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Authors: Darren Coleman

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BOOK: A Taste of Honey
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That’s exactly what I did and had Priest crying out and filling the condom with his sperm in a couple of minutes. He loved the dirty talk and couldn’t handle me riding him controlling the rhythm.

Priest had gotten so excited when he’d seen Miranda taking a peep at us. What he didn’t realize was that she was merely waiting on the five hundred I was dropping to satisfy my inexplicable urge to humiliate him as I got more money out of him.

I kept my word and met her in the ladies’ room for the exchange. “Thanks,” she said.

“It’s nothing.”

“I got to tell you. You did get me a little horny. I might even give him a call.”

I told Priest that she’d confronted me in the ladies’ room and mentioned calling him. Everyone was happy. Until he saw her kissing on Nate and another woman a few minutes later while he was heading out of the men’s room. It was like he’d been sent into a rage as he began to rant uncontrollably until we left the club ten minutes later.

We left the club and went back to a condo in Coral Gables. I could have calmed him down I believed but he insisted on bringing the Bobbsey Twins along. The two of them had spent the entire time getting higher and higher on the drugs that Big George had on hand. He’d offered me some as we drove toward his condo and I’d looked at him as if he, his momma, and his mamma’s momma were crazy.

“Priest, you should know better than that. Plus your two groupies are doing enough drugs for all of us. You’d better slow them down before one of them winds up in the hospital and you wind up on the front page.”

“Don’t worry about them. They’re only here for the show. Who cares what happens to them?” I shook my head in disgust. “What?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I responded. He was a pig.

Not that I’d never gotten high, because I’d dabbled, but I never
took drugs that I didn’t watch the person with everything to lose take and I didn’t witness Priest using anything but liquor.

 

O
nce we made it to the condo more partying and more drug abuse by the girls took place. I sexed Priest once more and then I walked around the place looking for somewhere to relax as the party continued without me. Unnoticed by the men who were now enjoying the girls who were so high that they could barely speak, I moved to one of empty bedrooms and saw that it had a balcony on it. I stepped out onto it and sat on the thick patio chair. The champagne and the breeze must have kicked in and I dozed off. When the sunlight began to hit my face it proved to be my alarm. I got up and was prepared to catch a cab back to my room, knowing that it was early.

I reentered the condo and began to walk around. I didn’t see anyone and was shocked that Priest had left me as if I were some nameless groupie. When I made it to the living room it looked like a real party had broken out as the furniture was disheveled and the pillows were thrown about.

Angry at being left behind, I stepped out onto the street and headed toward the bagel shop that sat on the corner. I would get a bagel, some coffee, and get back to my room so I could quickly pack for my flight back to D.C. Priest had gotten his money’s worth from me and if I never saw him again I couldn’t have cared less. When I stepped inside the Einstein Bros Bagels everyone’s eyes were on the television that was in the corner as they buzzed about the story.

“That’s a damned shame,” one of the customers said.

“What happened?” I asked the girl on the register as I paid for my coffee.

“The police found some girl’s body an hour ago. It wasn’t too far from here.”

The family had just been notified and they are on their way from Los Angeles
, the newscaster said. I took a look at the screen, at the photo they plastered on the screen.
The deceased had been identified as Janice Sears. The police suspect a drug overdose but won’t have anything concrete until an autopsy is performed
.
She is believed to have been accompanied on the trip to Miami by a friend, whom authorities are trying to locate at this time
.

My mouth dropped open when I recognized the girls. One Bobbsey was dead and the other one missing.

S
he caught my eye when I noticed her standing by the window as we waited for the announcement to call for boarding. The entire time she seemed to be frantically debating on the phone with someone. I had to admit that I studied her simply because she was so beautiful that she could have been a movie star. I didn’t see a wedding ring so I figured that it was probably a boyfriend that she’d been arguing with. Once we’d boarded and I’d taken my seat I was surprised that she was in fact traveling alone and that like me, she was seated in first class.

When she walked past me with her carry-on I was a little disappointed, but then she quickly came back and said, “Excuse me.” The empty window seat next to me belonged to her. She scooted by me and made no effort to keep her rear end from my view. She had the word Juicy stitched across her ass. Though I recognized the brand, I loved the double meaning. In the two seconds it took for her to pass me I immediately wondered if what was in those pants was, in fact, juicy.

“How you doin’?” I asked once she had gotten seated.

