War Angel Preview-...Hearts Don't Grieve

Well, here I am, back again with another sample of my upcoming novel, "War Angel." Enjoy and as always, feel free to leave comments and feedback.

War Angel

by Keith Kareem Williams

Chapter 2 - …Hearts Don’t Grieve

I

t never took long for Jahaira to stop being mad at her dad. Just before she walked out of the store, she had glanced over her shoulder and caught a glimpse of his sad smile that always softened her heart. She knew that he prayed for the survival of her happiness and did whatever he could to shield her from the horrible things he feared could happen to her but never spoke of. The world is filled with more monsters than you would believe, he would whisper to her in quiet moments when she had stumbled on him at home on the couch, alone, tipsy, somewhere half-asleep and deep in thoughts he never shared. In the whole world, she might have been the only female that he loved in the purest way. For a long time she struggled to understand how that could be because of the way he seemed to view women as a species. From what she’d seen from him as a man, he was a womanizer and lusted for every woman in the world. As a father he was different. She was his only child and in her entire life she had never seen him express any desire to have any more. Although she hated her parent’s relationship, Mr. Caesar Ruiz always made sure that Jahaira knew that she was precious and treasured by him above everything else in his life.

“Did you see your father?” Mrs. Carmen Ruiz asked her daughter as Jahaira walked through the front door of their house, wet and already annoyed.

“Of course I did. It was all soggy by the time I got there but he got his lunch,” Jahaira answered, shivering as she took off her jacket.

“Was he alone?” Carmen asked, her eyes never leaving the enormous flat-screen television on the wall.

“Hector was there too, as usual,” Jahaira answered dryly as she walked across the living room as quickly as she could. Recently, she found that she purposely avoided eye-contact with her mother. It often felt as if they both harbored some secret shame that they feared would be revealed if they looked at each other for more than a few moments at a time.

“No, I mean…was he alone? You know what I mean.” There was always a split second when she asked that question where her heart beat pounded hard enough to reach the brink of breaking. Deep down she knew that if her daughter ever decided to be cruel enough to tell the truth, those words would pierce her like bullets.

“Every time you send me to the store, I come home and you ask me the same thing. Why don’t you ask Papi later? Whenever he decides to come home that is. Ask him what he was doing at the store when, and IF he even comes upstairs to your bed instead of sleeping on the couch,” Jahaira answered as she started to walk upstairs. She wanted to get to her bedroom and shut the door before she ended up in a heated argument.

“Forget it. Forget I even asked. You’re always defending your father little girl.”

“I’m not defending him. I just don’t care anymore. He does what YOU let him do and you’ve been letting him do it for years!” Jahaira snarled. Her knuckles turned white as she gripped the bannister tight enough to make the wood creak.

“What do you know about it?” her mother asked calmly, dipping a chocolate chip cookie in her glass of milk with her eyes still safely fixed on the television.

“Nothing!” Jahiara answered sharply. “I don’t know anything about it and I never will.”

“That’s what you think sweetie,” Carmen told her. She didn’t like that her brat of a child had the audacity to judge her. “You’re young and there’s a lot you don’t understand,” she scolded, her voice still even and calm which drove Jahaira to lose her composure.

“Like what? Like letting my husband cheat on me with every money-hungry girl that he sees” Jahaira asked, practically spitting venom. Her words were hurtful but Carmen’s expression remained unchanged. A very long time ago, she had learned to hide her love and hate behind a mask of indifference.

“One day you’ll understand. You think you’re going to be the prettiest girl your man has ever seen forever? No sweetie, that position is only temporary,” Carmen coldly warned her.

Hater! Jahaira thought as she stormed up the stairs, her footfalls louder than an elephant’s despite the plush carpet beneath her feet. The pictures on the wall shook on the nails they hung from when she slammed her bedroom door behind her. In a rage, she sucked in her belly and opened the top button of her jeans. They were slightly tighter than they had been a week before and she’d been telling herself that she needed to shed a few pounds. Her mother’s words felt heavier as she unbuttoned her blouse which was also a little tighter than when she had worn it last. She flung it across the room, jumped onto the bed and screamed into her pillow. Her mother always managed to effortlessly frustrate her to the point of madness. There was something deliberately foul about the way she smoothly passed passive aggressive comments with perfect timing to inflict mental harm. As soon as Jahaira stopped using her pillow as a silencer, she sat up and violently slapped all of the stuffed animals off of her bed. Every time she’d put them away, her mother would come into her room, call it cleaning up and put them back.

