In The Company of My Sistahs Read online

  “Hi, again.”

  She glanced over the rim of her sunglasses at Clayton. From where she was sitting he was like a giant towering over her. “Hi.”

  “Do you mind if I sit here?” he asked as he wrapped the towel around his waist.

  She shrugged. “You were here first.”

  “I guess I’ll take that as a yes,” he said as he lowered into the chair beside her.

  Kayla gave him an apologetic smile. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. I came out here to be alone.”

  “So did I. My roommate is entertaining.”

  She turned and glanced out at the ocean again, hoping if she stopped talking he would get the hint and do the same. No such luck.

  “Where are your friends?”

  She shrugged. “Somewhere around here. I’m typically the quiet one of the bunch.”

  “So am I.”

  She raised her brow. “You are a professional football player. I can’t see you doing anything that doesn’t draw attention.”

  “How’d you know I play football?”

  She frowned as she realized she had made a mistake and had admitted to knowing who he was. The last thing she wanted was for him to get the wrong idea. “It’s not that hard. Look at you.”

  “What about me?”

  She realized where he was going. “You’re wasting your time. I’m not one of your groupies. I have no intentions of blowing up your head.”

  He chuckled lightly as he leaned back in the chair. “You are truly genuine.”

  She was surprised by this choice of words. No one had ever called her genuine. “What are you doing in Jamaica?”

  “My boy is getting married here on Monday.”

  “Wow, that’s going to really be something.”

  “Yes, it is. I’m so proud of him. I can only hope to find someone as special. What about you? Are you married? Dating?”

  She gave a painful laugh. “No, none of the above.”

  “That’s truly a shame.”

  Kayla simply shrugged.

  “What are you getting into tonight?”

  “Partying here, I guess.”

  “Have dinner with me.”

  She swung around on her seat just to make sure she had heard him correctly. “What?”

  “You heard me. There’s a nice seafood restaurant not too far from here.”

  Why in the world would he want to be seen with me? He was staring so hard, Kayla began to feel uncomfortable. She sat up straighter, trying to draw less attention to her body, and folded her arms across her chest. She looked a mess. Why did he have to pick now to ask her out to dinner? Not that it mattered. She could have worn her best dress and she still would be inadequate in comparison. Someone like him could have anyone he wanted, so why would he ask her out to dinner unless he had other motives. “No. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because ...”

  “Because what?” He was definitely persistent.

  “Because it’s just not a wise choice. Lately I’ve been making a lot of decisions before I’ve had a chance to think them through clearly. I refuse to do that again. I know that going out with you is not a good idea.”

  “All right, maybe next time.” He then opened his book and began to read.

  Kayla sighed and adjusted her large body on the chair. She couldn’t believe he had given up so easily. If he had asked her again, she might have considered. “Men,” she mumbled before closing her eyes and getting lost in her thoughts again.

  Chapter 17

  RENEE

  I took extra care to make sure no one saw me going into Everton’s room. One reason was because I didn’t want to risk him losing his job. The second reason was I might want to holler at someone else tomorrow and being seen would fuck up that chance.

  I knocked once and Everton instantly opened the door. The minute I stepped into the room, I was pushed back gently against the door with his lips pressed against mine. I wrapped my arms around him as the pressure of the kiss increased. He pushed his tongue into my mouth and I willingly opened. I met him stroke for stroke. Damn, there was nothing better than a brotha that could kiss.

  We then moved to the bed, where we sat and drank a pair of Red Bulls. I talked about my kids and he told me that he lived at home taking care of his disabled mother. I liked the way he stroked my arm as he spoke. The contact was really starting to turn me on. By the time we had finished our first beers, I was stroking his leg. When the beer was almost gone, Everton took the bottle from my hand and put it on top of the nightstand. He then leaned forward and pressed his lips against mine again. I welcomed the warm feeling and eagerly opened my mouth so I could feel his tongue.

  As soon as I lay back on the bed, he reached down between my legs. He raised his head when he realized that I wasn’t wearing any panties beneath the miniskirt. Dropping down to his knees, he wasted no time getting his eat on between my thighs. His tongue skillfully played tricks between my legs. It felt so good my eyes rolled to the back of my head. I forgot where I was and who I was with. All that mattered was what was happening now.

  With his tongue deep inside my coochie, Everton reached up and caressed my sensitive nipples through the cotton of my halter top. Desperate for his fingers against my bare skin, I reached up and quickly pulled my shirt over my head. Everton immediately captured a nipple between his fingers as he continued his snack. Within minutes, he had me squirming on top of the bed. I thought I had an out-of-body experience, because I came like crazy. I couldn’t believe it when I squirted all over his face.

  Everton moved from teasing my clit, passed my belly button with his tongue, and started suckling my nipples. I felt his erect penis against my clit and I wiggled wildly beneath him.

  “Fuck me now, dammit!”

  I didn’t have to tell him twice. He rose off me and lowered his pants. I slid comfortably to the center of the bed, anxious to have some of him. I slid a pillow beneath my head and watched as he lowered his boxers, then he moved to the side of the bed and put his dick in my face.

