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Thursday, October 22, 2015

Sneak Peek of Chapter 3 from "The Higher Learning Curve"

Chapter 3

Marlon gazed out of Vickie’s apartment window into the darkness high above the surrounding buildings. The full moon had caught his eye as it glowed like a bright pearl against the backdrop of a cloudless night sky. He had always preferred it’s pale glow to the blinding glare of the sun and was fascinated by the moon’s almost magical properties; the way it influenced the levels of the ocean’s tides and how it altered people’s moods. The fact that it was exponentially closer to the earth than the star whose light it reflected made the moon feel even more special to him, like a friend that only lived a few doors down.
“What are you over there staring at?” Vickie asked from the other side of the room. She was in bed, dressed in just her underwear, surrounded by textbooks, notepads, pens, highlight markers and different-colored sticky notes stuck to pages, flapping like feathers from the breeze generated by the small, desktop fan on the nightstand next to her. Her panties and bra weren’t a matching set but she was comfortable enough around him that she really didn’t care. Her hair hung loosely around her shoulders, messy and wild, a sharp contrast to the conservatively neat styles she usually wore when she ventured outside of her cozy, one-bedroom apartment. The sides of her that she showed the rest of the world and what she allowed him to see were two completely different things.
“I’m just looking up at the moon. It’s full tonight,” he answered, turning away from the window to give her his full attention. “What are you over there studying?” he asked.
“I’m working on a paper for my anthropology class,” she answered as she dragged a yellow highlighter across a passage in the textbook in her lap.
“Anthropology. Now, there’s a subject that’ll come in handy in life,” he said playfully.
“Says the electrical engineer who passionately expressed the virtues of being well-rounded and learned when he tried to explain why he was taking world arts to me earlier today,” she answered, raising her glasses off of her nose and resting them on top of her head.
“You’re so cute when you’re being a smartass,” her.
“Oh really? So cute that I’m doing my anthropology paper instead of getting that second round that you promised me?” she asked sarcastically.
“Don’t pout. You know that I’m a man of my word,” he said as he walked away from the window and got back into bed with her, shoving some of her papers aside.
“Ugh, you’re making a mess,” she complained halfheartedly because the truth was, she could think of a long list of things she would rather be doing at the moment and none of those things had anything to do with her anthropology paper or any form of schoolwork.
“What’s the theme of this paper that you’re working so hard on?” he asked while running his finger gently across her shoulder.
“I’m writing a paper on how women are depicted differently from men in almost everything you read in literature. I’m calling it Subtle Sexism,” she answered, slightly excited by his touch.
“That seems like an odd subject for an anthropology project. I thought anthropology was about digging up old bones and cracked clay pots,” he joked.
“That’s part of it but it’s a lot more than that. Anthropology is the study of humankind. In more technical terms, it’s the comparative study of human societies and cultures and their development,” she answered.
“You know I love it when you talk nerdy to me right?” he told her, then gently started planting kisses on her shoulder blade.
“Is that so?” she asked as thoughts of how language was used in a recent newspaper article to describe a female nominee for the next U.S. presidency in a manner that made her seem weaker than her male counterparts floated out of her head, replaced by carnal curiosity about what Marlon planned to do next.
“Yes, that’s a fact. Smart women are way sexier than dumb ones,” he answered while playing with her belly button with his index finger.
“I have a lot of work to do,” Vickie sighed, protesting weakly.
Marlon slid his fingers in a straight line below her belly button across her soft skin gradually until he slipped his hand past the waistband of her underwear. She was wet and sticky between her most feminine lips. The highlight marker fell from Vickie’s fingers as she began to moan and pull her own hair. Marlon smiled, because of how she responded to what he was doing to her with just his fingers. To him, it was like playing a musical instrument. The sounds she made changed depending on how and where he touched her. There was no guessing involved on his part anymore because he knew what she liked and had learned what she loved.
As much as Vickie enjoyed his touch, she refused to become so completely lost in pleasure that she forgot that she had power over him as well. The Victoria that she carefully and deliberately constructed each morning to present to the world served as the cage that kept the wilder side of Vickie contained, metaphorically restrained. She had always been afraid to let that side of herself loose. The countless lectures from her mother about always being a proper lady and the good girl at all times had warped her perception of sexuality to such a degree that she was ashamed of some of the things she desired to do, and to have done to her. It was only since she moved into her own apartment and met Marlon that she had been able to do so much of what she had been taught not to do.
When Marlon’s fingers were no longer enough to satisfy her, she kicked and shoved all of her schoolwork out of the bed and onto the floor. Anthropology, sexism in social media and everything else that pertained to school was swept from her mind. Marlon might have started out as the aggressor but Vickie quickly became more lustful than the first woman who bit into the biblical forbidden fruit in the first garden. Even Marlon was surprised by how aggressive she suddenly became.
In the blink of an eye, Marlon found himself flat on his back on Vickie’s mattress. She nearly ripped his T-shirt as she pulled it up over his head and once it was off, she flung it across the room. He winced in pain when she roughly shoved her hand down in front of his boxer briefs and groped him. Women sometimes underestimate how sensitive a man’s male parts are. He took off his underwear himself and to his relief, she was much more gentle with her mouth than she had been with her hands.
With her full, pouty lips, Vickie kissed him on his stomach first and then much lower. The wetness of her mouth was one of his favorite parts of their ritualistic foreplay when they warmed each other up for what came next. He skillfully unhooked her bra with one hand and freed her breasts so that he could fondle them. The stiffness of her nipples excited him and Marlon marveled at how God had shaped and molded women into such beautiful forms. Curvy, voluptuous, pleasantly plump, slim-thick, chunky, short or tall, he admired them all but at the moment, Vickie was his Venus and he knew exactly what to do with her.
Vicki tasted that she had brought Marlon to the brink of climax right before he grabbed her head and stopped her. Mischievously she smiled, satisfied that she had almost finished him off with just her mouth. She recognized in his face how hard he fought to stay in control, of his own body and the entire situation in general. Vicki empathized with his struggle and decided to relinquish the reins, just for little while. Her lover switched places with her and she ended up on her back with her legs on Marlon’s shoulders. The course stubble where he had trimmed his beard tickled the soft and sensitive skin of her inner thighs.
Marlon boldly pressed his face between her legs and with a firm grip on her supple limbs, he forced her legs apart so that he could taste how sweet she really was. Like a small waterfall, she flowed and made his face glisten, from the tip of his nose to the bottom of his chin. Vickie loved the way he kissed her second pair of lips. Her toes curled as both of her legs began to tremble. The way she smelled and the flavor of her sweetness on his tongue was one of the things Marlon loved because it intoxicated him. He brought her to the edge of climax but, before he pushed her off into the pleasurable chasm that was an orgasm, he took his tongue away.
The way Marlon abruptly stopped making love to her with his mouth nearly drove Vickie insane. She was tempted to reach down and choke him because of how he had cruelly teased her. He deserved at least a slap. Before she had a chance to voice her displeasure, he climbed on top of her. Then she gasped from the sensation of his penetration and fell recklessly in lust from the feeling of that first stroke. Each one after that one intensified and made her body shiver as he delivered even more than she had expected, forcing her to wonder what might have inspired him so. That question danced in her head for split-second but, as waves of pleasure washed over her, she simply didn’t care, at least not in that moment. Women tended to be mentally gifted in that way. She filed away her suspicions in the back of her mind for later discussion so that she could focus on what she was getting from him and simply enjoyed what was happening.
Marlon’s lips curled into a wicked grin when Vicki pushed him off of her so that she could roll over and get on all fours on the mattress. She looked back at him over her shoulder as he licked his lips and prepared to take her from behind. He used his  left-hand to hold her slender waist and his right hand to squeeze the meaty cheek of her butt that was larger than one would imagine on a woman with her petite frame. Aside from her breasts, she had the upper body of the skinny woman but her lower half was round and plump. Marlon often wondered how she successfully hid all of that, such an incredibly voluptuous body, underneath her clothes.
He tried to last for as long as he could but the way she threw it back on him, he just couldn’t hold on. In complete ecstasy and trapped by the walls of her wet warmth, he almost didn’t pull out in time. As he finally exploded, he felt as if he had spilled a part of his soul all over her back, butt cheeks and bedsheets. It wasn’t difficult for him to understand and relate to why orgasms were once called “the little death” by that old, famous playwright, Shakespeare. Marlon was completely convinced that a portion of his life force was drained every time he came. He wasn’t sure if it was the same for women. Vickie always appeared to be the exact opposite, energized, as if she had been given life, and was ready to go again.

