Chapter 4
Chapter four
MILFs
Teyonah
I twisted the faucet shut.
This was too much. I needed to talk to someone so I could clear all the horniness and logic spinning around in my head.
Rochelle’s and Cadence’s faces flashed in my head.
Yes. Oh my God. I have to tell my girls. They will lose their minds.
Rochelle was my north star for joy. Granted, she was having a busy year making sure she had all the tuition payments to send her twins off to college this fall.
At 49, she would soon be an empty nester.
She stood over five foot ten, brown skin that photographed like velvet, long locs she pulled into a high ponytail when she wanted to make an entrance and let cascade when she wanted to make a point.
She always wore these silver cuffs, bold lipstick, and cat-eye liner like war paint.
People thought she told the dirtiest jokes because she loved shock. I knew she did it because she loved honesty.
But, under all that glitter and boldness lived a woman who feared disappearing as the years rolled forward.
She was trying to solve that fear with a new business that made women louder. Last year, she opened Afrodite’s, a sex-positive studio with a honeyed glow and a strict policy of no shame.
She hosted blow job workshops with proper technique and laughter, cunnilingus classes with anatomy diagrams and applause, “Wine & Wand” nights where women made custom toys, “Lube & Learn” sessions that doubled as science and group therapy.
Her mission was simple: teach pleasure, speak truth, and refuse invisibility. The studio sat a few blocks from the downtown venue where she planned to throw her fiftieth party next winter: “50 Shades of Ro,” a party that would not ask permission to be decadent.
I bet when I tell Ro what happens she tells me to go down to the basement and suck Dominic off.
Chuckling, I smiled and thought about my other bestie.
Cadence balanced Rochelle the way water balanced fire.
She stood a quiet five foot five with light skin the color of fresh cream, freckles dusted across her nose, natural red curls that tried to escape every tidy bun she insisted on, pouty full lips that made even a prudish whisper look like an erotic promise, and a big bust she desperately tried to hide under wrap dresses and soft cardigans.
She worked as a school librarian. She carried a planner with tabs for each child and a pen for each kind of emergency. She represented the faithful good mother who never forgot a bake sale and never missed a meeting.
But Rochelle and I knew that beneath all that duty sat a wildfire she had not let herself touch in years.
Last year, her divorce had come and gone. Her children stood tall—one in their junior year of high school, one about to graduate.
Last night Cadence called me and said that she woke up this year and realized she had been living in survival mode so long she had to learn how to live again.
Hmmm. Cadence will say. . .don’t do it. That’s your tenant. He’s young. Be smart.
The three of us met two years ago in a book club that should have been perfect. It drew women from every part of the city and promised community.
However, we soon learned that promises fracture when people do not want to see you.
Every time Ro, Cadence, or I suggested a Black romance or a romance featuring a Black heroine, excuses circled the table. “Maybe next month.”
“We don’t want to alienate the others.”
“There aren’t many romances with Black women in them.”
They always said that bullshit as if our love stories required a waiting room. But our stories didn’t need permission slips. Every time they told us to wait, it felt like standing in line for a table they had no intention of seating us at.
Meanwhile, they licked their fingers on my cast-iron fried chicken, moaned over Rochelle’s collards slow-simmered with smoked turkey, begged Cadence for another scoop of her peach cobbler slick with brown sugar syrup.
They wanted our dishes but not our heroines, our presence but not our happily-ever-after’s.
That was the knife in the gut.
And that pissed me the fuck off. Because if you can swallow my cornbread and gravy, if you can scrape the mac and cheese from the bottom of the pan, but choke on the sight of a Black heroine getting her happy ending? Then you don’t deserve my food, my presence, or my voice.
Even crazier, when Ro suggested a title with heat, their fans came out and pearls got clutched. For them, two kisses and fade-to-black counted as spicy.
Fuck that.
We wanted diverse bodies, sweat, heavy breathing, and wet messes.
After one too many lukewarm discussions over vanilla latte romances, I let Cadence and Rochelle know that I would not be returning, but that I was so happy to meet them. Cadence looked like she was about to freaking cry.
Rochelle nodded and took us to the side at the end of the meeting, “Shoot. I’m not coming back either because we’re starting our own club.”
