Romeo at Night

Romeo spends the better part of his days sound asleep, either over here or over there. Over here being with me and over there being one of three places: his sister’s place, his girl’s apartment, or at his baby’s mama’s crib.

He tells me he loves it over here with me the most. He feels the need to say that, I know. It is apart of the game. But, from his full sexy lips, I believe he is quite honest and very sincere. Romeo doesn’t have to say anything he doesn’t mean, you know. All he has to do is flash his crooked smile wrapped in that straggly beard of his, and he knows he is in. That he’s got me. Plus, I don’t give him much grief about the way he lives his perilous life or his lack of a real nine-to-five, with the bonus he can get laid without running the risk of leaving another bitch pregnant.

Romeo and I are cool like that. We have a simple but beautiful understanding. He loves to lay pipe and as an undercover bottom brotha, my walls enjoy being custom fitted for that piece of steel of his with each and every stroke: Anytime, anyplace, any damn where. No fuss. No unnecessary drama.

I can’t stress that enough.

In this city that is absolutely crucial with so many hungry asses out here constantly on the hunt for their next dick feeding. Too many faggot-bitches go out of there way to play themselves, trying to build these pseudo-relationships in their minds. If the dick pops up more than once, then they try so hard to make it more than what it is. Going to the extremes of propping it up like a ghetto king, stuffing him with gourmet takeout and designer clothing just for him being as good as the last nutt he busted. Unlike them, I’m not so into getting dicked down by Romeo that I’ll part with my senses or my wallet just to get him to stay—at least, that was my thought.

My thinking before was that if he comes, he comes. If he goes, so be it.

But after losing my job a few weeks ago, Romeo surprised me. He has really come through, above and beyond, shoring me up with the dollars to take care of the bills and whatnot. I am not hurting or anything, and he knows this. I have always been good with money. He wants to feel like my man, and for him, this is how.

I used to feel bad about it in the beginning, thinking I was taking away from his families. Then one day after he got tired of me refusing, he showed me several large wads of cash he had laying about, telling me he was good at doing what he does. Because he is dick and I am ass I never gave it much thought, thinking with his stocky build and macho-mean good looks and his ability to put it down, I thought he found some silly ho to fund his way.

He is self-made. His way of making money is pretty sweet—illegal, but sweet.

At night, he hustles. He grinds to make that paper, slinging dope or taking on petty hits, hurting or even murdering those who don’t pay on their respective tabs. He even goes so far to funnel the life into his lyrics for the artists that are signed to his start-up independent record label.

He needs help, he tells me, something on the line of doing a bunch of tedious paperwork. Something I am good at, something I know. I ask him, how much does it pay? He runs his fingers against the print running along his left thigh and with his crooked smile framed by his straggly beard he says something about a good ten inches. I wink back turning away from the television showing the rapper swiping his credit card between some butt cheeks and say something smart like it’s only as good as the teller that accepts it.

My job starts with typing up menial documents and making copies and running errands for the office before I am propelled to the level of executive secretary to the higher ups. It feels like a real job after a few weeks. It pays and comes with benefits like a real job. And I forget about Romeo, the man I sometimes share a bed with since he is all about business in this environment the more he gets into it. He tries to make a serious effort at professionalism. He cares more about his paper than smoking blunts and getting it between my ass cheeks, at least here at work. He gets mad respect from me, more than ever. He is proving he is much more than another worthless gang banger packing a nice piece.

I know for certain I am in trouble when I walk through the building sporting a broad smile, proud of my man, no morning sex, just because. I wanted to sing it aloud. I want to shout it from the rooftop. Then it hits me. He is no such thing to me. He is just a piece. I am just a piece. I regain my focus. I try to use my free time, lunch and breaks, to pull away from him. I don’t want to wake up one day and find this job is my career and I am bound to it or him because of him or job. As much as I try, or as much as I want to believe, I go about my search half-baked. Doing just enough to know I can leave if I want to but hold back just enough so that it doesn’t have to happen.

Romeo begins to change slowly but steadily, going from a jovial thug earning his legitimate keep to a typical moody and irritable businessman that has a foreign shiestiness in his eyes. So, it came as no surprise one otherwise beautiful morning when he whizzes pass me to his office, instructing me not to let anyone disturb him. I oblige in the parameters of superior and subordinate.