Vickie was impressed with herself when she saw the spent expression on Marlon’s face. She could have allowed him to control how fast, or how slowly he pushed inside her so that he could have lasted longer but, towards the very end, she took back the power she had allowed him to borrow when they first started by controlling the rhythm of their sex. The way she had thrust herself back into him stimulated the most sensitive part of his manhood as his tip hit the deepest parts of her. After he erupted and collapsed on the bed, she cuddled up beside him. Now that they were both satisfied, her mind returned to the thoughts she had temporarily suppressed. Marlon put his arm around her and Vickie planted a few soft kisses on his hairless bare chest.

Copyright © 2015 Keith Kareem Williams
All rights reserved.

COMING SOON!

Friday, October 16, 2015

Chapter 50 from "Blood & Vengeance," - The Last Long Kiss

Good evening folks. Here's a SEXY sample chapter from "Blood & Vengeance," an explosive thriller co-authored by Keith Gaston and myself. Enjoy. 


50
THE LAST LONG KISS


 On an  old wooden table inside Room #205 of the Highway Inn, a lonely cigarette burned slowly as it balanced in the groove of the cheap, black, plastic ashtray. Right next to it sat the cell phone that Will hadn’t stopped staring at since he sat down. His eyes were obsessively fixed on it as he waited impatiently for it to ring. It was all he could do to keep his focus off of the excruciating pain pulsating from the wound in his side. In hindsight, he wished that he had taken a few syringes of Aberdeen’s pain-relieving cocktail along with the arsenal he had made off with.
On the opposite side of the room, Sassy lay quietly on the bed next to the black duffel bag of guns that Will had brought along with him from the butcher shop. She hadn’t said a word but she was deeply disturbed by his grim and morbid mood. Besides all of the blood that was already on his hands, she imagined how much the weight of killing Allen Aberdeen must have been crushing him. She understood all of the reasons why Will had to pull the trigger but she also realized how much it must have hurt him to have had to commit such a callous act. Allen might have been in league with the men that Will had sworn to kill but, he had also saved Will’s life and been a father figure to him once upon a time. No matter how cold and emotionless Will pretended to be, she knew that he was no natural born killer, no matter how many men he had murdered or how much blood he had spilled. The horrible thing that had happened to his family is what set him on the path he was on. As he watched his phone, she watched him an to her eyes, he looked like a man waiting for Death to call. He didn’t appear to be nervous, or even afraid but what she sensed in him was acceptance of whatever his fate was going to be. His lust for life seemed to be gone and that frightened her.
“Are you going to sit there and stare at your phone all night? You don’t think you’ll hear it if it rings?” Sassy asked.
“You should be getting some rest,” he answered without turning his head.
“I tried. I can’t sleep. I’m afraid of the bad dreams I keep having every time I close my eyes.”
“I’m sorry that you’re caught up in all of this because of me. Otherwise, you’d be laying in your own bed, in peace,” he apologized sadly and sincerely.
“Unfortunately, since I was a little girl, my bed has hardly ever been peaceful,” she answered.
“Those men…they kidnapped you to get to me. The things they did to you…that’s my fault.”
“You couldn’t have known that they would have tried to use me as bait. You’re not to blame for what happened or for anything they did to me.”
“But it did happen.”
“And…are the things that happened to me the reason why you hardly look at me anymore?” Sassy asked.
“What? What do you mean?” he asked uncomfortably.
“Since the day you rescued me, you’ve hardly looked at me.”
“Of course I have.”
“Not the way you used to. Not the way a man looks at a woman.”
“Well, this gash in my side has kinda kept my mind off of that sorta thing.”
“You sure that’s the reason...or is it something else?”
“I just thought that you wouldn’t want to. I mean, after all that you just went through,” he tried to explain.
Sassy didn’t answer with words this time. Instead, she slipped her arms out of her T-shirt, then pulled it up above her breasts and then over her head. She tossed it on the dresser and then got on her knees to unbuckle her jeans. Will watched as she took them off. She fought to get the tight denim down past her curvy hips while staring at him and seductively biting her bottom lip. The sight of her wearing nothing but her panties and bra took his mind off of the pain from his wound. She recognized the lust in his eyes and realized that she finally had his full attention. What she did next would guarantee that she kept it.
Sassy snuggled up with the black duffel bag that lay on the bed beside her as if it was a comfortable body pillow and not loaded with a dangerous arsenal of weapons. Slowly, with her eyes fixed on Will, she unzipped the bag the same way she would unzip a man’s pants. She winked at him before she slipped her hand inside the bag. She felt around inside until she got a grip on something that she liked and then pulled an assault rifle out of the bag.
“Don’t play with that. It’s dangerous,” he warned her as she stood the long gun straight up between her crossed legs.
“This life is dangerous. No one knows that more than me and you,” she answered before she puckered her lips and kissed the muzzle.
“I’m serious. Stop playing. You could shoot yourself by mistake,” he told her, unable to turn away because what she was suggestively doing with the gun was turning him on. She made the black shaft slick with spit as she ran her tongue down the entire length of it.
“Come over here and take it from me then,” she said.
