Slick Read online

  Slick

  Brenda Hampton

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Also by

  INTRODUCTION

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

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  Copyright Page

  Slick

  by

  Brenda Hampton

  INTRODUCTION

  SYLVIA

  Jonathan Tyrese Taylor was what I called a true gift from God. He had it going on all the way around, and my girlfriend, Dana, couldn’t ask for anything more. Thing was, she was unaware of what kind of man she had. Jonathan went over and above the call of duty for her, but the appreciation she showed him wasn’t worth a damn. Every time I put my two cents in, she told me to mind my own business. Maybe I should have, or maybe I shouldn’t have, but what were best friends for? I thought I was supposed to be the one to tell her when things weren’t right, or when I thought she was making a big mistake. Hell, she told me when I was, but when it came to Dana, her business was her business. I tried not to interfere, but I just couldn’t help myself. We’d been friends since the second grade at Black Jack Elementary, and I knew her better than anybody. We’d always had each other’s backs, but lately I was feeling as if we were losing touch.

  Married to Jonathan for almost ten years, Dana had been seeing a twenty-two-year-old nobody, Lewis Mc-Farlin, for the past three years. A secret only Dana and I shared, though we knew better. Lewis worked with me, and, yes, his smile was to die for. His skin was silky brown smooth, and his body was cut in all the right places. My coworkers said he was hooked up—body tight and ass right. From those who had the opportunity to be with him, they said a sista would die for a second date. Other than the “ohhh you make me wanna holla” sex they claimed he dished out, through my eyes, he seemed to be a true waste of time. I told Dana time and time again about all of the rumors, but she didn’t seem to care. She said Lewis and she had a lot in common, so his sleeping with other women didn’t bother her.

  Lewis worked in the mailroom at Duncan, Taylor & Bradford, a law firm in Clayton where Jonathan and I worked together. Every day, Lewis strolled his mail cart around, smiling in our faces like everything was all good. From what Dana told me, the brotha was struggling to make ends meet. In my opinion, if he’d stop sleeping with so many females and chill out on having babies, maybe he’d keep some money in his pockets. Dana said he was always complaining about taking care of his four kids, and whenever he fell short on his child support payments, she helped him out. I told her that was bull, especially when she wasn’t even working. She took money from Jonathan’s account to provide for another person. That didn’t make any sense at all. All of this mess drove me crazy, but there was no way in hell I was going to betray Dana and tell Jonathan what was really going down. He had to find out on his own. I thought he suspected something, but he was so wrapped up into making money that nothing else seemed to catch his attention.

  Sometimes, I found myself thinking about what being with a man like Jonathan Taylor would be like. He was smart, made mega money as a lawyer, and could wear the heck out of any suit when he slid his thick, tall body into it. A deep, dark brown chocolate, all the women in our office went crazy over him. But since most of them knew my connection with Dana, they stood clear. Jonathan barely gave any of us a second look. He laughed when he heard our comments and brushed them off.

  Being the true gentleman he was, when I was laid off from my previous job, he hooked up a job for me as his secretary. I didn’t start giving him any attention until Dana started cheating on him. I always thought he was my kind of man, but I always knew he was hands off. Lately, though, I’d been feeling sorry for him. When he strolled in every morning, I waited to see what type of mood he was going to be in. I could always tell when things were a bit shaky at home because he immediately closed the door to his office and I wouldn’t hear a peep out of him. Then Dana would start ringing the phone, asking me all kinds of questions about his demeanor.

  Bottom line: someday, all of this mess was going to hit the fan. The truth would come to the light, and when it did, I hoped I was nowhere to be found. But if I was, I was going to have the pleasure of watching Dana squirm herself out of this mess. It wasn’t that I was hoping to see her lose out on a good thing, but what goes around comes around. If she had to pay for what she’d done, I didn’t care how much love I had for her, she deserved whatever it was that she had coming. Especially since I warned her. I tried over and over again to tell her what a good man she had. I reminded her every day how many women would love to be in her shoes. Thing was, she thought that every man was a sucker for a light-skinned, big-breasted, thin woman with long, bouncing, and behaving hair and green eyes. I admitted, over the years, some men had played the fools, but then there were those who hadn’t catered to her snobby, sometimes selfish and uppity ways. Those were the brothas who liked women with a little more meat on their bones and with a better attitude. That, of course, would be the darker sistas, such as myself, who know the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice. And once you go this black, you’ll never go back. I was a living witness to that. Every man who came my way always came again.

  I was sort of on lockdown right now because this fool, Marlin, tried to stalk me after I told him it was over. He was cool, but he was too cool. He was all up in my business, and whenever I had to work late, he’d be lurking at my door waiting for me. That shit drove me crazy. How about, “I’ll just call you when I get home?” It didn’t make sense for a fine brotha like him to be clowning like that. His dick was good, and I truly missed it, but I could for surely do without all the insecurities that came attached.

