I hope that everyone is having a great Sunday and recharging for Monday. Here's another sample chapter from my latest release, "War Angel." Enjoy and feel free to leave comments. If you'd like to read more, the purchase links can be found at the bottom of the post.
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War Angel
by Keith Kareem Williams
CHAPTER
22 – Party Favors
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H
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urry up or we’re going to be late!” Jahaira
shouted from the bathroom as she put on her make-up. She believed that this was
the first time her mother would get a chance to meet her man under normal
circumstances and she wanted to make a good impression. She had even picked out
the clothes she wanted him to wear just in case.
Lenox was getting
dressed slowly, like a kid who really didn’t want to get ready for school. He
was not eager to go over to Carmen’s house for dinner.
“I’m hurrying,” he
answered, slowly buttoning his shirt while sitting on the edge of the bed.
Jahaira bolted out of
the bathroom with the back of her dress still unzipped and one of the thin
straps hanging off of her shoulder. The fit wasn’t tight at all but the way it
was cut showed off every voluptuous, feminine, curve.
“Come, let me help,”
she said, motioning for him to stand up.
“Yes ma’am,” he
answered jokingly.
As she buttoned his
shirt, the other spaghetti strap on her dress also fell off of her shoulder.
The front of her dress sagged and exposed enough of her cleavage that he wanted
to kiss the soft flesh of her breasts. His eyes roamed to the wide hips and
thick thighs that he loved. He could smell the perfume that she daintily doused
her neck with.
“Don’t start,” she told
him as he tried to slip his hands under her dress.
“Why not?” he asked and
leaned forward to put his lips to her neckline.
“Because we don’t have
time.”
“I’ll hurry up.”
“Oh please. You don’t
know how to hurry up. You’re too
greedy to finish quick.”
“But I thought you like
it when I take a long time?”
“We’re late, we’re
late, we’re late,” Jahaira repeated, sounding like the white rabbit from Alice
in Wonderland as she jogged back to the bathroom barefoot.
He loved the way she
jiggled and bounced. When she finished applying her make-up, he watched her
slide on her pantyhose and then slip on her heels. When she stood up in them,
her legs seemed to stretch all the way to the sky. It made him think about what
they would be doing when they got back home that night which was much better
than thinking about the dinner party that had her all worked up. Carmen wanted
to celebrate Caesar’s birthday which Lenox thought was silly, considering that
the man had died only a few weeks before. He had told Jahaira as much but she
insisted that it was probably part of her mother’s healing process to continue
with the tradition. He didn’t think so but he didn’t dare explain his true
feelings about it. Instead, he agreed to go although her mother’s house was the
last place he wanted to visit. When Jahaira was finally ready, she was
beautiful but there was still a sadness about her that dulled her glow.
“Ok, I’m ready,” she
said.
***
Carmen greeted Jahaira
at the door wearing a white dress that was almost the exact style as the black
one she had worn to her husband’s funeral. What immediately caught Jahaira’s
attention was her mother’s dark lipstick and eye-liner. Carmen had always used
tones that made her skin glow warmly, to make her appear younger so the sudden
switch to something so cold and morbid was somewhat shocking. Jahaira
immediately began to feel guilty for leaving her mother to grieve alone while
she sought comfort and solace in Lenox’s arms. She had never been particularly
close to her mother but that didn’t mean that she didn’t love the woman who had
brought her into this world. With her father gone, Carmen was the only parent she
had left.
“You’re late,” said
Carmen.
“Well, hello to you too
Ma. Sorry, we got caught in a little traffic,” Jahaira answered, grabbing her
mother in a suffocating bear hug before she planted a big, wet kiss on her
cheek.
“Wow! Where’s all of
this love coming from?” Carmen asked while looking over Jahaira’s shoulder at
Lenox, who purposely avoided her eyes.
“What? I haven’t seen
you for a while,” Jahaira answered, taking Lenox by the arm as she stepped
inside her mother’s house.
As Lenox passed Carmen
in the doorway, he didn’t say a word. Instead he played it safe and greeted her
with a subtle head nod.
“Well, I’m glad you’re
here. I just finished cooking,” said Carmen as she shut the front door.
Jahaira smiled as she
caught a whiff of the delicious dishes her mother had prepared in the kitchen.
She was a good cook but she had always been jealous of how much better her
mother was.
