Chapter 8 #2
Telling me she had family who needed her, telling me that if this had anything to do with her husband, she had no idea about whatever he had done.
She was telling me she would give me money, access to accounts, anything I wanted if I just let her go.
Her voice was shaking but she was keeping it together more than most would have and I respected that even then.
I let her say what she needed to say and then I told her flat that she wasn’t going to be hurt if she shut the fuck up and listened.
That this was indeed about her bitch ass husband and a message that needed to be delivered in a language he would take seriously.
That as long as she cooperated she was going home eventually and she was going home the same way she left this morning.
She had gone quiet after that and looked out the window. I could see her processing it all and deciding to believe me. She knew deep down that was the smartest decision she could have made.
I had gotten her into my crib without her trying nothing slick, then I set her up in the back bedroom and secured her.
After that, I made the call from her phone to Tavarus.
Told him I had his wife. Told him to have a hundred thousand dollars ready and that I would be calling back with instructions.
I told his ass that if he involved anybody outside of himself in this situation she wouldn’t be coming home.
Then I destroyed the phone and threw it in a dumpster ten blocks from my building and went back home.
Tavarus was a street nigga. He knew the rules of this kind of situation and he knew that going outside those rules was how people he loved got hurt.
He wasn’t going to call the police. Wasn’t going to try anything that could put her at risk before he understood who he was dealing with and what they actually wanted.
He was going to sit with it and wait for the next call and think about every enemy he had ever made and try to figure out which one had gotten close enough to touch his home life.
He wasn’t going to figure it out. He was pressing Street for the money that he owed, so he’d never guess that anybody connected to Street would be holding his bitch hostage to get money out of his ass.
This was a cold world and I always made sure niggas who crossed mine would get what they deserved.
I was a ghost in this situation and I planned on staying that way until it was over. These days that I’ve had her now, I know he was losing his damn mind. She was a bad lil older bitch, hell, I would go crazy too.
—
Sandra was looking at me from the bed with that expression she got when she had something to say and was deciding whether to say it.
“Go ahead,” I said.
She shifted against the headboard. “If you wanted to hurt my husband you could’ve done a lot of things. Why take me.”
“Because taking you got his attention in a way that nothing else would. Everybody knows the nigga loves his wife.”
“You haven’t hurt me though.” She said it like she was still working out what that meant.
“Three days and you haven’t touched me or threatened me or done anything except bring me food and keep the TV on.
If you were trying to scare him you could’ve beat me and sent him something by now.
A picture. Proof that—” She stopped. “You’re not going to hurt me, are you? ”
“I already told you that.”
“People say a lot of things.”
“I’m not people.” I looked at her straight. “My beef is with your husband. Not you. You didn’t do anything to me or mine and I don’t make people pay for somebody else’s sins. That’s not who I am.”
She looked at me for a long time after that. Really looked at me the way she had been doing since the first day but different now. Like she was seeing something she hadn’t fully clocked before.
“Who are you really? You not a regular street nigga because it’s no morals or heart in this shit.” she asked.
“Somebody who takes family, loyalty, and respect seriously. Somebody who doesn’t move until a line gets crossed and when it does he moves all the way.” I leaned forward. “Your husband crossed a line with somebody I love. This is what crossing that line costs.”
She was quiet. Then — “I don’t know what he did.
But I believe you that he did it.” Something moved through her voice when she said it.
Something tired and old that told me this wasn’t the first time she had been sitting in a room somewhere paying for something her husband had done.
“Whatever it was he probably deserved this.”
The way she said it landed different than I expected.
There wasn’t bitterness behind it exactly.
More like resignation. Like a woman who had been making peace with the choices of the man she married for a long time.
If I knew nothing else, I knew a woman who’d been hurt and betrayed by a nigga.
All my bitches wore that same look at one point.
I stood up and picked up the food container and held it out to her and this time she took it without arguing.
She ate and I sat with it and after a while she looked up at me.
“Can I take a real bath tonight.” Her voice was quieter now.
Not begging exactly but close to it. “I’ve been washing up in that bucket for days and I just — I need to feel clean.
I’ve heard of having to take hoe baths, but I’ve never experienced that til now, and that’s not the life I live. I’m going crazy.”
I had been thinking about it for a couple days already.
The logistics of it and the risk of it, whether she had earned that trust. Three days of no attempts to escape, no screaming, no trying to signal when I opened the window to let air in.
She had been cooperative in a way that went beyond just being scared.
“Don’t try anything. I respect you as a woman so I’ll let you do that.” I said. “I’ll be in the doorway the whole time.”
She nodded.
I untied her ankles and unclipped her wrist from the headboard and walked her to the bathroom. I gave her fresh towels out my linen closet in the hall. Then I stood in the doorway while she ran the water. She moved carefully, aware of me watching, and got into the tub slowly.
I kept my eyes on the door frame and the hallway and told myself to stay in my head about what this was.
That lasted about four minutes.
I won’t put into words everything that went through my mind standing in that doorway. What I will say is that by the time she asked me to come wash her back I had already been in a losing battle with myself for longer than I wanted to admit.
She was nothing like anybody I’d ever fucked with. She’s a full grown woman and her body said exactly that. Now, somewhere between the warm water, me washing off her back and the way she looked at me over her shoulder I lost that battle completely.
What happened after that was nothing that I could have ever imagined. This was a grown ass woman.
“Why you acting like you scared to wash me up?” She asked as she looked at me seductively like her ass wasn’t kidnapped.
“I’m being respectful. And to be honest, I feel like I’ve washed enough. You should be good now. If I go any lower, we gone have a problem. Just let me stop, before shit gets out of hand.
“What if I want it to get out of hand. I’m grown. I know what I’m doing. You’ve been looking at me for days like you wanted to make a move but been thinking against it. Take what you want.”
“You don’t even know me like that Miss Lady.
One thing about me, I’ve never been a scary nigga.
If I wanted you, I would have made a move.
But this ain’t that. This business with me.
I ain’t no weird ass nigga to kidnap a bitch and take the pussy.
We ain’t even gotta do all that. I’m going to let you free in a day or two regardless.
” I said, damn near ready to risk it all for real.
“I don’t care about nothing you talking about. I want you to fuck me! How could it be weird if I’m asking for it? You must be scared or something? I know you said you ain’t no scary nigga, but it’s giving that you are, younger.” She laughed.
I got up and walked to the door. She stood, then propped her leg on the side of the tub.
She washed and soaped up her pussy right in front of me.
Her shit was fat, pink and juicy. Even through the soap suds, I could see that shit clearly.
I felt my dick jump in my pants and I tried to adjust my shit.
“Hurry up and stop playing with me! You finna start some shit you can’t almost finish.
I don’t want that for you.” I told her honestly.
She smirked in my direction and this muthafucka knew that she was a different kind of beautiful.
She started the shower and rinsed herself off.
When she got out, I admired how her breast sat up, and while she was drying off I got a better view of her fat ass.
I had no business thinking like this about this damn woman.
I let her leave and went into the room right behind her.
Again, she didn’t try no funny shit. I gave her a new pair of my boxers, and a shirt for her to sleep in.
The way my shit looked on her, it was sexy as hell.
Just when I was about to tie her ass back to the bed, she sat on the bed while I stood over her.
In a swift motion, she pulled my pants down, then my dick out through his drawls.
Before I could say shit. She had her wet, warm ass mouth on my dick.
She was gobblin’ that muthafucka up like she ain’t ate in weeks and I know I had just fed her ass!
This muthafucka was doing some shit that I ain’t never experienced.
She had my toes balled up so damn tight, I almost ripped my damn carpet.