You're the One I Want (23 page)

K
atiesha's maroon Cutlass was sitting in the driveway when I pulled up alongside the curb in front of her crib. I noticed the light in the living room was on, so I knew her ass was home. The rain kept stopping and starting up again, going from a drizzle to a downpour. Why I wore platform heels in this nasty weather, I will never know. With all this rain and water, it was a wonder I hadn't fallen and busted my ass yet. I grabbed my purse and walked up to the door. I rang the doorbell, but she didn't answer. I rang it again and still nothing, so I knocked a couple of times. I tried to see in through the big front window, but I couldn't see shit 'cause of the ugly, booger-green curtains she had over the window. I thought about leaving. It was late and I was dog-tired, not to mention my feet were killing me from my red suede pumps that were officially ruined from all the rain and mud. I was about to leave until I saw a trail of something rolling from under the slit of the door.

“What the hell is this?” I stooped down and ran two fingers over the liquid. “Shit.”

When I turned the doorknob and pushed the door open, a body was lying slumped on the sofa. The trail of blood was coming from the rug that was soaked with it. I rushed to Katiesha to see if she was still alive. I could barely recognize her. Her face and head looked like it had been bashed in.

“Freeze!” I heard a voice holler.

I turned around to face the cop that was standing in front of me with his burner aimed.

“Put your hands up!”

It was the baldheaded Cuban cop that had cuffed Deanthony that night at my house. Lewis, I think his name was. I learned early in life that if cops told you to freeze, you froze. I knew too many dumb brothers who tried to stand the cops down, only to end up being toe-tagged.

“Get down on your knees and cross your legs.”

“I didn't do this!” Fear rushed over my face; tears started to wail up in my eyes. Lewis stood behind me and cuffed my hands behind my back. The steel felt cold around my wrists.

“This is Officer Lewis. We have what looks like a 187 at 1312 Pepper Drive. Suspect is in custody.”

“Listen to me. I came in and found her like that.”

“Ma'am, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. Do you understand these rights I have just read to you?”

“I didn't do it. I didn't kill her.”

Lewis walked me outside to his patrol car. Red and blue lights lit up the muggy, wet night. A crowd of people was starting to gather. Kids and grown folks alike.

“Call my husband.”

“Ma'am, you will get to call someone down at the station,” Lewis said as he stuffed me in the backseat of his car.

As people looked through the fingerprint-smudged glass at me like I was a blood-thirsty fugitive that was on the loose, the tears came and kept coming. I couldn't stop them and just let them come.

I
guess that bitch Katiesha is going to start appearing in my dreams now. She wasn't the first person I ever bodied. That title belongs to Dante Sullivan and he isn't the one to let me live it down the way he fucked with me in my nightmares every night. The dream is always the same. I'm standing in my kitchen on a beautiful Saturday morning, making myself a bagel and a caramel macchiato. I turn around and there he is, Dante, standing there in front of me with these cold, dishwater-white eyes with rotting flesh and blood running out of his mouth. I start to scream, but no sound comes out. Dante was dead, but not really alive. He was like a zombie or some shit, I guess.

Before I could make a move, he plunges a knife into my stomach. I look down, shocked by this knife sticking out of me. Blood starts to stain my powder puff-pink robe as the metallic taste of the crimson-red liquid fills my throat. And all I can do is cough it up as Dante screws the knife in deeper. I wake up in a cold sweat, screaming and disoriented, realizing that I'm safe, if not sound in my bed. I feel my stomach to find that there's no stab wound, no blood stain on my robe.

I scream my head off, but no sound comes out. Sometimes I even think I can smell his cologne in the house. Cool Water, the same fragrance he wore the night I sent his lying-ass to hell for breaking my heart.

