Invisible Leash
(Basim and Mel’s Story)
He had seen her first . . .
That night in the Chinese restaurant, while Mel was sitting there thinking her life was ending, only to find out it was just beginning.
When Bas had walked in, the chime of the bell over the door alerted her to his presence. For five glorious seconds, Mel was all his. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her radiant skin seemed to glow in his eyes.
Mel could tell by the look in his eyes that she could wrap him around her finger. For Bas she was Mrs. Right. But for Mel, he was Mr. Right Now.
Until Santiago walked in five seconds later.
The way she blew Bas’s mind, Santiago blew hers. She instantly believed in love at first sight because she just knew she was in love. Her heart bapped, her pussy creamed, and his smile made her want to suck his dick on the spot.
“Lookin’ for me?” Santiago quipped knowingly, seeing the lust in her eyes.
Mel had a slick mouth from all the years on the street, but Santiago made her feel like a little bitty girl.
“Yes,” she replied.
He sat down at her booth. “What’s your name, sweetness?”
“Melanie . . . Melanie Verley.”
“No it’s not,” he smiled mischievously.
“Huh?”
“It’s Melanie Acevedo and I’m Mr. Acevedo,” Santiago charmed and she was a wrap from there.
Bas was crushed and heated at the same time. He had seen her first, but it was clear whom she had chosen. Still, deep down he yearned for her.
He just knew he’d get his chance because Santiago got bored with women quickly and discarded them like outfits that once fit but were now just old clothes. But not Melanie. She was different.
“Let me find out, nigguh.” Bas chuckled like he was joking, but he was really signifying.
“Find out what?” Santiago replied.
They were driving along in Santiago’s second Rolls Royce.
“That you ‘bout to burn the black book for Lil’ Mama. You act like y’all attached at the hip!”
Santiago laughed liked a man in love. “Chill yo. Never that. But I can’t lie. I’m feelin’ for her though.”
Bas’s heart dropped. “Yeah yo, that’s what’s up . . . I’m happy for you,” he lied.
“Besides, I wouldn’t burn the black book,” Santiago joked. “I’d give it to you!”
Bas took the joke like a slap in the face, but he showed his teeth to hide it.
As for Mel, her street instincts told her Bas could be useful. She knew how he felt about her because she could see it in his eyes every time he looked at her. She didn’t encourage it, but like the bad bitch she was, she kept him on an invisible leash that her slightest gesture could pull.
“I like your lady friend, Bas. She’s pretty. She reminds me of someone,” she remarked in passing one night at the club.
If Bas would’ve had a tail, he would’ve wagged.
Over the years, she used Bas to keep her informed on Santiago’s side chicks and affairs. He used this to his advantage as well, because he learned to manipulate her through the fact that she hated light-skinned bitches with long hair.
“Yeah, she a’ight, but just another red bone, you know how Santiago do,” Bas remarked off handedly, even though the girl he was talking about was cinnamon brown.
Mel turned red under her chocolate skin, sucking her teeth and blowing the comment off. “Whateva! I don’t give a fuck about Santiago’s whores, ‘cause that’s all they are. Ain’t nann bitch livin’ in no mansion, diamonds on flash like this bitch,” Mel huffed.
“Yo, why you put up with it anyway?” Bas questioned.
Because I love him, her heart answered, but her pride made her reply, “Because he takes care of home.”
“Yo ma, any man would do that for you. Nigguhs will break their backs for you just to keep a smile on your face, or turn your tears into diamonds. All that beautiful chocolate, who would settle for vanilla?” Bas smirked, playing to her vanity.
Mel cracked a sly smile. “So what are you trying to say, Bas? That I should leave Santiago for . . . any nigguh?” she probed, playing with his emotions.
His eyes said ‘you know what I’m saying,’ but his fear of crossing the line with the boss’s wife made him reply, “I’m just sayin’, ma, you a jewel . . . and any nigguh that has you should treat you like one.”
Their cat and mouse game went on until a chain of events set off the plan that would ultimately destroy them all.
