Sixty-Nine Page 6

  Trinity spoke with the tone she saved only for her mother. “Why do you even ask? You sound like I’m still in middle school.”

  “I ask because you act like you’re in middle school. Like school is still free. I’m paying for you to go to college and you end up letting your grades slip again like this, after all this time?” Rebe held up the letter.

  “Mommy, I’m the only one of my friends whose parents get sent a copy of their grades. Why are you still all up in my business, like that? Dang.” Trinity popped her tongue from the roof of her mouth.

  Rebe turned her ear toward her daughter. “Like what? Did I hear you right? Let’s say like because the last time you messed up we decided I’d be copied on your progress reports. The day you pay your own tuition, and move from under my roof, I’ll get out of your ‘business.’ But for now, you’re throwing money in the trash every time you fail one of these classes, Trinity. This is supposed to be your senior year and you’re a junior. Now what is really going on with you?”

  Her eyebrows lowered. “Why do you always remind me that you pay for my school? Don’t you think I know that?”

  “It seems to me you need to be reminded of it. And I’ll tell you what’s going on. What’s going on is you’re hanging out too much. You and your friends are always on the run. You were out almost every night last week. Now here it is the second day of a new year, and you’re trying to start it just the way you ended 2008, by always going somewhere in that fast car Randall bought you. You’ve gotta do better than this once the spring semester starts.”

  Trinity’s arms were folded along her chest. “I’m fine, Mommy. And please don’t remind me that I have the same car Kandi has.” She rolled her eyes and all but rolled her neck. “Anyway, it’s still Christmas break. Everybody’s having fun. You’re making it a much bigger deal. It’s normal.”

  “You should be about to graduate. Being on the brink of academic probation is not normal at this point.”

  “I’m not going to let it get that far, Mommy.”

  “How do I know that?”

  “Because I’m telling you it won’t.”

  “So I’m supposed to just take your word for it? I don’t think so. We need to make a plan for these next five or six months. I think you need to meet with another counselor.” Rebe looked down at the letter, perusing it for more information.

  “I am meeting with one. On my own. That was part of the agreement when this year started. Meeting with a counselor and a tutor. I only failed one class. Lay off, please.”

  Rebe looked up, eyes big enough to pop. “Lay off? No, I will not lay off. You need to appreciate the fact that you’ve got a mother who can afford to pay for your college. You don’t work. And you live rent free.”

  Trinity let the weight of her head drop, and then she looked back up. “Why do you keep saying a mother who can afford it?”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “Isn’t Randall paying, really?” She said really like it had sixty letters instead of six.

  Rebe pointed her index finger Trinity’s way. “You listen to me. Randall isn’t paying for anything that has to do with you, other than that car, which he seems good at buying for just about anybody. He’s not your father and you’re not a minor, so there’s no child support order. He’s paying alimony because I deserve it. It’s my money. And besides, that’s none of your damn business, Trinity. You need to be grateful that you can live in a home like this. And as far as you talking back to me, I don’t know where the hell that came from. My mother would’ve beat the shit out of me if I talked to her like you talk to me.”

  “I’m sure.” Trinity all but mumbled.

  Rebe bit her lip, squinted her eyes, and then balled up the letter, lobbing it straight into the trash can near the sink, like a free throw.

  Trinity put one hand on the island, and one hand on her hip. “Mommy. Let me get a job and get a place of my own. I can get hired at Starbucks tomorrow.”

  “You know the deal. You working a job and going to school will not mix. Your grades are bad enough as it is.”

  Trinity crossed her arms again. “Have you ever thought that maybe I just might do better on my own?”

  “No.”

  Trinity gave her mother a you get on my last nerve look. A look that Rebe was very familiar with. It was the same look she used to give her mother. Rebe heard her inner voice telling her to take a breath and downshift, and so she asked her daughter again, “So, where are you going?”

  Trinity tossed her keys back onto the island. “Nowhere now.” She gave a fake smile.

