Unmasking Charlotte (a Taboo Love series) (2 page)

Calvin

My
father is a lawyer, my grandfather is a lawyer, my sister is a lawyer, my mother is a… doctor…thought I was going to say lawyer again, didn’t ya? And I, Calvin King III, own a sex club! Okay, not necessarily a sex club, in as much as the hottest, trendiest, most exclusive club in New York City, which happens to allow consensual sexual activity amongst pre-screened and highly scrutinized professional adults – Club Masquerade.

First, let’s get all of the jokes
and stereotypes out of the way. No, I am not a Cosby kid. Yes, I speak proper English, and no, that doesn’t make me a wanna-be white boy. No, I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth, nor am I a trust fund baby. And yes, I am the “black” sheep of the family. Pun intended. I can kick it with my homies or do tea with the Queen, and would be comfortable in both scenes. I don’t do drugs, drink excessively, or eat fried chicken and collard greens for dinner every night. Although, there is nothing wrong with that, it is delicious.

I
consider myself to be laid back and care free until I am not. It takes a lot to get me there, but once I am there, shit you not, back the fuck away. Oh, and I curse… a lot…unless I am in the company of children or a female who is offended by it. I take my cues from her. I don’t do drama. Period. So keep that juvenile shit away from me. One other big thing you should know about me? I NEVER, ever, pull the race card.

I
was supposed to be a lawyer just like the rest of them. In fact, I did go to law school. That’s where I met my two buddies, Nick and Parker – who both graduated with honors. But clearly, I wasn’t cut out for law school, so I bucked the system and decided to take my own path. And those two meatheads won’t let me forget. Not that either are complaining since they take advantage of Club M every chance they get. Well, maybe not Nick. Not anymore. Since he hooked up with that little bit, Delilah, she has had him by the balls, owning his ass. I like to give him shit about it, but don’t for one second think that if I had my chance with a woman as great as Delilah, I wouldn’t take my shot. Unlike those two knuckleheads, I have been searching for my perfect fit. I guess having parents who have been happily married for over thirty years will give you the confidence that monogamy, with the right partner, can work.

Don’t get me wrong, I love women – tall, short, fat, thin, white, black.
Doesn’t matter to me. I flirt like it’s no one’s business and love the thrill of knowing I make women feel beautiful. It’s not about the conquest for me. I don’t have a bedpost that needs to be notched. In fact, I am not the player my friends dub me to be.

To be honest, I have never hooked up with any of the women at my club. Never even been interested. Shocking, I know, but it takes a lot to catch my attention, and all of those ladies look the same to me. Plus, they are
all there for the same thing: hot sweaty sex or snag a rich sugar daddy. I want neither. I can get my own pussy, don’t need to dip into that well.

Don’t take all
of this honest mushy shit wrong now. Because I am anything but soft. When I have that right woman beneath me, she will always feel cherished and safe, but she will also know that I am the man, and that I am in control. With everything. When I have that right woman, laid-back, cool-as-a-cucumber Calvin no longer exists; alpha Calvin rears his control hungry, over protective, you are mine, head.

Now that you know my current situation, I am sure you are asking how I ended up here, and not
a partner at King, King & King. Let’s back the fuck up a few or thirty years.

I
was born in Harlem, New York, thirty years ago. My father was in law school and my mom stayed home with me. My sister, Carla, was born two years later. Once we were both in elementary school, my mother started medical school. She went mostly at night and took a little longer to graduate, but she was fine with that, knowing that raising her kids was the top priority.

I remember always wanting to go into work with my dad. He started out interning at my grandfather’s firm straight out of law
school, waiting to pass the Bar. We had a big party the night he got his results. I remember how proud my mom and grandparents were of him. I couldn’t wait for them to feel that way toward me when I graduated from law school. I guess even as a kid it was my dream to follow in their footsteps. To be the third King on the letterhead.

