The Last Street Novel

  Let me get the hell out of here. This was a big waste of my time.

  And the rival author left empty handed and spiteful.

  Another Novel

  BY 9:03 PM, Shareef had signed every book and said his final good-byes to the store owners, staff, and the rest of his dedicated fans before Daryl opened the limo door for him to climb back inside.

  “Looks like you had quite a successful book signing tonight, mister,” the woman named Coffee commented. She sat on the left side of the limo, behind the driver’s seat. She was applying a fresh coat of gloss to her lips for extra shine and sex appeal.

  Shareef looked her over and grinned. “Yeah, and I even get to leave with the finest girl in the place. Must be my night.”

  She chuckled and said, “Must be.” Then she asked him, “So…are we headed anywhere in particular?”

  “It’s this place in Times Square that feels like you just left the country and went to Asia. It’s called Ruby Foo’s. Have you ever been there before?”

  “I know where it is, but I’ve never been there.”

  “Well then, tonight is your night.”

  WHEN THEY ARRIVED at the corner of Broadway and 49th Street, Shareef walked Coffee inside Ruby Foo’s restaurant and ordered a table in the back for two.

  He told her, “I want to square away my driver, then I’ll be right back in to join you at the table.”

  “Okay. I’ll be here.”

  He stopped and joked to her. “You mean, none of these rich white guys in here can snatch you away from me while I’m gone?”

  She smiled at him and answered, “Not a chance.”

  “Good. I’ll be right back then.”

  He ran out to meet Daryl at the curb. He dug in his wallet and pulled out a fifty-dollar bill.

  Daryl put his hand up and shook it off. “You know what, I don’t even need that. It’s just been a pleasure driving you today, my friend. So whenever you’re in town again, just call me up on the card I gave you.”

  Shareef told him, “That’s all good and I appreciate the gesture, but you need to take this fifty before I put it back in my wallet. And I’m only gonna ask you once.”

  Daryl started laughing out loud. “Man, you just too real, brother.” He went right ahead and took that fifty-dollar bill, too. He said, “But be safe with that. I mean, I know she fine and everything, but…”

  Shareef cut him off and said, “That’s the only way to be with it. I already know the rules. I got it all covered. I’ma send her right home in a taxi, and it’s all good.”

  The driver nodded. “Okay. If you got it all covered, you got it all covered.” He shook Shareef’s hand and said, “Again brother, it’s been a pleasure all day long.”

  “Same here, man. Now go on and get that book back home to your wife.”

  “Oh, you know that’s right. It’s time for me to go do some book reading together.”

  WHEN SHAREEF JOINED Coffee at their table toward the back of the restaurant, she was just finishing her cell phone call.

  He sat down with her and flirted immediately. “You were just telling your mother that you won’t be making it back home tonight?”

  She laughed and said, “Mr. Crawford, I don’t think I agree with how you’re reading me. Do you do this all the time?”

  “Would you believe me if I said no?”

  She smiled. “I’m just asking to make sure?”

  “Well, while we’re asking each other these questions, what is your real name? That’s first of all.”

  He hadn’t asked her anything personal while inside the limo with Daryl. He wanted to save the detailed interrogation for the restaurant.

  “My name is Cynthia. Cynthia Washington.”

  “And you tell everybody that your name is Coffee?”

  “No, only people who I want to know.”

  “I guess you wanted me to know then.”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  He nodded and asked her, “Do you have a lot of energy left over tonight?”

  She smiled wide and kept her mouth open.

  “Why do you wanna know?”

  He told her, “Game recognize game. I got a lot of energy, too.

  She grinned and kept her thoughts to herself. She couldn’t tell him too much too early. That would ruin the mystique.

  She looked around the restaurant and continued to take it all in. She nodded and said, “You’re right. You walk in this place and forget you’re still in New York. Everything looks so real. And it’s so big in here.”

