Shame on It All Read online

  “Colette, I love you, but don’t ever dis my sister like that again.” Bryce could make disparaging comments about Harmony, but she wouldn’t tolerate it from others. Not even from her best friend.

  “Sorry, damn!” Colette hissed into the phone, sensing one of Bryce’s litanies coming on.

  “Harmony has to carry a lot of weight on her shoulders. I’m basically independent now, but there was a time when I first left home that I wouldn’t have survived if it weren’t for her. Similar to the situation with Lucky now.”

  “I understand.”

  “As hard as she can be on us at times,” Bryce continued, “Harmony only does it because one of her greatest desires is to see Lucky and me succeed.”

  “Kewl.”

  Bryce could sense Colette’s boredom with her praise of Harmony and contemplated withdrawing her offer to ask Harmony anything. As usual, her gigantic heart got the best of her though.

  “Listen, I’ll call Harmony in the morning and talk to her about a job for you. I can’t promise you anything, but I think she’ll do it for me.”

  “Thanks! I really appreciate that, Bryce.”

  “No problem. Just make sure you don’t screw up if she does help you. I’ll never hear the end of it if you do. Harmony has a habit of bringing up negative things that happened more than a decade ago.”

  “I won’t mess it up. I swear,” Colette said reassuringly.

  Bryce turned on her fifty-inch high-definition television to get ready for her favorite program. “Colette, let me holla at you later. I’m about to curl up with my Essence and check out BET Tonight.”

  “Gurl, is that about to come on?” Bryce could hear Colette moving around, probably reaching for the remote. “Tavis is one fine-ass brother.”

  “Yes, he is fine, but he’s much more than that. He’s educated, compassionate, and driven. Lawd knows, I just love a compassionate man.”

  “Sho you right!”

  “If his ass is half as passionate in the bedroom as he is when it comes to fighting important issues in the media, I’ll drink his bathwater.”

  “You go, gurl! Better you than me because I’m not drinking nobody’s skank-ass bathwater.”

  Bryce giggled. “Sis, let me run and throw some steaks in the oven. I already have the vegetables and dessert done, but held off on the steaks so they wouldn’t get tough. I have them soaking in some bomb-ass marinade. I got the recipe off Epicurious.com.”

  “Dang, you throwing down like that? I might need to stop through there and get my grub on.”

  “No way, not tonight. George has to come falling up in here sometime, and when he does, I’m going to rock his world.”

  “You better sniff his drawers when he does and make sure they don’t smell like crusty-ass pussy juice.”

  “Eww, Colette, you so nasty.”

  They both laughed.

  “Talk to you later, Colette. I’ll be sure to let you know what’s up with Harmony.”

  “Thanks, gurl. Much love.”

  • • •

  George didn’t show up until damn near four in the morning. Bryce passed the point of being irritated at midnight. By two, she was a maniac, having done three miles on the treadmill in the basement.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Bryce asked, launching her attack the second his key hit the lock. She yanked the door open and leered at him before he could even turn the knob.

  George threw on his most innocent expression and pushed past her so he could set his garment bag in the foyer of their town house. He could feel the heat coming off Bryce so he decided to buy himself a couple of minutes by talking trash about her hair.

  “Damn, Baby, what happened to your hair?”

  George was right. Bryce ran to the wall mirror and worked her fingers diligently through her weave. After she was satisfied that not a single hair was out of place, she glared at George’s reflection. “Is that all you can say after falling up in here at this time of night?”

  George sucked in some air. He’d expected drama upon arrival, but Bryce appeared to be in rare form. “Bryce, I’m really exhausted. My plane just landed at BWI about an hour ago.”

  “Bullshit!” Bryce’s bottom lip was shaking something fierce.

  “Your plane was due to land at six, and when I offered to pick your ass up, you said you’d just take a cab.”

  George wrapped his arms around Bryce and kissed her on the cheek. “I was just being thoughtful. I didn’t want my baby caught up in all that rush-hour traffic.”

