One
“Check ball, fool,” I said to my homeboy Dominic Harper right before I slammed on him.
“Dude, you lucky I twisted my ankle earlier or I would’ve swatted that weak ass dunk,” he shot back, as he glared at me.
“You know damn well you didn’t twist ya ankle. Besides, you couldn’t stop me if you were on a ladder,” I laughed, as I tried to catch my breath.
“Whatever. I’m through givin’ you basketball lessons for the day,” Dee said as he bent his lean, brown, six-foot frame over and gripped the bottom of his shorts. I called him Dee for short. He hated being called Dominic. Sweat dripped from the ends of his neck-length cornrows as he gasped for breath.
I surveyed the fans around the basketball court to see if any honeys worth gettin’ at were in attendance. Mosswood Park, Oakland’s version of Rucker Park in New York, was a tree-lined park located a couple miles north of downtown. Three full-length basketball courts, swings, monkey bars, a sandbox, stood off to the side of a large grassy area where outdoor concerts and other events were held.
Streetball had become so popular that people would circle the courts and watch us play. Players from all over the area—including Dee and me—came to show our skills on the weekends. There were many Streetball groupies there, eager to get with the best players on the court.
“You see any hotties?” Dee asked. He could tell by the way my hazel eyes swept the crowd that I was on the prowl.
“Nah, just a bunch of the regulars,” I answered.
Dee walked over, tapped me on the shoulder and pointed. “Ain’t that ya girl, Yo-Yo, over there by the hotdog cart?”
“Oh shit!” I picked up my t-shirt and pulled it over my head. “If she sees me, she’s gonna fuck up all my action. Let’s bounce before she brings her ass over here.”
Nearly all the fellas were shirtless on that hot August Sunday. Appreciative glances trailed my tall, athletically built frame. Nearing thirty-years-old, bald headed, sporting a neatly trimmed goatee, most women considered me a black Adonis. In my mind, they were exactly right.
As we strolled past the sandbox, toward the parking lot, the hairs stood up on the back of my neck. Just when I thought I’d shaken Yo-Yo, I found out I was wrong.
“Rio… Rio! Wait a minute,” she yelled, her raspy voice echoed across the basketball court.
Dee laughed. “Well, you almost made it to your car.”
“What up, Yo-Yo?” I turned, dropped my gym bag and basketball and held my arms out to her for a hug. I played it off as if I was glad to see her.
“You.” She placed a blatant, territorial kiss on my lips. “Where you been, Sexy?”
I placed a foot on my basketball and thought quickly of a good excuse for dodging her.
“I’ve been workin’ crazy overtime at the phone company. Everybody and their Momma is tryin’ to get the new digital DSL package installed.”
“So, do I have to order that package to get you to bring me your package?” she asked, horniness in her eyes.
Yo-Yo’s real name was Yolinda Fortenberry. She was a twenty-six-year-old, black, sexy bombshell of a woman. She reminded me of the singer Brandy—but she wasn’t in the upper echelon of my stable. Yo-Yo worked as a cashier for a Safeway store on MacArthur Boulevard in East Oakland. She had almost freakishly large breast on her petite frame. Her ass was shaped like the basketball under my foot.
“I can’t help you there, chick. I work in the office, not in the field. I’m the one that throws the switch and turns on your DSL service.”
“You need to throw my switch and turn me on,” she said with nasty intent while shielding her eyes from the late afternoon sunlight.
Dee shook his head and chuckled as he watched us. “Damn, homeboy, it sounds like you got work to do. I’m gone. I’ll holla at you later. Bye, Yo-Yo.”
“Bye, Dee. See you later,” Yo-Yo replied as she held me. Dee then left me standing alone with one of the biggest freaks in Oakland.
She and I had been screwing each other for over a year. We met in a club in downtown Oakland called The Spot. Our classic one-night-stand grew into a yearlong “fuck-o-rama.”
Her boyfriend was in Folsom Prison doing the last few months of an eighteen-month stint for a parole violation. We agreed to have a purely sexual relationship: no kissing, no feelings, no personal information shared; just straight, hot, monkey sex.
“I wish I had time to service you, but I have a dinner date tonight,” I said as I broke out of her arms.
“With who?”
“Somebody.”
“Do I know her?”
“Who said it’s a female?”
“Nigga, I know you.” She adjusted her black and white striped half shirt. I loved her tits.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I gotta go. I’ll call you tonight.”
“What time?”
“I dunno. Just be there.”
“You are so full of shit, Rio.”
“Yeah, but if you didn’t like it, you wouldn’t be standin’ there smilin’.” I picked up my red and black Nike gym bag, basketball, and left.
