As soon as I strolled into Top Flight, all eyes were on me, men zeroing in on my ass like they were heat-seeking missiles. I wasn’t doing cute. I was doing drop-dead gorgeous with my leopard-print skirt, black blouse, and candy apple-red, fuck-me pumps. A girl can work up a sexual appetite when plotting to steal her best friend’s man. I was in need of some serious unwinding. I thought to go home and soak in a warm bubble bath with a nice glass of red wine by my side, but I was in the mood to mingle. I was tired of being around chatty chicks at the salon all day, running my fingers through somebody’s nasty hair. I loved my boss, but, damn, sometimes she got on my last nerve. If she wasn’t complaining about one thing, she was nagging me about another. By the time six o’clock came, I was good and ready to take my ass home. I had Leandra in my ear, and Bree, who had been blowing up my phone. I was supposed to hook up with her at Risqué, but that only would have gone against my plan to fuck her life up. I was in no mood for the latest in Bree drama. I needed some me time every now and then. I was sick of being her damn shoulder to cry on.
I thought about going to Grown Folk’s Night at The Moon, but decided I wanted to flip the script a little bit. I was over the same old, same old. The trolls in pastel pimp suits and snakeskin dress shoes, pushing and rubbing up against me, trying to holla, blowing their boozy, pungent breath in my face. Young dick was what this pussy needed.
I saddled up to the end of the bar where I could still feel ravenous eyes ripping off my clothes. This shirtless, dark-chocolate brother wandered over to where I was sitting. He looked like he had a smidgen of East Indian in him.
“How are you tonight?” he asked.
I felt myself starting to droll to his muscular arms in the white tank top, oiled skin glistening under the club’s red and blue strobe lights. He set a small white napkin in front of me.
“What can I get you to drink?” He had to be about six-three, looking like he should be playing professional ball instead of slinging drinks in a bar. He had pretty, pearl-white teeth as he flirted. He looked to be in his early twenties. Twenty-two, twenty-three, maybe.
“I’ll have a watermelon martini.”
“Wow, I haven’t made one of those in a while.”
I smiled. “Do you know how to make it?”
“I think I can manage.” He smiled.
“I trust you.”
I watched him mix the drink, adding the right amount of alcohol and watermelon schnapps, finishing it off with a cherry as a sweet afterthought. He set the martini in front of me.
“Tell me what you think.”
Oh, trust, I will.
I took a sip. “This is actually one of the better watermelon martinis I’ve had.”
“I aim to please.” The fine bartender smiled. “I have all night to make it better for you.” If flirting was an art form, this man was a regular Basquiat. “My name’s Amir.” He extended his hand to greet mine.
“Tangela.” My hand intertwined with his. His palm felt warm and damp from slinging drinks.
“That’s a pretty name,” Amir said.
“Yeah, my mama told me that any name that begins with a vowel, you can stick any letter in the front of it and it will make sense, so she said she always liked the name Angela, but my aunt took the name for her daughter, so Ma went a step further, stuck a ‘T’ in front of it, hence the name Tangela.”
“Well, it’s definitely a name you will never find on a key chain.”
I started laughing. “This is true.” Little did Amir know he was already scoring major points with me. Ten for making me laugh and ten more for looking like sex on a platter.
“You have a pretty smile.”
“Now see, you keep that up, and you will be surprised where flattery will get you.”
Amir wiped the bar with a white hand towel. His smile alone was already making my lavender Victoria’s Secret panties wet. I took a sip from my watermelon martini to cool myself down.
“Amir, that’s an interesting name. Where are you from?”
“Originally from Hollywood, Florida, but my father is Pakistani and my mother is black. They moved to Florida when I was five. I moved up here to study law at Florida A & M University.”
Just as I was losing myself in Amir’s cinnamon-brown eyes, three loud-ass hoochies strolled up at the other end of the bar.
“Hello, bartender,” one of them yelled.
“Barkeep,” hollered another, the three of them laughing like three ugly hyenas.
“We are in need of some libations down here.”
They were three of the most trifling skanks I had ever laid my eyes on. Humph, ladies was the last thing that came to mind looking at these hood rats.
“What Dumpster did they slither out of?”
One of them had weave that had all the colors of the rainbow. All three of them wore skin-tight pencil dresses. There was only one store in Tallahassee that sold those hooker ensembles they were dressed in: Diamondaire’s over on South Adams Street where Church’s Chicken used to be. Street walker couture, I call it.