“I’m fine,” she said and then turned her head toward the window. She made it clear that she didn’t want to be bothered, and I wasn’t the type to push. I was flipping the pages of a magazine and was resigned to letting her be invisible. I was looking forward to us getting into the air so I could put on my iPod and completely zone out. If I had to sit next to a beautiful woman that I couldn’t at least chat with then I’d completely ignore her. It wasn’t like I wanted anything other than conversation from her.

Thirty minutes after the takeoff we began to experience some turbulence. I pulled my headphones off in order to hear the flight attendant’s announcement. Up to that point, I hadn’t even noticed that she’d opened her eyes but I heard her sniffling and when I looked over she had tears in her eyes.

“You all right? You aren’t scared are you, because I fly all the time and this is totally normal,” I said, attempting to comfort her.

“I’m fine,” she said for the second time, without expression. “I just have a lot on my mind. Really I’m okay.”

“Well, how about you let me get you a drink?” She paused for a few moments then nodded her head. “Cognac okay?” She nodded again. “A Coke to chase it?”

“No, straight,” she replied. I smiled, as I knew this was how the conversation would get started.

I asked for six of the mini-sized bottles of Hennessy and placed them in the pocket in front of me. She downed the first one as if it was a bottle of water. The second, she sipped slower. I didn’t say anything, to let on that I wasn’t trying to do more than just be a kind stranger. My head began to bob as I put my headphones back on.

“What you listening to?” she asked.

“Ne-Yo.”

“How is it?”

“Not bad. I really like a couple of the songs.”

She was sitting there next to me but she had a faraway look in her eyes, which were an amazing hazel. “I thought about getting it. Maybe I will.”

“So, listen. I know I’m a complete stranger but I’m a really good listener. You might not get the opportunity to tell another stranger what’s weighing heavy on your mind.”

“You are a stranger. But I wouldn’t want to dump my worries on my worst enemy right now.”

“Well, if you’re sure you don’t want to talk then I might as well introduce myself to you. I’m Khalil. Khalil Graves.”

“My name is Honey. Just Honey.” She almost smiled.

“Well it’s a pleasure meeting you. Were you in Miami for the film festival or for a vacation?”

She turned so that she faced me as she leaned back toward the window a bit. “What makes you think I don’t live in Miami?”

“I don’t know. The accent probably. You sound more like you’re from…”

“Get it right.” She laughed.

“Virginia?” She frowned. “D.C.” She nodded. “So is that where you live?”

“I live just above the line in Chevy Chase. What about you?”

“I live a couple blocks east of Capitol Hill. You never answered my question. If you were here for the festival.”

“Oh, not really. I was here for a meeting. And you?”

“I was actually a judge for the film fest.”

“So you’re in the film industry.”

“Sort of. I’m a cinematographer by trade but I just finished
shooting my first film that I’ve directed, it’s called
Shades
. It’s an indie but I have really high hopes for it. Right now it’s in postproduction. Before that I’d mostly been doing music videos for the last few years.”

“Anyone I might have heard of in it?” she asked. I was used to that tone. She wanted to know if I was a legitimate filmmaker.

“Actually yes. You’ve heard of Shawn Simmons?”

“Of course.”

“What about Nate Montgomery?”

“The boxer?”

“Yeah.”

“Of course I’ve heard of him.”

“Well he’s in it too.”

She chuckled and then said, “I just saw him in the club last night.”

“Oh okay. He’d invited me to The Point last night. So you went?”

“Unfortunately.”

 

W
e downed another couple bottles and the conversation began to flow freely and we didn’t stop talking for the next hour and a half. When we landed she said, “You know, Khalil, I feel a little better than I did when I boarded.”

“Well it was nice talking to you and meeting you.” We climbed off of the plane and headed toward the baggage claim. We walked together almost like a couple and stood next to each other once we reached the luggage carousel. From looking at her presentation I wasn’t surprised when she stepped toward the conveyer belt to take the Louis Vuitton luggage. I was surprised at the size of the two huge pieces. She had a ton of stuff.

“Honey, let me help you with that,” I said as I grabbed the first of two fifty-pound pieces. “How long were you in South Beach for, a couple of weeks?” I said sarcastically.

“One of those was nearly empty when I went. I filled it up, courtesy of Bal Harbour Shops.” She smiled.

My luggage came and I said, “Is your ride here or did you drive?”

“Oh, I’ll just catch a cab.”

I started to part ways then. I knew that my girlfriend wouldn’t approve of what I did next but I told myself that it was harmless.

