Power Couple (12 page)

Angus's mom had a fucking nerve turning her Nazi nose up at any damn body. But fuck that bitch and Trenell Carter, I had my own issues to deal with. I had to make sure that Ralphie didn't spread any malicious gossip about the uncompromising position he'd caught me in.

“Listen, Ralphie. I'm going to do everything I can to keep your mom on the show, but you have to promise me that you won't breathe a word about what you observed in here.”

Ralphie frowned. “I don't know what you're talking about. When I came in here, you were taking a nap, and I apologize for disturbing you, Cori.”

Giving me that toothy smile that I'd grown to like so much, Ralphie made it a point to lock my door from the inside before exiting my dressing room.

Thank God I could count on Ralphie to keep my secret safe, at least for now. He wasn't going to be a happy camper for long. I'd have to figure out a way to keep his mouth shut after his foster mother was sent packing.

CHAPTER 16

J
osh made a last-minute decision to replace the contestants' mothers with celebrities, and then he cancelled filming for the rest of the day. After the terrible embarrassment of getting caught with my panties down, I couldn't wait to get out of the studio.

Boom. Boom. Boom.
Someone was beating on my dressing room door like a war drum. The sound was loud and authoritative, jolting me out of my desk chair. The pounding matched the throbbing in my chest as my heart beat uncontrollably.
What now?

I unlocked the door and wasn't surprised to find Josh standing there looking evil as hell.

“Ralphie has to go. There'll be no negotiating, Cori. After that fiasco with his foster mother, I want him gone!”

Too beaten down to protest, I simply held up my hands in surrender. Had Ralphie not caught me in a compromising position, I would have continued to fight for him to stay. But under the circumstances, I was also eager for him to leave the show.

“I'm glad you finally see things my way. If you'd listened to me sooner, we wouldn't be in this mess.”

“You're right,” I conceded. With no fight left, I closed the door after Josh left and then slumped down into the couch.

Poor Ralphie. He had a real chance of winning the prize, but his foster mom had blown it for him.

Once a contestant had been targeted, the judges were instructed to critique their food unfavorably no matter the complexity of their technique or how scrumptious the dish turned out to be. Although it saddened me that Ralphie would be treated unfairly, I was also a bit relieved that I wouldn't have to see him again after tomorrow. He was a reminder of my shameful behavior with Michelangelo.

How I had allowed myself to fall for that pretty boy's charm was beyond me. Michelangelo was wonderful eye candy, but he didn't have shit on my husband.

Negative thoughts began to flit around in my head. Suppose Ralphie became so upset about being eliminated that he wanted to get even with me? Suppose he decided to run his mouth about what he'd seen? No, he wouldn't do that…not after all I'd done for him. Or would he? I pushed the frightening possibilities out of my mind.

Letting out a sigh, I wearily ran a hand through my hair before clicking off the light. I couldn't get home soon enough.

After such an abdominally bad day, I wanted nothing more than to watch a movie and cuddle with my hubby. But Maverick was still upset with me for moving forward with the surrogate pregnancy.

I wondered what Grandma Eula Mae would advise me to do if she were still among the living. She believed that the combination of pussy, brains, and female cunning could reduce the strongest man to a blithering idiot. She'd probably be ashamed of the way I was squandering my power.

I thought about what she'd said about the value of pussy on one of her old tapes:

If more women realized they had a goldmine between their legs, they wouldn't give the goods away. I don't care if a gal has the face of a moose,
or if she's knock-kneed, pigeon-toed, or slue-footed… if she knows the value of her pussy, she can make the meanest, most hardened criminal shed tears. You see, physical attractiveness is well and good if your goal is to get noticed, but in order to rein a man in, a woman needs more than a pretty face. There ain't a bitch on earth that can keep a man if she has piss-poor bedroom skills.

