The Pleasure Trap (10 page)

Graham chuckled sarcastically.
Oh. Now
that
sounds about right.

As Chelsea turned over and sat up in bed, exposing her rosy pink nipples and small breasts, he opened the box on his dresser and used the small spoon inside to scoop and then sniff four hits of cocaine.

“Sorry, Joy, I just got caught up,” Chelsea said, sounding like a Los Angeles valley girl.

He leaned against the dresser and watched in amusement as Joy jerked the woman out of the bed by her arm and shoved her clothes at her. He pinched his nose and sniffed as Chelsea surreptitiously glanced at his naked body while she was hustled out the door.

“Can I call you?” she mouthed.

Joy paused and whipped her around. “No, you call me. Clear?” she asked, before turning her back around and guiding her out the door.

Still shaking his head, Graham turned and eyed his reflection in the mirror over the eight-drawer dresser. His normally high cheekbones were more pronounced and his reddened eyes sunken. His caramel complexion had a shine to it and his teeth felt gritty from not being brushed that day. His two- to three-day coke binges and sexing Joy's tricks was catching up with him.

At the sound of her heels against the floor, he looked over his shoulder just as she stepped back into the room. “You need to air this room out, Pleasure,” she snapped, crossing the room to fling the windows open wide.

His eyes cut her. “Don't call me that,” he said in a cold, hard voice that only hinted at his anger at her . . . and himself.

Joy turned on her stiletto heels. “Why?” she asked, her eyes clear and sharp. She wasn't high at all. He knew the signs of her inebriety.

“That's the name you whore me out with,” he said in clipped tones. “That's for the clients, not my pimp.”

Joy pouted mockingly. “Awww, is Graham's feelings hurt?” she asked in a baby tone as she walked over to him slowly.

He hated that he missed her sex. He wanted her. He was addicted to her. And she denied him. She denied them both.

She reached in her bra and pulled out folded cash. “Here's your cut . . . so get over it, Plea-sure,” she said derisively, pressing the cash against his chest.

Graham grabbed her upper arms and jerked her body up against his as he lifted her from her heels easily. “So you don't want this dick?” he asked her, shifting one hand down to stroke her ass in her skirt.

Joy smirked. “I used to . . . but not anymore,” she told him.

“So I'm just your whore?” he asked her.

“We both get what we want... right?” she asked, deliberately looking down at his open box.

Graham picked her up a bit higher and then easily tossed her onto the middle of the bed.

Ding-dong
.

She took her time getting up off the bed. “That's your next trick,” she said, smoothing her skirt. “You
might
want to flush that condom and wash first.”

And with that she left the room.

Graham grabbed a T-shirt and pulled it down the length of his dick to remove the condom and clean his seed from his tool. He turned and lifted his spoon to hit the powder twice more just as Inzia strolled into the room wearing just a short pink raincoat. “Where's Yani?” he asked, speaking of Inzia's lover.

Usually it was the two of them who required his services.

Inzia tilted her head to the side and undid the belt before shrugging the coat from her body. “We don't need her,” she said, before walking up to him in gold heels. “Hell, you can suck my titties, right?”

Graham shrugged. He didn't care. His feelings still stung from Joy's treatment of him. Squinting his deep-set eyes as he looked at Joy's friend, he decided to give her what he didn't give any other of his tricks. Somewhere in his brain the coke made him think Joy would care. He watched as she pulled a thin vial of coke from the side of her shoe and then moved across the cluttered room to lie back on the bed. His eyes took in the softness of her curves and he felt his dick stir.

Inzia unscrewed the cap and tapped out a thin line of coke from the mound of her pussy and all the way up to the valley of her breasts, then she sucked her finger with a hot lick of her lips. Graham eyed her spreading her lips and patting her clit as he came across the room while unrolling a condom on his dick. He bent over to alternate with licks and sniffs until the line of coke was gone.

Throwing his head back, he roared a little and grunted before pinching his nose and shaking his head at the rush of adrenaline. “Shit,” he swore, stumbling back a few steps as his body rocked back and forth.

Inzia flipped over on the bed, getting on her knees and reaching behind her to guide his dick into her as she backed up until he was deep inside her. She dropped her head and patted her hand against the bed as she adjusted to the feel of him pressing against her walls.

