AllFreeNovel
Share Us
May | Three Years Later
Ishuffled against the pillow and mattress then rolled over to the other side. Pushing my arm and leg out, I collided against a plank of hard muscles and a bone. Then I was totally vacuumed from the dream I realized I was in. My lids flapped open, then head tilted up, and peering down on me were hooded eyes and pinched brows.How?He was shirtless. His coils were disheveled, and the muscles in his face were tight from recent sleep. Or perhaps the scowl had been exclusively for me.
Jas…
Again, how? I hadn’t shared a bed with the man in over a year. And the last I’d slept in this bed was with just Chi-Chi.
Slowly, I recalled being shuffled upstairs with the girls in tow, then forced to shower and brush my teeth by Peach. Someone handed me a t-shirt—his t-shirt—to put on before Corinne’s heavy hand pushed me into bed. I now grasped it was Jas’ bed and not the one I’d use when staying over with Chi-Chi.
My eyes squeezed closed. It now made sense. The scent embedded into the bed’s fabric was responsible for the content of my dreams. “Good morning,” my dry chords produced.
“Maybe.” His shrug was faint. “Or maybe it ain’t because I got no sleep, thanks to an unexpected, drunken visitor in my bed snoring hard as hell all damn night.”
“Who was the guest you were expecting? Josie?” I held his deep gaze, feeling the resentment and conflict.
The first thorned my heart; the second provided a sliver of hope. Jas’ eyes were windows to his soul for sure. They veiled the darkness of his convoluted core and exposed his vulnerability to me. It was something I sensed but couldn’t articulate until recently. Being high brought revelations a sober mind couldn’t comprehend. Yesterday the eye-openers wouldn’t relent.
I ran into the therapist I shared with Jas atShort Hills Malllast week. It was a uniquely bizarre occurrence as I never saw the woman off the block her practice was planted on. It was in theAsè Garbboutique where she was shopping with a friend, unapologetically tipsy and patently loquacious. We shared discourse over the latest line as she waited on her friend to finish being rung up. On their way out, she casually asked about Jas and Chi-Chi. I’d never run into her in public, so I wasn’t familiar with the protocol.
“Since I’ve been off the road, lil’ Miss Chi-Chi likes to visit my closet. She can’t stay out of my heels and away from my purses. I came home last night from a comedy show, and she answered the door with Ines, wearing my Louis bag with the Asè Garb shoes your friend just bought. And had the nerve to have her little hand propped up on her hip!”We teetered, amused by the precocious actions of a toddler.“I’m wondering what diva her dad has her around because she matched the bag and shoes up better than I ever would have!”
Again, we all laughed, and her mocha-complected girlfriend started out of the boutique. My therapist’s movements slowed as she grazed my arm with her hand.
Her voice was significantly lower when she shared, “Since I was a child, my father always gave nuggets of wisdom for human dynamics—relationships, too. When I was in my early twenties, he planted the concept of ‘pussy power.’ His language may not have been as vulgar, but his message was that raw. He said a woman is capable of seducing her way out of a lot of trouble with her man with what’s between her legs. She has the ability to finesse her way into his graces with it, too. But when a woman loses her pussy power with her man, she might as well pack it up and go. She’s just as effective to him as a man to another man whose sexual pleasure and attraction isn’t derived from men.” Then she burst out in the ditsiest and most superficial laughter I’d seen of her.
Did that mean she found the sage advice in her story amusing? Was my therapist warning of a critical juncture she’d been aware of between Jas and me? Or was her blotto state responsible for what could have been simple gibberish?
Having him this close…in his bed, and with the t-shirt pushed up my torso, allowing my skin to brush against his bedding, charged my curiosity. His delicious scent serenaded my need to investigate my therapist’s riddle.
With a pounding clitoris, I leaned into his personal space while locking gazes with Jas. I licked the side of his stomach then caught the immediate flexing of his abs. Air pushing from his heavy lungs rained down on my head and face. I went in again, this time licking closer to his belly button, the bristles of his pubic hair tickling the tip of my tongue. That move spurred a soft grunt and abdominal jump.