I'll give you an example. I once had a gal who went by the name of Sophronia. She was built like a brick shithouse and had the beautiful face of an angel. After applying her makeup, she used to draw a beauty mark just north of her mouth. Now, Sophronia was already the number one gal at my establishment, but that facial polka dot made her stand out even more from the rest of the girls. Other gals tried to copy her, hoping that a mole on their faces would help them attract more customers. But it was called a “beauty mark” for a reason, and it looked ridiculous on regular-looking gals.

I'm telling you, Sophronia had the men lined up waiting to get in the sack with her, and no amount of persuading could make her regulars try out any of my other gals. While waiting for Sophronia, the gentlemen callers would spend a few dollars to converse and drink with the other whores, but they were saving the big bucks to spend on Sophronia. On more occasions that I care to recall, a big spender left my premises with a wad of cash untouched and secured inside his pocket after growing tired of waiting for Sophronia.

Seeing money walk out the door was frustrating to me and my whores.

One night, Vincenzo Drucci, a local mobster known as Big Vinnie, stopped by, looking to have a good time with some sporting girls. He brought in a group of his Italian cronies and other well-to-do local men,
such as bankers, law enforcement officials, lawyers, merchants, politicians
, and such. Those men were corrupt in one way or another, and were in Drucci's pocket, so to speak.

My place was packed to the rafters that night and all the gals were turn
ing tricks, regardless of any physical deficiency they may have possessed. Everybody was making money including a one-legged gal who called herself Deluxe. Ha-ha, that name tickled the hell out of me.

There was this gal named Ida—tall and gangly, and with an unattrac
tive, big gap in her front teeth. I used to tease her and say that I could park my Coupe de Ville in that big space between her teeth. Ida didn't have much in the looks department, and she usually ended up with the bottom-of-the-barrel customers—the worst kinds of cheapskates. But that night, she lucked up and got herself chosen by a Jewish fella, Milton Wallach. Mr. Wallach owned a mom-and-pop corner store, but had recently been able to parlay his profits into the opening of a big ol' supermarket that was well-lit, with shiny tile flooring, handy shopping carts, self-serve aisles, and counters staffed by checkout girls.

It was the late 1940s, and at that point in time, only affluent whites were welcome to shop in those flashy new grocery stores. I was born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee, and I'd personally experienced the horrors of Jim Crow. The constant lynchings and cruelty to coloreds is what sent me up North in the first place. But let me tell you something, crackers up North are just as prejudiced as the rednecks down South. Only difference is that they're a little more polite about their bigoted ways.

In Philadelphia during the forties, Negroes weren't getting lynched but we had to abide by an unwritten law that upheld segregation. We better not had taken our black behinds from the colored side of town and tried to mingle with crackers on their side of the tracks. We weren't welcome in their neighborhoods unless we came to cook, clean, or do some kind of a service for them. Meanwhile, whitey was free to venture into our areas whenever he got good and damn ready. Hell, back then, the Jews and Italians owned all the corner stores in the colored neighborhoods. The mail carrier was white, the ice delivery man was white, the insurance man was white, the landlord was white, the milkman was white…everybody who earned a living off us was white. And those white
men strutted into our neighborhoods and into our homes without the least bit of fear.

But I digress.

That gal, Ida with that big ol' gap in her teeth had legs as skinny as twigs, and they were crooked to boot. I heard she had rickets as a child, poor thing. She was skinny like Olive Oyl and built straight up and down with a flat chest, like a boy's. Ida was one homely whore. And her hair! Whoo, my Lord. It was a shame the way she would sweat out her nappy hair as soon as she finished with her first customer. That knotty-headed wench cost me an arm and a leg trying to keep her hair looking presentable. The beautician I paid to do the gals' hair always complained when Ida sat in the chair. She said Ida's hair was so coarse that even after applying globs of hair pomade and pulling a scorching-hot pressing comb through her naps, Ida's hair still looked dry and brittle and would hardly hold a curl.