“Smells good. I miss
your cooking,” Jahaira complimented her.
“Everyone is already
waiting at the dining room table…at least those who want to eat anyway,” said
Carmen, clearly disgusted.
“Who comes to a dinner
party and doesn’t eat? I mean really…who does that?” Jahaira complained while
shaking her head.
As soon as the words
had left her lips, they all walked by the den and Lenox’s heart stopped beating
for a few seconds when he saw three of Carmen’s guests.
“Oh, of course…THEM!”
said Jahaira when she spotted them as well.
In the den, her aunts
were sipping wine, gathered around the fireplace, speaking to each other in
hushed voices. The flickering light of the flames illuminated their faces
eerily and made them appear even more fearsome. The twins were dressed in white
with blood-red rose patterns on their dresses. The elderly sister wore a green
blouse with leaf patterns and a brown skirt. The colors of their clothes were
more festive than their funeral blacks but made them no less intimidating.
There was just something off about
them that set other people’s nerves on edge in their presence. As Carmen and
her newly arrived guests passed by, the sisters abruptly stopped whispering.
They turned to watch them but their gazes pierced Lenox’s soul alone. He could
feel their eyes focus on him but he dared not look back in the direction of the
Weird Sisters as he had come to call
them in his mind.
Once Carmen took them
into the dining room, Lenox quickly discovered that there was a very slim
chance of the night ending pleasantly. Hector was seated at the table, smug and
looking more sinister than the last time they’d met. Two women were also seated
at the table with him. Jahaira rolled her eyes at Hector after he winked at
her. She knew when he was up to no good.
“Everyone, this is
Lenox, Jahaira’s boyfriend,” Carmen announced.
Lenox nearly jumped out
of his skin when Carmen gripped his arm as she introduced him to everyone.
Immediately, both he and Hector looked into each other’s eyes with the
intensity and ferocity of two chained pit bulls, about to be let loose for a
fight to the death. Carmen calmly continued with her introductions.
“This is Hector and
these lovely young ladies are his cousins, Jennifer and Linda,” Carmen told Lenox,
pretending that he and Hector weren’t already acquainted. That lie was for
Jahaira.
The pale-skinned
brunette with the short, close cropped haircut was Jennifer and honey-colored
Linda’s blonde curls fell to her shoulders. Neither one of them even
acknowledged Jahaira except to send her the occasional dirty look. However,
they both waved enthusiastically at Lenox when they were all introduced. The
dinner table had been set to seat six. The two flirts sat together on the left side and Lenox and Jahaira were to
be seated opposite them on the right. Carmen and Hector would each sit at the
heads of the table. Carmen wisely thought it best if she kept the two men as far
apart as possible.
“Jahaira, come and help
me in the kitchen pumpkin,” Carmen asked.
“Sure, no problem Ma,”
she answered reluctantly.
Jahaira kissed Lenox
passionately enough to make everyone else in the room uncomfortable while
keeping one eye fixed on Jennifer and Linda. Hector’s blood boiled and his
cousins rolled their eyes at her as she walked out of the dining room with her
mother.
“What’s good killa?”
Hector asked Lenox sarcastically once Jahaira was gone.
“Same shit, different
day,” Lenox answered.
“Your girlfriend is
pretty,” Linda told Lenox, her compliment peppered with a slight hint of
malice.
“Thanks, I guess,” he
answered.
“Well, it’s not like he
ain’t handsome. She’s lucky…real
lucky too,” said Jennifer.
Lenox didn’t respond.
Everything continued to feel like a set-up and he wanted Caesar’s birthday
dinner to be over as soon as possible. In his gut he knew that any moment,
things were about to go seriously wrong, batty, ape-shit crazy.
***
“So, how have things
been with you and Lenox since you moved in with him?” Carmen asked while taking
food out of her pots to fill her serving dishes and bowls.
“Ma, I thought you
needed my help serving food?” Jahaira asked, finding it humorous that her
mother had maneuvered her into a cross-examination in the kitchen.
“What? I can’t ask how
things are going?” Carmen asked, playfully pretending that her feelings weren’t
slightly wounded.
“Of course you can but
this feels like an ambush.”
“Well, since I don’t
know anything about this man that you’re living with, I would like to know
something. I mean, it’s not like you used to talk about him when your father
was alive.”
