All Or Nothing (13 page)

From that point on, Shantell was putty in Mike’s hands. He was inside her head, dominating her every thought. She had visions of being with him. To her, he was the one.

Sitting by the water’s edge, Shantell was deep in thought. The only thing breaking the silence was the light splashing of water. Meanwhile, Mike Boogie was growing steadily impatient. Slyly he glanced down at his watch; it would be morning soon. He felt now was the time to make his move.

“Shantell I ain’t even going to lie to you.” he stated. “I’m crazy attracted to you.”

Mike put his arms around her, pulling her close. Then he seductively whispered in her ear.

“You so fuckin’ fine, I just want to taste you.”

Mike had played his cards right all night. He knew that

no woman in her right mind would resist the chance to receive oral sex, and not have to give up anything.

Shantell bit her lip seductively; Mike’s offer was definitely inviting. There was no doubt that she was attracted to him. But at this point, Shantell felt like she owed him. She didn’t want to turn him down. In her mind, it was only right to let him do it. Besides that this was going to be sexually gratifying to her.

“All you wanna do is eat it, right?”

“Dat’s all I wanna do, Ma,” Mike replied. “Make you feel good.”

Mike wasn’t in the habit of giving strippers oral sex, but he wanted Shantell so bad, he’d say anything to get in her pants.

Leading her back to his truck, Mike held Shantell’s hand as they stepped on the loose gravel that surrounded the fountain and made their way to the parking lot. As soon as they reached the car, they climbed into the back seat. That’s when Mike went to work.

Quickly, he unfastened her skin tight jeans. Shantell lifted herself off the seat so he could pull her pants down to her ankles. Once that was done he dived right in.

Once on his knees, Mike buried his head between her legs. There, he was greeted by the fresh scent of a clean vagina. With two fingers, on each hand, he opened her vagina and began to hungrily bite, lick, and suck on her clitoris.

Cries of passion escaped from Shantell’s lips as she came closer and closer to a climax. The windows began to fog up from all the heat these two generated. During the heat of the moment, Mike stopped giving her oral sex. Smoothly he unzipped his pants and inserted in penis inside Shantell. Despite the fact that they were having unprotected sex, Shantell went with the program. It was just as good for her as it was for him.

The young vagina seemed to grab at Mike’s penis with each thrust from his hips. Mike was getting more than he bargained for. It was hard for him to keep from climaxing. He had to block the actual act of sex from his mind. He replaced it with thoughts of the police, of all things. He began to look around for them because if he got caught having sex in his car in

these white people’s neighborhood, then they were going to jail, for sure.

Mike had a hell of a time focusing on sex and keeping an eye open for the police. In his mind, he was putting it on Shantell but she was giving him the business, too. Unable to take it anymore, Shantell violently climaxed. Just before Mike came he pulled out, ejaculating somewhere on the floor.

It was then that Mike came to his senses. He began to worry about all the damage they had done to the interior of his new car. He promised himself to get it thoroughly detailed tomorrow.

This was their very first sexual encounter, but one wouldn’t know it by the way they just went at it. It left them both fulfilled yet yearning for more. Their sexual response and performance assured that Mike and Shantell would see each other again.

“Yo, hurry up and get yourself together,” Mike insisted. “Let’s get the fuck up outta here ’fore the police come.”

“You droppin’ me off, right?” Shantell asked.

“Yeah. What am I’m supposed to do, leave you here?” Mike shook his head. “Yo, I don’t know what type of niggers you been dealin’ with, but I ain’t foul like that.”

The minute she uttered the words, Shantell regretted it. To her, getting dropped off wasn’t a given. She had sex with plenty of guys who, when they were done, went about their business. Getting treated well by a man was something Shantell wasn’t used to. Soon, all of that would change.

“Yo, what you doin’ tomorrow?” Mike asked.

“Probably, sleep till the afternoon. Then I’m going and picking up my daughter from the babysitter.”

“Aiight, look. After you get up, call me. I’ll take you to go get your daughter, then we’ll go shoppin’ at Concord Mills Mall.”

