Maneater (22 page)

Father, thank you.

 

Big ups to my Harlem fam for keeping my feet on the ground. Much luv to Reem and Black for your music and your tireless grind, and to Nisaa, Missy, Man, Jay, Ty, and our new baby girl Tia for being who you are.

 

Thanks to Mary B. Morrison and Selena James for embracing me and making this collaboration a whole lot of sexy fun.

 

Mad affection and crazy thanks to my fans who send me endless luv and continue to ride this urban erotic train with me every single day.

 

I luv y'all right back!

 

Ride hard, homeys! We're doing big things!

 

STAY BLACK

 

NOIRE

1. Rishawn “Pork Ribs” Rawlings is the odd man out in Sugar-Honey-Ice-Tee. In a world full of diesel-body professional football players, his less-than-perfect physique leaves his self-esteem in the gutter even though he is a good man with a big heart and a great job. If you are female, have you ever tossed a good brother off because he wasn't all that in the looks department? Did you come to regret your decision?
   
2. Professional athletes and ballers often have endless doe and big-time pull with the ladies. In this age of “get-all-you-can-get,” can you be swayed by money and star appeal alone, or does a baller have to bring something of substance to the party?
   
3. Nap, Tomere, and Blow were three star athletes with phat pockets and swollen egos. Do they remind you of anyone on the professional sports scene today?
   
4. When Charlie Baker got taken out by one of Blow's grimy capers, he knew who to call on to get some retribution. Who would have your back in a similar situation? Would they be able to concoct a clever get-back scheme for you?
   
5. Blow, Tomere, and Nap were sheisty to the core. If a baller was lining your pockets and lacing you in fine clothing and bright jewels, but you knew the money was coming from illegal activities, would you accept the gifts?
   
6. The ballers in Sugar-Honey-Ice-Tee were constantly scheming on financial capers. If your man was working a caper that you knew was dirty, would you turn him in? Could you snitch on your boo?
   
7. Nap was a slumlord and a fraud. Sugar played him to the left by setting him up for insurance fraud and money laundering. Is outsourcing one's company an exploitation of another country's workforce to the detriment of American workers, or is all fair in business just as long as you turn a profit?
   
8. Honey had Tomere bent on her. If you knew a man had eyes (and hands) for very young girls, could you get loose with him and set him up, even for revenge?
   
9. Ice Tee pulls a slick move on Blow and gets him sent to a Mexican prison where he will probably get bent over in the shower. If your man went to the joint and admits he was once violated by another inmate, would you take him back once he was released?
   
10. With Sugar's help, Ribs was able to turn his life around with exercise and a healthy diet. As a result, his confidence and self-esteem improved so much that he was able to feel worthy of a beautiful diva like Ice Tee. What would you have to do to improve your self-esteem? Does your physical appearance have a lot to do with how you see yourself, and how you relate to members of the opposite sex?
    

Catch up with the daring and sexy Honey Thomas in

 

Unconditionally Single

 

In stores August 2009!

Unconditionally single—a person who understands his/her relationship needs, communicates effectively, willingly compromises, refuses to settle

 

 

B
efore reading
Unconditionally Single,
I'd like for you to take a moment to identify your relationship needs. These are the things you must have in order to cultivate a healthy union with the person you'd like to marry or consider your life partner.

After identifying your needs, list your desires. These are the hobbies or things you enjoy and would love to do with your mate. Let your imagination explore the corners of your deepest fantasies.

I find that most individuals cannot readily identify their relationship needs. They kind of meet a person, stumble into like, trip into love, then fall into love/hate, never having asked themselves or the other person, “What are your relationship needs?”

Somewhere along the way, perhaps months, maybe years later, they discover one another. Some find out that money is more important to their mate than love. The one with the most money is more powerful. Sex once a day, once a week, or once a month is either too much or not enough. In creep infidelity and misery.

When a woman or teenage girl has an unplanned pregnancy, she automatically expects the man to do all the right things for her and their child. Most women hope the man will marry her because she's carrying his baby. Instead, the man stands on the fifty-yard line for nine months like he's watching an uneventful football game—drinking beer, chilling with his boys, bragging about his other woman, what he did to and with her last night—while waiting for the fourth quarter to end, waiting for her third trimester to conclude. Then he prays for confirmation that his bet is good and he is not the father, mainly so he doesn't have to pay child support.

Clueless about day care, diapers, and the other daily costs of providing for a child, she gives birth. Clueless that one night of pleasure can bring her a lifetime of emotional and financial hardships. The natural progression of blind love and lust eventually heats up into resentment for both partners. Thus begins the battle of the sexes to see who can hurt the other the most. These relationship tragedies can be avoided or minimized through effective communication and safe sex, and more importantly, if both individuals enter the relationship knowing their needs.

