The Temptations of Dee Pt. 03

"First job half done," he said to Dee and they drove a couple of blocks to where another small group of African-American youths stood on the corner. Shaka went through the same routine and with the same result.

Back in the vehicle he gave a little grunt of satisfaction. "Never going to keep that trade out of areas like this. If you try you just spark a war. So we try and keep things quiet and away from the schools. The crews are generally alright once they know you ain't competition but you also ain't to be messed with. These two crews had some beef over territory. No money in it - they just didn't want to see any of the other crew from their spot. Nothing in it - but half of them would get killed over it unless someone could make a parley. That's my job round here. So it's done and we can move on."

"Isn't it dangerous?"

"Depends what they hooking. I know these and they tough kids but they ain't crazy. In other situations we would act different. As long as I have my little friend," he patted his pocket, "these won't give me any problems."

***

Their next stop was a one-story building out on the edge of the city. Its vivid neon signs gave away the nature of the establishment and Dee hesitated to join Shaka in leaving the car.

"This is my world girl, you need to see it and it needs to see you. No-one will mess with you just so long as you stay close. He pushed one arm slightly away from his body and it seemed the most natural thing in the world for Dee to hook her own into it.

Dee had no doubts as to her safety with this man. But she was venturing into places a far cry from her own world of safely dull suburbia.

The music was loud - hitting them as soon as they entered the club. A small crowd, almost all men, were present either seated at tables or standing by the rail. Their eyes were fixed on the girl spinning her body round the pole that occupied the center of her small stage.

She felt his mouth by her ear. "Never told me what you drink."

He held his own ear down to hear her response. "A beer, please."

He made a hand signal to the man behind the bar. A beer arrived and Shaka passed it to her. Dee sipped at the cold drink as she took in the bar. She'd never been anywhere like this before.

The dancer was naked save for a tiny thong. Her full breasts bounced as she moved across the stage towards the rail. Men held out currency to entice her nearer. Her dark body shined with moisture from her efforts dancing in the hot air of the club.

"Spect you think she being done down? Keep watching. That's Tonisha - one of our newest girls. Here she does what she wants and she ain't made to do nothing she ain't happy with. She likes to dance and she's good at it. Men like to watch her dance and to maybe get a little closer in a lap-dance. Works three evenings a week, not the busiest, and she's taking home the national average wage after deductions. 'Fore she was here she was working at the Golden Arches. One time you might ask her where she feels she was being done down. Some of these girls got degrees and they happy to dance here. Tonisha ain't got no degree - this is how she gets to live and put some by for her future."

A man with a shaven head came over and bumped fists with Shaka. "All good tonight - not a bad crowd already and it'll heat up as we go on."

"How's the week looking Hoss?"

"Holding up, holding up. Like I always say - men will always want to see a pretty girl. Talking of which - ain't you gonna introduce me?"

"Yeah, this is my girl Dee. Dee, this is Hoss, the co-owner and manager of this fine establishment."

Dee hardly heard the introduction. Her thrill at being described by Shaka as, 'my girl', was almost too intense.

The music ended and the dancer came off stage - replaced as she went by another Black girl. Tonisha came over too them with a garter belt stuffed with currency and a tongue lolling out like a cartoon dog's.

"Damn, it's hot dancing tonight. Need a cool one if anyone'll take pity."

Shaka smiled - the hustle came natural to these girls. He signalled twice to the barman and soon a cold beer appeared in front of both Tonisha and Dee. Dee was nervous and felt a little out of place so she had been taking regular little drinks but her glass was still half-full. She registered that she would have to be careful - she'd never been a real drinker and now she was seriously out of practice.

Tonisha was looking at her. "You coming to dance?"

Dee almost spat out a mouthful of beer. Again with the dancing. First Cassius and now Tonisha. She liked to dance but she'd never done it for a crowd, let alone in a place like this.

"We have an amateur night..." ventured Hoss with a gleam in his eye.

Dee looked to Shaka. He was smiling at her confusion but stepped in to save her. "I don't think so - not just now anyway. Certainly not tonight - we got to roll."

