“What is?”
“I could’ve sworn I saw a big present with my name on it in the bottom of your closet.”
Tempest clamped her eyes shut. Damn, damn, damn, he saw it, she thought to herself. “Is that so?”
“Yes. Gold wrapping with African-American angels. Red bow. Sound familiar?”
“Uh—uh—uh—” Tempest stuttered, struggling for a response that wouldn’t come.
“You’re up to something,” Geren proclaimed, wondering why Tempest would go through the trouble of buying him a present and then deny she even had one.
“Who, me?” Tempest asked, still holding out hope that the nightmare would go away.
“Yes, you.” Geren snickered at her. “I can always tell.”
He walked over to Tempest’s walk-in closet, swung the door open, and moved her clothes hamper in the rear of her closet to the side, exposing the gift-wrapped box they both knew was there.
“See, here it is,” he said, carrying it back out of the closet and setting it on the bed.
“So it seems.” Tempest started biting her nails profusely.
Geren waited for Tempest to tell him to open it, but she never did, so he asked, “Mind if I open it? It does say ‘For Geren’ on it, after all.”
“What if I say, Hell no, you can’t open it?” Tempest blurted out.
Geren ignored her, ripped the paper off and opened the box. It was an expensive black leather jacket.
“Aw, thank you, baby!” he said with glee, pulling it out of the box and trying it on. “I guess we’ll both be warm this winter. I still want us to wear our twin jackets out somewhere though.”
Tempest’s eyes fell on the card in the box. She debated about trying to snatch it out and hide it before Geren could see it but knew it was useless. He would see her.
“Geren, there’s something I have to tell you.”
“What’s that, sweetheart?” Before she could answer, Geren spotted the card and picked it up. “Let me read your card. How sweet of you. I must admit I forgot your card, but I’ll get you a special one tomorrow.”
“Geren, please don’t read that!” Tempest pleaded to no avail.
Geren opened the card and read the handwritten inscription out loud. “Baby, here’s a REAL JACKET to replace that ugly-ass, ’flicted-looking one you had on when we were shopping. Please burn that damn thing. Love, Your Boo.”
At first Geren had an expression of hurt on his face. Less than three seconds later, he fell out laughing. Tempest was relieved. In fact, she was so relieved that she laughed, too.
“Come here, you fool!” Geren shouted, pulling her to him and taking off the jacket he’d given to her so she was naked again. “Take off that ugly-ass, ’flicted jacket, as you put it.”
“You’re not mad?”
“A little, but you can make it up to me,” he replied.
“Name it and I’ll do it.” Tempest pushed the leather jacket off him and noticed his dick was hard. She rubbed her belly button up against it and licked a trail from his chest up to his chin. “So how can I make it up to you?”
Geren moaned with delight. He pushed her backward on the bed, tossing the boxes and wrapping paper on the bedroom floor. “I’m sure I’ll think of something.”
• • •
“Where were you last night?” Janessa screamed into the receiver.
“Excuse me?” Dvontè screamed back at her from the other end of the phone line.
“You heard me, Dvontè!” Janessa put down the bottle of nail polish she was using to do her toes and put her feet on the floor, taking them off her bed. “Where were you last night?”
Dvontè blew hard into the phone, trying to keep his cool in front of his guest, who was lying on the bed beside him. “Look, Janessa, don’t even start this shit with me!”
“What shit?”
“Callin’ my place, trying to interrogate me!”
“You were supposed to come to the center last night for the Christmas party. What happened?”
“I never promised you I was coming!”
“Geren was there,” Janessa stated with disdain, trying to make Dvontè feel bad. “He even played Santa Claus and baked homemade cookies!”
“Well, whoop-de-do! Good for him!” Dvontè said sarcastically. “When I’m ready to be domesticated, I will let you know, but don’t hold your breath.”
Janessa decided the bitch-mode attitude wasn’t working well, so she lowered her voice. “There’s no need to be nasty.”
“Then don’t come at me like that, dammit!”