After she once again had her bed all to herself, she lay on her back rubbing her chunky tummy and realized that her bedroom looked like a grenade had gone off, sending fuzzy, colorful creatures in every direction. She climbed out of bed and started cleaning up. She crammed the stuffed animals into the closet, right in with the dresses her mother insisted on buying that either made her look twelve or sixty-five. She hadn’t worn anything that even closely resembled those outfits since the sixth grade but Carmen continued to consistently waste money on things that her daughter would never wear. It was her way of protesting Jahaira’s fashion choices which she felt were too revealing at times. All of her efforts were in vain of course. To Jahaira, her mother thought she was just a doll to be dressed up and played with, not even a real person at all. That was how it had been her entire life. It showed even in the way her mother usually talked at her and never really to her. She had made up her mind not to live in the fantasyland that her mother had tried to create for her. As it was, she believed that too many delusions dominated Carmen’s reality and it broke her heart as she helplessly watched the woman who was supposed to be her role model, allow life toblow her wherever it would as if she was a feather trapped in a perpetual breeze. She had never met another human being who seemed so eager to accept, ignore or casually brush off every bad thing that happened to her. A million times she’d told herself that she would never be that way.

Jahaira growled as she punched a pink bunny in the face and slammed it down on top of a gigantic stuffed elephant. A doll’s head at her feet got knocked off when she forced the over-stuffed closet door shut. She giggled then kicked it under the bed where, as a kid, she believed that monsters lived. The notion seemed silly as she sighed, sat on the edge of her mattress and smoothed her long, dark hair out of her face. Eventually she relaxed when she thought about where she was going to be later on that night and who she was going to be with. She reached under the bed for one of the suitcases where she kept her real clothes stashed. She only had a few hours to get pretty. She didn’t know what her mother was talking about because her man looked at her like he had just seen her for the first time, EVERY time he looked at her.

I hope you enjoyed the latest sample. I have a few more to share before the book is released so follow the blog to keep up with the updates. Thanks for reading.  You can find out more about my books here: Amazon Author Page for Keith Kareem Williams

Blackbirds Feasting

Here is a sample chapter from my latest novel, "Glass Goddesses, Concrete Walls." A reader emailed  me late last night and said that she really enjoyed this scene and that it gave her a different perspective on a few things so I decided to post it. Feel free to leave comments. 

Crows have been known to congregate and circle high above things that were dying. If you look up and see them, it's never a good sign if you're not supposed to be dead.

Blackbirds Feasting

I

 remember how her sandy-brown hair tickled my bare skin. In the moment I’m thinking back to, it was a wild mess. She always laid her head on my chest right after we had sex because she said that she liked to listen to how my heart pounded when we were done. With her ear pressed against me, she could hear the way my voice sounded different from the inside when I spoke. She said it made her horny but then again, everything made her horny.

"Why don’t you believe me when I say that I love you?" Chelsea asked before she planted a soft kiss on my chest, close to my armpit. She sighed and breathed deeply. She used to tell me how much she liked the way I smelled. I had nicknamed her the T-shirt burglar because every time she came over, I was sure to be missing one. She would take them home and wear the ones I'd worn whenever she missed me because they had my scent on them.

"Because, if you loved me like you say you do, then your sexy friend in the shower wouldn't be here and all three of us wouldn't have done what we just did," I answered dryly. I tried not to sound too cold but I also wasn't in the mood for Chelsea's clinginess. In public she put on a good show and her ego would never allow her to seem clingy or obsessed with me. In front of everyone else, she radiated supreme confidence and gave off the vibe that I was the lucky one to be with her which I happened to always find humorous. When we were alone I knew who she really was. She was the woman who haunted my every footstep.

"Oh please. That was nothing. You think I'm so blind that I don't know that you're with other women besides me? I don't like it but I know I'm not the only one," she answered and slapped me playfully on my bare chest.

"Well, I'm sure you know. It's not like I make it any big secret. Still, you've never actually watched me have sex with any of them. Like the old, wise, people say, what eyes don't see, hearts don't grieve," I told her. I realized how callous that must have sounded but it was better that way. I've always been a horrible liar anyway. She sat up next to me and frowned.