***

Their last stop was familiar to her already - Silky's Bar. The dive was marginally busier - perhaps because it was later at night. Men lined the bar and Silky had a bar-man helping him. Shaka pulled out a stool for her, "I'll get you a drink." He moved up the bar to talk to the bar-man.

She felt isolated without his strong presence - even more so when a minute later she sensed men moving to the bar on each side of her. She glanced nervously. They were both young, only in their late twenties at the most, and both wore the uniform of the streets. They could easily have been members of one of the corner-crews that she'd seen Shaka talking to earlier on.

"Not seen you here before, babe."

"Nah, she come to get what she can't get at home."

They had moved closer to her now and she felt the pressure of their bodies against hers. A Black hand casually landed on her thigh as she sat on her stool.

"Yeah, we know what you here for and we got it here for you."

Maybe it was the beers but Dee didn't resist when he took her hand and held it to the front of his pants. Her fingers felt the hard bulge there.

"Latrell man - don't you know who she came with?" That was Silky.

"Shut the fuck up Silky. Don't matter who she came with, it matters who she's going home with."

A voice cut in, a voice laden with authority. "She's going home with the man she came with." Shaka was there with her beer. He snapped the fingers of his free hand and Latrell jumped away from the bar. The young man was wide-eyed now and staring at Shaka. "No dis man," his voice was almost panicked, "we just thought we was giving her what she came for."

Shaka stared at him - his face hard. Then he relaxed a little. "I'll let it slide but I don't want to see you here again tonight. Before you go you apologise to Silky for the disrespect."

The two youngsters bolted for the door and Shaka moved in close to Dee. "Oh yeah, you a frumpy old lady alright. I leave you thirty seconds and they already moving in on you. Well it's bad news for them cos when you here you my bitch. You got that? Time will come for sharing but just now I want to keep all that sweetness for my greedy self." He looked up, "Office in use Silky?"

The old bar-tender smiled. "Feel free - after all you are the owner."

Shaka gestured to the beer. "Drink that." She already felt a bit buzzed but she did as he demanded and drank it as quickly as she could. His big hand then found hers and he led her round the bar to a small room behind it.

There was a chair and a desk piled high with old invoices and flyers. Shaka swept a big pile off onto the floor with his free hand. Then, in a smooth movement he took Dee by the hips and lifted her till she was sitting on the edge of the desk with her legs hanging down off the ground.

His eyes held hers almost as if she was in a trance. His fingers came up to gently caress her face. "You been done wrong girl. Not just out there by those two but you been much deeper hurt over there. He don't know what he's got. He took a beautiful woman and stole her confidence. I could see that the second I saw you and I knew I had to possess you - to make you mine and at the same time set you free. When you over here you'll be my bitch and we ain't gonna be hiding it. How you feel going round the hood with me tonight? Be straight with me."

She thought. "It felt good Shaka, it felt ... special to be with you."

There was that little smile again - a smile of triumph, the smile of a winner. "But you is special, baby. That's how you should be feeling all the time. When you with a real man you know it coz they make sure you feel that way."

He gently raised her left leg and eased off her slip-on shoe. "First, we got to take off all this. Might feel comfortable but now you gonna be my bitch we gonna have to make some changes." With deft experienced fingers he proceeded to strip her down to her underwear. She only helped him when she needed to momentarily ease off the desk so he could remove her pants. Once done his imperious tap on the wood had her settling her butt back where he had placed her.

Finally he reached behind her and released her bra. His big hands moved to take her breasts. His thumbs gently teased her nipples. They had always been sensitive and she knew they were reacting to him. He bent his head down to her and took one nipple into his mouth. The warmth and his playful tongue worked on her body and she shuddered a little as she moaned softly.

Then his eyes were back locked on hers. "You don't disappoint, Dee. That husband of yours is blind or a fool. Well I'm not blind or a fool. I never saw no soccer mom, I knew who you really were from the moment I layed eyes on you and I know how a woman like you needs to be treated." He glanced down at her panties. "You gonna take them off for me - so we can do what needs to be done."

Maybe it was the beer or the moment or the truth of his words but Dee did a very dangerous and a very crazy thing. She eased her way out of her panties.

