2. Izael Amir “Zae” Ellis
IZAEL AMIR “ZAE” ELLIS
FIVE MONTHS LATER
“You’ve got to be shitting me. This chick struck again,” I grumbled, pacing back and forth on the gleaming mahogany floors of my downtown office suite.
I stopped to stare out the windows and at the springs in the distance. That technique was not working today. Nothing could soothe me whenever she struck.
“Do we know who she is? How the fuck can she be stopped, and why does she always seem to have a vendetta against us?” I asked.
“Not against us, but against River & 3 rd . It’s the only restaurant of ours that she leaves bad reviews for,” Jaylen Simmons, my good friend and business partner, stated.
“Everyone loves River & 3 rd , except for her. She’s making her damn name off bad mouthing our restaurant. This is bullshit!” I barked.
“It doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, she’s putting a bad stamp on us, and it might be the exact thing that stops us from getting that Michelin star.”
“No one has seen her. No one knows who she is. Yet everyone seems to take her word. I mean, this shit is picking up steam. Her reviews are mentioned as if they were Scripture itself on various sites. For all we know, it might be some hatin’ ass nigga trying to pretend like he’s some broad.”
“Well, if you want to get technical about it, she never claimed to be a she or a he. We have no idea who this person is, Zae. Social media refers to T as a she. But they don’t know.”
“What the fuck ever, nigga. We need to be hollerin’ at Frost.”
“Why?” Jaylen asked.
“It might be one of his dancers. I mean, why else would she be playing off the name of his strip club, Tasty Temptations? Think about it. Her blog is T’s Tasty Temptations .”
Jaylen shrugged and replied. “It’s probably all about the food, the temptation of it all, and the taste. And her name probably starts with T.”
“I don’t think it’s that simple. I think it’s one of his dancers—Tropical, Topaz, Toffee, Tsunami, Temptation. That’s it. It has to be her!” I exclaimed, shaking my head.
“Damn, nigga. What the fuck is you? A connoisseur on Frost’s strippers or some shit?”
I stroked my fingers through my beard and replied. “I might be familiar with one or two.”
“The way you just ran through that roster, my nigga, it’s more than one or two.”
I shook my head. “Nah, everybody down there knows that I love Xanthe. She’s my favorite.”
“That broad is nasty as fuck, Zae.”
I smirked. “That’s how I get down.”
“I hope your ass strapping up, my nigga.”
“I ain’t said shit about sticking my wick in her, Jay. Now she can slob on a nigga’s knob.”
“Whatever. What are we gonna do about that blog? Get that shit shut down or what?” he asked, reminding me that I was pissed off.
“Nah. You need to shoot by the restaurant and check the cameras. Look at the last week or two weeks’ worth of footage and find out who the fuck it was. Compare it with the last couple of weeks at the other two restaurants because she left reviews about them also. I think we should be able to narrow it down that way.”
“Yessuh, boss,” Jaylen joked, bowing low.
“Nigga.”
He chuckled. “I was trying to figure out when we switched from being business partners to you being my boss.”
“My bad, man. This shit got me worked up.”
“I know. It’s pissing me off, too, but I gotta stay chill. One of us does anyway. So, while I’m chasing down footage, what will you be doing?”
“I can swing by and check on Frost’s girls to see which one of them is out here bashing our shit.”
Jaylen shook his head.
“You ain’t slick at all, my nigga,” he stated as he stood from the chair he had occupied when he’d brought his iPad into my office minutes ago to tell me about the latest blog post.
“I’m just doing the hard shit that nobody else wants to do. Getting my fingers dirty and whatnot.”
“Damn, nigga. Don’t tell me you be up in there playing with their pussies and getting your little willie hard while they shaking a tail feather.”
I mugged him. “Nigga, get the fuck outta my office.”
The minute he stepped out, I picked up my phone and dialed my boy Frost.
“Wassup, big homie?” he greeted.
“Nothing much. Check it. I’ve got some shit that I wanna run past you.”
“I’m all ears.”
“You know I have my hands in several pots.”