  In the meantime, I was keeping my eyes on Jonathan and making sure none of these other hoochie mamas dug their claws into him. Dana knew I was looking out for what was in her best interest, because if I wasn’t, I would have told him the scoop a long time ago. I hoped she appreciated a friend like me because most women would have loved to have me in their corner. If she would have taken my advice and stopped spending her money and time on that low-life fool, Lewis, she’d have been all right with me.

  JONATHAN

  Stress, stress, and more stress was all I’d been feeling lately. Between my job, my sixteen-year-old daughter, Britney, and my wife, I couldn’t say who had been stressing me the most. Sometimes, I felt like running away from it all. I knew that would never happen because I worked too hard to get to where I was today, I loved my daughter, and my wife meant everything in the world to me. Thing was, though, sometimes, I didn’t quite understand my unhappiness. I put in long hours at work so my family could have the finer things in life, but then there was no time for enjoyment. And when I thought there would be time, something always came up and I had to go handle my business.

  My wife, Dana, complained constantly about not spending “quality” time together, but I gave her as much quality time as I could. If she wasn’t complaining about our minimal time together, she was bitching about not having enough money to do what she desired to do. I was straight up in a no-win situation. Damned if I did, and damned if I didn’t. Dana had threatened many times to leave me, but I knew better. She could never make it without me. She was too lazy to get a job, and since day one, she looked for someone who could provide for her. Who could blame her, coming from a wealthy family where daddy’s little girl had ev
erything she always wanted?

  Sometimes, I could shoot myself for falling in love with her, but then there were times that I loved her to death. Like when she surprised me with candlelit dinners or she took me on surprise vacations and fucked my brains out. Just last week, she knew I had to work late and she came to my office with a little of nothing on and freaked me down. That was the Dana I loved. She was a beautiful woman, and most of the time, I was proud to have her as my wife. It was the times when she was yakking on the phone with her girlfriends, and running the streets on the weekends that drove me crazy. I asked her all the time, if she was married, then what in the hell was keeping her in the streets so much? It didn’t make sense to me, but maybe since there was a ten-year difference between us, maybe she still had some things she wanted to explore.

  Running the streets was over for me a long time ago. I wrapped that up after I got married to Dana. When my career took off, I had to leave the street life behind me. Normally, if I wasn’t working on the weekends, I was at home chilling. I didn’t really trip too much about Dana going out because I trusted her. I trusted her to come home at a decent hour, to never bring me any drama from another brotha, and to respect me for as long as we were married.

  A part of me suspected that she was seeing someone else, though, but I’d never been the type of man to chase after a woman, not even my wife. What was meant for me to know I would definitely know. And since I was just speculating, I refused to go out and throw myself at other women. Now, there were some beautiful women I worked with, and they would have loved the opportunity to be with a man like me. But for now, Dana had me all to herself.

  Even her friend, Sylvia, looked at me like she could tear a brotha up. From what I could tell, and according to Dana, Sylvia had so much drama in her life that it was ridiculous. Five years ago, right after her husband was killed in a car accident, she lost her job. I felt sorry for her and asked her to work for me, since my secretary was on her way out. It was a good move for me because Sylvia definitely knew her shit. She was always on time, I didn’t have to ask her to do things over and over again, and whenever I asked her to work overtime she never complained. I thought she would take advantage of this situation, being like family and all, but she hadn’t. She said that since I came through for her, she would continue to come through for me. That was a good thing, and my only gripe was when she was on lengthy phone calls with Dana, or when she was yelling at one of her male companions about something. Normally, I just stood in the doorway to my office and stared at her. After that, she knew what action to take and that was to put a halt to her conversation.

  Sylvia was an attractive woman, so I didn’t understand the brothas she chose to date. She was always asking me for advice, and I recently went with her to obtain a restraining order against a man who was stalking her. I took her home one night and there he was standing at her door, smoking a cigarette, and looking as if he’d lost his mind. When he saw me, he really started acting a fool. I calmed his ass down and told him to chill. Later, I asked Sylvia what made a brotha act that way and she said it was all about the pussy. I might have known a little about that, too, since my friends seemed to think I was whipped by Dana’s pussy. But stalking a woman was truly uncalled for. No man should ever have to stoop that low, especially when there was plenty enough to go around.

  And, yes, I’d had my share of pussy. It set me back a few times, but the best thing that came out of it was my daughter, Britney. She was sixteen, but going on twenty-five. I hadn’t a clue what I was going to do with her because she was off into her own jacked-up world. Britney’s mother, Beverly, had no control over her. She was always calling me to discipline Britney, but if she would have let Britney stay with me from the beginning, like I asked her to, things wouldn’t be as bad as they were now.

  Before I met Dana, Beverly and I dated for a while. I planned on marrying her, but somehow Dana just managed to steal my heart away. I could have done the right thing by marrying my baby’s mama, but I just wasn’t feeling Beverly enough to marry her. The only reason we somewhat got along now was because of Britney. I kept my conversations with Beverly short. We could never stay on the phone for more than five minutes without cursing each other out or blaming each other for Britney’s mistakes. Bottom line was I knew Britney was probably screwed up because of all the shit Beverly and I had been through. That was why I tried to understand Britney’s aggressive and bad behavior. Beverly blamed me and insisted that if I had married her, we would all be one big, happy family and everything would be cool. I rejected that notion, but since she was the kind of woman who thought she knew everything, I just let it be.

