The Pleasure Trap (7 page)

She didn't come.

He was disappointed but not surprised. It wasn't just her hymen her father kept an eye on. Pushing his hands into the pockets of his jeans, Graham made his way to the taxi stand and felt lucky that a town car sat there.

Lights suddenly reflected against the windshield. He glanced back over his shoulder and slowed his steps at the sight of Geneva's BMW pulling to a stop behind him. He turned in the gap between her car and the taxi as she climbed out.

Graham's pulse quickened at the sight of her, and he took a deep breath as he walked over to where she stood by the door to her car. “You came?”

Geneva smiled and reached up to pluck something from his dreads. “You didn't give me much of a choice,” she said lightly, smoothing her hands over the jeans she wore with a form-fitting cream turtleneck.

“Things got to change, G,” he said in a rush, admitting to himself that he pushed the words out before he lost his will to have the conversation.

“What things?” she asked.

“Yo . . . I want to have sex but you not giving it up until you get married . . . and your father hate me so you'll never marry me . . . and I'm nowhere near ready to be married,” he said, moving to sit on the back of a bench on the sidewalk. “I feel like I'm putting in a bunch of time for a relationship that may be going nowhere.”

Geneva slid her hands into the back pockets of her jeans as she walked over to stand between his knees. “So I'm a waste of time?” she asked.

Graham balled his hands into fists and lightly pounded them on his knees. “I'm used to having sex—”

“But I suck
it
,” she said, her eyes darting down to his crotch meaningfully before they widened.

“I like pussy,” he snapped, splaying his fingers as he raised his hands. “I like being in pussy. I like stroking in pussy. I like feeling pussy when I make it cum. I like when the pussy makes my dick wet. I like to nut up a pussy. I'm about pussy, pussy, pussy, pussy.”

Geneva's eyes continued to widen with each declaration until she looked frightened for her life. “Graham.”

“Nah, G, don't Graham me,” he said, waving his hand dismissively as he looked away from her.

“Graham,” she repeated, sounding reproachful.

His frustration with her made him feel like fleas were nipping at his neck. He looked up to the night sky as he stomped his booted feet on the seat of the bench. “Look, Geneva, I want to be with you,” he said, shifting his head to look at her. “You not feeling me like that?”

Geneva stepped up and held his face with her hands. “You know I am . . . but you know I can't,” she stressed. “Hell, my annual is coming up in a few weeks.”

Graham tensed. “So you just gone let your daddy pussy test you 'til your ass forty?” he snapped.

“What makes you think I won't get married until I'm forty?” she exclaimed.

He looked incredulous. “
That's
what you pulled out of what I just said?” he said sardonically.

She eyed him as if she was confused.

For the first time Graham wondered just how deep Geneva's naïveté ran and how weak her spine was.
Innocence is one thing. Stupidity is something else.

“I know something we can do,” she said, leaning in to wrap her arms around his neck. “And I
know
you want to.”

Graham lowered his head to her shoulder as she slid her hand beneath his vest and rubbed his back above his shirt. “Does it involve pussy?” he said, his eyes focused on his boots.

“Close,” she said, rubbing her face against the tips of his dreads.

Graham stiffened. His eyes shifted from left to right as his brain raced a mile a minute. “Close?” he asked, recalling her words before that.

And I
know
you want to.

“Real close,” she stressed, stepping back to turn around and give her full bottom a wiggle in front of him before looking over her shoulder with a flirty wink.

And I
know
you want to.

Graham's brows lowered so severely over his deep-set eyes that the color of his irises was indistinguishable. “I look gay to you?” he asked, his voice low and ominous.

She turned. “Huh?”

“What do you mean you
know
I want to,” he asked, rising up to stand on the seat of the bench before stepping down off it to stand in her face.

She stepped back from him. “Why are you so mad? What did I say?” she asked, pressing her hand to her chest.

“I ain't fucking gay!” he roared, spittle flying from his mouth.

“Graham—”

“I. AIN'T. GAY!”

Geneva kept stepping back from him until she stumbled against the hood of her car. Her fear was clear. Her lips moved like she was trying to form words but nothing came out.

And I
know
you want to.

Had someone in the church known and spread the word of what Lionel had done? Graham wiped his eyes as an image of Lionel touching him flashed. Stepping forward, he grabbed her, his fingers digging into the flesh of her upper arms.