On a day when all seemed well, Bas spoke words that figuratively ripped Mel’s womb wide open.
“He what!” Mel spazzed, grabbing her stomach and stumbling back from the sting of the words she heard.
Bas was taken aback by the force of her reaction. She had never flipped like that before, but then again, he had never told her one of Santiago’s whores was pregnant and Santiago had gotten her a condo.
“I’m sorry to tell you that Mel, but it’s true.” Bas smiled.
Those were the words that jumped in Mel’s mind. Santiago must be planning to replace me. Mel could see how his womanizing had gotten to be blatantly disrespectful. Ever since the incident on the boat, he had gotten bolder and bolder with his bullshit. He had even started fucking their housekeeper and forbade Mel to fire the bitch!
She took it all as a sign that it was something she wasn’t doing. She blamed herself and bent over backward to anticipate and accommodate his needs. This only made Santiago push the envelope.
“What would you say to a threesome?” Santiago had asked her one day. His eyes dared her to say no, but truth be told, Mel welcomed the chance. Miss Brooks had left a permanent sweet tooth in her mouth for the taste of a woman and she thought, If he was going to cheat, was it really cheating if she was a part of it?
Watching her man giving another woman pleasure in their bed, a light-skinned bitch at that, made Mel sick to her stomach. She went through the motions, but when they finished, she told Santiago, “Don’t ever ask me to do it again.”
He just smiled and walked away.
Now Bas was telling her what amounted to the straw that broke the camel’s back.
“What’s her name?” Mel wanted to know.
“Monet,” he answered.
She almost threw up. That was the same bitch they had a threesome with! He made Mel lick that bitch’s pussy! Mel was so enraged she was dizzy. She staggered a step, but Bas caught her in his powerful arms.
“Ma, you okay?”
The overwhelming nature of the moment, the open wound of her emotions, and genuine sincerity in his tone was too much for Mel, and she broke down in his arms. “How could he do this to me? How?” Mel sobbed, truly devastated by the situation.
Even though she was heartbroken, her survival instincts were never far from the surface. Above all else, Mel was a survivor, and her cunning mind began to weave a web of deception.
She turned her face to his and kissed him softly, almost as if it were a mistake. A soft brushing like the strike of a match that ignited a passion already aflame in Bas’s soul. He devoured her kiss, embracing her tightly in his arms. She could feel him against her stomach, growing and growing and growing and . . .
His length and size scared and attracted her at the same time, and even though knowing all that dick was only inches away made her pussy purr, she knew if she gave him her sex, the greater power she had over him would be gone. Reluctantly, but with calculated hesitance, she pulled back.
“I–I–I–can’t. I–I don’t know. I’m confused,” she sobbed, but this time her tears were crocodile.
“Baby, I’m here, and I promise I ain’t goin’ nowhere. I know you know how I feel for you, Mel. I love you, ma!” he pledged.
Mel pulled out of his embrace. “I know, Bas, and truthfully, I have feelings for you, too . . . but we can never be. Santiago would never let me go. I think he gets off on keeping me a slave. And even if he did, he’d never see you with me. He’d think you had been checkin’ for me, and then he wouldn’t trust you. And you know what happens to people he doesn’t trust,” she reminded him.
Bas paced the floor in short bursts. He had, had a taste of Mel, and now there was no turning back. He had to have her. But a part of him feared Santiago.
Mel walked up to him, pinned him with her gaze, and asked, “Who is your loyalty to? Me or . . . him?”
Bas paused long enough to fully digest her question, but quick enough to signal total devotion when he took her hand and put it on his heart, so she could see how fast it was beating.
“Who do you think?” he replied.
She smiled, then kissed him briefly but passionately. “Then love will make a way,” she assured him.
But love didn’t find a way . . . she did.
Mel knew Santiago’s weakness was an innate superstition. She knew he still felt guilty about killing Carlos, so Santiago felt like, sooner or later, karma would catch up with him.
“Baby,” Mel began one night while massaging his shoulders (but she really wanted to wring his neck), “you had a good run. When are you gonna let the life go?”
