By Kiki Terrell

The novel is about three women from America and the Caribbean, pursuing life and love in the UK. Here’s some more information about what the book is about. I’ve also attached a cover image:

‘What do you do when getting what you want in life and love requires giving up everything you thought you owned? Chama, Tasha and Coco are three friends pursuing their dreams in London. Tasha’s newly-minted, new-age world view makes her current life peaceful and her gangster past something of a distant memory – until her man’s self-imposed celibacy ban is broken just long enough for him to impregnate her – and propose to someone else. Coco’s just about managing to keep her life, her staff and her husband firmly in the palm of her hand, until one wild indiscretion sends her into a tailspin and causes everything she knows to crumble. Chama’s Christian values – and her belief in happily ever after – are challenged by her husband’s impotence. Does a founding member and head of the women’s ministry of the Blessed Family Church leave her husband for his inability to have sex? Things come to a head when the secret that two of them have allowed to remain buried erupts in one life-changing afternoon and it seems like things can never be the same again. ‘

Chapter 4 – Coco

What I want to know is, what kind of an idiot proposes to a woman with a text message? And what kind of an idiot accepts such a marriage proposal? And ruining the beauty sleep I’m not getting (and the slant of the doo-rag keeping my wrap in place) to find out, will be, I hope, so worth it. ‘Cause otherwise? Heads. Will. Roll. Not that I’d be getting my beauty sleep if Tasha hadn’t rung – my head is killing me. And it isn’t just because my jaw is the size of the London Eye.

“An airhead named Erin who doesn’t ask where her equally stupid man sleeps at night,” answers Chama, “Sorry Tasha.”

She’s got her halo on, even at four o’ clock in the morning.

I was about ten minutes into a call to Jared, one of the delivery guys from the printers Chocolate uses, when I answered the beep. There are only two things I interrupt late-night phone-sex with Jared for – real sex with my husband or an ‘emergency’ call from one of my BFFs. Considering the tear-soaked gibberish on the other end when I pressed the ‘Flash’ button? I’d say it was an emergency. So I reluctantly stopped Jared in the middle of his description of his favourite body-part (usually, I try not to laugh when he calls himself Jackhammer Jared like he’s actually proud of it, but otherwise his phone technique is really rather good) and called up Chama on three-way ‘cause, first of all, I didn’t feel qualified to talk to Tasha about this particular issue all by myself and, secondly, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I mean, Kerin is a dog and all, but who the fuck is Erin? Chama’s so stunned when she hears the story that she doesn’t even bother with the suggestion that we pray with her about it which, nowadays, she does before we share the crisis. For the first time in a long time, Chama seems to be at a loss for words.

“So where’s the playa now?” she asks, as poor Tasha struggles to compose herself.

“He’s taking his mom to the airport today so he left again soon after he showered, but he’s coming back here and crashing for the day ‘cause he’s not going in to work,” her words begin to warble, “at least, that’s what he told me,” she finishes doubtfully – and promptly dissolves into tears again.

“So what did he say when you confronted him?” is what I ask. And I mean, I’m trying to tread gently. If the subject of Kerin and the prospect of him leaving can reduce my hard-core-home-girl- reformed-gang-veteran-of-a-best-friend to such a whimpering mess, what choice do I have? Telling her that she should beg him to move out and marry the girl tomorrow so she can be rid of his sorry ass sooner rather than later is probably not the kind of advice she can take right now. And frankly, right now I’m really missing the older version of my BFF cause I’d bet my vintage Hermés that the Tasha I knew at Uni would have reached for the nearest blunt object and beaten him unconscious after she’d read that text, and at the very least, given me something worth losing a couple minutes heavy-breathing with Jared to hear about. But then again, the old Tasha, pre-enlightenment, would have seen through Kerin’s ruse a long time ago. Of that much I’m sure.

“I didn’t,” says Tasha.

“Oh, Sweet Jesus, don’t get all new-age on me again,” Chama starts, “what?!!! You’re gonna wait for him to work this one out as an individual because of your pure, non-traditional love, right?”

So I’m trying to shush Miss Chama, with some discreet throat-clearing, to spare us both the tirade I know she’s brewing, but she doesn’t get it and right after she asks me if my overindulgence in alcohol has finally burnt a hole in my throat, I have to say:

“Chama, can you please try to be a little more understanding of any set of values that doesn’t match yours?”

But Tasha says “No, it’s OK, confronted him is what I should have done. What I actually did was far worse. I’m so ashamed of myself – it’s like I never even went on that cruise, it’s like I didn’t learn anything at all ….”

So then Chama asks what the hell she’s talking about and I’m getting a little bit worried and excited at the same time at the prospect of something that will finally, finally, take my mind off that little black bug sitting on the door to this little shit bedroom of the nowhere apartment I’ve been reduced to. Cause in all honesty? Jared’s graphic descriptions of his jackhammer didn’t do it. I’m thinking maybe Tasha, back to her old self, will tell us to pick her up from the Police Station ‘cause they’ve found Kerin poisoned in the departure terminal at Gatwick Airport or something. Frankly? I wouldn’t blame her one bit. I mean, can you imagine? Asking someone she’s never heard of to marry him when he’s living off her? There’s no telling what the old Tasha would have done faced with an affront like this and, with the stress the new Tasha’s been under, the old one could very well be due for an appearance.

“I texted them,” explains Tasha, sobbing incoherently.

“Texted who?” Chama asks, surprised.

“All of them, every female on his contacts list: his boss at work, his brother’s girlfriend, each and every one of those bitches in his cell-phone.”

So then I get silent cause it doesn’t look like this is going to end well and I really, really don’t want to have to get up just to drag her crazy ass off to the Psyche Unit at the hospital. Truth is? The ‘old’ Tasha we know from first year at Uni is probably not even half of the bad bitch she must have been before that. Ever so often when we’re talking and she starts a story about her childhood, her face gets hard, sinister somehow, with the sly, savage undertone of someone you’d cross the street to avoid walking next to. I know that look. I used to see it quite often myself, when I lived in the ghetto. Point is? Despite her ‘evolution’ and all her peace-mongering? I have a suspicion that, with the right blend of bad circumstances? The Tasha we’d see might be someone we wouldn’t even want to know.

“What did you say?” Chama asks quietly.

“After I found that text from Erin,” Tasha explains, “I don’t know what came over me, my fingers just flew over that keypad.”

“And ….” coaxes Chama.

“I made like it was coming from Kerin and I said I’d wanted them from the moment I saw them and I asked them to marry me.”

So I’m like, “All of them? You proposed to every woman on his contact list?”

And the new Tasha says “Yeah,” in a small voice, snivelling, “I gave into revenge. My aura must be so ugly right now …..”

*********

            This is how I came to be listening to Tasha’s story on a bruise-inducing wooden bed in a sparsely-furnished apartment in Battersea instead of sharing the split-level Chelsea townhouse (if not the king-sized divan) I live in with my husband, after the day he found me on top of Crash.

The night of the day that my car-park quickie with Crash went south, before I’d driven like a crazy woman to the old apartment that Chocolate keeps for storage and the odd photo-shoot, and after I’d drummed up the courage to bring the purring engine of the BMW to a stop next to his Mercedes in our garage, I found my husband in our bedroom, throwing clothes in random explosions into two opened suitcases on the peanut-beige chaise lounge at the foot of our bed. It took me a while to realise, on reaching the side of my husband of three years, that the clothes and the suitcases were mine.

When I came in, one of my cotton-candy-coloured La Senza lingerie sets flew past my head like some exotic bird and landed in a broken pile in my baby blue Samsonite hard-case. There whizzed my Ann Taylor lace camisoles to come to rest in a heap on the clasp of the smaller of the two pieces of luggage. There bounced my Jimmy Choo slingbacks to land beside my lingerie in testament to my husband’s indiscriminate ousting of every trace of me from our bedroom. My first thought? That it was gonna take a hell of a lot more than two suitcases to hold my clothes. My second thought? That if my husband wasn’t taking my calls, but had driven home to speed-pack my stuff? It didn’t matter that Chama hadn’t gotten around to telling me exactly how to fix my broken marriage, because it was probably past the point of being salvaged by any sort of therapy, anyway.

While I’d tried to figure out what to say to Richard? The man himself tornadoed from the closet, to the dresser, to my drawers, to my shoe-rack and back, traversing the expanse of sisal-coloured carpet at a dizzying speed, like some real-life Tasmanian devil despite his grey Saville Row suit. And that vein in his temple was throbbing like the dickens.

Let me tell you something about my husband – he does everything slowly. He’s the type of man who strolls when he walks, thinks hard before he speaks his thoughts in summary, and he moves deliberately. Matter of fact? The only thing he does fast is fuck. Point being, if Richard had lost control to the point that he was whizzing around our bedroom? I should have guessed that all hell was about to break loose. I should have turned around and left the house and spent the night with Chama until he cooled off. That’s what I should have done.

What I actually did was apologize. I mean, he should give me credit for that at least, right? I admitted I was wrong.

“I’m sorry if I hurt you,” is what I’d actually said, “but not that it happened.”

And then I’d placed my hand on his forearm, just to let him know I was trying to connect again. I mean, when I thought about it, I hadn’t actually touched my husband in ages. But he threw me off.