That sounded like a plan to Shantell. She was going to definitely do that. If Mike wanted to look out for her, then she

was going to let him. Financially, she was in no position to turn anything down.

Must Be Nice

“With the fifth pick in the draft, the Charlotte Bobcats select Ronald Wright from Duke University.” the NBA commissioner announced.

The cameras quickly panned to the draftee’s table. There a tall, clean-cut, African American male in an expensive Italian suit, stood up. He hugged and kissed his mom and dad before he elegantly walked up on the stage. He donned his team’s cap, shook Commissioner Stern’s hand, and poised for pictures. On the big screen, his collegiate highlights played for a group of basketball fans.

Veteran NBA announcers sung the young’s man’s praise. ”Good, solid pick, one said. ”Here’s a young man who doesn’t have any questionable character issues surrounding him. It’s highly unlikely that he’ll do anything to embarrass himself, his family or his organization.”

“I agree with you on that, Charles,” another announcer spoke. “But besides all that, the kid is a beast. He can score at will. To me, he’s in the same class as the Carmelo Anthony’s, the Kobe Bryant’s, The Dwayne Wades and the Lebron James’s of the league. Meaning, this kid is an impact player.”

At 6’6”, 230 lbs., Ronald Wright was labeled a “can’t miss” prospect. His sophomore season in the Atlantic Coast Conference, he averaged 24.5 points per game and 4.7 assists per game while grabbing 6.3 rebounds per game. On his way to winning Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year honors as

well as National Player of the Year honors, he led the Blue Devils to another national championship.

This was a player who could play three positions: point guard, shooting guard and small forward. Ronald was a multitalented kid who could take over all facets of the game. Coming out of a winning program like Duke only made him that much more attractive to NBA franchises. Some felt he was the best player and purest athlete in the draft.

At the pre-draft camp in Portsmouth, Virginia and in personal workouts, Ronald Wright had left a strong impression on the NBA scouts and general mangers. They raved over his court awareness and the poise he possessed for such a young player.

The only reason he didn’t go higher in the draft was because it was loaded with foreign players and big men. These were the two hottest commodities. Unfortunately for Ronald Wright, he was neither. To NBA scouts, foreign-born NBA players came into the league more polished than their American counterparts. True centers and power forwards were thought to be rare. In the NBA, some ideologies die hard. It was said,” You can’t teach height.”

Ronald Wright was a rare player: he was a suburb kid with an inner-city street game. He would make the five other NBA teams that passed on his services, one day regret it. This young man had the hopes of the entire city of Charlotte on his young shoulders. From day one, he was hailed as a savior.

The Bobcat Arena is beautiful, nineteen thousand-seat, state-of-the-art arena, owned by African American billionaire Bob Johnson and part owner Michael Jordan. The team is in its third year of existence. For the city of Charlotte, this is its second NBA team. Their first team, the Charlotte Hornets, moved from the city and had been led by an unscrupulous owner, George Shinn. Embarrassed by one of its own, the NBA rectified the situation by awarding the people of Charlotte an expansion team a few years later.

There were high expectations for the Bobcats in year three. They had drafted well in the recent years, acquiring good young talent like point guard Raymond Felton, power forwards Emeka Okafor and Sean May. Now, with the addition of Ronald Wright, on paper, the future looked bright.

Success on the collegiate level didn’t go to Ronald Wright’s head. Immediately after the draft he hired a personal trainer, a chef, and embarked on a serious workout program. He wanted to gain the edge on the competition. Ronald knew that his God-given talents were nothing without the gift, but his gift was nothing without hard work.

Going from college to the pros was huge adjustment for any athlete. There were things happening around the league that college just didn’t prepare one for, like dealing with large sums of money and gold-digging women. Dorothy Wright was familiar with the horror stories. To keep the wolves at bay, she decided to move with her son to Charlotte, to watch over him like she always had. She was an overbearing mom who had never severed the umbilical cord. No matter how old Ronald got or how many millions he made, he would always be her baby.

