Vengeance

  Antonio did suck the hell out of my tits that day, and suck some damn tits he did. He tried to get my panties off so he could eat my pussy—damn near begged me to feed him—but I couldn’t bring myself to allow it. So we ended up jacking off together and never got to the tantric yoga. I had to get back into the studio and work on “Manpooling.”

  Chapter Nine

  The ride out to Marcella’s cabin was relaxing, the views breathtaking. None of my bodyguards asked me any heavy questions—they knew better—and Nikki was in Miami handling some business for me. I was looking to open a restaurant there and she was doing some location scouting, gathering some lease proposals, and interviewing some chefs. I planned to come up with the names of the menu items myself, all named after my song titles, and I wanted to call it Wicket’s Thicket and have it surrounded by dense landscaping. That way people would feel like they were far away from the beach, and the shade of the bushes and trees would mask the intense Miami heat while they were dining.

  Daddy had called to Skype that morning and I assured him that I was fine. He was pleased to discover that I was on my way to a second session with the psychiatrist he suggested. I understood his concern, but it was time for me to deal with my past. Avoiding Atlanta forever made no sense, and while actually residing there for the time being was a bit drastic, I still had my plans for Bianca and Cherie. There was no way that they were getting away with what they did—them or their men.

  Jonovan had crossed my mind quite often. I had even searched his address on Google Earth and checked out his small, brick rancher and surrounding neighborhood. He had only moved roughly ten miles from where we attended high school together at Powers. I had yet to go past my old school. The memories would have been too painful. Plus, it would have been too hard for me to explain that visit to KAD. Sneaking out to the boonies to visit someone in a cabin was one thing, but driving past a high school that I supposedly had no connection with would have been a red flag.

  I had actually told KAD the truth about Dr. Spencer—to a point. I told them that I was seeking therapy for my issues and they certainly knew that I had them. They didn’t know the extent of them but, clearly, the way that I toyed with them sexually, coupled with the fact that they never saw me bring any men into my bedroom or hotel rooms, were signs that I was not normal when it came to intimacy.

  They also knew about my adoption, and I had made up different variations of the Jonestown story with each of them over the years. It was really more about laying the groundwork for people to back up the story if it ever surfaced. It always helped to have people who could say that they had known blah, blah, blah for years.

  “We’re almost there,” Antonio said. He was still feeling some kind of way about getting to second base with me and getting shut down. “Five minutes.”

  “Cool,” I replied as I played Little Shop of Treasures 2 on my iPad. “I’m almost on week eight.”

  It’s amazing how people can come up with the stupidest, brain cell–wasting games and apps and millions of people become addicted to them. I had beat the app dozens of times, but I still did it to kill time and to take my mind off things. In this case, I was trying to mentally prepare myself to come clean with Marcella about more details from my life—not the fabricated ones. The real ones.

  Exactly five minutes later, we pulled up to an oak cabin that was definitely hidden away in the woods. It was “adorable,” for lack of a better term. Like something out of a Disney movie. Flower beds out front held various perennials and there was a flagpole with a decorated floral flag to match what lay below. There was a two-seater Mercedes convertible parked out front, black on black, and Marcella was sitting on the wraparound porch drinking lemonade out of a mason jar. She had on jeans and a button-down, pin-striped shirt. Her hair was in a ponytail and she had on sneakers.

  I felt completely overdressed in an Alexandre Vauthier gold minidress and a pair of Manolo Blahnik lace-up, high-heeled sandals. I saw her grin as I was guided out of the truck by Kagiso. He had complimented me earlier on my outfit.

  “Looks like she thought this was a casual meeting,” he remarked in a whisper.

  “It is,” I replied. “But you know I always like to have my shit on point. Never know when some cameras might be snapping.”

  He surveyed the area. “Doubt that’ll be happening out here.”

  “And that’s the point,” I said. “But we still had to get here and we have to go back. Besides, I’m thinking about making a pit stop on the way home. Call Nikki and see if that Bianca broad is still hosting a party this evening at 444 Highland.”

  “That Bianca broad?” Kagiso laughed. “Why do you even hang around her if you can’t stand her?”

  “It’s not that I can’t stand her,” I fabricated. “I actually like some of her suggestions and want to see what kind of references she might have. She’s talented but seems to have a bit of an attitude.”

  “Maybe that’s because you have one with her, Wicket.”

  I pinched Kagiso on the cheek and walked toward the porch. “You all try to look inconspicuous in case someone else stops by.”

  “How in the hell are we supposed to do that?” Diederik asked, overhearing my last comment.

  “Blend in with the trees or something,” I stated jokingly. “Or you all could head back into town and have lunch at that diner.”

  “Mr. Sterling would have all our heads on platters if we left you alone,” Diederik said. “We’re not that foolish.”

  “Besides, that diner had grease packed on the windows,” Antonio chimed in. “I could tell that when we drove by.”

  It was just like Antonio to peep out every single food establishment we passed. Even though he was technically the smallest of the three, he liked to eat the most food. It was rare that he would pass up food for his iron-clad stomach, so the place must have truly looked foul.