Unconditionally single does not mean you don't desire marriage. I'm encouraging you to know what you need and desire before getting married or becoming involved with someone. Share what's important to you with your potential mate. I urge all men and women to read The Honey Diaries series before getting married.

On my way from the 2008 Antigua & Barbuda Literary Festival to Miami, I boarded the plane in Antigua, settled in my window seat. A newly married couple sat next to me. The wife was to my immediate right; her husband was seated on the aisle. The seemingly happy, giddy, constantly kissing couple couldn't keep their hands off one another. He lived in Canada. They were headed to Los Angeles to pack her belongings and then drive to their new residence in Canada. Halfway through the flight, he pulled out two sandwiches. He looked at his wife and asked, “Do you like rye, or would you prefer the other sandwich?”

My eyebrows rose as I continued reading Eric Jerome Dickey's
Sleeping with Strangers,
thinking,
They barely know one another
. Obviously, he liked rye, he'd purchased the sandwiches, and he hadn't ask what she wanted. How well should a couple know one another before marrying? So many marriages end in divorce because people marry strangers.

Oh, well. That couple probably belongs to the majority, the countless people who wander in and out of love, life, and relationships, wondering why they keep choosing the wrong jobs and the wrong mates. What's your passion? What are your talents? What excites you?

I hear some of you talking to yourself, asking, “What are Mary B. Morrison's needs, since she has all the answers?”

Honestly, I don't have all the answers, but I am a thinking woman, and I do know my passion, my talents, what excites me, and I understand my eternally evolving needs. Like you, as I continue to grow emotionally, my needs change. But my
basic
needs are always clear.

I date openly, knowing that the man I enter into a relationship with will show up. I don't have to build him, change him, or create him out of Play-Doh. (But if I did build him, I'd use Stephen A. Smith as my model.) I don't have to look under the covers or search the corporate boardroom for him. I meet men everywhere I go. I enjoy men. I'm not reserving, preserving, or praying for God to send me Mr. Right. Waiting for “a good man” would be a waste of my time.

Here are my relationship needs:

• He must be intelligent and highly capable of expressing his views on politics, religion, sex, and sexuality.
  
• He must have friends. A man's friends tell you a lot about him.
  
• He cannot be a minimalist, satisfied with getting by or over to make ends meet. Minimalists are underachieving, shiftless, lazy leeches looking for handouts. I don't date cheap or selfish men. He can do bad on his own.
  
• He must be an entrepreneur or realistically striving to become his own boss. I don't mean the men who spit game about what they gon' do all the while they layin' up on a woman, burying her under their philosophical bullshit. “Baby, let's buy a ________ to-ge-ther.” Translation: his credit is fucked up.
  
• He cannot be envious of my success or my lifestyle. I work extremely hard. Trust me, lots of men are jealous of successful, independent women. I'm a full-time writer for two major publishers. I travel extensively. I own Mary B. Morrison, Incorporated, Sweeter than Honey, and Lift Every Voice and Write (my nonprofit).
  
• He must have a sense of humor (this ranks at the top of my list). He must know how to laugh, make me laugh, have fun. And Lord knows, he cannot be depressing, dragging around his garbage like he's a sanitation engineer. I'm no comedian, but I love to make people laugh.
  
• Under no cir
  cum
  stances can he be broke. Hell-to-the-capital-N-O. I do not support men. A broke man should suck his own dick, then tuck his dick between his balls and fuck himself. Especially if he's sitting on his ass all day, waiting for someone else to provide for him. I can't comprehend his mentality.
  
• He must be great sexually. Open to exploring new sexual territory.
  
• He must agree to an open relationship. Even if I never have sex with anyone except him, I can't commit to exclusivity, because I might meet someone else that I decide to have sex with. No guilty pleasures for me.
  
• He must understand that he is my partner, not my dictator or dick-ta-tor. I have no need or desire for a second husband. Marriage is wonderful for those who need or want it. I don't. I'm happy, and I intend to stay this way.
  

Black women and men are not taught how to treat one another. We have generational relationship dysfunction. Our mothers' mothers' mothers were raped of their virginity, their children, and their men. Our fathers' fathers' fathers were used for breeding, with no emotional attachment to family. We still deal with post-slavery trauma. We still struggle to genuinely love and appreciate one another. Black men must stop running away from their paternal obligations. Black women must stop unconsciously opening their legs and their hearts. I know it's hard, but if we seriously think about the what-ifs before we become involved, our relationships will have a higher survival rate. We have to start someplace. You are the catalyst for change in your life.

