” LaDonna shrugged. “But your pattern is clear. You’ve never brought a brother home to meet me. Is this your first date?”
“Yeah, basically.”
“Good. I’m glad you’re not holding out on me. He’s a good guy.”
“Everyone seems to think so, except my colleagues in Vice.”
LaDonna laughed. “They’re probably jealous. Look at him! He’s the heir to a fortune. He’s hot, can have any pretty woman he wants. He’s everything they wish they could be.”
“There might be some truth to that. I don’t know. What about what he does for a living?”
Her mother shrugged. “With what I’ve seen, I don’t judge. James treats others fairly and runs a class operation, as far as I’m concerned.”
Liza guessed it was time to get down to it, as uncomfortable as the conversation could become. She nibbled on her index finger and asked, “Mom, why did you have me?”
LaDonna started. “For the entertainment value.” She guffawed, a rich, hearty laugh.
“No, really. I mean, I haven’t asked about my father for a long time, but the impression I got was that you two had a quickie, he was on his way, and that was that. So why did you have me?”
Still grinning, her mother leaned back into her padded chair. “It was a little more than a quickie. It was a weekend, a really crazy, wonderful weekend. Then he went away, which I expected since he was a trucker. He came back three weeks later and we had another fling. He left, saying he’d be back, but I never saw him again. He phoned once to tell me that his family in Kentucky was in some trouble -- his brother had cancer, I think, and needed help. Then I never heard anything more.”
Liza’s belly churned. “I bet he left you because of me.”
LaDonna shook her head. “He didn’t know about you. But what we had was so good that when I found I was pregnant, I couldn’t abort you. Your blue eyes remind me of him.”
“James thinks that I go with white men because of my father.”
“Maybe you do. But James isn’t white like your father. He isn’t Hispanic or black like the gangbangers.”
“He’s just ... James.”
“Maybe that means that anything you have with James is real.” LaDonna smiled.
“I don’t know.” Liza crumpled the tissue and dropped it into a wastebasket. “It sure feels real, but it’s too soon to tell. I haven’t felt so involved and emotional since, since ... Eddie.”
“That’s a sad situation.” She sighed. “I see his parents every once in a while. I don’t know what to say to them except how sorry I am. Eduardo was a confused fourteen-year-old who paid with his life.”
“We were both confused.” Remembering, Liza grimaced.
Her mother leaned forward and took Liza’s hand. “When I saw you shootin’ up that gang, it was the proudest moment of my life.”
Liza jerked away. “It was the worst moment of mine. I was so stupid. I nearly got us both killed!”
“But you didn’t.”
Her burgeoning tears threatened to ruin her makeup. She scrabbled for another tissue. “Mom, I wanted to be a part of that gang so much that I -- that I --”
“You participated in a gang initiation without knowing that they planned to kill me and leave you with the blame.” LaDonna’s voice was calm.
Liza twisted her hands together. “How can you forgive me?”
“Easy. I didn’t raise a fool. You ended up nailing them all.”
“I wish I’d seen it,” James said from the doorway.
LaDonna gave him another sharp glance. “You spyin’ on us, boy?”
His smile was ingratiating. “I guess I am, and a very interesting conversation it is, too. That was when I first heard of Liza, when she got that commendation from the mayor. I thought, ‘what a cool chick. I wish I could meet her.’”
“Yeah, right,” Liza said.
“It’s true. But you seem ashamed. What exactly happened?” Carrying a bottle of Perrier, he sat in the chair next to Liza’s.
She closed her eyes, recalling the noise, the blood ... First they’d initiated her sexually. She’d pulled a train with every gangbanger taking his fill of her. She’d never told anyone about that and wouldn’t now. She said, “This was when we lived in the Fruitridge area. I was about fourteen.”
“Rough neighborhood,” James said.
“Yeah. Mom had been active there. She’d started an anti-gang block patrol. It cut into their drug profits. So they planned to take her out, except they didn’t tell me that. Only that they wanted me to help knock over a bar. They blindfolded me so I didn’t know where I was, then sent me in first with a sawed-off shotgun. But I hadn’t drunk or smoked very much that day, ’cause I wanted to be clear. Eddie -- my boyfriend -- he was totally out of it, and he didn’t see what I saw just before I went in.”
“What?” James asked, his voice gentle.
“They wiped the gun clean. Of their prints. I wondered, why? Then I realized that they were gonna stick me with it. I was the only girl there, and it was clear they didn’t respect females.”
He eyed her, his dark glance discerning. “Go on,” he said.
She gulped. “I went in first, turned, and blew the next guy away. It was Eddie.”
Desolation had swept her soul, a shrieking Arctic wind. “The blast -- it took
him apart. Literally. At that point, I didn’t care about anything else. The next guy was the leader, and I ... kept firing. Same thing happened. I remember his look of total surprise.”
“The rest of the gang got hit by the spreading pellets,” LaDonna said. “Those who still could ran out screamin’. My Liza got an award from the mayor and a boatload of guilt, though I don’t understand why.”
Liza pressed her lips together.
“What is it?” James asked.
“I was just thinking that whenever you turn over a rock, a scorpion crawls out.” She remembered her boss avidly ogling her.
“True enough. And if you dig under any pile of money, you’re gonna find some dirt.” James leaned back into his chair and stared at her, his gaze fraught with meaning.
“Don’t look down on James for what he does for a living,” LaDonna said. “He runs a cleaner shop than most.”
“Have you been in there?” Liza asked.
“Of course she has,” James said. “Your mother is a pai gow addict.”
“Mom!”
“James, you hush up. Child, I limit myself to twenty dollars a week.” LaDonna sounded virtuous.
“Pai gow? It sounds like something to eat.”
“On that note, let’s go get dinner.” James tugged lightly at Liza’s arm. “LaDonna, will you join us?”
“No, no.” LaDonna waved them out. “Gotta keep an eye on the store, just like you.”
Chapter Eight
After they’d scrambled into the limo, with Liza careful not to crumple her dress, she scooted over to James and cuddled against his side.
His arm, strong and comforting, drew her close. “Feeling emotional?” he asked.
She drew in a shuddery breath, trying not to weep and ruin her makeup. “Yeah.”
“I got the impression that there was more to the story than you told your mother.”
“Uh-huh ... you’ve probably heard about what gangs do to women -- what they make women do -- to join.”
“You pulled a train? At age fourteen?” Uninhibited, James sounded horrified.