Almost immediately after the words sultry invitation had left her lips, Will was on the bed with her. He snatched the rifle from Sassy and tossed it on the tawdry motel room carpet. She collared him up and kissed him with savage passion while he unhooked her bra. Once the straps fell off of her shoulders and her breasts were exposed, she ripped his T-shirt off so that she could press her stiff nipples up against his bare chest. She breathed heavily, like a person who had been drowning that had finally fought their way to the surface for air. Once they parted lips, she began to unfasten his belt. Before Sassy could get his jeans off, Will pushed her down on the bed with one hand while he shoved the duffel bag onto the floor with the other. It landed on the carpet with a clank and a dull thud. A second later, Sassy’s panties were off and her thighs were spread apart with his face buried between them.
The intensity of the kiss they had shared just moments before could not compare to the way he used his mouth to please her. It took her completely by surprise. She moaned wildly in ecstasy as his tongue and lips kissed her in ways he never had before. As she dug her nails into the mattress, she nearly ripped the cheap bed sheets as he continued to eat like man that had been starving for weeks. Will made love to her with his mouth as if she was the last woman he would ever taste and as he did, Sassy couldn’t help but wonder if he had ever done the same thing to any other women. It was an awkward moment to feel jealous but she certainly hoped that she hadn’t as she reached her orgasm, explosively. He drank every drop of her sweet juices. By the time she had her third orgasm, she opened her eyes to look down at him in awe because she hadn’t taught him anything that he was doing to her and she couldn’t believe how he was making her body feel.
When Will finally stopped and came up for air, there was a long, intense moment when they simply stared at each other. There are times when a melancholy smile and a sad tear in an eye can express more sentiment than the longest love letter. Once her legs stopped shaking, Sassy sat up and tenderly wiped the tears from his eyes with her finger. For the first time, she saw in his face that he didn’t want to die. She took his hand and pulled him close so that she could hug him tightly. She felt his body relax while wrapped in her loving embrace. She kissed his neck, then his chest and then planted many kisses on his stomach as she removed his pants and boxers. He held the top of her head and gasped as she teased the tip of his penis with her tongue. Finally, she opened wide and took it into her mouth. Will looked down at her and the sight of her full lips wrapped around him nearly drove him mad. The vibration from the way she moaned was incredible and nearly gave him shivers. Her tongue and lips worked together as her mouth watered. She took him deeper and deeper until he could feel that he was at the back of her mouth. Carefully, she allowed him down her throat. She began to stroke his shaft with her hands as well and just when she knew that he couldn’t take anymore she stopped. She kissed the tip and watched it throb. Then, she pulled him down, close to her by the shoulders so they could kiss again.
“You used to say that I was your good luck charm,” she whispered. “You said that nothing could hurt you…that nothing could kill you…that you couldn’t die, as long as you shared my bed,” she reminded him and then affectionately kissed him on the forehead. “Look me in the eye and tell me if you still believe that.”
He hesitated at first but eventually, with all of the confidence in the world her looked into her face and said, “I do still believe that.”
“Then fuck me and let me be your good luck…even if this is the last time. By tomorrow, we could be dead along with the rest of the city so if this is my last night, I want to feel you inside me,” she told him.
Will kissed Sassy again and then lay her down gently on the mattress again. She slowly parted her thighs to invite him inside and he eagerly accepted. He kissed the soles of her feet, one at a time before he put her legs up on his shoulders. He started off making love to her romantically but he had been one of her lovers long enough to know what it was that her body truly craved. She loved and longed for rough, powerful strokes delivered with hot-blooded intensity. The forceful pounding that he gave her was what she desired. That was how she had trained him to please her. The way her body creamed his manhood until it glistened proved that that was how she wanted him to handle her. There had been a time, when he first became one of her clients, that she had to tell him how to make her moan. She had always enjoyed being the teacher but, as she felt her student touch the deepest parts inside her, just the way she liked it, she recognized that he had most definitely graduated from her class.
Will felt his own orgasm coming but he wasn’t ready to erupt just yet. In one, smooth, subtle move he turned her hip to let her know that he wanted to take her from behind. Sassy obliged him, turned over quickly and got on all fours so he could. Once she felt him stiff and throbbing inside her, she arched her back and rocked backwards to meet his thrusts. He squeezed her cheeks and stared down to witness every stroke. Despite her otherwise slim, somewhat petite build, her butt was roundly plump and he loved the way it bounced. When he couldn’t hold on any longer, he reached forward and grabbed her by the hair. Then she felt him sexually shiver and she screamed his name as he came. Afterwards, they both collapsed together on the bed, exhausted and spent.
“You’re bleeding!” she told him as she looked at the bandage on his side as he lay down on his back.
“I didn’t even notice,” he said and grimaced in pain.
The crimson spot on his bandage had started to spread steadily like a red flower blooming against a white field and she wondered if he had re-opened the gash in his side. The sex had been so ferocious that he hadn’t realized that he had re-injured himself.
“I’m going to have to go out and get something to clean that up, and try to find something to help you with the pain,” she said as she jumped out of bed and hurried to get dressed.
“Bandages, peroxide and some vodka would be nice,” he joked. “But, be careful and hurry back. I’m almost ready for round two with you.”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can. You don’t worry about round two. Just don’t die on me,” she said.
“I won’t. You’re my good luck charm. Remember?” he reminded her in a faint whisper right before he passed out.

