The Pleasure Trap (18 page)

“Our relationship doesn't require lies,” he lied.

“But I pay you very well not to share your dick,” Smyth said. “Is that enough motivation for a man to remain loyal even when a ring and a promise before God cannot?”

Baldwin had been caught, and now she was trying to catch Pleasure.

“More than enough,” he said smoothly.

She released a heavy breath and turned her head on the arm of the sofa to look at the file. Tears filled her eyes. “A woman's intuition is never wrong,” she said in a soft, bitter whisper.

Pleasure continued to rub circles in the arch of her foot with his thumbs as he massaged her delicate ankles.

“So what do I do now?”

She eased her feet from his lap and sat up. “I guess my black ass is not as smart as I thought,” she said, tapping her finger against the file.

He eyed her profile.

“I convinced myself that this docile and sweet white man wouldn't do me wrong like the bro-
thas
,” she said, emphasizing the last word as if she was in a seventies black exploitation film.

He bit back an amused smile.

“I may not know what to do about my husband and his dalliance,” Smyth said, piercing him with her eyes. “But I'm clear on my use for you if you're playing in the greener grass also.”

Pleasure shifted in his seat as he remembered the excitement he felt during that hour he'd spent in that room with Miss Prim and Proper Pearls.

She stood up with the file in hand, lightly hitting it against her thigh as she looked around her apartment again. “If I had just stuck to my original plan,” she said with regret.

She crossed the room to stand before the fireplace, reaching up to swing open the framed mirror to reveal a safe. She pressed her thumb to the pad on the door, and an instant later, it opened. As she slid the file inside the safe, he didn't bother to try and see the rest of the contents. They were not his concern.

Smyth closed the safe and then the mirror before she turned and left the apartment without saying another word. The door gently closed behind her with a click.

Pleasure let his head fall back and looked up at the gold-trimmed tray ceiling and the elaborate chandelier above. His thoughts were full.

His decision to sell himself to just one woman had helped with his feelings of being overwhelmed by all the women. It had him in a bad headspace for a long time. Being with Smyth had seemed like a win-win.

That time in the red room with a woman whose name he didn't know had reminded him that there was more to sex than just busting a nut.

Standing up, he walked down the hall into the bedroom and retrieved his trick phone from under his boxers in the dresser drawer. Sitting down on the mink comforter, he powered the phone on. He had twenty voice mail messages since the last time he'd amused himself by listening to them. He switched to speakerphone.

“This is Pleasure. I'm sorry, but I am on an extended vacation. Time to recharge, you know. Check back often to see just when I can be reached again.”

“Pleasure, when are you coming back so that I can cum? This is Shantee. Call me.”

“Damn.”

“This is some real bullshit, Pleasure.”

“What do you give? Pleasure. What do I need? Pleasure. Call me. Oh, it's Ursula, boo.”

Message after message after message.

Still, his motivation for checking the messages was for one woman only. He was curious if
she
called. She hadn't.

“Plea-sure . . . come out and play.”

He went through them all and saved them. He knew his run with Smyth would not last forever.

Smyth

 

 

I
t had been a very long time since Pleasure had allowed himself to think of Lionel. That night last year had been one of the rare occasions he'd even tried to deal with all of his emotions about being. . . violated. He'd never even broached the subject during the counseling he received while in rehab. He just wanted to forget, and most times, he succeeded.

Slowing his truck down, he looked over at the house Lionel's parents once owned. Although it was two blocks over from his parents' home, Lionel had been five or six years older than him and the two boys had not been friends. Pleasure had never once stepped inside, but it had become a house he avoided. The very sight of it reminded him of everything he needed to forget.

Even far beyond the year when Lionel and his parents moved out of town, Pleasure avoided that street. Avoided the memory.

That hadn't worked today. A parade had blocked off the streets he usually took to reach his parents, and he had no choice.

So here he was.

A new family had purchased the home years ago and even changed the color from a powdery blue to a brilliant white, but still the house affected him. He looked pensive, his hands clutched tightly enough at the wheel to snap through it.

He had been weak then. Just a little boy going to church the way his mother said little boys should. He hadn't deserved to suffer from whatever perverted sickness or weakness Lionel had inside.

Pleasure wasn't at all surprised by the tear he felt race down his cheek and fall into his lap. He was crying for the little boy too afraid to speak and for the awareness that his silence had probably led to other little boys being hurt as well. He clenched his jaw as tightly as he clenched his fist just before he pounded it on his dash.

For the first time in years, his craving for cocaine was so strong that he knew he would've relapsed. He would've given up years of being clean to get out of this moment. Out of his head. Out of his pain. Out of his memory.