  Rebe stood. “Oh, so I ruined your going somewhere mood? That’s funny.” She headed toward the front door.

  “Umh.”

  Rebe slowed down her step, and wanted to turn back so bad she could taste it.

  “Where are you going?” Trinity’s words were marinated with sarcasm.

  “To the gym. I’ll be back.” Rebe took her purse from the wooden coat rack near the front door. She waited to hear a response. All she heard were her daughter’s weighted footsteps headed up the stairs. The footsteps of a daughter who had no idea her mother was going to pole dancing class.

  Going to a pole dancing class with the dream, and New Year’s resolution, of being a paid exotic dancer.

  INT.—CRUNCH GYM—MIAMI BEACH—EVENING

  That same day

  It was just after seven that same evening. There were six brown women, three red poles, and one dirty-blonde instructor with what looked like four-inch eyelashes and six-inch platforms. She was mid-thirties and had a nonimpressive body. No chest or backside, average legs and face. But, when she made the pole her friend, she was a sexpot, jackpot, seductress.

  As everyone sat on the floor in their platform stilettos, in the large exercise room of the popular, state-of-the-art gym, the instructor anchored the pole and then did an around-the-world spin move, grinding in the air and sliding her body up and down, along her back. She broke out into a full split, and kicked her leg around to come to a stance, standing against the pole with her hand gripping its width. Her voice was feminine and steady. She looked around at her new students and then took a seated yoga position among them. “Now, first thing. Relax. Just sit like this for a minute and breathe, in through your nose, out through your mouth, and get your body to simply go limp. Do that now because once you start working that pole, you’re going to need those joints and muscles to be all loosened up and ready to work. Bottom line is this is exercise. It’s a workout. And judging by the looks of you ladies today, this just might be my best class yet. Now, let’s get started.”

  After the ten minute warm-up, three of the ladies stood and leaned their backs against the pole, keeping their hands about waist high, following the instructor’s lead. They bent their knees slightly, pushed their hips out to the right and then forward and in a circle, again and again, in a sexy grind.

  Rebe flung her braids forward with her hand and rubbed the middle of her back up and down the pole.

  The instructor stopped before her and said, “I see you’re having fun.”

  Rebe nodded, staying focused, and smiled, keeping up the movement.

  They each slid down a pole and reached upward, using upper body strength to lift their feet and press their legs to the side.

  Within another half hour, after more moves were taught, the instructor stood next to Rebe and leaned in toward her as Rebe completed a complicated pole trick. “You’re a natural. I can see it already.”

  “Natural what?”

  “You’ve danced before. That much I know.”

  “Oh, yes. I have. Years ago.”

  “It shows.”

  One of the other students overheard, a butterican, toasted-pecan-looking young girl who turned up her nose and walked away.

  Rebe said softly, “Thanks. Just trying to get in shape. I think a few more times doing that move and it’s gonna hurt right around here.” Rebe rubbed the inside of her right thigh.

  “Oh
it will. And every other place too. You will have bruises. It’s no joke.”

  “I can tell.”

  The instructor said in an even more private tone, “Listen, if you ever think about doing this to make some money, let me know. As you can imagine, I get a lot of calls from strip club managers looking for dancers.”

  Rebe’s thought was that this was too easy. “I’ll bet you do. I need a whole lot more work, even if I did decide to try it out.”

  “What are you, like, thirty-two?” the instructor asked.

  “Ahh, close.” Rebe realized that indirect dishonesty was in order.

  “Nice,” she said, walking away to speak to the group, grabbing on to the pole again herself. “Okay ladies, next we’ll do what’s called the martini spin. You stand beside the pole, like this, with your inside arm up high and your inside hand at chest level. Bring your outside leg in front of the pole. Now extend your leg straight out while spinning and hook it around while shifting your body weight forward. Make sure to bring your leg up quickly, shoot it straight out, and slide down slowly. Then tuck your leg to bring yourself back up. Now try it.”