Once she got her clothes on, Sassy snatched the keys to the SUV off of the nightstand. All of her life, she had always believed that God hated her or, at the very least, forsaken her. Never once had she ever prayed but this time she did; not for herself but for Will to survive a bit longer. She pressed her lips against his before she hastily left the motel room to procure the things she needed to get for him.

Copyright © 2014 Keith Gaston & Keith Kareem Williams
All rights reserved.



Forgetful Me

Forgetful Me

My memory has always been bad, but only because of all the important things that I try my best to hold onto in such a finite space. When I’m old and gray I’ll probably forget my own name but I’ll always remember your eyes and my own reflection in them. I know that I’m confusing and almost impossible to read so I accept that I’ll often be misunderstood. I won’t forget that you were the only one that tried to make sense of my madness, or that you were happy to coexist in the midst of my eccentric and “crazy” life.

Even if you give me a written grocery list, I’m sure to forget to pick up one of the important items you made sure to remind me to get…but, I won’t forget to cook your favorite meal, just the way like it after you’ve had a bad day. It might seem as if I don’t listen but know that I always hear you. I might forget to mention how nice your hair looks after you get back from the salon with a new style but I won’t forget your favorite shampoo, or how to massage your scalp whenever you ask me to wash it. I’ll remember how you looked on our first date but I love you so much that I'll never even notice when you gain a little weight. To me, you’ll always look just like you did on that day. I’ll remember to say "sorry" when I’m wrong and I’ll forget to be mad when you are. I’ll be in such a rush to start my day that I’ll forget to make the bed but I won’t forget how to mess it up again when I get back home to you at night. I’ll remember every story from your past that you share with me but I’ll forget to use any of it against you. I might accidentally make you cry from time to time but I will never forget how to make you smile again. I might neglect you sometimes when I get caught up in my notebooks and these stories but, know that thoughts of you are what move my pen. If you look closely at my chapters, you’ll see a reflection of yourself in every single one of them. I won’t be on time all the time but even when I’m late, I’ll never forget how your lips taste, the way you smell, or the way you feel.


I’ll sometimes forget to tell you that you’re gorgeous every day but I’ll never forget to love you hard, no matter what I might forget to say.

Copyright © 2015 Keith Kareem Williams
All rights reserved.

Sample from Chapter 6 of "Water Flows Under Doors" by Keith Kareem Williams

I wrote and self-published my 1st novel, "Water Flows Under Doors," way back in 2009 and I've come a long way since but, I'm still very proud of this story and how my readers still love it. Here's one of my favorite moments from the book. 


