The Sweetest Taboo (15 page)

Drae

         It was a record-breaking eighty degrees at four o’clock on a Thursday afternoon. Until now March had been in a deep freeze; it’d snowed twice, rained almost every other day, and the days in between the spring breezes felt like arctic air.

Drae had just gotten off work and stepped into her candy-apple convertible Roadster when her cell phone rang. She hoped like hell it was Hassan. She’d been waiting all day to light his ass up; especially since he’d been lying all week, had been home only twice since Sunday, yet called every day around the same time for her to fry him chicken, which he never managed to eat.

She looked at the cell phone and noticed it was a private number. A menacing smile ran across her face. “Let me explain this to you,” she answered, “when I catch you, I’ma…fuck…yo’ ass up!”

“Dayummm, Sunshine. It’s like that? To hell with ‘Hey, how you doin’,’ huh?”

Instantly her heart skipped four beats at the sound of Naz’s voice. She swore she could smell his cologne through the phone. “I thought you were—never mind—sorry about that—and yes, how are you?” For the life of her she couldn’t figure out why she felt so nervous. She hadn’t felt this giddy over a man since she had her first orgasm.

“It’s been a minute.” As he spoke Drae could hear him smiling. “Wassup?”

“You, that’s wassup.”

“True.”

She laughed at his arrogance. “There’s really no need for you to suck ya own dick.”

“Funny.” He chuckled. “Listen, me and my boys are down here at the court on Prospect. Why don’t you come through and be my cheerleader?”

“So, what, you tryna get a date?” She was doing her best not to spit out “yes” too fast.

“It’s your world ma’, I’m just a squirrel tryna get a nut.”

“I bet you are.”

“What, you ain’t know.”

“Bye, Nasir…”

“Be good, love.”

After Drae parked, she quickly took off the blouse she wore underneath her red Donna Karan seersucker pantsuit. She buttoned the two buttons going down the middle of her suit jacket; this way the contoured look would accent her waistline and compliment her abundance of cleavage.

When she walked onto the playground, Naz was dribbling the ball on the court and his friends were talking shit to him and laughing.

“I hope you don’t fuck that fast,” one of Naz’s friends joked.

“Don’t talk about your daddy like that,” Naz retorted.

Drae took a series of deep breaths before she settled on what she would say when she walked up to him. Yet the closer she got, the more nervous she became. Just being in his presence mesmerized her.

Staring at him, she realized being dapper must’ve been a part of his style, because every time she saw him he worked it out: slightly baggy basketball shorts, a wife-beater and crisp white Uptowns on his feet.

Instead of sneaking up on him like she’d planned, she sat down on the cement park bench across from the court and cleared her throat. Naz, who’d just passed the ball, turned around and smiled. “Give me a minute,” he said to his friends.

One of his friends looked at Drae and said, “And then give me one.”

Naz sat next to her. “Sunshine…what’s good, love?”

“You.”

“All day.”

“Okay.” She blushed. “I take it you came riding in on your own dick today?”

“Nah, I was waiting for you.” He kissed her on the forehead, and looked her up and down. “Only you would come to the playground in a red seersucker pantsuit. You too fly for words, ma’.”

“Oh, daddy, you mean that?” She pouted her smooth and shiny lips.

“Daddy, yeah a’ight.” He laughed. “This probably ya first time on the playground, huh? You ain’t never play outside as a kid, did you?”

“Excuse you, my friends and I were always outside.”

“Doing what? Playing dress up?”

“Hopscotch, thank you.”

“You can’t hop.”

“I can so hop.” Drae laughed as she mushed him on the shoulder. “Me and my crew owned hopscotch.”

“You and who? The chick who looked at me like I stank when we got caught coming out the bathroom? And the punk who was chasing me in Queen of Sheba with dollar bills? What a whack-ass crew.”

“Whoool.” She playfully drew back her fist. “Don’t get bodied, niggah.”

“You think you tough?” He wrapped one of his arms around the back of her neck and placed her in a pretend choke hold. “Do somethin’.”

She rummaged through her bag. “Let me see if I got a knife.”

“A’ight, a’ight”—he let go—“I ain’t fuckin’ wit’ you, but yo, ya man, lil’ dude, what’s his name?”

“Nae-Nae.”

“Nae-Nae…what the fuck? I shoulda known.” He shook his head. “Anyway, yo, my boys was lookin’ at me like ‘You know this kid?’ I had to be like ‘Yo, son, I promise you I will rock yo’ ass to sleep if you don’t step da fuck away from me.’”

“I should kick yo’ ass saying that to Nae-Nae.”

“Ya boy’s retarded, I hope the shit ain’t contagious.” He paused, tilted his head down and looked Drae in the face.

“I’ma hurt you.” She laughed. “Now, what he say?”

“That niggah was like ‘Oh, you a killah? I like killahs.’ Man, I just left him standing there.”

Drae fell out laughing. “Let me just warn you now, Nae-Nae is relentless.”

“Why you warning me? That’s your friend. Why would I see him again? Is that a slick way of saying I’ma see you again?”

“Do you want to see me again?”

Naz looked up at the court, where his friends were still playing. “You know I’m going back on my word, right? I swore after my daughter’s mother I would never mess with another married woman.”

“You have a daughter?” Drae was surprised.

“Yes.”

“How old?”

“Five.”

“And her mother was married? Why was she cheating?”

“What, you got some morals?” He shot her a sly look.

“You being funny? You must wanna be cut.”

“You my niggah, you know that?” He smiled. “But she cheated for the same reasons most chicks cheat: he treated her like garbage, cheated on her, beat on her. Ridiculous shit.”

Drae arched her eyebrows, especially since the story was beyond familiar. “How’d you meet her?” Drae scooted closer to him; he placed his left hand in her lap and she started playing with his long fingers.