Stop entering into relationships primarily to fill the voids of your ancestors. I encourage you to talk to your children about healthy relationships. Take time to embrace and express your needs and desires. Irrespective of your partner's views, your open and honest communication will prove productive in your relationship.

Be true to yourself.

S
ometimes a woman had to kill herself to survive.

I came from nothing. My mother hated me. My father disowned me. Stepfather molested me. Johns used me. My ex-husbands abused me. I had scars on my heart. Blood on my hands. The one man who truly loved me for me, I'd pushed him away. I hadn't lived through countless trials and tribulations to exhale my last breath without dignity.

No way in hell was I going to die, not like this, in the back of a SUV staring down the barrel of his .22 caliber pistol. My ex-man Benito pointed the gun at the one place I was sure he would like to blast all his bullets, my mouth. Eradicate his troubles, his jealousy, his insecurities, his love, his hate, his pain by shutting my scintillating, candid, sharp, sarcastic, independent ass up for good.

Women living in fear died at the hands of men who had never been worthy of their love. Too many women, emotionally buried alive, suffered in silence. Compromising their children, bartering their bodies, sacrificing their souls, their sanity in exchange for having a man. And in many cases, a man who didn't love, appreciate, respect, or deserve them.

I prayed silently,
Dear God, please don't let me become a statistic. Don't let me die without fulfilling my purpose to help save the women who've given up on getting out of unhealthy relationships. Women who are living the way I used to. You gave me a brain, courage, and a heart. Now tell me which one to use first before I kill these fools.

Benito accepted, though he seldom acknowledged, that women were smarter than men. I was smarter than him. He hated my constant reminders that I was the one who'd paid the bills the three years he'd lived in my house. Didn't need him for much outside of sex. Proved it to him often. The day I tied him up, shoved a gun up his ass, left him in my bed in Las Vegas, I'd hoped was—the same as with my first and second husbands—the last time I'd see him.

A month ago, I saw him again when I arrived at Grant's parents' place in Washington, D.C. Benito was seated at the dinner table. Benito was worse than a bad penny, making my world smaller than I desired, in a bad luck kind of way. One step away from him, two back. Benito seldom talked about his family when we were together. Blamed his adopted mother for screwing up his life. Gave me no indication he had a half brother named Grant Hill. Now Benito was in my new hometown of Atlanta, with my ex-boss, Valentino James, holding me hostage for ransom.

How much did Benito want from me? For me? Hadn't I given him enough? “Take this,” I said. Not knowing, not giving a fuck, whose head I'd put a bullet in first. I fired my semiautomatic handgun at Benito and Valentino.

Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow!

My body pounded like a jackhammer. Stars danced in front of my eyes. I prayed I'd make it out of this situation alive. The sound of engines humming in the distance, too far away from us for drivers to distinguish gunfire from a car backfiring, gave me little hope of being rescued. Glancing at my wristwatch, I saw that both hands were aligned directly on twelve. Too early for this nonsense. The sun, bright, blinding. I squinted at the sky, searching for an answer to my prayer. Brain? Courage? Heart?

I should've put each bullet in Benito's forehead. I couldn't. I had once loved him. Still loved his brother Grant. This was not the time to have compassion for my enemies. Grant's abandonment of my heart had made him my enemy, too. He should've been man enough to come back to me.

“Ah!” Benito screamed soprano, ducked, covered his face, peeped at me between hs fingers. His small gun fell, clacked three times on the pavement, stopped in front of his feet.

Pressing my lips togther, I swallowed my chuckle. I'd done right by getting rid of him. Former pro quarterback champion punking out in a shoot-out, intentionally grounding his weapon, terrified of being defeated by a female opponent. Why was I still protecting Benito? Kill Benito, kill all my chances of getting back with Grant.

Knees to chin. Heels against my butt cheeks. Lying in the trunk, messing up my red designer pantsuit, inhaling fumes from the new car, I aimed my gun at my target. Valentino's head. My target. The same place I'd fatally shot his bodyguard Reynolds a year ago, between the eyes. I wouldn't miss, if my brain prevailed.

I wiggled my fingers. I demanded “What the fuck is your problem, Valentino? Hand me your goddamn phone.” I demanded, keeping my gun and eyes fixed on him. My phone was underneath my side. The only person I'd phone was Sapphire Bleu, the one woman who could track down any man in America and wouldn't hesitate to kill him. Left her a message not to call me back. I'd call her again. “Benito, if you bend over to pick up that gun, I'll slap you upside your head, then shoot you in your ass.”