APARTMENT H6.  “Who is it?”  Tracy asked out of habit and routine.  Remy was somewhere out of town and her mother had left for work hours ago so she knew who was on the other side of the door.  She smiled and fixed herself one final time before she let him in.
Tyler,” he answered.  He felt like a kid who waited for his first kiss from his sweetheart after school.  His stomach twisted uncontrollably like some gnarled, mishap tree from a twisted forest.  He had no idea what to expect once the door opened.
“I almost thought you wasn’t comin’,” she told him as she unlocked her apartment door.
“I wouldn’t do that to you,” he said and tried to look everywhere else but at the feminine figure that held the door open for him.  At first the door had hid half of her from him but now he could see how little her tight jeans shorts covered.  As he stepped inside, from the corner of his eye he followed her body, from her bare feet, up her tan, creamy thighs to where the short-shorts stopped.  Her hair was out and brushed against her shoulders just enough to tickle.  He believed that she must have heard his heart as it drummed heavily, methodically, rapidly in his chest.
“I was about to go to sleep,” she said and gently closed the door.  Now, Tyler was confused and wondered if she was wearing what she was wearing because she was expecting his company or because she was really on her way to bed.  Her brown nipples showed through the short, white T-shirt that barely covered them and completely exposed her tummy.  He stared at her and whether it was her intention or not, Tracy had succeeded in pushing Deborah just a little farther back in his mind.
Tracy sat him down on the couch and greeted him with a wet, tender kiss on the lips.  If Tyler had any doubts or reservations as to whether or not she liked him, those doubts were rapidly being erased.
“So what happened with your father?” she asked as she sat close to him and wrapped her arm around his shoulder.  The long hours since that meeting with his father had given him time to cool off so the question annoyed him far less than it had earlier.  Besides, regardless of his mood, the soothing tone in her voice and her fingers massaging the back of his neck would have made him tell her anything
“I guess he came around to give me fatherly advice or maybe make up for lost time.”
“So what’s wrong with that?” she asked and looked into his face with a mischievous smile.
“Too late for all that.  Me and Shamar been livin’ without him for so long I don’t think we can ever be close to him.”
“Well, I ain’t gonna act like I could understand that,” she replied softly.  Her voice seemed to be tainted by an old sadness she had never quite been cured of.
“What’s hard to understand?” Tyler asked.  He could actually feel the sea of subdued sadness that poured from her and filled the room.
“Me and my father was real close.  I still miss him so much,” she told Tyler.  Her lips trembled and her eyes began to water.  She quickly covered her face with her shaky hands.
“I’m sorry,” he said and pulled her hands away from her face.  He wiped away the tears that had fallen down her cheeks and a warm kiss stopped any more from falling.  After their lips separated she looked at him, surprised by the method he chose to calm her down.  She hugged him and rubbed the side of her face against his chest and felt his heartbeat.  Tyler closed his eyes and leaned his head back as she moved slowly, seductively, like a kitten in his lap.
“I think about Daddy every day.  I know that Ma does too even though she try not to let me see it but I know.  She can’t hide it from me.  I can see it in her face and in her eyes every time she walks through the door and knows that he isn’t gonna be there.  I wish he could have held little Stacy in his arms even though, he probably would have wanted to kill me when I got pregnant.”
“Why?  I remember your father as the most easy-going man I’d ever met.  I ain’t never seen him upset.”
“Be for real.  Me getting’ pregnant at my age would have ranked right up there with my brother Sean getting’ locked up.”
“I almost forgot you even had a big brother.”
“That’s how long Sean been locked up.  I hardly know him no more except for the letters he sends sometimes.  He been there so long he don’t even send those too much no more.”
“You gettin’ pregnant ain’t as bad as your brother doin’ a stretch bid in prison.”
“That’s what you think.  And, to make things worse, look who I got pregnant for.  My father would never have let me and Remy be together.”
“To tell you the truth, I don’t like Remy either.  Never did.  Somethin’ about him I don’t like.  I mean, I know he’s your baby’s father and I don’t know him that good but I know I ain’t feelin’ him.”
“My father liked him though.  Matter of fact, Ma said that after my brother got locked up it was like Daddy adopted Remy.  Maybe because Sean and Remy was real close at one time I guess Daddy wanted Remy close to him to remind him of Sean.”
“If your father liked Remy so much, what was the problem with him being your man?”  Tyler asked.
“Daddy knew Remy liked me.  He even caught us kissing once.  I thought he would have killed us when I looked in his eyes but he didn’t say much.  He calmly asked Remy to leave and didn’t speak to me for at least a month.  I can honestly say that it was the worst month of my life except for the first month after he died.  I cried whenever he walked past me without saying anything until, eventually, he couldn’t take it anymore.  When he finally did speak to me he said something about not wanting me to end up with ‘men like us,’ was his statement.”