Janessa just wanted some sort of explanation, even though she figured it would more than likely be a straight-up lie. She needed to believe in him. “Just please tell me why you didn’t come.”
“I had something come up,” Dvontè glanced over at the nude figure on the bed. “It’s as simple as that.”
Janessa didn’t respond. She wanted to drill him with twenty questions but figured all she would get was a bang in her ear when he slammed the phone down. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d hung up on her. It was becoming a common occurrence, one she hoped Tempest didn’t find out about. Sometimes Dvontè’s behavior was downright confusing.
Dvontè quickly grew tired of listening to Janessa breathe over the phone. “Look, I have to go, Janessa. I’ll call you later.”
“Can I see you today?” Janessa blurted out.
“I don’t think so. I have other plans.”
“I’m sorry I snapped at you.”
The woman beside him started tugging on his arm, making no bones about the fact that she didn’t appreciate him talking to another woman while she was there. “No problem, but let me holla at you later.”
“Okay,” Janessa reluctantly agreed. “Dvontè?”
“Yes?”
“What about New Year’s? We’re going to spend it together, right?”
Dvontè’s first thought was to say, Hell no. He never wanted to be put on a leash, but he felt one tightening around his neck just the same. He cared for Janessa, and it was scaring the shit out of him. “Yeah, we’ll spend New Year’s together, aiight?”
“Great!” Janessa exclaimed. “Tempest said Geren was taking her to a club down on the waterfront for New Year’s Eve. Can we hang out with them?”
“Whatever you like, okay?” he said in a monotone. “Just set it up with them, and I’m down.”
“Okay, call me later.”
“Okay, later.”
Janessa hung up the phone and lay back on her bed, kicking and giggling; Dvontè had said he would spend New Year’s with her. She convinced herself that Dvontè must’ve really had something important to do the night before. She had wanted to spend Christmas with him, but she would settle for New Year’s.
• • •
“Who in the hell was that?” Melinda or whatever the hell her name was yelled at Dvontè.
“Don’t you start with me!” Dvontè couldn’t believe the nerve of the heifer. She was nothing but a piece of ass, and they both knew it. “I told you last night when I met you that I just wanted to fuck. Don’t trip, or you can get the fuck out!”
She got up off the bed and stomped into the bathroom naked, leaving the door open while she peed. Dvontè thought that was so disgusting. Looking at her now, with the mismatched fake braids and cellulite-infested thighs, he wondered why the hell he’d even brought her home.
“You men are nothing but dogs,” she said, continuing her rampage as she came back out.
“Then what does that make you?” Dvontè asked nastily. “You’re the one who came on to me at the club. You wanted some dick just like I wanted some pussy.”
“Yeah, and it was good dick, too,” she professed.
Dvontè grinned at the comment. She may have been a hoochie, but she knew good dick when she got some. “Glad you liked it.”
Melinda or whatever the hell her name was sat back down on the bed and started rubbing the shaft of Dvontè’s dick. It easily hardened, but not becau
se he thought she was special. It was just habit. “I want some more,” she said, lowering her mouth to the head of his dick.
“Just get dressed, please. I’ll drop you off wherever you want to go,” Dvontè said, pushing her head away. “I’m done with your ass.”
Janessa was looking better and better to him every day. Maybe it was time for him to make a commitment to one woman, although he dreaded the mere thought. Yet and still, after he got rid of the tramp in his bedroom, he planned to call Janessa up and ask if he could go over to her folk’s crib for Christmas dinner.
CHAPTER 17
new year’s eve
“this party is the bomb!” Janessa squealed, shaking her ass to the music at the Zanzibar on the southwest waterfront.
“Damn sure is!” Tempest agreed, admiring the decor. The place was jam-packed for the New Year’s Eve party. “I’m glad Geren and I came. We were about to back out.”
Janessa gave Tempest a love slap on the arm. “Gurl, if you’d pulled a no-show, I would’ve given you a serious beatdown.”
“What’s the big deal?” Tempest asked snidely. “Dvontè’s here with you.”
Janessa smacked her lips. “Yeah, but only because he knew you two were coming.”