Shaka nodded gravely and then, almost ceremoniously, removed his pants. He stepped forward and eased Dee's butt forward to the very edge of the desk. Finally he let her see what she needed to see. Just as in her dreams Shaka was big and his cock stood proudly up against the muscles of his chest, dark skin against dark skin. He was hard and ready for her. He held his powerful shaft and ran the head of his cock up and down the lips of her exposed sex.

"This is a beautiful pussy - from now you keep it trimmed right back if you can't shave it. We both need to see this without anything in the way."

She knew what he meant. She was almost hypnotised by the contrast between the dark skin of his powerful cock and the pale skin of her pink pussy. She needed to see him enter her - to see the moment when he took her as his.

He tapped the big head of his cock against the top of her pussy - against her most sensitive part. "You want this, Dee. You sure you don't want to go home to your husband?"

"Yes Shaka, please.."

That warm flesh kept pressing against her and then being removed, teasing her with his nearness and his strength. "I'm going to - but on my conditions. I'm not a plaything for any beautiful white woman to come down and have fun with. When I take you I'll be doing just that. From then on I'll only be lending you back to him when you have to go back there. In reality you'll be belonging to me, you'll be my bitch. Got that?"

"Yes - I know that." She did, from the very core of her being. She understood there would be no going back to how things had been, no safe boring reality for her any more. Real life would become here - the way she was back home would be the sham, the act, the lie.

"Never saw a pussy needed a good fucking so bad. Been neglected way too long. Had a fool in charge who let things slide. Not no more. From now on this is mine and I'm going to take it when and where I want. Understand?"

"Please..." She just needed to have him in her - to see and feel him enter her.

"Nah," the big cock head tapped her again, "you need to say it. Who does this pussy belong to?"

"You Shaka."

"So I can have it when and where I want?"

"Yes Shaka."

He nodded and tapped her again with his cock. He seemed to ponder a moment and then moved forward his face close to hers. "When I take you there won't be any excuses. You'll have thought it out and took a decision and given yourself to me. If you want this," the heavy head of his cock tapped against her as if demanding admittance, "then that's how it has to be. I'm not dipping this once - I'm owning it. You get me?"

He stepped back and then dropped to his haunches between her legs. "A little down-payment," he said as he moved forward. She felt his breath on her pussy - his warm teasing breath. Then his fingers eased her apart and allowed his tongue to explore. His hands held her legs tight or she would almost have leapt off the desk at his first touch. Her sensations were at fever-pitch and every movement he made was a revelation. When his strong experienced tongue found her and began to pleasure her it all released in a mighty wave of lust and emotion and joy. Her legs shook in his hands and her body juddered and she put back her head and screamed. He didn't stop he just continued his deliberate practised and exquisite treatment of her. She didn't stop either - she continued to howl her response to him. The logical, careful, conservative, respectable Dee had gone. The passionate, sexual, free animal spirit of her was reborn and, at least for that moment, held her soul.

Finally he stopped and looked at her. She was breathing hard and had to refocus her eyes. She felt like she'd done a twenty-mile run - in truth she'd only been a couple of minutes under Shaka's sexual prowess. 'That was just the foreplay,' was the only thought running through her brain, 'sex with him would destroy me.' It sounded ridiculous but she knew it was literally true. The old Dee would not survive sex with this man. If he gave her what she desperately wanted, now more than ever, then she wouldn't be able to trust herself after that. She wouldn't know what else she might be ready to dare, to risk, to knowingly give up just to get more.

That moment would not come tonight. Shaka retrieved his clothes. "Coming back there won't be no alcohol or surprises or excuses. You come back here in June and you come back in that minivan of yours. That's what I want and that's what I'll get. That clear? Once you've given me what I want then I'll start giving you what you need. Start breaking the real Dee out of the crap that's been entombing her. I don't want his Dee - I want the real Dee."