“You wouldn’t have the grace to be sorry it happened,” he’d muttered, starting on the trinkets on my side of the dresser: my Chanel No 5, my Tie Rack sable clothes brush, my collection of pearl necklaces – all went into the open cases. And my fingers had been itching to dial the cleaning service we used to let them know they’d have a big job the following day – but I hadn’t.

“Rich, we both know that this hasn’t been working for some time,” I’d started, because, I mean, it was true. Actually, the last time I was in the middle of a confrontation like that? Squared off gladiator-style in front of my husband in our bedroom? I was the one throwing things, and he’d been the one caught cheating. Only, his betrayal was worse than any affair I could ever have had (and I made sure I had plenty after I’d found him out). And yes, there had been that period of time in the past twelve months when we’d actually seemed to be beginning to come to some sort of a relationship that extended beyond a mutual understanding. Yes, there were definitely a couple of nights recently spent at home, together, in front of the TV, or on the couch, or in the kitchen, talking. I mean, there were definitely some weeks in recent memory when it seemed like my husband and I were actually becoming friends again. Once upon a time, I would have sold my mother for a few weeks like that.

And then there was the incident with Milton.

“I know that I messed up,” is how I began, “and I know we’ve been trying to work on things recently, but  Crash …. I mean ….. Milton is somebody from my past. He excited me and I …..”

Afterwards, I didn’t remember seeing his fist coming, just the feel of it connecting with my jaw, just the taste of blood flooding my tongue as the inside of my cheek collided with at least £10,000 in brand-new work on my teeth, just the feeling of weightlessness as I fell to the floor.

Can you believe that motherfucker?

“Don’t you ever,” spat Richard, “ever, call that man’s name in my house again, do you hear me!”

I’ve been telling myself every day since then that I was two seconds away from grabbing the fire-poker and making a hole in his face, that I was this close to gathering myself up, jumping on that wanker’s back and clawing his eyes out. But honestly? At the time, I was so stunned that all I could do was sit there, sobbing, wondering whether my jaw was broken.

And after he’d finished all the packing in the bedroom and started on my study? I hadn’t bothered to beg him to let me stay, to talk things over, to go to counselling and put things in perspective. Instead, I’d retreated to the downstairs shower and locked the door, half out of my mind with the fear that he might come inside and drag me out, the I-Phone at arm’s length on the cistern of the toilet in the event that I needed to call 999. I’d waited until I no longer heard the bump and lurch of my personal exorcism, and had turned off the shower and dried and dressed in the same clothes I’d shed an hour before that, too scared to consider whether I should go upstairs and access the closets or the suitcases to change. Then I’d sat trembling on the toilet, talking myself into going outside, facing the music, mentally placing myself and my situation. For Coco Devine, Editor-In-Chief, it was Tuesday, the day before Wednesday morning’s design meeting and three days shy of Friday afternoon’s planned dismissal of the non-performing Advertising Assistant. For Coco Devine, wife of Richard Devine III it was 8 p.m.: one hour past the start of the dinner we would usually have shared and two hours before we would have retired to champagne-coloured satin sheets to sleep comfortably apart on a king-sized sleigh bed. For Coco Devine, up-and-coming social star, it was three hours past the time I should have telephoned the other members of my Yoga class in the Chelsea Women’s Club, to remind them of Saturday’s Bhakti Yoga session in the atrium at my house. But Coco Devine, the little girl, was sat in the downstairs bathroom with the sand-coloured marble-tiled walls and floor, the gold-gilded towel and toilet-paper rails, eyeing the taupe ceramic tissue-bin now emptied of fluffy white two-ply, one hand on the bloodied towel on the back of the toilet in case I needed to pat my mouth with it again, surveying my swollen face in the mirror.

There’s only one thing to do with a man who hits you.

I wasn’t sure which one of my selves it was that smoothed my hair, straightened my back and unlocked the door. The suitcases were standing, like soldiers, outside the door to the bedroom. The keys to the Battersea place sat on top of the combination lock on one of the cases. I grabbed one case in each hand and ran like Marion Jones for the door to the garage.

**********

            In the middle of a shit-shower, a real woman puts her game face on. She gives nothing away. So it’s nearly noon on Wednesday when I launch through the doors of the Chocolate Magazine offices, hibernating behind enormous Gucci shades, my best Burberry trench and a silk scarf (none of which completely hide the huge black and blue bruise hologramming out beneath the shitload of concealer I slapped on), waltzing in on five-inch Louboutins so tall I nearly bust my ass on the stairs en route to my office on the third floor of the Battersea walk-up. It doesn’t escape me that I leave a trail of stares and silence in my wake. With every step, conversations are abandoned, jaws are dropped and eyes are averted. It could be the black and blue bruise on my face, or it could be something else entirely. But the mission, to my mind, is clear: containment and recovery. Isn’t that what the army does after a disaster? Well, alright then. All I gotta do is: 1. make a plan and 2. follow it. In the meantime, I can give the staff good face, I can do the PR damage control: dress my best and keep quiet on the marital cold-shoulder. Nobody has to know I’ve been up all night worrying, right? That my husband still isn’t taking my calls. That I’ve made up my mind that I’m not even breathing until I’m past the secretary’s office and safely into my own, behind a locked red door with a gilded sign saying Coco Devine, Editor-in-Chief, preferably with a stiff martini. Nobody has to know that at that point, and only then, can I even try to figure out this mess, to develop a plan that doesn’t just equal panic.

“Mrs. Devine?”

The secretary’s a new hire after the last one went the way of the three before her. This one’s tall. Talented. Personality of a house mouse on crack. Pearlita, I think. Or Pamita. Something like that. Generally she fades into the woodwork and jumps if you yell at her and hurries and scurries when she’s doing something mundane that you haven’t even asked her to do that’s not urgent. In a word? Perfect.

If only she would stop calling my name.

“Mrs. Devine?” Pearlita says again, as if she isn’t sure, “I’ve been calling you at home all morning, your mobile isn’t taking calls it seems and …”

You know when they ask you in an interview what your weak points are? I knew when I interviewed Pearlita that nobody tells the truth then, OK? I knew about all the how-to-ace-the-interview manuals that say you should say that you’re a perfectionist or you have a low tolerance for tardiness or something else which isn’t a flaw, really, unless you’re trying to be a nice person. I’ve read those manuals myself. I knew she probably had too. So when Pearlita said ‘I can be a little bit hard on myself when I mess up,’ I knew that in all probability I’d only find out her one fantastic flaw, her unreal cock-up capability, after she started working for me. But I’d trusted that her one big flaw would be something minor, something I could live with. What Pearlita should have said then was ‘Ma’am, I haven’t the slightest clue on how to get to the fucking point.’ Seriously.

So I pause by my desk, eyes still trained on that little brass plate on the door while she meanders around the different messages she’s been getting, how she’s been wondering whether she’d forgotten to send the last month’s bill down to accounts and the service had been put on soft touch or something cause then she wouldn’t have been able to forgive herself and I would have been livid and she couldn’t have blamed me because….

“Pearlita, the short version. Pronto.”

I’d bet a hundred quid that Pearlita thinks I’m a bitch.

“Well ….” she stumbles, “have you seen the pictures in the copy room?”

And, obviously, I haven’t, because any assistant worth the fat pay check Pearlita probably sends back home to her family in Jamaica (judging from her shit wardrobe), would know that her boss never goes to the copy-room at all if she can help it and certainly, not first thing in the morning.

When we round the corner to the copy room, there are at least half a dozen 11’ x 17’ pics of me from the car-park. I see they’ve been printed from a digital camera, that much is clear, and Richard’s taken the time to stick them to the clapboard walls with some type of crazy glue. Pearlita, it appears, tried her darnedest, despite the handwritten ‘DO NOT REMOVE’ signs over the displays, but the pictures aren’t going anywhere unless the walls are ruined in the process. Frame by frame they tell the car-park story in pornographic detail: the license plates on my Beamer, my naked breasts, the slutty squat above a rude bwoy in a string vest and a heavy gold chain, Vivienne Westwood skirt in a bunch under my armpits.

Bless her, Pearlita looks away, embarrassed.

“Call the cleaners,” I snap, “call a demolition crew if you have to, just clean up that wall.”

“There’s two letters for you, too,” she says softly, guessing the events are not unconnected, seeming loath to hand them over, “they were hand-delivered this morning.”

The first is from Eremann, Sylvester and Quinn, Solicitors, acting on behalf of their client Richard F. Devine III, Publisher and Managing Director of DP Publishing. It notifies me in eloquent legalese of my dismissal from the position of Editor-in-Chief of Chocolate magazine and wishes me all the best in my future endeavours. Enclosed is a cheque for six months’ salary in lieu of notice. The other letter from the same solicitors, advises of their representation of Richard Devine III, of his intention to file for divorce, of our immediate separation, of the fact that he will maintain residence in the Chelsea townhouse ‘in light of the circumstances of the separation’ and that their client has no objection to my occupation of the apartments at 455 Battersea New Road ‘for the time being’ until property settlements are arranged.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Right around the time I turn to tell Pearlita to mix me up a Mojito, find me a few names for the best divorce lawyers in London, and get me Chama on the line stat, security turns up. Raoul and Saul. Saul barks something about my having to leave the building, and the way he says it isn’t the way you’d speak to your boss. And it certainly isn’t the way that you’d speak to someone you’ve exchanged bodily fluids with. Actually, you wouldn’t think from his tone that Saul knows me, in the biblical sense. You wouldn’t think that he knows me at all. He just stands there all serious, eyes trained on the roof somewhere above my left shoulder, holding a box for my stuff. My eyes scan the letter again. The final paragraph invites me to have my solicitors call their offices to set up a meeting to discuss property settlement.

