Make You Mine

by Niobia Bryant

  All through high school and our entrance into early adulthood we were the popular ones. Other girls either hated us or wanted to be one of us. We kept our hair in the latest styles, and our gear was always the trend. We wore nothing but designer fashions: from the stonewashed Guess jeans and Timberlands of the nineties to Prada and Manolos in the new millennium.

  Ever since our freshman year at University High there were always just the four of us. We looked out for one another. We had each other’s backs. There’s an unbreakable trust between us built on ten years of friendship and sisterhood.

  There’s Latoya, Keesha, and Danielle, a.k.a. Moët, “Dom” Perignon, and Cristal. Dom came up with the nicknames one day back in 2000 while we were eating lunch in the caf. She got the idea from the late and great rapper Biggie Smalls’ 1994 classic “Juicy.” Those nicknames made us even more popular, and they’ve stuck ever since.

  Six years later, although no one was really popping Dom as much, and Jay-Z had called for a boycott of Cristal because some bigwig had dissed hip-hop, we kept those names.

  Oh, me? I’m Monica, but everyone except my parents calls me Alizé. No, I don’t have a fancy champagne name like everyone else, but that’s cool. Just like the drink, I’m the sweetest of the bunch anyway.

  I didn’t leave the bathroom until I wrapped a towel around my body because there was no need to tempt fate. I was too happy to open the door and find the bedroom empty. I heard him in the kitchen.

  Good. He loved to catch me fresh from the shower or a bath and eat me out.

  I grabbed my overnight bag and pulled out some fresh undergarments to hurry into. My cell phone rang. As I sprayed on the only perfume I wear—Happy, by Clinique—I picked my phone up and flipped it open, forgetting the mandatory check of my caller ID.

  “Hey,” I said in a little singsong fashion—my usual greeting.

  “Whaddup, baby girl.”

  I felt my face wrinkle into a nasty frown as I recognized my ex’s voice. I couldn’t stand the sight, smell, or sound of Malik’s sorry ass. This knucklehead tried to holler at Cristal behind my back.

  That was a definite no-no.

  Being the home girl Cristal was, she told me all about it… after she slapped the hell out of him.

  But that wasn’t the first time Cris and I didn’t let a boy cause drama between us.

  It was 1999. Freshman year of high school. New school. New faces. New rules. New cliques.

  And since I was the only one from my elementary school to get accepted into University High, that meant new friends, but I had no worries.

  I was looking good in the latest Parasuco gear. My bob was laid out, and my gold jewelry was in place. My pocketbook and bookbag were Gucci. My parents were real good to me. Being the only child had its benefits.

  All eyes were on me as soon as I walked into my home-room. The various conversations buzzing around the room lulled. A few of the boys whistled or shot me their “let me holla at you” smile. I went right into spin control and threw on a smile like I had the world in the palm of my hand. A few people smiled in return. A couple of girls immediately bent together, and I felt like they were talking about me.

  There was an empty seat next to a tall, slender girl with skin the color of shortbread cookies. She was busy flirting back with a slender dark-skinned kid with long, asymmetrical braids and a big Kool–Aid smile. I made my way past the rows of students in chairs with attached desks, speaking to every last person I made eye contact with.

  “Whassup,” I said to Shortbread and Braids as I set my things on the long bookshelf behind us.

  Braids looked at me from the tip of my fresh white Nikes to my eyes, not missing anything in between. There was no denying the interested look in his deep-set hazel eyes as he turned in his chair to face me and turn his back to Shortbread. “Better yet, shorty, how you doin’?”

  I saw the disappointment on Shortbread’s face, and even though he was as fine as Tyrese, I wasn’t looking for drama this early in the school year. “I’ll be doin’ even better when you go back in her face and out of mine.”

  His pretty-boy face fell, and I knew lover boy was shocked that all his deliciousness rolled off my back like water.

  Shortbread laughed, holding her hand over her mouth. “No need him turning this way again,” she said with attitude.

  “Oh, so both y’all gone play me?” he asked, straight white and even teeth flashing.

  We both looked at him like “Negro, please.”

  He sucked his teeth, waved his hand, and turned to a dark-skinned cutie sitting in front of him.

  Shortbread and I looked at each other, gave each other some dap, and then laughed at how we shut down his wanna-be playa ass.

  “I’m Monica.”

  “Danielle.”

  We’ve been inseparable ever since, and we’ve always been loyal to each other.

  Too bad Malik’s dumb ass didn’t know that.

  “What you want?” I snapped, my eyes flashing as I focused my attention back on him. “No! As a matter of fact, who gives a shit?”

  I slammed the phone closed, immediately dismissing that clown. True, his money had been good and he had been free-giving with it, but bump that, I don’t need a no-good Negro trying to pay me with one of my girls. When it comes to shit like that, I’m like Aretha: give me my R-E-S-P-E-C-T, understand?

  Besides, I’ve moved on to bigger and better things. Malik didn’t have nothing on Rah.

