Into The Woods (Dark Fairy tales), page 32
“What was last night?”
“What do you mean?”
“You coming to my door. What was that?”
Jarvis chuckled under his breath, as he sipped his coffee. “That was sex. One would think an ex-hooker would know that.”
“I know it was sex, asshole. I meant what did it mean?”
“Why does it have to mean something? Why can’t it just be sex? Did you not say you wanted a relationship like Charlotte and I had? Isn’t that what you were getting at when you were just ‘joking’? I know you, Sut, I know you weren’t joking.”
“Okay, I wasn’t joking, but I never thought you would…I guess I thought we’d never go there again. After all, we are friends.”
“Sut, we’ve had sex before.”
“That was different.”
“Why? Because you were drunk as a skunk and trying to prove a point?” Jarvis teased.
“Well, yes, and if I remember correctly, you made sure I worked hard for that point.”
“What can I say? I made you the hooker you are today,” Jarvis joked, with a hearty laugh. “Come on, Sutton, why are you stressing it?”
“I’m not stressing it. I just want to know what this is. Are we really starting a booty-call situation?”
Jarvis put his fork down and looked seriously into Sutton’s eyes. “When you asked me to sleep with you, I won’t lie, I was a little hesitant.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re friends, and to be honest I haven’t been in a relationship in years. I don’t think I even remember how to be a good boyfriend. I’m pretty sure with a normal girl I would be a horrible boyfriend.”
“Why do you think that?”
“I love sex. I can’t get enough of it. Plus I’m a hooker. I would be cheating nightly, and most women don’t like that,” Jarvis quipped.
“So, in short you want me because you think I will just allow you to fuck others and be okay with it?” Sutton retorted sarcastically.
“Sounds fucked up once you say it out loud, huh? Just imagine how Maddox felt when he found out that’s what you two were doing.”
“Don’t make this about Maddox. This is about you and me.”
“You and me are you and me. What do you want? For once speak your mind about what you want, Sut.”
“I guess I just want to have sex. I love you as a friend, but I don’t see it going past that. So, with that said, maybe we shouldn’t do this again. I don’t want to lose you to stupid choices, and trust me, sex and friendship is a stupid choice.”
“If that’s what you want, then it’s fine with me,” he agreed halfheartedly.
“Is that really okay with you? Can you deal with being just friends, nothing more?”
“Of course I can. I mean I’d rather be your friend than nothing at all, Sut. We can just call it a random act of sex.”
“Just two friends who happen to have seen each other naked once or twice,” Sutton added, with a nervous giggle. “Let’s just move on.”
“That’s sounds fine with me,” Jarvis said, as he finished the last of his eggs. “So… what do you have planned this lovely Saturday?”
“Well, I planned to get some studying done and then tonight my friend Shay is having a birthday party at her ‘not my boyfriend’ boyfriend’s house.”
“Can you explain that one?” Jarvis laughed. “Her boyfriend is not her boyfriend? How does that work?”
Sutton thought about Shay and her not-so-subtle gold-digging tactics. “Let’s just say she if she knew about The Woods she would probably own it,” Sutton replied with a giggle. “If you really want to see, you could join me. After all, we are friends and friends do things like that.”
Jarvis smiled over the rim of his coffee cup. “Count me in…friend.”
***
“Girl, that man is too damn fine to just be your friend. I want the dirt,” Shay probed, as she sipped her daiquiri and watched Jarvis across the room talking to another partygoer. “What are you and Mr. Fine really doing? Is he good in bed? Does he have a big…”
“Shay!” Sutton shouted, stopping Shay’s embarrassing questioning in its tracks. “He’s a friend. I am allowed to have friends.”
“What happened to the sugar daddy?”
“Maddox was not a sugar daddy, and it’s over,” Sutton spat.
“Sorry, my mamma was told by your grandmother that he was a sugar daddy. I can’t help if that’s what’s being tossed around the neighborhood.”
The thought of her grandmother spreading rumors about her made Sutton’s skin heat up. “My grandmother doesn’t know shit about my life or who I’m with,” Sutton replied angrily.
“Calm down, killer. Shit, I was just saying, because it’s been said that you had a sugar daddy taking care of you, and that’s why you left your grandma’s.”
“Shay, can we just change the subject?”
“Fine,” Shay said, taking a much need silent pause. “So? Does he?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Does Jarvis have a big dick?” Shay asked bluntly.
Sutton laughed as she rolled her eyes at her friend. “You would think that with age you’d grow some type of filter.”
“Fuck that. I don’t need a filter because I’m a straight-to-the-point kinda bitch. If you don’t like it, kick rocks. And from your lack of denial I’m guessing Mr. Fine is packing.”
“Shay, he’s my friend.”
“Friends fuck. Hell, I only call my men friends because they don’t deserve the title of ‘my man.’ That’s some shit you have to earn.”