Yet, with all those flaws, Ida managed to capture the heart of Mr. Wallach. All the gals were shocked. Then rumors started. My gals said that Ida had used an unnatural method to snag that rich Jewish man. But you can't believe the word of a bunch of jealous whores, now can you? Anyhoo, rumor had it that Mr. Wallach had a teeny-tiny, little peter about the size of my baby finger…some said it was smaller. They said he couldn't get any friction going inside the loose lining of Ida's big, overused pussy, and so Ida, being a resourceful ho, suggested that he fuck her in the mouth instead of her pussy.

Now, there wasn't anything new or unusual about mouth-fucking. All my gals gave head. Shit, most of my clientele came to my place for the sole purpose of getting a professional blowjob since their prissy wives either flat-out refused to blow them or did a piss-poor job of it when they made a feeble attempt.

On the subject of fellatio, I have to say that I profited very well off of
certain kinds of blowjobs. I figured it only made sense to charge my
customers twenty extra dollars to face-fuck the gals who were blessed with big, blubbery lips. The feeling of two fluffy pillows cushioned around their little pink peckers was something they could never get from those thin-lipped hussies they were married to.

But let me get back to Ida. Ida didn't have thick lips, but she had something that none of the other gals had. According to rumor, Mr. Wallach damn near lost his mind when Ida introduced him to sliding his dick in and out of that space between her teeth while she massaged the head with the tip of her tongue.

I'd seen and heard of some crazy goings-on in my lifetime, but I like to died laughing when I heard that bullshit.

Word got out, and suddenly white men were lining up for skinny Ida instead of beautiful Sophronia. They didn't give a damn that by insisting
upon seeing Ida, they were admitting they weren't packing much of anything.

Mr. Wallach wasn't thrilled about sharing Ida with a gaggle of other men, and so he did something that was pretty damn farfetched in those days. Heck, what he did would be considered a radical move, even today. Mr. Wallach walked out on his wife and three kids. He left them in the nice, ranch-style home they'd lived in when he'd only owned the mom-and-pop operation, but he used his newfound wealth from the supermarket to buy a sprawling mansion, which he and Ida moved into and set up housekeeping.

Mr. Wallach told folks that Ida was his maid, and the whites seemed to go for that bold-faced lie, but all the coloreds knew the real story.
Heck, if Ida was the maid, then why was Tilda Fowler traveling ten miles
by bus every day to clean that big ol' palace? The other domestics who rode the bus with Tilda got an earful of the goings-on in that mansion. That's how word spread through our community that Ida wasn't cleaning a damn thing in that house. She may have been polishing the head of Mr. Wallach's knob with her tongue, but that's about it.

So, while an ugly duckling whore was being treated like royalty and sitting around with her feet up all day, pretty-faced Sophronia was still spreading her legs for up to twelve or more tricks a day. Goes to show you that looks don't mean a damn thing. When it comes to hooking a man for good, a woman better have some superior bedroom skills. Good sex is the only thing that matters in this world. And you can quote me on that. As a former madam, I believe I know a thing or two about the bizarre yearnings of men.

• • •

Those old audio recordings Grandma Eula Mae had left behind were a roadmap on how to keep my man happy and satisfied, but I'd been too self-absorbed to realize it. Although I preferred to have a normal sex life without indulging too much freakiness into my bedroom, I could pretend to be a freak. I still refused to allow Maverick to mangle my flesh like a pit bull, but I'd think of something that was perverted enough to keep him content with being with me, only.

CHAPTER 17

I
was dressed in a flowing Robert Cavalli silk caftan, but Maverick was downright sloppy in basketball shorts and a T-shirt. We paid a lot of money to have a chef prepare and serve our meals, and the least Maverick could have done was dress properly for dinner.

Usually, we sat closer to each other during our meals, but tonight, Maverick sat at one end of our formal dining table and I sat at the other. There was no conversation, only the sounds of clinking cutlery as we dined on nut roast.

