Sweeter Than Honey (3 page)

It was too late for me. I’d been in the game so long I didn’t know how to get out. Didn’t know what else I’d do. I’d been mentally, physically, sexually, spiritually, financially, you name it, taken advantage of. The only thing left for someone to take was my life and that’s what was not going to happen without a fight. Whether I’d win or lose didn’t matter to me as long as I never again voluntarily allowed anyone to beat me. I’d paid my dues. In some ways I was stronger. In many ways, wiser. Now it was my turn to take control of my life.

Abuse damaged me. Abuse was not cute and it took me a while to learn that abuse was not love. The next man who laid hands on Lace St. Thomas was one dead motherfucka.

D
ay one of the seventy-two-hour countdown to Sunny’s freedom, I envisioned Mommy sitting on the front row before a naughty professor raising her hand instead of spreading her legs to make a good impression. Sunny had the prettiest pussy of all my girls. The first time I peeled open her outer lips, I saw her slim pinkish shaft extending down to a mocharidged flap exposing a succulent pierced clitoris.

“Did this hurt?” I recalled asking while I teased the silver bar with pea-sized balls on both ends.

“Yes, Madam. Hell yes.” Her wide smile flashed perfectly aligned teeth. “But it feels nice now, Madam. I like it. I have my own set of balls and they sure do drive men crazy.”

Sunny started playing with her own pussy and she never flinched when I French-kissed her.

“Tell me why I should hire you?” I’d asked her, applying a drop of gel to my fingertip. Teasing her clit in a slow circular motion, I dripped another drop onto the bar, gliding my finger back and forth.

She smiled, held my hand, then slid my middle finger inside her incredibly hot, tight, juicy pussy, and replied, “Tell me why you shouldn’t hire me, Madam.”

Well, over my incredible year of being Sunny’s boss, I had fallen in love with more than her personality. She was amazingly flawless. I could’ve waived Sunny’s body inspection that day but I didn’t. I couldn’t resist experiencing the rest of her. Caressing her plump breasts, kissing her protruding nipples, massaging her firm ass, then putting her through my multiple orgasm tests—fucking her with a nine-inch dildo while finger-fucking her in the ass and savoring her sweet pussy with my tongue all at the same time—I’d come hard. Twice.

“I’m gonna miss Sunny,” I whispered, strutting my red stilettos into the southside entrance at the newest and most extraordinary casino on the strip. I smiled at the thought of Sunny getting all As, then using her brain while maximizing her pussy power to make lots of money. For the first time, tonight I felt more like Sunny’s big sister.

Working my hips into a figure eight, my red lace wraparound minidress slightly exposing my pussy pasty, I glided along the gold-marbled tiles. Men gawked and women pretended not to peep at the dollar sign between my legs.

Ignoring them, I glanced at shoppers inside Chanel to my right and Dior and Louis Vuitton to my left. I stopped at the Rolex store, bought a ladies’ Presidential watch, and walked out.

Surrounded by trees decorated with thousands of sparkling white lights streaming from the roots to the trunks to the green leaves scattered amongst the limbs, I swung my long slick hair shoulder to shoulder, sashaying down the aisle as I showcased my diamond earrings, necklace, bracelet, and rings.

God, how I love being a woman,
I thought, constantly reminding myself that women, not men, were the dominators of the universe.

I’d learned that the people with the least amount of control were more aggressive because they struggled to conquer that which they didn’t have power over. Men beat women to make them submissive. Bosses demoted their smarter employees or gave them lower performance ratings to keep them as subordinates. And johns paid to fuck prostitutes because if only for five minutes, they felt they owned a bitch.

If reincarnation were possible, I’d definitely come back as a black widow spider or maybe a queen bee. Sad but true, men were only necessary for reproduction. Everything else, hell, I had that covered with no problems.

Admiring the horizontal patterns of the purple, green, and gold curtains that seemingly parted exclusively for me, I entered the upper level bar winking at a few of our regulars who were tossing back dirty martinis straight up, stirred, not shaken with blue-cheese-stuffed olives.

I knew the intricate intimate preferences of all my top-paying clients. I knew details that their wives and girlfriends either didn’t want to know, or simply, like with most sneaky, freaky, down-low bisexual men, their women would never embrace the truth: Men were basic creatures.

“Hey, Daddy,” I whispered in one of my client’s ears. “Feel like predickting the forecast?”

“It’s definitely a Sunny Day,” he replied, then nodded in Sunny’s direction before resuming conversation with his woman.

That stiff bitch cupped her drink with both hands, burying her face in a piña colada. I didn’t give a fuck about her. Any bitch sipping a frozen drink wasn’t a real woman unless she’d planned on having her man suck the pineapple and coconut juices through her pussy. I’d never let my girls drink that sweet-ass, make-you-sick-to-your-stomach shit unless they used it to make me money.

Men wanted to cum with lovers who were fun. Not some sexually repressed housewife curling under the covers draped in flannel pajamas with ridiculously fluffy slippers at their bedside who’d turn her back on him without saying good night, making both of his heads hurt while he stared at the hideous scarf hiding her hair.