He walked round the desk, opened a drawer and retrieved a box. He clicked his fingers and Dee, still naked, got off the desk after gingerly testing her wobbly legs to check they would support her. With studied care he removed her small diamond stud ear-rings - an anniversary gift from David in the early years of their marriage - and replaced them with his gift to her. They were three inch hoops in gold with an 'S' formed inside each hoop by silver encrusted with brilliants that caught the light. She would never have worn such ear-rings. Or, to be accurate, the old Dee would never have worn such ear-rings. She stood as he placed them in her ears and understood that he was marking her as his. If the patrons outside hadn't heard her howling the place down then one glance at her new hoops would tell them all they needed to know.

Shaka studied his work. "Hmmnnn, look real good on you Dee. Lets everyone know you're my bitch - let's them know to stand aside till I'm ready to share you. Best you get some clothes on before we step out there tho."

Dee stumbled her way back into her clothes. Her mind was in a whirl. When she was done Shaka handed her a small box. "Put them in your pocket." It was her old studs, her husband's loving gift to her. She realised that she would have forgotten them and left them here but for Shaka's gesture. She'd have to be sure to put them back in before she got home.

He left her at the hotel after taking both her hands in his. "Three things - so I know you serious about this. When I see you next you'll be wearing my hoops. You won't fly here you'll drive over in that nice minivan of yours. Then, of course, we'll need to set a date so you won't keep me hanging like last time." He named the date in June and even as he kissed her good-bye Dee knew that the fates had conspired against her.

The hoops were easy - the other demands not so much. She could just about get away for two days if she flew. There was no way she could take a week off and drive both ways across the country. Maybe Shaka planned on her not returning home but no matter what happened she knew that she would never leave her children. If she had to wear rags and eat slops and live with ... her husband ... she would NEVER leave her babies. Anyway such a long absence, even once, would be impossible to arrange outside the holidays and impossible at any time with David. It was out of the question anyway on the date Shaka had specified, had demanded. How bad could her luck be that he had asked for her to come to him, to be claimed by him, on her wedding anniversary?

The flight home was filled by regret - by the realisation that she couldn't make it happen. There was just no way - it would take a miracle...

***

David's face was serious. "We need to talk - I got called into my boss' office. There's a re-structuring going on."

She'd only just got home and knew it had to be serious for her husband to be shaken out of his torpor like this. Had he been fired?

He saw her expression. "No, Dee, I'm not being let go. It seems they've finally recognised my potential. They want to give me a promotion - more responsibility and some more money too."

She kept looking into his face. He'd wanted this for years - he should be jubilant. There should be champagne corks popping, at least metaphorically. Instead he looked worried.

"It's just, um, that it means re-locating. The job will be back home - in Ireton - and they need me to start almost immediately or it's a no-go."

Ireton. Up in the North of her old home state. Ireton. Thirty minutes drive from the Capital (or an hour if traffic was as terrible as usual). Ireton. An easy short drive from Shaka and all that Shaka offered her.

"They've arranged accommodation for me temporarily and once your school year is over you can all come out and join me. In the meantime you can come out for weekends while we set up a new permanent place. I know it's hard on you but you'd soon get another post in a good school back home and the kids might miss here for a while but they'd soon make new friends and they'd be so much closer to our families."

He was gabbling away and everything he said was true but she hated how he was saying it. Almost pleading with her to let him have what she knew was his greatest desire in life. Why didn't he just put the case to her and make the decision? It was clearly the right one. Why did he push the decision onto her - make it her responsibility?

She'd felt that Shaka was in the past as she flew home. Now she knew that the temptation of all he offered had not only returned but had just magnified a thousand-fold. Drive to him from here? No chance. From Ireton it would be so easy. That just left the matter of the date. Well, she'd leave it to fate and her husband to decide. If he could try to duck important decisions and load it all onto her then she could do the same - just that he wouldn't know it.

***

The chipmunk looked a little dishevelled. It nibbled on a nut and then lay back in some bracken and appeared to belch. The children giggled - they hadn't known chipmunks did that any more than Dee did.

Nearby was a slightly smaller chipmunk scurrying about and cleaning their nest. "The female tends to the living quarters and makes any necessary repairs." The voice-over was in that neutral accent that really could be from almost anywhere in the country. Clearly put onto this BBC nature programme to sell it to the States.