by Tyree, Omar
“Are you sure?” he asked her.
She exhaled and mumbled, “Yeah,” while holding back a growing storm of concern. She felt stupid and loyal and hurt and anxious, love-lost and angry. But she refused to show it to him. She was determined to endure it, and she would save it all for when they were alone again. So she forced out a smile and nodded to him. “I’m okay.”
He repeated softly, “I told you, she’s my friend, aw’ight.”
Ingrid continued to nod, obediently. “Okay.”
Chelsea wasn’t okay with it. She returned from the restroom on a mission and headed straight for Miss Dominica. When she arrived in front of her, the young woman looked up to her in submission. The jealous hate was no longer there. It was replaced by revere. She actually envied her now instead.
Chelsea read it all in her eyes and nodded to her. She then gestured to Damon with a wave. “Come here for a minute,” she said, and backed away from their VIP section.
His posse was all in confusion now. What the hell was going on? Was Damon suddenly busted or what?
He stood up and frowned as he walked over to her. “What’s up?”
“I need to get ready to go. Are you gonna walk me out?”
He looked even more confused. “What?”
“Look, I have to go. Walk me out,” she demanded.
He paused and shrugged. “Aw’ight.” Then he faced his crew. “I’ll be right back.”
Yeah, tell your bitch so she don’t get nervous about you leaving her, Chelsea mused with a grin. She was about to have some good fun with it all.
As soon as they made it back outside of the comedy club and stood facing each other on the sidewalk, Chelsea asked him, “So, what’s her name?”
Damon played the dummy role. “Who are you talking about?”
“The broke Puerto Rican girl?”
He paused again and smiled. “Oh, she’s Dominican.”
“Whatever. What’s her name?”
“Ingrid.”
“Ingrid what?”
“I mean, what does it matter?”
“Obviously, she’s only here for you, so I wanna see how well you knew her. That’s why she was staring at me in the limo like that. She ain’t a damn tag-along. And I’m too old to be stupid. I write books about shit like this. That’s how I make my living. So did you fuck her yet?”
Damon grinned and looked away, embarrassed by her bluntness. That only made Chelsea reposition herself in front of him.
“Well . . . I mean, it’s not gonna make me a difference. I’m out of here for Miami in the morning. But she’ll still be up here, and you’ll still be up here. And like you already told the girl, we’re friends. It ain’t even that serious. So did you fuck her or what?”
Damon exhaled with his bottom lip poked out, as if he was confessing to his momma at home. “Yeah,” he mumbled.
“That’s all you had to say,” Chelsea told him and shrugged. “Did she have some good pussy?”
Damon looked at her and cringed. “What?”
“You heard me. Did the girl have some good pussy? I mean, was it wet, tight, warm, dry or what? Did she make you cum hard?”
He started laughing and couldn’t help himself. “You crazy, man.”
“Yeah, but you think I’m stupid, and I’m not. I know you got that girl waiting in there. What are you trying to do with her? Are you training the bitch?”
Damon laughed again and decided to level with her. “I mean, what do you think about her?”
“She’s cute. She’s still a broke bitch, but she’s cute. And she respects your money. Because I damn sure would have been ordering more than water if you had me in there like that. She has a lot of poise and temperament. But she was hating on me at first, and now I know why. Did you fuck her recently?”
Damon paused again. “I mean, why, man?”
Chelsea looked at him sideways. “You fucked her today, didn’t you? What, y’all got rooms down here now? I inspired you that much last night?”
Damon kept laughing and tried to hug her. “That’s why I love being around you, man. You crazy as shit. You’ll say anything.”
“And you scandalous-ass ballers will try anything. That’s why I gotta use two condoms with you. I knew you was in there training that ho. And she ain’t paying attention to none of them assholes. That’s a good bitch.”
“Well, she not gon’ do it in my face,” he commented.
“You doing in her face. She know good and damn well you can’t be around a bad bitch like me and not wanna fuck. Are you crazy? What’s my damn name?”
“Chelsea Christmas, unwrapping the gifts,” he recited and laughed.
“You better know it. But for real though . . .” she told him with a pause, “I like Ingrid. She has a good spirit about her. But you’re gonna fuck it up having her around them assholes.”
He said, “I’m not. I just wanted you to see her, actually. With the way you talk about girls and stuff, and write about ’em, I wanted to see what your take would be. She didn’t know it was gonna be like this tonight either.”
