Nasty (14 page)

“Hush; I know what happened. I’ve seen that type of witch before. Just stay away from her and keep an eye out for your brother. He’s going to need all the support he can get because he’s in for the ride of his life.”

“She’s definitely a piece of work. Well, give me my kiss ’cause I got to go now.”

“Tarik. Tarik, baby, I saw him at the concert.”

“You saw who, Mama? Who did you see at the…” It didn’t take him long to figure it out. His biological father had painted the picture she’d cherished all those years. She finally told him that it was Eli’s after Pops died. Even Pops never knew about the real artist. To catch her staring at it now, could only mean that he had been at the concert.

What a hell of a day
, Tarik thought. First, the concert turns out perfect, then I get caught in a compromising situation with my brother’s woman, and then the excuse I have for a biological father pops up after all these years.

“It was Eli, wasn’t it?”

Ophelia looked up at him and nodded her head.

“Figures he’d show up when I’m beginning to make it.” Tarik, uncharacteristically angry, paced back and forth in his mother’s small office. “He’s probably looking to share in the limelight. Get some of the profits. Well, it ain’t gonna happen, Mother, not now…not ever…not…”

“Tarik, from what I could see, he’s not going to be sharing much of anything with anybody for too much longer.” Tarik stopped pacing to look at his mother. “He has AIDS, dear, and it looks like he’s at the end of the line with it.”

C
arlos escorted Nicola into the luxurious lobby of the recently renovated Ritz-Carlton. After a brief checkin, a uniformed concierge and bellman personally escorted them up to the most expensive suite in the five-star hotel. It boasted the best in European-inspired décor. With crystal chandeliers in the dining area, a telescope that magnified a magnificent view of Central Park, and a massive Louis the Fourteenth bed covered with the finest Egyptian cotton to be found on the planet, Carlos was certain he’d spent his fivethousand dollars well.

He had planned this evening to be extra special. He had scheduled breakfast in bed for the next morning and a carriage ride around Central Park afterward, which he hoped would be the perfect way to end their first “sleep-over” together.

Carlos dismissed the private valet. He wanted complete privacy with his lady. Once alone, he triumphantly turned around to Nicola, thinking she had been properly impressed and asked, “Well, how do you like it?”

She went over to the California king-sized bed, sat on it, bounced up and down to check the mattress out, and simply said, “Good solid springs. We should have
lots
of fun on this.”

Not getting the response he expected, Carlos shrugged his
shoulders and opened a magnum of Dom Pérignon that he had ordered especially for the occasion. He poured the bubbly champagne into two crystal flutes. Interlocking their arms, they sipped the liquid in unison. Room service interrupted and rolled in the finest beluga caviar and a tray of chocolate-dipped strawberries.

He used the pearl-lined spoon to spread the fish eggs on a toast point and popped it into Nicola’s awaiting mouth. A few crumbs fell down her décolletage. His eager tongue licked them off. The tiniest of moans escaped from the back of Nicola’s throat.

Never taking her eyes off of him, she reached for a strawberry and dropped it into Carlos’s hungry mouth. Red, sticky, sweet juice seeped out. Nicola greedily lapped up every drop. Back and forth, they fed each other in an erotically charged “dance.”

A half-hour later, the bottle was empty and the food was gone. They were both giddy and seemingly ready to consummate their relationship. Nicola kissed Carlos on the forehead and disappeared into the bathroom to prepare for the evening’s activities.

As she shut the door behind her, Carlos scratched his bald head. It was hard for him to read Nicola. With other females, he could always figure out their entire game. It was usually so transparent and weak that after the sex, he was finished with the woman.

Nicola seemed to be impressed by the surroundings. She seemed to be enjoying herself with him but, at the same time, she also seemed bored.

Had she been here before with someone else? Had her rich ex-husband taken her to five-star hotels before? Was this entire scene too blasé? The thoughts gnawed at him as his level of anxiety spiraled upward.
But no, Carlos rejected the notion that she was bored. It was a ridiculous idea. Carlos laughed at his insecure musings. How could she not want him? He had planned the
perfect
evening. Of course she was having a good time. No, Nicola was having a
great
time with him.