I go about my business playing with papers when three guys approach my desk. They already bypassed the receptionist and the rent-a-cops on staff, demanding to see Romeo. I lie and tell them he is gone. And when that lie obviously doesn’t work, I try to maintain my professionalism and tell them he doesn’t want to be disturbed. They flash their guns hoisters and walk right on in, closing the door behind them.

The men reappear, heading off to the elevator. Their meeting is brief. There is no bloodshed, fights or gunshots. There is a smudge of relief in the air to find Romeo is not distraught. I want to ask him a thousand questions in one. I can see he isn’t in the mood. It isn’t the right time. And, of course, it isn’t any of my business, even though I feel I am in too deep right now. He may want to feel like my man, but he isn’t. I cannot settle for him, I tell myself, resisting the consideration he has been there for me.

“What was that all about?” I ask, my mouth betraying my thoughts.

“Don’t worry about it, folk.” Romeo brushes off.

“When folks start pulling a gun to my head, I ain’t got much choice in the matter but to worry.” I say as calmly as I can.

“They…huh…they…”

“How do you think they got back here?”

Romeo becomes unnerved at this news, distraught even. He doesn’t know what to say, and it puts me in the mind of our first night together; at a loss for words after we lost ourselves in the passionate moment. For me, it was the afterglow of getting my ass pounded out, and for him, he was in a jam since it was too late to board the train of the night.

“You wanna suck my dick?” He asks waving me back from my trip down memory lane.

He asks in such a fashion as if he is going out of his way to do me a favor with his fine-looking meat hanging between his zipper.

I try to be strong. He’s proven he is more than his dick to me. So, I know I am more than a watering mouth and a dampened hole to him.

“Look,” Romeo says, disappointed in my reaction. “Come here. You need to chill…I need to relax…let’s chillax together.”

He pulls me close. I swallow hard.

The many complications of working together and sex in the office place is at the top of the lists. The exciting danger of homophobic hip-hop and two down low brothas play into mind. Since Romeo is so serious about being so serious, I squashed any such ideas.

And here it is.

I go down in front of him.

It is strange this time—or maybe it is just being here—as a cool heat rolls off that thing of his and I kiss it like I would kiss him on the mouth. I wrap my fingers firmly on the base, and slowly put my lips around his dick. His drug-hardened hands grabs at the base of my head. He isn’t forceful with it as much as he wants me to know how much he needs this now. He keeps one hand on my head. He cups the other under my chin. I feel the wire whiskers that are his long dong ball hairs. He quivers as my tongue is slow to dive deep in his slot. I listen to him mumble. I take more of him into my mouth, brushing my nose against his hairs and pull back, and come in again.

Romeo groans and thrusts his hips forward. My mouth is full of him. My throat is to act as his prisoner, yet I feel like it is imprisoned gulping for air. He takes the other hand, the one on my chin, and puts it on the back of my head trying to find his breath. He pumps violently, forgetting my face is my face, and I soon feel the familiar throbbing of a ramrod ready to explode. He locks my face in place with his hands. He grunts deeply. About a few seconds later, I feel the spurts of fluid oozing down my windpipe and dribble down into my belly.

He is satisfied, catching his breath. It has been a long time coming, read his eyes. I reach a plateau myself, cleaning his dick tip sweetly with my mouth, squeezing out every pearl of cum with one hand and jacking off with the other hand.

There are no other office rendezvous after that. It is business as usual, no lingering smile or quick glances. Romeo starts to pull away; not only from me but from the office as well. His business is always elsewhere, and people are looking to me to find him. It almost comes off as a veiled attempt to try and confirm our romance. I try to put the thought out of my mind, going about business as usual. But I can’t. Too many things still linger in my head to the point he is no longer there for me to be concern.

When he ceases to show up for work, there is a peace around the building, a sigh of relief. It is obviously something is going on that someone isn’t telling me. Everybody else is cordial, but distant. And maybe, it’s just me, but it feels like it is only directed towards me. Because of the nature of the business, I feel comfortable coming in later than I want to and staying even later than I need to, just to avoid the glares and phoniness of the masses.

I try to seek new employment again, and I am going to be for real about it this time, whatever comes my way. The market is on lock. I can’t leave without a safety net, unemployment or severance like I could have from my old job. I am stuck. My job becomes a stress, and my booty call becomes my absentee man. I curse the day we ever met.