"Uhm, in case you hadn't notice, I just watched you screw another woman right in front of me. Both of you gave me a few orgasms so I know I didn't dream it," she reminded me. I looked over at the thick, white steam that tumbled out of the half-open bathroom door where her pretty friend was still in the shower.

"That's my point. If you loved me you would've never brought another woman into the bedroom with us."

"You jealous of her? Wondering if I like women more?" she giggled.

"You should laugh because that's a joke. I know how much you love dick,” I said and grabbed mine as a reminder. “That hadn't even crossed my mind. That’s not it at all."

"So what is it then?" she asked softly, close enough to my ear that I felt the tickle of her words as they left her lips. Before I could answer, she ran her wet tongue across the head of the dragon tattoo on my shoulder. Slowly, she licked the scales and followed the intricately inked design of the mythological beast that wrapped around my entire arm with her tongue. She tasted every part of its body until she kissed the tail which ended at my wrist.

"This feels like you started to think I was losing interest so you decided to spice things up." Even at that moment, as her mouth and nimble fingers touched me all over, I could tell that Chelsea was trying to subdue me with her sensuality. Most women sent sexy pictures or wore lingerie when they felt me drifting away from their beds. She had taken things to whole new level when she set up the circumstances for our threesome to take place. She always did whatever she could to outdo the other women I was involved with. She would always ask for graphic details of my other encounters and in some perverse way, I think it made her wet.

"You didn't like it?" she asked as she slid her hand under the sheet, groping me with a mischievous smile when she felt that I was still hard and sticky from sex.

"Of course I liked it but that's not the point."

"Your problem is you talk and think too much. What were we talking about again?" she asked sarcastically as she stuck her head under the sheets and kissed my thigh. I still remember how sweet her thin lips felt. They were the total opposite of the thick, juicy ones between her legs.

"You're just fascinated by the idea of me loving you back as much as you think you love me." As soon as I said that, all of the touching, kissing, licking and caressing stopped. She was probably right when she said I talked and thought too much. It wasn’t unusual for me to play the role of mood killer. I've never been very good at going with the flow and letting things be when I had a lot on my mind or an issue to address. I guess that part of me didn't come with an on/off switch.

"You know, you are really ungrateful. Most men would have been in a state of satisfied bliss after doing what all three of us just did," she said. She was probably right. This wasn't the first opportunity I had to have a threesome but the other one hadn't worked out at all. In fact, it had turned out to be a total disaster. Everything had seemed to be in place for it to happen but, the fact that both women claimed that they weren't into women rained on that parade. To make things worse, the woman I was with who was allegedly down for the group sex to take place was so jealous that she gave off a horrible vibe when her friend tried to touch me. Instead of participating, her friend became a spectator while I had sex with her so it hadn't been a totally fruitless entanglement but, it certainly wasn't what I had planned.

"Eh, I guess so," was my response and Chelsea definitely didn't like it. I shouldn't have answered like that but as usual, I was irked by the unmistakable air of arrogance in the tone she had started to use with me. Things like that always got under my skin.

"Well, if that's your attitude, why did you bother doing it?"

"I guess I did it just to do it. It'll probably lead to more trouble than it was worth anyway."

"And how do you figure that?" she asked, sitting up and folding her arms across her bare breasts. I could tell she was upset by the way the muscles in her arms tensed.

"When you left the room to get us drinks, I couldn't find my phone. Your friend told me to give her my number so she could dial it for me. After it rang and I found it, I watched her store my number in her phone." Of course I didn't tell Chelsea that I only pretended to lose my phone on purpose. I had suspected that her friend was shady and she turned out to be. I always had a gift for sensing that type.

"You don't know that. Maybe she was checking her text messages…or her emails."

"Maybe, but I doubt it."

"Ugh, you're so arrogant. Who says she wants you like that?"

"Arrogance and confidence are cousins but don't ever mistake one for the other. Trust me, I can tell she likes me."

"Listen, it was just sex."

"It always is until somebody's heart gets caught up in it, just a game until somebody catches feelings and then somebody's feelings gets hurt," I told her deliberately. I could tell she caught my meaning by the way she glared at me.