  Once a big-time drug dealer, Rah had pooled his money and bought businesses that let him get out of the game before the game got him.

  Okay, Malik can throw down a thousand times better in bed, but R-E-S-P-E-C-T, remember?

  It’s not like I ever loved Malik or even Rah for that matter. Shit, I’ve never been in love and that’s fine by me. Love’s nothing but a bunch of bullshit. What I wanted from men, I got: money, nights out on the town, shopping sprees, and companionship when I wanted it.

  True, Cristal was always hounding me about my need for “thug love,” but I liked me a roughneck. Timbs and “wifebeaters” turned me on more than suits and ties. A hard brotha with that swagger and an “I don’t give a fuck” attitude made me wet while those whitewashed brothas (from the same corporate world I yearned to be a part of ) made me laugh.

  I can’t explain it. I just liked what I liked.

  Rah walked into the bedroom naked as the day he was born and smoking a blunt as thick as three fingers. I was glad my ass was already dressed.

  A little shopping excursion would be good, but putting up with him and his minute-man sex wasn’t on my agenda for the day.

  He held the blunt between his straight and even teeth as he climbed back into bed. “What time you get out of class?”

  “I have classes all day and my dance class tonight. Did you need something?”

  “Naw, I’m straight. I’ll be at the new store all day,” he said, reaching for the remote to turn on the sixty-one-inch flat screen on the wall.

  “Wish me luck on my test,” I said, moving to the bedroom door.

  “Good luck.” He exhaled a thick silver cloud from his pursed lips. “Love you, baby girl.”

  “And I love you, too,” I said without pause.

  Another lie. Maybe the biggest of them all.

  Show And Tell

  Prologue

 
Ladies

  2000

  The four teenage girls walked through the double doors of University High’s cafeteria like they owned the school. They knew without looking that all eyes were on them. Hating them and hating on them. They were used to it and maybe even thrived on it a bit. Popularity. Envy. High school fame.

  Even as they settled at “their” table and began munching on the sandwiches they purchased from the store up the street—of course the cafeteria food was a no-no—people watched them. Wanted to be them. Wanted to be with them. But it was just the four.

  Friends since freshman year, they weren’t looking to enlarge their clique. It was them and only them. One for all and all for one. Even though they all were as different as night and day, they clicked. They had each other’s backs. They knew their friendship would last past their high school years.

  “Did y’all see the new Biggie video last night?” Keesha Lands asked, in the Tommy Hilfiger tank she wore with tight-fitting jeans. Her gold herringbone chain and bamboo earrings gleamed against her smooth dark skin and seemed to glisten in her cat-shaped eyes.

  “Not me,” Latoya James said, looking prim and proper as always in her white collared shirt and ankle-length navy blue skirt with her shoulder-length hair pulled back into a tight ponytail that seemed to make her caramel complexion stretch.

  Danielle Johnson rolled her deep-set eyes heavenward as she applied pale pink lip gloss that perfectly matched her fair complexion and pretty features. “My new foster family let their sickening sons watch Nickelodeon last night,” she said, putting the gloss into her Esprit purse before taking a bite of food. She made sure not to spill a drop on her dark denim dress.

  “Well, I’m an only child and my parents ain’t churchy, so you know I was right there in front of the TV,” Monica Winters said, flipping her thick shoulder-length jet black hair over her shoulder as she flashed them a sassy smile on her cinnamon face. She did a little dance in her seat and winked at Keesha.

  Keesha started rapping the words to “Juicy” and the girls all joined in with her. Even Latoya knew the words, although her parents ran a secular music-free zone. Ever since pulling the shy church girl into their fold, the girls were sure to bring Latoya up to speed on everything fun and fly.

  They all laughed and gave each other high fives after they finished.

  “Well, I’ve decided to call myself Dom,” Keesha stated with confidence.

  “Dom?” the other girls all asked in unison.

  “Yup, Dom as in Dom Perignon,” she explained with attitude. She pointed to Latoya. “You’re Moët…Danielle, you’re Cristal—”

  “What about me?” Monica asked, feeling left out.

  “I don’t know any more champagnes,” Keesha said with a helpless shrug. “But Biggie’s always talking about Alizé. I heard it’s a real sweet drink with liquor in it.”

  “Then that’s me to a tee,” Monica said with satisfaction.

  The four girls all raised their cans of soda and toasted their new names.

  Chapter One

  Cristal

  “Hello, this is Cristal again. I have my mind on money and money on my mind.”

  2008

  Okay. Let me explain how I feel in my man’s arms— if it is at all explainable. I feel secure. Loved. Cherished. Pampered. Needed. Perhaps most important of all…I feel wanted. Growing up as a foster kid and not knowing if my parents were dead, alive, or indifferent, feeling wanted is important as hell to me.

  I am Cristal, or Danielle Johnson, and my man is Mohammed Ahmed. He is tall, handsome, and strong with cocoa-scented dreads that reach to his waist. He is everything I ever needed and nothing that I ever wanted.