Geneva cried out before she wrenched her body free from his grasp and slapped him.

WHAP!

Graham reached out to grip her wrist.

“Hey! Let her go.”

Graham looked over his shoulder. The driver from the taxi had hollered out his window at them.

“Let me go, Graham,” Geneva whined.

He looked back to her and she grimaced with the pain he was causing her. He let her go. “G, I'm—”

She turned and quickly climbed behind the wheel of her car.

He stepped up to grab the handle of the driver-side door. She had already locked the doors. “I didn't mean to hurt you.”

She said nothing as she glared at him and started her car.

“G, don't leave like this,” he said, feeling panicked.

She shifted the car into reverse. “My father was right about you,” she said coldly through a crack in the window just as the faint sound of police sirens echoed in the air.

Her words stung harder than her slap. His jaw tightened in anger as he released her door and stepped back from it with his hands high. “To hell with you and your daddy. Maybe
he
want the pussy and scared somebody else gone get it,” he said, lashing out at her. Angry. Hurt. Wanting to hurt.

Through the windshield, he saw Geneva's pain-filled eyes and a tear racing down her cheek as she reversed away from him and exited the parking lot.

All his anger instantly disappeared as regret consumed him. But the sounds of approaching sirens forced him to push everything aside, flee the parking lot, and run through the darkened streets of Bedford to reach home.

 

 

This bitch crazy.

Even crazier than I thought.

Who is she?

Who is she?

“Man, who
are
you?” he asked, his anger and annoyance rising.

Joy

 

 

“D
on't scratch my car.”

Graham first spotted a pair of black high heels and shapely legs in black opaque stockings before he allowed his eyes to travel upward to a leather skirt cut high on her thighs and a sheer white blouse. Standing up to his full height, he eyed the tall beauty standing before him as he wrung out excess water from the shammy he was using to wipe down the blood-red Chrysler.

Damn, she fine
, he thought, tilting his head to the side as he eyed the mixed Asian and African American beauty with shocking honey-blond hair that somehow worked with her olive complexion and the golden tones of her makeup. She had small breasts, but her ample thighs and hips more than made up for it. Even from a distance, he could smell her perfume and it made him want to get closer to her. Every movement of her body seemed to convey or convince that she was pure sex appeal.

She was dope and she knew it.

“I got you,” Graham said, looking away from her as he finished drying the hood of her vehicle with large sweeping circles that caused the muscles of his arm to flex and relax beneath the smooth brown of his skin.

“Humph.”

He glanced up and caught her eyeing him as she lit a cigarette. His eyes dipped to take in the pucker of her glossy lips as she inhaled from the cigarette and soon exhaled a stream of smoke. Deciding to ignore her, Graham kept at his job of drying the left side of her car as one of his coworkers at the detail shop tackled the right.

“She could love on this dick long time,” Pogo said, in a horrible imitation of a Vietnamese accent from the memorable scene in
Full Metal Jacket
.

Graham looked over at the short, thin man who was every bit of sixty or seventy years of age and looked dwarfed by his navy blue uniform. Following Pogo's line of vision, he watched the sway of her skirt against her shapely thighs as she slowly paced and talked on her cell phone.

Graham was not short on women by any means, but this thoroughbred pacing before him was nothing like any of the other girls on his roster. Her style and demeanor made that clear. He doubted she even shopped in a Walmart, much less worked the register like Monique. She'd probably never even been in a run-down motel like the one where Jacia worked as a housekeeper. And for sure she wasn't busting suds in a diner like Yvetta.

He eyed her as she tapped her gold cigarette lighter against her palm as she continued pacing. Everything about her said she was a career chick. Teacher. Nurse. Secretary. A nine-to-five, weekdays-only, indoors-always type of career. Something like that.

Looking away from her, he stretched his tall frame before stooping down to wipe large circles to dry the door. His parents stayed on his back—and his nerves—reminding him of the straight-A student he used to be. They kept reminding him of the potential he was wasting.

“If you put as much time into working your brain as you did working on your body, you'd be hell,” his mother always said.

He knew they were right but he was enjoying life. He worked, made money, kept women eager to please him, brought fly gears and kicks, smoked weed, and partied. Life was real good.

