Dangerously In Love (12 page)

Chanelle shrugged.

“Italians. The dude you’re gonna go see—Mike, right? He’s Italian. And he likes his women skinny like me, but he likes ’em light-skinned. You don’t fit the mold, baby. That’s probably why his sidekicks sent you trotting outta there. Shit, if you were high yella, they would have hired you right on the spot—wouldn’t have needed Mike’s approval.” Hershey tapped her finger on the steering wheel. “Go ahead in there.” She nodded toward Silky & Sweet. “If shit doesn’t work out, you have my card. Give me a call, but you’re gonna have to reevaluate your sexual hang-ups.”

Chanelle squirmed against the plush leather upholstery. “I don’t have sexual hang-ups; I just don’t think I need to be a prostitute in order to survive.”

“Okay. Then, let me back up and rephrase my statement.” She turned and leaned in close, looking Chanelle straight in the eye. Hershey’s piercing look made it difficult for Chanelle to maintain her gaze. “You think it’s cool to let muthafuckers dry fuck you for a couple of dollars?”

Chanelle opened her mouth to protest, but Hershey held up a hand. “Let me finish. In my business, dude busts inside a rubber; in your world he leaves cum stains on your ass. So, tell me…what’s the difference?”

Chanelle grimaced. “Eew. Cum stains. That’s gross!”

“Girl, stop frontin’; you know I’m telling the truth. Those muthafuckers that pay for a lap dance be tryin’ their best to bust a nut before the song ends and you know damn well lots of them have succeeded. So tell me how you feel when you get up and feel that nasty shit smeared all over your ass?”

Chanelle took a deep breath. “Furious,” she admitted.

“I bet you demand extra money from those trifling perverts, don’t you?”

“Damn right.”

“Well, you can prettify it any way you want, but a ho is a ho. I pay top dollar, depending on the gig. You don’t have to work on a schedule, you work when you want to. Oh! And you ain’t gotta worry about none of my customers asking for a white girl or a light-skinned chick. If you checked out my card, it’s pretty clear that Hershey’s Smooches come in all shades of chocolate. If they got a taste for something else, then they gotta take their business somewhere else. And girl…you’d be amazed at how many rich muthafuckers got an addiction to chocolate.”

The way she’d been scrambling around for over a week trying to get a job was maddening and nothing had materialized. Hershey’s offer was starting to sound appealing. Chanelle’s head popped up. Squinting suspiciously, she asked, “So, why’d you roll up on me back there? What do you do—prowl around waiting for girls to come out of the club?”

Hershey chuckled. “No, baby. I don’t have to make those types of moves. You should see how the chicks start strutting and prancing around when I roll up in the clubs. They all know I pay my girls top dollar and I only select the best. I was gonna slip in before Philly’s opened and find out if they’d broke down and hired any brown-skin dime pieces. Then I saw you struggling with your bag and was spared the trouble of having to drive around to search for a place to park. Parking’s a bitch in this area.”

Hershey pushed the gear into drive. “You still gonna pay Mike a visit?”

“I don’t think so,” Chanelle said, shaking her head. “So what can I expect to make if I work for you?”

“Depends on how often you’re willing to work. You can make a couple stacks a week or even more if you want to. I have this one chick who works a couple gigs a night, five days a week. No lie, she’s pulling in about ten stacks.”

“Ten thousand dollars a week!” Chanelle couldn’t believe it.

“Uh-huh. But she’s a greedy bitch. I call her the Terminator ’cause she don’t nevah wanna quit. She’d work seven days if I let her, but I keep her ass in check. I can’t have sis making so much money she thinks she can compete with my lifestyle. Oh, hell no,” Hershey said, laughing. “So look, give me a call when you’re ready to start and I can have you working immediately. Cool?”

Chanelle nodded, reluctantly opened the door, and got out. Standing back outside in the blazing heat, she watched the silver chariot rip through a yellow light and roar away from the congested red-light district.

R
eed arrived home in a good mood and feeling confident he could persuade Dayna to reconsider seeing a divorce attorney. He proudly held a stunning display of orange and red flowers purchased from an outdoor vendor. The flowers were attractively wrapped in cellophane and tied with a big red bow.

He was mildly troubled that the lights were out and the house was quiet. Dayna always kept at least one light on. But when he thought about the way she’d been flipping lately, nothing she did surprised him.

She was probably on the rag. Every month like clockwork when her period came on, she started acting like a nut. Reed believed that being the emotional female his wife tended to be, Dayna irrationally blamed him for her inability to conceive.

