Kismet Read online

  I drove across the street and parked. Like clockwork, a bright yellow Monte Carlo pulled up next to me. How do you sell drugs in a car the color of a banana on a hot summer day and expect not to get caught or be noticed? Either he kept his hustling tight or was flat-out dumb.

  I lowered my windows. The driver rolled his up, got out of the car, and then looked in my direction. He didn’t look directly at me. It was more like he was checking out his surroundings. He must have thought I could be the police too. I was glad the feeling was mutual.

  “Unlock the door, ma.” I must have been fiending for this high, because I did exactly as I was told. “Start your car up and let’s hit a block.”

  I turned to look him in the eye to tell him I didn’t know the area, but the words got stuck in my throat. He was absolutely breathtaking. He had a caramel skin tone, thick, full lips, dark brown eyes, and shoulder-length dreads.

  He also had a scar under his left eye that he tried to cover up with a tattoo. That rough shit turns me on. He was wearing Curve cologne, one of my all-time favorite scents, and he was decked out in Ralph Lauren Polo from head to toe. He must have just purchased the clothing, because the XXL sticker was still on it, and he had a cell phone on his lap.

  “I’m not from around here. Left or right?”

  Digging in his pocket, he said, “Just go around the block once, baby. I’ma weigh it out while you driving.”

  He tested the scale with a nickel, reset it, and poured some weed on it. I peeked to make sure I wasn’t being cheated. The scale read thirty-one point three grams.

  “That’s all you, baby. Slide me a hundred and we good; and trust me, I got you right. You and your man are going to thank me later for this here.”

  It was like a reflex the way it came from my mouth. “I don’t have a man,” I replied, not wanting to sound desperate. I finished my statement with, “But I got weed now, so I’m good.” Then I licked my lips. That’s when he finally looked at me, but briefly, and only at my lips.

  “Here goes my number, baby; if you ever need to get right, give me a call. I’m Dre. I deliver, but I’m charging a fee like Pizza Hut.”

  I pulled up next to his car and thought of seven nasty things before he even cranked up his engine that I would do to him if he ever knocked on my door with a delivery.

  I drove all the way to Bellevue wondering what sex with him would be like. I could tell by his demeanor that he liked rough sex. His walk was priceless. I loved a man who was on his shit and knew it.

  Dre proved himself to be honest too, because the high I got that night was as close to a California high as I was going to get in the South. The weed was so good, I felt like I needed to be freshly bathed to keep smoking. I put it out at the halfway point, went to draw a bath, and started a load of laundry.

  I took an hour-long bubble bath while listening to Babyface sing me song after song on his Greatest Hits CD. He had just finished telling me how he would buy my clothes, cook me dinner, and pay my rent as soon as he got home from work when I got out of the tub. I ended my bath before my body shriveled up like a raisin and lotioned down with the 100 percent Shea butter I purchased from an African sister in Atlantic Station. It worked wonders on ashy elbows and blending my skin tone.

  “Damn, girl, you looking good.”

  I had caught a glimpse of my naked body in the mirror through the candlelight and bathroom mist. I loved what I saw, not a fat roll or dent anywhere and no ink in my skin with anybody’s name or design.

  My body is my temple, and I wouldn’t ruin it to advertise or endorse anything or anyone. I did have my clit and belly button pierced, but only to complement my flat midsection and the beautiful, neatly shaved area below my stomach. Piercings are removable; ink under the skin is not.

  Clearing up the foggy mirror, I turned in a half circle to look at my butt. I have to admit that Amir, my Jamaican fling for the last six months, was right. Anal sex did have my booty looking right. My butt had never sat up that high, nor was it ever that round. That bright yellow donkey dick he gave me worked like a charm.

  I wondered if it got that big from him not wearing drawers. Whatever the cause was for his enormous girth, I was thankful he shared it with me.

  One night, while he was hitting me from the back, he slid his thumb in my butt. “Let me juke that booty, mi gal.”