"It's no big deal. Selena knows the rules. This was a one-time thing that I asked her to do for me as a favor," she insisted which offended me. It sounded too much like she believed she had tossed a dog, (the dog being me), a bone.

"You sure about that?"

"Yes, I am. And wipe that smug look off your face too," she said as she playfully palmed my jaw with her hand. I've always hated people touching my face. I don't know why exactly but I've always found it annoying.

"I know something that you don't know," I said. I knew that it was probably better to just keep my mouth shut but honesty has sometimes turned out to be my bane.

"And what's that?"

"When we were all enjoying each other's company and I was giving it to you from behind, while your face was buried between her legs, I saw her take off one of her earrings and deliberately drop it under the bed. She was biting her bottom lip and looking right at me when she did it. Check under the bed right now if you don't believe me," I told her smugly. My ego weighed a ton at that moment and why shouldn't it? I just had sex with two gorgeous women with amazing bodies. Chelsea was pale as milk but she was voluptuous and curvy. Her friend…no, our friend Selena was the color of light chocolate and just as sweet. Even as they took turns with me and I took turns with them, it had been impossible not to feel like a king. Only rich men and celebrities found themselves in situations like that, especially with women as beautiful as they both were. I was just an independent author, still very far from famous, trying to make a name for myself, living in that moment like a rock star. Chelsea frowned as she reached under the bed and lost most of the color in her face when she found Selena's hoop earring, right where I said it would be.

"She probably took it off so it wouldn't get tangled in the sheets or snagged in her hair," she answered, sounding slightly deflated and a little less confident.

"Ok, but why wouldn't she take out both earrings? Why take out one and leave the other?"

"I don't know."

"I'll tell you why. At some point tomorrow, she's going to call me to ask if she might have left it here. She'll pretend that that's all she wanted but if I entertain her with a little more conversation than I should, she won't stop me. Eventually, she'll want to meet up with me somewhere to get her earring back. One thing will lead to the next and I'll end up fucking your friend…again," I told her.

"She wouldn't!"

"She WOULD…and she plans to."

"She isn't even into men."

"Probably not but she's definitely into me. It's probably because you went running your mouth about how much you love me. She wants me because you want me. Some women are spiteful like that," I explained. Chelsea kept quiet for a few moments, taking in everything I just told her. She looked hurt, confused, and pink as her cheeks became flushed.

"Would you have sex with her behind my back if she asked you to?"

"Probably. I mean, I just did right in front of you so why not behind your back?"

"And what would happen if I found out about it?"

"Oh, your friend would apologize. She'd say that it was a mistake and tearfully tell you how sorry she was, over and over again. Of course, all of that would be a lie. Believe me when I tell you, these types of allegedly, accidental, entanglements are NEVER ever mistakes."

"You're evil. I don't even know why I love you."

"Like I told you before sweetness, you don't. You only think you do. If you did, it would have broken your little heart to watch me have sex with another woman," I told her, playfully poking her in the chest, right above her heart before I used the same finger to caress her stiff nipple.

"Stop it. I’m sick of you and all of your damn theories. You swear you know everything. You can't tell me how I'm supposed to love you."

"I'm not telling you how to love me. I'm telling you that you don't love me at all. Not really. You just like me a lot. And that's fine. I'm fine with that. I accept it and I can live with it," I told her and leaned closer to kiss her on the forehead. She was so much prettier to me when she was sad. I've always found tragic grace and beauty in the deeply melancholy moods of women. It made me wonder if I sometimes made them sad on purpose. She turned away from me so I planted a second kiss on her cheek.

"But I do though. I know I do. I've never met a man like you before."

"That may be true but it still doesn't mean you're in love with me. It'll pass and one day you'll wake up feeling like you were dreaming all along," I told her, deliberately placing a third kiss on the nape of her neck.

"I like dreaming," she answered as she began to gently fondle her own breasts.

"Of course you do…and you want me to dream with you right?" I asked, moving her hand away and replacing it with my mouth. My tongue circled her nipple as it stiffened and she loved it.

"Why not? What's wrong with dreaming?"

"Nothing," I answered as I started to kiss her stomach. It wasn't completely flat but I loved her little tummy. She would try to hide it sometimes and called it her pouch. I didn't like women with washboard abs anyway because to me, it made them look too masculine. I had grown weary of the entire discussion and I sought to put an end to it quickly. The only thing I wanted to do was put my hands all over her soft, supple, willing, body.