Rising to his full height, he eyed his work as he stepped back from the vehicle. He could easily see her cruising down a highway in the bright red car with her golden hair blowing in the wind. “I'm done, Pogo,” he said, his voice as deep as the trouble his parents constantly warned him about.

He removed the cotton band holding his chin-length ebony dreads off his square, handsome face and looked up at the August summer sun causing sweat to soak his blue uniform. The sky wouldn't even begin to tint with darkness until eight or nine, and his boss always took full advantage with extended hours until the start of fall.

There were already four other cars washed and awaiting detailing.
Shit.
Scratching his scalp, Graham doubled the band and tied it around the ends of his thin dreads as he walked inside the building to the employee break room. Like the rest of the odd mix of old furniture, the refrigerator had long since seen its better days, but Graham was happy it worked just fine to keep an icy chill on the bottled water inside it.

With his head still tilted back to empty the bottle, he reached for his cell phone from his back pocket and flipped it open before looking down at the picture of Lola and Kezia kissing. The tattoo artist and hairdresser still liked messing with him because they knew he wanted a threesome with them bad. They wouldn't give in no matter how many times he asked them for a fair shot to fuck them and make them love dick again or even flashed his big dick at them. Nothing. Lola did his tattoos and Kezia made sure his dreads were always fresh.

“You still coming through tomorrow?” he read the text aloud as he walked out of the break room.

Using his thumbs, he replied.
NAH. NO ENDS THIS WEEK. NEXT FRIDAY?

Graham had just stepped back out into the sun and the heat immediately pressed against his body. He was surprised to see the red convertible still there with Ms. Everything patiently sitting in the driver's seat.

“She's waiting on you.”

Looking away from the car, he glanced over his broad shoulder at Pogo vacuuming floor mats atop the large table in the corner. His heart swelled with surprise as he licked his bottom lip and made his way over to stand by her car. She glanced up at him from behind oversized shades and then held up a finger instructing him to wait, with annoyance lining her pretty face.

Graham frowned in displeasure.
The hell . . . ?

Blowing dismissive air between his teeth, Graham turned and headed toward the white Range Rover Pogo was already working on.

“Hey!”

Graham heard her call out to him but he kept it moving. He figured the most she could have for him was a tip and he'd live without it.

“Six footer,” she called out.

Her voice sounded closer and he looked back just as she pulled her car up beside him. Coming to a stop with a heavy breath, Graham looked down at her. “That's six foot nine,” he told her, crossing his sculptured arms over his chest and causing his tattoos to stretch across his muscles.

She leaned back in the leather passenger seat as she eyed him from behind her shades. “Come ride with me,” she ordered him, her voice soft but cocky. Sure. Demanding.

“What?” Graham asked, making a face.

She leaned forward. “Get in.”

Graham looked left and then right. Everywhere but at her.

“I don't have all day, Six Foot Nine,” she said.

His eyes shifted. He quietly assessed her. “For what?”

She smirked. “You scared?” she asked.

“Oh, I ain't never scared,” he assured her with a boldness he felt building. In his eyes, their levels were equalizing.
She
stepped to
him
.

With one eyebrow arched, she reached to hit the power button to unlock the passenger door. A dare.

Graham felt a thrill of excitement from his mundane life. He walked around the front of her car and opened the passenger door. “Yo, Pogo,” he called over to his elderly coworker. “Tell the boss man I went home sick.”

Pogo smiled broadly, displaying every tooth of his ill-fitting dentures. “You a baaaaaad boy,” he joked.

Graham winked at him before he bent his tall frame to slide onto the smooth leather passenger seat.

“You ready?” she asked as she shifted the car into drive.

Leaning back against the door, he locked his eyes with hers. “Are you?” he countered.

She laughed as she accelerated across the expanse of the parking lot.

 

 

“Graham . . . Graham . . . wake up. Wake. Up.”

He stirred at the feel of warm, petite hands pressed against the muscles of his chest. With each slow blink of his eyes, the sight of the all-white bedroom became clearer until he was looking through the sheer curtains surrounding the four-poster bed to the bright sun glaring through the bay windows of her bedroom.

That's all he knew for sure.

Graham turned his head on the pillow as he felt her straddle his hips. He smiled at the sight of her tousled blond hair barely covering the heart-shaped tattoos on the tips of her breasts and the weed she was placing inside a split blunt.

“I have to go to work today,” she said, reaching down to pick up something on the bed beside him.

