Fear of the unknown hit her as she thought about Aisha. Tameka. Whatever the fuck her name is now, went through something worse being held captive by some man. I’m terrified to hear what she’d gone through. I can’t be strong for her when I’m barely holding my shit together now.
The five-hour drive seemed like nothing as she courted the wayward thoughts floating in her grey matter.
“Let’s stop at the Purple Cow for breakfast,” Gabriel said. “You can get a purple milkshake and call your folks, and we can get a purple tee. That is my favorite color.”
“Purple?”
“Yeah, I think the color is majestic,” he said. “Plus, we need gas.”
“What about the iPad?”
“We will leave it in the car under the seat. We will roll into Memphis, check into the Lorraine, and then it will be over,” he said confidently.
“The Lorraine Motel? Where MLK was shot.”
“Yes, but I don’t plan to stay the night. We will stop in Murfreesboro and then in the morning, head on into Georgia,” he said.
“Okay,” she said softly, exiting the freeway and following his verbal directions.
The car was fueled up first before heading to the most purple place she’d ever seen in her life. The tables, booths, chairs, and everything else looked as if Prince had walked in and decided to have a restaurant themed in his royal honor. Gabriel, excited, purchased two tee shirts for their arrival in Georgia in the morning, looking like two matching Americans on vacation in Paris.
He was currently wearing the ugly Christmas tee shirt, so it was a compromise. Marriage is a compromise. Her husband carrying two guns and her being okay with it was a compromise. I need to call my parents. Dreading the moment, she took out her phone and activated Siri to call Mom who picked up on the second ring.
“Hello, there ‘Brina,” Courtney Robinson said into the line. “How are you, sweetie?”
“I’m good Mom, still on vacation,” she said.
“Are you really on vacation or traipsing around Georgia looking for Aisha? I hope not. We tried to warn that foolish girl about chasing rainbows, but she wouldn’t listen,” Courtney said to her daughter.
“Mom, I didn’t call to talk about her. I called to touch base and let you know I was doing well.”
“Well, nothing. I miss you. When are you coming home? I planned a girl’s night for us. and I am getting Jake to come over and give us massages,” her mom said.
“That sounds nice,” Cabrina responded. “I could use a massage. My shoulders are tight from sitting in a car for almost three days.”
Constance asked her daughter, “In a car. Where are you?”
“Currently in Little Rock and headed towards Memphis,” she said, looking at Gabe.
“Memphis? What in the world?” Courtney said, rising from her desk to walk to the other side of the building to share the call with Nelson, her husband. Cabrina could tell her mother was moving by the sound of her voice. Next, she would put the phone on speaker so her father could hear everything being said.
“Honey, I’m with your father. Nelson, our baby is in Little Rock,” she told him.
“Doing what?” His booming voice came through the line. Gabriel was able to hear it loud and clear as the man spoke. In his estimation, based on the voice, Nelson Robinson sounded really big.
“I’m on vacation, Daddy,” she said, looking at the purple milkshake which had just arrived. She sucked on the straw, expecting it to taste grapey, but it was vanilla. Vanilla, saturated with purple food coloring. She began to wonder if her poop would be purple as well. Focus.
“You are driving! That is not safe, Cabrina, for a young woman to travel alone anymore. There are crazies out there constantly scouting for their next victim,” Nelson said with emphasis.
“I’m not alone, Daddy,” she said, trying to find a means to move the conversation forward because it was currently going sideways.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Are you with that horny numbskull DeShondra? I hope not. That girl would hump a horse if it smiled at her long enough,” Nelson said with dismay.
“Daddy, that is not a nice thing to say about my friend, and no, I am not with DeShondra,” she said with a pause, looking across the table at Gabriel. “I’m with my...man.”
“What man? When did you get a man? Why are you traveling with a man who hasn’t given me the courtesy of coming to this house to meet me and look me in the eyes? He’s a no count man if you ask me,” Nelson said. “I want to meet him.”
“You will meet him, Daddy. I think you are going to like him,” she said.
Gabriel gave her an assuring smile, mouthing the word “Sunday.”
“Daddy, I will be home for Sunday dinner. You can meet him then,” she said to her father.
“On the road, my ass. I hope he has good intentions and not taking advantage of my baby,” Nelson said. “If you walk in this door telling me you are in love and about to have his baby, I’m going to sock him in the nose and then shoot him in his wiener!”
Gabriel’s eyes got wide and he took off his glasses. What did I ever do to him? I think that is a little drastic if you ask me.
“Stop it, Daddy,” she said, frustrated. “See, this is why I never bring anyone home to meet you two. This is so silly. You trust me with millions of dollars in annuities, yet you doubt my judgment when it comes to men.”
“George Brimmer,” Nelson said flatly. The young man Cabrina threatened to run off with in high school. Thankfully, the young man went off to the military after finding out six young women ended up expecting his children after prom night. He was grateful his daughter had not become number seven.
“I was 17, Daddy, and thought I was in love,” she said in her own defense.
“Ricardo Montoya,” Courtney said, adding to the bad decisions her daughter had made about men. Cabrina didn’t know the man was married but became suspicious when a woman kept calling her phone and hanging up. After a date one night with Ricardo, she followed him to a suburban home where he was greeted by a woman and three children.