"So why can't we just dream together?" she asked, holding my head as I gently bit her thigh.

"Because you'd wake up before me," I answered, staring up at her. Chelsea held my face in her hands and looked directly into my eyes. There was something different about the way she touched my face that time that I didn't mind.

"And what does that mean?"

"I know what you want from me. It's the same thing every woman I know wants. You want me to be in love with you because you want to be loved," I said. This time she leaned forward and kissed me softly on the lips before she spoke.

"And what's wrong with that?"

"You want me to give you something that I can't."

"And why can't you?"

"Because the truth is that you only tell yourself that you love me because I won't give you what you want. If I ever did, I'd be finished. The challenge for you would be gone but I'd be hopelessly trapped in the dream long after you woke up," I answered calmly without even a hint of the passion I'd just used while kissing and touching her. It felt as if the last candle in a dark room had just been blown out.

"What happened to you? Why are you like this? Do you even believe in love?"

"I actually do. I believe in it more than most and my definition of it is much deeper than what most can comprehend. That's why I know when it's not real."

"According to your definition of course?"

"Yes, according to my definition."

She moved her hands from my face and looked away again. She pulled her wild, sandy brown hair together and twisted it into a ponytail. When I tried to touch her hand she dragged it away from me and pulled the bed sheets up to her neck.

"Don't touch me."

"What’s the matter now? You know that nothing I just said is a lie."

"I'm sure you've loved other women. You've even told me that yourself so why not me?"

"It's not you."

"Are you serious right now? How could it not be me?"

"I've lived the same dream that you want me to live with you right now. It wasn't a good look when it ended. I swore I'd never get into anything like that again. There's nothing wrong with you if that's what you're thinking. It's my choice to be this way."

"So you're never going to care about me? Never going to love me? Is that what you choose? Is that what you’re telling me?"

"I care about you…right now...in this moment."

"No you don't."

"Of course I do. If I didn't, you wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be here. I don't talk about things like this with women I don't care about. As soon as you started asking questions I would have ended the conversation, or changed the subject, or maybe even asked you to leave."

"Oh, is that so?"

"Don't pout. You're prettier when you laugh, or smile, or moan."

"Whatever. There's absolutely nothing to smile about right now. What am I to you…really?"

"You're one of my pretty blackbirds."

"A blackbird?” she laughed. “I'm as pale as milk. What's that supposed to mean?"

"It has nothing to do with your complexion silly. It has everything to do with the way you are with me," I started to explain. She let me touch her as she waited for the rest of my answer. She opened her legs just enough to let my fingers explore the wet space between her creamy thighs. Insatiable curiosity had always been her weakness. It would be her undoing one day as well as mine if I let it. Women like Chelsea never felt comfortable taking root in one place. They craved adventure, only respected challenges and hungered for new experiences. I would only hurt myself trying to hold onto her so I didn't try to, no matter how much she seemed to want me to do just that.

"Tell me why I'm one of your blackbirds," she whispered.

"You sense how passionate I can be. You want what I gave those other women so you circle above my life…waiting. What you don't know is that loving them the way I did nearly killed me. Just like a blackbird, you circle…and you wait….and you wait some more for me to give in and fall down, completely in love and unable to move. If I did, you'd perch on my body and feast on everything I had to give but even after your belly was full, I doubt it would be enough. After my heart, my soul and my bones were picked clean, you would just fly away but I'd still be dead."

"That is a very twisted and fucked up way to look at things. In that case, I don't want to be one of your blackbirds," she said, closing her legs and squeezing my hand, just a little.

"I think you do," I answered, pulling the sheet away to expose her naked body. She started to open her mouth, probably to antagonize me with more questions but when I parted her other lips with my fingers, she let out a heavy sigh instead. I’ve always been pretty good at changing the subject, one way or another.

"Well, if I'm one of your blackbirds, what part of you do I want to eat now?" she asked, grabbing me roughly between my legs as she licked her lips.

"All of my blackbirds want the same thing. You either want to claw away at my chest to eat away at whatever heart I have left or…you want to pluck out my eyes so that I can love you blindly without seeing you for who you really are," I answered. She smiled before she put her head between my legs.

"And what kind of blackbird am I now?" she mumbled while I was in her mouth.

