Fifty Shades of Jungle Fever

by L. V. Lewis

  “Talk to this dyke about what?” She asks her mouth twisted into a hard sneer.

  I turn from Tristan’s arms and summon all the strength I can muster. Even though dark edges threaten to close in around me, I execute a perfect right hook, knock Princess Danai the fuck out, and fall right on top of her.

  Before I pass out, Byron goes, “Ain’t that a bitch.”

  And Tristan says, “What a goddamned clusterfuck.”

  ~*~

  Chapter Four

  Soft jazz music plays as I come out of what appears to have been a deep, drugged sleep. It’s dark in the room, as if it’s nighttime, but there’s a dim light escaping from under two of three doors I can pick out around the humongous room. This has to be the most comfortable bed I’ve ever slept in, and the sheets smell like heaven. In fact, they feel that way, too. I’d hazard to guess they are somewhere around a couple thousand thread count, considering their softness. I feel like fucking Cleopatra sleeping on what I assume is Egyptian cotton. Damn! I could get used to this.

  If this were my bed I’d be sleeping on my thin overwashed 500 thread count sheets under the quilt my paternal grandmother made. Where the fuck am I, really? I reach my hands above my head and touch a plush cushioned headboard. Definitely not my own bed.

  My brain rewinds to the events of last night. Fuck! I hit Darnelle in the face because I thought she slipped me a Mickey. Byron tried to carry me out of the club to God knows where, when Tristan stopped him. The one mixed drink and two bottles of Cristal I helped consume either sneaked up on me big time, or somebody honestly did drug my ass. I fumble toward the bedside table and turn on a lamp. Well, good goddamn, I’m either at Tristan’s house or a luxury hotel because Byron’s never had anything this luxurious. I am dressed in a silk nightgown. Nothing else. Oh shit! Who undressed me?

  There’s a glass pitcher full of ice, water, and paper thin slices of fruit, and one drinking glass turned down on a linen doily covering two Tylenol. Did Tristan do this, or did he make poor Darryl do it? My money is on Mr. Control. I sit up, thankful for the water, because my mouth feels like cotton, and I feel the remnants of a headache. I take the Tylenol with another long drink of water.

  I hear a soft knock on the door.

  “Come in,” I say speaking around the amphibian that has climbed into my throat and rendered it froggy from disuse.

  Tristan saunters into the room, wearing full fencing gear sans the mask, as if he owns the place.

  Wait, if this is his house, he does own the place. My Triple-G takes a finger and draws a circle around her ear intimating that I’m Looney Toons.

  Who knew a man in that get-up could be so damned sexy? His blond hair is dark from perspiration, his tan a delicious contrast to the fencing whites.

  My Fairy Hoochie Mama wakes up, sits on the side of her miniature bed, takes the sleep mask off her eyes, and crosses and recrosses her legs like Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. Hello Tiger, she mouths to Tristan, and then growls. I close my eyes, and open them again—hoping that when I do both my Triple-G and Fairy Hoochie Mama will have calmed the fuck down.

  “Good morning, Keisha. How’s your head?”

  “Other than the fact it feels like I loaned it to someone who abused it rather savagely while I was sleeping, fine.” I am compelled to use my sometimes dormant, proper English vocabulary I learned in high school and college with Tristan.

  He touches a button on a panel against the far wall, a whirring motor engages, and I can now tell it’s daylight behind the drapes. Damn, what I wouldn’t give to have automated light-blocking blinds in our duplex.

  With a nod toward his state of dress, I say, “Did you win your match?”

  “Yes, I trounced Nathan,” he says.

  “So you had the high ground?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know, like in Star Wars when Obi Wan had the higher ground and was able to defeat Anakin Skywalker also known as Darth Vadar.”

  He laughs. “The high ground is more advantageous in most military tactics. So, you like sci-fi action movies, Ms. Beale?”

  “Movies, period. Almost as much as I like music.” Why do I succumb to blabber infection every time I’m around him?

  “Good to know.”

  He approaches the bed, and I scoot back against the headboard involuntarily. I want to bring my knees up and trap them with my arms, but I remember I’m only wearing a short silk nightie. I clutch the sheets around my bottom half.