“The way Remy turned out, I can see where your father was comin’ from.”
“I know my father used to gamble.  Sometimes he’d win and sometimes he’d lose but I don’t think he was into nothin’ like Remy.  He did what he could to make sure that me and Ma was all right but I’m sure he ain’t do half the shit Remy done did.  After the time Daddy threw Remy out for kissin’ me, Remy started to change towards him but no matter what, Daddy still loved him like a son.  I’m sure Remy loved him too but maybe he was hurt when Daddy wouldn’t let him see me.”
“But if your mother knew your father didn’t want you with Remy, how come she let it happen anyway?”
“When my father died, part of my mother died with him.  She ain’t hardly have strength to do nothin’.  She ain’t pay attention to Remy always bein’ around because she thought he was just tryin’ to help us out.  When she found out I was pregnant, she was hurt but she tried not to let it show.  She just worked things out with me as best she could.  She didn’t want to loose me too I guess.  She loves her granddaughter but I don’t think she likes Remy that much.”
“Are you into Remy that much?”  Tyler asked.
“I love Remy,” Tracy answered, her eyes filled with devotion and somewhat shaky certainty.
“Are you sure?”  Tyler asked immediately.  He doubted her words and the conviction in her voice.  Her response, hollow as it seemed, stuck an invisible pin in his chest.
“Of course I’m sure.  What kind of question is that?”  Her demeanor became like that of a sick patient who wanted to hide obvious symptoms of sickness from a physician.
“So why am I here?” he asked but silence followed instead of a response.  The recent turbulence in his life, in a short time, had transformed him into something totally different than what he had been.  He started to feel Tracy the way she seemed to be feeling him and as he thought about the way she looked at him, he believed he could be the remedy for her sickness.  The light in her eyes along with thoughts of her thighs infected his mind.  The heat of her body against his started to convince him that she could be his cure as well.
Tyler, you know sometimes I dream,” she started to say.
“Everybody does,” he interrupted.
“And sometimes I have this dream that I’m flyin’,” she continued.  “I’m flyin’ high above everything here and I look down and I understand everything.  I always get scared though because it feels like when them people say they die and leave their bodies.”
“You mean them people who say they died but then came back?”
“Yeah, somethin’ like that, but you know the thing that freaks me out?  No matter what I see at first when I’m up there, I always end up over this big trash dump.”
“A trash dump?”
“Yeah.  And then when I look down, on top of all the garbage, I always see a naked, dirty, little plastic doll with its head broken off, laying beside its body.  In my dream, after I see it there broken and tossed aside, it always starts to rain and I wake up crying.”
“Why?  That’s not so scary?” Tyler asked.
“Because I feel like that broken doll on that pile sometimes,” she answered as tears filled her eyes and as her voice trembled like straw in the wind, she buried her face in his lap.  He gently stroked the back of her neck as she cried.  Then, he lifted her face as he held her chin and examined her tear-soaked cheeks.  He smiled and then wet his fingers with her tears as he wiped her face with his hand.  She grabbed him and washed away his unseen tears with her warm mouth as she kissed him softly but passionately.  When they finally broke from the kiss, both their chests heaved heavily and blood pumped furiously through their bodies.  Tracy threw her legs over his and sat in Tyler’s lap, face-to-face with him.  While she lowered the thin straps of her night dress to expose her full, voluptuous breasts, he lifted the back of it and firmly gripped her behind.  As his lips began with soft pecks on her neck and then chest, they worked together with his hands to explore her curvaceous, femininely soft, sensuous body.  She held his head with both hands, leaned her head back and moaned softly.  Their bodies together caused them both to burn with a fever that had only one cure.  She began to rotate her hips and rock slowly in his lap.  As he became drunk off the rhythm of her body he moved with her.  She put both hands on his chest and leaned him back further in the couch as he teased her and tugged gently on her panties.  Tracy lifted his shirt with her teeth and tasted his chest with her tongue before she lay flat against him, her hard nipples pressed against him.  He hugged her while her hands steadily moved towards his belt.  She stroked his stomach lightly with her fingers after she opened his pants but then, because life, and emotions are unpredictable, she stopped herself.  The better times she remembered with Remy still held her in shackles and as she thought of the daughter she bore him, she touched her own stomach.  As hot as she was at the moment, the ice-cold traces of loyalty that ran through her could not be burned out or melted away.
Tyler,” she whispered, unable to hide the pain in her voice and not certain how to tell him that she needed to stop.
“I know,” he answered.  He tried to avoid forcing her to explain something she probably didn’t know how to.  The sudden change that had come over her was more powerful than if she had screamed for him to stop.
“It’s just that,” she started to apologize while she held his face tenderly in her hands as if he was made of glass.