“Well consider today to be your lucky day. I drive an SUV so I can give you a ride home. That way you don’t have to ruin some poor cabbie’s shocks with your ton of luggage.”

“Are you sure? I catch a cab home from the airport all the time.”

“Absolutely. Come on. As a matter of fact, let me wheel one of those for you.”

We pulled out of the garage in my Cadillac EXT and hit 395 headed for Chevy Chase. It was blazing and humid so I turned on the air but she still put her window down. “I need some air, maybe the liquor,” she said.

“No problem.”

“So, Khalil. Do you love what you do?”

“I did love it at one point. I still like it.”

“If you don’t love it anymore, why do you do it?”

“It pays the bills and it’s a stepping stone to greater things. Plus I’ve made a lot of connections to help me with my future in directing.”

She nodded as she stared straight ahead. “So do you make a lot of money doing what you do?”

I laughed. “I do all right for myself. Why do you ask? You thinking of getting into the profession?”

“No reason. I hope I didn’t offend.”

“Not at all.”

Then she turned to me and asked, “So do you have a wife, a girlfriend?”

It amazed me that we’d talked for the last couple of hours but this hadn’t come up. I looked over into her beautiful face and realized that I probably hadn’t brought it up for a reason. And although I had never cared enough about any woman not to cheat on her, my situation now was different.

My life had been in turmoil. An abusive situation, to foster care, to more abuse had been my journey. Through it all I’d learned to travel light and look out for myself. No matter where I was mentally the only constant was that school at first, then work, had been my refuge and I’d stayed out of trouble as best I could. I kept my grades up and in the fall of my senior year I’d applied to both Howard University’s and NYU’s film schools. I’d been accepted into Howard and thus landed in the nation’s capital.

On my own it had been a free-for-all. I’d left the poor, beaten, and battered Khalil behind and introduced everyone to a new me. The one who didn’t care about anyone other than himself, and what I found amazed me. Women loved it. The nonchalant attitude seemed to be an enigma, even a challenge that they stepped up to the plate to meet, one after the other.

I crushed them all. Even the nice ones, for reasons I couldn’t really understand at the time. That was until I met the girl who I believed was the one.

Now here I was, riding along with a stranger, playing the role of the Good Samaritan. In all actuality, I was captivated by her
charms. Still, I felt compelled to answer her truthfully once I replayed her question in my head.

“So do you have a wife, a girlfriend?”

“Yes, I have someone I’ve been seeing.”

She nodded. I expected the conversation to turn cold from that point. Honey didn’t seem like the type to date anyone who’d try to make her play second string. She was far too stunning for that. I imagined that my dropping her off would be the last I’d see or hear of her. Instead she stayed the same. “Well, she’s a lucky girl, whoever she is.”

“Thanks.”

We pulled up onto her street and as she directed me to her house she gasped then yelled out, “Oh my God.”

“What?” I said back as I watched her slide down in her seat.

“Keep driving,” she said in a whisper. “Just keep driving.” My heart began to pound, because I didn’t know what was happening. I looked over and saw a huge man walking down some steps but that was it. “Make a left at the corner and just keep going.”

“Okay. But what’s going on?”

“Please, just drive.”

I did as she asked. “So where are we going?”

“I don’t know. I need to think,” she said, sounding nervous as a spy whose cover had been blown.

“Do you want me to take you to my place?”

“What about your girlfriend?”

“She’s out of town. She sort of lives out of town. She’s doing a residency in Richmond.”

“Okay, please then. That’ll be fine. It’ll gimme some time to think this through.”

I turned the radio down a little and said, “You’re gonna have to tell me what’s going on though.”

She began to tear up again and then she said, “Okay, I will.”

We pulled up in front of my house a few minutes later. I was glad that I didn’t see any of my neighbors as we walked to the door. She breathed a sigh of relief as the cool air hit her in the face. I motioned toward the living room and she walked in and took a seat on the couch while I offered her a drink. I carried my bags upstairs and when I came back downstairs she was looking at a picture in a frame that sat on the end table.

“Is this your girlfriend in the picture?”

“Yes.”

There was an uncomfortable silence. I didn’t think it was possible but she suddenly seemed to be even more agitated than she was before. Then out of the blue she said, “I’ll tell you everything, but there’s something that I need you to do first.”

I nodded in agreement without even knowing what she was about to ask. “Okay.”

“Take me upstairs and make love to me.” With that she stood up and moved toward me. “Now.”

BOOK: A Taste of Honey
3.1Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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