  Tristan’s mouth twists into a smile, but he doesn’t stop moving toward me. He sits on the edge of the bed about a foot from me.

  “You weren’t cowering from me last night,” he says in a low, seductive voice.

  “Say what?” I ask, taking offense. “Black women don’t cower, I’ll have you know.”

  “Oh, but they do love to cuddle while sleeping.” His blue eyes twinkle and I feel as if I’m the butt of some joke he’s decided he won’t share with me.

  I look at the other side of the bed and true enough, it does look like another head slept on the pillow next to me. It is then I notice there’s a bandage in the crook of my arm.

  I throw my head back and groan, “Ugh! Did we get busy last night? And who drew blood from my arm?”

  “If you mean, did we have sex? No, Keisha. Unlike some assholes in this world, I don’t have to use GHB to get a woman into my bed. I had a doctor friend in the building draw your blood last night, for evidence.”

  “So, Princess Danai really did slip me roofies?”

  “I didn’t say that.” He’s looking at me like he’s never seen me before. How I wish I knew what he had on his mind.

  “Where am I, and how did I get here? Can you answer me that?” I’m snapping like a dragon at the man who saved me from a far worse fate than waking up in luxury.

  For a moment, I think I’ve hurt his feelings, but his face relaxes into impassivity again. “You’re in my condo, in the Gold Coast area,” he says. “I brought you here last night, because I didn’t trust either of the rappers to get you home safe. I’ve instructed my security team to review the camera footage to see if we can identify who drugged you.”

  “Oh,” I say, feeling monumentally stupid. Tristan has done me a favor, and I’ve only met him with hostility this morning. “Thank you.” My voice is so soft I wonder if he hears me.

  After what seems like an eternity, he answers me back with a wry smile on his alluring mouth. “You’re welcome.” He tucks a lock of unruly hair behind my ear. I’m sure I look like I’m back in the seventies, and wearing a misshapen curly afro.

  “I think I like your hair this way,” he says. “Why were you wearing that dreadful ponytail wig last week?”

  “It wasn’t a wig,” I say as if I’m speaking to a child. “It was a weave.”

  “A what?”

  I shake my head. Gazillionaires most likely know nothing about weaves. “Never mind.”

  “How much did you have to drink last night?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I need to know.” He runs a hand through his hair in frustration.

  Before I can be ticked off about his insistence, I rattle it off to him. “I had a mixed drink at the bar. Princess Danai bought a bottle of Cristal, and we drank that, then Byron bought a second bottle and we drank that.”

  “Did you eat anything before you started drinking?”

  “No, but I had a lot of nuts at the bar.”

  “You were out cold. You could’ve aspirated and died.”

  “Well, I didn’t.”

  “Only because I kept watch over you.” His jaw tightens in a stubborn clench. “If you were mine, your ass would be as purple as that dress you were wearing last night.”

  “Listen, you didn’t have to do me any favors.” Then it dawns on me that he said something about if I were his, and my ass being purple. Two dissonant and mutually exclusive terms. I feel like Angela Bassett in What’s Love Got To Do With It when Lawrence Fishburne tells her to “Eat the ca
ke, Annie Mae!”

  “Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. First of all, last I checked, my daddy died two years ago. Second of all, the last time he tried to whip my ass I was seventeen, and I gave as good as I got. And third of all, I don’t roll like that. My mama took some ass-whippings in her lifetime, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to.”

  Tristan looks appalled. “Keisha, I am not an abuser of women.” Then his eyes soften and his demeanor changes. “Is that why you ran from me?”

  I remember that scorching hot kiss in his office the previous Friday. That would be the reason why, but there’s no way I’m telling him that. I can’t find the words to explain to him that his kiss scared the fuck out of me. I’ve never felt what he made me feel just from a kiss, and the kicker is, I’d give anything to feel that again. My Fairy Hoochie Mama has a set of pom-poms and she’s jumping up and down, cheering “hell yeah!”

  I purse my lips to speak, but don’t have the slightest idea what to say. “Tristan . . .” I begin, but I can’t for the life of me think of a plausible answer to give him.

