THUNDA - Under New Management Ch. 09

"Just doing my job, Thunda."

"DOING YOUR JOB; WHAT'S THAT?"

"Uh getting you whatever you want ma'am." This intern was continually jostling with her associates trying to bolt out of the studio but they kept shoving her backwards in full view of Rashida who turned to Sly and Ken.

"CAN I KEEP HER?!!" The show exploded in uproarious laughter as my lunchbreak came to an end. There was more to watch, but people were lining up outside my dispatch window.

Rashida Sikes rise to the top was signified with the near constant activity on her "Thunda" social media page.

I had access having created it for her when we began the new phase of her career together after her fallout from her old life. Her scenes and subsequent cam page were seeing a constant flurry of activity making us both quite a bit of coin. I knew I'd have to get online searching for pirated content in the usual places later.

The rebuild of her brand was complete.

I still hesitated calling or texting her due to the adjoining situation developing with Sydney and Takisha. It felt like I couldn't look at her face right away, but I knew I had to make some overtures towards her or else she would likely react negatively and read me the riot act.

Her early days on cam came to mind when she was outed by Yoli to her then boyfriend who chided her into what became her actual inaugural boy girl scene. Unfortunately she ended up being exploited even further until I shined a light on things in my own quest for retribution.

A twinge of loneliness ran through my body as I took my last break before getting off sitting in one of the deep windows people watching. My day had been pretty much uneventful with Lucy out of the department for most of it.

"Hey." She popped up with a tin of deep dish pizza, leftovers from her lunch with our boss Dr. Miles and associates.

"What's up Lucy; did you have a good time at lunch today?"

"Yeah, I got leftovers, a meat special and one slice of vegetarian; wanna have some in the student center with me?"

"I already ate thank you; don't worry, it was a slow day."

"You can have the meat special; I mean I'll trade it to you for a soda." She bartered sort of pouting at the thought of losing the food item she actually wanted. She felt like a kid to me standing there with her jacket zipped all the way up hiding her immense bosom on the low.

"I'll take a raincheck, but I'll still spring for the soda." I fished some change out of my pocket handing it to her, but Lucy continued pouting.

"Are you, mad about being the only one left out of lunch today?"

"What?"

"Well yeah, everybody was there along with the old department head Steven and his wife Dr. Berhan too. We kinda made a day out of it around downtown afterwards, but it felt kind of off for me without you there. Thanks for volunteering to cover the office for everyone sir."

"Yeah sure, hey no offense but I'm on my last break right now."

"Uhm, okay."

I watched her stalk off sullenly feeling the fire welling up in my chest at my boss's duplicity. That guy would always be a douchebag no matter what and I decided I was out of the business of giving favors for the foreseeable future.

My coworker who called off was actually going to that lunch and didn't feel the need to let me in on things. Part of working in the department necessitated the sharing of phone numbers. I fired off a text full of smiley face emojis asking if he enjoyed lunch with everybody else.

"Son of a bitch." There was no response from the guy, but two minutes later Dr. Miles appeared outside of the window I was sitting in motioning for me to come outside on the sidewalk.

"YEAH?!" There was no way he would know I was imagining hitting his crusty uptight ass with the mother of all sucker punches.

"Yeah; is that how you're supposed to talk to your employer?" His authoritative baritone voice had no effect on me whatsoever. I couldn't help wearing my heart on my sleeve at times knowing my chest was visibly heaving.

"Just two adults talking to one another, sir." I replied tersely.

He looked as if wanted to oblige me in a street fight looking put out by my attitude. I wondered if I was about to be fired caring little for the bullshit department he was running at this point.

"You are aware Steven and Zoya aren't allowed within a certain distance of you, right? I'm told that's what administrative, along with the dean's office came up with to solve a certain problem, right son?"

"Yes, you're correct."

"As your boss and the inheritor of the AV department, I'm tasked with looking out for your welfare whether you like it or not. You're upset about being allegedly excluded, firing off half assed texts to your coworker because you felt like you weren't allowed to play some goddamn reindeer games! Hell you got your old boss up out his office and now you've got the nerve to want him to buy you lunch too!"

"Oh."

"Yeah, see you don't know this but Steven liked to treat his employees to lunch before the semester fully started, but he got "removed" from his job."

"I-didn't know."