Graham looked down at her ass splayed before him as she worked her hips to pull downward on his stiffness with the quickness of a jackhammer. “Damn, Inzia,” he said, laughing as he continued to rub his nose and struggle to remain on his feet.

He felt a dizzy brain freeze. He felt his nose run. He swiped at it; his eyes widened at the sight of blood. His heart pounded furiously and he felt flushed with heat.

“Yo, Inzia,” he said, stumbling back and causing his dick to leave her with a loud suctioning noise. Graham's heart was pounding so loudly he couldn't hear anything else. His pulse was racing, and a tightening in his chest was increasing in intensity.

“Graham . . . Graham . . . you all right?” Inzia asked, coming over to him. “Joy! Joy. Come here. Hurry!”

That was the last thing he heard before he stumbled back against the dresser and then fell face forward onto the floor just before everything went black.

 

 

H
ow long has it been?

Click-click-click-click-click-click.

Click-click-click-click-click-click.

Click . . . click . . . click . . .

“I found it in your bedroom,” his captor said, leaning against the back of the gutted couch as she eyed him. “I guess it belongs to the bitch in all the pictures around here,” she said, her voice chilling over with every word. “Having
her
mug on your nightstand is very cute. I guess
she's
special, huh?”

Very
, he thought.

Quinn

 

 

O
ne hundred and eighty days clean.

He felt good. Damn good.

Graham pulled his charcoal sketching pencil from behind his ear and drew a circle around the date on the calendar hanging on the door of his double-sided fridge. Sticking the pencil back behind his ear, he turned and eyed his studio apartment. Fully furnished. The smell of paint and newness still clung to the air. His first place to call all his own.
Not bad for twenty-three.

A new start. A do-over.

He was far from perfect, but he was ready and willing to do better.

Graham had his parents to thank for the apartment but he gave credit to no one but himself—not even Pogo—for his freedom from the devil he knew to be cocaine. During his relationship with Joy, he had cultivated an addiction far larger than some people took years to habituate. It would take many years for the urges to get high to leave him, but his will to stay sober was now much stronger.

He was one hundred and eighty days clean, and ninety days free from his in-patient rehab program. The withdrawals had not been easy physically or psychologically, but he'd made it through to the other side and was proud of the scars he wore during the battle.

The truth was things could have gotten worse, even more so than death. There was hardly anything worse to him than an existence fueled by drugs. Nothing.

Bare-chested with only black track pants on, Graham crossed the short distance to the weight bench and weight stand in the corner. He grabbed two of the twenty-pound free weights before sitting on the bench and doing arm lifts upward and then outward. Each movement caused his well-defined muscles to flex and soon a fine sheet of sweat coated his upper body. With a grunt he leaned forward and switched to triceps curls.

In rehab—and off his diet of cocaine—Graham's frame had bulked up twenty-five pounds. He had worked hard to lift weights and run to make sure it all went to the right places—which was anyplace but his rock-hard stomach. The weight suited him well and now he looked more like a professional basketball star than a tall, awkward, and gangly child.

Finishing his arm and chest work, he placed the weights on the stand and stretched his arms, causing the muscles of the wide breadth of his shoulders to tense. He crossed the hardwood floor again as he removed the band holding his dreads back from his face. They now swung below his shoulders. The feel of the tips grazing against his skin caused a rush of goose bumps and it almost reminded him of the touch of a woman—something he hadn't felt in weeks.

He wasn't interested in the hassles of a relationship—his track record wasn't the best—and his sobriety outweighed pussy any day. Still, it didn't stop his dick from getting hard anytime the wind caressed it.

Graham stood beside his easel set up in the corner of the living room/sleeping space. Its position by one of the many windows lining the third-floor apartment gave him plenty of light and a good view of the park across the street. He took his seat and reached for his pencil again as he opened his sketchbook and eyed his rendition of the park's trees surrounding the tennis court and an ornate water fountain.

In rehab, he had rediscovered his love of drawing from when he was a child. At first it had been a good way to pass the hours, but soon he realized that he loved the challenge of taking something real and recreating its image on paper. Seeing his artwork form at his fingertips gave him an entirely new type of high. That he wanted. Needed.

