Sixty-Nine

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  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Preview Chapter for Politics. Escorts. Blackmail.

  This third Pynk book is dedicated to all the women of the world twenty-one and over who experience sexual repression, prevented from expressing their sexuality because they were taught or learned to repress or despise healthy sexual desire and bodily sensations.

  Here’s to your successful, long-term healing.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My first thank-you is to you, my cherished readers, who have embraced Erotic City and Sexaholics so deeply. I graciously appreciate your support. Erotica is a genre that many people desire, and I enjoy writing dramatic erotic stories that bring satisfaction to my readers.

  To my family, your love and patience is immeasurable. You are my blood, heart and soul, always and in all ways.

  To my KP—feedback, patience, cheering me on and staying positive, believing in me, supporting me, loving me, and just being you. Forever love, no matter what!

  I’d like to offer a major thankxxx to HoneyB, Bryan Cleveland, Jean Holloway, Vonda Howard, Cydney Rax, Shani-Greene Dowdell, S. B. Redd, Kendra Norman Bellamy, Denise Bolds, Ella Curry and EDC Creations, TaNisha Webb and the Fall Into Book Literary Conference, Harriet Klausner, Outwrite Bookstore and Coffeehouse, Medu Bookstore, Nubian Books, Tasha Martin and all the chapters of SistahFriend Book Club, Mocha Ochoa and the NAACP, Mashawn Mickels and SBS Book Club, Novel Vixen’s Book Club, APOOO Book Club, OOSA Online Book Club, Book Remarks, Urban Reviews, Michelle Gipson and Written Magazine, the Decatur Book Festival, Angela Jenkins, Heather Covington and Disilgold, Curtis Bunn and the National Book Club Conference, my Cola—for the scene-matching song choices, to all the blog sites that were part of my virtual blog tour for Sexaholics (for the features and reviews), and each and every book club who participated in the wild and sexy Pynk’s Girls’ Night In pajama events across the country.

  To my awesome agent, Andrew Stuart—I cherish you, and by that I mean you were hard earned in my career and I value you. You are appreciated for the gem that you are. A big Pynk cheer to you!

  Thankxxx to my cherished Grand Central Publishing family: Jamie Raab, executive vice president and publisher, for having me onboard; Karen Thomas, executive editor (this is my fifth book with you), I thank God for your trust, your belief in my work, and for your amazing revision letters—your hard work makes all the difference in the world in my books and your talents have not gone unnoticed; my darling and talented Latoya Smith, as well as Linda Duggins, Samantha Kelly, Anna Balasi, Miriam Parker, Renee Supriano, and others—I am blessed to be a GCP author.

  Sexaholics came out at a time last year when sexual addiction was in the headlines so often that the timing could not have been any more perfect. I researched the subject quite extensively, and I’ve found that some readers referred the title to loved ones who suffered from sex addiction, like the characters from my novel. It’s important to show what can happen inside the lives of those afflicted with serious issues, and I’m glad Sexaholics was received so well.

  The opposite side of the addiction spectrum is the book you’re holding in your hands right now, my third Pynk novel, Sixty-Nine. It’s about sexual repression, a topic that is also very common and extremely serious. Though Magnolia, Rebe, and Darla have different thoughts about sex than those characters in Sexaholics, their issues and outcomes are just as dramatic, and as with Sexaholics, for them it’s a test of will, a test of change, a test of faith, and in the case of Sixty-Nine, a test of friendship.

  There’s more to come in 2012! With all the political scandals involving sexual affairs and coercion, just check out the juicy chapter excerpt from Politics. Escorts. Blackmail., about three call girls and one call guy in New York City, led by madam Money Watts, who get caught up in some kinky and dangerous political wranglings. You’ll find the provocative excerpt at the end of Sixty-Nine.

  Remember, live your sexy dreams, responsibly!