The vegetarian nut roast was incredible. I could taste a variety of nuts, mushrooms, quinoa, squash, dried apricots and cranberries, heavy spices, and a hint of onion and garlic. Tamara served the nut roast with a spicy tomato sauce. Side dishes of braised mixed greens and grilled asparagus with an Indian spice mixture completed the meal. It was truly a feast to the eyes and palate.

I wanted to discuss the wonderful components of the meal with my husband, but he was being antisocial. I also would have liked to ask Tamara for her nut roast recipe, but it would have gone to her head for a chef of my caliber to inquire about one of her creations, so I merely commented that the meal was tasty as she poured our wine.

Head lowered while looking down at his tablet, Maverick only grunted his approval of the divine meal without bothering to look up.

Tamara cleared the table and soon after, she brought us dessert. The servings of strawberry shortcake that she placed before us were so artfully presented, they deserved to be photographed.

“Oh, this looks yummy, Tamara,” I complimented.

“Thank you. Would you like coffee to go with your dessert?”

“No, I'm fine. What about you, Mav? Would you like a cup of coffee?” I asked sweetly, giving the impression that Maverick and I were on good terms.

“I'm good,” he mumbled, slouched over, eyes still glued to the screen.

Unlike me, Maverick continued to be distant, proving there was trouble in paradise. He didn't have the decency to pretend that our marriage was as strong as ever. I found it embarrassing that Maverick was being so obnoxious in front of the help. Not wanting our chef to be privy to any other signs of marital strife in our home, I offered to clean up after dessert and dismissed her for the evening.

“Are you sure?” Tamara asked.

“Yes, absolutely,” I responded with a strained smile.

As Tamara turned to leave, I caught a glimpse of her reflection in a mirror on the wall. There was a trace of a smirk on her face. Engaged or not, that bitch had the hots for my husband and she was jubilant that our marriage was falling apart. No doubt, Tamara would trade in her fiancé in a hot minute for a wealthy TV star like Maverick. She probably fantasized about her and Maverick double-dating with Kevin and his wife and attending red carpet events. Fuck if I would ever let that shit happen.

I suddenly got a wonderful idea that would throw Tamara off track about the state of my marriage. I also wanted to punish her for that smug smile and for lusting after my husband.

“Tamara!”

She turned around. “Yes, Cori?”

“I've had a change of heart. Sorry, but you won't be able to leave early after all. It suddenly occurred to me that I'd like a veggie omelet in the morning. Would you prepare one for me, please? Load it with an assortment of vegetables. Oh, yeah….put it in a microwavable container so I can reheat it in the morning.”

Having in-house chefs at my disposal at the studio who could whip up an omelet for me at the snap of my fingers, I was merely fucking with Tamara for the hell of it. She was aware of it and shot a glance at Maverick. The look in her eyes beseeched him to intervene on her behalf.

I glared at him. The fury in my eyes told him I was about to black the fuck out if he as much as made eye contact with Tamara. As insufferable a bastard as he was, Maverick wasn't crazy enough to go against me and defend our chef.

Feeling triumphant, I said with chortling laughter, “Thanks, Tamara. I don't know what I'd do without such a dedicated servant like you.”

Tamara flinched, visibly irritated at being called a servant. She referred to herself as a personal chef, but to me, she was nothing more than a glorified servant.

Maverick sent a reproachful glance in my direction, silently telling me that that I was being mean and petty.

I didn't care. Mean and petty was exactly what I was going for. Tamara would think twice about smirking in my presence in the future.

Maverick had to be nuts if he thought I was going to sit back and let a smirking bitch disrespect me in my own home, and he had to be even crazier if he thought I was going to quietly wait while our marriage imploded. I'd had quite enough of his sullenness and silent contempt, and I refused to take it for another fucking second.