“Ma’am, we’re here to escort you downstairs.”

Obviously.

“Can you guys just wait a fucking minute?” is what I ask Saul after a few minutes of me staring them down, when, for the first time, th ose smooth almond-coloured biceps embrace me in a way that I don’t like.

Apparently, they can’t.

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I purse my lips in frustration, brush my hair back, and tame it with the last bit of gel left in the jar. Damn, my weave is jacked! Time to take out these tracts. My hair has grown out too much anyway. Damn my homegirl Jada, too, for hogging all the hair product before she went to Vegas. I should be getting ready for the opening of our studio and record store. Instead I’ve spent all day cramming for an investment meeting.

I twist my mouth into a full-on frown as I gaze into the mirror at my warm, olive complexion and too large and luminous hazel eyes.

“Fuck it,” I say. I guess a stiff ponytail à la Gabby Douglas will have to do.

Jada Jameson, my roommate and business partner, took off on a redeye to a weeklong sorority getaway. This left me, the artist with the least business acumen, to discuss investment in our business with Tristan White the CEO of White Enterprises, Inc. In addition, I’m in the middle of working off my two week notice at La Perla on the Magnificent Mile.

I have to take the ‘L,’ Chicago Transit Authority’s elevated rapid transit system, all the way into Downtown to meet the gazillionaire venture capitalist. Tristan White is supposed to be like the Donald Trump of Chicago or some shit—I hope without that wacked out comb-over. Scoring a meeting with him is like winning the fucking lottery, but he granted Jada one. It just happened to be on the first day of her trip, and her plane ticket was nonrefundable. Now my head is swimming with numbers I don’t understand, or care to.

After Jada called White’s assistant every week for a couple of months with no success, she finally enlisted her father to secure us a definitive hookup. Mr. Jameson is a state senator, and on one of the many occasions he was required to rub elbows with the rich and powerful, he got his baby girl and her partner an audience with the elusive Tristan White.

Jada gives me a final pep talk by phone as I’m getting dressed, but I’m still not confident going solo.

“Don’t we have enough cash to get by a few months until you’re able to do the pitch?”

“As the CFO of this venture, I’m telling you we don’t have the capital to pull this off on our own. The break-even figures don’t lie. You can’t back out on me now.”

Even over the phone she’s more charismatic and business articulate than I’ll ever be. Girlfriend is savvy enough to converse with the one-percent as if she’s one of them.

“I wouldn’t be backing out. We’d just be postponing.”

“Yeah, we’d be postponing ourselves right out of this opportunity. Keisha, use some of that confidence I know you have as a musician. I’ve seen it when you’re performing. Draw on that and you’ll have Tristan White eating out of your hand.”

“I don’t know, Jada. Business terms give me the hives. I don’t feel like I know what I’m talking about.”

“Believe me, the more you use them, and put them into practice, it’ll become old hat. For this meeting, though, I want you to recite the information we practiced from the business plan like they’re song lyrics.”

“I remember song lyrics so easily because that’s what I do.”

“And, before you know it, Chief Operating Officer will be what you do. You can do this. Please,” Jada says in the voice she usually reserves for the men she’s trying to charm. I ignore my pang of irrational jealousy and relent.

“Okay. You just do your whatever-happens-in-Vegas-stays-there thing, and I’ll handle White. You know what I’m saying?”

“I knew you’d have my back, Keke.” She uses my neighborhood nickname, laying it on real thick. “I’ll be thinking of you the whole time.”

I roll my eyes. “Mmhm.”

“You’ve got the business plan I prepared, right?”

“Yeah, but those damn financial statements and break-even analyses are like Greek to me.”

“Just remember the numbers we went over together. The business plan will speak for itself. Make sure you’re not late. You should probably take my car.”

“And get caught up in downtown rush-hour traffic? No, thank you.” I cringe when I think of panicking and wrecking her fancy BMW on the Dan Ryan. Death would be more merciful than what Jada would do to me if I survived. I didn’t like to drive downtown anyway, and she knew this.

“Well good luck and thanks again, Keisha. I owe you one.”

I slip on my stilettos, grab my bootleg PRADA bag, and depart. I don’t usually do knockoffs, but this bag was the perfect shade of blue to match my suit. Once outside, I immediately ruminate about how I let Jada talk me into this shit. She’s a phenomenal woman and my BFF, but she is a manipulator. Jada could convince a drug dealer with his own stash to buy her unique brand of crack. She’ll be a formidable CFO for Kente Studio Records. I only hope I measure up as the COO and creative brain.

After my father died two years ago, the insurance settlement I got burned my pockets. I needed to do something constructive with it. Given the relationship I had with my old man, I might’ve signed it all over to a charity. After my father’s will was executed, Jada and I smoked a bowl of weed on the fire escape until we zoned and had a philosophical conversation about the sluggish economy. We wanted meaningful jobs when we got out of college, not something that barely paid the bills.

Then we brainstormed about what we could do to capitalize on our combined talents. I’m a music aficionado and an accomplished musician. My father’s Brazilian musical background and my mother’s history as a blues singer led me to major in music composition and performance at DePaul. Jada, a numbers girl, got a dual degree in business and accounting.

We conceived Kente Studio Records, a physical and online recording studio, vinyl shop, and music store all rolled into one. We wanted an ethnic name that described the various shades of clients to whom we expected to cater. Our music would be for people of all colors.

I settle on the ‘L’ and try not to listen to the homeless man reciting the maximum load-bearing weight of the train, what speed we would need to go to get to Waukesha, WI in an hour, and other shit nobody’s even asked him. My own inner voices whisper in my ear on the regular, so I don’t need his nonsensical ass adding to the mix.

There are two entities that war inside me, that I’ve seen manifested physically since I was a little girl—when my daddy stopped being a good father and husband and terrorized me and my mama. This may mean I’m certifiable, but I don’t care. They’re like the little football fairies in the DIRECTV commercials except without the football gear, and they are much more attractive than Deion Sanders and his companions, if I do say so.

These miniature, winged replicas of me sit or hover around on my shoulders, but sometimes I even see them in my mind’s eye with extraordinary clarity. On my right shoulder is my Ghetto Good Girl or “Triple-G” for short. She keeps me out of trouble and typically roots for me to do what’s right. The mischief maker, my Fairy Hoochie Mama, resides on my left shoulder. She generally wants the exact opposite.

Before I know it, we’re downtown. My destination, White headquarters in the Loop, is an imposing thirty-plus story building. The GPS on my phone gets me right to the glass doors on which the name “White” is emblazoned in what else? White letters. It’s a quarter to five, and I’m glad I’m not rocking “CP,” (colored people) time. The lobby is decorated in white and black leathers, stones, and chrome contemporary furnishings, which remind me of the yin and yang symbol.

Behind a black marble desk sits an attractive but androgynous man. Guyliner dark as a rock star’s rim his eyes, and his suit fits like he oiled himself and slid into it.

“I’m here to see Mr. White. Keisha Beale with Kente Studio Records.” Absent one Jada Jameson.

“Excuse me one moment, Ms. Beale.”

I feel as if I’m trying to get into a gay nightclub, and he’s the bouncer. I don’t feel self-conscious because I’m positive I look fly in my navy power suit. But the pencil skirt hugging my round apple-bottom is lost on the receptionist. As he clicks through the files on his white MacBook, the movements of his hands are more graceful than my own.

“You’re early,” he says, stating the obvious. “Please sign in using the electronic signature pad. The fourth elevator bank will carry you to the thirty-second floor.” As I sign, he pastes on a friendly yet perfunctory smile.

He reaches into a drawer and hands me a white badge that has “White Enterprises Temporary ID.” printed on the front, bearing a single magnetic strip on the back.

I arch an eyebrow.

“You’ll need it to access the elevator to the penthouse office suites.”

I thank him and walk over to the elevator bank guarded by security personnel. They resemble Secret Service men, complete with conspicuous communications earpieces.

The elevator beams me at warp speed to the thirty-second floor and to yet another lobby. I’m greeted there by a different impeccably groomed, effeminate man with an overly-manicured goatee who’s sitting behind a granite desk.

“Miss Beale, please wait here,” he says, orchestrating an elaborate spokesmodel-esque sweep of his arm toward a cluster of black leather chairs.

Across from the chairs is a concave window with a view of the Chicago skyline that overlooks the city toward Lake Michigan. I feel as if I’m seated in front of Cloud Gate, the mirrored oblong sculpture in AT&T Plaza which Chicagoans affectionately call The Bean. The view makes me drool. The skyline is so distorted, close, and gorgeous.

So, this is how the one-percent lives?

I go over the business plan while I’m waiting and call Jada every kind of bitch in the book for not providing me any additional information on Mr. White. He could favor Eric Northman, that sexy vampire on True Blood, or Gandalf the Grey from Lord of the Rings. I should’ve checked him out on the internet. I hope like hell he’s good-looking, because if I’m going to spend my time trying to impress him, I at least want his ass to be handsome.