  Hopefully, soon, everything would work itself out. I knew life could sometimes be difficult, but I hoped things would get better. But if it didn’t, I was the kind of man who had no problem packing up my shit and moving on.

  1

  SYLVIA

  When Jonathan came in, Jackie, Audrey, and I were sitting around running our mouths. He didn’t say good morning or anything, just walked right past us, went into his office and closed the door. That only meant one thing: the brotha was in a shitty mood. All we got on a Monday morning was a whiff of his addictive cologne and a glimpse of his dark brown Brooks Brothers suit that fit his broad, thick shoulders and his fine ass to a capital T. It was a shame that we didn’t even get a smile, but I was starting to get used to his behavior. Mondays and Tuesdays were pretty much the same. On Wednesdays, he was somewhat perking up. Thursdays were always up in the air. But Fridays were always good days because it was payday. Usually, I didn’t give him much attention on Fridays because I was excited about finally having some money in my pockets.

  When the phone rang, we all looked at each other, knowing what time it was. Dana was calling to check up on her man, so Audrey and Jackie glared at me, rolled their eyes then walked away. I sat at my desk and answered the phone.

  “He ain’t here yet, Dana,” I said.

  “Quit lying, Sylvia. You know darn well he is.”

  “No, seriously, he’s not. But as soon as he comes in, I’ll call to let you know.”

  “Come on, girl. Why do you be holding back on your best friend like that?”

  “Because, you need to stop bringing him so much grief. Must you have his butt walking in here every Monday morning looking like he lost his dog?”

  “For your information, Jonathan brings it upon himself. All I did was ask for some money, like I do every Monday morning before he goes to work. I like to plan my week out, and I can’t do so if I don’t have any money. I told him I’m tired of hearing his lectures about how much money I spend and he got mad.”

  “That’s why you need your own money. That way you can spend all the money you want to on Lewis’s broke ass.”

  “F you, okay. I don’t spend my money on Lewis, so stop saying that before Jonathan hears you.”

  “You’re right, it’s not your money, but, whatever, that’s your business. Anyway, I’ll call you around lunch. If my timing is correct, your husband will be opening up his door in about two minutes demanding something from me. If you keep on acting a fool, I might decide to put a smile on his face for the week.”

  “Sorry, honey, but he was smiling his behind off last night. By noon, he’ll be thinking about what I put on him and I’m sure he’ll come to his senses. In the meantime, I won’t be around for lunch. I’m meeting Lewis, so I’ll call you later tonight.”

  “Good-bye, hoochie mama. And tell that nasty-dick Negro to use a condom if y’all decide to skip lunch and shoot for something else. He already spreading enough diseases and he got enough babies he can’t take care of as it is.”

  “Sylvia, jealousy will get you nowhere. Please tell my husband I love him and I’ll see him later.”

  “Will do, Miss Trifling. And expect for it to be real late because this pile on my desk ain’t going nowhere anytime soon.”

  “Good-bye, Miss Hater,” Dana said then hung up.

  I shook my head and put
the phone down. Dana was playing with fire. I loved her to death, but I was truly worried about the outcome of this mess she’d gotten herself into. She didn’t even listen to me anymore, but I still had to come down hard on her because I cared.

  I prepared Jonathan’s calendar for the week and after twenty minutes into it, I noticed he still hadn’t come out of his office. A bit worried, I straightened my navy blue short skirt and walked over to his office door. Before I knocked, I unbuttoned a few buttons on my multicolored silk blouse and rubbed my weaved-in, long hair back with my hands. As I stood trying to get myself together, Jonathan quickly swung the door open.

  “I’m sorry. I . . . I was coming to see if you were okay,” I stuttered.

  “I’m fine,” he said, putting the doorstopper underneath the door. “Come on in and have a seat.”

  “Before we get started, would you like some coffee?”

  “Once I tell you what I need from you today, then you can get it.”

  I sat down and crossed my healthy legs so he could get a glimpse of them. “So, what is it that you need from me today, Jonathan?”

  He let out a deep sigh and tapped his pen on the desk. “First, I need for you not to be lollygagging in front of my office with your coworkers every morning. This is a place of business, not a time to socialize with your lady friends. You get one hour for lunch, two thirty-minute breaks, and that’s plenty of time for you all to chat.”

  “Fine, Jonathan. If you want me to sit around cooped up at that desk and not talk to anyone, then I will. This is not the first time you’ve complained about it; however, I really don’t see what the problem is if you’re not even in the office yet.”

  “The problem, Sylvia, is I’m working late nights because there’s so much work to be done. If you get to the office before I do, take the initiative to get started on things early. The time you spend out there running your mouth, you could have had my calendar completed for the week and on my desk when I got here.”