I was a human dildo in her eyes. A dildo she didn’t get that night. I had a rendezvous with my Puerto Rican girl, Angelina, in Pinole. She definitely outranked Yo-Yo. I went home to get dressed for my meeting with the freakin’ Puerto Rican.
“What took you so long, Papi?” Angelina asked as we stood in the doorway of the two-bedroom townhouse she shared with her pregnant cousin, Carlita.
Angelina’s thick, pink lips met mine for a kiss. “You know how traffic is on I-80 this time of day, baby.”
“Hey, Rio!” Carlita said from the kitchen.
“Wassup, girl? When you gonna have that baby?”
“Any day now. I’m a week overdue.”
“No shit! You need to be sittin’ down somewhere.” I handed Angelina my coat and took a seat on the tan and brown-striped couch. Their place was furnished from the high-priced, low-quality ghetto furniture store called “Frankie’s Furniture.” According to Frankie’s cheesy commercials, “all credit is good credit.”
The fake “brass and glass” décor was commonplace in the homes of welfare recipients throughout the ghetto. Even though Pinole wasn’t exactly “the ghetto,” some of the people—like Carlita—were ghetto as hell. Carlita asked Angelina to move in with her four months ago after her baby’s Daddy, Renaldo, left her claiming the baby wasn’t his. He took all the furniture except for a mattress and box spring. Since Angelina’s bank teller job didn’t pay enough for her to afford a nice place like Carlita’s, she gladly accepted her offer.
“What are we havin’ for dinner?” I asked as unfamiliar but appetizing smells filled my nostrils.
“We’re having un pollo completo, arroz con gandules, ensalada y tostones,” Angelina replied as she massaged my shoulders.
“Now, baby, you know I don’t speak a word of Spanish. Can you break that down for me?”
“You don’t need to know what it is. Just try it.”
“You know I don’t eat just anything.”
“That’s not what she told me,” Carlita said as she walked past us on her way upstairs. “She told me you eat one thing really well.”
“You should’ve had Renaldo eat your meal instead of him spilling in it,” Angelina replied as she took a playful swipe at her cousin with my jacket.
“That’s a three hundred dollar leather coat your swingin’, woman,” I said.
“I know that, smart ass. I’m the one who got it for you, remember?”
“Oh yeah, I guess you did, huh?” I pulled her down into my lap. Angelina was a lovely Puerto Rican hottie. She made J-Lo look like Biz Markie.
“When you gonna stop playin’ and marry me, Rio?” She lifted her eyebrows in anticipation of my answer.
“You know damn well Marty ain’t ever gonna sign your divorce papers.”
“He might.”
I stroked her short, bobbed haircut. “No way in hell, especially not after he found out you’re datin’ a brotha.”
“I don’t know why he’s trippin’. He can have that fat white bitch I busted him with last year.”
“I guarantee you, every time he looks at a picture of you and then looks at her, he knows he messed up.” I played with the small gold crucifix that hung around her neck.
“Oh well, the hell with him anyway. Are you ready to eat?”
“Yeah, I’m starvin’. Now tell me in English what we’re havin’.”
“Okay, it’s Puerto Rican style rice and chicken casserole, peas, and fried plantains.”
“That’ll work. Go hook me up a plate.” I lifted her short and shapely body out of my lap.
After dinner, Angelina and I sat on the couch and watched her favorite show, “Dancing with the Stars.”
“Would you go on this show and dance with me, baby?”
“Hell naw!” I turned towards her and unbuttoned her Tampa Bay Devil Rays baseball jersey. Her small, pretty tits beckoned me.
“What you think you doin’?”
I unhooked the front of her baby blue bra. “First, I’m gonna suck your nipples till you get wet, then I’m gonna put this hardness in you.”
“Oh, you gonna do all that even though Carlita’s right upstairs?”
“You scared?” I pulled off my white Polo shirt.
“No… but… Mmmmm…,”she moaned.
I rubbed and kissed her nipples. Her breasts were her hot spot. All I had to do was touch them and she’d get heated. I continued sucking them as I simultaneously unsnapped and unzipped her denim shorts.
“Baby… not here… Mmmmm… stop… Rio…,” she whispered as she lifted her hips to aid me in removing her shorts. Her actions betrayed her words.
I listened and heard Carlita in the midst of a loud phone conversation behind her closed bedroom door. The danger of her catching us excited me. I reached into the pocket of my cargo shorts and retrieved the condom I’d brought with me. Angelina went into a frenzy of passion and clawed at my zipper. Two minutes later, I slid her baby blue thong to the side and my latex covered penis collided with her Puerto Rican muff.