Shrugging off his irritation, Reed clicked on the light in the living room and broke the silence as he raced up the stairs cheerfully calling his wife’s name. She didn’t answer. He was irked anew, but instantly placed a practiced smile on his face when he reached the top of the winding stairs.

Her silence indicated that she unwilling to communicate, but he knew he could disarm her with the flowers. And as she began to melt, he’d kiss her, cuddle…hell, if it turned out that she wasn’t on the rag, he’d fuck her if necessary. And while he was putting his thing down, he’d be sure to remind her of the beautiful baby they were conceiving at that very moment.

Reed couldn’t suppress the sarcastic smile tugging at his lips. The hell with the flowers, he could have saved his money. Just pretending that he wanted to make a baby would be enough to solidify the marriage and halt any further mention of the word,
divorce
.

He supposed he’d just have to start making an effort to treat his wife better; he’d have to pretend that he was interested in helping her put together a nursery for the little rug rat in the spare middle bedroom—the one she’d already painted a sickening bright yellow. Yeah, he was going to have to start some major sweet talking because aside from his personal financial problems, he liked his life and did not want it disrupted.

Not right now, anyway. Dayna sure had some fuckedup timing.

Their bedroom door was closed. Did his wife really have the audacity to lock him out? The lips that had been formed into a smile now twisted into a smirk. Damn, she was working his nerves. It was late, he was tired, and he didn’t feel like smashing down a door, but that’s exactly what he was prepared to do if he had to.

Making heavy steps toward the closed door, he wondered if she really thought the flimsy lock would keep him out of his own bedroom. Expecting resistance, he gave the doorknob a hard twist. To his surprise, it opened easily.

Reed’s eyes wandered the room, his mouth gaped open in shock. The bedroom was in shambles. Clothes hangers, shoes, and piles of Dayna’s clothing were scattered around the bedroom. Empty shoe boxes and lids were strewn about and carelessly tossed on the floor. Dayna’s winter wardrobe had been dumped from giant plastic containers and was piled on top of the bed. Dresser drawers were left ajar with the contents spilling out and hanging over the sides.

He stamped over to his side of the closet, which he kept meticulously organized. He yanked open the door. His closet was in complete disarray, which made Reed livid. His neatly arranged shoes were haphazardly replaced on the shoe rack with mismatched shoes paired together. The mere sight of that atrocity made him want to hurt Dayna. His shirts and slacks, fresh from the dry cleaners, hung sloppily from hangers or had fallen off and lay in a crumpled mess on the closet floor.

Dayna’s crazy ass must have gone on some kind of wild rampage, but she was really lucky she wasn’t within reach because after slapping the shit out of her for desecrating his personal items, he would’ve shown her what a rampage was really all about.

Breathing hard, Reed stormed out of the room. Though he still carried the flowers, he did not handle them gently. His hands tightly clutched the delicate paper that was wrapped around the stems, giving them the death grip he envisioned putting around Dayna’s neck.

He opened the door of the middle bedroom, clicked on the light, and was damn near blinded by the brightly painted yellow walls. Dayna wasn’t in there. Flicking off the light in disgust, he took long angry strides to the bedroom at the end of the hall. He tried the doorknob. The fucker was locked. Incensed, Reed clenched his teeth.

“Dayna!” he shouted. “If you don’t open this damn door, I’m gonna rip it off the fuckin’ hinges.”

There was no response.

“Open this fucking door,” he bellowed. Then, needing an outlet for his rage, he kicked the door, but the hinges remained intact and Dayna remained silent.

Reed took a few steps back and then slammed against the door with his shoulder the way they do on TV. Momentarily paralyzed by shooting pain that emanated from his shoulder down to his fingertips, Reed dropped the flowers, fell against the wall, and groaned in anguish. It felt like he had dislocated his shoulder.

When the pain finally subsided, he felt around his shoulder, squeezed it a couple of times and determined that it wasn’t dislocated.

“Dayna!” he yelled. Not a sound came from the room. Infuriated by her stubborn and continued silence, Reed picked up the bouquet and began beating the flowers against the door. The floral arrangement was a weak and ineffective weapon. Multi-colored petals and leaves flew up in the air, swirled around, and then floated down, coating Reed’s head and shoulders like giant-sized confetti. At the end of the tantrum, he shook off the petals and leaves and stomped back to his bedroom.

He glared at the bed, and then shoved the shoe boxes and some of the clothing off. But after assessing the total wreckage, Reed knew there was no way he could sleep in that trashed room.