I’m not shallow, mind you. I did date Byron McCaskill, who isn’t handsome in the classical sense of the word. He’s got more of a rough edge to him, and he appealed to me largely due to his music video persona. I’ve always existed for the most part in the fantasies I’ve enjoyed in fiction—living vicariously through movie and book characters since I was a child. It’s sort of a coping mechanism. When life throws me curve balls, I have an endless fount of pop culture references to draw from that, together with my fairies, keep me sane.

My nerves get the better of me, and I chew a piece of gum to calm them. When I forget where I am and pop the gum, it sounds as if I’ve detonated a bomb. The receptionist glances impassively at me, and I swallow it with a gulp I’m sure he hears across the room.

I’ve never been totally comfortable around white people, not to mention the rich. I grew up on the south side of Chicago, a ghetto girl with lofty dreams, and prefer chilling with my homeys to perpetrating in the business world. To be honest, I’m even better alone, listening to tunes on my iPod, or better yet, singing and writing my own songs—not sitting in a sterile office building waiting to ask a rich white man for money to start my dream business.

I purse my lips. Stop tripping, Beale. To distract myself, I try to conjure an image of Tristan White. Judging from the aesthetic of the building, I guess that White’s in his sixties, from old Chicago money, a member of an all-white country club, has white-gray hair, and is as gay as the rest of his personnel.

Another well-dressed dude comes out of the door on my left. What is it with all these men who look as if they get grooming tips from The Artist Formerly Known as Prince?

“I’m Darryl Sykes, Mr. White’s personal assistant. Mr. White will see you momentarily, Ms. Beale. He’s wrapping up a meeting. May I get you anything? We have water, sparkling water, organic coffee, oolong tea—”

“Nothing, thank you.”

He retreats from whence he came, and I sing a Maxwell song in my head.

While humming “Pretty Wings,” I marvel over Mr. White’s office staff. Doesn’t he realize this setup is an EEOC lawsuit waiting to happen? The ACLU, the NAACP, and all the alphabets would jump on his ass in a heartbeat if someone reported him.

When the door opens on my right, a tall, biracial woman exits. I immediately recognize her by the signature blond micro braids. She’s Princess Danai, the rapper. “Thanks for the advice, Tristan,” she says, and my mouth falls open.

“You’re welcome,” comes the faint reply in a smooth, surprising baritone.

Princess Danai closes the door and upon seeing me, smiles and hands me a CD. “I’m doing a live show next Friday night at Wicked. You should come.”

I take this opportunity, which I’m hoping will be the first of many, to promote Kente Studio Records. “I just might, if you’d consider hooking a sistah up with some backstage passes.”

“Mr. White is ready for you, Ms. Beale,” the receptionist says. “You may go in now.”

I stand. Princess Danai scans me up and down, fishes into the pocket of her low-slung, linen cargo pants, and hands me a lanyard bearing three badges. “Yo, what’s your first name?”

“Keisha.”

“See you next Friday, Keisha Beale,” she says before strolling onto the waiting elevator and winking at me. I heard she bats for the other team and her scrutiny, topped off by a sexy wink, seals it for me. I manage a nervous half-smile as the doors close.

I scoop up my bag along with the binder that holds our business plan, take a deep breath, open the door… and walk smack into a man who’s at least a foot taller than I am in my ambitious hooker heels.

“Excuse me, sir. I’m so sorry.” I hope my apology is heartfelt and profuse enough so he won’t be ticked off. “I should’ve knocked first.”

“No problem, Ms. Beale.” He encircles my petite biceps with his brawny hands, which I’m proud to say are more toned than Michelle Obama’s. Once he’s sure I’m steady, he takes a step back. “I’m Tristan White.”

My gaze travels up to an undeniably handsome face with sharp blue eyes—all chiseled features, dimpled chin, and sun-drenched blond hair—then down a six-foot-plus body occupying a kick-ass tailored summer suit. Against his tanned skin, a crisp, white shirt is accessorized by a tie in brown multi. Me, my Triple-G, and my Fairy Hoochie Mama—the whole trifecta—are riveted by the most delectable specimen of man we’ve ever had the good fortune to encounter.

I take entirely too long to respond.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“Yes. I’m fine, sir.” And so are you! I wave him off and project what I hope is sophisticated nonchalance, but in my mind I’m comparing him to Brad Pitt’s character in Legends of the Fall, the only other Tristan I’ve ever had the pleasure of fantasizing about. I would be his fucking Isabel Two any day of the week.

“I grew up kicking it with four brothers who played sports. It would take more than that to put me down for the count.” I realize I’m babbling like an idiot, so I offer him my hand to shake.

Damn, he looks so familiar!

His touch, and the fact that he’s young and handsome unnerves me more than our collision. When his eyes crinkle questioningly, I close my gaping mouth and kick-start my stuttering heart again. Then it hits me. He bears an uncanny resemblance to the point guard of the Chicago Buffaloes, only with shorter hair.

“Are you Nathan White’s brother?”

“Yes, we’re twins.”

“Oh, that explains it.” I decide to play it chill and not act like a rabid fan. “Um, Ms. Jameson is out of town,” I say. “I’m Keisha Beale.”

“Yes, I was informed. And your role in the business would be?” His voice is deep and sonorous, sort of like my dad’s when he wasn’t manic. His implacable expression doesn’t clue me in to what’s going on in his mind and whether he’s pissed Jada isn’t here.

“Chief Operating Officer, sir. Well, Jada, I mean, Ms. Jameson, gave us those distinguished titles. We’re partners.”

He narrows his eyes. “Are you normally so polite, Ms. Beale?”

“Pardon?”

“You keep calling me, sir.”

“Yes, sir. My mother’s family is from the South. She drilled the habit into us.”

He angles his head then gestures toward the binder in my hand. “Your business plan, I presume?”

“Oh yes, sir.” I say and hand it to him. He maneuvers to close the door, and his chin is inches from my line of sight. I close my eyes and breathe in. The cologne he’s wearing makes me want to lick that clean-shaven, dimpled chin.

What the fuck am I thinking?

“Would you like to sit, Ms. Beale?” My face grows hot as I open my eyes to find he’s squinting down at me with a hint of concern in his eyes. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I’m fine.” I say, acutely aware I was almost busted sniffing him. I take a seat in one of the black, stuffed leather chairs facing his desk, and he surprises me by sliding a chair next to mine. Then he unbuttons his jacket before sitting down to scan the business plan. I rattle off the numbers Jada insisted I memorize, and he nods as he peruses the financials.

White’s office is decorated in the same black and white design as his lobbies, but it’s accessorized with astonishing splashes of vivid color. A red floral arrangement in a black vase sits in one corner, a yellow sculpture in another, a blue mural behind a corner-shaped fish tank in another, and there’s a green tropical plant in the farthest corner.

The wall behind his desk is a floor-to-ceiling window that affords a different view of the downtown skyline. On the wall behind us are pictures of him at various groundbreakings, some where he’s flanked by luminaries from the city, others of him with business people around the world, and still more where he’s receiving a bevy of awards.

When I look back at him, he’s eyeing me with a thoughtful expression on his face.

“Primary colors,” I say apropos of nothing. “You’re a man of unassuming tastes in a world of extravagance.”

“That I am, Ms. Beale.”

“So, what do you think about our business plan?” I ask.

“You get an ‘A’ for originality, but I’m afraid you get a ‘D’ for fiscal viability.” He frowns. “If we take the location out of the south side, financial viability goes up to a B plus.”

“That’s a deal-breaker,” I say. “The current location is mortgage-free, and we can’t afford to buy property near Oprah’s business address… or yours.”

“Who owns the building?”

“It was my father’s.”

“Was?”

“Yes, sir. He left it to me when he passed away two years ago.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” he says in a kind tone. “Who’s fronting the other half of the start-up capital?”

“Myself, Ms. Jameson, and her family.” Jada’s parents while comfortable, aren’t so wealthy they could front all the money required to get KSR off the ground. Her father comes from a family of lawyers who made a name for themselves in Springfield. They both delved into politics and, as public servants, don’t make as much as they did practicing law. Her parents only agreed to allow her to play with one hundred thousand of her trust fund to match the hundred thousand I had. Then they threw in another hundred thousand to help us with capital improvements and capital equipment purchases.

“It’s a terrific idea in principle. The right financial guidance and mentorship would make it even more viable. This could work.”

“Guidance and mentorship? We’re not in the market for another partner. Ms. Jameson has a dual business degree, complemented by mine in music. The idea and all the intellectual property of Kente Studio Records will be ours and only managed by us.”

He sits back. “I’m a silent partner in all the projects I finance. I leave management to their own devices until some foolhardy move compels me to break my silence. Also, location is paramount if you expect any crossover clients, and neither I nor the demographic you want to appeal to will drive into south Chicago on a regular basis to patronize a fledgling business.”

“You can’t tell me there isn’t sufficient clientele on the south side to patronize us.” My second-hand Southern charm has left the building. Like the Hulk, I’m now struggling to keep the real Keisha on lockdown.

“The talent may be there, but I would require you to be in a thriving business corridor if you’re going to use my money to fund this project.”

“Sounds as if you want to control us, Mr. White. Like I said, we’re seeking venture capital only, not a partner.” I smile through teeth clenched so hard it’s like I’ve got a TMJ disorder.

“I haven’t achieved the success I have without exercising control in every aspect of business and life, Ms. Beale.” He smiles. “One doesn’t just hand over a quarter of a million dollars to a couple of female upstarts without as much as a serious gut check.” He says this as if being female makes us even more incompetent than the average upstart.

