Ineffable (17 page)

He sped up his thrusts and she smiled. His heart seemed to expand seeing that gentle flash of her straight white teeth. She felt it too. The difference. These finer feelings did not keep him from having a climax so strong it felt like the top of his head was about to blow off, however. He was about three breaths from sleep when she said, “There are some things you should probably know about me.”

Nori was instantly alert, but his voice was calm when he said, “What?”

There was a pause, and she would have gotten up, but he stopped her.

“Stay.”

She subsided. “I told you a little about my family. You know about George. You know about most of my recent public temper tantrums, but you don’t know that after George I kind of went crazy.”

“I don’t care about your past –”

“Lemme finish,” she interrupted. “I don’t think you’ll care either, but I still want you to know, okay?”

“Okay.”

Big sigh. “So, after George I got depressed. I slept with four different men in a six month period. One I dropped because he crazy, lighting fires and breaking shit and acting like a nut. Two I dropped because he was verbally abusive, a real screamer, and I’ve had enough abuse to last me a lifetime. When a man uses his mouth as a weapon, it’s only a matter of time before he decides to use his fists too.

“Three I dropped because he almost got me arrested. He was a drug dealer, and you know I don’t mind a joint now and then, but he tried to bring me in on the shit, without my knowledge. Hadn’t been for my girl Steele I’d have really caught hell on that one. The last I dropped because he was physically abusive. He didn’t, however, expect me to hit back. That was the first time I was arrested.

“Anyway, I figured, love hadn’t done me any favors so I’d get out of the game. I started making jewelry, something I’d always dabbled in, but now I read books, haunted department store jewelry cases, talked to people, learned as much as I could, and I sold stuff. I figured I’d sell jewelry to finance my way through college. But I never made it. Still, the jewelry saved me. It gave me an anchor, I guess.

“After I dropped that last dud, I got depressed, so depressed I couldn’t get out of bed. I lost a ton of weight. I went to the doctor for a bad cold I couldn’t shake, and he was smart enough to refer me to a shrink. I got lucky. She was a good shrink.

“I talked to her every week for, I don’t know, maybe three months. She encouraged me to make jewelry, to consider how I might make it a career, to be serious about it because it was something positive and beautiful and self-sustaining. Her words, not mine, but I never forgot them. She gave me the push to make something temporary into something real.”

She sighed, and Nori reached out and took her hand in the dark. At first she didn’t respond, then she gripped him back.

“While I was in those sessions I basically screamed. I mean, literally, almost all I did was scream and cry and wave my hands around like a nut for an hour. I’d walk out of there swollen like someone had beat me in the face, and I felt better.

“It was like cracking open an emotional dam. Only instead of water, what emerged from my dam was, shit. Family shit, love shit, anger, shame, all my insecurities and worries and fears.

“Dr. Paul told me I had to stop holding things in. I had to let people know how I felt because internalizing everything was killing me, and it was no way to solve problems or to communicate. I still have problems with it. Hence, these so called tantrums.

“It’s not my way to just flip out from the jump. I try to be reasonable, polite, empathic. But sometimes all that shit don’t work,” she gave a short laugh.

“I’m not saying I haven’t screamed in someone’s face or pointed my finger or dumped a drink over someone’s head. I’ve done all that. But I didn’t do it for no reason. People make a lot of assumptions about artists, about women, about Black women. A lot of ‘em don’t see anything wrong with making demands based on those assumptions. They see nothing wrong with dumping their judgment of you, on you.

“But I know what can happen when I let myself go down. I can’t let that stress build up again. And see, the world knows a lot of black women, women period, don’t have any backup. We don’t have a good man, or we don’t have reliable family, or any family, or friends who are capable of toting two heavy loads without breaking their own backs.

“I’m lucky. My friends can help me if I need it. If I lost my place and every dime I had, I could go stay with Tommy or Lani or Baby or Reiko or Sophie or Steele or Cass. They’d help me get back on my feet and expect nothing in return except that I do my very best. And now I got you.”

He squeezed her, a wordless affirmation.

“But I don’t intend to lose anything. Self-sufficiency is a point of pride for me. I work hard, I save hard, I play hard. When shit comes along, I deal with it. I never hide from anything.”

Nori kissed her hand.