“I’ll be back. Let me go take care of these ladies,” Amir said.
“Hurry back,” I said before taking a sip of my fruity martini.
I felt like poor Amir was about to wander into a den of man-hungry lionesses. One of the hoochies was plump, wearing a short blond wig and bronze lipstick. Who the hell wears bronze lipstick? Obviously this heifer. Who in the world told her she was cute? The other one reminded me of Halle Berry from that movie B.A.P.S with this synthetic monstrosity on her head. She was wearing white lipstick, looking like she had just bit into a powdered doughnut. Of course, they were the loudest bitches in the club. Once the DJ put on Nicky da B, you couldn’t hold them back from hitting the dance floor. They were out there, shaking their asses so hard, I thought something was going to drop out. They thought they looked cute, but came off looking like corny-ass skanks. I couldn’t keep my eyes off Amir, his coffee bean-brown skin glistening under white strobe lights. I could tell he had dick for days. He noticed that I was running low and made his way back down to my end of the bar.
“You want another one?”
“Absolutely.”
Amir took my empty glass and started making me another watermelon martini.
“I’m glad you came out of that unscathed.”
“Who? Oh, them? It’s cool. They come here just about every weekend. I’m used to them.”
“Yes, but why would you ever want to get used to…that?” I studied them with pity on my face.
“You’re a funny lady, Tangela.”
“Are they your type?”
“Not really, no. I’m more into someone from the human species.”
“Yeah, I could tell they weren’t your type.”
Amir finished off my watermelon with a cherry and set it in front of me. He grinned, showing those pretty white teeth. “And what type do you think I’m into? Girls are cool, but I like a woman, you feel me? A lady who has herself together. Someone like you.” Damn, Amir was laying it on thick. Peanut butter, crunchy style.
I let loose a flirtatious laugh. “What makes you think I have it together?”
“I could tell how you slinked in here. You’re a woman who knows what she wants and, what you don’t have, you’re not scared to get out here and take it. Am I right?”
I traced the rim of my martini glass with my finger. “True. True.”
“Yeah, see. That’s what’s up. I know these things.”
“Look, brother, I’m not going to lie. You’re a good-looking man.”
“Thank you.”
“But you ought to be on the cover of magazines instead of working in this shit hole-in-the-wall.”
“Well, thank you, I’m flattered.”
“What exactly is your type?” I asked.
“Someone with brains.”
“That’s me.”
“A lady who knows what she wants.”
“That’s me.”
“And someone who likes to live a little on the wild side.”
“Oh, that is most definitely me right there.”
“A lady who knows who she is.”
“Um, hello, here I am.” I pointed at myself. “Look no further.”
“You’re funny. I haven’t stopped laughing since you walked in here.”
Amir stood in front of me, drying some glasses. “Of what?”
“That it’s likely that I might take you home tonight and fuck your brains out.”
Amir chuckled. “Damn, ma, you don’t pull any punches, do you?”
“Sorry. Was that too forward?”
“It’s like you said. A lady who knows what she wants.”
“And that’s me.”
“And, yeah, my going home with you is pretty likely.”
“Well, let’s do this then. What time do you get off?”
“In about forty-five minutes.”
“Good. Let’s get out of here,” I said.
“The bartender who’s here to relieve me just walked in,” Amir said.
My pussy was dripping to the thought of Amir between my chunky, chocolate thighs. It felt good, knowing that I didn’t have to compete with Bree. Back in the day, she already would have had someone like Amir cornered, deep-throating him in the supply closet. I wouldn’t have stood a chance. I didn’t want to drink too much. I didn’t want Amir to think that I was some drunk-ass lush before the night even started. I was ready to leave. The club was getting thick and DJ Master Blaster’s techno was taking a toll on my nerves. The shit that was going on in the club was the last thing I was thinking about, being that my libido was going into four-wheel overdrive. If I didn’t get some dick soon, my pussy was going to shrivel up and fall out. I’d always believed that a pussy can’t survive without a steady diet of dick. I loved Kashawn, but I got tired of holding out, hoping for a booty call from his Bree-whipped ass. And I loved my vibrator, but nothing beat the real thing, and tonight, some real dick was exactly what I was going to get.