Misogynist much, White?

“We may be female, but we’re not upstarts. We’ve been out of college more than two years, and we’ve made all the capital improvements to the building and done the due diligence to get this business up and running.” For some reason, this man makes me feel like I’m thirteen again, trying to convince my father he needs to sell hip-hop and rap CDs in his music store. Javier Gonzales Beale, Sr. had little regard for my mother’s and my opinions when it came to running his business.

“Regular audits of your books and site visits will be part and parcel of this deal. Take it or leave it.”

This fucker didn’t realize he was talking to Clara Lee Beale’s daughter. Clara Lee and ultimatums are like oil and water. They don’t mix. My Fairy Hoochie Mama spurs me on. Tell him off, Keisha!

“Do you make personal visits to every project you fund? Or just the ones managed by African Americans?” I did not just go there with this good-looking fucker, did I? Jada is going to have a goddamn cow if I fuck this up, but I can’t help myself.

Either it doesn’t register or he chooses not to react. “Yes. But only annually to the ones that have been in operation for a while. I have my hands in over forty-five ventures, not to mention employing a large number of people in the companies I hold personally.”

I force myself to be civil to this arrogant asshole. “Is that level of control necessary?”

“If I don’t keep my finger on the pulse of all my investments, they could spiral out of control, which would put the livelihoods of my employees in jeopardy.”

“You have an extremely high opinion of yourself and the power you wield,” I say with more than a modicum of disgust. I’m on a fucking roll now and unable to stop for shit. All of Jada’s hard work to get this meeting is going down the tubes, and fast. It’s all her goddamn fault too, for not being here.

“You have no idea. I was being groomed for what I do before you were born.”

Like you’re that much older than I am. I hope you choke on that big-assed silver spoon.

I haven’t said anything, but his eyes light up as if he’s recounting a private joke and I just might be the punchline.

“You need to take a chill pill,” I say and stand to indicate I’m done. I’ve thrown caution and her mama to the wind. I’m too through with Mr. Tristan “I Wanna Own Your Ass” White. I wouldn’t take this guy’s money if someone guaranteed we’d pay it back with triple-digit returns in the first year.

Then he puts on his million-megawatt smile, showing the whitest teeth I’ve ever seen. Tristan White is even more impressive when he smiles, and it should be offensive for any man to have so much swag or be as wealthy as he is. Smug asshole.

“Whether I’m working or playing, you may be sure I’m always relaxed, so I don’t need any chill pills,” he says. “In fact, I’m even more relaxed when I’m in control.”

There’s a knock, and his personal assistant pokes his head in.

“Your car is here, Mr. White.”

“Please have Moses wait.”

Darryl gapes at him, flushes as if he’s embarrassed, and leaves. Apparently, I’m not the only one who reacts to Mr. White with awe, and in Darryl’s case, fear and trembling.

“Actually, I was just leaving,” I say and try to stalk past him.

Tristan stands, blocks my egress, and grabs my hand. Oh Man! He has quick reflexes.

“I have another matter I’d like to discuss with you, Ms. Beale. Another offer, if you will.” As our hands touch, a jolt of electric current courses through me. I hesitate and regard him closely to see if he was likewise affected, but he doesn’t appear to be. “Something that might be more appealing to a woman with your personal… assets.” He scans my body like he’s appraising a prime piece of real estate.

I have a strong desire to unnerve him as much as he has me. If my unwillingness to give him unhindered access to Kente Studio Records didn’t kill our chances of getting the venture capital we need, my next question will. “Do you even like women, Mr. White?”

He raises one eyebrow like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, but he doesn’t look comical. He seems pissed. “I can assure you I do, Keisha.” He pulls me flush against him, and I feel something that indicates to me that he does.

I even like the way the arrogant fucker says my name. However, my Fairy Hoochie Mama encourages me to continue provoking him. I peer down to where our hips are joined. “How do I know this isn’t a reaction to your assistant?”

In a split second, I’m all trussed up in his arms and he’s kissing me. This is not a speculative, cordial first kiss. In fact, it’s so brutal I feel my lips bruising from the onslaught. His tongue wraps itself around mine and fills my mouth so thoroughly I can’t breathe. Simultaneously, he rolls his hips against mine like he’s about to bore into me through our clothes.

I want to fight him, but I have to admit I haven’t been this turned on by anyone since… well… ever. I’ve been in a drought, due in large part to all the time Jada and I have spent trying to get Kente Studio Records off the ground. The last real boyfriend I had was the first semester of my junior year at DePaul, and he wasn’t anything to write home about, believe me.

Incredibly, my sex-deprived body responds to Tristan White. Traitor, my Triple-G sneers. My Fairy Hoochie Mama sings “Push It” by Salt-N-Pepa as she jerks her pelvis with the beat. Wetness blooms between my legs and an aching radiates from my belly. I drop my purse, wrap my arms around him, and kiss him back with an alacrity that bewilders me.

Tristan cups my ass and tries to hoist me up around his waist, but two things happen which prevent him from doing it. My pencil skirt is so tight, it’s impossible, and a knock on the door sends us scurrying away from each other as if we’ve been seared by a hot poker.

“What?” he bellows, sounding like a predatory animal whose meal has been interrupted.

Darryl opens the door and stutters something about the driver and traffic, and I take the opportunity to get out of there. I practically bowl Darryl over and run from White’s office, straight onto the waiting elevator. I push the button several times in rapid succession even though it doesn’t cause the doors to close any faster. Tristan appears at the threshold a split second before the elevator panels slide shut.

I exit on the first floor, my heart in my throat, and struggle to get my breathing under some semblance of control. I’m petrified that Tristan has called down and told his security henchmen not to let me leave, but they remain at attention by the elevator doors as I return the badge to the receptionist and hightail it out of the building. Even the clicks of my heels on the marble floors don’t reverberate with as much confidence as they possessed coming in.

Want more? Buy the book here.

“BLADE” Book II. By Author Cora Blu

Brothers of Element Series.

Tiger shark shifter’s

First mating.

To save the ocean and their people, King Blade and Miyuki must mate and bond to feed their source of shifting, Clear Coral.

Blade has no memory of Miyuki outside of the last two month since his accident and can’t remember what he did to break up their friendship. She holds two hundred years worth of pain and friendship. All she can handle is raw…don’t love her…please!!!

Chapter Eleven

…

”You requested I not hide my emotions from you. I ask that you not hide the lust you hold for me. You do not remember the feelings you have for me so please, share only those you feel right now. Do not pretend to love me.” Her cold request bit at the man inside. Lust was not his only emotion for her. It was the only one she could deal with he noticed. He would give her raw, cold and unattached. “If all I deserve is your physical lust then I will not accept a watered down version. I want the same passion I felt when you touched me in the pool. I want every moan and scream, every sigh and groan I bring to your body. I want to hear every sensual to explicit thought erupting in your mind from my hand. Aloud, everything, Miyuki…every little reaction.”

He needed to please her senses and not just her body.

Angling her backward, fingers groping for the bathroom wall, Blade caught a hand to the cold stone. Sucking a breath, their mouths fused together, he tasted her fire. A burning for her mate.

His stripes tingled behind Miyuki’s hand sliding down his thigh, lifting the weighted hem of his sarong. He watched her lick her tongue out over her sensual lips. Stroking her nails over his bare flesh, fire licked up through his groin. Fumbling with the raw silk material, her fingers traced the waistband of his wrap, prying up the clasp holding the belt closed. His skin trembled behind her touch.

His fingers closed over her slender ones, helped her removed his underwear, skimming the cotton down his hips. His heart seized, warm lips brushed over the tip of his erection. Tongue tasting the moisture easing from the slit, slipping down the sides of his erection, playing over the thick veins. She groaned as if tasting the finest of wines and rubbed her cheek over the length of him. Eyes closed flexing her fingers over his behind her nails biting into his hips.

“You want everything–okay.” Licking her lips, Miyuki rubbed the tip beneath her chin, then said, “This is not the first time I’ve seen you, but the first time I’ve held you. So beautiful, so male, so large,” her breath warming the head of his erection.

“It will fit,” he grimaced under her touch trying not to explode.

“I don’t doubt you’ll try.”

Would her animal fight her now? Raw was the only way her animal could allow him to make love to her. Was it truly, what she wanted? Needed?

Pressing her hair off her face, he feasted on the vision of her returning up his body slowly kissing a trail up his hip, over his waist. Serrated teeth grazed his abs. His world shook under her attentive touch. The tip of her tongue traced his naval, sending fire licking through his groin, now jutting out away from his body hard and swollen. Her mouth was a breath away from touching him. A blink away from covering the head of his fierce arousal him straining to have her slip her lips over him.

Her lips parted before she said, “Remember, you will crave only me after our mating,” she moaned over his skin as if a warning.

“Then you will be busy.”

Rising to his face, Miyuki curved her fingers around his neck. Blade made quick work of unzipping her sheath. Squatting down he allowed the silky material to pool around her feet.

Sliding his hands behind her calf, he started to kiss her pebbling skin before she pushed at his shoulders.

He yanked her to him, shaking her enough to have her grasp the sink, clutching the edge. Dragging his tongue up her calves he nipped the tight muscles, her intoxicating scent a drug. He flattened a hand over her back, she trembled when he angled her deeper over the sink pushing her round orbs high in the air like a sensual offering. .