“Mmm hmm, I knew something fishy was going on. She don’t smell like fish though, do she?” she asked him.
Damon cringed and said, “Naw. Fuck that. She wouldn’t be out here with me.”
“Okay, well here’s what you need to do. You need to treat that girl right, first of all. So, when y’all wind down with all this bullshit tonight, you need to take her out again to get some ice cream, or something light and sweet, and then you need to take her back to your room and eat her out real good, because she’s a bad bitch. And I’ve been around plenty of bad bitches before, but they don’t act nearly as respectable as she does. And you tell her that I said I like her too.”
“Why?”
“Trust me, if you do that, she won’t be thinking about you fucking with me, she’ll have more confidence in herself. And then she won’t hate on me when she see me again. Trust me, it’s a girl thing. I get bad bitches to like me all the time by saying and doing the right things. So I’m giving you some of what I know.”
Damon nodded to her. “Aw’ight then, I’ma do that.”
“Yeah, and then call me tomorrow to tell me how it went.”
He hugged her and kissed her on the lips. “Thanks, man. You a bad bitch too. I don’t know that many cool chicks like you. That’s why we’ll probably be friends forever.”
She squeezed him in their embrace and said, “All right, now get back in there with her before she gets too nervous. And remember . . . tell her that I said I like her.”
Because if you don’t treat that girl right, I’m gonna see her again, I will, she told herself.
Damon grinned and said, “Aw’ight. I’ll call you up tomorrow.”
Chelsea walked away toward the street to look for a taxi, while heading in the direction of her hotel. She mumbled, “Well, that’s my good Samaritan act for the night.”
The whole story with Ingrid was intriguing enough to write a book about her. Do I Trust Him, Chelsea thought of the title. All about a sexy Dominican girl who competes with black women for the love of a fly-ass nigga . . . But then I’ll have to do more research on Dominicans to see what they like she mused. I wonder how different they are from Puerto Ricans, Cubans and Mexicans. But I know they’re different, just like Black Americans, Jamaicans, and Trinidadians are different. Not mention Africans. We all have our own shit going on.
Speaking of having their own shit going on, Darlene was still thinking lustful thoughts about Antonio inside of their taxi ride back to her Harlem hotel room. She squeezed his hand tightly and inched in closer to him in the back seat.
I should kiss him on his cheek and see what he does, she dared herself. Before she knew it, she leaned in tipsy and attempted to kiss Tony on the cheek without him knowing it. But as the taxi stopped at the red light and jerked her forward, she swiped a kiss past the right side of his lips instead.
“Hey, be careful,” he told her, grabbing her back with
his right hand and arm. Darlene had damn near fallen out of her seat. Tony even checked to make sure she was wearing her seatbelt, and she was.
“What were you trying to do?” he asked her.
“This,” she answered, planting a sloppy kiss on his unexpected lips.
Tony kissed her back, surprised by it, especially when she wouldn’t stop. But that only made him think about how drunk she may have been.
Man, she must be more messed up than I thought, he told himself. What do I now? Do I deny her? What about when we get up in her room? What will she do then? Do I even go up there with her?
The next thing he knew, her hands were all over his head, as if she could read that he was thinking about pulling away from her.
Aw, man, this is crazy! I never would have thought about this. Did she want to get drunk on purpose? he questioned. He could hardly breathe; she was kissing him so much. All the while, his pants were getting tighter and tighter in excitement.
Man, if she gets me started, I hope she’s not gonna be a dick teaser. That would be the worst, he panicked.
But Darlene was all in. Oohh, his lips are so soft and yummy, she thought, while kissing all over them with hers. I can’t wait to get him in my bed. I want him to kiss all over me. I wanna feel his soft lips on my breast. I wanna feel them on my neck, my back, and on my ass. Oohh, I wanna feel him taste me.
She got so in to it that she slid her left hand in his crotch, while finding his left hand with her right to place it on her breasts, inside of her yellow jacket. She wanted him to feel her.
Wow, this is getting a little too much, Antonio thought. He started to think about the taxi driver watching them through the mirror. He wondered how close they were to the hotel. I hope we’re almost there, he prayed. He didn’t know how much more of it he could take. He wasn’t prepared for it all, especially while still inside of their taxi.
Like clockwork, the taxi pulled up to the curb and stopped, right as Tony was feeling hella nervous.
Whew! Thank God! he thought. Darlene was really putting something on him.