  Bryce pushed him away from her. “Whatever!”

  Bryce stomped into the living room with George right on her tail.

  “No, really, Bryce. I was just thinking about you. It’s a good thing I told you not to come because I had a long layover in Chicago and we had to taxi on the runway for quite some time before we could even take off.”

  Bryce leered at him. “You really think I’m going to buy this bullshit, don’t you?”

  Bryce started pacing the floor in the teddy George had given her after his last trip. She was feeling musty after the treadmill so she’d taken a long, hot bath and worked some magic to get all sexy for him. Meanwhile, he had the audacity to pull a no-show.

  “I swore to myself that I wouldn’t take any more crap off of you, George, so it’s over!”

  “No, Bryce. Absolutely not. This is not over and it’s never going to be over. We love each other and we will work this out.”

  Bryce felt her heart flutter and realized he was right. She did adore his skank ass. Maybe George’s plane was the only one in American history to land eight hours late despite there not being a rain cloud in sight.

  George, convinced that he’d managed to calm her down, started grinning before grabbing his bag and heading up the steps.

  “Look, Beautiful, I’m going to grab a hot shower. My entire body feels tense.”

  “Want me to join you?” Bryce eagerly volunteered. Instead of a throbbing headache, now she had a throbbing pussy. “I could give you one of my infamous massages.”

  “Um, that’s sounds fabulous, Baby, but that’s okay. I’m kind of smelly and I want to be nice and fresh for you before I get into our nice, comfy bed and knock the bottom out that pussy.”

  Bryce grinned and bit her bottom lip.

  “You can wake me up in the morning with a massage and that other thing you do so well,” George said seductively, referring to Bryce’s predilection for waking him up with a blow job.

  After George disappeared up the steps, Bryce started fondling her nipples, which were rock hard in anticipation of the hellified sex about to get set off.

  George hollered back downstairs, “Something smells damn good! What did you cook for dinner?”

  “Your favorite, steak.”

  “Um, I can’t wait to sink my teeth into it, but first I’m going to sink my teeth into you.”

  Bryce blushed and then ran upstairs to set the right mood in the bedroom. The food could wait. Since it was so late, it would make a better brunch anyway after five or six rounds of sex.

  It hit her somewhere between lighting the vanilla-scented pillar candles and spraying Indian Money into the air. Bryce looked down to retrieve George’s clothes, which he always left strewn all over the bedroom floor. She searched and searched and there wasn’t so much as a sock to be found, so she pondered.

  He never puts his clothes in the hamper when he comes home in the early evening, but he takes the time to do it at four o’clock in the morning? “Hmmm,” she said to herself aloud.

  The door to the master bathroom was open so she looked on the tile floor to see if he had possibly altered his routine and undressed in there instead. Nope, nada!

  That only left one place, the hamper. Why on earth would he put his clothes in the hamper?

  Bryce heard in her mind Colette’s sarcastic ass repeating what she’d said earlier on the phone:

  You better sniff his drawers when he does and make sure they don’t smell like crusty-ass
pussy juice.

  As ridiculous as it had sounded at the time, the clothes in the hamper threw her for a loop, so Bryce said, “Fuck it!” Then she headed to the walk-in closest to find the drawers.

  They were easy to spot because the clothes George had worn home were the only things in his hamper. Bryce had washed his laundry the day before. She picked up the pair of red Calvin Klein briefs and held them in her hand. She started laughing at the absurdity of herself standing there to do a drawers inspection. The only thing she expected to find was a possible brown line or two down the back. She knew how nasty men could be when it came to wiping the ass.

  Bryce decided either she trusted her man or she didn’t and threw them back in the hamper. She had the door to the closet halfway shut when George started singing in the shower. In all of the years she had known him and during the eighteen months they’d been shacking up, she’d never heard his ass sing. Rather less sing in the shower, but there he was, belting out “Always and Forever.”

  That shit did it! Bryce flung the closet door back open, snatched up the drawers, and carried them out into the hallway so she could get more light. She almost vomited when she saw them. Not only were the expected dookie trails there, but also some crusty white stuff in the front.