On his knees, he slid his hands up the backs of her thighs leaving a trail of moisture behind each kiss. The silky panties hit the floor. The sight of her firm tan behind brought his animal crashing up through him. That would be too raw, he thought. He inhaled and forced it down.

Squeezing her perfect body, each bite emitted a moan from Miyuki. Loving the sound, he continued up the muscle leaving his mark to trail up the backs of her legs. Teasing her soft skin between his teeth, tiny flush traces trailed behind each nip. Long white hair brushed over her behind, hiding her tailbone, beautiful. The sweet dip he longed to taste masked by the fall of all that thick hair. He bared his teeth, gripping her waist harder than he intended fingers dimpled her soft flesh.

“Your hair!” a seething snarl crossed his lips, his need to see all of her tore at his body. Miyuki grabbed the long tresses dragging them across her shoulder. Each strand exposing very beautiful tan skin down her back to his hungry raw stare.

Watched it blush under the sweet warm tone, behind each nip he placed traveling up her thighs. Kissing, laving the marks with a long stroke of his tongue.

“Uh!” Miyuki’s grunts filled the room, echoing around his head, urging him to lick along her spine, sucking, hands protecting her stomach away from the hard edge of the sink.

Tasting her skin, he moved up the gentle curve between her shoulders sliding his tongue over her neck and biting his way down to her bra. Her sweet ass cradled the length of him as he leaned along her back.

The bra fell away with one bite to the clasp, delicious breast filled his hands cupping underneath them.

He jerked her into his arms angled her toward the shower. Reaching in he flipped the lever and warm water poured from the ceiling in a waterfall of liquid warmth. Bumping the sink, Blade cursed out.

He tried to focus around the emotion pushing up through him. Emotion he hadn’t expected when all he felt was lust. No, all she wanted was raw lust, but his true desire wouldn’t be satisfied, tonight they shared raw. Was it his or Miyuki’s lust pushing him to take her to the floor and sink deep inside until his memories closed around them like a blanket of warmth? The manic way she fed on his mouth peaking his hunger to a level close to his animal’s behavior. He forced that predatory hunger down into that safe place within his soul. There would be time, not today.

The heat from her core saturated his stomach, her long legs grouped around his waist and his fingers biting into her bare behind. He preened with pride hearing a groan seep from her hot mouth, ignited by his touch, her back grinding into the wall with his fevered kisses.

He cradled her breasts in his hand, flicking the taught nipples under the pads of his fingers. Mounding the soft flesh in the palm of his hand, he ducked his head began kissing down the gentle slope of her neck. He nipped and bit at her tender skin. His stroked a thumb over her nipple, the hard little piece of candy tempted him to taste. He gave in, caught the candy gently between his teeth, licking his tongue across the sweet tip just inside his mouth. Their height difference had his back arched in a severe curve to grasp it between his lips but the discomfort paled to the pleasure of his female body in his mouth.

No words passed between them as they entered the steamy shower stall. Her legs gripped his waist her arms around his neck. Heat from her core penetrated his fevered skin.

Water beat between their bodies, slicking the friction of bare skin to bare skin. Reaching between them, he slipped a finger inside her slick feminine folds, spread open above his arousal. Blade tried to focus.

His hair a wet curtain sticking haphazardly around their bodies he swiped at the strands over his face. “I only have enough patience for raw, Miyuki,” he warned and hissed when she removed his finger to seat herself over his straining turgid body. Tight and muscled her walls gripping down the length of him going deep to the end where she ended, her womb. “Sweet hell, Miyuki.”

“Blade—,” she groaned. Her face buried between his shoulder and his neck the vein straining under her tongue stroking relentlessly. Her hips rocked into him. Slamming her harder than he intended into the shower wall, Blade began thrusting up into her tight body. Miyuki slapped a hand to the wet wall above her head bracing for support. Her fingers dug into his shoulder, the biting sensation urging him to take her without letting up. She had not been his first but he could no longer remember any other woman.

Her ankles digging into his behind, he could barely control the hunger for this woman. Grabbing one leg, he angled it over one shoulder pushing his body deeper into hers, smiling her nails digging into his shoulders. She pulled him closer, wanting what he offered, accepting him. Nearly faltering seeing pleasure ride across her face, he watched her jaw go slack under the pleasure.

Hips thrusting Blade sensed his climax reaching for Miyuki, pinned over him to the wall. Her manic grunts rang through the space.

Her body began to jerk with an odd rhythm. “Blade…I…Ah.” Her teeth latched onto his neck. Mouth open over his skin, she bit down tighter, the sensation a second layer of fire arcing wildly through him. He couldn’t get enough, his climax fighting to surge from his body.

Fisting the tender flesh of her behind, he held her to the wall, pounding into her. Latching onto her shoulder, the sweet scent of her skin infusing his senses making his body jerk and buck inside her little body.

He ate her screams of release as he fed her the orgasm tearing through his body, through the length of him to fill her womb. Fill her completely. He sucked the swollen flesh of her lips into his mouth, moaning his pleasure. Nails scraping down his, he threw his head back with a guttural groan.

Minutes passed he found he had not splintered into tiny pieces, and kissed her flush face then swollen lips.

Light panting, breathing over her mouth, he ran his hands down her subtle curves. Gently sloping hips. Perfectly tan skin he kissed a mere touch of his lips to brush over the sensitive pebbled surface. He felt the tightening around his heart ease. Somehow empty caverns through his body seemed to breathe in her essence within him now. A tap of compassion that wasn’t his danced behind a veil in the back of his mind. Could the bonding start with such a little taste from her?

Dragging his hand along the tiled ledge, he grasped the tall bottle of shampoo. Blade squeezed a large dollop of the creamy cleanser. Let me wash your hair. He lathered thick shampoo through her long tresses, caressing lean muscles crossing her shoulders. He could tell she allowed him access to a side of her no other man had seen. She put her comfort in his hands. Pulling some of the lather from her hair she threaded her finger through his hair began washing the long length down over his shoulders.

He massaged his fingers through her hair, watched it to slip between his fingers, surprised it never curled. Blade pressed a kiss to her soapy hair. Two months of watching her enter his home to visit once a day after the accident. Suds rinsed down over her curves. She gave herself over to the peace of the moment he noticed. No tension, no stiff joints, no rejection.

Miyuki moaned under his attention. He allowed his hands to slip over her soft skin as she turned into his embrace. Slowly closing his arms around her, he shielded her face from the stream flowing off the waterfall style showerhead. Miyuki burrowed against his chest, gentle arms encircled his waist, hands flat over his back.

“Your peace feeds my soul.”

She held her face up, brushed her mouth over his chest, water slipping between her lips. Blade breathed in her scent, her arousal. Threading his fingers through her hair he lifted the silky strands let them slip through his fingers, rinsing the soap down her blushed skin.

He watched her eyes close, her breath catch, lowering his mouth now kissing down her temple. “I will have you again, pretty orchid.”

He ran a hand down the lean muscle of her arms, control strength pulsed beneath his hands, his hidden female predator.

“The bed this time,” Miyuki’s voice a warm plea.

“Did I hurt you?”

Shaking her head, “Just raw lust,” she urged fisting his hair draped over his chest. Blade breathed in her feminine need, beating at him. “I need you raw, truly raw this time.”

Did she comprehend what she asked for? He burned from a place he had little control over when he looked at her. A fire not controlled by his memories, but the electric current pulsing through his every muscle. Emotional control he had, raw physical he wasn’t certain who controlled.

“You have never seen the raw shifter you request. You may not like him, may not be able to handle him,” he warned blood surging, through his body at her simple request.

“You have no idea what I’ve seen from you,” she told him. “Raw—Blade Bartholomew.”

And he hadn’t. “Then it will be raw,” he breathed voice graveled.

“Now,” she urged. “We can’t bond until you remember me and until you remember me you don’t love me. Don’t hurt me again, saying you do. I can’t handle that.”

The words left her seconds before Blade’s fingers sank into her hair, bending her back attacking her mouth. Fire kicked up through his body as their tongues danced, twisting around the other.

He held nothing back from her giving her the lust and raw physical desire he has for her. Pinning her to the shower wall feeding on her lips, tipping her face he got in closer. Exploring her tongue with his, one wicked sweep after another sending his restraint into a slippery grip he was losing one finger at a time. Adjusting his grip, he cupped her inner thighs, slipped along her slick body and nearly came from the sensation.

She needed him to take her rough, raw. Could sense a faint crackling around the edges of her mental connect with him. Was he finding her? Could it be as simple as one mating? Blade’s body on fire burned her mind back to the moment, his neon blue eyes focused on her face, mouth curved on the corner.

Suds from his hair dripping down her face, blinding her, she groped the wall handles, directed the water flow over his head. It poured from the ceiling. A warm steady stream saturated their bodies tingling over already sensitive skin. Miyuki fed at his lips, hungrily pressing her nails into the corded muscles wrapping around his back. She fought not to scream out how much she’s thought of this. How she needed this for more than Clear Coral or the shifters. Instead, she focused on not whimpering like a virgin her first time and finding the man was more than she could handle. Blade’s body promised to be that man for her, even though he wasn’t her first, he would be more than she could handle, physically and mentally.

