Still Wifey Material (6 page)

Thank God, Neeko hopped into a new, pearl-white Yukon Denali truck. He had it sitting on 24-inch rims and the tires looked like they had just been sprayed with wet-look tire spray. They were shining like a big dawg, and I liked that. Then Neeko ruined the image when he pulled out of his parking space and turned his music up sky high, which was a complete turnoff. I hated when guys rode around with their music roaring through their car speakers. To me, it showed their immature side, so I guessed that was something that Neeko and I were going to have to work on.

I
cannot tell you why Nikki proposed that we drive in separate cars to Bintu and Fatu’s white party. We were going to the same venue, and since we lived together, we were going back to the same place when the night was over.
What is going on in her head?
I wondered. When I asked her, she told me the reason why she was driving her own car was because she wanted to ride alone and clear her head. That was a lie because earlier that day I overheard Nikki tell Carmen that she planned to drive her own car because she wanted Bintu to see it, so he’d know right off the bat that she was high maintenance, and if he really wanted to get with her, he’d have to come hard like Fatu. I started to intervene in her conversation, just to let her know that she shouldn’t have to go the extra mile to prove anything to a man, but then I figured, why waste my breath? She wasn’t going to listen to me anyway. I did what I do best and left well enough alone.

After I programmed Fatu’s nightclub address into my GPS, it took me straight there while Nikki followed. The drive was approximately twenty-five minutes, and as soon as we got within one hundred yards of the club, we noticed that there was valet parking available. Nikki and I pulled up directly in front of the club and made use of it. One of the valet attendants handed me a ticket for my car and directed me to the VIP entrance. I tried to wait for Nikki so we could walk into the club together, but she was taking her precious time. I took one last look and made sure I was showing just enough cleavage in my Heidi Weisel bustier. The satin pencil skirt was working every curve I had. Once I felt like everything was in order, I put one Jimmy Choo sandal in front of the other and made my way inside.

It seemed like every eye in the entire place focused on me once I crossed the threshold. I immediately felt out of place because it seemed like I was the only American in the entire place. Although it was a white party, the women had on tailor-made, gold-and-white African garments with the head wraps to match. My own hair was tucked inside a lace-front wig cut into the style of a bob, not to mention the fact that my titties looked like they were about to spill over. I knew I was going to be the talk of the evening. I thanked God for Nikki because as soon as she walked in behind me with her tight-ass white Christian Dior pencil skirt and the complementary white asymmetrical blouse, she got just about as much eye service as I did.

“Why is everyone staring at us?” she yelled so I could hear her over the loud music.

“It’s probably because we look good,” I yelled back.

“And what kind of music are they listening to?”

“Beats me.” I looked around the room to see if either Bintu or Fatu were in sight before I took another step inside.

“Are you looking for me?” I heard a voice yell from behind me. Nikki and I turned around and saw Bintu standing behind us with the biggest smile he could give. Nikki was very happy to see him.

“What kind of question is that? You know we were.” She smiled and grabbed him by the arm, letting everybody in the place know that she was there especially for him. I saw a couple of women turn up their noses after Nikki embraced Bintu, and it was funny to see. After Nikki got her ten minutes of fame by throwing herself all over Bintu, we finally got a chance to speak to one another. He signaled one of his servers to bring Nikki and I each a glass of Cristal.

“Enjoy your champagne, and mingle with my other guests while I go get Fatu,” he encouraged us. I wasn’t about to go off and start introducing myself to a bunch of people I didn’t know. Instead, Nikki and I headed over to the nearest table and sat down so that we could take a load off our feet. I wasn’t going to lie. My shoes were fly as hell, but they were killing me. I guessed that was the price you had to pay to look gorgeous.

While the foreign-sounding music blared in our ears, I felt the need to spark up a conversation with Nikki. It would’ve looked really silly for us to be the only people sitting at the table, and we weren’t talking to each other. I took another sip from my glass and said, “Are you glad you came out tonight?”

She hesitated for a moment, and then said, “Not really, because I thought it was going to be different than this. But, hey, we’re here now, so I guess we’re going to have to make the best of it.”