Standing, Benito squinted, stared over his shoulder, as though trying to figure out how I'd shoot him in the ass while he faced me. Maybe I should ask God to give him a brain.

“Nigga, I knew I shouldn't have trusted you with the gun. Fuck her. Pick up the gun and shoot her ass,” Valentino commanded.

The last time I'd seen Valentino was the day he was arrested at his mansion in Las Vegas. Pimping and pandering were his vices. I got out of the business by choice. Circumstances beyond his control forced Valentino out. I had what he desperately needed. If he killed me, he'd never get what he'd come for.

Why did these lowdown dirty bastards agitate me to the point of wanting to blow their brains out? I could kill him. Kill them. Splatter the cells God intended as a masterpiece against the hot asphalt beneath their soles. No one would care but me. Didn't want to go to jail or go insane without having Grant in my life.

Curled in the fetal position, I pulled the trigger to scare Valentino. Waited a few seconds, then pulled it again. Valentino dodged my first bullet. Escaped the second. Moved in the right direction both times.

“Slowly toss me the damn phone before I kill your ass for real,” I said.

“Shoot her ass, nigga. Don't just stand there,” Valentino yelled at Benito. “You want her to kill me?” he said, tossing his cellular inside the SUV.

I wanted to laugh. One toy gun between the two of them, and it was on the ground.

“Bitch, you gon' give me back my fifty mil, and then I'm gon' personally kill you,” Valentino said, curling his fingers into fists.

This time I had to do it. “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,” I belted, keeping my gun aimed at Valentino. “Benito, get the gun. Give it to me.” Pressing the speaker on Valentino's phone, I kept my gun aimed at him.

Money was the root of evil for the person who didn't have any. The fifty million was mine. A gift. Sapphire had given me half of Valentino's money. He hadn't. I didn't owe Valentino shit. Neither did she. I'd given half of my half back to the women who'd earned it fucking Valentino's clients.

My assistant Onyx shouted through the phone. “Honey, where are you?”

Benito eased toward me, kicked the gun closer to Valentino. I shifted my aim to Benito, then quickly pointed the gun back between Valentino's eyes. Coldly stared at him. Eased back the trigger.

“One wrong move and you're dead,” I dared him. “Try me.”

“Let's go, nigga!” Valentino yelled. “That bitch is crazy.”

No, I wasn't crazy.

I was a women who didn't take shit off of abusive men. Not anymore. With two life-threatening marriages and these two fools here, I should be crazy, but I wasn't. The only person I was crazy about was Grant and my dead sister, Honey. I'd killed myself on paper; buried my birth name, Lace St. Thomas; then resurrected my sister's name, Honey Thomas. Maybe if I were more like Honey, my past life of prostitution, being a madam, and killing Reynolds would perish, never to return to haunt me.

“Onyx, I got this. Don't hang up. Stay with me,” I said.

Valentino fell to the ground, crawled alongside the car, yelling, “Lock that bitch in the trunk, and let's go! I'ma personally kill her ass execution style!”

Always smarter than Valentino's wannabe pimp ass, I'd organized and operated his escort service. Managed his twelve girls for a year. Now they were my girls, all millionaires, no longer prostituting. Valentino had more than enough time to run like a bitch. All talk, no action. Valentino wasn't a coward. He was outgunned. He'd be back. I'd be prepared for his return. Next time I wouldn't have a heart. No talking. I'd shoot to kill.

I pointed my gun at Benito. He hadn't moved.

“Lace,” Benito pleaded. His eyes softened. “Just give Valentino back his money. He'll give me half, and I'll take care of you. You deserve that much from me. I met you first. My brother doesn't love you the way I do. I know you better than he ever will.”

“Nigga, this ain't
Deal or No Deal.
Lock that bitch in the fucking trunk, and let's go.” Valentino yelled.

Benito whispered, “Give us the money, Lace. I could never hurt you. Can't you see I still love you? I'd die before I'd kill you.”

With no gun, he was right. Aim. Click. Turn. Fire. Four bullets shattered the front windshield.

Benito reached for my legs. Pulled me out of the car. Scrambled into the passenger's seat as Valentino sped off, with the SUV trunk door in midair.

Damn, their gun was on the ground, and Valentino's cell phone and mine were in the trunk of their SUV. “Huh.”

No money. No phone. No transportation. Two guns. I stood in the middle of a deserted parking lot, placed my gun back in the holder. Tucked their gun behind my back, inside my pants.

“It's too hot for this shit.”

Stilettos clicking against the black, sweltering asphalt, sweat dripping from my head, rolling behind my ears, down my neck, I walked a mile through the Atlanta ninety-degree heat wave to the I-75 on-ramp and held up my thumb.