"Now you do boy, I'll tell you what; you can go for the day with full pay, I'll let Lucy finish up there and next time we'll be sure to bring you a doggie bag."

He nearly shoulder bumped me intending to walk away after delivering his "witty zinger" but I had other ideas.

"HEY DR. MILES?!!" My boss turned about still looking as if he wanted a donnybrook in front of the college.

"What is it boy?"

"Would you have bent over if you were me?" I asked looking him dead in the eyes.

I was left there on the sidewalk by myself. I glanced up towards the window I'd been sitting in finding Lucy there. She'd watched the entire exchange between us quickly disappearing from view. It honestly, felt climactic.

"Damn, you get fired or something?" I turned about finding Rashida standing there a few feet away.

She was standing there not five feet away dressed in a blistering white turtleneck tank top cropped a little to show a bit of her defined abdomen and a ridiculous pair of cream colored nylon leggings and matching heels.

Every detail of her big shapely stallion legs and well defined sixty plus inches of online fame were on display. It didn't seem like Rashida was wearing underwear, but I knew she preferred string bikini bottoms much like the ones I'd encountered on Zoya during our last hookup.

"RA SHEET TA?!!" Her signature braids were tight to her head topped with a circular wrapped bun of those same braids looking much like a crown atop her narrow head. I felt like an idiot standing there in front of her after half hiccupping her name.

"Damn you act like you ain't never seen me before or something?" She was grinning from ear to ear as I glanced just over her shoulder noticing a growing sea of camera phones.

"Uh, what're you doing here?" More people were starting to approach making me antsy.

"You were ducking me. I know you got my messages and I figured you were probably here hiding under a table kvetching like a wet dishrag, so I drove down here to pick you up and tell you the good news."

A couple was lingering at the periphery getting closer as we talked. I folded my arms giving them a disparaging look that made them back off a step or two before addressing Rashida.

"WHERE YOU PARKED?!" I bodied into her blocking some of the pedestrian's view of her tucking my chin.

"WHAT'S UP WITH YOU?!!" Rashida's brow furrowed.

"Where are you parked; I got drama here and you know the rest with that fucking Takisha and Sydney shit."

"I-told-you." Rashida waved a finger in front of my face at point plank range.

"Come on girl don't fuck my shit up, people are gonna be looking for me because of that. They know you're with me and I really don't need that noise. Go back to your car hit me up and I'll sneak down there to meet you girl."

"Didn't I tell you to stop blowing up all these women?"

"Really, I told you so, now Rashida?!"

"So you fucked your shit up, and I gotta hide out like you ashamed of me or something?"

"No, trust me." Some big, jacked up brother was fast approaching with a "This is a once in a lifetime" look on his evil face. Rashida noticed too with an approving half smile on her face about to wave, but I batted her hand down.

"Don't you even wanna hear what I have to say daddy?"

"JUST DO IT!" Rashida bit her bottom lip staring statically at my face, then pouted backing off while I was nearly having a panic attack. The couple that seemed to be waiting approached Rashida with the woman in front.

"Uhm sorry to bother you; but aren't you uh, Thunda from 96K-Jay this morning?"

"Uh, yeah?" Rashida looked genuinely surprised.

"That interview was hilarious, we're fans and I don't wanna dump my man here; so would you mind if we got a pic with you Ms. Thunda?" She touched her hand to her chest genuinely affected as I noticed that same guy lingering now joined by two new big jock types who'd come out of the building.

"Well, sure." I watched her huddle with the couple taking a group selfie, then glanced over finding those guys fishing out their phones as well.

"Thunda!" I half shouted getting her attention, shrugging.

"What?" She shrugged back mimicking my motion as the couple chuckled.

I motioned again making a hand gesture pointing down the street. The windows at the front of the building were filled with a few onlookers, most probably just staring because of her figure. Thinking way more than ten steps ahead, I inched away from her as those guys surrounded her getting some pics as well.

She continued talking with a growing number of people as I shoved my hands in my pockets walking to the end of the block. I couldn't afford to be identified as "The Educated Simp" so I rounded the corner finding a bus bench to sit down on, fuming.

My phone rang with her number twenty minutes later as I sat watching traffic next to a bag lady.

"Damn bruh, you just left me on the sidewalk?"

"You were kind of busy." I sounded petulant.

"So that's all you gotta say after I drove all the way down here to kick it with you?" I could hear her inside her car driving.