“I’d just started dancing at this lil’ club in Jersey called Cheetah’s,” he said, enjoying her touch. “She was in the audience and snuck backstage…. Sound familiar?”

“Ha-ha-ha.”

“Anyway, I kicked it to her and we went from there. I got to know her, fell in love with her, and since she was the married one I played the game by her rules. When she got pregnant she was scared as hell and told me leaving that niggah wasn’t an option. So, she lied and told him the baby was his. After that, we left each other alone.”

“Were you hurt?”

“Hell yeah, I even stopped dancing and got a nine-to-five.”

“Where?”

“Verizon.”

“Doing what?”

“Telephone repair.”

“All that body climbing a pole, I woulda lost control.” Drae laughed.

“Your freaky ass probably would’ve too. Anyway, nine months later, she called me crying, said she couldn’t do it anymore. That he knew the baby wasn’t his and I needed to come get her, or else she was putting her up for adoption.”

“What?” Drae said in disbelief.

“Yeah, I was living in a studio and shit. Verizon wasn’t paying me nothing, not compared to what I made when I was dancing. I mean a nine-to-five worked for me by myself, but now I had a kid and I wasn’t about to see her go through no bullshit. So I got back on my grind and revamped my hustle, which was exotic dancing.”

“And pornos—was a hustle?”

“Yeah.” He chuckled. “A short-lived one. Hassan—that niggah too wild for me. Some of the shit he was doing, I wasn’t about to touch. Needless to say, I’m back where I started.”

“So dancin’…that was your hustle. You act like you were on the block, paleeze.”

“Let me tell you somethin’, every thug ain’t got to sell drugs.”

“Don’t knock it till you try it,” she teased.

“What the fuck, you holdin’? Let a niggah know so I can bounce.”

“Yeah right.”

“Plus”—he laughed—“I’ma tell you a secret, and I better not ever hear this shit again.”

“Who I’ma tell?”

“Punk-ass Nae-Nae.”

“Pussies is always hatin’ on Nae-Nae.”

“Pussies—what? You callin’ me a pussy?”

“No, baby.” She did her best not to laugh. “That’s Nae-Nae’s shit.”

“Nae-Nae’s hatin’ on pussies? Know what?” he quickly said, answering his own question. “I don’t even wanna know. Now, you wanna hear my story, or what?”

“Cock Diesel, would you go on?!”

“Cock Diesel? Don’t be so formal, ‘daddy’ is good enough.” He shot her a sly smile and Drae’s eyes widened in a pleasant surprise.

“You really giving yourself a head job today,” she said. “Now would you please come on with the big secret?”

“Anyway, when I was younger…I tried selling drugs.”

“You did not get me amped just to hear that shit….” She mushed him on the side of his head. “This better be a good-ass story. So what happened when you tried to lock a block?”

“I kept getting arrested.”

“Arrested?”

“Every goddamn day,” he said, exasperated.

“Shut up.” She burst out in laughter. “You lyin’?”

“I’m dead-up serious. It was like when I stepped on the block with dirty pockets, Five-O was right there runnin’ ’em. After a while my brother was like ‘You may as well invest in a pair of handcuffs.’ Even the cops was like ‘Man, please give this shit up, ain’t nobody gettin’ arrested but you. And you a lil’ niggah, we don’t want you.’”

Drae laughed so hard she cried. “I’m sorry for laughing, I am…” she stuttered. “I am.”

“It’s cool, the shit is funny. Face it, every niggah on the block can’t trap that motherfucker, ’cause my black ass stayed on the come-up; even my mother was like ‘Nasir, this is ridiculous.’”

“Is that why you started dancing?”

“Believe it or not one of my boys’ moms got me into dancing.”

“Ya boy’s moms?”

“Hell, yeah. This chick was on me. I swear, I would come to see my boy and his moms would stroll through the house naked.”

“And where was he at?”

“Who knows? But some kinda way, he was never there. And his moms was bad, she was forty-something years old and I was nineteen, but she was tight. And I had never really had no pussy before. I mean, I fucked a couple o’ chicks in the hallway, snuck a couple of afternoons in my bed, but that was it.”

“So you fucked her?”

“I fucked the shit outta her. And she kept my black ass too. I was the freshest lil’ niggah on the block. I had more gear than her damn kids. Anything I wanted, she got it. She used to manage this lil’ club, I forget the name, and she told me I should try dancing, the women would love me. I did and everything fell into place from there.”

“Damn.”

“Now, back to you, since you all in my business. What’s up with your husband? ’Cause I’m not tryna see both of y’all.”

“You won’t have to.”

“Really? And how is that?”

“Why, are you worried about him? Look, I’m sitting here with you and we kickin’ it. Take that shit for what it is. Right now it’s about me and you, and if you feelin’ me and I’m feelin’ you, then what he got to do with us? Just flow wit’ it.”

Naz looked at Drae long and hard before he fell out into complete laughter; his legs were gapped open and his defined arms fell in between. “You gamin’ me? Please tell me you did not just try and run no shit off on me.”

“You gotta admit that was good, though, right? Give it to me,” she said, holding her fist out for a pound. “I had my shit together.”

He gave her a pound. “Now,” he said in a serious tone, “what’s the story with you and this niggah?”

“Look.” She crossed her legs and sat back. Naz spread his arms across the park bench, with his left arm hanging over Drae’s shoulder. “Hassan and I have been together since I graduated high school, and when I first met him, he felt different to me. Everything about him felt perfect. He was better than I ever dreamed any man in my life could be. He was a fantastic lover, a wonderful friend, he listened, shit, he did more for me than my own daddy, who raised me. He paid for me to go to college and everything.”