Sliding his earphones over his bulky dreads, Graham filled his ears with Usher's “Burn” as he sat on his chair and got lost in his art, only sparing moments to glance out the window at his subject. There he remained sketching, correcting, and sketching again until he checked the clock on his cable box. Allowing himself a few more strokes of the charcoal to try to replicate the shadow created on the ground by the overhead leaves, Graham finally sat back and flexed his shoulders as he opened and closed his hand to ease the cramping from his grip on the pencil.

Closing the sketch pad and sliding it into his black leather carrying case, he rose. The case had been a gift from his mother, and the sight of his full name engraved upon it always made him smile. He could not ask for any more support and love from his parents as he tackled his sobriety.

Setting the case by the door, he picked up his Nike duffel bag from the sofa and jerked on his sleeveless black tank tee that showed off the new African warrior tattoo Lola did. The circular ink took up every inch of his broad shoulder, and it was Graham's personal declaration of his strength in fighting off his addictions—to drugs and to Joy.

Hitching the strap of the duffel bag over his head and across his body, Graham lifted his thin dreads. He grabbed his keys, cell phone, and carrying case before leaving his apartment and opting to take the stairs down the three levels to the ground floor.

As he stepped out in the well-manicured parking lot and surrounding grounds, Graham paused long enough to take in the silence. He was grateful for the quiet and the peace of Tarrytown, New York. It was just seventeen miles from his mother in Bedford Hills and twenty-five miles from his father's new digs in Manhattan—a happy medium between the two who were understandably concerned ever since he had called them from rehab and invited them up for a family day visit. They were paying his rent until he found a job. Tarrytown was a compromise among the three of them.

After everything he'd put them through, where he lived was the least of his concessions. Finding a job to pay his rent was another. They'd given him ninety days, and it was almost up. But he had a plan.

 

 

“Okay, let's see what you got, kid.”

Graham stood, his hands on his hips, at center stage of the dimly lit club in nothing but a white pair of bikinis that barely kept his dick covered properly. He looked on as she motioned her finger in the air. Soon the sound of Maxwell's falsetto singing “This Woman's Work” filled the air.

Graham frowned. “Can I get something by a woman? I can't see grinding while some dude's singing,” he balked, reaching up to lift his dreads from his neck as he eyed Vera, the thin, elderly black woman the bouncer told him was the owner of Club Trick.

She motioned with her spindly finger again and the music faded away. “Listen, the dancer's main motivation is to entertain women,” she began, lighting a cigarette that was almost as long and thin as one of her fingers.

Graham shifted back and forth in his spot on the stage.

“If the combination of Maxwell hitting a high note singing the praises of women while you sling that twelve-inch dick around gets the money made... then you get the money made,” she said, her raspy voice indicating her lungs were probably as dark as her lips from the cigarettes she had been chain-smoking since he first arrived.

She could have easily been Joy forty years ago.

He felt some unease that he was essentially selling his body again, but he pushed it aside because he planned to dance for the dollars and nothing else. Women were drawn to him, that he knew. It seemed like the perfect job to make good money and still have time to pursue his other interests.

When Graham offered no further resistance, Vera raised her hand again and the music returned. She rose from one of the swivel seats at the base of the platform and circled the stage to eye him closely as he performed.

Graham danced to the music, being sure to do plenty of snakelike motions that ended with him thrusting his hips forward to make his dick rise and fall. He stumbled once as he grabbed the chair and stood behind it while he imitated making love to a woman and he bit his bottom lip.

The music faded away again and he opened his eyes to find Ms. Vera's thin figure back in her seat, legs crossed with her foot swinging as if she was bored and would rather be anywhere else.

“You got the looks and the body to be a real moneymaker—believe me, I know,” she said, flicking her cigarettes repeatedly in her hand.

Graham smiled.

“But your performance and those crazy expressions you're making will dry up the juices of any twat you get wet with your looks,” she told him, shaking her head as if he was just pitiful.

Graham's smile faltered.

“What's your stage name?” she asked, still eyeing him like a stud up for auction.

“Pleasure,” he said instantly.

Vera nodded in approval. “You're certainly equipped for it,” she said before releasing a round of laughter that was a mix of throaty cackles and dry wheezes.