Digging for purchase over his slick body, she waited to feel blood. She had to have pierced the taught skin under her fingers. Locking her ankles over his behind, Miyuki gripped her nails along his back. His muscles clinched under her biting caress. Fingers gliding, searching the ripples and valleys of his thick torso as his strong hands cupped her behind holding her over him. Air shuddered through his chest under his deep inhale. They shared the exhale through a searing kiss.

Musky, sweet, and warm his wet flesh she kissed down his throat, his shoulders, anywhere close to her lips. Blade caught the brunt of her back hitting the wall again before gripping her hips.

“Not enough room in here,” he grunted stepping over the lip of the shower stall. Bumping the sink with his hip, Blade cursed out mouth fastened over hers. She instinctively reached down and stroked the muscled hip, him groaning out his thanks.

Guttural, feral, untamed even the sound thrilled her. Enough would never be enough of this man that she hungered for all her life. Memories or not, Blade was hers.

Stumbling wet down the short hall, he carried her, hair dripping over the carpeted floor. As her back hit the bed Blade’s large wet muscled body crushed over her before finding herself on top of him her legs straddling his hips.

He cursed out inhaling her scent holding her hips above his chest. Miyuki never felt so desired than what she saw in his eyes, pure animal lust, and caught herself as her body jerked forward. Blade’s fingers dug into her hips over his face, his mouth on her, tongue dipping, licking her swollen flesh.

She cried out, his fingers playing along her behind pressing her against his tongue torturing her one thrust then another. His nose flicking the tender nerves just outside of her… “Blade,” his name forced from her mouth with his strong licks. Back arching, thrusting her hips into each stroke, her knees bucked against his chest. Her climax burned down through her like liquid sulfur singing her nerves. Her body fought with each thrust, fighting to not fracture into tiny pieces of fire, sulfur, the sulfur of their heritage. Shifter heritage. This mating was for her people.

Grasping the headboard, she pressed her fevered cheek to the cool wall. Blade lifting her hips to work her body to a limp version of herself. Mouth slack, fighting the pleasure of his tongue tasting deep within her, and her animal not wanting to respond to his touch, Miyuki began scratching the painted wall. Unable to concentrate enough to understand why she felt her animal sink frustrated into a corner sulking, sending angry pulses along her skin.

Focusing on the man taking her higher, the sensation crippled all sane thought, Miyuki thought she would cry from the pleasure. As her knees gave out Blade flipped her on her back, her arms slapping out over the thick mattress. His mouth found her under a shower of silken soft blue hair tickling her breasts, swollen and sensitive.

Wet kisses hot from his mouth covered her skin, still damp from the shower. Miyuki dug her nails into his shoulders, fisting his skin. His animal growled deep in his throat she felt it tickle under her fingers. His tiger shark mark swollen beneath her touch. His animal joined him in seducing one scorching climax after another from her writhing body.

Each rough stroke pushed her climax right up to the limit, bunching up on the cliff ready to jump with one…two…three…

“Blade!!” she screamed wildly bucking against him.

Free falling, she fisted his hair, held him to her unable to control the thrashing of her hips under his mouth latched onto her, one hand gripping her thigh out wide. Grateful of his other hand now pressed over her stomach held her down as her climaxes continued, his mouth working her flesh drinking down her pleasure. Severe arch in her back, mouth hung slack, she crossed her ankles over his back gripping his muscles squeezing out her climax ripping through her body. Blade’s eyes glowed neon blue.

Legs trembling, she rocked sideways. Bed dipping, large hands yanked her to her back, flat to the bed. His animal sat in his eyes now, all tiger shark.

Blade crawled up her body, kissing her quivering flesh, dragging his nose up the gentle slope of her breasts Her back bowed behind his mouth closing over her breasts one at a time. Moisture built in her throat seeing the impressive length of Blade bumping over her stomach, him hovering over her body. She felt like his prey and it sent a second wave of arousal swelling the tender flesh between her legs.

The rippled abdomen suspended over her face. Blade cupped the back of her head, held her to nip his muscled stomach. Kissed the tight skin, licking her way around to his ribcage, biting, leaving a wet trail down to where he jutted away from his body. It stood proud.

Gripping her fingers around his girth, she startled, her fingers never met giving her a thrill. She’d seen his nude body many times but poised to enter her body, it held a mesmerizing affect. Still her animal battled with her attraction to him. She sent up the wall blocking that side of her mind and focused on the man above her.

Delighting in the pure site of his masculinity her jaw cramped in anticipation, seeing him kneel over her face, hips lifted, back arched.

“Do not make me beg for it,” he groaned stroking himself close to her parted lips.

—

Find out if he had to beg.

Available at B&N. http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/blade-cora-blu/1114958997?ean=2940016630823

Not available on Amazon until next week.

Thanks for letting me share this with you.

Sincerely, Cora Blu

I first heard of Luxe Therapy at a blog party about a week ago. I thought it looked interesting…like a curved Afro pick. I tried it and it felt so good on my scalp. But then, I decided to use it for styling and it was AMAZING! It made my fine-haired fro ridiculously big without making it frizzy at the ends. I am in love.

The Luxe Therapy comb is the brainchild of Crystal Haynes, who has been a hair stylist specializing in hair weaves and natural hair.

Crystal Hayes, founder of Luxe Therapy

The Patent Pending Scalp Soother, otherwise known as, “the hair weave wearers dream," is another exclusive product from Luxe Therapy.  Having a hair weave herself, Haynes was motivated to discover a safe solution to conquer the notorious "itch" that hair weaves cause.  The Scalp Soother has been praised by actresses Sherri Shepherd, Kim Coles and Regina King, just to name a few.

Here's my 'fro on Luxe...

Price: $10

For more info visit site at www.luxetherapy.com or email luxetherapyproducts@yahoo.com.

What comes first? The Mammie or her sister/evil split personality facet, the woman known as Sapphire?

Well, she didn’t exactly phrase the question like that, but, you get the picture. My response, which can be read here, was a surmise based on things I learned during the noble and necessary Women’s Studies classes taken during undergrad.

I drew the likelihood that within our popular culture timeline, Mammy came first. I say this because her position as a subservient ‘slave’ is much comforting and relevant to the history of those that whom created her than would her being a sexually and aggressive character.

Until…wait. Here is where we backtrack to that Women’s Studies class and our reading of a book called Backlash: The Undeclared War Against Women by Susan Faludi.

In this book, Faludi does a historical break down of women’s place in pop culture and what these types of stereotypical presence in media mean to the self determination of women.

She questions the implications of the dialogue of women’s interest having been manufactured, financed and under the direction of White men without a thought of the consequences of the types of images these controlling forces promote on women and girls. Her strongest case, in particular, belonged to the motive Fatal Attraction and the several edits that were made to the lead female character in order that she appear less and less stable.

Glenn Close’s character Alex Forrest did not start out as a psychotic woman of lose morals, but who else but a crazy woman has affairs with married men. Her killing by the ‘noble’ and innocent wife and the lack of culpability for the male all reinforce that ‘boys will be boys’ and that its up to the women to uphold all that is decent in marriage.

It seems that men have always been suspicious of White women, or rather, I’d say, women in general. This nervousness in regard to the opposite sex has caused men to create these systems in which women are no longer feared. By controlling, and vilifying women, men found a way to silence and reduce the power of the big bad woman.

While on the pedestal of purity, White women came to be valued by society as the ‘highest form of decency’, White women became the poster child for all things good and pure, this dialogue is a very telling one if you have any knowledge of Madonna Whore.

Once placed on this pedestal by men, she lost her ability to be a full human being, to experience life, sex, emotions, anger and many other things that one would need in order to properly express their human experience.

She becomes a victim to male expectations that are wrapped into maternal frustration and experience as well as sexual. Men are attracted to those who remind them of their mother, whether she is just like her, or the total opposite. The mother plays a role in a male’s perception of females in general.

This superwoman heroine, created to be a measuring stick for all that represent the potential of White women was cherished, protected, fought for.

But since the Devil always needs an advocate it became the Black woman who would represent all that is evil. The aggressive, lour mouth, uncontrollable Sapphire will not be tamed.

She doesn’t want your man’s penis, she’s as big and as bad as any male could ever be,  she’s strong enough to work in the fields along side the Black man.

If you look closely enough, you’ll see that she was created as a focal point of fear, her mere existence immaculate these White males. He fears her beyond sexual presence (could this disconnect also be fear of Mandingo?)

Intimidated phallus strikes again!

He learned to control his mother, but what about the OTHER woman??? On the hierarchy of relevancy, the White man benefits more by re-creating his ‘mother’ into a suitable domestic for his children and a nonthreatening domestic.

The Black woman, on the other hand, can be no more than what White Patriarchy allows her to be, the angry anti-White woman.

PS…if you ever need to delve deeper in the WTF version of my writing, I am planning on discussing the frequency in which White males happily work out their mother issues with Big, Black expensive Dominatrix. That’s a discussion for another time, and another place. #NSWF

I am sitting at my desk.

Bored to tears as usual.

My Outlook tells me that I have new mail. I switch screens to my inbox and see that someone has sent me mail at Reunion.com.

Any other time I would have ignored it.

Everyone knows about Reunion and their fake email prompts. No one is looking for me.

That’s a fact.

No one has ever looked for me.

Even when I go missing.

But I click the link because honestly, I have nothing better to do at the time.

I have no idea what the password is. I guess at it and get it right.