“Yeah, I’m feeling you. I’m going to get me a couple more glasses of this Cristal, talk with Fatu a bit, and then I’m going to be on my way.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Nikki agreed.

“So, what do you think about Bintu?” I tried to get the conversation flowing.

“He’s all right, I guess. Why do you ask?”

“Because I saw how happy you were to see him, that’s all.”

“Girl, please. I’m just trying to play the role so he can start piling off some of that dough he’s got, and that’s it.”

I chuckled. Before I could come back with some advice, Bintu and Fatu popped up at our table.

“I found him,” Bintu announced. When I saw that handsome, bald headed, six-feet-four, 215-pound man, I almost fainted. It was unbelievable. This man looked just like the model and actor Djimon Hounsou himself, and I wanted nothing else but to jump right into his fucking arms. I managed to hold my composure and gave him my prettiest smile as I extended my hand in greeting. “How are you?”

Fatu took my hand and kissed it. “I’m doing well, now that you’re here.”

My smile got bigger. “Likewise,” I assured him.

He smiled right back and looked at Nikki, then asked her if she was enjoying herself. Of course she lied. Shit, I lied too when he asked me the same question. What were we supposed to do? Tell him that his party really sucked, and that we were ready to get out of there? No way! We had to be diplomatic about it, and it paid off.

A few moments later Fatu extended his hand and asked me to follow him. “I want you to meet someone.” I took his hand and stood.

“Which way are we going?” I asked.

“On the other side of the room.” He looked at me from head to toe. “Oh, by the way, you look stunning tonight!” He flashed me another smile, showing me his beautiful, white teeth.

“I have you to thank for that. But you look pleasing to the eye as well.” I took one long look at the way his white linen shirt and pants fit his physique. I could tell the size of his dick from the first glance, and it was a sight to see. There was no question in my mind that it was at least eight or nine inches. Hopefully one day I’d get to try it out, because if it was anywhere near as good as it looked hidden beneath all that linen, then he and I were going to become very close.

“Thank you.” He led me to a group of people huddled together, sipping on champagne while making small talk. It turned out that they were his immediate family members. He first introduced me to his mother and father. Mr. Oduka was a fairly decent-looking big guy. He reminded me of the actor James Earl Jones. Mrs. Oduka, on the other hand, wasn’t all that attractive. I tried to come up with at least a dozen people to figure out who she reminded me of, and the only person I could think of was the late Florida Evans from
Good Times
. I couldn’t tell if she had that same little Afro, since she too wore a head wrap, but she definitely resembled the late actress.

As I looked at them together, I couldn’t imagine Mr. Oduka being faithful to her. I would bet my entire savings that he either had another wife, or he had a lot of women he tricked with back in Africa, because this lady didn’t have a bit of sex appeal. I figured she had some self-esteem issues. The way that Mr. Oduka stared at me while she stood next to him led me to believe that she knew about his infidelity. Poor lady! The things we did to keep a marriage together because of money. And you know what? I wasn’t mad at her. Shit, a girl had to do what a girl had to do.

Next up to bat was Fatu’s sister, whom he called Suri. She was a bit on the chunky side, but she was fairly decent-looking in the face. I could tell that she bleached her skin a lot because she looked kind of flushed, and her face and neck skin tones didn’t match. Other than that, she seemed like she was a pleasant person. I was also introduced to a couple of Fatu’s male cousins, Kofi and Matthew, and they seemed a bit friendlier than the other family members. I could tell that they were much younger than Fatu and Bintu, but they had a swagger about them that would have you believe that they were also powerful men. When Fatu and I stepped away from his family, I asked him what Kofi and Matthew did for a living.

“They work for me,” Fatu replied. “But they also have a couple small businesses on the side.”

“Think I can get a job too?” I joked.