  Smooches,

  Pynk

  xoxo

  Please visit me at www.authorpynk.com, where you will find my Facebook link as well as information regarding upcoming titles, and feel free to sign my guestbook. My email address is authorpynk@aol.com.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The Undersexed

  As I mentioned in my acknowledgments, while my previous title, Sexaholics, was about the oversexed, this title, Sixty-Nine, is about the undersexed.

  Sixty-Nine is not about the literal sexual position, 69; it is about three undersexed women, Magnolia, Rebe, and Darla, who were all born in 1969, and who are about to turn the big 4-0. They are dissatisfied with their lives in general; more specifically, when it comes to sex, they yearn to live their sexy dreams.

  I watched The Oprah Winfrey Show a while back when she had as a guest a sex therapist named Dr. Laura Berman who talked about sexual problems in women. Some women do not have orgasms and they fake it with their men, who are sometimes none the wiser because often those men tend to get theirs, so that’s all he wrote. There are some women who have little, tiny, non-earth-shattering orgasms that don’t quite live up to what they see in porno movies, or hear about from their sexual-creature-like friends. Some women get very close to having the big O, but get stuck and hold back because of a thought that creeps into their heads that tells them they’re trashy or slutty for feeling so good.

  Orgasms are both physical and mental, and though some women really do have medical reasons that affect their libido and their ability to experience an orgasm—usually involving their pelvic floor or blood flow, or as a side effect to certain medications—a lot of women fall into the one basic sex trap that I feel so strongly about dispelling. The thought that we’ve bought into from the time we were little, that sex is dirty.

  As some of you may know from reading my first Pynk book, Erotic City, that’s the main reason why I decided to write erotica, to hopefully educate through fiction.

  While I definitely believe that moderation is key, because we must have boundaries and not run off hog wild, so to speak, it is my desire to contribute in some way to the liberation of women and show all sides of sex, good and bad. But in the long run, I hope my books encourage women to love their bodies and feel good about reading scenes that turn them on so tough they can’t wait to get home and take care of themselves, and/or pounce on their mates. I hope my writing teaches women about what healthy sex should be. Sometimes you learn that by reading about what healthy sex is not. To read erotica is not sinful, and it is my desire that the guilt so many of us women feel will eventually be shattered to pieces.

  We must learn to tell the truth about how we feel about sex and about what we think about sex, and figure out where those bad thoughts came from. Also, as Milan Kennedy, the main character in Erotic City, stated, “Women have wet dreams, too.” We cannot be afraid to ask for what we want in and out of bed. We women are not second-class citizens. Nor are we sex objects.

  All in all, views about sex are sometimes deemed to be issues of morality, and issues of sexism.

  I’d like women to learn to be what I call sex-see…seeing sex in a whole new way, mentally, visually, and physically.

  After all, we are sensual and sexual beings. We are allowed to experience sexual pleasure. We have to let go of negative messages about sex among consenting adults—negative messages that tell us sex is wrong. I believe we can make a conscious decision to dispel those messages that breed guilt.

  I’m talking about safe sex. Yes, there are prices to be paid relating to teen pregnancy and HIV, etc. You are responsible for yourself. Make good decisions based on who you are. And take in the rest as learning tools. When in Rome, don’t necessarily do as the Romans do, unless you think it’s the best decision for you. Most
importantly, love yourself first.

  If you are fearful and keep thinking you shouldn’t talk in bed or let go and enjoy your orgasm, ask yourself what it is that you’re afraid of. We all had messages about sex when we were growing up. Most times, if sex was brought up, we were told it was vulgar and not acceptable, especially when we were young girls. And we were told we shouldn’t talk about it. We got dressed up and went to church, and the information we came away with was that sex should only be experienced for purposes of procreation. I know that’s how my parents raised me, even though my mother was more liberated than most. Back then, parents who wanted their daughters to remain virgins until marriage surely had good intentions, but the other side of the coin is to encourage safe sex because most of the time, teens are going to do it anyway (I know I did), yet still feel guilty afterward, and that’s when, in my opinion, the confusion starts. The more you tell someone they can’t do something, the more they want to do it, kind of like the Adam and Eve theory. And from a biblical standpoint, it’s all about our own individual interpretations; however, that’s a different conversation.