Yes, everything was indeed perfect, except for one thing. Carlos totally underestimated the combined effect an entire bottle of champagne and only three hours of sleep in the last two days would have on his body. While waiting for Nicola to come out of the bathroom, he convinced himself that stealing a few moments of REM would be just what the doctor ordered. Poor Carlos. Sleep attacked him like a hungry lion attacks a piece of freshly killed meat.

Nicola prepared for their night together in the luxurious bathroom. It was completely covered with the best Italian marble. The fixtures were all fourteen-carat gold. She languished in the spacious Jacuzzi tub and soaked in water scented with essence of lavender. The hotel had spared no expense to provide only the best bath oils and soap.

She stepped out of the tub and entered the shower stall, where over twenty strategically positioned jets engulfed her in a cool mist of water that immediately reinvigorated her senses. Wanting company, she called out to Carlos to join her in the shower. He never responded.

Nicola emerged from the bathroom covered in a white, thick terrycloth robe and discovered Carlos sprawled out on the bed virtually unresponsive. She tried everything to revive him; took off all of his clothes; even massaged every erotic site on the male body. Nicola knew them all. The only response she got was when she thought she heard him say, “I don’t want any ice cream. I don’t like ice cream.” He was dead to the world.

Staring at Carlos’s strikingly handsome face, his six-foot lean
muscular body and a limp dick that even non-erect was frightfully huge, she shook her head in disappointment. Pissed and horny as hell, she admitted to herself,
Damn, I should have dumped him for the brother.

He had tried so hard to impress her with the hotel room. She didn’t have the heart to tell the boy that in the first year of their marriage, she and Harrison had virtually lived at the Ritz. Carlos was so full of himself. She was slowly growing bored with his “mini record mogul” persona. He really needed to score big in the bed if he wanted Nicola to stick around.

She compared him with her ex-husband. Say what she might about him, Harrison never bored her. His entrepreneurial exploits and the life they were able to live because of the fringe benefits associated with wealth, made life exciting for her. The cruelest of ironies was, though she had been thoroughly satisfied with their relationship, Harrison obviously wasn’t.

He craved something she could never provide him. Just like Carlos couldn’t give her what she so desperately needed at that moment. A good, long, deep screw. Her little G-Spot was throbbing just looking at the lusciousness that lived between Carlos’s legs. She smiled. Maybe, just maybe, she’d have to give the boy another chance.

Not wanting to waste a perfectly good night, she decided to get dressed and cruise the neighborhood clubs. There were a few in the area. Maybe she’d get lucky and find a real hunk. She wrote a quick note for Carlos and stepped out into the night. Like a hunter on an African safari, Nicola was out for wild game…the kind that could screw her all night long.

Carlos awoke the next morning with a monster of a headache. He reached out for Nicola only to discover the note she had
left behind on the night table: “Sorry we missed our first night together. There will be others. Kisses, Nicola.”

Carlos banged his head against the bedpost. “Damn, damn, damn!” How could his body betray him so? What the hell could Nicola possibly be thinking about him now? None of it could be good. He tried to reach her on her cell phone, but she didn’t answer.

His only message was from Tarik, reminding him of their early afternoon meeting with Uncle Link, their family’s attorney. He’d totally forgotten about the whole affair when he had planned the evening with Nicola. Maybe her “early departure” was a good thing. Quickly chasing away that thought, he entertained the notion of canceling with the guys and stopping by her house.

But business was business. He decided to go forward with the meeting. They were too close to the finish line for him to start acting wishy-washy now. Nicola would have to understand.

But where had she gone in the middle of the night? Why couldn’t she have stayed with him and been there in the morning? Where else or who else could have been more important than the two of them being together, even if he was dead sleep? Who was she with? Was she with another man? Was she with someone she cared about more than him? Did she even care about him at all?