“You could work for me any day.” Before I knew it, I had been escorted around the entire nightclub and was introduced to everyone but his servers. What was so interesting about my meeting everyone was that they wanted to know whether Fatu and I were a couple. He told a few of them that we were just friends, but the other ones, like his cousins and a few of the other men who were smiling all in my face, Fatu told them that I was his special lady, and I let him ride with that too. After all, he did earn that right after I ran up an eleven-thousand-dollar tab in his name. I just hoped that the spending didn’t stop there.

Once Fatu made all his rounds, or rather showed me off to his people, we retired to his back office. I quickly took a seat on the black leather sofa and wasted no time removing my four-inch heels. When I started massaging my feet to soothe the aches, Fatu became a little concerned.

“Are you OK?” he asked.

I smiled. “I am fine, sweetie! I’ve just been standing on my feet too long, but I’ll be all right.”

“Let me help you with that,” he said, grabbing my feet. But his plans were interrupted by a knock on the door.

He answered the door and Bintu walked in and handed him what appeared to be a small, brick-like object wrapped in newspaper. “This is from Ian,” he stated.

“Is he outside?” Fatu wanted to know.

“No. He dropped off the money and left.”

“OK. But let me know if Emmett comes, because I need to speak with him.”

“No problem. I will be sure to let you know.” Bintu turned around and made his exit.

After Bintu’s departure, Fatu locked the door behind him. “I’m sorry for the interruption,” he apologized.

“No need to apologize. Take care of your business,” I encouraged him. Fatu unwrapped the package to reveal four ten-stacks of one-hundred-dollar bills, each with a ten-thousand-dollar bank label wrapped around it. He was holding forty thousand dollars in his hands. He placed the money inside a safe he had hidden in the wall, behind a mounted statue of an African goddess. I acted like I didn’t see him put the money away because I didn’t want to come across as being the nosey type.

Fatu returned and took a seat beside me on the sofa. We talked about everything under the sun. He told me he was thirty-six-years-old and Muslim, but he hadn’t picked up his Koran in a while. He also said that his birthday was August 29, which meant that he was a Leo. His family was from Lagos, Nigeria, and they were very rich in their country. I was shocked as hell when he told me that shit. I had always believed that a lot of Africans grew up poor, which was why they came to America for a better life. I guess I learned my new thing for the day.

After he schooled me on his lifestyle back in Nigeria, he blew off my wig when he told me that his father had four wives, and that three of them lived back in Nigeria. I asked Fatu how many children his father had. When he told me that his father had eighteen children, I almost had a heart attack. I mean, there was not that much sex in the world. Not only that, I would not have allowed my man to marry another woman. I knew that was their culture over in Africa, so my best advice to them was that they needed to keep it over there, because I wasn’t down with that bullshit. It was bad enough that I had to deal with Ricky cheating on me behind my back, but to know that I had to share my husband with a couple of bitches who’d probably live in the same house as me was unacceptable, and I would have let it be known.

Later in the conversation we talked about my likes, dislikes, and why I wasn’t in a relationship. I briefly mentioned that I had been married before, but my husband was deceased. I didn’t elaborate on the cause of his death, because I didn’t want to scare Fatu away.

“How long has it been since he passed away?” Fatu asked with concern.

“It’ll be two years next month.”

“Has it been hard for you to move on with your life?”

“Let’s just say that I moved out here to Houston specifically so that I could move on. There was no way I would have been able to move on from my past if I was still in Virginia. That place had nothing but bad memories for me, and I couldn’t take it any longer.”

“You must’ve been through a lot, because I see the hurt in your eyes.”

“We’ll just say that it was more than I could handle.”

“Well, you’re here now. And I’m going to make sure you’re taken good care of.”

“Fatu, you don’t have to do that. Sweetie, you don’t owe me anything.”

“I know I don’t. But I like you, and the people I like, I find myself making sure that they’re all right.”

“And that’s fine. But you’ve done enough for me already.”

“Come on, Kira! You can’t be talking about today, because that was nothing.”

Shocked by his words, I said, “Spending over eleven thousand dollars on me is nothing?”

“I’m talking for you. That amount of money is nothing compared to what you’re worth.”

I smiled and said, “I can’t argue with you on that, Fatu. But that was still an awful lot of money to spend on someone you just met.”