  Now back to the orgasm! :) The sex therapist on Oprah said that when you’re about to experience your own orgasm, if you hold yourself back because of the negative voices from your past, you will cheat yourself and disallow the erotic experience of a burst of a beautiful, euphoric, intense pleasure rolling through your body that, from a physiological standpoint, can bond you to your partner just because of the pheromones produced from the rush itself. That is a proven fact. I know there are some women who, even though they may not hear the negative voices from the past, still hold back because the sensation is so strong they get scared and freeze up. I’m there with you. I can surely understand that!

  If you’re one of the many women who have repressed feelings about sex, and you feel you’re too frigid and rigid in bed, maybe you need to think about what you can do to begin to let go of the embarrassing and shameful ties that bind. Refuse to carry those old messages and voices in your head that tell you sex is lewd, immoral, and improper. If necessary, think in terms of experiencing romance with your partner, as opposed to quickies, so that you can take the time to really excite yourself and your mate. Take the time to talk about each other’s erogenous zones. Make foreplay last longer, starting with a sex text early in the day. Tell yourself you deserve to be pleasured, that it’s good and loving, and that you’ll still be a nice girl and a respectable lady in the morning. Remember: it’s women who ask men, “Will you respect me in the morning?” Why is it men never ask women that?

  Anyway, think in terms of nonmissionary, and feel free to masturbate healthily if you so desire. Masturbating in moderation is not slutty either.

  Train yourself to replace the outdated messages with new ones. It’s called a sexual adjustment. Remember, you are a sensual and sexual woman, and you’re allowed to experience a happy and fulfilling sex life as a private, personal choice.

  While you turn the pages to get to know the characters in Sixty-Nine as they struggle to escape from their undersexed worlds, keep in mind that these three coming-of-age women make conscious decisions to explore erotic sides of themselves they never knew existed. I call it sexploration.

  The bottom line is that Sixty-Nine is a liberating story about sisterhood and friendship, and about how our past experiences and beliefs can influence our views about life, and about sex. How shame and dysfunction and abuse can keep us repressed. And how guilt can keep us from truly viewing sex as a pleasurable act. Sixty-Nine is a novel about going beyond one’s self-inflicted boundaries to fully experience true sensuality. But, by taking these risks, one never knows what lies on the other side of our comfort zones. The comfort zone that protected us from our fears of abandonment, negative self-image, broken hearts, being seen as whorish, being rejected and ashamed. Feelings that meant we’d rather be alone than intimate and vulnerable. Though it is true that in some cases, if one is irresponsible, one may find that some things are better left alone.

  So, my dear readers, please enjoy my girls, Magnolia, Rebe, and Darla as they find out what it’s like to go beyond the missionary, and experience the erotic edge of a real-life sixty-nine.

  There’s a place on a woman when you touch her that will drive her crazy:

  her heart!

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Magnolia Butler—Always the bridesmaid who, once again, picked a freaky serial cheater who just can’t seem to recognize a good woman when he sees one, until it’s too late.

  Rebe Palo-Richardson—Tragically scorned most of her life, she’s a former NFL wife who refused to swing from the chandelier when she was married, but now she’s swinging from a pole.

  Darla Humphrey-Clark—A widow with a dream and a self-proclaimed celibacy vow, whose mind won’t let her get past the belief that feeling good now is both a betrayal and a sin.

  CAUTION:

  Adults at Play

  (21 and over)

  Prologue

  “The Way We Were”

  Girlfriends

  MIAMI DADE COLLEGE—MIAMI, FLORIDA

  1989

  She really did love her best friends, but less than twenty years ago she slept with one of her best friends’ man and got pregnant.

  Magnolia Butler, Rebe Palo, and Darla Humphrey were the epitome of BFF’s way before the term BFF ever came into popularity. In fact, they were so tight and so meant to be, they were all born in 1969, Magnolia and Darla on January 1, and Rebe on February 14.