He yanked the blanket off the bed, snatched a pillow, and trudged downstairs. Squirming restlessly for what seemed like hours, Reed tried his best to find a comfortable position on the sofa.

Groggy and disoriented from the sleeping pill she’d taken the night before, it took a few seconds for Dayna to figure out where she was. She sat up and looked around.
Ah, the guest room!
As comprehension washed over her, she was relieved to see that the dresser she’d used as a barricade to keep Reed out of the room was still in place at the door.

Knowing Reed as she did, she was certain he’d tried to break down the guest room door to get to her and start an argument that would last until the wee hours of the morning. Luckily, she’d been able to sleep through whatever hysterical reaction he’d had to their ransacked room and her departure from the marital bed.

Padding down the hall to take a shower, Dayna stopped and gave a reflexive jerk as she unexpectedly stumbled upon a ravaged flower bouquet. Reed, she surmised, had taken out his rage on innocent plant life. That knowledge gave her an uneasy feeling. With a slight shiver, she stepped over and around the slaughtered stems, petals, and leaves.

Shaking her head, she hurried to the bathroom to quickly shower before Reed woke up. The mere sight of him nauseated her now and if that weren’t bad enough, to be harassed into listening to his warped sense of reasoning was a bit much for six o’clock in the morning.

Dayna shortened her typical fifteen-minute shower to five minutes, wrapped herself in a towel, and rushed back to the guest room to get dressed for work. She halted her steps at the doorway and shrieked in astonishment. Wearing boxers and a T-shirt, Reed lounged on the guest-room bed with his head propped up with pillows. He looked like a vile apparition and she was so startled, her first impulse was to turn around and run back to the bathroom and lock herself in. But she resisted the impulse and stepped inside the room.

“Did you sleep well?” he asked sarcastically. His bloodshot eyes held her in a smoldering gaze.

With just a towel covering her naked body and not knowing what retaliatory measures Reed had in mind, Dayna felt defenseless. “As well as can be expected,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady.

“I didn’t sleep a wink,” he said bitterly.

Dayna covered herself with a robe and tied the sash. Feeling less vulnerable, she threw him a thin smile and said, “Maybe you’ll find it easier to get some rest if you move into your own place.”

“My own place?” he said with mirthless laughter. “I’m straight; I’m not moving anywhere. But if you’re so unhappy with our situation, then you know what to do…
you
move the fuck out.”

Dayna sat at the foot of the bed and applied lotion to her legs. She looked back at Reed. “I’d move in a heartbeat if I thought you could handle the mortgage and not ruin my credit. We both know who carries this household, but if you’ve forgotten, let me remind you that I pay all the bills around here.”

“You pay all the bills because you want to. Isn’t that what fat, dumb bitches do?”

The blow from the sucker punch Reed had just landed hit Dayna hard. She flinched and then quickly regained her composure. “I have to get dressed. Would you please give me some privacy.”

“I’m not giving you shit. You think you’re running things now, so why don’t you put me out?”

Dayna briefly considered provoking Reed into a physical altercation. A visible scar was a surefire way to have him ejected from their home. She winced, however, as she imagined being punched so hard that her face ended up discolored and bruised.

Then, she had a quick flash of herself with a blackened eye that was encrusted and swollen shut. No, that was definitely not the route she wanted to take. Imagining herself summoning the police to resolve the situation was a reverie too mortifying to even toy with.

Her best bet would be to consult her father and tell him the truth about her dreadful marriage; he’d give her sound advice. Despite Reed’s intimidating presence, Dayna was somewhat calmed by the knowledge that her father would soon rectify the distasteful situation. She breathed deeply in hopes of achieving a state of complete tranquility.

After plugging in her lighted makeup mirror, Dayna slowly began her makeup ritual. She smoothed on moisturizer, patted on foundation, dabbed a touch of concealer under her eyes.

She tried to block Reed from her mind, though it was difficult with his sullen image reflected in the mirror. Searching for mascara, she emptied her makeup bag. Caught up in the process of applying mascara to her lashes, she managed to briefly forget Reed even existed.

He slid off the bed.
Oh good; he’s leaving
. But instead of leaving, Reed sauntered across the room, drew back his hand, and in one fell swoop, he knocked every item of makeup off the dresser.

Dayna emitted a yelp of disbelief.

Reed smirked, looked down at the mess he’d made, nodded his head with hateful satisfaction, and then exited the guest room.