He frowned in disappointment. “I thought you were on vacation?” he asked, suddenly aware of his mouth and tongue tasting like a horrible mix of bad breath, old food, and stale cigarettes.

Joy set the open blunt on his chest and then opened the tiny glass vial she held. “It's Monday. Vacation over,” she said, glancing up at him briefly with her slanted eyes as she sprinkled the weed with coke.

Seven days had passed.

Graham could hardly piece together anything more than snippets of wild sex, getting high, and occasional breaks for food—all while in the bedroom of her Harlem apartment. It was the best seven days of his life.
Two thumbs in a bucket, fuck it.

Pressing his hands to her hips, he felt his dick stir from both the feel of her moist pussy snuggled against it and the anticipation of the weed-and-coke blend. He'd never laced his blunts before, but after some gentle urging from her his mind was blown and he wanted more. More of her. More of the powder. More of the rush.

“Don't go,” he said, easing his hand around her wide hips to grip her buttocks and then continue down to slide one long finger inside her from behind.

Joy carelessly tossed the now-empty vial onto the hardwood floor before rolling the blunt as she wet it with the tip of her tongue. “I have to. We're prepping for a big murder case coming up in two weeks,” she said with the blunt now pressed between her lips as she lit it. “If I want the lead paralegal spot for Mr. Warren, then I have to be on my A game. So my vacay is so over... and yours as well.”

Graham pulled her up onto her knees and used his hand to guide his hardness inside her. She held the blunt with her lips as she leaned back and placed her arms behind herself to grip his legs as she enjoyed the roll of his hips and the thrust of his dick. “You sure?” he asked her, enjoying the sight of her clean-shaven mound as his dick slid between her lips.

She sat back up straight to blow a stream of smoke directly down into his face as she took over the ride and worked her hips in fast and furious pumps that quickly drove him to an explosive nut that made him holler from his gut. “I'm very sure,” she said, standing up on the bed and leaving his dick blowing in the wind before she hopped down off the bed with the blunt still in her hand.

“Shit,” Graham swore, closing his eyes as the last of his nut left him in a jolt that was draining.

“I cannot have too much of this,” she said, leaving the lit blunt in the ashtray atop her ornate wooden nightstand before turning to walk away.

Moments later, he heard the shower in her adjoining bathroom start with an echoing blast. Just the thought of the water hitting against her body almost—
almost
—made his desire for her kick into second gear. Sitting up, he pushed a few of the many pillows on the bed behind his head and shoulders as he reached for the remote and the blunt. Bending one leg and pressing his size thirteen foot into the plush pillow-top of the bed, he smoked the blunt and flipped through the channels of the plasma television on the opposite wall.

As he watched a rerun of
Sanford and Son
, he blazed through half of the blunt easily, glad that the laced weed didn't affect him the way it had when Joy introduced it to him a week ago. His tongue and his extremities had gone numb and the back of his head tingled as his heart pounded like crazy. He chuckled at how the high coupled with the fear nearly blew his mind.

Graham was carefully putting out the embers of the tip of the blunt when Joy strolled back into the bedroom with a plush pink towel wrapped around her honey-toned body with her blond hair up in a loose topknot. She stopped and looked at him in amazement.

“What's your plans for the day besides
thinking
you gone lay in my bed all day?” she asked, releasing the towel from her glorious body and quickly patting away the dampness from her skin.

Graham's focus was on the slight jiggle of her breasts and thighs as she moved. “So you kicking me out?” he asked. “Shee-it, I was 'bout to make me a sandwich.”

Joy balled up the massive towel and fired it at him.

Graham caught it easily in one large hand.

“Listen, there are many things I'm open to doing, but taking care of a grown man is not one of them,” she said, as she removed a pale peach bra-and-thong set from one of the drawers of her dresser.

“I took care of you all week, though,” he said, briefly flipping back the sheet and looking pointedly down at his now lifeless and spent dick.

Joy quickly pulled on the lingerie and walked into her closet. “Sex don't pay the bills, Six-Nine,” she called out.

Frowning, Graham simultaneously wiped his face with his hands and elongated his frame, causing his feet to dangle off the edge of the queen-sized bed.

“Go to work,” Joy said, leaving the closet and hanging the outfit she held on the ladies' valet by the framed full-length mirror leaning against the wall.