  The ladies went through about another forty-five minutes of learning that and other moves, and then headed to the locker room to get dressed. As Rebe sat down, her dance instructor approached.

  “You’ve got a lot of strength. I have this friend who owns a place in Fort Lauderdale. I’ll tell him about you. If you want to do this on the side of your normal job, he just might be willing to hire you.”

  “Oh, I don’t work,” Rebe said, trying not to sound like a millionaire with issues.

  “Really? Are you married?”

  “No.”

  “Single is better if you think you might try this out.”

  “I might be interested.”

  “I’ll see you in a couple days for the next class. I’ll tell him about you.”

  “Okay.”

  When the instructor walked away, Rebe glanced up at the ceiling and said in her head, Lord, my mother would beat my ass for even thinking about doing something like this. And dammit, that’s all the more reason to give it a try.

  Six

  “Computer Love”

  Magnolia

  INT.—MAGNOLIA’S BEDROOM—MIAMI BEACH— LATE EVENING

  January 26, 2009

  Neal still called.

  Magnolia still didn’t answer.

  He still sent text messages.

  Magnolia still ignored them.

  He found excuses to get in touch. Like asking if she’d watched the historical Presidential Inauguration six days before.

  She didn’t reply.

  She had, but was determined to not act like they were simply old friends.

  Though she ignored his repeated initiated contact, she still checked his online account balance, trying to figure out his spending habits, just as she did when they were together.

  Magnolia took a sip of Pinot Noir from her leopard wine glass and then talked to herself.

  Why is this man still in my head? I haven’t slept with him in months. Maybe it’s my ego. Maybe I just like the attention. Maybe I’m a hopeless romantic. A dumb, foolish, hopeless ass romantic.

  Magnolia spoke to her confused self after midnight, up way too late for a Monday. While sitting in the executive chair at her large desk in her pale-purple bedroom, walls adorned with pricey floral abstract artwork, she searched the web on her laptop.

  She lived in a sprawling, twenty-eight-hundred-square-foot, three-bedroom ranch in the Miami Shores area of Miami Beach. It was more than enough room for a single solitary bachelorette. The pale yellow stucco house with the red clay roof sat neatly at the end of a cul-de-sac. The side entry, two-car garage had white carriage doors.

  Her diffuser burned Thai fruit scented oil all through her bedroom suite. The amber nightlight near her dresser was subtle. The screen of her computer shined light on her curious face. She had the overhead fan at medium speed to cool the effects of another warm day in January, including the warmth exuding from her heated loins.

  Heated because the words meet, real, sex, partners, tonight, filled Magnolia’s eyes, all the result of her viewing the website GrownFreakyFolks.com, the site she kept getting emails about, especially lately.

  The tagline said “Swingers, Free Adult Chat, and Adult Personals.” The home page offered links for live webcam viewing of videos in every category from guy-on-guy, to Latin love, to whatever. GFF, as it was called, was a freakazoid’s playground.

  Magnolia’s newbie heart skipped one beat after another. Anticipatory.

  She sighed a virgin sex-site sigh, taking in the X-rated screen before her. Photos of members named LickitySplit, HeadLover, and BlackSugarDaddy were exposed before her in graphic nude poses with sex dripping from their heads to their toes.

  She sat up straight, only wearing an orange bra and matching lace boy shorts, scooted closer…and clicked Join, typing her new screen name as if she’d thought of it beforehand, MaggieVirgin. “Never use your real name,” she said aloud, recalling what some dating expert said one time on television. Forcing her thoughts to get a grip and shift to the land of the wild, brave, and sexalicious, she deleted MaggieVirgin and tried TightandRight, then CurvesAhead. Taken. SomeSkill. She shook her head and said, “Not.”

  TastyTangie. Her adventurous brain gave a finger snap. “That’s it. But how the hell would I know if I’m tasty or not?” She hit Enter. Accepted. Welcome TastyTangie. Credit card information entered, and she was an official online adult friend.