“I’m telling you this because I think you’re special. What we have,” she paused. “It feels special. But we’re about to start cranking up the publicity machine for the Ineffable collabo, and I don’t want anything to be a surprise to you. I don’t want you to be embarrassed of me, or shocked, or feel like I was hiding something if some nut digs up shit on me.”

She looked him in the eye. “I have a few regrets, and I’ve made mistakes. But I’m not ashamed of anything I’ve done. It worked for me at the time.”

Nori came up on one elbow. Moonlight filtered in from the window to gild her beauty.

“You’re really something,” he whispered. “You’ll go for hours, days even, and I’ll get like five words out of you. Then you go on a monologue so long at the end of it I need a stiff drink.”

He felt her surprise, then she burst out laughing. He laughed too, pulling her on top of him to kiss her silly.

When they finally broke apart, Nori pushed her head onto his shoulder and stroked her, everywhere. He worshiped every patch of skin, every hollow, dip and curve. He felt her heart rate speed up, and she began to nuzzle and kiss.

“Thank you for sharing your secrets, Margot,” he whispered, as their bodies moved into familiar positions. “You can trust me to hold them close, and not to judge any youthful indiscretions. We’ve all made mistakes. I certainly have,” he said, laughing. “I suppose I should start my own late night confessions, hmmm?”

He kissed her lingeringly, rolling her onto her back so he could test the warm wet place he craved with an almost maddening constancy. She was in his blood, like a chemical or a vitamin, something that coursed along, touching any and everything with an energy he could not, and did not want to, deny.

“Not tonight,” she whispered, arching into his sucking mouth on her neck. Her hand slipped down to circle his hard length, and he hissed with pleasure when she began to stroke. “We’ve talked enough.”

Chapter twelve

At some point, even when you’re still high on that fire, love can became a chore. It stops being about companionship, hot sex, laughter or togetherness, and becomes painful. Or, there’s discomfort, irritation because you want something to happen, but because you’re in love you don’t have the guts to make it so.

Margot couldn’t tell Nori that she waited for his call, and sometimes waited at the window like some bored, 1950s housewife until he appeared in the evenings. Half the time she was only pretending to be hard at work when he let himself in, and then, as if in a magical flash his presence brought on a surge of inspiration.

She couldn’t tell him she now marked time with before Nori and after Nori references. She certainly couldn’t tell him that his presence, his scent, the sound of his voice, the memory of his taste on her tongue made her feel calmer, safer, somehow more like herself.

To admit any of that would be the beginning of the end. But sometimes she wanted to get it over with. To say, I love you, and see what happened. But they hadn’t talked about love. She’d had a few confession type conversations under the soothing cover of darkness, but beyond a few sweet remarks in bed, he hadn’t.

She couldn’t blame him. She’d been in so called love before. It hadn’t lasted. In fact, it had quickly turned to hate, and it hadn’t been nearly this intense. Not even when that bitch George was beating the hell out of her. He’d certainly never touched her soul, never soothed her spirit or spoken so easily to her body with his own.

It might not even be reasonable to expect something this good to last. Nori was not the average man. Like the black and white outline of a picture colored by a skilled hand, he enhanced her life.

He seemed to think she hung the moon. She didn’t know where she’d read that particular phrase, but it was the perfect way to describe the way he watched her. And his touch, well. That would need a sonnet or two to properly convey, and she was no poet. If she had to describe the sensation of making love with Nori she would equate the experience to being hit by a car: sudden, intense and out of control.

The danger was obscure. An automobile could knock you down and all the way out. But if it hit you in just the right way, you could easily get up again.

He didn’t know it, but Nori was the reason she’d gotten so much work done lately. The sound of his voice talking to his assistant or one of other direct reports was enough to spark an idea, to send her scrabbling through beads and baubles and books, to prompt her to work until her shoulders, back and fingers balked at the abuse.

Then he’d step in. Not content to leisurely massage out her kinks himself, he had a gift card delivered to the house for her and her friends for a spa. Tommy and Lani took pictures of her being scrubbed and buffed and polished, and she sent them to his phone with captions like: you could be this seaweed, or, this scrub doesn’t feel nearly as good as your hands.

Tommy being Tommy, some of these photos ended up on Instagram, but Margot barely noticed. She was too busy laughing over the emoji’s Nori sent her in response.