"Right now, you're the kind of blackbird that I'm about to fuck like it's your last day on Earth!"

"What's going on here?" Selena asked, fresh out the shower and wrapped in one of my bath towels. Chelsea stopped sucking and sat straight up as if it had been her parents that walked in on us and not her friend that we had both just had sex with. Her body language completely changed as soon as she realized that her friend was back in the bedroom with us.

"Waiting for you," I told Selena as I spread Chelsea's thighs to expose her juicy pink lips. She fought me a little, but not much.

"I don't want to," Chelsea started to protest. People always glorify the amazing things about a threesome but they hardly ever speak of the negatives…like the jealousy that almost always plays its ugly part. One woman always wonders if you preferred the other to her and it always spoils the mood.

"Let's fuck her one more time," I whispered in Chelsea’s ear.

"Just once," she whispered back. I knew that she was doing it for me this time and somehow, that turned me on even more.

Selena saw the look in both of our hungry eyes, dropped her towel and climbed up on the bed. I put my hand on her damp, jet-black hair and guided her head between Chelsea's legs even though I was sure she knew the way.

I hope you enjoyed the sample and if you'd like to read the novel in its entirety, here are the purchase links:

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War Angel Preview-What Eyes Don't See...

Welcome to the 2nd sample of my upcoming novel, "War Angel." In the previous excerpt I introduced you to Lenox. It's only right that I follow up by giving you a glimpse of Jahaira. Enjoy and as always, feel free to leave comments.

War Angel (Preview)

by Keith Kareem Williams

Chapter 1 - What Eyes Don't See...

I

f one more guy calls me Mami today I swear I’ll scream, Jahaira thought while embarking on her daily trek to her father’s bodega with the food her mother had sent for him in a brown paper bag. She was annoyed, almost to the point of rage by the men who had tried to flirt with her. She could feel their filthy thoughts crawl all over her skin as they undressed her with their eyes. She hated it. The only person she wanted looking at her like that was her man. She never desired or sought those types of stares from strangers. She couldn’t help how curvy her hips were any more than she could do anything about how big her butt was. Dark jeans were supposed to be slimming according to the fashionistas but in truth, they didn’t do much to hide her shape. Her short, black leather jacket stopped just above her waist and felt like a corset the way it hugged her and compressed her large breasts. It made her look at least a cup smaller but her thighs were still enough to catch most men’s eyes. It also didn’t help that she had a naturally sexy walk that had been turning heads since ever since she hit puberty. Over the course of the ten years since her fourteenth birthday, she’d heard every crude remark as well as every polite, pick-up line imaginable.

With a well-practiced scowl, she cautiously continued on her way with confidence but avoided all of their eyes because she knew too well the nature of men. If she looked directly in their faces or even worse, dared to smile politely, they would assume that it was an invitation to become more aggressive. To avoid the problems she turned her eyes to the ground.

The city was much cleaner than it had been when she was growing up but it was still filthy enough. Its discarded things and garbage told its ugly truth. The glitzy, glamorous images that seduced droves of tourists annually was actually the beautiful lie. Every person that had lived long enough within the confines of the decadent metropolis could see through all of the illusions. When she was little, her father walked her back and forth to school every day to make sure that his baby, his only child, got there safely. However, he couldn’t protect her from everything. There had always been an air of unwholesome corruption that crept through the streets like a living thing. Jahaira remembered stepping over dirty, discarded needles that had been used to pump heroin into the veins of people enslaved by the liquid demon’s embrace. In her teens, when her daddy had grudgingly allowed her to walk home alone daily, the needles had become scarce, replaced by tiny, empty vials that once contained crack-cocaine. During that era, there seemed to be even more drug addicts than before but these preferred to smoothly suck their heaven into their lungs through glass pipes. Now that she was all grown up, she often walked over the crushed, brown trash of gutted cigars that had been used to roll weed, the gateway drug, as they called it on the news. Apparently, it opened the doors for more dangerous vices for individuals already inclined to addiction. Most recently, those doors had opened up a Pandora’s Box that unleashed a plethora of pills, all seductively named, that granted many different kinds of highs. There were no traces of those to be found in the gutters or streets.