  He said, “They use every inch of space to make you feel like you’re actually in Asia. That’s why I like this place. It’s like going away without really going away.”

  She nodded. “You get a chance to travel a lot, don’t you?”

  “Not as much as these rappers.”

  She asked him, “Do you envy them?”

  Shareef stopped and thought about it.

  “I think we all do to a degree. I mean, nobody generates attention and income like those guys do. They get twenty G’s just for showing up at a party. I think I can do without the police attention, though. I hear a lot of those guys can’t travel without being harassed.”

  Cynthia grimaced. She said, “You just had nearly two hundred women come out to see you with no sound stage, no bright lights, no entourage, commotion, or security everywhere. I mean, if you ask me, that seems a lot more powerful and gratifying. And they were all paying strict attention to you.”

  “Yeah, but how many brothers were in there? And that guy in camouflage was hatin’. But these rappers, they get the respect from all the brothers.”

  “Oh, so all the brothers still respect Ja Rule? And the hard-core guys still respect Puffy? And the New York guys still love Jay-Z and hate Nelly? I mean, that stuff is all so campy,” she commented. “It’s just like professional wrestling. One week they’re all over Atlanta, and the next week they’re all over Memphis and Houston. That stuff is all high school to me. And then they all try to act like they’re gangstas. They’re not real gangstas. I know real gangstas, and they’re damn sure not thinking about rapping, dancing, or giving concerts.”

  Shareef nodded to her right as their waiter appeared to take their orders.

  “Can I get you anything to drink?”

  They both ordered martinis and told the waiter to return a little later for their food orders.

  When the waiter, a twenty-something white man with dark hair in a ponytail, disappeared, Shareef joked and said, “That part of the restaurant didn’t leave the country. It’s still American in here with the service.” He figured he’d change the subject and make their conversation a little lighter.

  She said, “Well, they couldn’t possible have a huge restaurant like this right in the middle of Times Square without hiring the regular people of New York.”

  “The popular TV shows did it. Seinfeld, Friends, a few others,” Shareef said, naming two long-running television series that seemed to paint New York as lily white.

  “What about the Law and Orders, CSI: New York, and The Closer?” Cynthia commented.

  Shareef smiled. “Yeah, any show dealing with crime, that’s when the blacks and Hispanics show up.”

  However, the woman continued to impress him. She was ready and willing to go point for point with him on every subject.

  “You seem to know a lot for a girl,” he told her.

  She gave him the evil look for that.

  “That sounds very chauvinistic, especially coming from a man who owes his career to the women who read his books.”

  “Yeah, but a lot of those women are only interested in girly issues. That’s why I haven’t written anything else. I know where my audience is. And that audience is very selective in what they want to read about.

  He said, “That answers your question from earlier. But I’m not dumb enough to say it out in public. All that does is piss the audience off. I learned that when I first started my career as a novelist. You keep them happy and they
’ll keep you happy.”

  She said, “But it’s up to you to take them somewhere different. You have to challenge yourself and challenge them.”

  Shareef nodded and took a sip of his water. Their conversation was more philosophical than he expected or desired. He respected the woman’s intellect. He respected her wit from the moment she opened her mouth inside the bookstore. But she was also a sexy woman, and at ten o’clock at night, less than five blocks from his hotel, he wanted to deal with their ideas of each other as a man and a woman on a romantic night, at a romantic restaurant.

  He leaned back in his chair and gave her another good look with his glass in hand.

  “So, ah…what time do you need to be at work tomorrow?”

  She took a sip of her own water and grinned at him over the rim of the glass.

  “Actually, I took off from work tomorrow.” She left her answer at that.

  Shareef nodded to her. That was the kind of answer he wanted to hear.

  “What are you going to do with all this extra time on your hands?” he asked her.

  “Enjoy it. I’m enjoying it now.”

  “How much of this night are you trying to enjoy?”

  She continued to smile at him mischievously.