I am well worked up over my recent tirade over Romeo when I find a man sitting on my doorstep. I am all man, so there isn’t fear or scared in my face or in my eyes returning home. He seems thrown, confused. He wants to ask me a question. I beat him to the punch and throw them out at him since he is at my door invading my privacy. He leaves eventually, telling me to tell Romeo he needs to get in contact with him real soon.

I am fed up. I call Romeo and tell him I quit. I want out of this shit. I tell him if one of his fucking goons come by my house again, I’m taking him out and gunning for him. I say everything so quickly that Romeo needs me to repeat it. I tell him again. He tells me to stay still. He is coming over. He looks like the Romeo I used to fuck, not like the dressed-up creature from the office. He is true street again, in thug apparel, looking like he sleeps all day and fucks all night. He looks like he has girlfriend trouble, baby mama drama, and still thinking with his dick when he sees me.

I am too upset to fall into his trap. Everything would have been fine if he remained my dick and I remained his delicious piece of ass and stopped him from stepping up to be my man. It didn’t help I am standing at the window watching this hooptie pass by my apartment several times before it rattles gunshots at my window. We duck and we cover and crawl out of the floor out the front door. It goes without saying it isn’t safe for me to stay there, so Romeo takes me in my car elsewhere to be safe.

He orders his girlfriend to fix us a plate and asks his sister to spare a bed. I am cooped up in her house for days on end, waiting on Romeo to tell me the rest of his plan. He is slow to come up with one, so those men that are after him comes up with one from him, breaking into those houses, one of which where me and his sister are in. They don’t hurt us but scare us enough to where we both no longer feel safe there either. I am angered he feels comfortable enough to send her back home, somewhere back in the Caribbean, Martinique or Guadeloupe or The Turks and Caicos, somewhere like that, but insists on keeping me here with him.

I am not happy with him, as we check into a motel room. He spends most of the days and nights sitting at the window with his pistol in hand, waiting on some invisible bad man to burst through the door. We wait and wait and wait some more. And, instead of gunmen busting through the door, the phone rings from the office. Someone left a message. He instructs me to hide under the bed until he comes back, making his way over to the door. He comes back a few moments later. He gives me the keys to my car, and I drive him to this random spot downtown. He tells me he wants to go hang out somewhere, the mall or the park, and afterwards a nightclub and an after-hours spot. But whatever I do, “Don’t return to the motel until morning.” His final words to me are to be careful and to watch my back and to make sure no one is following me. I do everything he says. I return to the motel to find him in his wifebeater and a pair of blue boxers with his pistol in tow. Only this time, he looks like he is contemplating about using it on himself, the way his body slumps over and the gun just hangs in his spread lap. I try to snap him out of it, but he cries he is in too deep, and he owes too much money. I try to take his mind off his problems with other things. He is too stubborn to respond. I kiss him and his lips are limp. I take hold of the mighty dick always eager to greet me, and it is dead on arrival. This shit is real. This shit is serious. I tell him to tell me everything, holding nothing back. He does, and I see how everything started and foresee how it is bound to end.

We come up with a plan, spending most of the day and into the night pounding out the details. I see his spirit rise. By dusk, the next night, he becomes the hustler I first fell in lust with on the train that time. He is confident with swagger, and his dick is drooling through his saggy jeans. He gets a package on consignment and flips it for profit threefold. He takes his portion of his bread and split it in four letting me sit on half while he tries to double in a craps game. He barely breaks even. The good thing is he didn’t lose much either. He more than makes up for what he lost when some of the debts he calls in pay off, and it starts to count even more so when the favors he calls in comes than he had, better than taking his own life. That is where the backup plan comes in hand. He didn’t want to do it; it is a last resort next to robbing his company, but he has to. He knows the ins and outs of the liquor store his ex-girlfriend used to work too well not to try and get the money from there. He hates it because the owner is cool with her old man, but he knows the owner fronts about having the place well guarded with burglar bars and shit. He knows the old man is too cheap to put in surveillance or a security system, and his safe key code was 7-4-1. Like magic, Romeo is in and out in five minutes with several thousand dollars in tow. It is around the time the clubs let out, so there is a bit of traffic to pick up something to eat at some of the 24/7 drive-thru eateries, but we make the call to his creditor letting him know we made the note, and we are on our way to make the payment. Not before we are to pig out over a feast like old times or when he caught a case of the munchies. As we are on our way, we stop back at my place and pick up his car. He gets in his car and rolls out without me. He tells me to stay still, as he rides out into his creditor’s rival territory, shooting blindly at the drug house, and speeding off. That is the plan, I worry, trying to reconcile why home no longer feels like such a place.