  “Then back to blending in with the trees!”

  Marcella stood as I started up the porch steps. Turns out that she had a pitcher of lemonade waiting and another jar for me packed to the brim with ice to pour it over.

  “Good afternoon, Wicket. Did you have any trouble finding me?”

  I glanced over my shoulder. “Not with three bodyguards and a driver. Even though men hate following directions, they had enough common sense to use GPS to get out in this forest.”

  We shook hands and she motioned for me to have a seat. “We can sit out here, if that works, or go inside if that will make you more comfortable.”

  “Actually, I would prefer indoors, if that’s cool. I’m not big on bugs, and I’m allergic to bees.”

  “Oh dear,” Marcella said in a panic. “Let’s get you on in then.”

  I was not allergic to bees, but I didn’t want to put myself in the position of pouring out my feelings on her porch with KAD right there. I helped her carry the lemonade and jars inside. The place was nicely decorated. Again, looked like a movie set. It was a Pottery Barn house, with everything in its place like a furniture catalog. Most of the furniture was a dark mahogany and appeared to be expensive. Marcella had a bookshelf lined with books, mostly fictional titles. That surprised me as I walked over and ran my fingertips over the spines. She had all of Allison Hobbs’s and Cairo’s books.

  “Um, let me find out you have a little bit of freak in you,” I said to her.

  She giggled. “When I come out here, I prefer to relax. No point in bringing my actual work out here with me, so I read a lot of fiction. And yes, I’m human, so I have a little bit of a freak in me.”

  I turned to face her. “From reading your bio, I realize that you are a general psychiatrist, but do you deal with a lot of patients who have sexual issues?”

  “What sort of issues?” She sat in an armchair and waved toward the sofa for me to take a seat. “Do you have intimacy problems?”

  I plopped down on the sofa. “That’s an understatement.”

  “To answer your question, yes, I have several patients who are dealing with
concerns and disorders surrounding their sexual identities or behavior.”

  “Such as?”

  She poured me a jar of lemonade. “Addiction; survivors of rape, incest, and abuse; fetishes; hypersexuality disorder; gender identification issues; erectile dys—”

  “Got you,” I said, cutting her off. When she said “gender identification issues,” I thought of Hannah. “Well, I most certainly have issues with intimacy, and I’ll open up about that at some point. Right now, I’d like to tell you about Hannah.”

  “Yes, I remember you mentioning her before. It’s obviously painful for you to discuss.”

  “Not all of it. Not the beginning of it, at least. Hannah was my everything. She rescued me and—”

  “Rescued you from what?”

  “Hell!”

  I told Marcella about how Hannah had sought help for me in the bus depot but did not go into the details of the earlier part of that evening. I described how she had taken me to The Bronx, protected me from harm, shared her personal space and belongings with me, and was my ride-or-die after I met Daddy that Christmas Eve in Times Square. I talked about how she had been my nanny, my confidante, and my surrogate mother and sister that I had never had.

  “Where’s Hannah now?” Marcella asked about an hour into the discussion.

  A single tear began to cascade down my cheek when I replied, “Hannah’s dead.”

  Chapter Ten

  Saturday, June 11, 2005

  10:47 a.m.

  Paris, France

  I’ll never forget the day Hannah died. It all started out so perfectly. There was no way in the world that I could have suspected that June 11, 2005, would be the day I lost my only friend. She was fifty-four and I realize that a lot of people do not even make it that far. But she still died far too young. I needed her for another twenty or thirty years. I needed her to be here for me and since her death, and up until I met you, Marcella, I’d only had Daddy.

  We were in Paris. I had a concert later that evening at La Flèche d’Or. The first show had sold out in less than ten minutes after the tickets went on sale, so a second show had been added the following evening. I was excited. I had never performed in Paris before.

  “I’m kind of nervous but extremely excited at the same time.”

  We were seated on the balcony at Hôtel Fouquet’s Barrière on Avenue George V. We had arrived a few days earlier on my private plane and had been chilling in the presidential suite most of the time. That’s the thing about being recognizable—another ugly price of fame—unless I wear some kind of disguise, it is damn near impossible to do a lot of touring. At least not in the traditional sense. People are not as overbearing overseas, but I still was not in the mood to be bombarded with a lot of the public.

  We did sneak out one day to go see the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre. The night before, we had taken a gondola ride down Canal Saint-Martin. It was breathtaking. This was before KAD was hired, so part of my father’s security detail were with us. Big difference, because they were all older, with beards and big bellies, but any one of them could shoot a penny off a rooftop. Most were former military and weren’t scared of shit.

  “Why are you so nervous?” Hannah asked as she took a bite into a croissant. “You know you’ve got this.”

  “It’s different when you’re in another country. People are not the same. My show might bore them.”

  “Yeah, right. Your fan base is thick here, or there wouldn’t be a second show. Judy said you could probably have sold out a third.”