When I was eighteen
and my sister was sixteen, my views of the law, justice system, and my father changed dramatically. When he passed the Bar, he worked for a few more years with my grandfather gaining experience, but ultimately decided that he wanted to be a state prosecutor. Living in Harlem, we saw so much poverty and crime that my dad thought the best way he could help would be to get the criminals off the street. For the most part, he loved his job. Until
that
day. The day that is still etched into my mind. The day that horrified me to the point that to this date, I can still hear the agony in my dad’s voice. The reason I dropped out of law school and never looked back.

Nobody - not my parents, sisters, or closest friends - know the real reason
why I dropped out. They all think that I couldn’t hack it. They think I just wanted to party or have open access to pussy. They don’t know the nightmares I experience. They don’t know the lengths that I have gone through to try to forget what I heard. What I visualize. What anger I feel.

So, let’s go back those twelve years again, to when I was eighteen
, and see if you agree with me. I had actually just turned eighteen and it was the summer before my senior year, and I was working at my grandfather’s firm, making a little extra spending money as well as gaining experience for when it would be time to apply to law schools.

It was after 6:00 pm by the time I got home, and I was exhausted. I climbed the stairs to my bedroom, needing to pass the master suite in order to get there. My parents are rarely home before 7:00 pm, so I was surprised when I heard them speaking softly. I was just about to burst into their room when I turned
the corner and heard an angry growl. When I realized that it was my father, whom I had never once heard raise his voice, I was frozen in place. My heart sank, and my mind was coming up with a thousand different scenarios as to what could possibly be that horrible. I did a mental check of all of my family members and they were all alive and healthy, so it couldn’t be that. Maybe he lost his job? Nah, that wouldn’t cause him to act that way. Maybe someone is sick? Oh my god! Is my sister ill? My mother?

Knowing that I shouldn’t be eavesdropping on my parents, I tried to move past their room quickly and quietly so that they didn’t know I was there, but even though my brain told me to move, my feet just were not listening. I continued to stand there,
stuck, listening to the most horrific story. It was so bad that I had actually convinced myself that he was talking about a movie. Certainly, nothing like that could happen in real life. I was so fucking wrong, so naïve, but it wasn’t actually confirmed until I hit law school. The reason I dropped out. The reason I refuse to practice law. The reason I opened a “sex” club.

My dad’s head was in his hands, hunched over his lap, elbows on his knees. My mom sat wordlessly, just rubbing his back soothingly.
“We have a legal system, but certainly not a justice system,” my dad whispered. I heard those words repeatedly in my dad’s tortured raspy voice for weeks after. Waking me in the middle of the night, a cold sweat covering my teenage body. Shaking from the reality of what happened to that girl. To her father. The nightmares came less and less, coming fewer and farther apart, but I would be lying if I told you that it doesn’t happen anymore. I can’t imagine what they had to live through, what she has to live through.

“Do you want to talk about it?” my mom asked gently. He took in a deep breath, but then shook his head “no.” I let out a quick rush of air, not realizing that I myself was holding my breath.
Do I really want to know?
I kept asking myself, but curiosity got the best of me. I slid down the wall as gently as possible and took a seat. At eighteen, I was already maxed out at 6’5”, but I sat there, awkwardly, my arms leaning on bent knees, hoping he would change his mind. I was surprised when he began to open up.

“She was just a young girl, about the
same age as Carla. I would have done the same thing.” My dad started, but got angry again. He was ranting and raving and all I could hear over his exasperation was my mom consoling him. I rubbed my hand into my chest absentmindedly. My heart breaking at the pain in my dad’s voice. A minute or so later he continued.

“The victim. She was only sixteen
when it happened – less than a year earlier. We had an eyewitness and irrefutable evidence, so the case was fast-tracked, and the trial was this morning. I wasn’t the lead prosecutor, but it was my responsibility to do the direct examination on the sole witness – her father.” He stopped again and took a few deep breaths. I leaned closer to the door to see what was going on since I didn’t hear him speaking anymore. Hearing it is one thing, watching the pain in his face was what tipped me into a place I never came back from.