I pounded her so hard, I had to repeatedly put my hand over her mouth to keep her quiet. The couch squeaked in rhythm with my strokes. One of her legs was on the floor, the other draped over the back of the couch.
“Ouch! Stop that shit! I told you about tryin’ to give me monkey bites,” I hissed as she released her mouth from my neck.
“You scared… one of your… other bitches… gonna… see it?” she uttered between my thrust.
“Be quiet and gimme my pussy.” I gave her a hard “punishment fuckin’” after that. I tried to ram my dick into her uterus.
We screwed for almost half an hour before my goo-filled the rubber reservoir. Soon after, we both heard Carlita tell whoever she was talking to she was gonna go eat and that she would call them back in a few.
“Dammit, Rio! Carlita’s on her way down here!” Angelina reached for her shorts that hung from the coffee table.
I pulled up my shorts, grabbed my shirt, and ran to the bathroom downstairs. Once inside, I disposed of the jizz-filled condom in the wastebasket and washed up.
Meanwhile, Angelina had opened her living room windows and lit a stick of rose-scented incense. She then joined me in the bathroom.
“You could have at least taken me to your room if you wanted some dick that bad,” I said as I put on my shirt.
“That ain’t funny. We almost got caught.” Angelina lowered her shorts and sat down on the toilet.
“Damn, I’ve barely known you five months and you’re already comfortable enough to pee in front of me?”
“Negro, please. I’ve watched you nut all over me. You can stand to watch me pee.” She wiped, flushed, and washed her hands.
“You’re off the damn chain, girl.” We left the bathroom and found Carlita busy fixing a plate of food in the kitchen.
“What you guys doin’ in the bathroom together? Y’all been in there gettin’ freaky?” Carlita waddled out of the kitchen with her overloaded plate of food. The incense did a good job of masking the residual aroma of sex.
“You know Angelina ain’t gonna gimme none unless I marry her.” I lifted my coat off the loveseat.
“Save that drama for ya Momma. I heard y’all breakin’ her bed down last week.” Carlita smiled as she shoveled food into her mouth.
“What she talkin’ about, Angelina? Who were you with?”
“She must’ve been high. She knows I’m celibate.”
Carlita pointed her fork at us and said, “Both of you are full of shit. Keep it up and you gonna have a belly full of baby like this, Angelina.” She patted her swollen tummy.
“At least we’d have some fine kids,” Angelina replied as she looked lovingly into my eyes. Those words were my cue to leave. Lately, she’d been hinting she wanted kids soon.
“Well, I hate to cut this short, baby, but I gotta go. I have to stop by my mother’s house before I go home.”
Her smile morphed into a frown as we walked to the door. “You always cut me short.”
I hugged her tight. “You know I have a busy schedule, boo.”
Angelina really was a sweetheart and would be a good wife for the right man. Even though I’d found myself tiring of the player life—and pondered giving it up—she had too much baggage, like her psycho-estranged husband and lack of ambition, for me to consider settling down with her. I loved the way she pampered me, but she had no chance of becoming “Mrs. Rio Clark.”
The fatigue, time, expense, and lies associated with juggling several women at one time began taking its toll on me. I’d proven to myself I could handle multiple lovers, but I secretly desired to have a serious relationship. First, I’d have to find the right woman, but that seemed harder than finding ice on the sun.
Angelina blocked my exit. “When am I gonna see you again?”
“Soon, I promise.”
“That’s what you always say.”
“Have a little faith, Mrs. Espinoza.” I kissed her between her mocha brown eyes.
“I told you my last name is Morales. I dropped Marty’s last name when I dropped him.”
“The laws don’t give a damn about what you say. All that counts is what’s on your marriage certificate.”
“Rio, I’m not playin’. I’m not gonna wait for you much longer. Remember what I told you when we first met that morning at the car wash?”
“Yeah, I asked if you were lookin’ for a new friend, and you said, ‘No, I’m lookin’ for a new man.’”
Angelina folded her arms across her chest. “I meant that. I don’t wanna be just another piece of pussy to you.”
“We haven’t even been together a year. How serious you think we ought to be?”
She sucked her teeth as dejection replaced her passion. “Just forget it.”
I bent my knees so I could look her straight in the eyes. “Hey, you know you my girl, right?”
“I guess.” She gave me a mini smile.
“You love me?”
“You know I do, even thou—” I interrupted her answer with a soft, warm kiss. “Get outta here before I forget I’m mad at you,” she said as she opened the door.
“I’ll take you to dinner next weekend, a’ight?”
“Okay, you better call me, too.”
“I will. I’ll holla at you later.” I turned and left. Angelina was becoming a little too clingy. I was gonna have to cut her loose soon.