Realizing that they were there, she disengaged from her heavy kissing, licked her lips, and ate the salty, hot, bitter and sweet taste of Antonio’s shrimp, hot sauce and sweet beer with a delicious grin.
Antonio saw that and knew that there was no way out for him. Oh, no, she’s not dick teasing tonight! he told himself with wide eyes. Did you just see that? I have no idea what I’m getting into here.
His heart was suddenly pounding as if he was the girl. He was afraid to imagine how tight and wet his pants would be once they exited the cab.
“Thank youuu,” Darlene hummed to the driver. She helped to collect their bags from the floor and climbed out.
Tony pulled forty dollars from his pocket and told the driver to keep the change. He didn’t want to be standing there on the sidewalk, waiting for change with a hard and wet dick. He even blocked his pants with his briefcase, embarrassed by his excitement.
Darlene grabbed him by his free hand and awkwardly led him into the old hotel building. Their hands and bodies weren’t even coordinated. She was all twisted around him and walking backwards, with the bags of free books, fumbling all over. It was like a scene straight out of a romantic comedy, but it was all real.
Even the East Indian man behind the registration desk watched their awkwardness in curiosity. Is she drunk? he asked himself. She must be.
Darlene didn’t care about any of the embarrassment, or what it looked like. She was having too much fun as she pulled Antonio toward the small elevator and pressed the button, dropping books out of their BEA bags and everything.
“I’m sorry. Can you get that?” she asked Tony, giggling all the way.
Antonio turned into an octopus, attempting to gather everything from the floor as the elevator arrived and opened. He became so desperate to get out of dodge and away from the man at the registration booth who watched them that he tossed the damn books onto the floor of the elevator just to get inside and leave already.
“Shit!” he cursed as the elevator closed and started on its way up. He bent down to gather the books back into the BEA bags, only for Darlene to meet him down there for another sloppy kiss on his lips.
“Wait a minute,” he told her, still trying to gather the books.
As the older model elevator ascended the hotel floors, Darlene lost her balance and fell back into the corner and banged her head. But since she already stooping down low, it was more silliness and embarrassing than hurtful.
Nevertheless, Tony was shocked by it. “Jesus Christ, man! Are you all right?”
He stopped everything he was doing to help her back up.
Darlene heard his exaggerated response and read his huge eyes as he helped her to her feet. “Awwww, you’re so sweeeet,” she purred, breaking into laughter. She thought it was all hilarious.
“That’s not funny, man. You could have broken your neck if you landed the wrong way.”
Suddenly, everything he said was funny. It wasn’t that serious. But Antonio was now anxious to get back to her room, not for sex, but to regroup. Shit was falling apart all over the place. He even wondered if she could still walk down the hallways to her room. Would he have to carry her?
When the elevator stopped on the seventh floor, Darlene told him, “Let’s go.” But she couldn’t help him with anything. She only leaned against the elevator door to hold it open while Tony picked everything up from the floor.
“I’m gonna have to leave some of this here and come back and get it,” he told her.
Darlene shrugged. “Okay.” As long as he was coming back to her room, she didn’t care.
They walked down the old, dark and small hallway toward her room while Antonio thought about it. Is this where she wanted to stay? This looks like a murder hotel, or something Stephen King would write about.
“You stayed here instead of downtown?” he had to ask her.
“Isn’t it crazy?” she stated, grinning. “But it inspires me. It makes me want it that bad.” And you, she thought as she fumbled through her purse for her room key. Sure enough, she had to press her panties back inside of her purse from earlier. “Oh, shit,” she mumbled to herself.
“What, you can’t find your key?”
“No, I have it. Nothing,” she told him. Finally, they made it into her extra small room.
Tony walked in and looked around. If he had a pair of long, stretch arms like “Freddie Krueger” from A Nightmare on Elm Street fame, he could touch every wall while standing still in there. The room was that damn small.
He said, “This is it? Well, you’re gonna stay hungry in here?” Her outfits and regal personality didn’t match that Harlem hotel room at all. They were polar opposites.
“I bet you won’t think I’m a diva now,” she joked.
Antonio dropped their things on the cabinet dresser to his right and said, “Nope. Now I’ll think that you’re crazy.”
Darlene laughed again. She said, “At least I’ll stay focused instead of staring out the window.”
He looked around again and said, “Yeah, you got no window in here. That thing over there doesn’t count. That’s like a portal in a cruise ship. Let me go get the rest of our things,” he told as he walked back out.