Dorothy Wright was a college-educated professional who worked as a principal in a small town in Connecticut. She knew the value of a good education and money. That’s why she pressured her son into accepting an athletic scholarship to Duke University. Though she was dead set against her son leaving school after his sophomore year, she looked at his entrance into the draft as a career move. She made Ronald sign a contract promising to return to school and get his degree, sometime in the near future.

Absent from Ronald Wright’s circle were the large entourages that usually accompanied NBA players. Another thing one wouldn’t associate with Ronald Wright was bling bling, especially large platinum chains with diamond-encrusted pendants. His mother kept him free from all of that non-sense. As far as Dorothy was concerned, her son was a commodity. It was

her job to capitalize off his clean, wholesome image. She had an image to sell to corporate America. This was a business, and she was going to treat it as such.

“Yeah, I knew it. I knew the Bobcats were gonna pick this nigger,” Mike happily said. “Money got a serious game.”

From the comforts of Shantell’s living room, Mike intently watched the draft. Though Mike was a die-hard New York Knicks fan, secretly he had adopted the Charlotte Bobcats as his new favorite team, what with the Knicks organization in turmoil.

It was then that Shantell’s eyes were drawn to the television. She looked up at the tall young man on the television with the pearly white, mega watt smile, and had to admit he was strikingly handsome.

“So this is the next Michael Jordan, huh?”

Shantell wasn’t a big sports fan, but she knew a little something about basketball, from her brother. Quietly she would be glad when the NBA a draft was over. It was cutting into her television time. In a few minutes, reruns of her favorite program, Flavor of Love, would be on. Ever though she saw it Sunday, she wanted to see it again.

But as long as the NBA draft was on, it wasn’t in her immediate future. Mike was glued to the television, like every real basketball fan. To them, the draft was special, no matter how bad your team was doing; after the draft, one believed that they would do better. No matter that these kids were drafted on potential and they hadn’t done a thing in the league yet; that didn’t mean a thing.

All this meant to Shantell was that her best television, the high-definition big screen TV was temporarily on lock down. Her daughter was watching cartoons on the other TV in her room. Shantell could live with that, since it was Mike who bought the television in the first place.

Since meeting Mike, Shantell’s fortunes had changed. Things just kept getting better and better for her. She had gone from virtually struggling to doing good, all thanks to Mike’s presence. Once he really got to know Shantell, he made his intentions clear. He explained to her his situation, meaning he had a girlfriend and he wasn’t leaving her. He told Shantell, ‘You know about her, but she doesn’t know about you.’ Shantell knew she couldn’t really be seen in public with Mike, but in exchange for her accepting his situation, he would take care of her financially. Of course, all this was provided that she kept him satisfied sexually.

The fact that she had a mouth to feed weighed heavily on Shantell’s decision to accept his indecent proposal. Quickly she learned that she would have to do more than bed Mike to earn her keep. And she learned exactly how Mike made a living.

Mike was the leader of a large-scale drug operation. He used Shantell’s home as a stash house. Mike had moved her out of her old neighborhood and tucked her in a nice, gated apartment complex in the university area of Charlotte. In exchange for her turning a blind eye to his drug activities, Mike took care of her and the baby.

Their relationship was far from perfect. Mike was promiscuous and Shantell was needy. She not only needed money, but more importantly, she needed time and Mike’s undivided attention, something she would never get. Shantell came into the situation understanding her position, but as the relationship progressed, she wanted to change the game.

Getting It Together

God grant me the strength to accept the things I cannot change, and the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference, Brenda mentally recited the Serenity Prayer.

For the first time in a long time, Brenda Bryant was at peace. She had broken the heavy shackles of dependency that cocaine had placed upon her. After being sentenced to six months in the county jail, of which she served about ninety days, Brenda was court ordered to a drug rehab facility somewhere in the mountains of North Carolina. This distraction-free environment was the perfect place for her to detox.

Unlike a lot of other users, Brenda didn’t enter the drug program in an attempt to beat the system. This wasn’t an getoutof –jail-free pass to her. She needed help and more importantly, she wanted it. For her, this was the first step in her long road to recovery. This was a step in the right direction for Brenda.