The first time I saw Dante was at Grown Folks Night at the Moon. My all-time favorite R&B group, New Edition, was in Tallahassee. Sexy-ass Ralph Tresvant, Ricky Bell, Johnny Gill, Michael Bivins, Ronnie DeVoe, and Bobby Brown, didn't miss a beat, tearing it up from the floor up that night. I didn't give a damn what anyone thought, Ralph Tresvant was the most gorgeous man alive. Ricky Bell was my next fav. I would fuck all five of them, but would marry Ralph.
Mrs. Tangela Tresvant
has a nice ring to it. New Edition sang all their greatest hits: “Candy Girl,” “Cool It Now,” “Can You Stand the Rain,” and my all-time favorite New Edition song
ever,
“Mr. Telephone Man.” I'd listened to that whole album about a trillion times. I wanted to marry Ralph Tresvant and have, like, twenty babies with that beautiful man.

Dante looked a little like Ralph, I remember. I was sitting at the end of the bar, nursing on a whiskey sour, when I noticed him staring at me at the end of the bar. He was fine as hell, looking like something out of
GQ
or
Esquire
. I smiled at him, giving him permission to come down and say hello.

“Is this seat taken?” he asked.

Hell no,
I thought. “Not at all. I was saving it for you,” I said boldly.

Dante had this deep, smoky voice that made my toes curl and pussy quiver. He saddled up next to me, the smell of his cologne infiltrating my senses.

“Hi, I'm Dante.”

“Tangela.”

He took my hand into his palm and softly shook it.

“I was watching you in front of the stage earlier. You've got some nice moves,” Dante said.

“Thank you. I love New Edition. I have all of their albums, including all of their best-of stuff. When I heard on the radio that they were going to be doing a one-night show here in Tallahassee, I bought my ticket the same day.”

“Now see, already we have something in common. You're a bigger fan than I am.”

“It's always nice to meet a fellow fan. That's that good old school R&B and not that mess they got playing on the radio nowadays.”

Dante had chestnut-brown skin, a short, low-cut haircut, and dark chocolate-brown eyes, with a smile to die for, like my future husband Ralph Tresvant

“So, Dante, what do you do?”

“I'm an attorney at Foote, Williams, & Sullivan. I'm the Sullivan in there.”

“Oh, hold up. I think I've seen y'all's commercials on TV.”

“That's us.”

“Wow, you look even better in person. Television doesn't do you justice.” When it came down to men, I was always laying the compliments on thick.

“I'm glad someone thinks so. I hate doing those things, but we all agreed that it would be a good idea for drumming up new clients, let people know that we're out there.”

“I feel you. Nothing wrong with that.”

“So what about you? What do you do?”

“I'm a stylist at Radiance Salon.”

“How long have you been a stylist?”

“Let me see, going on about eight years now.”

“And you like what you do?”

“I do. It pays the bills and some of the clients can be a pain, but it can be fun, too, like when we have Grandmother Appreciation Day. Women bring in their mothers and grandmothers to get their hair done, and when we get women in from the shelter to get done up for job interviews. I like when we do a lot of work for the homeless shelters and charities, so those are the times when the job is great, when I can give back to the community.”

I realized that I was running my mouth, giving too much information
to this fine-ass man I had just met all of five minutes ago. “I'm sorry. Am I talking too much?”

“Not at all. I'm fascinated. I think it's great what you're doing. We're trying to do some pro-bono at our firm. There are a lot of people out there who can't afford a lawyer who are in real trouble, so one of the things we want to do is offer up representation for those disenfranchised who can't afford the high cost of an attorney.”

“Well, now that I know a lawyer, I know exactly who to call if I ever find myself in a mess. I definitely want you on my side, for sure.”

Dante grinned. “Everyone talks about how they hate lawyers. What's that running joke? What do you call a bunch of lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A good start, but when they get into a bind, who do they call?”

“A lawyer,” I said, finishing Dante's sentence.

“Exactly. It's all a joke until someone gets arrested and accused for murder.”

“I could not agree more. All of a sudden, an attorney is your best friend when you could be facing life in prison or a needle in your arm.”

I realized that the conversation had taken a turn for the morbid and quickly veered into something more lighthearted, like discussing Dante's dick size.