  Just try to make me leave him.

  “Danielle,” he whispers in my ear with that sexy Jamaican lilt.

  I shiver as he presses his warm naked body above mine. My legs spread with ease as I wrap them around his waist. His body and the bed sandwich me. The feel of his hard dick against my belly makes me anxious. Ready. Waiting.

  As he bends his strong muscled back to lower his mouth—that delicious and skillful mouth—to my breast, he circles his tongue around my nipple. Clockwise. Counterclockwise. He uses his strong hips to prod the tip of his dick between my lips. We both gasp hotly. He circles his hips, pressing his hardness against my walls. Clockwise. Counterclockwise.

  Jesus.

  These moments in his arms and his bed are worth it all. Worth every damn thing I gave up for him. For this. Each stroke delivers my point home.

  The money.

  Pop.

  The fame.

  Pop-pop .

  The fancy houses and cars.

  Pop-pop-pop.

  The glamorous life.

  Pop-pop-pop-pop.

  Mrs. Sahad Linx.

  Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop.

  All of it. Gone.

  We are in tune with one another. United. Joined. He knows he is making me cum and that makes his dick harder than jail time. And that makes me cum even harder until I am panting. Sweating. Clutching him with my pussy walls and my limbs as he strokes harder and faster inside of me.

  “Yes,” I cry out as he leans up a bit to look down at me with those silky brown eyes I love.

  His sweat drips down onto my titties as each of his pumps makes them bounce up and down. “Dick good ain’t it?” he asks roughly as his face gets intense. “Huh? Huh?”

  “Yes, baby, yes,” I whisper as I reach up to caress his handsome face with my quivering hands.

  His head whips to the right to capture my fingers in his mouth. He sucks them deeply as he slows down his strokes to a lethal grind that brings the base of that dick against my clit.

  Damn. Goddamn. Damn. Damn.

  “Watch this, Miss Danielle,” he says thickly around my fingers.

  I already know what time it is.

  His entire body freezes as he looks hotly down into my eyes. I feel the jolt of his dick against my clit as he fills me with his cum. He smiles as he licks my fingers like the freak that he is. Each pluck of my clit pushes me further over the edge until I am working my hips up and down off the bed to pull downward on my dick. His mouth forms a circle as he closes his eyes and pushes down deeper into me.

  I reach up to snatch off the leather strap holding his hair and his dreads surround our heads like a curtain. “Who the best? Huh? Who?” I whisper up to him.

  “Danielle…Danielle…Danielle,” he chants as I drain that dick until it is empty.

  With one final kiss to my lips, he rolls over onto his back and then pulls my weak body to his side. I gladly snuggle my face against his chest and take a deep breath of his scent like I can absorb it into me. With his free arm, he reaches over to turn off the lamp.

  “Damn, that was good,” he whispers into the darkness before he slaps my butt cheek playfully.

  “I aim to please,” I whisper back with a smile.

  He laughs a little but soon his snores fill the air.

  Damn, I love him.

  “Good morning, Miss Danielle.”

  I open my eyes and stretch. There he is
just as constant as time looking down at me as he lays on his side on the bed. Okay, I love him but I do not do morning breath, Okay? All right.

  I pull the thin sheet up over my nose. “Good morning.”

  Mohammed just laughs at me before he flings back the covers and rolls out of bed. “You have time for breakfast?” he asks over his broad shoulder.

  I hardly hear him. I am too busy letting my eyes skim over the hard details of his back and buttocks. “No, I did not bring a change of clothes,” I finally answer once he turns fully to look at me.

  Mohammed reaches down to open a drawer. “What do we have here?” he says mockingly. “An empty drawer. What should we fill it with? Any suggestions, Danielle?”

  I give him a sarcastic smile. First a drawer and then some of the closet and then pack up all your things and move in. Nothing doing. The last time I lived with a man he threw me out of his penthouse apartment. Well, he caught me cheating (ahem, with Mohammed) but that did not excuse the fact that if I had not kept my apartment for my friends, Dom and Moët, to live in, then my pretty high-yellow behind would have been homeless. To make matters worse, he kept mostly everything he ever bought me, even down to my lacy La Perla underwear.

  No. I am nicely settled back in my beautiful apartment in The Top in Livingston. I have my best friends to help me keep up the hefty rent. Sure, I had to get used to the lack of quiet or privacy but it is mine and no one can throw me out.

  Plus…Mohammed’s house left a lot to be desired.

  “One day, baby. One day,” I promise as I roll out of bed.

  I look at him and I know from the look on his face that he did not believe me. Truth. He is smart not to. I begin to climb back in the Gap charcoal gray turtleneck and pencil skirt I wore to our dinner date to IHOP last night. I wish I had a pair of sneakers to throw on instead of my suede high-heeled boots. As soon as I pull on my black leather trench, I walk over to where Mohammed is lounging across the foot of the bed watching a recap of some football game.