  I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, and he was still stroking in and out of me, so my concentration was on handling every deep stroke he was giving me. I would have answered yes to anything he wanted at that time, and he knew it, so he continued. Amir bent me over the bed farther and got me off my knees.

  He started slapping his tongue down my spine in an exotic way that made my breathing speed up. He spread my cheeks so he could continue licking downward in a straight line. He began to lick faster and made my butt even wetter with his tongue, which was long and fat, just the way I like my dicks. I could feel it twisting in and out of my butthole in a way that would eventually make me come.

  I had never been a fan of getting my salad tossed. It was a mental thing for me. I just couldn’t picture anyone wanting to taste what I had eaten after it was digested and on the verge of coming back out. Amir made me change my mind. I loved it. His tongue had my hole so wet I could feel it drip past my vaginal entrance, land on my stomach, and then hit the bed.

  He slowly put his girth back in me with another minute or two of stroking it. He sucked on his index and middle fingers, making them wet so he could slide them in my rear entrance. In an open-and-close scissors move, he pulled his fingers in and out, and then eased his way to the closed opening of my butt and inserted the head of his hardened meat.

  I screamed out in horror. No one would have heard me over the loud maracas from the reggae music he had playing, but if they could have heard my scream, they would have thought I was being raped.

  “Relax, baby; breathe slowly. It will start feeling good in a minute.”

  How in the hell could something that caused so much pain eventually feel so damn good? Once the head was in completely, the shaft brought me so much pleasure. I felt alive in a manner I never knew existed. I buried my face deep into the mattress and took every stroke. When I released, I released from both holes and Amir released too.

  I could feel the heat from his nut all over my back. He kissed my right butt cheek and passed out next to me on the bed. Anal sex is a love/ hate relationship, but trust me, it hurts so good.

  Throwing on my pink lace boy shorts with matching bra, I curled up on my couch to continue smoking the other half of my blunt while I watched whatever movie I could catch the beginning of on cable. Lucky for me, Love Jones had just come on. I watched that movie every day while I was in college. I even drove around Atlanta playing the soundtrack with “Rush Over” and “Hopeless” on repeat. Damn, this was going to bring back memories.

  I reached for the ounce of weed on my coffee table to roll up one more blunt so I wouldn’t have to get back up and miss the movie when I noticed it wasn’t there.

  That’s when I wished my legs were long enough to kick myself in the ass. I threw all the clothes I had on in the washing machine. Right about now, my weed should be in the rinse cycle awaiting the final spin.

  Just like I predicted, wet weed was spinning around the machine loosely, like freshly cut grass. “Damn.” I couldn’t spend the rest of the weekend in the house without weed, so I grabbed the phone and called Dre.

  His delivery fee was ten dollars to Bellevue since I was buying another ounce. It should have been free. It was going on 11:00 p.m., the movie was going off, and he still wasn’t there. I thought it was thirty minutes or less or your delivery was free. I talked to him two hours earlier and he said, “I got two bites to catch first; then I’m headed your way.” Those must have been some big bites.

  By the time he called me from the security gate, I had forgotten he was coming. “Who is it?”

  Then I heard that raspy voice again. “It’s Dre. Buzz me in
.”

  I buzzed the gate, and then ran to my bedroom, threw on some shorts and a baby doll T-shirt, and went to the window to watch him pull in.

  If he was by himself, I would let him come up. Otherwise, I was headed downstairs. He jumped out of his car before I even told him I was letting him in. Men . . . They always assume your next move will best suit them. If I didn’t need that weed, I would have told him a thing or two.

  I was peeping out the hole in my door when I heard him say, “Are you going to open this door or keep peeking out your peephole at me?”

  I didn’t even see him standing there, to be honest. What was the point in having a nonworking peephole? I’d have to speak with maintenance about that in the morning. I opened the door, but blocked the entrance with my body.

  “Look, if you think I’m going to rob you, you shouldn’t have invited me out here.”

  I scooted over slowly, tried to think of something smart to say in return, but I couldn’t. It was like he had the mute button for my smart-ass mouth.