Grandma Eula Mae had left far too much information on how
to deal with men for me to allow a lowdown Russian cunt like Katya or a lowly chef like Tamara to lure my sexual deviant husband away from me. That whore, Katya was only pretending that she liked getting bitten. No one in their right mind would derive pleasure in some shit like that. But those Russian hoes were about their money, and she was willing to endure all those bite marks as long as she got what she wanted. And what she wanted was my multimillion-dollar man. In Maverick Brown, Katya and whory bitches like her saw dollar signs and a glamorous lifestyle.

It would be over my dead body that I let any bitch steal my husband from me. I had a plan in mind and was about to put it in motion, but was distracted by the amount of noise Tamara was making as she rattled around in the kitchen. I supposed she was taking out her frustration on the pots and pans. I mentally blocked out the racket, gathered my thoughts, and then cleared my throat as I prepared to speak.

“Dinner was exceptionally good,” I said in a contrived pleasant voice.

Maverick nodded.

“That nut loaf was awesome. It was a perfect meat substitute. I liked it so much, I think Tamara should start using packaged meat substitutes as the main course every now and then.”

Maverick looked up at me; confusion clouded his face. “You're the one who made me aware that mock meat is full of preservatives. Why would you want to add something unhealthy to our diet?”

He put down the tablet and I was elated that I'd finally gotten the son of a bitch's undivided attention. “Tamara does a great job of keeping our menu flavorful and interesting; I don't miss eating meat at all. By the way, Cori, please don't invite me back to your show. That greasy food and the meat I put in my mouth and later spat out, had my stomach feeling queasy for days.”

“You don't miss meat at all, Mav?”

“Not at all.”

“I do,” I said and then forked up a bite-size of strawberry shortcake and swished it around the sauce that Tamara had decoratively swirled on the plate.

“Mmm, this is good. Try it, Mav.”

“In a moment. I'm checking out the stats of a young rookie I may want to interview.”

Dismissing me, and not even glancing at his dessert, Maverick picked up the tablet and returned his attention to the screen. He crinkled his brows together as if trying to concentrate and also sending a message for me not to disturb him again.

Checking out sports stats, my ass.
He was probably on a porn site, viewing some type of sexual debauchery. If he wasn't on a porn site, then he was perusing an escort site, selecting his next Russian fuck-mate. The next bitch would probably be named Mishka or some shit like that.

I stood, picked up my dessert plate and sauntered over to Maverick. He looked up at me and quickly clicked off his tablet, preventing me from seeing what was on the screen.

I wasn't worried about whatever his nasty ass had been looking at because I had something so freaky in mind, I'd make him totally forget about cybersex and skinny Russian whores.

Licking some of the whipped cream off my fork, I gave him a sultry look and said, “I wasn't being completely honest with you. I don't actually miss meat, and I don't want a meat substitute. I miss the taste of
your
meat, Mav. Can I have a taste of you?”

Thrown off guard, he uttered a sound of surprise. Without waiting for him to reply, I set the plate on the table and lowered myself down to my knees.

“Oh, shit,” he groaned.

Although he was still upset with me over the surrogate situation, his dick obviously wasn't harboring any ill will toward me. It was bobbing up and down so excitedly inside his shorts, he quickly began tugging on the elastic waistband, lowering the nylon fabric, and freeing his eager, one-eyed beast.

He held it out for me, expecting me to immediately take it in my mouth and calm it down. But I had other ideas. I held it delicately in my hand, and then, using a cheese spreader knife, I gently smoothed whipped cream and strawberry sauce onto his swollen dick.

I slid the knife up and down, lightly caressing his dick with the edge, and creating an element of danger that had Maverick sucking in his breath.

“Ooo, shit, baby. What are you doing?”

“I'm adding extra sweetness to my meat before I tear it up.”

“Eat it, baby,” he said, taking ahold of his dick and guiding it to my lips.

Instead of pulling his strawberries-and-cream-covered dick inside my mouth, I slowly licked the sweetness off of him, causing him to softly groan and hump. “Stop playing, Cori. Eat the fucking meat.”