He look
ed into my mom’s eyes when he began to speak again. “She was a sophomore in high school, dating the star basketball player, the defendant, DeShawn Jackson. He was a senior at the time, already eighteen, already an adult, should have known better. The same age as Calvin.” He stopped again, bowing his head, shaking it side to side. I think he was thinking about Carla and me.

“According to her, he came over to her house that afternoon to study. Her parents were both at work, so they were alone. I don’t want you to have to think about this, so without going into details, I will just tell you this. Before he came over, she was a virgin. She no longer holds that virtue.” My mom gasped, her hand flying up to cover her mouth. Bile started rising into my throat, my eyes welled unshed tears for a girl I never met. It could have been Carla, and I thought I was going to vomit on the spot.

“Believe it or not, that wasn’t the worst of it,” he said. His eyes were pleading with my mom, as though he had no desire to finish this story, but she
nodded her head, pretty much asking him to continue.

My dad took another deep breath, and with a shaky voice, continued. “
As fate would have it, her father came home early from work that day. Little did he know that when he climbed those stairs to his little girl’s room, the rest of their lives would be shattered. According to her father, the sole witness I was examining on the stand, he heard his daughter scream ‘no’ a few times. At first, he thought it was the TV, but when he realized that it was her voice, he bounded up the stairs as quickly as he could, bursting through her door. What he saw…” my dad choked out. I took a quick peek around the doorframe and tears were streaming down his face. My mother was now bawling. “…what he saw he can never un-see. His little girl being mauled by this disgusting waste of human flesh.” I wrapped my arms around my stomach trying not to hurl. I desperately wanted to hear how this ended. Of course, the girl got justice, right?

“What happened, Cal? Did you nail his ass to the wall?” my mom asked, never one to mince words. She may be a professional woman, a doctor, but she isn’t afraid to tell
it like it is.

My dad patted her on the leg. “Give me a minute, dear. This is not easy for me. The worst is still to come.” I leaned back against the wall, my head thumping just hard enough to sting
, but not loud enough to draw attention to myself. Thank god Carla isn’t here to hear this.

“He beat the shit out of the asshole.” My
dad let out a chuckle, but it was laced with sadness. So that’s what he meant when he said he would have done the same thing. Then he laid the bomb on us. Well, on my mom, they still had no idea I was listening in. “He beat him to an inch of his life for raping his little girl, and this morning, after DeShawn’s trial was over – and he was sent to prison - I had the repulsive job of prosecuting the father for aggravated battery. With his little girl watching from the gallery. I can barely stand myself. There is no way I can look at myself in the mirror.” His head lowered in shame and I almost puked on the spot.

I couldn’t
take another word. Through sheer reflex, my body moved faster than I knew it could, and before I knew it, I was in my bathroom, vomiting the entire contents of my stomach. Then I vomited again even though there was nothing left in there. I dry heaved a few more times, before crawling into my bed. I grabbed my pillow like it was my only life preserver, smashed it into my face, and screamed every obscenity that I knew. And that was many considering I lived in Harlem. Then, I did the most natural thing, I cried like a baby. For hours. That was the last time I ever shed a tear. And it was for a girl that I never knew, or would ever know. I wonder what ended up happening to her father? To this day, nobody knows that I heard that conversation.

Needless to say
, my dad quit his job with the prosecutor’s office that day and became the second King on the letterhead. But they still live in that same house, still trying to do some good.

I was still convinced that law school was the right place for me.
So after graduating that year, I moved to the City to attend Columbia University, and subsequently Columbia Law – where I met my boys, Nick and Parker. I thought I could change the legal system, right all of the wrongs. Until the semester that I took Criminal Law. Until I was assigned my case to brief for class the next morning. Until I saw it in black and white. It was no longer just a story. I didn’t want to exist in that reality, where there is a legal system, but no justice. I closed my Criminal Law textbook, and never went back.