The thoughts about Nicola’s loyalty made his head throb with pain. It was so intense, he could barely stand it. He called room service and ordered a painkiller. Waiting for the medicine, he felt like his world was spinning around him.

And then the world stopped moving. That’s when he heard the voice, a clear voice pleading with him.
She made me do it, Carlos. Your mama. She made me do it. I loved your mama. I never
wanted to hurt her. Really, I didn’t. Just eat your ice cream, boy. It’s your favorite. Eat all of your ice cream.

The voice was so loud and real that he looked around to see if his father, Hector Salinas, was standing next to him. But Hector was dead. Carlos checked all the rooms in the suite to prove no one was there.

He shook his head and rubbed his eyes. What was happening to him? He hadn’t thought about that day since it had happened eighteen years ago. Why could he hear his father’s voice as if he was in the room? WHY? It made no sense. No sense at all.

O
phelia tossed and turned the entire night. She couldn’t get her son out of her mind. Tarik had stormed out of her office without a word when she had told him the news. She hadn’t seen him that angry and confused since she had first explained to him that Pops was not his biological father. It had taken them both a couple of years to straighten things out after that revelation. Tarik was older now. She was sure his response was pure shock and that he’d calm down.

They had tried to find Eli when the then fifteen years old Tarik had first wanted to meet him. He was naturally curious about him. She’d only told him that he was an artist, and that they were incompatible. So many men abandoned their children that it was unnecessary to fill in details. Most of Tarik’s friends were raised by single moms. They usually had very little, if any, contact with their dads. So she fed him the usual dysfunctional couple story. No details. She never told him that Eli was a low down drug addict who had almost killed him because of his negligence.

She also had never told him how she had never loved anyone like she had loved Eli Griffith. Never mentioned that in the first years of their separation, she had prayed he’d clean up his act and rejoin them as a family when he was released from jail.
She would have left Pops for him. That was, until Jonathan had come along. When he was born she locked the doors tightly shut on all thoughts of reconciliation.

“I will not think about this shit!” Ophelia shouted out at the night. She pulled herself out of bed, put on her robe and went downstairs to the basement. The stench of beer and wine greeted her nostrils. The party had taken its toll on her usually immaculate space. Surveying the aftermath, she promised, “Tomorrow I will clean this mess, but tonight, I want a little amnesia.”

She headed straight for the bar. Not a real drinker, she did sometimes have an occasional glass of sherry whenever her “nerves” got the best of her. This was one of those times. She poured the dark purple fluid into the one clean crystal goblet she could find.

She laughed. Purple. Eli’s favorite color. It was that damn purple dress she had worn the night they’d met that had attracted Eli in the first place. She laughed even harder as she remembered how she had battled her roommate over the outfit that night and had won the right to wear it. If she had known all of the crap Eli would eventually bring into her life, she wouldn’t have fought as hard.

“Damn the color purple!” she remarked as she drained the glass dry. Still thinking about Eli, she poured more; this time filling it to the brim.

“I need this tonight.” As the alcohol took effect, Ophelia slithered onto the plush sectional couch. Slightly inebriated, all she could think about was how it had all began with her and Eli.

She was only a sophomore when they met. Young and beautiful, she had won the homecoming queen title unanimously. Before she knew Eli, her life had been filled with coming-out
parties, trips all over the world with her parents, and attendance at a prestigious prep school in her hometown of Nashville, Tennessee.

Eli was a gorgeous, charming, twenty-five-year-old graduate student majoring in art and political science. He’d spent time in Africa running a program for the Peace Corps. Intelligent and articulate, his professors were convinced his art in time would be in the same company as Romare Bearden, Synthia Saint James and Ernie Barnes.

Ophelia was in love with Eli, and he loved and worshipped Ophelia. She was his “Dahomian” queen. They were inseparable after that first meeting. A year into their relationship, she had moved into his small, spartanly furnished apartment off campus. It was a completely different environment from the bourgeois Jack and Jill world her parents, both physicians, had raised her in. Now it was strictly black Bohemian. She was always in the midst of artists, poets, political activists and intellectuals.