The bartender noticed that my glass was empty and walked over to where we were sitting. “Can I get you another whiskey sour?”

“Yes, please, thank you.”

I hoped Dante didn't think I was one of these drunken messes that were stumbling around the club for a man. There is nothing less classy than seeing a sister bent over the shitter, puking her pretty little guts out, only having to be carried over the shoulders of a couple of bouncers, or worse, by some man who had slipped
some of that Georgia Homeboy in their drink. That's why I kept my shit classy at all times. You never know when a fine man like Dante is going to come along. Judging from the pecs tight under his shirt, he's no stranger to the gym. Thanks to the way Ralph was gyrating on stage, my pussy was sopping wet and hungry for some sweet dick.

Dante and I talked until they hollered last call.

“I hoped I haven't kept you out too late,” he said.

“Not at all. I'm actually off tomorrow, so I don't have anything planned. Would you like to come back to my place for a nightcap?”

A nightcap? Really, Tangela? Who the hell talks like that?

“Sounds good. Lead the way.”

Dante followed me back to my house where we continued to get acquainted over glasses of brandy. I was anxious to throw my pussy to Dante's meat.

“How about a tour of the place?”

“Lead the way.”

“This is the living room. In there is the kitchen where I throw down.”

“You like to cook?”

“Oh, baby, I don't
like
to cook. I love to cook. And up here… is the bedroom.”

As Dante followed me upstairs, I could feel his eyes on my ass like hot beams. When we reached my bedroom, we didn't waste any time. I started to undo the buttons on my blouse. Dante took me into his muscled arms, placing one hand lovingly around my waist and the other firmly on my booty before he pressed those juicy, sexy-ass lips of his against mine. He plunged his tongue in as I ran my hand along the bulge that tented his jeans. Dante smeared me onto the bed, his kisses wet and deep. He tugged his jeans down around his bubble-booty. I was surprised to find that
Dante didn't have on a stitch of underwear. Here was this man of sophistication, walking around free-balling.

Y'all freak-nasty asses never cease to amaze me,
I thought.

“Wait,” I said. I reached into one of the drawers of the bedside table and took out a condom. I wasn't about to catch an STD or a baby. I didn't care how good you looked. I didn't play that shit. “Protection always, boo.”

Dante took the rubber and tore open the gold cellophane with his milk-white teeth. Like me, he was good and ready to fuck. Dante unrolled the rubber over the fat crown, down the shaft of his dick. I whimpered when I felt him slide it inside me.

Damn, that feels good.

I wrapped my legs tight around the back of Dante's thighs, kneading his shoulders as he fucked me hard and hot. I held him in my arms as we both came to what could have been labeled as an earth-shattering climax.

Dante began to get dressed, slipping his arms back into the sleeves of his shirt.

“You want to stay the night? I could make us breakfast. I make some mean apple cinnamon pancakes.”

His ass was bare to me as he pulled jeans up over his apple butter-brown mounds.

“I wish I could, but I have an early morning meeting. I would like to see you again.”

I knelt behind him on my knees on the bed and started to massage Dante's shoulders. “I think that can be arranged.”

Dante took out one of his business cards and handed it to me. “Give me a call. We'll have lunch.”

“I'm going to hold you to that.”

We kissed each other good night. Dante's lips felt like warm marshmallows.

“Are you sure you can't stay?”

“I would love nothing more than to wake up with you next to me, but there are some things I need to take care of before this meeting at the office tomorrow. How about a rain check?”

Dante pulled his car keys out of the front pocket of his jeans and gave me a last kiss good night.

A week had passed and I hadn't heard so much as boo from Dante. I didn't want to think that he had only used me for sex, that I was some notch on his proverbial bedpost. I called the number he gave me, only to be sent to voicemail after three rings. He sounded as sexy on his machine as he did in person. I usually made it a rule to never call a man, but let him call me. I didn't want to give these fools the impression that I was some dick-thirsty bitch. After the fourth call that week, I decided that I wasn't going to bug him.