“It’s New Year’s Eve. Where else would Dvontè be, if not with you?”
Tempest started running possible realistic answers through her mind, all of them unpleasant. Since the day she’d confronted Janessa in her apartment about Dvontè, she’d refrained from asking anything else, but things obviously weren’t all peaches and cream.
“Oh, he would’ve still been with me,” Janessa stated, trying to save face even though doubts lingered heavily in her mind. “He probably would be at his place getting his eat on instead of hanging at this party.” Tempest didn’t seem impressed, so Janessa added, “I plan to ration his ass a pint of punanny juice later tonight, though.”
“Dang!” Tempest shook her head and rolled her eyes. “You make it sound like homie hangs downtown twenty-five/eight.”
“Sumptin’ like that,” Janessa boasted with pride. “Eating my pussy is definitely Dvontè’s favorite extracurricular activity.”
Tempest tried to visualize Janessa sitting somewhere with her legs spread eagle and Dvontè’s head buried between them for hours on end. The mere thought of it made her stomach turn. “Shame on it all!” she hissed. “That shit can’t be healthy.” She searched the club for Geren, spotting him standing beside Dvontè at the bar. After waiting in line for more than ten minutes, they’d finally gotten around to ordering drinks.
“Shame on you if you’re not sitting on Geren’s face every chance you get!” Janessa snapped back at her.
Tempest was about to take the topic on full force when a sistah with bleached blond hair brushed past her, hit her in the shoulder blade, and almost knocked her down.
Before Tempest could ram a foot up her rude ass in return, she was halfway across the room with two other bleached blond, weave-wearing, fake-contact-sporting hoochies trailing behind her. Only one word came to mind when she looked at them in clothes that were too damn tight: Skank!
Janessa was eyeing them, too. Both Tempest and Janessa’s mouths gaped open when the head hoochie walked up to Dvontè, grabbed him around the neck, and tried to tongue the shit out of him. He quickly pushed her away, but not before he saw the expression on Janessa’s face and realized he was busted.
“What the fuck is up with that?” Janessa screamed at Tempest.
“Don’t look at me,” Tempest replied, shrugging her shoulders and holding her palms face up. “I don’t know the Lil’ Kim triplets.”
Janessa stormed off. “I’ll be right back!”
Tempest debated about going after Janessa, but noticed Geren was already making his way over to her. Apparently, he didn’t want any part of the scene that was inevitably about to go down. He was empty-handed, having left their drinks on the bar beside Dvontè. He slipped his arms around Tempest’s waist and whispered in her ear, “May I have this dance?”
Tempest loved the slow jam pumping from the speakers but didn’t feel like dancing. “Who are those women?” she demanded to know.
Geren tried to play dumb. “What women?”
Tempest pointed over to the bar. “The ones crowded around Dvontè.”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Geren replied sarcastically. “I’m here with you tonight, not with Dvontè.”
“He’s cheating on her, isn’t he?”
Geren kneaded Tempest’s neck with his fingertips. He didn’t want their first New Year’s together to be ruined. “Sweetheart, let Janessa handle her own business.” He pulled Tempest toward the dance floor, and she followed with great reluctance.
Back over at the bar, the head hoochie was busy trying to get into Dvontè’s pants.
“You still coming over tomorrow?” she asked, seductively rubbing her fake nails up and down his biceps. “I want to show you my new bedroom set.”
“Let me holla at you tomorrow, aiight?” Dvontè never took his eyes off Janessa, who was pushing through the crowd twenty feet away and closing in hard.
“Why you tryin’ to diss me, baby?”
“I’m not dissin’ you,” Dvonte stated, lying his ass off.
“Good, because after that bomb-ass blow job I gave you last night, I deserve a fucking medal,” head hoochie boasted.
Her two friends cackled while some other more conservative sistahs standing nearby rolled their eyes in his direction.
He pulled a twenty out of his pocket to pay the bartender waiting patiently on the opposite side of the bar. When he turned back around, Janessa was within striking distance, her arms folded across her chest.