  “We’ll talk more after a shower, and breakfast.”

  He stands. “I’ve asked my housekeeper, Mrs. Naven to fix breakfast. I wasn’t sure what you liked, so she’s fixing a sampling of a few things.

  I don’t know what Mrs. Naven looks like, but I get a visual of that big black woman who was Steve Martin’s adoptive mother in “The Jerk.”

  “The bathroom is through that door on your right. The closet is next to it. Use anything in there you find that’ll fit. I’ll take a shower in the guest room.”

  “Where’s my dress?”

  “Mrs. Naven collected it to steam clean after breakfast.” And with that, he turns and walks out of the room.

  #

  I don’t think I breathed the whole time we had been in conversation before I got into the shower. Goddamn that man is fine! If I didn’t want him to view me as a sex-hungry skank ho, I’d march into that guest room and join him in the shower.

  What the fuck is wrong with me?

  I just met him a week ago, and I feel like a bitch in heat. I adjust the spray on the multiple shower heads, so the water hits me in strategic places, and take care of business, so I won’t embarrass myself when I go join him for breakfast. I wonder. Is he doing the same thing?

  As I’m drying myself off with his big, thirsty—what other color than white—towels, I remember his words. Oh, I would be yours in a heartbeat, Tristan White. All you’ve got to do is say the word.

  He turns me on more than any man I’ve ever met. Yet, he’s kind of scary, and demanding, and so out of my league, and not only because of the money. On the other hand, he made sure I didn’t get date-raped by a male—or female—rapper, then brought me to his condo to keep me safe. I could at least have the decency to tell him why I ran from him.

  I find a new toothbrush still in its packaging and use it, because the thought of using his—anybody’s already used toothbrush—is just nasty. I tame my hair with his mousse, some European shit I’ve never heard of, but it makes my hair soft, not stiff as it dries, and it falls effortlessly into a natural curl. My hair doesn’t require a straw-set to get this look as some of my friends do. That’s another thing I thank the mixture of my Brazilian and African American roots for.

  I find a rack of women’s clothes that still have tags on them in one section of his closet. There are three different sizes, and one of them happens to be mine. Did he have a live-in girlfriend whose weight fluctuated a lot, or is he just taking the boy scout motto literally? It hurts my head to think about it, so I just grab a linen Capri set in yellow. I don’t bother with a bra because none of the ones in his stash fit me.

  Nothing smaller than a D cup in Tristan’s collection. Do I detect a pattern of preference for big-breasted women? If that’s the case, I am woefully underendowed with my perky 34Bs. I slip on a pair of Teva flip-flops that are a size too large, but they work. I certainly don’t want to walk around in the Loboutins on a Saturday morning.

  I can’t find the kitchen on my first try. This is supposed to be a condo, but it must cover a whole floor of this building, because it’s humongous. Shit! Make that two levels. I smell bacon wafting up to my nose when I pass a flight of stairs, and I descend them, as other smells co-mingle with bacon and reel me in.

  Tristan is seated at the breakfast bar with the Wall Street Journal and what looks to be all of Chicago’s papers stacked in front of him. He folds the paper when I appear and places it on the neat stack.

  “Hello,” I say, as if I have breakfast with a “mover and shaker” like him every morning.

  His eyes brighten. “Hello.” He gestures for me to sit on the stool next to him. As soon as I do, an average height, angular white woman appears from what has to be the butler’s pantry. The inimitable Mrs. Naven, I presume. Damn, I’m even thinking like Tristan White here in his upscale condo.

  “Good morning, Ms. Beale,” she says. “What can I get for you?”

  “Good morning, Mrs. Naven. Whatever you have already made.”

  “Keisha, don’t feel as if you have to eat anything you don’t like. Mrs. Naven will be happy to prepare anything you desire.”

  “I’m easy.” He smirks at me, and I qualify that statement. “When it comes to food.”

  Mrs. Naven fixes me a plate with a generous sample of everything she’s prepared.

  Tristan eats a couple of small pieces of raisin toast, an egg white omelet, a half grapefruit and decaffeinated organic coffee. Tristan doesn’t look like a man who needs to watch his weight. To each his own, I think, as my mama, Clara Lee Beale likes to say.

