Guilty Gucci (4 page)
Authors: Ashley Antoinette
“I’m waiting for my boyfriend,” she corrected. “We had a fight. I needed to clear my head... .”
“You’re good. I didn’t mean nothing by it. You just look like you could use some help. I just assumed ...” the guy offered.
“Well you know what they say about making assumptions!” she shot back. “And even if I needed help, I don’t even know you and you don’t know one thing about me,” she said.
“You’re right ... I’m Corey Banker ... My friends call me Banks,” he introduced.
“So we’re friends?” she asked with a slight smirk.
“Not yet, but I’m hoping we could be. Even with your eyes all puffy and your makeup a mess you still kinda fly,” he admitted with a laugh.
She had to laugh too and as she exhaled she had to admit that the laughter felt good. He had definitely lifted her spirits even if it was only for a fleeting moment.
“So what’s up ... you got a number where I can reach you?” he asked.
“Not really. My situation is complicated right now. I’m with somebody and besides I don’t mess with dope boys,” she said. “I’m a lady. I’m not impressed by your chain and your flashy old-school whip. I prefer my men more seasoned.” She was teasing lightly but behind the fun and games she was serious. Faugner had spoiled her and she was used to living the champagne life. There was nothing that this young boy could do for her with his beer money.
“Oh now who is the one making assumptions? Huh? What, you like old men or something?” he asked. He knew plenty of chicks who played in the league of sugar daddies. The nasty old-head niggas was making it hard on young’uns like himself who were hoping to score a date with one of the city’s pretty young things. These new-school divas didn’t respect anything but money and that was something that Banks didn’t have at the moment. A young man on a football scholarship at Morgan State, he only had ambition to offer. He wanted a chick who could jump on board and help him bring his dream into reality, not one who wanted to benefit off of his hard work after every brick was laid and cemented. Banks wanted a Bonnie to his Clyde, a woman who could see that it got greater later and one who was willing to put in some work to help build a lucrative future.
“No, not old men, just old money,” Chanel said, confirming his suspicions.
At that moment Faugner walked up to the table and cleared his throat, interrupting their conversation. His appearance was scruffy as if he had gone through hell just to get there and there were red scratch marks on his face and neck.
“You came?” she said in shock as Faugner eyed the young man before him.
“Of course I came.”
“Umm ... Faugner, this is ... Banks. He paid the bill for me. He was just leaving,” she explained.
Banks stood up and reached out his hand but Faugner simply looked at it.
“Let’s go, Chanel,” he said sternly as he walked toward the exit. Chanel hesitated.
“So that’s your name,” Banks said.
“Yeah,” she answered with a smile. For some reason she didn’t want to leave because she knew that their paths wouldn’t cross anytime soon. “Hey, thanks for everything.”
“Yeah, I’ll be seeing you around. My money won’t be young forever. It’ll grow up one day,” he said with a wink.
She smiled and left him standing where he stood, intrigued by her essence.
“Who is he?” Faugner asked.
“Oh? You can speak now? But earlier when my mother was dragging me out of her house you didn’t have anything to say? How could you?” she asked as she turned toward him entering the front seat of his luxury car.
“She’s threatening to kill my career, Chanel. You wouldn’t understand,” he shouted. He had never raised his voice at her or spoken down to her before. The fact that he felt that she couldn’t relate stung.
“Why? I’m young not dumb!” she argued. “You hung me out to dry! I’ve been out here all day and all night without a dime. I have nowhere to go!” Her anger dissipated into sadness as the weight of her dilemma caused her shoulders to sag forward. Wrecked with sobs she poured out her soul to him. “I can’t do this anymore, Faugner. You have to leave her. I love you and I want you to choose.”
