Nasty (13 page)

Sherry gritted her teeth and clenched her fist as the worst thoughts paraded through her mind:
This bitch is fuckin’ with the wrong person. She beggin’ for a slap down! But I can’t do that and face the girls down at the Stop Gang Violence Center.

Using techniques she had taught her clients, Sherry mustered the courage to channel the rage seeping into her veins into socially accepted behavior. She calmed down completely when she reminded herself that Tarik was hers and she was his and this viper from hell didn’t stand a chance.

“Nicola, I so agree with you, girl! My husband is SUPER! Oh, baby, let me get that nasty lipstick off of your face.” Sherry reached in her purse for a tissue and cleaned off all traces of Nicola. “There, that’s better.” She shot a dangerous look at Nicola, rolled her eyes, and commented with much in-your-face attitude, “MUCH BETTER!”

Tarik was proud of his wife. She had handled herself very well with the overly aggressive Nicola. No one would have ever suspected that, at age thirteen, Sherry had nearly killed a girl for just flirting with one of her gang members’ boyfriends.

Carlos, oblivious to the potentially vicious catfight, looked around the room. “Hey, where’s Jonathan?”

Tarik, pulled Sherry close to him, and answered, “I think he said something about turning in early.”

Trying to avoid Carlos, Jonathan had left the party early. Keeping busy, he looked through his e-mail. Most of the messages were from the editor of the Teens for Abstinence newsletter. His article for the “
A Kiss is Good Enough
!” column was long overdue. He’d been a passionate contributor to the newsletter for the past two years.

After his experience that afternoon, writing anything on the subject of “Just Say No” would win him first-prize honors in the “Hypocrite of the Year” contest. Yes, the thought of Nicola made Jonathan’s blood boil so hot he was now an official lustful, nasty guy…one who couldn’t even fathom stopping at a kiss.

“Yo, Jonathan, why you not at the party?” Carlos burst into the room unannounced. Upset by his entrance, Jonathan made a mental note to fix the busted lock on his bedroom door as soon as possible.

“I was catching up on my e-mails. I’m waiting for uh…ruh…some important messages.”

“Man…thanks for helping me out with Nicola. We both appreciate you.”

“No problem, she’s a…very special lady”

“Special? Hell, she’s more than that. She’s
the one
.”

Jonathan looked at Carlos funny.

“The one! She’s got my heart, man. If we keep going like this…”

“You’re not talking commitment?”

“The big ‘C,’ yep…the bigger ‘M’ word…Yep…I could see me with some little Nicolases and Carloses running all over my
crib and making Mama Ophelia a grandma again and shit.” Carlos stared off like he could actually see the future in front of him. He jerked away from the scene to confront Jonathan. “Yo, man, look, I owe you one. I’m definitely checking you out for the game. Okay? Peace, G.” Before he left, he added, “One more thing. At the concert, where were you and Nicola sitting? I looked and couldn’t find either one of you.”

Jonathan’s tension rose.
So we were missed
, he thought. He knew it. Never a liar before, he came up with, “Oh, we were way in the back. Got there late. There was a lot of traffic on the FDR, man.”

Carlos was satisfied with the lie. “Of course…FDR Saturday traffic can be a bitch. Sorry, man. Sorry you had to go through with that. I
really
owe you now.”

Carlos left, as did the part of Jonathan that thought it was “cool” to have an affair with Nicola at the same time she was dating his brother. The “guilties” were beginning to eat him inside out.

Jonathan was determined to make all the wrong things that had transpired in the last few hours right. He had stepped away from his usual code of behavior. After all those years of swaggering around town as the poster boy for squeaky-clean values, he had failed the first time someone had challenged him.

He didn’t even give Nicola a good fight. At every point he could have stopped her, but he never did. Pulling away from that luscious mouth and her experienced hands was never a serious option for him. And though he tried to admonish himself for his behavior, he was most ashamed of the coldest fact of all: He didn’t really regret his time with Nicola at all.

If truth be told, there was a side of him, one he was unfamiliar with, that was damn grateful for the pleasure he had experienced.
He looked at himself in the mirror, and he thought he saw a glimpse of the devil. Shocked by what he thought he saw, he rubbed his eyes. He calmed down when he realized how the mind plays tricks on you…especially when you know you’ve done wrong.

Playing nasty little games with your sibling’s girlfriend was definitely on the list of doing the wrong thing and he didn’t want to go straight to hell!