Janessa looked the head hoochie up and down, giving her the once-over. Head hoochie returned the favor. “Dvontè, who is this skeezer?”
“Who the fuck are you?” the head hoochie yelled back, getting all up in Janessa’s grill.
“Dvontè’s woman!” Janessa stated proudly.
“Woman?” head hoochie chuckled. “Well, if he’s your man, he wasn’t last night.”
Janessa unfolded her arms and pushed Dvontè on the chest, ramming his back into the bar. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Yeah, Dvontè.” Head hoochie sucked on her teeth. “What am I talking about?”
Dvontè wanted to smack the shit out of the tramp, but hitting women wasn’t in his nature. He grabbed Janessa’s wrist. “Janessa, let’s go someplace where we can talk.”
“I think I’ve heard quite enough,” Janessa whispered, fighting back tears. “I trusted you. I thought you were different.”
All the hoochies started laughing, while everyone else just gawked and stared. One of the other two, the one with purple contacts, yelled after Janessa as she pushed her way through the crowd to the exit, “Chile, he’s a male hoe just like the rest of them! Cash that reality check, gurlfriend!”
Dvontè told the hoochie, “You need to shut your unbeweavable ass up!” He started after Janessa. “Come here, Janessa! Janessa!”
Tempest and Geren had been watching from the dance floor. They couldn’t hear the argument over the loud music, but the basics were obvious.
“I’m going after her,” Tempest announced, heading for the door.
“Shit,” Geren huffed under his breath. He left the dance floor and caught up to Dvontè, swinging him around by the arm. “You’re fuckin’ up big-time, and messing with my relationship in the process.”
“It’s just a misunderstanding, Geren!” Dvontè proclaimed, trying to look innocent. “I swear!”
“You’re not even fooling me! Tell that bullshit to someone who can’t read you like a book!”
Dvontè waved Geren off. “I need to find Janessa.”
“Let Tempest deal with Janessa.” Geren glanced over at the bar. “You deal with that trash over there permanently.”
Dvontè looked at the head hoochie standing over by the bar, profiling and basking in her glor
y while her trifling-ass friends gulped down the drinks he’d paid for. Damn shame—she’d sucked his dick the night before, and he couldn’t even recall her name.
Geren asked, “We understand each other?”
Dvontè made a fist and pounded it over his own heart. “As always, we’re right here.”
Not lately, Geren thought to himself. “I’ll make sure Janessa gets home safely.”
Dvontè gave Geren a man-to-man hug. “Thanks, man. I appreciate it.”
Geren headed for the exit. He turned around, throwing one last look of disdain in Dvontè’s direction. “Don’t call Janessa anymore. Not until you get your shit together.”
CHAPTER 18
just two black chicks shootin’ the breeze
“i can’t believe they made you pay a quarter for a shopping cart,” Janessa said, shaking her head in dismay. “That woman had the nerve to get nasty with us, at that.”
“Isn’t that ridiculous? As if losing a measly twenty-five cents would deter someone from stealing a cart,” Tempest replied, equally disgusted.
She and Janessa had decided to stop by the Value-Added Supermarket on the way back from the gym because it was less crowded than Giant and Safeway on Saturdays. Janessa had reluctantly agreed to submit herself to another session of cardio-karate, and every muscle in her body was sore. They were both surprised when one of the employees told them they had to deposit a quarter in a slot to get a cart to slide out.
Janessa clucked her tongue and rolled her eyes in the direction of the frog-faced woman who followed them inside. She purposely raised her voice so the woman would hear her. “If peeps want to walk off with a cart, they’re going to do it regardless. I know. I did it once my damn self.”
“Really?” Tempest followed the direction of Janessa’s eyes and glared at the woman. “Is there a problem?”
The woman stopped dead in her tracks, sneered at them, and walked away.
“Yeah, Momma gave me this long-ass grocery list. I wasn’t about to lug all that stuff home on the bus, so I took a cart, strolled home, and got some exercise in, all in one shot.”
“Why didn’t you just call a cab?”