I should salute boring bitches. Those were the types who made me successful. They were the kind of females who made their men cum running to me with her paycheck while she sat at home trying to figure out who her man was fucking. Women always asked the wrong questions like, “Who were you fucking?” or “Where were you all night?” The question women needed to answer was why their man was sticking his dick in somebody else.

With my mental sex Rolodex second in content only to a set of encyclopedias, I understood that most men enjoyed having their assholes licked while fucking, their balls squeezed while nutting, and having a dick in their ass while having their dick in an ass calling some faceless woman “Bitch.” The right size butt plug or vibrator humming against a man’s prostate with his woman sucking his dick or jacking him off would blow his fucking mind, but the average woman wasn’t down with asking, doing, or hearing what her man honestly wanted in the bedroom.

That was why the streets of Vegas were filled with chicks sucking dicks in cars for twenty dollars a nut. An outdoor whore could never be on my team. Her standards were too low for me but higher than those of the women getting fucked for free by men who wouldn’t get out of their beds at three o’clock in the daytime and surely not three in the morning to pick her up if she was stranded in the middle of Timbuktu.

The way I recruited new customers, I’d stroll the red carpet that divided the craps players from the blackjack gamblers. With a ten-thousand-dollar bet per hand on the open floor, it was easy to differentiate who had real money and why some men didn’t mind paying ten grand an hour to get laid by a beautiful woman. Some of those guys needed to blast off after losing a hundred thousand dollars in less than fifteen minutes. The price of good pussy wasn’t a problem for a high roller who could walk a short distance to the credit manager and cash a check for a million dollars.

That was the type of client my girls serviced at Immaculate Perception. Image was everything. If a woman dressed, spoke, or carried herself like she was poor, she shouldn’t wonder why she attracted cheap-ass, broke-ass men. I dressed all of my girls in the best of what each designer had to offer.

I circled the bar where my twelve showgirls were seated on the orange polka-dot sofa and caramel leather seats facing the Niagara-sized waterfall flowing outside the panoramic window. Dressed in miniskirts, halters, and high heels, my girls laughed, chatted, and crossed their glowing legs while sipping champagne.

Bypassing the girls, I motioned for Sunny to come to me, then escorted her to the downstairs bar. We sat in the corner at a table for two. Covering her hands with mine, I said, “Sunny, you are so beautiful. You’re smart and you’re special.”

I felt she needed to hear me say that because I so desperately wanted to hear my mother tell me the same. But Rita never did.

“Thanks, Madam,” Sunny replied, tucking her long sandy-blond hair behind one ear.

“You’ve been reserved again tonight by one of your regulars. But, Sunny, sweetheart, I want to know, what do you want out of life?”

Sunny’s mesmerizing large brown eyes traveled to the corners, then back at me as she replied, “Madam, I don’t know. When I started in this business I wanted to work a few months, make some fast money, get out, and go to college. But now I’m not so sure. Why waste four years getting a degree only to make less money?”

“You can’t do this forever, sweetheart, so tell me what you don’t want,” I said.

Crossing her giraffe-long legs, then folding her arms on the table, Sunny answered, “Madam, I don’t want rich men treating me as though I don’t have a brain, like I’m some inanimate sex object. You know, like a blowup doll.”

Oh, how well did I know?

Briefly I digressed to the blowup doll I’d left on my ex-husband’s bed. I should’ve known when he insisted on getting married at Graceland on Las Vegas Boulevard six hours after we’d met, I should’ve literally run for the hills yelling, “You ain’t nothing but a hound dog!” Anybody who dressed like Elvis, acted like Elvis, and honestly believed that Elvis was still alive obviously didn’t live in the real world. What I was sure of was any man constantly beating my ass was a reality I’d never repeat.

“And, Madam, I’d like to have a steady boyfriend, but what man is going to respect me being in this business?”

“Sunny, don’t worry. I’ll help you. All I ask is that you be patient in the process and trust me.”

Gazing into my eyes as though she saw through me, Sunny asked, “Why should I put all my trust in you or anyone else in this business?”

That fucked me up. She was right. “One day soon, I promise you I’ll explain. Now, you’ve told me before that you have family and you love them. If you don’t want to trust me, then go home to the family you do trust. Sounds to me like your parents and sister would love to have you back in their lives.”

Looking toward the ceiling, Sunny smiled. “Madam, this is a glamorous business. I feel like a big-time movie star like a Marilyn or Halle, but what sense does it make for me to pleasure these johns, then give my money to you and Valentino? I’m not thinking about going home. I’m thinking about going out on my own.”

This girl was blinded by the bright lights of Las Vegas, but she wasn’t the only one. There were lots of runaways, strays, and wannabe madams that didn’t understand street prostitution, and drugs were territorial and addictive.

“You can’t do that! Sunny, look at me!” Lowering my voice, I explained, “You’re an escort, not a hooker, and certainly not a madam. You don’t have a clue what happens to prostitutes on the street, especially the ones who have no pimp. And no street prostitute is going to let your pretty ass pimp them. Even with pimps whores get trains run on them, they get beat up. Sunny, what you’re considering is dangerous. You could end up dead.”