“Shh,” he told her before he kissed the palm of her hand.  “I should leave.”  Neither one of them said anything as they fixed their clothes and avoided each other’s eyes.  They didn’t speak as they walked to the apartment door and silence still reigned as Tracy let him out.  After the door closed, she leaned against it on her side, completely oblivious to the fact that he lingered on his side, wanting her but lacking the voice to say so.

Copyright © 2009 Keith Kareem Williams. All rights reserved.

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Sample from "Water Flows Under Doors," Chapter 11 - Empty

It's been a long time since I've re-read anything from "Water Flows Under Doors," the 1st novel I ever wrote but recently, an email I received from a reader made me revisit those chapters I wrote so long ago. as I read the pages that I wrote in the wee hours of the night in my bedroom, it brought back the way I felt back then, which is a beautiful thing. I thought I would share a small part of the book now with those who might not have read it yet. 


“Make sure you keep in touch!  Call,” his father shouted as Tyler walked towards the subway.
“Yeah, I will,” he answered before he finally put his headphones on and walked away.  Although the air was chilly, the sun beat down on him and the wind didn’t seem so cold.  Tyler was surprised to see how few people were on the streets and it reminded him of his walk a few nights earlier.  Only when he got close to the train station did he see a good deal of people.  There were many stores located near the subway that sold almost everything so he was guaranteed to see crowds there.  There were old women who shuffled up and down, from store to store, picking up this and that as they went about their daily business.  Now and then a patrol car would drive slowly alongside any pedestrian who looked suspicious.  Teenagers hid marijuana or liquor if the police passed too slowly or too close.  The air was even different there.  So much movement and activity constantly disturbed its calm so the air itself seemed uneasy and turbulent. 
When Tyler reached the subway entrance, the air changed again.  It became stuffy and almost stifling.  He descended into the station and once again, he felt himself caught in a wave of human bodies.  So many footfalls together made the stairs tremble slightly and Tyler could feel the people who rushed down the stairs behind him as he struggled to keep up with those in front.  As they all reached the bottom of the stairs they piled together like liquid in the narrow end of a funnel.  Amidst all the chaos, the clicking sound of the turnstiles formed a rhythmic pattern as endless people passed through them.  As Tyler listened, the pounding of shuffling feet, scattered and broken conversations, and the sound of the turnstiles all formed a turbulent symphony until he reached the subway platform.  All was silent there as if everyone and everything was holding their breath.  Once everyone settled into their position to sit or stand to wait for the train, nothing stirred.  Tyler had always found that stillness to be unnerving.  He began to pace back and forth to deliberately break the unnatural calm that lay on him like a heavy, itchy blanket.
Just then, a slight breeze began to stir as the train approached the station.  Rats, mice and all kinds of miscellaneous vermin scurried off the tracks in search of hiding places.  Those who were seated stood up and those that were already standing moved closer to the edge of the platform.  Everyone’s eyes were fixed on the cyclopean eye of the train as it crawled in from the dim light of the tunnel.  It screeched like a banshee and hissed before it came to a complete stop.  Its doors opened and people poured in like water into a sinking ship.  Tyler wasn’t fortunate enough to get a seat so he stood with his back against the doors opposite the ones he came through.  The conductor inaudibly announced the next stop before the train lurched forward and plunged itself back into the darkness of the tunnel.  Tyler planted his feet firmly and braced himself as best he could because, every space on the pole was occupied by the hands of strangers.
Tyler was so tired that, although he was standing, the swaying of the train nearly rocked him to sleep.  The drive to the prison with Tracy had made him more tired than he thought and sleep was what he longed for.  For a minute he regretted not taking his father’s offer to drop him home but he wasn’t in the mood for his father’s company.  He still couldn’t believe he had worked up enough nerve and put aside enough pride to ask his father to borrow the jeep.  It was just hint of how much he had started to feel Tracy.  She had begun to slowly seep into his bones.  Whether it was just lust or something more he wasn’t sure but he knew that whatever it was, it was strong enough to make him ask a favor of the father he tried to not have any dealings with.  Lately, he thought of Deborah less and he knew that Tracy was solely responsible for that.  She had made him doubt how much he had really loved Deborah if she could have been stricken from his thoughts so easily. 
An assortment of miscellaneous women got on or off the train but none held Tyler’s attention the way Tracy did.  Just like Deborah, many of the women he saw on the way home would be considered by most to be prettier than Tracy but to his eyes, there was a deeper beauty to her, unexplainable by words.  A few weeks ago he would have been bewitched by all the pretty eyes and sexy, painted lips but they had less power over him now.  The thin scar on Tracy’s cheek as well as the deep sadness that lay far away in her eyes had taken him.  To look at her was not like looking at a pretty flower in bloom.  It was more like looking at a tree sapling and being awed by the knowledge of how great that tree would grow to become.  Although he lusted for Tracy, Tyler was suddenly overcome by an odd feeling of respect for Remy.  He never saw Remy as anything more than what he appeared to be; a dragon laying siege to a village.  He never saw Remy as a man who possessed the sight to notice the haunting beauty of Tracy clearly enough to claim it for anything more than his own sexual satisfaction.  He wondered if Remy saw and felt the same things in Tracy that he did.
Tyler had been so immersed in thought and so close to sleep that he hadn’t noticed that the train wasn’t as crowded as before. A good deal of seats had become vacant.  He slumped down in the nearest one and wearily leaned his head back.  The lights in the ceiling seemed extremely bright for his exhausted eyes so he shut them tight and tried to take a quick nap.  He yearned for the uneven mattress of his sofa bed as opposed to the rigid subway seat.  His eyelids were heavier than sandbags and soon, Tyler nodded off.  The sleep that settled on him was so deep that he soon began to dream.  He dreamed that he was sitting with Tracy on the roof of their building and as they spoke to one another, whatever words they exchanged filled up the emptiness he felt in the pit of his stomach.  Just as they were about to kiss in the dream, he woke up abruptly and fortunately, a station away from his own stop.  To his dismay, the details of the dream were too vague and hazy for him to recall.  All that remained was Tracy’s face, bright and smiling because of whatever he had said to her in the dream.  He was sorry he couldn’t remember their conversation.  Besides sleep, he desired nothing more than to make her smile again.  He wished he could recall whatever words poured out of him and into her heart to ease her suffering.

The train pulled into his stop and as Tyler got off, he felt more tired than when he first sat down.  His legs felt heavy and his mind heavier.  He had to exert a great effort just to climb the stairs.  He gripped the railing all the way up as he marched into the daylight.  When he stepped into the sun, the air was rich and it felt as if God had swept away the city smog.  No clouds blocked the sun and that forced Tyler to squint.  His eyes had to once again grow accustomed to the change from the artificial light below.  He trooped through the streets on his way home like a zombie; ready to collapse at any moment.  The hard concrete even looked comfortable enough for him to lie down on.  For a fraction of a second he even entertained the thought of resting his body on the much-walked-upon ground beneath his feet.  Just as he thought he would fall out, he finally reached the last block before his own.  He rounded the last corner but as he did, his heart stopped.