As soon as she
mentioned her deceased husband, a dark veil of sadness fell down over Carmen’s
face. Jahaira noticed and hugged her tightly. Although she hadn’t been by to
visit since her father’s passing, now that she had, she instinctively placed a
greater value on the one parent she had left. It was weird at first but it
eventually felt as if some invisible barrier had dissolved between mother and
daughter.
“I know Ma. I’m sorry.
Things are good. I’ll stop by this week and we can talk, woman to woman.”
“I’d like that,” Carmen
answered.
She smiled warmly,
welcoming and relishing the opportunity to spend a genuine, pleasant afternoon
bonding with her daughter.
“Good. Then maybe you
can teach me how to cook this chicken the way you do,” said Jahaira, in ecstasy
as she inhaled the delicious aroma.
“Well, I don’t know
about all that but we’ll talk about it,” Carmen joked.
***
Back in the dining
room, the atmosphere was still unbelievably tense. It was obvious that Hector’s
cousins hadn’t stopped flirting since right after Jahaira left because Lenox
sat uncomfortably at the table and looked like he had a live grenade stashed in
his back pocket. Jahaira was not pleased. She only stopped aggressively setting food on the table when Carmen placed a
reassuring hand gently on her shoulder. Once everything had been served,
Jahaira took her seat next to Lenox and held his hand under the table as her
mother began her speech. Carmen lifted the bottle of red wine from the table,
poured herself a glass and then took a sip before she addressed everyone.
“First of all, let me
thank all of you for coming over tonight to celebrate my husband’s birthday.
He’s gone now so I know it seems somewhat silly to carry on with the tradition.
Truthfully, at first I didn’t want to. I had planned to visit his grave instead
but I just couldn’t. For me, the pain is still too near,” she started to say
before she got choked up.
Jahaira reached out and
touched her hand. Growing up, she was so used to watching her mother play the
role of Jolly Polly that it was
heartbreaking and disturbing to see her so torn up. She appeared to be more
distraught than she had been at the actual funeral and Jahaira felt sorry for
her. Lenox however felt differently. He found it impossible to trust Carmen or
believe that she was being sincere. He had looked deep into her eyes and found
nothing but deceit and wickedness. In her most pleasant smile he had seen the
teeth of a beast. Still, he concealed his contempt as best he could as Carmen
continued her speech.
“I appreciate all of
you coming over to keep me company tonight. I love you all,” she finished,
squeezing Jahaira’s hand before she finished the wine in her glass and sat
down.
Despite the civil
conduct of everyone at the table, the friction in the room was overwhelming.
After Carmen, no one else spoke much and everyone seemed to just want to get
through the evening in a hurry. Malicious eye-contact and grumpy, one-word
answers fueled the fires of the subtle conflicts at the table. The only good
thing was that Carmen was really talented in the kitchen and before long,
everyone had cleaned their plates. As suspicious, distrustful and wary as Lenox
was, he had even asked for seconds. Once everyone’s belly was full, a peaceful
lull came over the guests at the table. The atmosphere even seemed somewhat
friendly. It felt so unnatural that Lenox thought the food must have been
charmed with some sort of potion or magic. Because of the things he had seen,
he almost believed that anything was possible in Caesar’s house. The wine also
played a role in keeping everyone relatively drowsy, docile and tame. No one
seemed as eager to strangle anyone, at least for the moment.
“Jahaira, can you help
me clear away the dinner plates and get dessert?” Carmen asked, taking her
daughter by the arm.
“Sure,” she answered.
Jahaira rushed to get
the dishes cleared. She definitely didn’t want to leave her man alone in the
presence of the she-devils that
Hector had brought to the dinner party, probably out of spite, hoping to cause
mischief. She wasn’t even out of the room yet and already they had started to
greedily eyeball Lenox. Normally, she wasn’t an insecure woman at all but
lately, with all of the open spaces that seemed to be widening between them,
she had started to be driven crazy by her own jealousy.
“Where’s the bathroom?”
Lenox asked, right before Carmen and Jahaira left the room.
Apparently, he wasn’t
eager to be left alone with Hector and the two beautiful monsters either.
“Come, I’ll show you,”
Jahaira answered, quickly taking his hand and leading him down the hallway like
a kindergarten kid.
***
“Don’t worry. I see how
he looks at you. He’s not going anywhere,” Carmen joked as Jahaira walked into
the kitchen with a stack of dirty dishes.