  Magnolia and Darla were juniors at Miami Dade College in Miami, Florida, and Rebe was a sophomore, since she graduated from high school a year late. They no longer lived in dorms. Magnolia and Darla were roommates in a small two-bedroom apartment down the street from campus. Rebe lived less than a mile away in a rented house with her high school sweetheart, Trent. They had a three-year-old girl together named Trinity, yet still managed to maneuver through the rigors of college life, even though their relationship was rocky.

  Magnolia and Darla were not only childless, which was just how each of them wanted it to be, but they were still virgins. Magnolia, who was Trinity’s godmother, just hadn’t made the right connection with any of the guys she’d met so far. Not enough to share her body with anyway. So she decided to wait. Darla made a serious connection and was saving herself for marriage. She was dating a fellow student who was a starting pitcher on the college’s baseball team, named Aaron Clark, and Darla and Aaron were set to be married the summer after they graduated. They’d both agreed to wait, postpone consummating their relationship, just to make sure the night was extra special. Aaron had been around the block a few times, but Darla, who was raised with Christian values by conservative parents, witnessed every girl in her family get pregnant by the time they were sixteen. She wanted to be different. Not only did she want it, but her parents required it. “Save yourself for marriage. A man wants a virtuous woman. Sex is not recreational. Sex is between a husband and a wife. No man will want you if you’re sullied. Not as a wife anyway. Sex before marriage is a sin.” And Darla believed it. It was important to her to honor those puritanical values in the name of her mother, who passed away in a car accident while driving to pick Darla up when Darla was a high school freshman. Darla’s father vowed to never remarry. Darla had witnessed a true-love example, up front and in living color. And she wanted the same. But fate, as crazy as it can be, had other plans.

  Magnolia was the child of a mistress to a married man. She never met her father. Her mother had been his chick-on-the-side before getting pregnant. When she broke the news to him, he simply stopped seeing her. One night when Magnolia was a baby, her mother went out to have a final conversation with her married lover, leaving Magnolia alone. She didn’t come back. She had suffered a nervous breakdown in a hotel room where they’d met to talk, and when he left, Magnolia’s mother flipped out and tried to kill herself by jumping off a fifth-floor balcony. The next morning, when Magnolia’s grandparents found out, they rushed to ba
by Magnolia and took her in, ending up being the only mother and father she’d ever know. Her mother had been a drifter since then. And Magnolia made no bones about telling everyone she could care less about her mom. Nothing else mattered other than making sure she never turned out to be like June Butler.

  Born in Maui, Rebe Palo, half-black and half-Hawaiian, and her family moved to Ocala, Florida, when she was four. She grew up in a not-so-nice neighborhood, where her older brother was in and out of what his mother called gangs. Her mom and dad divorced when she was seven. Her dad ran off, being a rolling stone enjoying his newfound freedom, so Rebe and her brother were raised by her black mother who was so overbearing and bossy, she could have turned the tide on Donald Trump and fired him. Rebe dealt with watching her temperamental mother always preaching what she never practiced, so much so that her mother charmed her way into becoming pastor at a small Baptist church by the time Rebe was twelve. Five years later, Rebe got pregnant, but by then, her whole life had changed. By then, Rebe and her brother would be victims, and her life would never be the same.

  By Magnolia and Darla’s graduation day nearly two years in the future, it would turn out that Rebe and her baby’s daddy broke up after she accused him of being an addict, and he spread rumors that she was not only crazy, but so moody he’d almost have to rape her to get her to have sex with him.

  Darla and Aaron would end up taking a spring-break cruise to the Bahamas to elope before their senior year just so they could finally have sex.

  And Magnolia would date a hot Italian guy her senior year named Gabe Pastore. That is, until she’d catch him cheating on her in the backseat of his car at a drive-in movie. Magnolia had followed him. She always was the snoop.