Copyright © 2009 Keith Kareem Williams.
All rights reserved


Saturday, October 10, 2015

Nirvana

Nirvana

nir·va·na
/nərˈvänə,nirˈvänə/
Noun
: the state of perfect happiness and peace in Buddhism where there is release from all forms of suffering
: a state or place of great happiness and peace


Although I rarely ever complain, I’ve seen suffering in his life, felt pain and survived a few things that might have driven other people insane. I'm sure you have to. I'm sure that we're both a little crazy. Even more than money and material things I value peace in a not so peaceful world which has done its best to make me a savage. In the world will we have to fight for every inch apart is that we make an attempt to make things better for ourselves, I don’t want to have to fight with my woman. I don’t ever feel like I have to fight with you. We both want the same things. I’ve told you that I’m working hard to put my life in order so that I can provide the life that you deserve. You say it doesn’t matter but to me it really does. You said that you want to make sure that you can give me something too but to tell you the truth, all I really need is you. You are more than enough, and more than I sometimes feel I deserve. Like I said before, this uncivilized world has tried to make me a savage, tried to make me not believe in love, and tried to train me to satisfy myself with lust. I only believe that something else exists because of you. I’m cautious and careful with you because I don’t want to fail or disappoint. I care what happens with us. At a time when most relationships are real, or anywhere near what they’re supposed to be, we can have what everybody else wants. We can be what they are not. We can have a love story that lasts forever. We can find Nirvana.

Copyright © 2015 Keith Kareem Williams
All rights reserved.

Friday, October 9, 2015

Preview of Chapter 4 of "The Higher Learning Curve"

Good morning guys. As promised, here's an exclusive sneak peek from Chapter 4 of "The Higher Learning Curve," the erotic novella that is consuming all of my time as I write through these sleepless nights to finish in time to meet my deadline. Enjoy. 




Priscilla sat on the stone steps in front of her home, naked as the day she was born underneath her red, silk robe. Between her index and middle finger she casually gripped a Newport 100 cigarette. As she brought it to her lips, she stared up at the same night sky that had caught Marlon’s attention from Vickie’s bedroom window many, many miles away. Ever since she was a little girl, there was always something about the mysterious, infinite darkness that fascinated Priscilla. All of that emptiness, populated by so little was alluring and seductive. To her, space was a vast canvas that had hardly been touched and desperately needed a cosmic paintbrush to stroke it with colors. Sometimes, it also made her very sad that there was so much darkness in the sky but so little light. The pale moon was full and as she admired its glow, the silhouette of a commercial airliner slowly crossed in front of it. She wondered what part of the world it was headed to, packed with hundreds of passengers, mostly strangers, on their way to live out hundreds of different lives.
The smoke she exhaled formed fake clouds in front of her face and above her head against the backdrop of a cloudless night sky where only a few stars twinkled weakly along with the moon, in defiance of the dense layer of smog that constantly hung over the city. She savored the taste of her cigarette as she rubbed her sore wrists. Her husband had been in a freaky, kinky mood earlier and had tied her to the bedpost while they had sex. She hadn’t really been in the mood for the bondage games they occasionally played but, she saw that the Mr. wanted that and needed that, so she let him have his way. She understood that that type of compromise was just a part of the constant push and pull of a happy marriage; one that actually stood a chance of lasting well beyond the typical expiration date of most modern matrimonial arrangements. Priscilla had adapted her mom’s philosophy on maintaining a healthy marriage, the old cliché that a good wife absolutely had to be a lady in the streets but a freak in the sheets for her husband. As an extremely attractive single mother of five daughters, Priscilla’s mom always had a long list of suitors, despite what many men would consider too much “excess baggage.” When her mom eventually chose a husband, things were good with them for a very long time. He worked hard, came home every night, didn’t beat her, hardly ever raised his voice and never cheated.
Priscilla was thirteen when her stepfather passed away and it was the third most tragic thing that had ever happened in her life. In the few years that he had been a part of their family, he had done more for her than her biological father ever had. He had never done any of the horrible things that her own father would eventually do, after loneliness caused her mother to give the man that had abandoned them years before a second chance. The things that happened weren’t good for her current psyche so she kept her past as disconnected from her present as she could. It felt like the only way to maintain her sanity so she did what most of us do. She buried the bad old bones that would only serve to haunt her.
She continued to smoke and just when she was close to finishing her cigarette, a completely random thought popped into her head. One of her students entered her thoughts seductively, like the soft touch of a familiar pair of lips on her cheek. For no reason at all, she looked up at the moon and wondered what the young man who always sat at the front of her World Arts lectures was doing at that exact moment.
“It’s been a long time since you smoked a cigarette after sex. My question is, was it that good, or was it that bad that you need one?” Charles, Priscilla’s husband, asked as he sat down beside her on the front steps of their home.
“After all these years, I still can’t believe you ask questions like that,” she answered and took his hand in hers.
One of the things Priscilla had always loved about Charles were his hands. She believed that a woman could tell a lot about a man from the size of his hands and the strength of his grip. Charles smiled when he felt her tender touch. It had been weeks since she had touched him in that way, or shown him that kind of gentle affection. He raised her hand to kiss it and saw the marks where he had tied her wrist earlier.
“Did I hurt you earlier?” he asked as he kissed Priscilla’s sore wrist. “Was I too rough?”
“No, not at all,” she answered with a smile.
“I could feel that you weren’t really in the mood for…that,” he told her.
“And I could feel that you needed that. Rough day?” she asked. She had assumed that he needed to let off steam because of how aggressive he had been in the bedroom.
“No, actually, my day was pretty good,” Charles answered, looking up at the same moon his wife had been staring at just a few moments before.
“So, why’d you make me do it?” she asked.
“I guess I needed to make you see me, and feel me. Lately, I’ve been feeling like a ghost, like I’m not real, as if you don’t even know that I’m here,” he answered.

“You’re such a silly man. I always know that you’re here,” she told him and kissed the course stubble on his cheek. “Come on, it looks like it’s about to rain and I’ve finished my cigarette. Let’s go inside.”

Copyright © 2015 Keith Kareem Williams
All rights reserved.

COMING SOON - NOVEMBER 2015