“Well, I can say that we are friends. No hidden contexts, just friends.” Sutton thought back to her conversation that morning. She did want to maintain a friendly relationship with Jarvis. That was exactly what she’d thought until he picked her up for the party. Sitting in the car inhaling his cologne had made her sex flutter with the possibilities. The resolve she had to not start something with him was beginning to break down.
“Well, do you mind if I dance with your friend?” Shay asked, putting emphasis on the word friend.
Sutton giggled. “Knock yourself out.”
Sutton watched Shay adjust her ample bosom before strutting over to Jarvis. She couldn’t help but laugh as she watched an aggressive Shay back up a not-too-thrilled Jarvis. Sutton knew Shay very well. Shay was a hunter, and she usually dealt with men who were weaker than she was, and desperate to be with such a sexy woman.
Shay was a petite woman, with curves that stopped most men in their tracks. Her shoulder-length hair was red this week, and curly. For a hood chick she was the trophy many men wanted. That was, many men… except for Jarvis. Jarvis was just as bold as Shay, but shared no weakness for any woman’s charms. Sutton figured that was due to The Woods in him. All the men in The Woods were strong, and sometimes too confident. It was a quality that turned Sutton on.
Sutton watched as Shay wrapped her arms around Jarvis’ neck, then watched as he casually removed them. She laughed. Shay was determined, if nothing else, Sutton thought, as she sipped her rum and coke. Sutton scanned the room, her eyes stopping on Shay’s less-than-thrilled male friend. Sutton couldn’t help but feel bad for the poor bastard. It was bad enough he would never be Shay’s man, and that he’d paid for the lavish party, but to watch his girl pushing up on another guy was cruel.
Sutton finished her drink and walked over to Jarvis and Shay. “Do you mind if I cut in?” Sutton asked, trying to defuse the growing problem.
“Not at all. Jarvis…you know what’s up,” Shay said in a low sexy tone, before walking away.
“What was that?” Sutton giggled.
Jarvis wrapped his arm around Sutton’s waist pulling her closer in to his body. “Your friend is…wow, I don’t even know what to say about your friend,” Jarvis replied with a laugh. “She asked if we were fucking.”
“What did you say?”
“I told her we were just friends. I assumed if she didn’t know we’d slept together it was something you didn’t want her to know.”
“It’s not that I don’t want her to know. It’s just that I don’t spread my business around town. I love Shay, but that bitch can’t hold water,” Sutton laughed. “Besides, we aren’t fucking. Just those two times, that’s it.”
Jarvis laughed, then stopped as the music caught his attention. “I love this song.” Jarvis pulled Sutton in a little closer and began to dance to Jay-Z’s Bonnie and Clyde. “Do you like this song?” he asked, in a sexy whisper.
Sutton looked into Jarvis’ playful eyes. “I love this song,” Sutton replied, as she turned in Jarvis’ arms. Sutton couldn’t help but laugh. Here she was with her friend, dancing to a song about needing a boyfriend. Was the universe telling her something? Sutton turned around and looked at a smiling Jarvis. She brought her body in closer, feeling his manhood press firmly against her leg. Just his slightest touch sent waves of heat to her sex.
“So, tell me something, Sut,” Jarvis said, in a sexy deep hum.
Sutton looked into his eyes and smiled. “What’s that?”
“You like to call me J, right?”
Sutton giggled already knowing what Jarvis was getting at. “Yeah.”
“So, why won’t you be the B to my J?”
Sutton felt her stomach clench at his playful but loaded question. “Because we’re friends. I thought about being with you, but I don’t want to ruin our friendship.”
Jarvis took a firm grasp on Sutton’s ass and moved his lips close to her ear. “We define what friendship is, baby.”
Sutton blushed as the words sent fire through her body. Her walls were broken by his deep, sexy words. She looked at Jarvis and smiled. “We’re having sex tonight, aren’t we?”
Jarvis leaned down and gently kissed Sutton’s lips. Turning her around he wrapped his arms around her tightly, as he pressed his chest into her back. “Why was that even a question in your head?”
***
“Tell me something that no one else knows,” Sutton said, as she ran her fingers down Jarvis’ chest.
Jarvis wrapped his arm around Sutton and pulled her in closer to his body. “I love having sex with you. That’s something that no one else knows,” Jarvis replied with a laugh.
“Seriously, I want to know something that no one else knows. Something personal.”
“Why? You need something to blackmail me with?”
“No. I just want to know something more about you. Didn’t you and Charlotte share and talk after sex?”
“No. She would normally get hers, take a shower, and go home.”
“Is that what you want me to do?”
Jarvis pulled Sutton to his waiting lips, giving her a soft but passionate kiss. “If I wanted you to go home, I would have told you to leave shortly after I came.”
“Then tell me something.”
“How did we go from hot sex to sharing dark secrets?”