Graham had no qualms about using the same name Joy used for him when he whored. His dick carried the miles, and it was up to him if he wanted to reclaim the name. He did. Joy took enough away from him, and the rest he gave to her with too much ease—the name he was keeping for himself.

“Work on your show and come back in a week at noon,” Vera said, standing and picking up her lighter with the same hand in which she held her beloved cigarettes. “You're working the early-afternoon shift until you get your shit together.”

Graham nodded as he jumped down off the stage and snatched up his clothes to dress before easing the strap of his duffel back over his head and then across his chest. With one last look at the three connecting circular stages, he moved past the zigzag arrangement of the seats and table to walk by the security booth, through the rear metal door, and out of the nondescript building.

 

 

“So let me get this straight.”

Graham scratched his smooth caramel cheek as he eyed both Lola and Kezia sitting on his pull-out couch and trying hard not to laugh as they watched him. He focused his eyes on Kezia, her hair still in a near-bald Caesar cut, with large hoop earrings and no makeup to distract from her features. “So old Ms. Vera told you that your performance was bad enough to dry up a wet pussy?” she asked, her voice incredulous.

Graham rubbed his neck. “I called you two to help me out,” he reminded them.

“Sounds like you need it,” Lola said, her hand caressing the back of her lover's head as they continued to eye him.

“Why us?” Kezia asked.

“I can't fuck y'all,” Graham said bluntly with a one-shoulder shrug. “Y'all made that clear—”

“Good,” Lola said encouragingly.

“Trust me, I had my dream
ménage à trois
, I'm good,” he said.

They both looked at each other in surprise before looking back at him seconds before the questions flew like gunfire.

“You did?”

“With who?”

“When?”

“How was it?”

“Did you finally learn to eat pussy?”

Graham made a face. “Y'all bugging,” he said, walking into the kitchen area to grab a bottle of water from the fridge. He rolled his chair from over by the easel to in front of the sofa. “And I'm never ever eating out a chick.”

“Your loss,” Kezia said, her eyes dipping down to Lola's crotch in the low-slung jeans she wore with neon green heels.

“Right,” Lola agreed in her husky voice as she continued to stroke the back of Kezia's head.

“Yo, I'm willing to watch if you want to teach me,” he said, feeling left out as they continued to stare at each other.

Kezia unrolled her tongue and moved the tip quicker than that of a snake as she continued to eye her girl.

“Damn!” Graham exclaimed as his gut felt like it took a gut punch.
That would be hell on a dick too.

Lola leaned forward and touched the tip of her tongue to Kezia's with a soft moan.

“Man, don't start that shit,” he said, feeling his dick stir. “Last time my dick got wet and I wasn't in the shower was when the water in the toilet splashed up.”

Lola and Kezia laughed.

“So y'all gone help me or not?” he asked. “Because I don't care how whack I look to y'all since there is no potential of pussy.”

“None,” Kezia stressed.

Lola cleared her throat lightly and gave Kezia a meaningful look with a pat of her thigh. Kezia stood up in her Polo tee and jeans to cross the floor into the kitchen.

Graham scowled a little.

“I have a question,” Lola said, sitting with her face in her hand as she settled her serious green eyes on him in concern. “You sure a strip club is the best place for you to be and you trying to stay clean?”

He rolled forward in the chair to reach out and playfully pat her chin with a dimpled smile. “I'm good,” he assured her, ever amazed that his infatuation with her and Kezia had gone from wanting to join them in a threesome to the two women becoming his closest friends.

“I saw you while you were on that shit, Graham,” she said, stroking one of her waist-length blond-tinted dreads. “I don't want to see you back there.”

Graham glanced away, embarrassed by his addiction, but he looked back at her, proud of his recovery. “I'm clean,” he insisted.

She nodded. “I know,” she assured him. “And I want you
stay
clean.”

“I do too. Trust me.”

“You went so hard, so fast,” Lola said. “I tried to outrace my past by popping pills but... all I did was make everything worse.”

Graham's gut clenched and he eyed her with a hard stare. “I didn't know that.”

“Not a lot of people do,” she admitted. “I've seen and been through a lot. I wanted to hurt motherfuckers that hurt me, but I just ended up hurting myself.”