Jonathan made a solid promise to himself that Nicola would never ever get that close to him again. He looked back at the mirror and didn’t see the devil. This time he saw a young man, strong in his convictions. In a whispered voice, Jonathan proclaimed, “Yeah, Nicola, just try and suck my dick again. See how far you get.” Jonathan struck a pose that even Superman would envy.

W
ith mellow party music blasting in the background, and the crowd thinning out, Carlos escorted Nicola into a secluded part of the backyard. Walking past a fully stocked koi pond and a massive jasmine bush that, with the help of summer breezes, scented the entire area, Carlos pulled her inside the gazebo near the rear fence. “Good, I got you all to myself now.” He pulled her down to sit next to him on the custom-made bench. Carlos softly kissed Nicola on the lips.

“Nicola and Carlos sitting in a tree…”

Nicola joined him in the silly children’s song, “K-I-S-S-I-NG…” Carlos pulled Nicola close to him and they engaged in a deep, full kiss. With no party folks around to see them, Nicola’s hands conducted an exploration of Carlos’s private parts. She unzipped his fly, breaking through the opening of his treasured BVD’s. Her hands stroked the responsive contents.

“Mmmm Nicola, you make me feel ten feet tall.”

“And your dick is about the same size. I’m really going to love, loving it.”

“Don’t you mean loving me?”

“It; you; same same.” Nicola reinitiated the kissing, never stopping the stroking motion between his legs. Inspired by her,
Carlos slipped his hands past the straps of her top and fondled her pendulous breasts. Nicola’s nipples harden in response to his touch. She moaned out ever so quietly, expressing deep pleasure. “Oooh, Carlos, you make me want to have you, all of you, right now.” A drop of viscous fluid in total agreement with Nicola’s desire, collected at the tip of Carlos’s enormous tool as she stroked up and down its monstrous shaft, begging him to climax.

Carlos’s cell phone interrupted their “kiss.” Always ready for business, Carlos pulled away from her and answered the call.

Frowning, Nicola was visibly disappointed by Carlos’s abrupt change in mood and focus.

“Hey, I’m a businessman. I always take my calls. Hello? Yo, Mark, what’s up, man?” Nicola tried to distract him by stroking his balls. Carlos left the gazebo to find a “quieter” place to continue his call. Looking back at Nicola, he blew a kiss in her direction.

Feeling slightly rejected by his behavior, Nicola adjusted her clothing and marched back inside the house with all intentions of finding Jonathan to finish what she had tried to start with Carlos.

Nicola wandered upstairs to the second floor. Along her way, she admired the beautiful Haitian art that adorned the walls. She hadn’t noticed the art earlier that day because the hallway had been totally unlit. Disoriented, not knowing where Jonathan could be, she took a wild guess and pushed her way into a room at the end of the corridor.

There to greet her was Tarik all laid out on a daybed, trying to take a nap.

“Look who I’ve found; the star of the show!” Nicola closed the door behind her and literally attacked the unsuspecting Tarik.

He had zero opportunity to refuse the tongue that she shoved down his throat, or push away the groping hand that freely massaged his private parts. No chance to keep himself from responding to her attack, when the door swung open again, he heard his mother shout, “TARIK… NICOLA…WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE!”

Nicola, smiling, marveling at the chaos she had inspired, disconnected herself from Tarik. She stood up and adjusted her dress. Tarik started talking a mile a minute. “Mama…Ma… This is not what you think it is. Please don’t tell Sherry. Don’t tell Carlos.” He looked at Nicola in disgust and added, “This wasn’t nothing. Just a bad, bad mistake.”

Clearly disappointed in her son, Ophelia looked into her son’s eyes, and then shot a disapproving scowl at Nicola. She shook her head and left the room. Tarik looked at Nicola and spat, “Get the fuck outta here and leave my brother Carlos alone, you hear me?”

“I’m leaving here, but I’m not leaving Carlos.” She pulled a solid gold compact out of her purse and refreshed her lipstick. Before leaving the room, she smiled triumphantly and added, “And don’t act like you didn’t enjoy it ’cause we
both
know that you did.”

Tarik was pissed with himself because the crazy broad was dead right.

“NICOLA!”

Nicola gasped as Ophelia, carrying a butcher knife, literally snuck up behind her when she entered the kitchen looking for Carlos. Startled, she almost dropped her purse.