“It’s not him I’m
worried about. It’s those two vultures that Hector brought with him,” she
answered.
“A man is going to be a
man. Your father taught me that,” said Carmen.
Jahaira didn’t know how
to respond as she tried to decide if her mother was innocently giving her
heartfelt, womanly advice or if there was more to it. It definitely wasn’t what
she wanted or needed to hear in her frame of mind.
***
Lenox made sure he put
the toilet seat down after he finished and flushed. Living with Jahaira had
taught him well after she had cursed him out a few times for leaving it up. He
wondered why women simply didn’t take a split second to look before they sat
down. As he washed his hands, he hoped that by the time he got back to the
dining room, everyone would eat dessert quickly and call it a night early.
There was way too much animosity coming from Hector and weird sexual energy
being thrown his way from his two cousins. He knew how vulnerable Jahaira had
been feeling lately because of the way he had been acting and the last thing he
wanted to do was make things worse by allowing unwanted attention that he had
done nothing to encourage cause her even more distress. He turned the knob on
the bathroom door to leave and as he stepped out into the hallway, he stumbled
into Hector’s busty cousin, Jennifer.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she
said after they bumped into each other.
If her face had been an
inch closer to his, they would have been kissing.
“It’s cool,” Lenox
answered.
He tried to take a step
forward, hoping that she would back up and let him pass by but she didn’t.
Instead, he found himself pressed even closer to her. Her soft, ample, breasts
were squeezed up against his chest. He took a step backwards to separate himself
from her.
“Oops,” Jennifer
whispered deviously before putting both of her hands on his shoulders.
All he kept thinking
about was how it would look if Jahaira walked up on them at that exact moment
and saw that woman’s hands all over him.
“Excuse me, I need to
get by,” he told her, pulling her hands off of him.
As soon as he took her
hands off of his shoulders, she put one on his chest and the other on the back
of his neck. All of her movements were so smooth, fluid and quick that it felt
like she had eight arms. He grabbed her by the wrists again but this time, she
leaned in close enough to kiss him if she wanted to.
“What’re you doing?”
Lenox asked.
He forcefully grabbed
her by the wrists, hoping that would make her back off. It didn’t. The pain
didn’t seem to bother her as she whispered in his ear.
“I just wanted to ask
why you’re with that bitch?” she asked and bit his ear gently.
Then, the entire world
seemed to move in slow motion. From the corner of his eye, Lenox saw Jahaira
storming towards them. In one, fluid, violently graceful, deliberate, motion,
she started to pull her hair up into a ponytail and kicked off her heels as she
got closer. He had never seen her face like that. He knew how it must have
looked from a distance and he expected that whatever was about to happen was
going to be bad for him.
“Wait! Jahaira wait!
Let me tell you what happened,” Lenox pleaded as she got closer.
Jennifer turned her
head and saw her coming too. She took her hands off of Lenox, put them on her
hips and turned to face Jahaira with a smug, and what? expression plastered on her face.
“Oh, I KNOW what the
fuck happened!” Jahaira answered.
Lenox turned and closed
his eyes, expecting to get slapped. That’s when he heard Jennifer yelp like a
dog that had just got hit by a car. When he opened his eyes, he saw Jahaira
with her fists clenched tightly, her chest heaving as she stood there enraged.
Blood was gushing from Jennifer’s nose.
“You bitch!” Jennifer
mumbled from behind the hand she had pressed to her face as she tried to stop
the steady flow of blood. “Look what you did! I’ll fuckin’ kill you!” she
continued, unwisely.
“You want more bitch?
Ok!!!” Jahaira yelled and charged at her again.
This time, Jahaira
knocked her to the floor and sat on top of her. Lenox stood frozen in
disbelief. Jennifer had managed to grab a handful of Jahaira’s hair but that
didn’t slow down the punches that connected with her face. Lenox tried to
restrain her but Jahaira only stopped hitting Jennifer long enough to push him
away. With the fury that burned inside her along with adrenaline, she had the
strength of ten women. Jennifer’s screams brought Hector and Linda out of the
dining room. While Hector stood frozen in just as much shock as Lenox, Linda
rushed Jahaira in hopes of saving her sister. Those hopes were dashed to the
wind right after she jumped on Jahaira’s back. Without missing a beat, Jahaira
turned her wrath on Linda, flipped her to the ground and gave her the same
business she had just given to Jennifer. The ensuing brawl consisted of
haymaker punches, hair-pulling, a robust, colorful flow of vulgar profanities,
torn dresses and broken bra straps.