Cadence widened her eyes. “We are?”
“Fuck yeah. Forget these old not knowing how to season, too prude to wipe their own pussies, skinny, no ass having bitches.”
I blinked.
“We start our own club.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Rule one: Black authors only. Rule two: Black heroines only. Rule three: at least two real sex scenes or it does not make the list and I’m smacking somebody in the face for recommending it.”
I added a fourth rule, “Let’s do a themed night with food and cocktails inspired by the book.”
And that was what happened.
The first book club night, we read a Black romance called Midnight in Kingston where the heroine vacationed in Jamaica and met the man of her dreams. I made seasoned jerk wings, Rochelle brought rum punch, and Cadence came with a huge tray of golden fried plantains, sweet enough to stick to your fingers and salty enough to make you reach for another glass.
By midnight, the table was a battlefield of chicken bones and sticky plates. Our laughter carried through the walls until J and Oliver came downstairs in their pajamas, rubbing their eyes because we’d woken them up.
After taking them back upstairs and making sure they were fast asleep, we poured more drinks and kept right on laughing.
At some point, Rochelle grinned, pulled a joint from her purse, and the three of us slipped outside to smoke under the stars, whispering and giggling like teenagers.
Cadence coughed like a rookie and confessed out of nowhere, “Don’t let my pink and white cardigans fool you. I’ve read enough romance novels to know fifty different ways to ruin a man’s cock and make him thank me for it.”
I laughed so hard I spilled my drink on my pants, and Rochelle just shook her head like she was the only grown-up left in the house.
That was the night I knew—we’d built something real.
Something that was all ours.
The next month, Cadence hosted. The book was Sugar & Smoke, a bakery romance about a sweet Black baker fighting to save her block from a grumpy White billionaire hell-bent on bulldozing her neighborhood into a shiny new mall.
Enemies to lovers.
Slow burn to sizzling hot steam.
Sticky fingers and lots of alpha licking.
Cadence went all out.
The kitchen smelled like heaven before we even cracked the book open to discuss. A big pot of shrimp and grits simmered on the stove, buttery and smoky with just enough cayenne to make our lips tingle.
Rochelle carried in her famous collard greens slow-cooked with smoked turkey until the leaves turned silky and the broth begged for cornbread.
I brought the whiskey on the counter, pulled out my shaker, and made rounds of whiskey sours—sharp and sweet enough to burn and soothe at the same time.
But the food wasn’t even the best surprise. Cadence had decorated the whole dining room like a bakery window. Little chalkboard signs labeled each dish, a vase of sunflowers brightened the table, and at each seat waited a crisp white apron stitched with our names in red thread.
She even handed us paper baker hats, and we wore them, laughing at ourselves until our sides hurt.
In fact, the table was so loud with clinking glasses and louder with us. If you’d walked by the window, you would have sworn it was a holiday feast, not just three women refusing to be small.
Only after we were good and full did Cadence unveil her desserts: cinnamon rolls so big they spilled over the pan, dripping cream cheese icing that made me lick my fingers clean, glossy chocolate éclairs that melted in one bite, and tiny raspberry tarts that disappeared too fast.
By the time we stacked our plates in the sink, Rochelle was digging in her purse again, grinning as she pulled out a joint.
We stepped onto Cadence’s back porch under the streetlight glow, passing it between us, smoke curling sweet and sharp into the night.
That was the thing about our club—it wasn’t just about the books. It was about food and laughter, about secrets spilling over whiskey, about the burn in your chest when you felt seen.
Each month stitched us closer together.
And we just. . .started calling our little book club MILFs because we weren’t just book-nerd moms—we were still dangerous, still desirable, still hot enough to wreck a sexy man’s life if we wanted.
And slowly, the joke turned into a vow.
And we stopped just being a book club. We shifted to a sisterhood that refused to be erased.
A sisterhood that loved each other down to the bone.
Church without the pews.
Therapy without the bills.
Family without the trauma and judgment.
Every time we sat down together, I thought—God, I wish I had found this years ago.
That was who would answer when I called. Those were the women I trusted with the version of me that had just watched a hot tenant stroke himself in my backyard.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and stared at the screen. My thumb hovered over Rochelle’s name.