  “Are you trying to ask me something in particular?”

  He leaned forward with both elbows on the table and said, “Maybe I am. Do you know what I’m trying to ask you?”

  She stared into his dark, intense eyes and answered, “Maybe I do.”

  “Are you offended by it?”

  She shook her head. “Why would I be offended?”

  “Some women are. For some women it’s disrespectful on a first date. But I don’t judge respect off sexuality. A woman should be allowed to express herself like any man. So I try to keep the two separate.”

  “So do I,” she responded.

  He paused and looked into her pretty brown face.

  “So I’m allowed to be frank now.”

  Cynthia paused herself and slowly nodded to him.

  “Yeah, I’m a big girl. Be frank.”

  Shareef asked her, “Are we fucking tonight?” And the man didn’t flinch when he said it, either.

  Cynthia tried her hardest to match his steely demeanor but couldn’t. She started cheesing and hid her face behind her hands, embarrassed that she couldn’t take his forwardness.

  She said, “You know, I had heard about you, but…wow.” She shook her head and tried to look him in the face again. “I mean, I thought I could….”

  She couldn’t get her words together.

  On Shareef’s end, he had planned to sock it to her with bluntness as soon as she got him interested in her at the bookstore. She wasn’t the typical soft-stepping sister. She could take it. So he allowed her a chance to recover from the initial shock before he said anything else.

  “Umm…” She looked down at the table where her menu sat. Then she looked back up into his eyes. “I’m supposed to say yes now, right? Is that how it goes?”

  “You’re supposed to say what you feel,” he told her. “I’m just trying to make sure we don’t get anything twisted.”

  She said, “Well, it’s not twisted. We straight. But…I think you could have used a better choice of words. I mean, you are a writer, right? Be more creative.”

  Shareef shook his head and wouldn’t let her off the hook.

  He said, “Nah. Understand me for a minute. There are certain kinds of women a guy may feel soft emotions for, and other women where the emotions are stronger. You follow me?”

  Cynthia smiled and was speechless. She wanted to hear more, and he gave her more.

  He said, “Perfect example are them two white girls; Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie. I probably wouldn’t even deal with Jennifer Aniston. She seem soft, boring, and like it would take all night to nut. But Angelina Jolie? Shit, a guy might fuck around and nut just from looking at her too long. So at the end of the day, I can’t blame Brad Pitt for leaving. They didn’t have any kids, and he got tired of making love. He wanted to fuck. So he broke off from Jennifer and got with Angelina. And then he got her pregnant immediately. So that tells you how strong he was feeling about that nut.”

  The woman was so floored by his bodacious logic that she couldn’t speak. She couldn’t even move. She just sat there grinning.

  Shareef told her, “So don’t get it confused. Like I said, I still respect you. You’re a smart woman. But if we’re talking about sex, then it is what it is, and you gon’ have to take it how I give it to you.”

  He said, “You’re a sexy grown woman. You don’t have that little girl vibe no more. So I’m not changing my words. I meant that shit.”

  Cynthia sat there, stunned into silence, wondering what she had gotten herself into. She opened her mouth and whimpered, “Okay.” And that was it. She would lay down and submit to him.

  Shareef leaned back in his chair again and was satisfied. He said, “I’m glad we understand each other.” Then he looked around for their waiter. “Now where is this guy at? He should have returned with our drinks and taken our food orders by now.”

  But Cynthia was no longer thinking about the food and drink. She was thinking about his dick, how long it was, how hard, and how strong was his stroke?

  AT SEVENTEEN MINUTES after midnight, up on the twenty-second floor, inside the Author’s Suite at the Sheraton, Shareef showed the sexy young woman what he meant by fucking. He locked her legs back and over his arms and shoulders while he bulldozed into her sweet spot, enjoying her squeals.

  “Uunnhhh! Uunnhhh! Oohh! Oohh! Oooohhh!”