“Mrs. Singleton!”

“I’m sorry; didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”

Yeah, I bet
, thought Nicola.

“That’s alright. I’ll survive.”

Nicola looked at the knife, wondering what Ophelia was going to do with it. Ophelia, who had been chopping up a side of beef, preparing it for storage in the refrigerator, saw Nicola’s reaction and set the knife down on the butcher block…never taking her eyes off of her.

“Nicola, the men in this family mean a hell of a lot to me. Don’t start any trouble between them. Because if you keep messing with Tarik, and Carlos, and my
baby
, Jonathan…” She picked up the knife and for the sheer effect alone, deliberately kept chopping the meat into little pieces and said, “…you are going to have to answer to Mama Ophelia! And it won’t be pretty; not one little bit.”

Unthreatened by the attractive older woman, Nicola could not have cared less what she thought of her. She wasn’t looking for her approval. Not from her. Not from anyone. Ophelia didn’t scare her one little bit. Not getting inside Jonathan’s pants, now that was a far scarier notion. But he was eager. There would be no problem “deflowering” Mama Ophelia’s “baby.”

Carlos would be an easy conquest, too. Tarik, she decided to pass on. Though he did look delicious, and she could definitely devour the whole thing, a fight with his half-pint wife would prove far too time-consuming.

Yes, she’d have to be satisfied with Jonathan and Carlos and all the other little conquests she had picked up along the way. As far as she was concerned, both Sherry and the mama could go to hell on a fast plane. Nicola beamed a triumphant smile at Ophelia and walked out of the kitchen, deliberately clicking her stiletto heels rhythmically against the imported Italian tile.

Her eyes literally sparkled
, thought Ophelia. A cold chilling
memory flashed before her. She had seen those eyes years ago. But where? Had she known Nicola before? No, she couldn’t have known her. The only thing she knew was that the wench would be smart not to trespass and make trouble between her sons. Ophelia kept cutting the meat and only stopped when she looked down and realized she had cut the beef into a pile of mush.

As the last guests departed, Carlos could not wait to begin his “special” evening with Nicola. Looking all over for her, he found her sitting out front on the stoop humming to herself. He put his arms around her. “We’ll be leaving in a few. Why don’t you come back inside with me to say good-bye to my mother?”

Replaying the scene she had had earlier with Ophelia, Nicola smiled mischievously. “I don’t think so, Carlos, but you go on ahead. Give me the keys; I’ll wait for you in the car.”

Disappointed and confused by her refusal, he reached into his pocket, gave her his keys and playfully demanded, “Don’t you go nowhere, hear?”

Ophelia was in the kitchen giving final instructions to the catering staff. Carlos gently pulled her to the side.

“Mama Ophelia?”

“Enjoying yourself, dear?”

Carlos slipped his arm around his mother.

“More than I planned to. Well?”

“Well, what?”

“I saw you two talking. What do you think of my Nicola?”

Ophelia smiled politely. Her son was waiting for a full endorsement from her. Not wanting to burst his bubble on an evening he’d worked so hard for, she took the diplomatic route.
“I definitely agree with you, Carlos. She’s a beautiful-looking woman. Like a model.”

Unable to hold back what was really on her mind, she burst out, “But I got to be honest with you, son. Nicola is a pure tramp, and you’d be better off without her. And I ain’t got anything else to say on the subject. Excuse me, but I have to do some work here in the kitchen.” Ophelia walked away in a defiant “sometimes a mother has to say the hard truth” manner.

Carlos was dumbfounded. His mother was always an opinionated woman, but she was usually a great judge of character. How could she be so wrong about his Nicola? He decided to ignore her. Mothers were always the last ones to approve of their son’s choice for a mate. Hell, it had taken forever before Mama Ophelia had accepted Sherry after she discovered that Sherry had done time in jail when she was a gang member.

And now, she and Sherry were both raising Javon together. They were thick as thieves…just like Mama was going to be with Nicola…once she got to know her better. Confident that all would work out eventually, Carlos headed out the door.

“Mama? Mama?” Tarik tapped Ophelia on the shoulder to snatch her from the deep trance she was in. She was standing in front of her Yellow Rose picture, staring at it. “Sherry and I are going home now, but I’m not leaving ’til I explain to you that what you saw tonight was just stupid stuff. That woman attacked me right before you came in the room and I…I…”