The last time I had called her, I had cried about Scott’s games with the lawyers.
Tonight I needed to laugh or I would spiral. I tapped her name and waited for her “Bitch!” to stretch a net under me.
She answered on the second ring, voice bright and messy the way it always sounded when she had a glass of wine and a show on pause. “Bitch! You know the Temptation Villa finale is tonight. I’ve got to see if Claude picks Amina or Messy Becky.”
“Her name is not Messy Becky. It’s Wendy.”
“That bitch is Messy Becky. She’s been doing the most the whole season. She didn’t come on this dating show for love. The bitch came to get a bag after it.”
“Hold up. I’m adding Cadence.” I looked at the screen, then at the little button that would let me bring Cadence in, because I did not want to repeat myself and I wanted her calm in the mix.
I kept Rochelle on the line, tapped Add Call, dialed Cadence, and waited.
She answered with her soft voice. “Hey, Tey. You good?”
“Yeah. I just wanted to talk to you both about something.” I tapped Merge Calls, and their voices braided together in my ear like we sat on the same couch.
“Is Cadence on yet?” Ro asked.
“I’m here.”
“Are you watching the finale?”
“No. I had to pick up Lisa from cheerleading practice—”
“Girl, we don’t have no time for Lisa tonight. She is sixteen years old. Let that girl drive the car by herself. She’s smart and safe.” Ro loudly sighed. “Priorities! I need someone to talk to about this finale after it ends and Teyonah lazy ass hasn’t even made it to the third episode—”
“Ma’am, I had a case this month that kept me busy with research.” Keeping the phone to my ear, I grinned and headed upstairs.
“We finally have a Black woman that has made it to the end of a dating show and you two bitches aren’t even supporting her. I’m sending an application to the Black People Committee to get your Black Cards revoked this year—”
“You need to calm down.” Cadence chuckled.
“Looks like I will have to do this all on my own.” Ro huffed. “Now I know how Coretta Scott King felt as well as the burden she had to deal with.”
“Oh my God.” Now upstairs, I got to J’s room, and caught grunts, battle cries, the distinct squeak of springs protesting every jump.
I pushed the door open, and sure enough, the war was on.
Two armies of stuffed animals clashed across the room: bears armed with Lego swords, a giraffe doubled as a battering ram, and poor Mr. Floppy, the old rabbit, had been tied to the bedpost like a prisoner of war.
Oliver screeched when he saw me.
I covered the phone and looked at them. “Excuse me?”
They froze, guilty grins plastered across their faces, pajamas still untouched on the dresser. Toothbrushes, nowhere near their mouths.
I pointed at them. “You’re supposed to be washing up, not staging World War Three.”
Oliver held out his hands and was dead serious, “But Mom, the bears are winning!”
I put a hand on my hip and fought a smile. “No more than twenty minutes for this war. Then, we get back to getting ready for bed. It’s already late.”
J put on their best smile. “How about thirty minutes, Mommy.”
“Fine. Then, it’s our routine. Getting school clothes out for tomorrow. Putting on pajamas. Washing faces. Brushing teeth.”
They saluted. “Yes, Mommy!”
I closed their door and put the phone back to my ear. “Sorry. I had to talk to J and Oliver.”
Cadence spoke, “Is everything okay, Tey? Did Scott do something else?”
“Well of course he did, but I’m not calling about his bitch ass this evening. I’m calling about my tenant.”
“Oh. Good God almighty.” Ro clapped. “This is about to be juicy. Let me turn my TV off. I don’t know what happened, but it better be sexy because that man. Mmmhmm. Yummy in my tummy.”
Cadence sighed. “He is not a man. He is a boy.”
“He is at the legal age of 25,” Ro countered.
“Which is still young. His brain just stopped developing.”
“He don’t need a brain to do what I want to do with him for one night.” Ro huffed. “So, what’s up, Tey? What did my new baby daddy do now?”
“Well. . .I caught him jacking off in my backyard tonight.”
Cadence shrieked.
Ro screamed. “What the fuck?! I know you are lying!”
“I’m not.”
“Details! I need them all and you better have taken a picture.”
I shook my head. “Oh my God.”