“Father God,” he prayed, turning to a foundation he had long since left behind.

The sound of a horn blaring behind him shook him visibly and he shifted his eyes away from the house and up to the rearview mirror. There was a row of cars behind him, all detoured away from the parade route and just trying to make it to their destination.

He blocked them.

Taking in large, deep breaths, he forced himself to accelerate and move out of the past, figuratively and literally.

Pleasure drove the remaining two blocks to his parents' home and parked on the driveway behind his father's motorcycle. The sight of it made him smile, and he needed a reason to feel good. A picture of his mother and father atop the Harley did just the trick.

Climbing from the truck, he swallowed over a lump in his throat and hoped he was right.

Sitting back down onto the driver's seat, Pleasure picked up his trick phone from the console. He was disappointed that the number wasn't Jaime—Miss Prim and Proper Pearls. She was the only client he was dealing with outside of Smyth. She didn't know that, and that was fine by him. It helped to maintain that line that so often blurred between them.

Jaime had not called. Not for an entire six months. And he had noticed. Even as he enjoyed the lifestyle Smyth afforded, finished his first semester of college with a 3.975 GPA, and even enjoyed a trip to Paris over winter break where Smyth purchased him a suite beneath the one she shared with her husband, still he noticed that she never called. There were dozens upon dozens of calls from women who clamored for some of the “Pleasure Principle.”

But her call never came. And he noticed. And he didn't like that he noticed.

Then one night when he was walking into Club Trick, she was sitting there in her car. Waiting for him. He played it cool and cocky, but on the inside he had been happy for her reappearance and even happier when she solicited his services.

It had been on ever since. She couldn't get enough of the dick, and truth be told, he couldn't get enough of her. Somewhere in the midst of that six months that she'd disappeared, she had changed. She was more bold and confident and aware of her sexiness. She was like a butterfly free of the confines of the cocoon.

He knew she had left her husband and there was some drama about a friend possibly sleeping with him. He didn't know the details and he didn't care. All he knew was she had her own place—a town house—and they spent quite a bit of time together. He didn't even charge her when he initiated the sex play.

He hadn't done that since Assefa, and with her that was because he had something to prove. Now he did it because there were times when he just wanted to be with her. He wanted to experience her. Taste her. Fuck her. Make love to her. Be with her.

And that chemistry that blew his mind that first time in the little back room was still there pulsing between them with a life all its own.

He reached the bottom step and then turned to head back to the truck with a smile on his face that deepened his dimples. He unlocked the vehicle and reached for the phone to dial her number.

“Surprise, surprise,” she said. “No one else buying up your time today?”

“Just had a cancellation,” he lied. “You want this dick or not?”

“I got wet as soon as I saw your number,” Jaime countered.

He shook his head. So very different from Miss Prim and Proper Pearls—or at least his preconceived ideas of her.

“I'll be there 'round eight,” he calculated.

“Ah. The dicking hour,” she teased.

With a chuckle, he ended the call, not bothering to say another word.

Tossing the phone back onto the console, his iPhone— aka the Smyth phone—vibrated in his pocket at just that moment.

As he answered the call, his mother stepped out onto the porch and waved him over. “Hey, Smyth,” he said, raising his hand to his mother.

“I'm at the apartment, where are you?”

“I spend Sundays with my parents, remember?” he said.

“Oh,” she said, sounding disappointed. “Baldwin's off doing only God knows what, and I was lonely.”

That was a hint and a half for him to ditch his parents and hightail it back to New York.

Pleasure was a little over a month from finishing his first year of college. Between his classes, making time for Jaime, still working at the club, and Smyth's demands, he barely had time to see his parents. He actually looked forward to their Sundays together, and normally Smyth was preoccupied with her husband.

Still, she paid him very well and he agreed to the terms. He was breaking enough of the rules with his trysts with Jaime.

“I'll be there in a couple of hours,” he promised, figuring he could get back enough in time to satisfy her, take a nap, and reboot his energy for Jaime later that night.

“Good,” she said firmly.

He left all three cell phones in the truck and securely locked the door before finally climbing the stairs and walking inside to share some time with his family.

 

 

Pleasure entered the upscale building and barely glanced at Smyth's husband Baldwin as he stood in the hall awaiting the elevator. The man barely spared him a glance as well.

What did take Pleasure aback was Baldwin stepping on the elevator with him and not using the one to the far right reserved for the penthouse residents. Stepping on, he started to reach to push the button for his floor, but stopped when Baldwin pushed it before him.