He returns safely. I breathe a sigh of relief. He tells me to call “them” up, and “try” to warn them Creditor is going to take a hit out on them tonight because business is low and before sunrise there will be only one dealer left. He bites, but has many of questions, and I answer all of them the way Romeo and I rehearsed. I am nervous, too, if he is really sinking his teeth into our story. He almost comes off doubtful before he flips the script and digests everything we give him as gospel, telling him where he can find his enemy.

We jump in my car to get a front row seat to the show that will go down. It becomes crystal clear when he pulls up everything is about to go down the way we plan, and we have the money only as insurance if it doesn’t. Meaning with the exception of the robbery, most of the money is ours, given that he is without word going to give me a cut for aggravation and compensation. We sit and wait, wait and sit, sit and wait and sit some more. I am bored and nervous and a bit scared one of the stray bullets is bound to hit me or Romeo or both in this car. Romeo looks over and thanks me. He smiles widely, with no mischievousness laced in. In all the time I have known him, I’ve never known him like this. He leans forward and kisses me, and I am taken aback. There is nothing around but the building and streetlights, but I feel that an embraced like that is too open, especially out here. My refusal seems turns him on. He kisses me some more, but it is more than a kiss. Obviously, he wants something more.

“Not here,” I say, with my seat somehow reclined and he is somehow on top of me.

“Why not?” Romeo asks.

“Because,” I say, hoping it is enough.

“Because of what? Ain’t nobody out here. If there was, they might learn something.” He says with a familiar sinister grin hovering over me.

I want to stop him, but my dick betrays me demanding to be free from its concealed fabric.

“I want to but…but…but we ain’t got any rubbers.” I say as my out.

I always give in whenever he wanted it, but never without a condom.

He surprises me with his readiness, showing me a gold wrapper and one of those fat clear lube pillows.

The next thing I know my pants are down and so are his. I can’t see them, but I know they are down because I can feel his hard dripping dick thumping against my stomach, grinding even harder as he kisses me. He does this so seductively in the small space we have, with him trying to pull off my shirt. I am in the moment going for his coat, yet I am fighting it every step of the way, afraid about what is going to happen if we are caught out here. And before I could come back to any kind of senses, my legs are spread and my hips are raised greeting the bloated head of his penis with my hole.

My body tenses as he pushes in. The dick I once received on the regular seems so much foreign and bigger than I remember. I am gritting my teeth realizing I was crazy to ever take this kind of dick even though I am the kind of man that loves it inside of me.

“Relax, babe,” he sooths.

I do what he says. Everything comes back to me on how to master his monster, sinking it in ever so slow. Because of confined space, he needs time to build the crescendo I love so much. I begin to tremble from the heaven-like numb my hole feels from his low-hangers nuzzling against my ass as he plows deeper and faster with every soulful stroke.

I try ever so hard to hold in the grunts I am so used to letting out. The vehicle offers no sound barriers. A mist of joy starts to see out of the crease of my eyes. I don’t want him to see this, for him to see what he does to me. I try hard to keep my lips locked with his or somewhere on his face and neck. He warms up a fire deep inside of me, forcing me to arch my back and let out a whimper. He knows this is his finest hour. He wants to shout it out, tell me how good this ass is to his jabbing slings, but he knows he can’t. Not the way he gets loud when he gets it in. Not the way I get loud the way he gets loud getting it.

“Ah,” is all Romeo can mumble freely, and he says it distinctly three times before he warns me he is coming, slowing his strides, and then like a madman he pounds into a war cry that is snuffed out by the rounds of gunshots blazing nearby.

My body shakes. I shoot a cannon-fire load and paint our abdomens with gleaming white.

He falls on top of me, not for a rest as he waits for the smoke to clear.

It is done.

The next day, I awake in my bed with my man Romeo snuggled next to me, thinking of all the money that is going to sustain his label. So I am surprised when he pulls a gun out on me, and says I know too much. I try to reason with him, telling him I am in just as deep as he is.

And then…