  She had no idea the man would give it to her that strongly. Her plan was to romance him, take him to bed, sex him good, get what she could get out of it, and make a strong pitch to him for a new book idea. But Shareef had flipped the script and showed her that he was much more than a mental specimen. He was physical. Extremely physical. And he wanted to prove it to her.

  To lessen the impact, she tried in vain to steady his strokes with the force of her arms and hands against his chest. But with his ramrod posture and muscle mass, even her strongest push was like trying to move an elephant. Then she felt herself arriving at full climax and lost it. She tried to scratch his back to help him share in the pain and pleasure that he was giving her. Shareef, however, could not allow the scratches. So he grabbed her hands in his, aware that she was coming, and he allowed himself to settle into her spot until she had released the glory, torture, and toil of heaven, hell, and earth.

  When she came, the nut was stronger than words could explain. Only images could explain the bliss she felt. There were flurries of inch-long snowflakes that fell from the hotel ceiling and landed on Cynthia’s face, sizzling into perspiration on contact, creating a sheet of soothing sweat that ran into the pillows under her head. And just when she thought it was over, Shareef amassed a second nut inside of her. And then a third.

  What the fuck is he on? she asked herself. This writer was turning her out like some new drug that was too addictive to sell to the public. It was for private use only, and at each woman’s personal risk. He had taken her to cloud nine and then tripled it to cloud twenty-seven. And the only space shuttle strong enough to bring the sex-induced woman back to planet earth was Shareef’s own nut.

  He dropped her legs to the bed and pulled their bodies together to tighten their senses, like a human vise, while the burn built up inside of him and released itself through his holy extension. Then he let her know about it.

  “Ooh, shit, this pussy, this pussy,” he mumbled into her ear as his seed squirted and squeezed and jerked out of him.

  Overwhelmingly pleased with his performance, Cynthia calmed herself and spoke back.

  “Was it good, baby? Did you like it?”

  In his response, Shareef chuckled, with his full naked body trembling against hers on the comfortable, king-sized bed.

  “Did I like it?” he asked rhetorically. He pushed his lips into her right ear and sa
id, “I loved it. I love fuckin’. You hear me. I said, I love fuckin’.”

  Cynthia laughed in between her breaths. She had no idea how raw he would be. But she was pleased with him, very pleased, and she wouldn’t mind fucking him again. All he had to do was ask her for it.

  Instead of lighting up and sharing a cigarette, which he never smoked, Shareef turned over on his back and freed his mind.

  He said, “Women have no idea how strong pussy is to a man. Without pussy, I don’t know what else we would live for.”

  Cynthia shook her head, her cheekbones sore from her continuous grinning. The man was just too much for her conscience.

  She said, “Um, how many other women know how…I mean…” she couldn’t seem to get her words right.

  Shareef cut her off and said, “Look, I am what I am. So if you’re asking me how many women can handle my candor, I’ll have to say just the ones who feel me like that. If they can’t handle it they move on.”

  She continued to shake her head. She said, “I’m just thinking about your average fan.”

  He caught her gist and said, “You have to keep those two worlds separate. And your key word is ‘average.’ You can’t invite the average fan into your world, only those who can take it. You feel me? Otherwise, you’ll fuck around and get yourself in trouble.”

  She understood that much. A woman who read the wrong game could holler foul play and blow an embarrassing bullhorn on a man’s personal life. So a player had to choose correctly.

  She looked into his serious mug and said, “You’re a lot more complicated then what I expected.”

  He looked back at her. “What did you expect?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. I guess I thought you would be more of a tight ass. I mean…I just didn’t expect to have this much fun with you.”

  He smiled and looked away. “Yeah, everybody expects me to be like that. And sometimes I am. It all depends on how you rub me. But if I’m just being me…” He looked into her face again and added, “Then it’s all good.”

  Hearing that, Cynthia leaned up on her elbows and gave him her undivided attention. It was time to get back to business.