  She put them up to her nose, took a good sniff of the musty odor, and then ran downstairs to the kitchen, taking the steps two at a time.

  “Where are you, Beautiful?” George descended the steps with nothing on underneath the silk robe Bryce had given him for Christmas. “I thought you’d be waiting anxiously naked in the bed for me.”

  He noticed something brown on the floor leading into the living room. When he picked up a piece of it, he was astonished to discover what it was. Bryce had ripped the tracks out of her hair weave.

  He wasn’t sure whether to run back upstairs, get in the bed, and fake sleep, or to go into the living room and ask her why she’d done it. Before he could decide, Bryce turned the corner with one hand on her head and the other one behind her back.

  “What’s wrong, Baby?” George took two steps back. “Why’d you rip out your hair weave?”

  Bryce didn’t say a word. Just took a few more steps toward him, forcing him to back up until he was pressed up against the front door.

  “Honie,” Bryce said lovingly.

  “Yes-s-s-s, Baby?” George stuttered.

  “You know I love you, right?”

  “Yes-s-s-s, Baby.” George tried to keep some composure, but it was hard to do with all the patches of matted hair on Bryce’s head.

  “You know I would do anything for you, right?”

  “Yes-s-s-s, Baby, and you know I would do anything for you, too. Any-y-y-ything at all!”

  George spotted something shiny out of the corner of his eye and dodged the blade of the ten-inch butcher knife just seconds before Bryce rammed it into the front door.

  They were off and running. Bryce chased his ass up the steps. “Then why the hell did you come home with some other bitch’s pussy juice all over your damn drawers?”

  George got the bedroom door shut and locked just in time. Bryce started banging on it. “Open this fucking door!”

  “Listen to me, Bryce! I can explain!”

  “You can explain away a lot of things, but you sure as shit can’t explain away pussy in your drawers.”

  George fell silent. After a few seconds, Bryce put her ear up to the bedroom door. She could hear him on the phone whispering to one of his homeboys.

  “Charlie, you’ve got to come over here and help me out, man!”

  Bryce started laughing at his pathetic ass and realized he wasn’t even worth it. She could get herself another man. Fuck him!

  “George, tell Charlie he doesn’t need to come rescue your skank ass because I’m leaving. Whoever the bitch is, she can have you because you’ve outworn your usefulness to me.”

  “Bryce,” she heard George call from somewhere in his hideout. “I know you’re upset right now, Baby, but we will work this all out. I’ll leave for the night if you want me to. You have to promise not to stab me if I come out, though.”

  She laughed harder. His ass is really scared.

  “I’m sure you would leave. Probably run back to that whore whose pussy you just crawled up out of.”

  “It’s not like that, Boo!”

  “I got your Boo.” Bryce took the knife and rammed it into the bedroom door. It wasn’t as sturdy as the front door and it went clear through. Bryce peeked in and could see his ass curled up on the bed like a bitch.

  “I’m leaving, George. I’ll be back tomorrow after work. Don’t be here when I roll through, and have all your shit gone, or I’ll use this knife and do a Lorena Bobbit on your ass.”

  Bryce could see George cover his dick with his hands, flinching from the mere thought of it. She started walking down the steps, feeling liberated and victorious at the same time. “While you’re making phone calls, you might as well go ahead and call Tyrone, too.”

  She smirked and started singing her favorite cut by Badu as she got a blazer out of the entry closet to cover up the teddy and retrieved her purse. She had the door open when she had an afterthought. She yelled back up the steps, “By the way, you’re not the only one who knows how to get their freak on. I fucked this big-dick brotha on the pool table over at Lamar’s on Memorial Day!”

  A few seconds later she heard the bedroom door swing open. She knew she had gotten to him. Most men can’t handle the truth. They can dish it out, but can’t take it. She decided to throw a couple of lies up in the mix for effect.

  “Not only did I fuck him on the pool table, I fucked him in our Jacuzzi the next day and I even fucked him in the backseat of your Lexus!”