I ignored his request and continued licking and murmuring, “Mmm. My husband has prime beef.” After I licked him clean, I proceeded to use the tip of the knife to pick up strawberry slices and carefully lined them along his erection. I placed my lips around the head of his dick and sucked one strawberry slice after another into my mouth. As I chewed the strawberries, Maverick was groaning and writhing, his voice rising to a pitch that drew Tamara from the kitchen.

“Is everything all right?” she asked and then stopped dead in her tracks when she took in the erotic scene before her.

I pulled Maverick's burgeoning manhood out of my mouth and
casually said to Tamara, “Bring me the can of whipped cream from the fridge. And more of your strawberry sauce.”

“We don't need that shit. Just suck my dick, Cori,” Maverick insisted. Then, he softened his tone and whimpered. “Please, Cori…please suck my dick.”

Overcome with desire, he was unconcerned that Tamara was witnessing us in a very private moment. He didn't care that our chef was privy to him grunting and groaning as he tried to stuff my mouth with penile meat.

“Go get the whipped cream and strawberry sauce, Tamara,” I repeated sharply.

“Uh, the whipped cream didn't come from a can. It's homemade,” Tamara explained in a shaky voice, and I enjoyed her discomfort.

“Can't you see this is an emergency? Go get whatever homemade shit you whipped up and hurry back with it!”

Tamara dashed out of the dining room like an ER nurse running to get first aid essentials. Alone with my horny husband, I made sure he remained out of his mind and deliriously horny by nibbling the remnants of strawberries off his erection and telling him that he had the best dick meat any woman had ever been privileged to taste.

I had been well aware of his weakness for Brazilian women and I realized how much he enjoyed our annual ménage à trois, but it was insane that I hadn't understood what a twisted degenerate I was married to until recently. He was weak for any version of immoral, smutty sex, and now that I knew exactly what I was dealing with, I was confident I could keep my husband satisfied.

I planned to replay Grandma Eula Mae's tapes and learn all the tricks of the trade. I intended to reenact all the decadent fuckery that went on in her whorehouse back in the day.

Tamara returned with two bowls, which she quickly set on the table and then tried to haul-ass out of the dining room. But I wasn't
having that. Since she had the gall to smirk and was probably flirting with Maverick behind my back, I expected her to pitch in and help me satisfy him.

“Hand me the bowl of strawberry sauce,” I said to Tamara.

Looking uncomfortable, she passed the bowl to me. Delirious with lust, Maverick was half on the chair and half off. “Help me with him,” I barked at Tamara.

“I don't think—”

“Do you want to keep your high-paying position with my husband and me?”

“Yes, but—”

“But, nothing! Get over here and hold his dick while I put strawberry sauce on it.”

Despite being half out of his mind, Maverick understood that I was giving Tamara permission to touch his privates, and the knowledge caused him to wind his waist and groan with desire. Then he began to thrust so wildly, he toppled himself out of the chair.

With his shorts gathered around his legs, he was on the floor looking like he was having a seizure. I placed the bowls on the floor and beckoned Tamara to join me. She crouched down and gently grasped Maverick's dick as if she were a nurse, tenderly caring for a patient in critical condition.

As Tamara held Maverick's throbbing dick in place, I spread on the strawberry sauce.

“Baby, no! I don't want any more of that shit on me. Just suck on it…or let me fuck you,” Maverick pleaded. Of course, I ignored his pleas. I topped the sauce off with the sliced strawberries I picked from his untouched dessert, and then smoothed on the homemade whipped cream. His long brown dick was decorated to perfection and I had to have a picture of it.

While Tamara held his dick firmly in her hand, I picked up my
phone and began snapping pictures that would be mementos for Maverick and me to enjoy while snuggled in bed, reminiscing about the kinky good time we had tonight.

Tamara gazed at the tasty treat in her hands and licked her lips. “Since you're watching your weight, Cori, I can eat the dessert off Maverick if you want.” Tamara's voice held a desperate ring. I glanced at her and she looked like she was ready to pounce on my husband's dick and suck the shit out of it.