  After twenty minutes of filling out her profile, setting preferences, revealing boundaries, detailing turn-offs, turn-ons, and turn-outs, and such tantalizing bits of info, her profile was nearly complete. All but the photo.

  Damn. Can’t put my headshot on here. Nothing but ladies’ body parts and men’s dicks. Oh boy. Well, Magnolia, you need to quit playing. You’ve gone this far. She made up her mind to play nice.

  Grabbing her digital camera from the bookcase above her desk, she got up and stepped along the cool bamboo flooring, and headed straight to her queen canopy bed. She lay back on the black and white flowered comforter with the mauve covered pillows, and pulled off her boy shorts. She positioned the camera right between her legs and felt a flutter in her stomach. She sensed the beat of her shocked heart against the mattress. “No way I’m showing my landing strip vagina for the world to see.” She sat up and took off her orange bra. Her heavy breasts hung free and she looked down at them as if she was waiting for them to perk themselves up and participate. Magnolia lifted one up and it drooped back down. She put her bra back on. “This is gonna have to be a bra cleavage shot.”

  She stood in front of the dresser mirror, turned off the flash and took the picture, but it was too dark. She turned the flash back on and again aimed the camera toward her, looking at the viewfinder through the mirror. Click. She got a shot from her neck to her upper belly that she thought made her breasts look two sizes larger, but she said, “That’s gonna have to do.”

  Within an hour after adding her sexy pic, TastyTangie was already invited to accept a chat with five members, in particular, Carl10Inches, who lived within ten miles. Thirty minutes after chatting with him back and forth, she blocked the number to her cell, grabbed ahold of her nerve, and made her virgin call to a stranger she’d met on a sex site.

  “Hello.” His voice was deep and slow, sort of like a Barry White baritone.

  “Hi. Carl?” she asked, talking fast. Her voice was shaky.

  “Yes. Tangie?”

  “Uh-huh.” She said it as though she just might be lying.

  “How are you? You nervous?”

  “A little.”

  “Don’t be. Just first-time jitters.”

  She nodded as if he could see her. “So, you’re used to this, I see?” she told him, making it sound like a question.

  “Yeah. Sort of. I found GFF about a year or so ago.”

  “I see.” There was a lull. Magnolia cle
ared her throat.

  He spoke up. “So. What are you looking for on a site like this?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Just curious?” he asked.

  “You could say that.”

  “I will tell you one thing. You need to be careful, especially if you do end up meeting up with anyone. Make sure you don’t take valuables with you, and maybe if you have a friend you can trust, you can tell them where you’re going. Don’t go to anybody’s home. Only hotels. And even then, as a single woman, be aware. Make sure no one is using his or her cell or laptop to tape you. You know, all I’m saying is, be careful.”

  She smiled, barely. “Okay. That’s nice of you to tell me that.”

  “No problem. You really sound sexy.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Kind of sultry.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. Making my dick hard the more I hear you talk.”

  “I see.”

  “Tangie.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is your pussy wet?”

  Damn, he got right to it. “I don’t know.”

  “Check.”

  Magnolia went from the desk chair to her bed, sat on the end and parted her legs a little, inserting her finger, playing along. “Yeah. It is.”

  “Wetter than usual?”

  “Yes.” She cleared her throat like it would clear her mind. “I’m not used to talking like this with someone I don’t know.”

  “Then think of me as someone you do know. Pretend I’m an old friend. A friend from college, and now we’ve connected. Pretend you’re going to see me this weekend, but until then, we talk about the good old times together, like how you’d sit on my face every morning.”

  “I would?” Magnolia found herself leaning back.

  “You would. We’d call it the good morning hello. And you’d let me eat your pussy till you’d damn near smother me when you’d come. How you slid down to my dick and rode me, bucking like you were pumping for dear life.”