Page 23 of Memphis

I watched him leave the building, walk to his car, and open his car door, retrieving something before heading back into the mile-high structure in midtown Parkton. I’d watched the staff and the last patient leave earlier. He was alone, but for how long, I wasn’t sure. I also didn’t care. This was my best chance to get it done, so I took it.

I left my car, walking in the darkness through the three parking lots that separated me from the doctor, all the while thinking about how my mother described her symptoms and fear to him and how he dismissed her, saying she was being dramatic and that it was probably just a fluctuation in her hormones. She begged this man to help her to no avail. She trusted him to the point that my father had to damn near order her to seek a second opinion, and Kola King didn’t take orders from nobody, not even the love of her life.

I stepped into the St. Raphael Medical Tower wearing all black with padding on my body to make me appear bigger and lifts in my shoes to belie my height, as my mentor had taught meto do. Hell, I even did my best impression of a man’s gait and had used a binder on my breasts. Navigating my way through the building, I made the journey to my destination while avoiding the surveillance cameras I’d taken note of when I paid the building a visit shortly after I returned home from college.

Yeah, I’d been planning this for a long time.

A crazy long time.

The door to Stone Women’s Clinic was unlocked, but if it hadn’t been, I would’ve picked it. That was another skill I’d taught myself. With my gloved hand gripping my Glock, I stepped through the dark office toward the only light in the space. Jazz was playing, and when I finally reached the source of the sound, I found the doctor’s personal office empty. Bathroom break, maybe? A flushing sound coming from a door to my left told me I was correct. So, he had his own little restroom? Well, that was nice.

When he emerged from the lavatory wiping his hands on a brown paper towel, I smiled and lifted the gun. The movement made his eyes snap up to me, and I could see disgust quickly shadow his face. Dr. Stone was a handsome, older Black man with midnight skin who, according to his posts in a private online group for doctors I’d infiltrated, hated Black women. He was sick of them and wished he didn’t have to see them as patients, an attitude that most certainly influenced the level of care he provided to said women.

Misogynoir at its finest.

Not to mention that the nigga killed my mother, or at least that was how I saw it, and my opinion was the only one that mattered in this instance. So, before he could move a muscle, including his tongue, I shot him dead between his fucking eyes.

The following evening, I finally received a message to my burner phone that read:2:00 PM tomorrow at Miss Katie’s Katfish Kitchen. Ask for Donnie.

15

Now…

She always smelled so good, fresh, even after spending hours beneath me or on top of me. Her sweat, her pheromones, her pussy—it all bore an intoxicating fragrance that I was addicted to. I’d always been addicted to it.

At that moment, we lay facing each other, my mouth buried between her breasts which were moist with perspiration, a combination of both mine and hers.

“You’re fifty-four years old. How the fuck do you have this much stamina to be having all this sex?” she murmured.

I chuckled, kissing her cleavage. “I been saving all this energy for you,” I admitted.

“You act like you’ve been celibate or something,” she scoffed.

“You assume I haven’t?” I said against the soft skin of her breasts.

“Iknowyou haven’t. You have an entire wife.”

I lifted my head, just barely able to discern the features of her face in the near blackness of our bedroom. Our bedroom, our house. Everything I owned and was belonged to her, too, whether she wanted it that way or not.

“Had. Stop tryna give that woman to me, King.”

“No, your father gave her to you. I’m clear on that.”

I sighed, moving up in the bed until my face was even with hers. “All I’ve ever wanted was you. You know that.” I pulled her body into mine although she was now far less pliable. She was pissed; our past had a way of ruining her mood.

“Bo—”

“I love you. I know it makes you angry for me to say that, but it’s the truth, and you know it. Youfeelit. Was I fucked up in the past? Yes. Am I even more fucked up now? Yes. But all that I do or have done, however twisted it may be, is a side effect of being without you for far too long. I need you.”

“Shut up,” she grated.

“King—”

“I said, SHUT UP!” Her voice was so loud as she literally yelled in my face that I actually flinched.

And I never flinched.

She shoved me onto my back, and before I could blink, her hand was on me, stroking me, and like a bell’s toll to Pavlov’s dogs, my dick sprang to attention.

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