"Rashida, I can't let people find out who I am."

"News flash, NO BODY, GAVE A FUCK ABOUT YOU!! All they cared about was the cheeks and you left me there with a gang of thirsty niggas!! If it wasn't for that couple you didn't want me to take the picture with, I wouldn't have made it to my car! Now I know I've gotta get that concealed and carry because you're on some old weak shit now!"

Rashida was full on giving me the business, but I already felt like an asshole.

"Sorry."

"YEAH YOU SORRY ALRIGHT!!"

"Rashida."

"WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU!!" She'd gotten progressively angrier while giving me the business and I deserved every bit of that classic black woman read because I'd behaved impulsively.

"Right around the corner, sitting in front of the main building on a bus bench. Hey, I'm sorry Rashida."

She hung up in my face appearing ten minutes later in back to back traffic on the narrow downtown street. The passenger side window was half down with Erica Badu's "On & ON" blasting. I hung my head like a scolded dog walking up to the door grabbing the handle.

Rashida was sitting there with one hand on the wheel, the other occupied with a phone pressed against her ear. She wasn't even looking at me.

"Hey Rashida, the door is locked."

I tried the door handle several times getting progressively anxious.

"HEY THE DOOR IS LOCKED!!" I found myself looking at her profile as she talked loudly on the phone, her conversation getting intermingled with the smooth music and soulful vocals.

The city bus in front of her car pulled off and Rashida glanced over at my face before casually tapping the gas pulling off leaving me there in the street. I stood there watching as she drove to the end of the block and hit a right. I watched in a daze until another car's honking horn jolted me out of my daze. I went back to the bus bench.

There was no reason for me to be angry with her.

I abandoned Rashida first.

I got out my phone but hesitated staring at its face, then pocketed it. Calling her up would likely exacerbate the situation I'd caused through my incessant paranoia. Rashida would lose a ton of respect if I started blowing up her phone.

We were working together besides being FWB and she knew what I brought to the table as far as her bag. If push came to shove I'd just call up Jaquan and have him pass the phone to her. I was still thinking ahead knowing the 96K-Jay drama wasn't even far from over.

I regretted fucking Sydney, but still wanted to see her fully nude.

"Hey, is everything okay?"

"Huh?" I glanced over finding Lucy there a few feet away on the sidewalk. She was in the process of pushing a cart over to the main building topped with a projector and some cords.

I made this disingenuous smile not feeling like talking.

"Uhm, okay but, did Dr. Miles fire you?"

"Eh no, sorry to disappoint you." I was uncontrollably snarky.

"No, uh I didn't mean it like that but I saw you having words with him. I don't have a problem with you at all, but I guess he's mad because of his friends Steven and Dr. Berhan. I kinda got the feeling he was upset that he no longer has the job of running the AV department."

"Not my problem."

"Hey sir, we're okay right?"

"Uh, peachy keen Lucy." I gave her a douchey thumbs up.

She lingered there looking as if she didn't know what to do with herself. I eventually leaned forward resting my elbows on my knees glaring at her. Lucy was still zipped up tight hiding her monster sized bosom with this desperately earnest look on her face.

"Shouldn't you be getting that equipment over to the main building?"

"Uh, YEAH RIGHT!! Sorry sir." There was a generic can of soda on her cart. Lucy gingerly handed it to me acting as if she were holding a live grenade or something.

"What's this for?"

"Just uh, paying it forward; I hope we can have lunch one day like real friends. Well, when I get my first check."

"I'll still be paying when that happens."

"No fair."

"Lucy?"

"Yes?"

"Equipment; you are, going to deliver it to the main building, right?"

"YEAH RIGHT, I'M GOING!!" I watched her hurriedly run the cart into the main entrance stopping to greet a lazing security guard posted outside the building. Lucy managed to earnestly get a half smirk out of me.

It was after eight in the evening when I made it back home and no contact with Rashida whatsoever.

The specter of loneliness was all about my person as I flicked on the lights in my bedroom, then fished a can of vegetable juice out of the fridge. I got out my editing bay opening Rashida's folder to do some work on the footage we'd shot under the freeway underpass. I watched myself pounding sand out of her enormous badonkadunk for a while, then avoided editing it thinking about our dustup.

Instead I perused social media again finding a Sydney meme that made me cringe.