It hurt that her parents kept a tally of her bad romantic choices. Any other people she dated over the years, she kept quiet. The past three years she focused more on her Etsy shop and making enough to leave the family-run company. Her parents were indeed loving and supportive people, and in her heart, she knew she’d married Gabriel to escape the monotony of her life. Cabrina was also trying to escape her parents. Loving and controlling were synonymous with her father. Being a good girl meant obeying his every word and allowing her mother to fawn over her like she was a baby doll. It panged her, but she needed to get away from them and live a life of her own.
“Conversation is over. Love you both. Goodbye,” she said, clicking off the line.
Gabriel was grinning. “I can’t wait to meet them,” he said with his eyebrows slightly lifted. He knew how insufferable his mother could be when something happened to one of them. Zeke being shot was a prime example. The idea of Mary Neary only having one child to care for nearly made him laugh.
“This milkshake is going to mess with my stomach. My nerves are on edge and I really, really want to strangle someone right now, and most of all, I wanted to visit the Clinton Library,” she said frowning.
“Why would you want to do that?” He asked incredulously.
“Because he was the first President I ever voted for when I turned 18,” she said.
“I think we can work it into our schedule since we are here,” Gabriel said.
“Thank you,” Cabrina said softly. The distraction would be a welcome change after he spoke with and prepared her for the night’s sting operation of Paunch and Judy, but first, he needed to make a call to his boss.
Chapter 10 – Follow the Dot
The dot on the screen moved at a steady pace as Judy sat in the bed, watching it with precision focus. Her finger touched the dot as it traveled across the small device in her hand. It had moved steadily for the past five hours, suddenly com
ing to a stop in Little Rock. Her sexy man and the lovely lady with the curly black hair were in Little Rock.
For another hour, she watched the small green speck, understanding that her new friends had taken a break to share a meal. Jealousy coursed through every vein in her body as she imagined the attractive couple adjacent at a table in some cozy bistro, staring deeply into each other’s eyes. Gabe.
My Gabe.
My Gabe is sitting there telling her how pretty she is and how lucky he is to be married to her. They are going home to have dinner over her nicely set table with matching dishes and coordinating napkins. He will open a crisp bottle of white to go with the shrimp she sautéed over a bed of pasta with a side of kale. They look like they are kale eaters. She can’t eat much and keep a figure like that.
Bitch.
She barely touched her dinner as he ate heartily on his steak and potatoes. A man like that wants meat. Chunks of meat and a nice set of titties like the ones I bought. She touched her breasts at the thought of his hot seed spilling over her nipples. Moisture formed between her legs at the sheer idea of taking him inside of her and riding him hard until he begged her for his release. Paunch would watch as she got her pleasure after she cut him deep with her second favorite toy watching the red elixir flow from his body. More moisture collected between her legs at the thought of his blood mixing with the smell of their sex as she lifted her body at the right moment, squirting her love juices all over him, seeping into the cuts.
Instead of me having a man like that, I am stuck with Paunch. Candy licking, sugar, junk food eating Paunch. He makes me sick to my stomach the way he licks me. I have to cover myself with some form of food to get him to do a good job of satisfying my needs.
“Judy, you are obsessing again. You know what the Doctor told you about obsessing,” Paunch said to her.
Her arm swung back, slapping him hard across the face with the open palm of her hand, almost lifting him off his feet.
“If I wanted your opinion I would give it to you just so you could give it back,” she said through clenched teeth.
“I’m sorry, Judy,” he said, trying to gain his balance. “I think we should leave them alone. They don’t want to play with us. We have other playmates. Let’s just go home and call some of our friends.”
“NO!” she screamed at him. “I want Gabe. I want to play with Gabe. You never let me have any fun.”
“Judy,” he said, trying to calm her down. “Gabe doesn’t want to play with you. His wife doesn’t like me, and she would probably rather kill me than let me touch her.”
“You give up too easy,” Judy said. “I will make them want to play. I need a new playmate, Paunch.”
The dot started to move again. She watched the blip on the screen, growing more anxious by the minute. Tonight, she would have him. Tonight, he would be all hers. Tonight, Paunch would make the wife watch as she had fun with her Gabe.
The moisture was back again as her nipples hardened in excitement.
“Take care of me, Paunch,” she mewled. “Make Momma feel better.”
“Yes, Ms. Judy,” Paunch said, pulling back the covers. Judy moaned like a two-dollar hooker as he set about their normal routine of making Judy happy after she found a plaything. She always got so worked up until she was able to have a new toy. He also knew tonight she would want to make her move on their new friends in Little Rock.
They were headed to Little Rock tonight may be on to Memphis, depending on where the little blip landed. He would be ready to play. This time, he too would bring a special toy that he liked to call Jimbo.
THE CLINTON PRESIDENTIAL Library sat off Highway 30 in Little Rock, not far from the airport. The $10 admission fee was well worth it as Gabriel and Cabrina perused the exhibits on the Art of Africa and South African Leader Nelson Mandela. Cabrina quietly took in the pieces thinking how hard it must have been on Mandela to have been imprisoned for so long. Then she began to think of Tameka and how harrowing her ordeal had been. Now Tameka was a mother. Is the child the product of her abduction?