It suddenly started to drizzle which killed any chance of her mood improving. She hadn’t brought an umbrella with her when she left the house, even though the dark grey faces on the clouds had all suggested that they would weep heavily. She had already traveled too far to turn back so all she could do was pick up her pace and try to walk in-between the droplets. Fortunately for her, she reached her father’s store right as the light rain became a heavy downpour.

“Hey sexy,” Hector called out in Spanish from behind the front counter as Jahaira stepped inside, wet and grouchy.

“How many times I have to tell you not to talk to me like that? I don’t like it,” she told him through gritted teeth.

“You should let me take you out sometime,” he suggested as he tried to reach across the counter and touch her chin before she slapped his hand away. “Ouch,” he shouted before he pulled it back. He shook it as if it was hot and then ran it across his thick, slick, black hair tied up in a bun that almost made him look feminine. Jahaira thought that he could have passed for a girl if it wasn’t for his dark beard. He calmly subdued whatever anger he felt but she thought she saw a hint of it flash momentarily in the green of his eyes.

“No, and my answer ain’t changing so stop asking! For one, you work for my father. Secondly, I have a man already and I’m really tired of reminding you. Are you slow?”

“Yeah, whatever. You have a boyfriend that nobody has ever seen. You sure you ain’t a lesbiana?”

“You know what Hector? A woman has a better chance with me than you. Where’s my father?” she asked impatiently.

“He’s in the back with a client.”

“Client huh?” she repeated sarcastically. “Well, my mother sent his lunch. Since he’s busy, I’ll just leave it here with you then.”

Just as Jahaira put the damp, brown paper bag on the counter, her father’s client walked out from the back room of the bodega but she didn’t look like one of his regular customers. She was way too young and way too pretty; a sharp contrast to the old harpies that usually sought out his unique services. The girl tried to smooth her sandy-blonde hair back into place and straightened her blouse as she scurried past Jahaira who looked on in disgust. The girl’s brilliantly blue eyes never connected with Jahaira’s dark-brown eyes but she felt the venomous look of disdain which made her pale-as-snow skin flush pink. (Jahaira might have been cute but she was terribly intimidating when she wanted to be.) She was so used to her father’s infidelities and indiscretions that it hardly bothered her any more, or at least that’s what she told herself. She was more disappointed in her mother who was also aware of them and passively pretended that she didn’t. In her opinion, her father only did what her mother allowed him to. Before she left, the young girl stopped at the counter and collected a stack of singles wrapped in a rubber band from Hector. He grinned and held onto her hand until she pulled her fingers from his clammy grip. He blew her a kiss before she switched her hips as she sauntered away and left.

“Blankitas now too?” Jahaira asked, surprised to find out that her father’s taste now seemed to include young white girls.

“Every flavor sexy,” Hector answered.

“Disgusting,” Jahaira mumbled.

Hey Pumpkin!” Mr. Caesar Ruiz called out to his daughter as he appeared from the back room of the store with his belt unbuckled. His roundish belly, the result of too much beer-drinking, hung slightly over the front of his pants.

“Fix your pants,” she told him, handing him his soggy lunch. He took the food and opened his arms wide to hug her but she backed away. Her father was a handsome, incredibly charismatic man. They grey that was mixed in with his black, low-cropped hair and sprinkled in his perfect goatee didn’t diminish his looks in any way. She imagined how the women must have lusted for him in his prime. Even now, they seemed to have a hard time resisting him.

“What? No kiss for papi?” he asked.

“Hell no! God only knows where your mouth has been today,” she told him and moved the side of her face away from his lips. Without another word she turned to leave.

“You’re not gonna say anything, right Pumpkin? I mean, you don’t have to tell your mother,” he started to say.

“Of course not. I never do,” she answered. “Besides, I’m sure there’s nothing I could tell her that she doesn’t already know.” The bells above the door jingled as she pulled the handle and left.

Thanks for reading. In the meantime, while I finish up and prepare to release "War Angel" very soon, take a moment to read my previous release, "GLASS GODDESSES, CONCRETE WALLS," now available on Amazon for your Kindle or paperback.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=glass+goddesses%2C+concrete+walls

Mixing Ink - Volume 2

Mixing Ink: Volume 2

by Keith Kareem Williams

Is there anything in the world better than standing face-to-face with the only one you can’t replace? She’s the reason why anything before her feels like just a fling. That’s why she gets the kind of love of love that makes her whole body sing. She doesn’t just pretend to understand me and her mind is absent of make-believe thoughts that I didn’t plant there. Everything she feels is real because I made it clear when I whispered in her ear. With her at my side, the present is the foundation to build the future on the bones of our past. Everything is plain without the games.