Sutton sat up pulling the blankets over her naked body. She looked down at Jarvis and frowned. “I worry that you’re right. That The Woods has made me cold and heartless. With Maddox, I was sex. I was the girl he could screw and tell me very little about his life. I guess I thought if you could tell me something about you… something that no one knows, that I wouldn’t feel like…”
“A hooker. Yeah, I know that feeling,” Jarvis replied with a frown. He sat up and looked at a sweet but sad Sutton. “I don’t have any family. Well, I should say I have no biological family.”
“What do you mean? I thought that lady you call Mamma Kay was your family.”
“She is, in a way. She’s my adoptive mother. She and her husband were my foster parents. I was sent to them when I was ten. I pretty much stayed there until I was eighteen and went off to Emory. Most of my life I’ve bounced from one foster home to the next. I don’t know who my real parents are. The only thing I could gather was that I was left at a church and no one knows who my mother or father are.”
Sutton looked at the sadness filling Jarvis’ eyes. She gently ran her fingers down the side of his face. “Do you want to know who they are?”
“No…yes…I really don’t know. I worry that I will find them and just be disgusted at the fact that they just left me. That I wasn’t good enough for them. But I still want to know who they are. It’s a weird feeling.”
“It’s funny. You and I are kindred in a way.”
“How so?”
“I grew up without parents too. My parents died when I was a little girl. I was raised by my grandmother and aunt.”
“How did they die?”
Sutton felt her body go numb. This was something that no one outside of her family knew. It was a dark secret that she didn’t share with the world. She wasn’t sure if she didn’t share if out of a need to protect her mother, or for the fact that she was ashamed of the person she came from.
“My mother…she killed my father. She was addicted to drugs. Most of the time she was gone. My father raised me. Every once and awhile she would come home, but the addiction was too much. One night she and my father were fighting and she shot him and then turned the gun on herself. My grandmother hated my mother from the minute she met her. It was the reason my father and grandmother had no relationship. She thought that my mother wasn’t good enough, and it caused a divide between them. It’s also the reason she hates me.”
“I don’t think your grandmother blames you for your mother’s mistakes.”
“I once heard her say that she was going to take any trace of my mother out of me. She wanted to raise me to be better than my mother was. I spent the rest of my life trying to live up to her high expectations, but never being able to quite meet them. After awhile it was just easier to be silent and comply with her every demand then to fight her. I was never strong enough to stand up for myself. Well, not strong enough until Maddox.”
Jarvis gently pressed his lips against Sutton’s. “Don’t give him credit for something that was always in you. I’d like to believe that when the time comes you’re going to do great things. You’re going to show the world just who you are.” Jarvis ran his hand through her hair. “You’re stronger than you think.”
“Jarvis, I can’t make you any promises. You want a girlfriend and I…”
“Want sex. Want passion.” Jarvis pinned Sutton to the bed, capturing her mouth in a deep kiss. “I want to give you that.”
Sutton deepened the kiss. “I don’t want to…” Sutton started, but was stopped by Jarvis needy mouth.
“I know. Just give me tonight, then we can go back to…well, whatever you want this to be.”
Sutton wrapped her arms around Jarvis’ neck and fell into the moment. She didn’t want to lead him on, but she could give him the night. Truth be told, she loved the way she felt in his arms. Jarvis always had a way of making her feel sexy, beautiful and, most importantly, treasured. It was a feeling Sutton hadn’t felt in a long time. It was a feeling that sent shivers down her spine. Jarvis was falling for her, and she wasn’t too certain as to how she felt about him.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Thanksgiving was always a special time for Sutton. She thought back on her grandmother and Mel making a big to-do about the day. The smell of the delicious meal filled the house and the laughter and happiness of her family warmed her heart. It was a day Sutton looked forward to every year. However, this would be the first Thanksgiving in years that would be spent without family.
Sutton gave a moment’s thought to going to dinner at her grandmother’s. When Mel called practically in tears, she almost gave in. That was until she asked whether her grandmother wanted her there. Mel’s few seconds of hesitation made it clear that Lorna Ryder wasn’t over their fight. Sutton knew her missing the dinner was a bit childish, but refused to seem weak to a woman who fed on her submission.
The day wasn’t going to be a complete waste. After some persistent asking, Sutton finally agreed to go to Jarvis’ parents’ house for dinner. It wasn’t something she was thrilled about doing, but she was happy to have something to do other than sit at home. However, after walking into Jarvis’ mother’s home, she was surprised how much it reminded her of her grandmother’s house. The throngs of people and the home-cooked meal warmed Sutton’s heart. It had been a long time since she’d felt at home, and she couldn’t help but feel it with Jarvis’ family.
“Can I help you with anything?” Sutton asked Mrs. Kay, as she brought in the dishes from the delicious dinner. Mrs. Kay was a short, stout black woman with short, curly gray hair and a sweet, motherly smile. Sutton couldn’t help but love the woman she’d only met hours earlier.