  My mouth dropped.

  Never again would I believe the hype about Jamaican men having big dicks, because this was not the case. Everton’s dick was so little I could have used a pair of tweezers to jack his ass off. Damn! He pushed the small head against my cheek and I felt warm precum against my skin. Disgusted, I quickly rolled away.

  “You got the wrong one, baby. I don’t suck dick.” Shit. I suck dick. I just wasn’t sucking his little wiener.

  “You like it back shot?”

  My brow rose. “What’s back shot?”

  “You Americans call it ‘doggy’.”

  I tried to keep a straight face, ’cause he sounded so much like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

  As short as his dick was, doggy was probably the only way I would be able to feel anything. “Yeah, I like doggy.” I glanced at his little dick again and sighed. The sooner I get this over with, the sooner I could get back to my room. “You got a condom?”

  He nodded toward the side table. “In the top drawer.”

  I leaned over and removed a brand new pack, then ripped one open and held it out to him.

  “I want you to put it on.” He gave me a smile that I had thought was cute, and now was getting on my damn nerves.

  Damn, the last thing I wanted to do was to touch his little-ass thing. I leaned forward and rolled it over the length with ease, which came as no surprise, considering the size. Rolling onto my stomach, I tucked a pillow beneath my lower abdomen, then reared back on my hands and knees, lifting my ass straight up in the air.

  I felt him climb onto the bed behind me and position himself between my legs. He held onto my hips and entered me with ease. Unlike John, at least Everton could find my hole.

  He pumped his hips and I rocked back meeting him halfway. He was stroking me slowly, gently, and I wanted to scream. I couldn’t feel shit! I wanted him to fuck me. I could have laughed, but it was so sad, because I had
gotten myself into this shit, and the only way to get out of it was to help him come as quickly as possible. I moved my hips back and forth to encourage him to speed up his efforts. It did the trick, because he began pumping his hips so hard against me, his balls slapped against my clit. But damn, I still couldn’t feel shit.

  “You’ve got some good stuff,” he moaned.

  Why me, was all I could think about as he continued to moan like some sick animal. If I’d had a gun I would have shot him and put him out of his misery.

  “This is my pussy,” he chanted as he continued to pump away.

  Yeah, whatever. I tightened my coochie as much as I could, hoping I could feel just a little something. I could tell he was seconds away from coming.

  “Whose pussy is it?” he moaned.

  I rolled my eyes. “It’s your pussy.” I gave a few fake moans. “All yours.”

  “Oooh, weee!”

  He yelled so loudly I was afraid someone was going to call management.

  After he was done, he fell down and covered my body, raining kisses along my neck and back.

  “That was wonderful. We made a connection.”

  What in the world did we connect?

  He kissed me again. “I think your friends are going to be so jealous when they find out.”

  No, they won’t, because I don’t have any intentions of telling them shit. All I wanted was for this nightmare to be over.

  I wiggled from underneath him. “I better get back.”

  “Why so soon? I wanted to make love to you all night.”

  Heaven forbid! “No, my kids are calling me in the next thirty minutes and I need to be in my room.”

  “Okay, I understand. Can you come back?”

  “I can ... yeah, sure.” I slid out of the bed and started looking for my clothes. As I dressed, he laid there smiling like a damn fool.

  “You are so beautiful.”

  “Thanks,” I answered without even looking his way.

  He slid off the bed, the used condom still on his dick, and moved toward me. I ducked and moved around him, then reached for my top.

  He chuckled as he stepped into the bathroom to dispose of his load. As soon as he shut the door, I searched frantically for my shoes. As I slid them on, I heard a strange sound coming from the bathroom. I crept slowly toward the door in time to hear a grunt, followed by the sound of a turd dropping into the toilet.

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. That no-dick bastard didn’t even have the decency to wait until after I had left to handle his business. Ugh! I grabbed my key card and flew out the door.

  I went back to the room and was glad that Kayla was gone. Quickly, I shed my clothes, hopped in the shower and practically scrubbed my skin raw. I felt so dirty and ashamed that I started to cry.

  Already I was regretting my behavior. It was times like this that I wished I had someone to talk to. All my life, all I ever had in my corner was my big sister. If I had questions about boys I asked her. When I started my period, it was she I had gone to. But there were also times like now when I couldn’t go to my sister and I wished I had someone else I could turn to, like a mother or a father. As far as I’m concerned, I have neither. Physically, my parents were there, emotionally they were not.

  My mother, a bipolar crackhead, has been in and out of my life since I was sixteen years old. Last week she had checked herself into a thirty-day treatment program, but I know it won’t last. She has tried and failed so many times before. According to her, the crack helps her stop hearing the voices in her head.

  I never knew my real father. He and my mother never married. She had Lisa at sixteen and me three years later. My father died in a car accident on his way to work one morning when I was barely two years old.