Pleasure shifted in his stance, towering over the man by nearly seven inches, as he wondered just what was unfolding before him.

“You didn't select your floor,” Baldwin said, his black hair raked off his face.

Pleasure looked down at him. “That's the one,” he said with a lift of his chin toward the door panel.

He faced forward but he could see in the reflection provided by the metal walls that Baldwin slid his hands into the pockets of his chinos and stared up at Pleasure for a long time.

The elevator slid to a stop and Pleasure let the other man step into the hallway first. Not out of fear or deference. He wanted to see just where he was headed. His suspicions were soon confirmed as Baldwin walked up to the door and knocked.

Pleasure removed his key from his pocket. “Can I help you?” he said politely, using his most refined voice.

“
You
live here?” Baldwin asked, pointing his finger to the door.

“Excuse me,” Pleasure said, and then patiently waited for the man to step aside before he unlocked the door.

Baldwin's blue eyes widened.

“A friend of my parents is renting the apartment to them so I can stay here while I attend NYU,” Pleasure lied flawlessly. “There's not a problem, is there?”

Baldwin cleared his throat and rocked on his heels. “No, no. My wife, Smyth, owns this apartment,” he said.

Pleasure pretended to look surprised. “Oh, all this time I thought Smyth was a dude,” he said.

Just as he suspected he would, Baldwin looked relieved that the six-foot-nine, handsome Black man before him had never met his wife to distinguish Smyth from Smith.

Pleasure opened the door a bit but held on to the doorknob securely. He had no clue if Smyth was inside or any of her lingerie still was lying about from one of their prior dalliances. “It was very nice to meet you,” Pleasure said politely. . . dismissively.

Baldwin took the hint. “Uh, yes, nice to meet you as well . . .”

“Mikel,” he said, supplying the alias he sometimes used for members of his clientele who insisted on knowing his real name.

“Yes, nice to meet you, Mikel.”

Pleasure stood in the doorway, completely aware of his and Smyth's boldness, as he watched her husband finally take his leave. He remained there until he heard the elevator doors open and then close.

Turning, he entered the apartment and shook his head at the sight of Smyth lounging on the padded cushion of one of the window ledges looking casually elegant in a crisp French blue shirt and jeans with flat navy patent leather shoes.

“I just met your husband at the door,” Pleasure said, dropping his key on the table by the door.

Smyth shrugged. “Perhaps now I will go and knock on the door of his whore and ask her if she plans to have the baby she's carrying,” she said sadly, before turning to look out the window. “Baldwin really shouldn't have
fucked
with me.”

Pleasure strolled over to stand beside her, raising his hand to stroke her nape.

“And neither should you.”

His hand froze midair.

Smyth looked up at him as she turned to rest her feet on the floor before she crossed her slender legs. “Really?” she asked, sounding bored.

Pleasure stepped back from her.

“Where should we begin... Graham?” she asked.

He felt his stomach clench. He'd never told her his real name. She always gave him his allowance in cash. He'd been very careful to protect that.

She shook her head woefully as she rose from the bench just enough to remove yet another file to open.

Pleasure calmly walked across the room and picked up one of the dining room chairs to carry back over to sit down before her. Smyth was no more than one hundred and twenty pounds but the figurative fat lady was singing, and he owed her this final song without interruption.

“Kicked out of high school for fighting. A GED. Cocaine addiction. Rehab. Stripping at Club
Trick
. . . in Newark, of all places,” she said sarcastically, glancing over at him briefly.

He waited.

“You've been selling yourself for years—”

“That's how we met,” he inserted smoothly.

Smyth leaned back and eyed him in reproach.

His look never wavered.

“Thank God you're tested for diseases every three months,” she said, whipping the folder back open.

“Does it have my blood type and parental DNA tests as well?” he asked in clipped tones, the invasion of his privacy getting to him.

“Type O. You get it from your father,” she answered without hesitation.

He furrowed his brow.

“What was most revealing is Ms. Jaime Pine-Hall.”

He looked away, shifted in his seat, and then looked back at her. He was surprised at the tears gathering in her eyes. “Smyth—”

“No, no,” she said, holding up one long finger to shake at him in reprimand.

“My husband had risked all of this,” she began, waving her hand up and down her length, “and most importantly . . .
this
.” She pointed vigorously at her heart. “For a woman with no breeding, no class, and no looks—as far as I'm concerned. They will have their little ugly baby and I have to sit here and either play blind or wait for him to leave me. That's not so hard with his dick and one foot already in the streets.”

“You can leave him, Smyth.” Pleasure reminded her of another option.