“Well, Madam. If anything happens to me, please contact my parents.”

Once this young lady set her mind to doing something, it was virtually impossible for me to make her see things my way.

In order to gain Sunny’s trust, I did what I’d never done before. I removed a business card from my purse, then wrote on the back
If you ever need me, call me,
along with my cell number and home number, and gave the card to her.

I was more convinced than ever I’d made the right decision to free this beautiful and innocent young lady, but I couldn’t sever her from the venomous emotional attachment to prostitution. Only Sunny could free herself.

Looping Sunny’s friendship present over her fingers, I released the Rolex bag. Sunny was mastering what it meant to become a woman. Knowing how to manipulate men and not relinquish pussy power separated the women from the girls. Women were confident and secure. Girls, some thirty, forty, and fifty-plus, played childish games like seeking passwords to check their lovers’ voice mail messages.

Standing, I said, “Let’s go. Nothing bad is going to happen to you, if you listen to me. And I’ll pay all of your college tuition. Accept it. You are getting out of this business.”

K
neeling beside my sister’s bed, I prayed, “Dear Lord, please bring my sister home soon. She’s been gone too long and I miss her terribly. If Sunny does not find her way home tonight, then, Lord, I ask that you keep her safe from harm. Amen.”

Every night I asked God to bring my sister home. Sunny had been gone for a year, but it felt like a lifetime. Standing by the window, I pulled the trigger on my lighter, setting ablaze the white eucalyptus candlewick.

This was my way of holding on to the hope that Sunny would come back to me. I didn’t keep hope alive. Having hope kept me alive. The only other person I wanted back in my life was my first true love, Anthony James. At twenty-one he owned his house and had lots of money. He told me that his parents died unexpectedly and I felt sorry for him because my mother and father were alive and I couldn’t imagine life without them.

Anthony was an entrepreneur. Drove a Benz. He spoiled me with clothes and my first diamonds. And oh my, could he kiss! His lips all over my body made me feel womanly. Anthony would pick me up around the corner from our home and take me to Foothill High School for my classes, and then he’d pick me up afterward. That was the only time I’d hid my relationship from my family, ’cause Anthony told me not to tell them.

He’d said, “Your parents don’t know you like I do. You’re becoming your own woman. They won’t be happy for us. They’ll try to break us up.”

He was right. I wish I would never have told my parents the truth.

Back then Anthony was twenty-one and I was sixteen, but he made me feel all grown up inside, especially the way he was so patient and excited when he found out I was a virgin. The first time Anthony came inside me, I got pregnant. I was so scared until Anthony said he’d marry me and take care of us. When I told my parents, Daddy flipped out.

Now that I was almost twenty-one, hopefully I could find Anthony and maybe this time Daddy wouldn’t run him away. If I ever saw Anthony again, I’d tell him my daddy was a Christian man and he didn’t make me have an abortion. Our baby, Anthony James Day, was now four years old.

I wondered if someone had gotten my sister pregnant and that’s why she’d left home. Did Sunny have a husband? Or if a man was loving my sister, did he make her feel the way Anthony did me? I wanted Sunny to be happy wherever she was, but I sensed she wasn’t. Whoever she was with, he’d better treat her right or he’d have to deal with me.

Knock, knock.
“Summer, you okay in there, baby?” Mama asked, slightly opening the door.

“Yeah, Mama. I’m all right. AJ asleep?”

“Yes, Nana’s baby is sound asleep.”

“Thanks, I miss my sister so much. I know she’ll be home soon.”

Grasping my hand, Mama sat me on the bed, then sat beside me. “Baby, you are identical but your twin sister is not like you. Sunny has always been independent. She’s always done things her way. But the one thing both of you have in common is you’re smart girls and you’re good girls. When Sunny is ready, she’ll come back home. And when she does, we’ll shower her with love and take her to church every Sunday until she leaves again.”

Why couldn’t I have had the courage to go live with Anthony like he wanted me to?

“Mama. Do you think Daddy would let me see Anthony again? He is the father of my son. I mean, I am almost grown and I can’t find any boy or young man to treat me the way Anthony did, not even the boys at church.”

“Sshh. Hush, Summer. Now, you know that man was too old for you then and he’s much older now. Besides, something wasn’t right about his ways. He was impolite. Never came and introduced himself to your father even after you got pregnant. Always stayed outside in that there fancy automobile tootin’ his horn for you. Nobody even knows what he looks like. The Lord will send you somebody. You just gotta be patient, baby.”

Patience didn’t have an expiration date, a due date, or an estimate.

“Mama, I could be old and gray and never have another baby or ever have a husband. Sunny seen him once. He’s nice. She can vouch for me. Mama, please.”

Mama stood smoothing out her robe. “I done spoke my peace, Summer. Don’t wanna hear no more mention of Anthony James less you talkin’ ’bout my grandbaby.”