  Judy was my tour manager, and she was bat-shit crazy if she thought I wouldn’t pass out from exhaustion doing shows three nights in a row. As always, I vocalized my thoughts. “Judy must be bat-shit crazy. I’m not hurting myself like that. I’m getting old.”

  “Thirty-three is far from old, Ladonna.”

  “For regular people with regular careers, maybe. But there isn’t a damn thing normal about my life. One week is like one year for most people.”

  Hannah nodded. “You have a point. But imagine how I feel then. I’m in my fifties and time is moving like a TGV train.” She was referring to the high-speed train system in France that went up to more than two hundred miles per hour. “Life is passing me by.”

  I started giggling.

  “What’s so funny?” Hannah asked.

  “I was just remembering the old days. How your place looked when you first brought me there. Hanging out with you and your squad.”

  Hannah laughed as well. “I was pretty eccentric. Richard wasn’t having any of that loud lace and flowery shit once we moved in with him.”

  “Hell to the no, he wasn’t.”

  Shayne still owned her spa and Crispin had moved away to the West Coast but still kept in touch with us.

  “What ever happened to Nigel and that fool Sebastian?”

  Hannah sucked her teeth. “Nigel’s still around and in love with some dude he met online, some dating site. He said Sebastian’s taking a dirt nap.”

  “For real?” I am stunned. “Drugs?”

  “No. Actually, he was in one of the Twin Towers when they came down. He was working for some marketing firm.”

  “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

  Hannah shrugged. “We all have to go sometime.” She sighed. “You never know when life is going to throw you for a loop. Like they say, you don’t beat the grim reaper by living longer. You beat the grim reaper by living better.”

  I chuckled. “Who the hell says that? I’ve never heard that before in my entire life.”

  “Well, someone said it or my ass wouldn’t be able to recite it, baby girl. You know my ass isn’t creative enough to make it up.”

  We both laughed.

  “How are things going with that guy you met?” I asked, referring to a man who Hannah had connected with on the banks of the canal two nights prior. They had been burning up phone lines; I knew that much.

  “They’re going. We’re planning to hook up tonight. I put him and his brother on the list for all-access passes for your show.”

  “Look at you, giving that man perks and things.”

  “Hey, I have to pimp your ass out some way. Backstage passes to your shows are a big fucking deal.”

  “It’s cool. I wanted to meet him anyway. You were all bummed up in the dark the other night. I couldn’t even see what he looked like, on the real.”

  “Paul is definitely a cutie pie. I just hope he doesn’t trip when—”

  “You haven’t told him?” I asked in astonishment.

  “It hasn’t come up.”

  “Hannah, you and I both know that being transgender is not just going to come up. Do you think he could tell when he met you?”

  She shrugged again. “Who knows, but he’ll find out tonight if things go the way I’ve imagined. Time is of the essence. We’re leaving on Tuesday, and he’s leaving on Thursday. If things go well, I might have to stay a couple of extra days and meet you back in New York.”

  “I’m not leaving you behind,” I stated without hesitation. “You left the States with me and you’re going back with me.”

  “I’m grown, Ladonna. Even though you have me spoiled with riding the friendly skies on private jets, my ass is not above riding commercial.”

  I was glad that Hannah had met a man she liked, but I was also very concerned. At fifty-four, she had had her share of both good and bad relationships, like most people. Most men had been accepting of the fact that she had undergone hormone therapy to grow breasts, reshape her hips and waist, and her face was stunning. Always had been, in fact. Some people would stare at her hard enough to figure it out, and even though she was transgender—meaning that she lived her life as a woman and her outer appearance was that of a woman—Hannah still had a penis. It wasn’t that obvious in her clothes, because it was small. I had seen it before. Plus, she tucked it in, according to her. I imagined that to be painful, but it was important to her to live as a female.

  I was concerned, however, because a f
ew years earlier, one guy had not taken the “great reveal” that well. In fact, he had beaten on her in his apartment after they were making out and he reached between her legs. I understood that she wanted to get a fair chance to get to know men before admitting the truth, but I didn’t consider it a good idea.

  “I don’t feel right about this,” I said with honesty. “You just met the guy and we’re over here in another country. Where is he from, anyway?”

  “He’s from Sweden, here on business.”

  “And what kind of business is he in?”

  “He’s an architect. That means he’s good with his hands, if you know what I mean.” She blushed and giggled. “I can’t wait to find out how good.”

  “Don’t get me wrong. I’m excited for you, but please don’t go off with him after my show without me.”

  “What are you going to do, baby girl? Watch the action?”

  “No, of course not,” I replied. “At least promise me that you won’t go anywhere without a bodyguard. People disappear all the time when they’re traveling.”

  Hannah got up and glanced down at the street from the balcony of the 2,700-square-foot suite. “You’re overreacting.”

  “I’m being protective of my best friend.”

  “More like overprotective, but I love you for it.” Hannah came over and kissed me on the forehead. “I love you, Ladonna.”

  “Love you, too.”

  As Hannah walked off to get dressed so we could leave for the sound check at the arena, this eerie feeling washed over me. I couldn’t describe it, but I know what it was all about now.

  * * *