  I taste the coffee set before me. “Ugh, this can’t be real coffee. What do you have against caffeine?”

  Tristan smirks. “Other than the fact it constricts the blood vessels in the brain and forces the heart to contract with stronger force, nothing.”

  “Would you like a real cup o’ Joe?” Mrs. Naven asks with an indulgent smile.

  “Yes, please,” I say. “I’m never fully awake until I have a real cup of coffee.”

  “I have just the thing,” she says and disappears back into her quarters. She must be going to get me some coffee from her personal stash.

  I’m curious about the rest of Tristan’s food. “What kind of bread is that?”

  “Sprouted wholegrain raisin bread. It’s extraordinarily good for you.”

  I scrunch my nose up in disgust. “Looks kinda nasty to me.”

  “I assure you, it isn’t. The pancakes you’re eating were made from the same type of smelt.”

  “Oh.” I’m not quite sure what to say to that. Covered in maple syrup straight from Vermont, the pancakes are damned good. I’m ravenous, and I eat everything on my plate. Mrs. Naven returns and grinds enough coffee to make several cups.

  I drink fresh-squeezed orange juice and real, caffeine-laden coffee. Mrs. Naven pours me one final cup, and I thank her profusely for the food. I take my dishes to the sink, and she smiles and takes them from my hand.

  “I appreciate it dear, but you’re Mr. White’s guest, and this is my job.”

  Mrs. Naven continues to clear our dishes away as Tristan takes my hand, and we leave the kitchen.

  As we pass through the dining area, he says, “Will you come with me to my office?”

  “Yes.” I sound breathy, as though I’ve walked a considerable distance, but I know it’s just my reaction to him. In silence, I walk with him back up the stairs, down the hallway past the bedroom where we slept—together—past several more closed doors until we get to the end of the hall. He opens the door into a corner office which rivals the one in his office building.

  He touches the back of a cozy chair, which has a twin with a small table between them. I sink gratefully into it; I am so overwhelmed. What on earth could he want with me?

  My Fairy Hoochie Mama sits in a stuffed chair, with her hands folded as if in prayer, steepled under her bony chin. My Triple-G has a concerned look on
her face and paces back and forth.

  Tristan goes to his desk and takes what looks like my blue faux Prada bag out of a drawer. With it, he brings the binder that contains our business plan, and another binder which is much more expensive than ours. He returns, sits in the chair opposite me, and hands me my purse. I check to see if all my stuff is still there, then roll my eyes at myself, because I realize, there isn’t a damned thing in that bag a gazillionaire would want. Tristan watches me, bemused.

  Then I pay closer attention to the bag. “Um, this isn’t my bag.”

  “Yes, it is,” he says. “Darryl noticed the one you had was—how might I put this delicately—not of sufficient quality.”

  “Sufficient for what?”

  “A woman of your beauty and strength. Please take the handbag as a gift from me, and as an apology.”

  “An apology for?”

  “Accosting you in my office last week. I was out of line. Had you been of a mind to, you could certainly have capitalized on that.”

  “An apology alone would have been sufficient, Tristan. As it happens now, I owe you an apology, so I guess that would make us even.”

  “Why do you owe me an apology?”

  “For not thanking you earlier for keeping whoever drugged me from having their wicked way with me.”

  “Speaking of which . . .” He rises to get his Smartphone out of his pocket. “My head of security sent me a couple of multimedia stills of the culprit.” He hands me his phone.

  “Wait. Is Wicked yours?”

  “Yes, I own a controlling interest in it.”

  So that explains why he has access to all the security footage. I scan the pictures on his phone.

  “That bastard!” I explode. I scan through the pictures that clearly show Byron McCaskill aka Blake dropping something in my drink when Princess Danai and I were preoccupied just before Tristan showed up. “I. Am. Going. To. Kill. Him.” I grind out.

  “If I don’t get to him first,” Tristan says through clenched teeth. His moods are so damned mercurial, and deadly.

  His anger makes me nervous. How do I know he doesn’t have Mob ties? “Um, I didn’t mean I would literally kill him. You don’t either, do you?”