“Cabrina, who was George Brimmer?” Gabriel asked, trying to pull her back into the moment and being with him instead of simply standing beside him.
“So, you heard that?” She spoke as she snapped pictures of the mask on display.
“Yes, and the name Ricardo. Who were these men to you?” He asked, feeling an unfettered bolt of envy.
“George was a guy who wanted to date me in high school. My father thought he was an arrogant, self-center sociopath with narcissistic tendencies. He hated him,” she said.
“And your mother?” He wanted to know.
Her mother was a totally different topic she had no need or desire to discuss. It would only take one meeting between her and Gabriel for him to understand everything there was to know about Constance Robinson. She was a good mother who bordered on smothering at some points and over mothering in others. The fine line between a mother and girlfriend was always the point of tension between her and Aisha. Most days, Constance was sure which one she wanted to be to her ‘daughters.’ As an adult, the fine line could be welcomed. As a teenager, it became an aggravation.
“I was 17, Gabe,” she said to him. “George was good looking and a great athlete being courted not only by the colleges but also by the pros. Every girl wanted him for their own, but I was the one he couldn’t get, which made him triple his efforts to win me over.”
“This sounds like it ends badly,” he said.
“No, not really. I never dated him, and he got six girls in high school pregnant, all in the same week I think,” she said with a smirk. “With six mouths to feed, he ended up joining the military, which made him grow up really fast. Not that he wasn’t already too fast for his own good. George wasn’t my type of guy but I was in love with the idea of him.”
“And the Ricardo dude?”
“He was my type of guy,” she said. “Older, a sophisticated palate and, very well read. I was fresh out of college and an idealist. I wanted to discuss Ayn Rand and Sylvia Plath and the decay of the moral compass of society. He was the decay of the moral compass I was so passionate about since he was in fact married and cheating with me.”
“Oh wow,” he said.
“Yeah, wow,” she countered. “At 23, you think you have all the answers, but you really are just a child in an adult’s body, clawing your way through the muck, trying desperately to locate a pocket in all of the debris to pull in a whiff of fresh air.”
She looked at him, curiosity piquing her interest. “What about you and dating?”
“Me?” he said with his hands shoved in his pockets. “I didn’t date much, especially being in divinity school. Most of my classmates were members of churches for which they were training to head home and take over as pastors. The women they dated in college were there to become the First Ladies of a mega church. I found it all too hypocritical.”
“You didn’t date at all?”
“Not really. Looking like this, I didn’t have to do much other than show up when I needed a few hours of diversion, then it was back to the books. It wasn’t in my plans to pastor a church, so I maintained a low profile. I was a tool for the CIA. That is why I was in school. They were footing the bill so I learned to keep anything I did on the down low,” he told her. “I was almost twenty-five when I completed my studies and from there I went to Langley for training. My life has been of a pursuit of higher knowledge into the moral decline of society based on religious practices and beliefs.”
It seemed like an isolated existence which led her to ask, “At your house in Elyria, do you have a lot of friends?”
“None,” he said. “I can’t afford to have people snooping around, especially with all the equipment I have wired around the place.”
“Oh poo. There goes my first dinner party,” she said with a frown.
“Mrs. Neary, we will make friends,” he said. “You will have dinner parties with themes and wonderous centerpieces, and all the ladies will f
ight for your recipe for that baked Alaska you are so famous for making.”
“Don’t forget about the pie sale for the Autumn Solstice Fund Raiser, Mr. Neary,” she said with a smile. “My apple pie is destined to take the blue ribbon this year.”
She faced him in the quiet pocket in a moment generated by their sheer will to tune out the world. The faux scenarios modeled a life they both craved to have, but it would require work to achieve. He placed his hands on her shoulders, wanting to kiss her, hold her tight to him, and promise that everything would be okay. However, he couldn’t. That Neary sense was tingling and there were still so many miles to go before they slept.
“I seldom if ever ask for anything for myself when I pray, but last night I did. I prayed that you wouldn’t regret your decision in marrying me. Even if you said yes to get away from your folks or to start a new chapter in your life, please tell me, you don’t regret it,” he said.
“I don’t have any regrets in my life other than not stopping my friend from going to Georgia and picking up those two weirdos in Amarillo. You, Mr. Neary, I don’t regret in the least,” she said.
Cabrina’s arms wrapped around his waist, settling her body close to his, enveloping herself in his warmth. I don’t regret marrying you for one-minute Gabriel Neary. I don’t regret it all. He had a calming effect on her and seemed to have a similar effect on most people. She liked that about her husband.
OUTSIDE THE LIBRARY, Gabriel accidentally bumped into an older gentleman wearing a pea coat and a weathered plaid hat, whose face snarled in anger at the physical collision of the two bodies. The old man poised for a fight snapped ugly comments and shared a few sharp words with Gabriel regarding his inability to walk in a straight line. Taken aback by old man’s hostility, Gabe gave Cabrina the keys, asking her to wait in the car.
Buckeye and the Babe Page 9