But sometimes her inner bitch insisted he was only cultivating her because she was sexy and she was on his dime at Ineffable. What better way to keep tabs on a potentially troublesome investment than right up close, and get some pussy while you were at it? She even mentioned the idea. Thankfully, he took it as a joke.

Laughing, he said, “Margot, my girl. I have never slept with anyone in my organization until you. And I didn’t chase after and bed you for any other reason than you’re sexier than socks on a rooster.”

It was a line from the remake of Footloose, a movie they’d watched together. She crowed when he said it, but her merriment was more relief than humor.

She knew she was being silly. She had to stop looking for the end, or it would spoil the now.

“What is it?”

She was opening mail and her body language told him this particular letter was special. She handed it to him.

“What the fuck is this?” He snatched the envelope from her hand. “There’s no post mark. Who sent you this filth? Is it the first time you’ve gotten something like this?”

“No. But I haven’t gotten one in a while.”

“What’s awhile?”

“Maybe a year?”

“Who’s sending them? Why have you never mentioned this? ‘You stupid cunt,’” he read. “’You may think you’re all that, but I’ll show you different.’ This is serious, Margot.”

“Man, don’t trip off that shit. I shouldn’t even have let you see it. It’s probably just ole’ stinky booty ass George hatin’ on me ‘cuz my jewelry’s selling.”

“You really think it’s him?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know who else it could be.”

“So you don’t know for sure, it’s just a feeling.”

“Yeah. Something about the way the sentences are worded reminds me of him.”

“He said things like this when you were together?”

“Worse.”

“We have to confront him, file an order of protection, something, darling. We can’t just let this go.”

“Man, please. I ain’t thinkin’ about that bitch. Give it here. I’ma shred that shit like I do all the others.” She reached for the letter, but Nori held it out of her reach.

“No, don’t. I’ll hold on to it. We may need it as evidence of his harassment. I want you to give me any others you receive, okay?”

She hesitated. “You can’t prove it’s him.”

“Please, Margot.”

“Man, whatever.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes!”

She went back to work, but Nori couldn’t concentrate for shit after that. He called his attorney and asked for the name of the investigator they sometimes contracted to look into things for Ineffable.

He got the name and contact info a few minutes later. It was late so he sent a text asking for a meeting. The man responded promptly, and they set up a time to meet the next day. Nori needed to know everything there was to know about one George Jones. If he was the one sending Margot these letters, he would soon see the error of his ways. If he didn’t, the only letters he’d be writing would be screened by guards before they were delivered.

Chapter thirteen

The demand for her jewelry was heating up. Tommy had drummed up so much publicity, Margot, who was as quietly ambitious as her friend was loud, actually started to complain. Lani was constantly forcing her in and out of outfits, making up her face and hair or forcing beauty treatments on her, sometimes with her jewelry making tools still in hand.

She had a tantrum during one of the photo shoots for the campaign. She showed up at the house they’d rented with a basket of work in hand, and Tommy tried to take it from her.

“No, girl. Lemme hold on to it. I can do a little bit here and there when there’s a lull.”

But of course, single-minded Tommy wanted her full attention. “Put that shit down for a minute!”

Margot threw a pair of pliers at her head. “Shit? Bitch, this shit,” she snarled the word, “pays your fuckin’ 10 percent!”

“Ho, are you crazy! You coulda put my fuckin’ eye out!”

Nori’s mouth was hanging open, but Lani just rolled her eyes and waded into the breach. He was impressed she could make herself heard over all the screeching.

Despite all the drama, the pictures they produced that day were stunning. A virtually nude Margot, artfully draped with the fruits of her labor, posed languidly on a yellow brocade couch. Her creamy back and sexy profile as she peeked over her shoulder were the focus for a stunningly savage necklace of beaten steel and sapphires.

“What do you think?” Tommy whispered.

Nori just shook his head. “I never would have thought someone’s back would be the perfect way to showcase a necklace.”

Long hair caught up in messy ball of shiny black curls atop her head, the nape of her neck looked bitable. His mouth was watering to try it.

Delicate rings like twisted gold ropes wound around long fingers and elegant, eggplant colored nails. When those clever fingers spread in front of her face to show glimpses of her in shadow, only the gleam of one brown eye visible in its entirety, Nori barely heard the whir of the camera clicking. When the photographer stopped to change cameras and adjust lights, he was too busy trying not to pull her into his arms and kiss off the striking gold lipstick the makeup artist had applied.