  My mother married Paul Perry when I turned five. He instantly fell in love with Lisa. Me, he never liked. I never understood why. Whenever there was something broken it was my fault. Whenever something was missing, it was my fault. If I got a B, it should have been an A. If it was an A, then he said the work must have been too easy. There just wasn’t any pleasing that man. Nothing I ever did was right and no matter how hard I tried, the worse it got for me. I got my ass whooped so often, my stepfather left the belt hanging on the back of my bedroom door for easy access.

  I tried telling my mother, but she was never around. Instead, she was always in the streets, hanging with her friends or, as I heard my stepfather say on several occasions when I was too young to understand, “simply ho’ing.”

  When my little brother was born, life only got worse for me, because as far as my stepfather was concerned, Andre could do no wrong. When I was ten, I almost smothered the little darling because I had put a pillow over his face to keep my stepfather from hearing him cry. If Lisa hadn’t walked in the room when she did, there is no telling what might have happened.

  By the time I was thirteen, I gave up trying to make him happy and became openly defiant. I started talking back. I made up lies and told my mother so that she would get in his ass. One time he slapped me so hard I hit the wall. As soon as I realized what he had done, I kicked him so hard in his nuts, he never touched me again.

  When I turned fourteen my parents divorced. On the weekends, Paul would pick up my sister and brother, but I wasn’t invited. I’d complained to my mother, who simply said, “Why do you care? It’s not like you like the man anyway.”

  What she didn’t understand was that it hurt to be rejected by him. Despite everything he was the only father I knew.

  It was around this time my mother got introduced to crack. She started dating this drug dealer who tried to control her. He had found the perfect way. She stopped going to work. She would spend every night crying and all day sleeping. I tried telling my grandmother that something was wrong, but she refused to admit that her daughter was anything but perfect. We barely had food yet my mother was too proud to apply for food stamps. She’d rather starve her children than accept help. I had to forge her signature just to get free lunch at school, because she refused to complete the form.

  When we were evicted from our apartment on the South Side of Chicago, my stepfather took Lisa and Andre to live with him. My mom and I moved to Missouri, across the street from my grandmother. I was the one who had to watch the woman stare off into space all day, laughing for no particular reason, crying for the littlest thing. It had gotten so bad, I stayed out on the streets as long as I could and didn’t come home until it was time to go to bed, only to find my mother still sitting in the same spot she was when I had left that morning. I missed Lisa and Andre. They weren’t even allowed to call me. Paul would fly them down in the summer for one week. I’d see all the nice clothes they had, when I was struggling to work on the weekends at Dairy Queen. Most of the time, I’d just sign the back of my paycheck and hand it over to my mom, just so we’d have lights and gas. When she started smoking again, I started paying the bill myself.

  I was so lonely, I dated one boy after another looking for something—what, I do not know. All I wanted was to feel loved and needed for whatever length of time I could get. I lost my virginity to a senior who told me he liked my smile. All I had been was just a quick fuck. Hurt and devastated, I talked to my big sister about it when she called. She told me to let it go and move on. It was easy for her to say. She was dating Michael, the only man she’d ever been with.

  The only happiness I had in my life was Mario.

  I met him on my sixteenth birthday. My cousin Matthew came and got me so I could hang out with him and his crew. All his friends were either in their twenties or too busted for my taste. However, I had fun just the same. He took me to this party over in the projects and introduced me to his boy. Mario, although short, had the prettiest dark brown eyes with thick eyelashes and bushy brows. He had this beautiful white smile that lit up a room, and damn, the brotha could dress. When he asked me to dance, I eagerly said yes. He held me in his arms as we slow danced and I think in that instant, as the warmth of his body seeped in
to me, I fell in love.

  My junior year my mama was hooked on crack again and I wouldn’t see her for days at a time. I moved in with Mario, and it wasn’t until then that I discovered how possessive he was. I couldn’t visit my friends, participate in after-school activities or anything else teenagers did. All I could do was come straight home from school and cater to his needs. The first time he hit me, he cried afterwards like a big baby. Instead of being mad, all I could do was think, “Wow, he really must love me.”

  As soon as Lisa turned twenty, she had our mother committed to a mental health and drug treatment facility, then she moved to Missouri so that she could be close to me while she attended college.

  Tilting my head, I allowed the spray of warm water to beat across my face as I asked myself, was that why I stayed with John for so long? Because he represented something in my life that I had never had before? Stability? Is that why it was so hard to let go? I didn’t know. I just didn’t know. Sometimes I feel like I am losing my mind. My psychiatrist had changed my prescriptions so many times I don’t know if I am coming or going. One day I’m ADHD. Next visit I’m diagnosed with depression, and most recently, she says I am possibly bipolar, like my mother. Oh, wow, lucky me.

  I shook my thoughts as I stepped out of the shower. My head was spinning from too much tequila. I hoped that when I woke up, it would have all been a dream.

  Chapter 18

  RENEE

  “Renee, get your lazy ass up!”

  “No,” I muttered, then rolled over on my side, ignoring Nadine’s chipper voice.

  “Come on, sis, you’re missing one helluva party.”

  Party? My sister knew exactly how to get my attention. I was instantly wide awake. Lisa and Nadine were sitting on my bed, in their pajamas.