  Moving me out of the way in my own apartment, he sat down on my couch, pulled out his scales again, and began his weighing routine.

  “Damn, girl, you smoked that ounce already?” I still seemed to be on mute. “And this is a nice-ass spot you got here. I just might change my mind and rob you after all. I want that TV.”

  I explained my laundry accident to him and told him he could steal anything else in my house but my sixty-two-inch TV. I’d kill over it.

  “Still, baby, you spent $200 with me in one day. I feel like I owe you something. Wanna match a blunt?” Dre must have thought I was stupid since I’d been on mute.

  “Naw, I’m going to hold on to mines, but we can smoke one of yours.” I joined him on the couch.

  “So, you know my name. What’s yours?” Still no eye contact. He hadn’t looked me in my eyes since we met. That was a good thing because my anger over the lack of eye contact took me off mute.

  “Don’t try to pretend like this is personal, Dre, or whatever you go by. You haven’t made eye contact with me since we met. You’re here for the money, not to make a new friend, and my name is Savannah, or you can call me the weed head you just made $200 off of.”

  Now that seemed to get his attention. He stopped breaking down his weed and sat back, eyeing me. I finally got some eye contact. “Girl, you hell. Where are you from? That ain’t a real Southern accent.”

  The smile that graced his lips gave me a flashback of all seven of those nasty things I thought about doing to him earlier. “I speak English properly and smoke a lot of weed. You tell me where I’m from.”

  Looking into my eyes again, he said, “What part of California? And what are you doing down here?”

  Not wanting to go into a history lesson or give a full background check on myself, I answered, “Los Angeles and college. What about you? Are you from Nashville?”

  Sparking up the blunt and taking a hit, he said, “Yep, born and raised in Jo Johnson projects ’til they tore them down. Then I moved on campus, and now I’m back out east.”

  Campus? Did he mean like a jail campus or college campus? I gave him the benefit of the doubt and assumed he was talking about college.

  “What college did you go to?”

  He had this “I really don’t want to have this conversation” look on his face. “I graduated from TSU with a degree in criminology. Naw, I ain’t doing shit with it because I make more money as a criminal than studying them, and let’s just leave it at that.” It was a touchy subject, but at least he was educated.

  I inhaled the blunt he rolled and instantly realized it was different than the weed he sold me. It was Cali midgrade.

  “Why didn’t you sell me any of this?”

  He thought it was funny and started laughing. “I don’t get high on my own supply. Got to keep the best for myself. If you’re really interested in getting some of this, I might be able to get you an ounce for $200. Just let me know.”

  The price of weed in the South is almost double the West Coast. If I trusted any of those sorry-ass guys from my old neighborhood, I would tell them to come down here, set up shop, and make a killing. But why should I look out for them when they never looked out for me?

  Flipping through the channels in hopes of finding another good movie, Dre asked me to go back to that new Will Smith movie where everyone turned into zombielike creatures, and he was trying to find a cure for them.

  “That movie isn’t free. It costs four dollars ninety-nine cents. That’s Pay-Per-View, and you don’t pay the bill to view anything.”

  He stood up and handed me a twenty-dollar bill. “Let’s watch it. I’ma go grab my Rémy outta the car since you ain’t offered me nothing to drink with your rude, Californian ass. Then you can order it.”

  Dre had nerve, and I was feeling it, but who invited him to crash my movie/smoke night? “So, I take it you assumed I’m okay with you chilling with me because we smoked a blunt together?”

  He walked out of the door like I didn’t say anything to him. I watched him out of the window as he grabbed a brown bag out of his truck, rolled his car windows up, turned the alarm on, and headed back up.

  There was a delay before he walked back in. Peeping out my peephole hoping to see him this time, I still wasn’t able to see him. I cracked the door and looked out. He was outside on the walkway, making phone call after phone call. I could barely hear what he was saying over the TV, so I turned it down.

  When I made it back to the door, I caught the end of his walkie-talkie conversation with some guy named Mike. It went like this:

  Mike: “So, you ain’t going to the club?”