“Right.”
“Well, a few of my ventures happen to be restaurants. We’ve been working on getting a Michelin star, but every time that shit rolls around, somebody keeps bashing our restaurant and giving it negative reviews. I honestly think it’s impacting our rating and preventing us from getting that star.”
“You need me to send some niggas out?”
“Nah. It’s nothing like that, Frost. But I’m wondering if the blogger might be one of your dancers.”
“Word?”
“Whoever’s writing this blog has named it T’s Tasty Temptations. ”
The phone went silent for a minute before he chuckled. “Nigga, is you fucking with me?”
“Frost, you ain’t never known me to be that dude. I’m dead ass, man.”
“Why the fuck is they using the name of my club on their blog?”
“That’s what I want to know. More specifically, I was thinking it might be one of your dancers.”
“Nah, them bitches better have better shit on their minds than trashing somebody’s business and using my name to do it.”
“You never know, man.”
“Listen, I’ll check in with all my dancers and see what I can find out.”
“That’s cool, too, but I was thinking about swinging through myself.”
“You want me to let Xanthe know you’re coming?” he asked with a chuckle.
“Definitely that.”
“A’ight. See you tonight?”
“Round nine,” I stated.
We chopped it up a little longer before we ended the call, and I returned my attention to business.
* * *
Xanthe had my shit bricked up. I don’t know why I fucked with her the way that I did, knowing I’d leave this club with my shit swollen. Li’l mama was working that ass and clapping that pussy like she was in church on a Sunday morning, clapping to the beat of the music or the preacher’s message.
I gripped my dick and went through a mental Rolodex of chicks I fucked with. I wasn’t really in the mood for any of them, but it had been five weeks since I’d fucked something up, and I needed it badly. I needed more than her giving me a blowjob.
“You looked stressed out, Izael.” Xanthe purred as she slid between my thighs.
Her hand slipped over my erection. We were in one of the VIP rooms in Tasty Temptations. I paid a hefty price to be in this room receiving a private dance from Xanthe, but I wanted a little something more to go down.
“I am. You already know what you can do for me tonight.”
She winked and pulled the zipper of my slacks down. “I got you.”
When she freed my dick from my pants, I slid down in my seat and spread my legs just a little. The minute her tongue and lips touched my shit, I sighed with relief. I held the back of her head and slowly guided her.
There weren’t many of Frost’s dancers who got down like this, but he did have a small roster of ones who would do a little something strange for a piece of change, and Xanthe was definitely one of them. I would never take her home, never wife her, and never fuck her. I knew how she got down.
“That’s it, Xanthe,” I murmured as I guided her head back and forth.
She smiled up at me and winked.
My mind wandered back to the issues that we were having with the restaurant as she sucked me off. I needed to get to the bottom of what was going on. I had just spoken with Frost, and he assured me that his dancers were not behind it. I wasn’t certain how he could be so sure, but I trusted Frost. That nigga would never bullshit me.
My eyes strayed back to Xanthe. Although I would never admit it out loud, I was tired of fucking around all the time. I was tired of random hos and tired of strippers, but I wasn’t about to stop this shit. I wouldn’t be that nigga to wife no woman only to lose her the way my father did.
Hell nah. My parents’ divorce had taken a toll on my big brother and me. There was no way in hell I would ever take any kid through that shit, and I wouldn’t be sitting around moping over no woman the way my father did over my mother for years until he found another one. Now, at the big age of sixty-one, that nigga was married to a woman twenty-five years his junior, and they were expecting a little girl. That shit would be comical if it weren’t so sad.
Besides, there was only one little shorty who ever had a shot at my heart. One shorty who fucked with a nigga and who understood him on a deeper level, but she was off limits like a muthafucka. And since that was a line I would never cross, I knew love wasn’t an option for me.
In the meantime, a nigga had needs. If I had to keep rolling the way that I did, so be it. With that gratifying thought, I nutted in Xanthe’s mouth and smiled as she opened her mouth so I could see her swallow. That was all I needed for the moment.