When she lay on her back, slender ankles draped in chains dripping with edgy, primal charms – a horn, a bolt of lightning, a mask, it’s tiny gold face caught in a perpetual grimace – he had to sit down and cross his legs to hide his erection. The length of leg she was showing was so alluring it was almost indecent.

“Sex sells,” said the sharp eyed Tommy, who’d noticed that he was growing uncomfortable with the increasing sensuality of the images. “We’re not just selling this beautiful jewelry, we’re selling Margot.”

Nori nodded reluctantly. He understood marketing. He also did not want anyone to see Margot undressed and goddess like, her sexuality given free reign, no, amplified, for advertising or anything else.

Jealousy had him so irritable and restless he paced. He’d never experienced it before, and it reared its ugly head again at a party the next night. Things stared out fine. They arrived at a dinner party for her friend Lily Monroe, an internationally successfully motivational speaker and best-selling author. He asked Lado to come with, since they hadn’t seen each other in a while, and he knew the place was crawling with women.

But it was also lousy with single men, most of whom were attracted to Margot since Tommy and Lani had dressed her, or undressed her, he thought darkly, eyeing his lover’s dress with its plunging neckline and clingy fabric with loathing. She looked absolutely beautiful, and he wanted nothing more than to drape a sheet over her head and hustle her little ass out the door and back home where they could be alone.

“What the hell kind of dress do you call that?” he hissed in Tommy’s ear.

Margot was across the room refilling her wine glass at the bar, and wouldn’t you know it! Some fucker sidled up no sooner than she left his side. Jesus! What did he have to do? Tattoo his name on her forehead?

“Vintage Diane von Furstenberg,” she answered, looking at him like he was crazy. “Don’t you recognize a signature wrap dress when you see one? It’s a game changer.”

Was she for real? If he had his way he’d rip that fucking dress off her back and burn it. Alternatively, she could wear it for him, at home, alone, where no one but him could appreciate her sensuous beauty.

“You’re a menace,” he told Tommy, setting off for the bar. “You,” he told his wide eyed lover, “Are no longer allowed to get your own drinks.”

He was also unhappy about the investigator’s progress with Margot’s ex-husband George. He’d managed to find the man easily enough. He’d been living in the same shitty little rented house in Indiana for the past three years.

A little more digging revealed the man’s finances were a shambles. He rarely had more than $300 in his checking account, routinely bounced checks, and had been in and out of jail on one small con after another ever since he and Margot split.

But the little weasel wasn’t entirely stupid – either that or his investigator Tom was fucking incompetent – because not long after the information started flowing, the man went to ground. When Tom admitted that George might know he was under surveillance, Nori turned so red poor Tom stepped forward in concern.

He waved the man away, so angry he couldn’t even speak – at first. “You let him fucking catch you following him?” Nori yelled.

The man winced. “I’m sorry, Mr. James, he must have. There’s no other reason to explain why he suddenly disappeared. No one’s been at his house for days, and his car hasn’t come near the place. I’ve got a man watching it when I’m not there.”

“I hope he’s more competent than you are.”

Tom had nothing to say to that, and with a last muttered curse, Nori apologized.

“Tom, it’s imperative that you find this man. He is a danger to me, to someone I love. I need to have him contained. Continue digging into his past. I want to know everything about this fucker. Leave no stone unturned, do you understand?”

“Yes, sir. He’ll turn up eventually. His kind always do. Whatever woman he’s shacked up with will eventually put him out.”

Tom had padded George’s file with at least a dozen women’s names. Most of whom he went back and forth between.

“We just need a little time to flush him out, sir.”

Nori thanked Tom for his work and told him to keep on it. Glaring at the man’s back as he walked out of his office, he flopped into his chair and resisted the urge to swish everything on his desk onto the floor.

He felt in his bones that Margot’s ex was responsible for the letters. With some probing she’d revealed they often started up after she started dating someone, and stopped when she was alone again.

“It seems awfully convenient. Doesn’t that worry you? If it is your ex it means he’s stalking you, watching you close enough to monitor your company.”

She shrugged. “Long as that bitch stays away, he can look all he wants to and eat his fucking heart out. He ain’t stupid. He know good and well he come near me, me or my girls will light his ho ass up.”