  Dre: “Naw, something came up. I’ma get with you tomorrow, though.”

  Mike: “This ain’t like you. You sure you straight?”

  Dre: “I’m good. Just make sure you count that money. If he ain’t got the whole $1,500, the deal is off.”

  Mike: “I got you, but what you want me to tell Tasha?”

  Dre: “Tell her I got a run to make, and I might not make it back to the Ville ’til the morning.”

  Mike: “All right.”

  It sounded like he had some business to handle at the club that night but decided to stay here to watch a movie with me. I wondered who Tasha was.

  I went to the kitchen and got us each a glass of ice so it wouldn’t look like I was eavesdropping. Then I grabbed my bottle of white wine and met up with him at the couch.

  “To answer your question, yes, I think I’m chilling with you tonight. I don’t feel like the club scene, and I ain’t sat back and watched a movie in a minute. If you got somebody coming by, let me know and I’ll bounce.”

  I shook my head and handed him his glass. What was he doing to me? I’d lost my bark and bite since he had been there. I needed to say something. “I didn’t really want to watch a movie alone tonight, so it’s cool you decided to stay.” What in the hell was that, Savannah? It sounded too sensitive. Try again, girl, damn! “Plus, I’ve been wanting to see this movie and been refusing to pay for it, so thanks for the twenty bucks, and it wouldn’t hurt if you rolled up another blunt. I would offer to match you, but my supplier sold me some bullshit.” Now, that’s better, girl. I couldn’t believe I was coaching myself on how to handle the man.

  I broke down a cigar and handed it to him. While he rolled up, I ordered the movie and went to grab a few pillows from my bed for my back.

  I noticed he was watching me, not in an untrusting way, but as if he was staring at my butt. When I came back, he was smoking and watching the movie.

  We sat in silence for about thirty minutes, and then the alert on his phone went off. He checked the number, then put it back down. Five minutes or so later, his phone was ringing off the hook. There must have been ten calls back-to-back that he just ignored. Finally, a woman’s voice chirped through on his walkie-talkie.

  “Dre, where are you? Why are you not answering my calls?”

  He looked at me as if he thought I
would say something, and then grabbed his phone. “I told you I had business to handle tonight. What’s up?”

  The woman wasted no time on her response. “My mama got the baby so I thought I’d come to the club and surprise you, but Mike said you went somewhere else. Where you at?”

  He looked at me again. “I had to run to Kentucky. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  An unrelieved and disappointed voice said, “Uh-huh, okay,” and hung up.

  Before he tried to explain, I looked at him and said, “That ain’t none of my business.” He seemed to relax and got back into the movie again.

  Who was I fooling? I wanted to know the details of his relationship with the woman on the other end of the phone.

  Was that the Tasha his boy Mike spoke of earlier? It didn’t matter to me anyway, but it would be nice if he offered the information.

  Not only was I high, but now I was drunk. I drank the entire 750 ml bottle myself, and now I had to pee.

  I tried to get up and go to the bathroom without him noticing I was intoxicated, but falling back down after standing up didn’t help me hide it at all.

  “I got you, Savannah.” Grabbing me by my waist, he asked, “Where you trying to go?”

  I pointed to the bathroom. He led me there, and then closed the door behind me. I used the bathroom, flushed the toilet, and had started washing my hands when the door flew open.

  “You ready to get back on the couch?” He was there to help me. “Look, if you don’t mind, I’ma crash on your floor until you sober up some. It was funny as hell when you just fell, but I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

  Was he sober? The Rémy bottle was empty too, and we had smoked three blunts within two hours. I almost applauded him for being concerned, until he admitted my fall brought him laughter. However, I needed the help, and I wasn’t ready for him to leave, anyway. Drunk and all, I was getting some dick from him tonight.

  “I have a two-bedroom. You can use the guest bedroom, if you like.”

  He agreed to sleep in the guest bedroom but wanted to watch ESPN before calling it a night.