Ah……it says
Date 01/11/2008
From debarybabs (Barbara C……) 
Subject Are you Tracy Renee Jones?
Hi Tracy,

Been trying to get in touch with you regarding your post on www.findme.org. I think I know your birth family. I can’t find a working phone number for you. Please call me at **********. I have a strong feeling you’re the lady who is related to a brother named Spencer. Please let me hear from you.

Blessings . . Kristin

I stare at the screen.

I squint and read it again.

I read it again.

I am angry.

Who is this Kristen person?

I call the number and can barely introduce myself before the woman on the other end begins to praise God and screams. She is talking fast.

She is so excited.

My brother is such a nice guy.

My father is such a sweet man.

MY FATHER?!

I say, ‘who are you?’

She doesn’t hear me because she is yelling to someone else in the background.

I say louder…..angrier ‘WHO ARE YOU?’

She tells me that she is a search angel and that she helps people search for adoptees who were placed and are out there missing.

I can’t breathe.

I am confused.

She is still talking and I say ‘I can’t talk right now’.

She stops speaking and changes her tone.

‘Please don’t be alarmed’, she sounds scared now.

I tell her ‘I have to call you back’ and I hang up.

I stare at the computer screen again.

The words start to dance across the screen because I am crying.

I am hot. My head is spinning.

I can’t breathe.

I stand up and don’t know which way to go.

Something is happening to me.

I go to Melinda in the next cube.

Melinda is eccentric but she’s the best. She’s on a phone call with someone important because everyone who calls our bosses are important.

She looks at me with her head tilted holding the phone with her shoulder. Without any sign of alarm, she reaches for the tissue and plucks and hands it to me.

I dab tears.

She plucks and hands.

I dab tears.

She is plucking as fast as she can and now the tears are coming faster than she can pluck tissue to keep them away.

My body is shaking.

I am going down but don’t want to alarm my co-workers.

I run straight down the hall to the bathroom.

I burst in the door and I scream.

I collapse on the floor and I cry.

Heaving heavy tears.

I cry and release years of loneliness.

Feelings of being lost in the world.

Feelings of being useless and forgotten.

Anger that a woman gave birth to me and left me for dead.

Feelings that hurt so bad in so many way on so many occasions that I have had to fight to not kill myself to stop the hurt inside.

I cry.

The women are coming into the bathroom.

Each stops as she sees me on the floor.

They surround me.

An older woman sits on the floor and takes my hands.

She is speaking loudly to me.

She asks ‘am I okay?’

I can’t speak so I bow my head.

She asks ‘Did something bad happen?’

I shake my head no.

More excited now, she asks ‘something GOOD happened?’

I bow my head and inhale.

I heave the words ‘I am adopted. My family just found me.’

In unison, they yell ‘MOZELTOF!!’ and begin to speak what sounds like prayer in Hebrew.

The group of women have now all joined me on the bathroom floor.

They cry and listen.

They hugging me.

I needed to be touched.

I need someone to stop me from exploding into a million pieces on the floor.

They listen while I explain, ‘I was put into foster care as a baby. I have a child and we have no one. Her father left and my foster mother put me out when I was young. I have always been alone. But she said my brother is looking for me’.

They ask more questions.

I realize I can’t answer them because I hung up on the woman who was helping him look for me.

They pull me from the floor and walk me back to my desk.

They insist I call the woman back and find out more.

I try to compose myself and dial her number again.

I take in a deep breath.

The phone rings…….

(to be continued)

Some women are spat on for not returning the desired reaction to crude and unwanted sexual attention. Some women attempt to respond to appease the abuser, hoping to make the exchange a little less painful, until she learns that this behavior only reinforces their behavior.

Some women wear headphones to block out the bullshit. They cross the street when they see crowds of men. They take the long way back and forth home preferring to face the danger that may await them on a dark street instead of walking through crowds of predators. And in time they go numb. The faces and the words become one big monolithic cloud of hatred aimed at them. She’s not sure what she did to cause such abuse from people she doesn’t know or want to engage with. She’s simply going about her life and when she complains, her friends say

Just Ignore It 

Teenagers walk through corridors of other teenagers, teachers, administrative personnel and under the rule of even more people who receive paychecks to be involved in the education and security of them yet they get bullied and harassed everyday.

Some girls fall victim to the teasing and cajoling and outright meanness displayed by other young girls. They are reminded of every real or perceived shortcoming they may or may not have.

Fat.

Ugly.

Pimples.

Poverty.

Good hair.

Bad hair.

The latest clothes or the hand me downs from the thrift store. Young girls are teased for getting their periods. They may be victims of elaborate plans set in place with cliques of other teenagers. They are the target of jokes and humiliation fabricated from personal information circulated through whispers and gossip to full fledged social media attacks complete with Facebook pages that rack up page hits like your favorite celebrity blog.

Girls beat the will to live out of other girls like packs of dogs seeking to purge the Beta.

Boys do the same to other boys but they’re REALLY not encouraged to complain so we can all keep pretending that boys don’t suffer hurt.

They may or may not talk to parents who may or may not be capable or willing to be concerned with what they think are shallow ‘teen’ issues”. The parents may be the ones spewing hatred.

All kids get teased”, so they say

Just Ignore It

Instead, they may Google suicide websites because being a teenager is hard whether one has parents that give a fuck or not. They learn to cope by drinking, drugging and cutting themselves to relieve the pain of having to wake up to a life like this. Is it easy to ignore that body dangling from the rope?

Grade school kids get teased and abused on school buses every day. Sometimes by kids. Sometimes by the people who drive the bus. If and when they do complain to an adult, their parents are told to,

Just Ignore It

Handicapped and disabled are teased, abused, and exploited for the enjoyment of others while going to school or while trying to maneuver their lives in society. When others take time out of their day to mimic the walk of a limping man, or to antagonize a person whose capacity to understand is different for their own sick enjoyment their caretakers and parents are told that ‘people can be cruel’ and they should,

Just Ignore It

The suggestion to “Just Ignore It” does several things, none of which alleviate the abuse thereby leaving the victim to suffer at the hand of those whom are aware that nothing will happen to them. “Ignoring” a  problem is part of the ‘just world’ fallacy  which basically means that bad things will be fixed, by someone, somewhere, because the world is a ‘right’ place. This belief ignores the fact inept social systems and societal apathy leaves everyone waiting…………and suffering.

As a child, I was emotionally and sexual abused and suffered great personal damage at the hands of my parents, my classmates, and the people involved in my career as a child model and actor.

As a teenager I suffered under the abuse of men in the neighborhood from the age of 11. As an adult I’ve been sexually harassed and demeaned while at work by employers both male and female because my need to secure a paycheck to feed my child was larger then my self esteem. I bit my tongue for minimum wage because I was a single mother since her father just ignored her existence.

The hard part about Just Ignore It is that the only thing being Ignored is the victim. There’s a mind fuck that goes on at a point in time when a victimized person comes to the realization that they’re on their fucking own when it comes to receiving justice. You can tell anyone you want, from the people in charge to the local police and judge, watch as their eyes glaze over in a disconnect that simply means they don’t want to be bothered.

Though there are rules on paper and implied concern and safety nets in place in society you quickly find out that that’s a rumor and either a) it does’t apply to you for some reason or B) someone is lying and justice doesn’t exist at all.

I, for one, hate being lied to and so I turned into my own judge and jury. Vengeance is mine because I choose to take it. Some people pick up guns and kill innocent people. Some go about life quietly harboring feelings of inadequacy internalized and kept at bey by drugs, sex and alcohol. Some people become so fearful of other humans that they turn into themselves and choose to live in isolation rather then to be exposed to the hurt and ugly behavior of people.

They’re are plenty of people Just Ignoring It. They are you’re sociopaths; you’re depressed; you’re suicide victims; you’re alcoholics and you’re drug addicted.  There are plenty of people willing to ignore it because the indifference of society has told them they’re pain is ignore-able.

And while the victim stays quiet, the abuser is free to continue on to the next person, because society doesn’t want to be bothered with correcting or protecting the least among us.

Society moves along much smoother by pretending to be concerned with the plight of others while ignoring those who need care which in turn reinforces the behavior of societies bullies, whoever they may be.

How does one expect change and a better society if no one will involve themselves in the administration of righteousness?

You know what they say about problems….ignoring a problem doesn’t make it go away….

So what does make it go away??????

Hmpf……Tracy….that’s what!

Wendy Ida and her husband, Art.

But things weren’t always so rosy for Wendy. She made her escape from Blackistan when she left 13 years of marriage to an abusive husband, even while her closest friends and relatives admonished her to stay, because according to them, it was her responsibility to be the sole person responsible to ‘hold it down.’ Unhealthy and overweight, Wendy took her two children from New Jersey to California with just the clothes on their backs. “I was an angry, overweight woman who was eating bad,” she told me. At 43, she decided to take charge of her health and has become one of the most fit and beautiful senior citizens in America. Not only that, she’s been happy married to her husband, Art, a Japanese American for 22 years.

She spoke with me frankly about her domestic violence experience, how she overcame it, how she met her husband, and some of the challenges they faced as an interracial couple. Listen close–she has some good advice for black women seeking relationships with Asian men (hint, we discuss it in great detail in SWIRLING).
Wendy Ida interview by Christelyn

For more information and to buy the book go to WendyIda.com.