“What the hell?” Carmen
shouted as she ran out of the kitchen. “Help me break this up!” she yelled at
Hector.
It took both of them to
separate the three. Jahaira kicked, screamed and spewed curses as they
struggled to hold her back. That’s when Lenox felt the touch of four icy hands
grab him and drag him down the hallway into the den.
***
“Welcome hero,” Lenox
heard three voices say in unison as he found himself in the flickering light
cast by the flames of the fireplace, surrounded by Caesar’s creepy sisters.
It took him a few
moments to find the courage to speak. They made his blood run cold and he was sure
that they had some vile agenda, maybe even worse than Carmen’s.
“What do you want from
me?” he asked.
“I don’t believe that
we’ve been formally introduced,” the withered, eldest sister answered. “I’m
Anna, Caesar’s oldest sister. The twins are his baby sisters, Anika and Anya.”
“Still didn’t answer my
question,” he said, ignoring the shiver that shot through his body from being
in the same room as them.
“You sure you really
want to know?” the twins asked, speaking together with one voice.
“Yeah, as a matter of
fact, I would. Every time you three are around, bad shit happens to me.”
“Oh, you have no idea.
We haven’t even begun to play with you,” Anna cackled while poking her wrinkled
index finger in his chest.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because we know what
you did. We know how our brother died. We saw it in a dream that he died
because of you,” the twins whispered.
They were both close
enough that he could smell their perfume. The fragrance was sweeter than
anything he had ever smelled and was almost too
pleasant. It was powerful on purpose, as if it was covering up something else,
something more sinister. Then, his mind went foggy and his grip on reality
started to slip away.
“What now?” he asked.
He was already Carmen’s
puppet. He was angry and eager to hear what these witches wanted with his life.
He didn’t see how things could have gotten much worse.
“What now?” Anna
responded, mocking him and his question.
“We’ve already begun,”
the twins continued.
It had started to freak
Lenox out how they always spoke with one voice and finished each other’s
sentences. Everything about that moment felt surreal and warped. Images of his
previous encounters with the weird trio popped into his mind. He remembered
when one of the sisters had touched his gun. Then he saw the image of the same
gun jamming during his encounter with Jon. After that, even more random visions
or dreams flashed through his mind, too fast to hold on to any of them and too
confusing to know if they were real. Then his eyes opened and he found himself
back in the present, feeling as if he had just escaped a nightmare. He swayed
as if he would collapse but once again found himself sandwiched between the
soft bodies of the twins. As they supported him, Anna dug her fingers into his
chest, right over his heart.
“We are nowhere nearly
done with you. Before the end, you’re going to wish that we had killed you
tonight. There are consequences for everything you do, hero. And…when your heart is completely broken, that’s when we’ll
come for you,” Anna promised.
***
When Lenox woke up from
what he believed was a hallucination, he was still in the den but Jahaira was
on the couch next to him being scolded by her mother. Her hair was a mess, her
dress was ripped and apparently, she had given both of Hector’s cousins proper
beatings.
“Are you alright?”
Carmen asked as Lenox sat up.
“I guess so. What
happened?” he asked. His mind was still foggy.
“After we broke up the
fight, we found you passed out on the couch with my sister-in-laws hovering
over you, mumbling some silly incantations like some fairy-tale witches. They
claim you were drunk and passed out so they were praying for you. Those three
are so crazy, I swear,” Carmen explained.
As soon as she told
him, he remembered what Anna had said to him and he clutched his chest where
she had touched him. An inescapable feeling of doom gripped his heart.
“Where are they?” he
asked, paranoid and fearful.
“Gone. Everybody went
home. It’s just you, me and Jahaira. Are you sure you’re ok?”
“Not really but I’ll
live,” he answered.
“Well, you too should go
home and have a good night. I’m sure you both have lots to talk about after all
the excitement tonight.”
Jahaira hugged and
kissed her mother before she helped Lenox to his feet. Carmen held Jahaira’s
hand as she walked them both to the front door.
“Goodnight Ma. Love
you,” Jahaira told her as they walked down the steps.
“Love you too,” she
answered.
Carmen waved to Lenox.
He didn’t wave back.
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