  That shit did it! Bryce heard George’s footsteps coming down the upstairs hall. Knife or no knife for protection, he was about to beat her ass. She ran out the house, slammed the door behind her to give her a few extra seconds to make it to her car, jumped in her Toyota Camry, and started the ignition.

  By the time she got the headlights on, George was standing there looking at her with his piercing gray eyes. “You bitch!”

  He started banging on the hood of her car, making his way over to her side, then tried to yank open the door. She put the car in reverse. He made one last-ditch effort, took his fist, and punched out the driver’s-side window.

  Bryce backed out the driveway, then yelled out the window she had no need to roll down since the glass was all over her lap and legs, “Just make sure your ass is gone by the time I come home tomorrow!”

  She made a slicing motion with her left hand, reminding him of her Lorena Bobbitt threat, then rolled out.

  7

  What’s a Catfight or Two between Siblings?

  “Bryce, I sincerely hope you’re not planning on moving up in here.” Harmony was up and bitching over a cup of coffee by 8 A.M.

  “Harmony, I’ve only been here three hours,” Bryce snapped back. “How in the hell do you figure I’m moving in?”

  “I’m just saying.” Harmony rolled her eyes and picked up her Afro-American newspaper. “You come busting up in here, using your extra key in the middle of the damn night. What if I had a man up in here getting busy?”

  “When cars fly! The only man who might have possibly been over here is Zachary, and he’s used to me.” Bryce giggled. “Remember the time I watched you two fucking on the hood of Daddy’s car? One thing’s for sure. Zachary is not a little-dick man like Javon. I know that for a fact.”

  Harmony debated about slapping the shit out of Bryce, but decided to have mercy on her. She looked ugly enough with the matted weave. A black eye would have only added insult to injury. “Well, you won’t be running into him here because we’re over,” Harmony remarked snidely.

  “Whatever! You’re just mad at him right now for some reason you probably don’t even comprehend your damn self. That’s usually the case. He’ll come groveling back and the next thing you know, your little kitty will start pu
rring for him all over again. That man has had your kitty dick-whipped so long, we might as well nickname him Fancy Feast.”

  “Hmph, you can think that if you want to!”

  Bryce got up from the table, on a mission to raid the fridge. “Damn, Harmony. How come you never keep any food in this big-ass house?”

  “Not that I have to answer to you, but I work most of the time and have business dinners at restaurants three to four nights a week.”

  Bryce stood behind her, leaning on the counter and mouthed the words, mocking her. Harmony glanced at her and then pointed at the pantry. “There are some frosted cinnamon Pop-Tarts in there.”

  “My girl! I knew you would come through.”

  Harmony sneered, “Don’t I always?”

  “Speaking of which,” Bryce said as she sat back down at the table with the box of Pop-Tarts, “I was talking to Colette on the phone last night and—”

  Harmony cut her off. “Was this before or after you ripped the tracks out of your head over that no-good, hedonistic maggot you’ve been wasting your time on for the past few years?”

  Bryce slammed her fist down on the table. “I knew I shouldn’t have come here! You’re always riding my ass!”

  “Then why did you come here?” Harmony put the paper down and stared at Bryce, waiting for an answer.

  “Colette lives with her mother and I couldn’t go over there at five in the morning. Lucky only has a twin bed at the dorm and she sleeps too damn wild.” Bryce got up again to get some juice. “Besides, I need something to wear today. You’re the only one with the bomb-ass business suits.”

  “Colette probably wasn’t home at five, anyway. She was probably hooking on the corner. As for Lucky, you would have traumatized the poor child if you went over there in the middle of the night looking like Buckwheat with a fade.”

  “Shut the hell up, Harmony! Colette’s not a hooker. Don’t even go there.”

  “Seriously? I could have sworn I saw her ass on that HBO special Pimps Up, Hoes Down.”

  “Harmony, I won’t let Colette say anything negative about you. In fact, I jumped on her ass just last night about that.”