She’s the one that tolerates my moods with empathy and never takes it personal when they shift. She’s the only one who knows how to give me space and no matter how long I take to find my way back, she waits.

We got tattooed in different places and at different times but we can’t deny that it seems like a sign the way her ink matches mine. When I wrap my arms around her my dragons set flame to her garden. When I lift her legs in the air my Koi fish swims in her water. She’s got tats that show for the rest of the world but there are some that are just for me to see. I don’t mention her much because we both cherish our privacy. We never broadcast what we have online with publicity stunts because truthfully, most that do are only really putting up fronts. She’s not possessive or jealous about the reader/writer interaction because it’s just a part of my life. She’s content to be the mistress because writing has always been my real wife.

My name is on every book cover so I think it’s safe to say that if I keep grinding away, one day millions of people will know it. The fly part is that she’s the only one that gets to moan it. I’ve always heard it said that love is pain so I suppose that I’d bleed HER if I opened up my veins. She reads me like others read my books. The things they find hidden in the ink SHE finds in my presence.

Against all odds, I found a flower that hadn’t been trampled…in Brooklyn. 

War Angel Preview: Chapter 0 - Smeared Blood

Welcome to the very 1st preview of the novel that I have up next, "War Angel." I hope you enjoy and please leave comments.

Chapter 0 - Smeared Blood

W

ith his chest heaving and filled with the frosty evening air, Lenox frantically opened the car door and got in the back seat. Surprisingly, he still held a firm grip on the gun in his right hand that only a few hours before wouldn’t stop trembling. The clip was still fully-loaded except for the single round it had discharged just a few moments before. After that, it had jammed which forced him to improvise on the fly. In his left hand, he still held onto the kitchen knife he’d only seen for the first time that very night. Every nerve in his body felt raw and exposed, making it difficult for him to decide whether he was more alive than ever or disturbingly closer to death. He strained his eyes to examine the front of his black sweatshirt, wet with blood that wasn’t his own. Of course, in the dark he couldn’t see it but it was there and he was covered in it. After what he had just done, it would have been impossible not to be drenched in it. The sickening metallic scent of the gore clawed up his nostrils and nearly forced what little food sat in his stomach to creep up into his throat. He held his breath until the overwhelming wave of nausea passed. He felt feverish and even the winter chill wasn’t enough to stop the steady stream of perspiration that trickled down the sides of his face. The pressure in his temples pounded in perfect pace with his racing heart as part of a maniacal symphony in his pulse.

“Is it done?” Hector asked from the driver’s seat. He kept one hand on the gear-shifter and the other on the gun hidden in his jacket. Carmen trusted Lenox but he didn’t. The jealousy that still pumped through his veins made him wish that Lenox would give him a reason to kill him.

“Yes,” Lenox murmured.

“Are you sure?” Hector asked again.

“I said it’s done. Now let’s go!” Lenox growled, annoyed by the hint of mocking sarcasm in Hector’s tone. There was something sinister and malicious in the question that served as the harbinger of very unpleasant things to come. There was a long, quiet, moment of tension before Hector grudgingly took his hand off of his gun, gripped the steering wheel and floored the gas pedal. The car skated down the icy, suburban road which was lined with beautifully leafless trees, decorated with snow-covered limbs; a sharp contrast to the bloody, crimson horror that Lenox had left behind in the house he’d just run out of. While Hector drove recklessly to get them out of the area as quickly as he could, Lenox breathed a sigh of relief and laid himself flat across the back seat. He longed for his own bed but for the moment, it would have to suffice. He lay on his back, let the gory knife fall from his hand and closed his eyes, feeling safer being low enough not to be seen. He attempted to wipe away the steady flow of sweat with his black-gloved hands but became disgusted when he realized that he had accidentally smeared blood all over his face. Even though the car swerved erratically down the dangerously slick roads, fish-tailing as hector sped around corners, Lenox drifted off to sleep. What he desperately desired was a respite from the evening’s awful events but instead, his dreams became nightmares that dragged him through all of the events that had led up to the monstrous thing he had just done.