Faugner sighed. He had forgotten how fragile a young girl’s heart could be. He had enjoyed the immaturity of her body. With Chanel he was the best lover she knew because she hadn’t experienced many before him. That was to his advantage and now as he sat listening to the rawness of her pain he realized that his was the disadvantage of it all. The young girl had invested everything into him. In him she saw her hopes and dreams, her future ... but in her Faugner only saw the present. Their affection for one another was unbalanced. She loved him more and everybody knows that the one who loves the most always loses. It was true that Faugner did care for Chanel. He would even go so far as to say that he loved her, but he was a realist, also. Their relationship could never become public knowledge. There would be no long strolls through the park or movie dates after dark. They would always be confined within the four walls of some hotel room and no matter how expensive the sheets were, it would never be what Chanel deserved. He couldn’t love her openly or freely because his colleagues would never understand. Unbeknownst to everyone else, his firm was slowly drowning in debt. He was wealthy but not even he was immune to a sick economic system. His firm was seeing the effects of a bad recession and just like any other businessman he had to be careful how he handled this financial downturn. He couldn’t afford to go out on that love-struck limb with Chanel, especially when he knew that it was bound to break.
“I do love you, Chanel. I do,” he replied.
“Then leave her!” Chanel cried. “Just leave her.”
“I can’t do that, sweetheart,” he whispered. Chanel leaned her head against the passenger side window and cried as Faugner drove her to the Four Seasons. He went inside and purchased the penthouse suite for two weeks. He would never see Chanel out on the street and figured that it would be enough time for things to cool off at home. He retrieved her from the car and wrapped his long tan raincoat around her shoulders, pulling up the collar to shield her face as he escorted her up to the room. She was distraught ... shattered by the thought of being without him. Her young heart was in such tangles that she didn’t even look at the situation through her mother’s eyes. She hated her. Secretly she felt that they had always hated each other.
She wrapped her arms around herself and sat on the edge of the bed. Faugner wiped his beard and sighed, then sat beside her, placing one hand on her knee. The last thing he had ever meant to do was mislead her to this point. If life were a fairy tale she would be his happy ending. She made him feel things that he never had before but life wasn’t an illusion, but yet an ugly reality full of responsibilities and expectations. Life was full of disappointment. A foolish man would love her despite the age difference, despite the taboo surrounding their illicit affair, but he had never been a risk taker. He had gone with the odds his entire life and with his financial stability on the rocks he could not afford to be with her. Choosing Chanel over Lidia would bankrupt him and possibly imprison him.
“You know we have to end this,” he whispered.
Chanel looked up at him, eyes cloudy, chest pounding. “No ... no! I can’t let you go,” she pleaded shamelessly as she tried to crawl onto his lap. “Please, daddy, I don’t want to let you go,” she whispered, tearing at his clothes as he turned his head to avoid her kisses.
“We have to, Chanel. I could get into a lot of trouble. Your mother will never let this happen,” he said sternly. “Even if I leave her I can’t be with you. She knows too much. She will use it against me. You won’t want me when I can’t take care of you ... buy you the things you like.”
“Daddy, no. Don’t, baby. Don’t say that. I love you. I’ll do anything for you. You don’t need her,” she whispered as she struggled against him, finally pushing her tongue down his throat. The warm wetness of her mouth caused him to groan as she used her body weight to push him backward on the bed. His hands roamed her body, his touch electric as she mashed her body against his.
“I love you,” she whispered. “I thought you loved me.”
Faugner didn’t know what it was about this young girl but she drove him insane. “I love you too,” he replied as he grabbed the back of her neck while passionately savoring the juices on her tongue. “I won’t let you go. You’re mine. Please tell me you won’t let her take you away from me. Make love to me, Faugner. Put your mouth on me,” she whined. His touch had lit her fuse and she was ready to explode.
Caught up in the lust the bulge in his pants was doing the thinking for him as he pulled Chanel’s shirt over her head and released her beautiful, perky breasts. He suckled them, licking her nipples into erection, making her lips part as gasps of air came out. Sheer pleasure was what she felt. Faugner was always so gentle, so patient, so skilled with her. The cream coating the walls of her pussy and wetting her inner thighs was proof that he was doing something right. Using his strength he lifted her until she sat on his face and he was parting her southern lips with his tongue. She melted like a Popsicle on a hot summer day as she rotated her hips until she came, long and hard. Faugner fucked Chanel like it was the very last time and brought her to an orgasmic high so many times that she lost count.
“I want this forever,” Chanel whispered as she lay under him, a sheen of perspiration cooling her down after the heated session they had just had. “I don’t want you to be with her.”
“Even if I left your mother it wouldn’t be enough. She would still be a thorn in my side. Nothing less than death will stop her from outing us,” Faugner explained as he stroked her head.