Wanting to reacquaint with more of him to kill the theory, I reached for his hip and inched my way to Jas’ dick. The tips of my nails reached his stiffness first, but by the time I’d progressed for my fingers to join, Jas caught my wrist. He then twisted on the mattress and released me. When he left the bed, it was clear the man wasn’t interested in being touched by me.
Something shard in my chest as I sat up and watched him walk away. Defensively, while lifting the comforter to my belly, I hissed, “You’ve fucked her.” That stopped him in his tracks, and Jas tossed me the coldest glare. “I heard you two last night by the punch bowl. She said she was happy you didn’t drink like her. Then she kissed you, tongue and all. I heard her when she whispered she doesn’t need alcohol when she’s riding you.”
The shit fucked with me so badly yesterday. It stunned me into confusion. I wanted to distance myself from them, but didn’t want to leave the party at the same time. The best thing I could think of was to find Jonathan and locate theMauve. Jas had been with another woman. I couldn’t process that.
When he didn’t deny it, I became incensed, a cry burgeoning in my throat. “I wonder who’d you kill if it weremesleeping with a man in a bed where Chi-Chi sleeps from time to time.” I spat, “Fucking psychopath hypocrite.”
With a faint shaking of his head, Jas proceeded toward the bathroom, murmuring, “She hasn’t spent more than four minutes in my bedroom, Ashira. I’m more talented than four fuckin’ minutes.”
Then he disappeared into the bathroom. Seconds later, I heard the shower running. Utterly shattered, I sat motionless against the headboard, trying to keep my shit together. All the feelings of betrayal from his party yesterday began populating again in spades. Little Josie. Did I allow her petite frame and corny style to jade my views of her sex appeal to Jas? I mean… He liked dry women.
Like church cat Cynthia…
And Ava. Was I naive to believe her when she said she’d never slept with Jas? That bitch was a different story. She wasn’t as corny and dull as the others. Ava actually had a little swag to her style—lots of it if I were being honest. And if I could gain the interest of his particular ass, she could, too. I remembered his ex, Samona, had a sense of fashion, too. I’d been fooled, thinking too highly of Jas. The pedestal I had him on was built from believing he was special. Different. I’d actually fallen for a born-again, gun-selling, reformed parolee of a thug.
What had I gotten myself into with this man? I wasn’t happy. I had no one. And I didn’t confuse my loneliness for the neediness of a man. I grew up an only child; I could get along by myself just fine. But as a thirty-five-year-old single mother and accomplished woman, I didn’t want to. I wanted it all. Independent woman, my ass: I could love a man. I could support a man—hell, I’d been supported by a good man for the past four years.
And now, that good man was telling me the run was over.
I needed to go. I scanned the room to see where they’d put my clothes from last night. It took a few seconds, but I located the pile in his sitting room near the purple prayer mat. As I shoved my legs into my shorts, I noticed how flattened the pillow had become over the years. Obviously, he’d gotten my money’s worth of it, but how? How can a man of God with a dedicated prayer life engage in thuggery and meaningless sex with dry bitches? It all annoyed me. The heaviness in my chest grew painful. The bruising from his betrayal had begun to settle in.
Rejection stung like a motherfucker. My legs felt weighted as I trekked my way to the bathroom. I told him once, and felt the need to tell Jas again; he would not rule my life. What was good for the goose was even better for the motherfucking gander.
Pushing into the steamy room, my hand gripped the handle preventing a stumble from my legs buckling at the most loutish and private sight. His long, thick, and hairy legs were spread apart as he rested on the bench of the shower, and his left hand gripped the long shaft of his hard dick. His big palm stroked upwards, faintly twisting beneath the swollen lip of the mushroom. His balls engorged beneath the hairy root of his cock.
My pulse raced and my mouth watered. His big body curled slightly, those same abs that reacted to my touch minutes ago contracted at his stroke. Those big fingers and thumb worked in tandem at an unhurried stride against his bulging muscle. Tears pooled in my eyes, making Jas’ agonizingly enthralling body a blur until the first tear fell. I’d seen it. This was a flash of what his ten-year prison term was like—how Jas survived celibacy once released until my horny ass came around lusting over him. His artful touch to his most private member was paced slowly and apparently enjoyable based on his heavy breathing. Masturbation had never been more beautiful before I met the sight of Jas self-pleasuring with the confidence of an animal. His actions were primal and without permission.