Someone had put together a split screen of Sydney in her morning attire when we met in the lobby juxtaposed with the workout clothes she returned to the studio in after I'd defiled her clothing with my excessive jizz. Whoever this nerd was, decided to emblazon the meme with the Marvel Studios logo and a stupid faux film title which suggested there were two actual living breathing versions of Sydney.

"Multiverse of Dat' Ass?" I shook my head going through Black Twitter reading a deluge of comments dragging her for acting thugged out with Sly and Ken before the truth was revealed. Someone suggested the show "Cheaters" should be brought back.

"I can't do this." I closed the editing bay changing my clothes for some sweats.

Fifteen minutes later I was at the park doing several laps around the track bordering the baseball field. It had been a while since I ran and it felt like I'd been working out since then with Rashida in the bedroom.

We were very comfortable together in what seemed in hindsight a bubble she openly participated in while I was hanging out at Jaquan's house. Now it felt like I'd ruined things hoping that some time to cool off would be all we needed.

"I could've been up in that." I thought about Rashida's criminally sexy attire popping wood that would've made her proud before she got the absolute shit pounded out of her sixty plus inches of online fame.

I was still sporting that wood when I arrived home some time later dialing her up for a duplicitous reconciliation.

My call went to voice mail...followed by several others as I sat in front of my editing bay looking at a muted clip of her twerking like no other.

I was ultimately making myself horny eventually passing out with a tent in my pants.

It was a few hours later when I regained consciousness finding it was two in the morning. I checked my phone finding no activity worried things were serious between us wondering if I should make that call to Jaquan.

There was still a partial tent in my pants, a testament to "Thunda's" intense sexual allure.

It was throbbing.

I made the only call I could.

"Hello?"

"Hey, what's up?"

"MOTHERFUCKER YOU'VE GOT THE NERVE TO CALL ME UP AT TWO IN THE MORNING?!!"

"Oh, sorry about that." I hung up abruptly staring up at the ceiling thinking about all the trouble I'd caused sporting a tent in my pajama bottoms.

Five minutes later, my android started ringing. I let it ring through two cycles before answering.

"Hello who is this?"

"You know who this is asshole; why're you calling me after all the shit you've done to me. I've been repeatedly humiliated and dragged online. You've cheated on me with your live-in whore and played with my body like a fucking toy. And now, here you are calling me up in the middle of the night; why?"

"Are you still sleeping with my cousin?"

"What's that got to do with anything, huh? We're not anything to each other, right?"

"Are you fucking my cousin?"

"I've got a better question for you nigga; did you fuck that bitch Sydney?"

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"I KNEW IT, YOU BASTARD!!"

"Are we dating? Are we in a relationship? Girl, were we just enjoying ourselves, or did I miss the memo?"

"SHUT UP!!"

"Answer me."

"SO YOU CALLED ME UP AT TWO IN THE MORNING TO FIGHT, HUH?!"

"No."

"What do you want?"

"Takisha."

"OH NO YOU DON'T!! HOW DARE YOU!! THE NERVE OF YOU!!"

"Where's my cousin?"

"What's he got to do with anything, huh? Why do you keep asking about him; you think he's here, don't you? Is that what's got you up at two in the morning? Worried I'm fucking him good enough to make him beat you up again? Worried I'm doing to him what I did to you in his garage; is that it?"

"No."

"Then what is it Educated Simp; you ain't getting none of this you loser!"

"Okay Takisha; I'll be sitting on the front lawn at two thirty after I get cleaned up."

"SO!"

"I'm gonna take a shower and I'll be sitting there at approximately two thirty."

"I DON'T CARE!"

"Okay, I'm hanging up now." I hung up switching off my phone leaving it in my bed.

Charity's former bedroom and the memory of our farewell hookup lingered. I'd left much of it unchanged only adding some of my belongings out of necessity while the rest remained in storage.

I was sporting some serious wood which didn't abate even while I was showering and getting dressed in a white Pacman t-shirt, and a different pair of light cotton pajama bottoms with some simple flip flops. I snatched down the keys tooling out of the Gilbert garage in Charity's basic ride arriving at Jaquan's home at two twenty-seven.

As a precaution, I stored a bag of clothes in the trunk.

I was still excited after parking a few doors down and walking to the lawn in front of my cousin's house where I plunked down on the middle of the grass waiting. Part of me hoped she wouldn't show as I sat there supporting my weight on both palms with my legs spread wide.