“Let it go?” He snorted. “For what?”
“Think about it, daddy. You know better than anybody how far you’ve come and what you had to do to get here. But, it’s a reason for everything and a time for things to come back around,” she warned.
He snorted again, but he didn’t say anything. She knew he was listening. “Besides, Alex . . . he’s been loyal to you despite . . . everything. He’d love to be the boss, and deep down, you know he deserves it. That way you can play the background, but still pull the strings.”
Santiago had been thinking along the same lines somewhat, so her words made sense. Besides, this wasn’t the first time Mel had given him words of wisdom on the game. He knew she knew the game as well.
“Yeah yo . . . I hear you,” he replied in a non-committed tone.
She kept the idea in her head, subtly, like only a woman can, and while she worked him, she worked Bas at the same time. It was obvious that Alex and Bas weren’t seeing eye-to-eye. They were a team, but at the end of the day they went their separate ways.
“Santiago is planning on retiring,” she told Bas one day, then casually added, “and I think he’s gonna put Alex in charge.”
That comment instantly got Bas’s attention. He knew if Alex became boss, it was over for him. But at the same time, he felt Santiago was setting him up. With Santiago retiring, what better way to ensure Bas’s silence than with his death? And knowing the bad blood between Alex and Bas, why not let Alex do his dirty work? Bas was totally convinced by his own logic because it fit Santiago’s modus operandi so well . . . Yes, Alex may be the one pulling the trigger, but it was Santiago putting the gun in his hand.
But Bas wasn’t going out without a fight.
Two days later, he came back to her with the perfect plan.
“We have to make Santiago think you are having an affair,” he announced with a sneaky grin.
“Are you crazy? He’ll—”
“With Alex,” he cut her off and added, “if we put it in his head that it’s Alex, he’ll stop trusting Alex . . . he’ll think twice about giving the family to him. Especially if he thinks Alex is trying to take over the family and avenge his father,” Bas proposed.
Mel had to admit it was a great plan. Bas surprised her coming up with it. She had been looking at him as a common thug, but now she saw him in a different light as a thinker.
With pussy as a motivator, a nigguh will figure out how to crawl through a keyhole.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and pushed her tongue down his throat. “So . . . I see you plan to have it all.” She smirked.
He gripped her ass lustfully. “Goddamn right!” he answered, because in the chess game he was playing, looking down at the queen was a job done.
He slid his hand under her skirt and the feel of her soft, juicy ass made him careless. They were standing in Santiago’s living room.
“No,” Mel weakly protested, even though the feel of his big hands palming her ass had her weak in the knees.
“Fuck that!” he growled, breathing hard and animalistic in her ear as he fingered her from the back. “Santiago ain’t even in the city, and even if he was, even if he come in right now, I’ll take whatever he would give for this moment with you.” By the time he finished his statement, he had her skirt hiked up and her panties around her ankles. He lifted her right out of her panties.
“You want this pussy bad, don’t you?” she huffed, wrapping her legs around his waist, riding his two fingers that he had buried deep up in her.
“Hell yeah!” he grunted, using his free hand to unbutton his jeans. He pulled out his big black dick and positioned her on the head. As soon as he began to penetrate her, Mel tried to scramble away.
“Oh my! Fuck! It’s. Too. Bigggg!” she moaned as he filled her up, and he wasn’t all the way in.
“This big dick feel great all up in your stomach, don’t it?” he grunted.
“Ohhhh yessss!” she gasped, holding on to him tight and digging her nails in his neck.
When she finally got used to his size, it was like she couldn’t stop cumming. Santiago always gave her multiple orgasms, but with Bas, her pussy felt like a fountain she came so many times. By the time he exploded inside her, she was exhausted with pleasure.
“Shit! That was good,” she replied, trying to catch her breath.
“That’s how it’s gonna be from now on, baby . . . I promise,” he vowed and the look in his eyes was the same one all those years back in the Chinese restaurant, so she knew she had him on lock.