That was the only seed needed to grow the idea of murder in Chanel’s head.
“So why don’t we make that happen?” Chanel asked.
Silence filled the room as Faugner lifted his head to look at Chanel. “What are you talking about? Don’t say things like that,” he said.
“I don’t want you with her. I don’t care what it takes,” she admitted. “If she’s out of the picture you wouldn’t have to worry about her destroying your career or stopping us from seeing one another. I know we couldn’t just come out as a couple, but at least we could still see one another.”
Chanel was desperate and she was ranting like a madwoman as she sat up, trying to convince Faugner to see things her way. Yes, she was plotting on her own mother, but they had never been a team. Chanel was more an inconvenient accessory ... her mother’s biggest regret. Chanel wasn’t crazy ... she was crazy in love. As insane as it sounded Faugner couldn’t help but to bounce the idea around in his head. Chanel’s motivation was love, but Faugner was straight thinking about the money. Tossing the numbers around in his head he knew that he had two insurance policies of $1 million each taken out on his wife. Her untimely death was just what he needed to make him financially stable again. His money problems were an issue that he kept a secret. Neither Lidia nor Chanel knew of the sensitive matter, but each time they went on an elaborate shopping spree, he dreaded the total outcome. This sounded the like the perfect out. He could kill two birds with one stone.
“Are you serious?” he asked.
“I can tell that you’re thinking about it. Are
you
serious?” she answered, to see just how far they were going to take this conversation.
you
serious?” she answered, to see just how far they were going to take this conversation.
“I know a guy,” Faugner said hesistantly, thinking of one of his notorious clients. “This is your mother, Chanel.”
“You’re my man,” she replied matter-of-factly. Her response was so concise that Faugner felt the hair on the back of his neck rise.
“This is murder we’re talking about, Chanel,” he whispered urgently to ensure that she understood.
She nodded her head nervously but didn’t speak as she brushed a tear off her cheek.
Since Lidia was forcing her to choose, she was following her heart.
“Once I press play there is no taking it back. I just want you to understand,” he explained.
“I do. This is what I want if it’ll get me you,” she replied.
Lidia’s life hung in the wings and she wasn’t even aware of it. She never saw the shots coming a few weeks later when a “burglar” broke into their home. Lidia was there alone because her husband was at work and her daughter was in school ... the perfect alibis. When the intruder shot her at point-blank range in the face her entire world went black. The phone call came to Faugner at 11:28
A.M.
and he quickly picked Chanel up from school as they rushed to the hospital, feigning worry and fear. The role of distraught daughter and horrified husband were played to a tee. They each were deserving of Academy Awards. It wasn’t until they learned that the bullet didn’t kill her did they realize just how much had gone wrong. Lidia survived and the guilt of what they had done forced them apart more than Lidia could have ever done. Tormented by what they had done, they grew uncomfortable around one another. The secret that bonded them also destroyed them. They couldn’t look at one another without the devil occupying the space between their gaze. No amount of love could have sustained under those circumstances. Their relationship had been poisoned and there was an unspoken awkwardness between them.
A.M.
and he quickly picked Chanel up from school as they rushed to the hospital, feigning worry and fear. The role of distraught daughter and horrified husband were played to a tee. They each were deserving of Academy Awards. It wasn’t until they learned that the bullet didn’t kill her did they realize just how much had gone wrong. Lidia survived and the guilt of what they had done forced them apart more than Lidia could have ever done. Tormented by what they had done, they grew uncomfortable around one another. The secret that bonded them also destroyed them. They couldn’t look at one another without the devil occupying the space between their gaze. No amount of love could have sustained under those circumstances. Their relationship had been poisoned and there was an unspoken awkwardness between them.
Chanel moved away as soon as she was legally able to do so because she couldn’t bear to look into her mother’s scarred face. The once beautiful, mature woman now looked like something Frankenstein had put together. The scars from her surgery made her face look like puzzle pieces that didn’t quite fit. She was hideous now and Chanel couldn’t help but to think that now her mother’s outsides reflected her insides. Ugly. Faugner stayed with Lidia, miserable but feeling obligated after the role he had played in her shooting. Their love had driven them both to madness and although Faugner snuck away every once in awhile to check on Chanel, they both knew that he would never stay.
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