A Taste of Honey by Darren Coleman Read Free Book Online Page A

apologizes for the delay but we are now en route.” “Okay,” I said, and hung up the phone.
    I’d rushed to make sure that I was ready for him when he arrived; now I had time to spare. I decided to take a drink from one of the bottles of wine that he’d had sent up. I stepped out onto the balcony of the penthouse suite. I had an ocean-view suite at the Shore Club, one of South Beach’s poshest hotels, while I was in town working for two days. Priest had come down for the African American Film Festival and to hang out with a few of his fellow athlete friends at Alonzo Mourning’s annual fund-raising party weekend.
    He always sprung for the best, I think to make up for what he lacked in personality; nevertheless the luxury was nice and I didn’t hate hanging out with him as I did with some of my other clients. The fun part had been all the shopping I’d done earlier; now it was time for business.
    Moments like this always gave me pause. As I stared out into the Atlantic Ocean I thought about my life and how it had all changed so drastically. I thought about my mother and how she’d died at the hands of that maniac, who I’d hate forever but whose name I never dared speak.
    I especially thought about Manny, and the unborn child he left behind because of me, almost every single day.
    When the wind blew behind me, it didn’t matter whether it was a breeze coming off the Atlantic like tonight’s or a gust shooting up from behind on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Manny was with me and often I could almost hear his half-apology for the journey he’d sent me on. Hey Honey, do you like who you’ve become? I’m sorry for my part in turning you out to a life of materialism and sex for hire. But at least you’re still here .
    True, I was still here but I sometimes felt like I should use the word barely . I walked around with a hole inside of my spirit that I tried to fill with cash, Birkin bags, and a host of Oprah’s favorite things. It was strange: even though I knew that what I was doing would ultimately prove futile, I couldn’t stop. The temporary rush of pleasure I felt when I traded a piece of me for fortune, in what I always felt was a lopsided exchange, was the only surefire method I’d ever come up with for dulling my pain.
    Instead of turning myself around when my mother was killed, I got progressively worse. I didn’t make it through my senior year of high school before my aunt grew tired of me staying out all weekend and bringing home fur coats that cost more than her car. On New Year’s Day of my senior year she put me out. I didn’t graduate high school, but when I officially quit, my GPA had been a 3.85, which in itself was a tragedy, when I look back on it.
    I left Aunt Denise’s house and immediately moved in withGerry Monroe, a rich white man who I’d met at a bar in downtown Baltimore. I refused to sleep with Gerry the first time he’d taken me to dinner. At that point I wasn’t pressed for money and I wasn’t sure if I could sleep with a white guy, but I knew he was loaded so I kept in touch with him until I did wind up needing him. Of course I never had to ask to move into his five-bedroom home. All I had to do was tell him of my situation with my aunt and he begged me to come and stay until I got on my feet.
    The longer I refused him the more desperate he became to keep me around. I eventually left him, but not until he’d purchased me a brand-new BMW, in my name of course, and I’d secured enough money to pay my rent for six months. All of this and he never so much as smelled the promised land between my thighs. I almost felt sorry for him, but I didn’t.
    I stopped being amazed a long time ago at how much money men, and sometimes women, were willing to part with just for the fantasy of having the unattainable. More often than not I became that fantasy. No matter how famous or rich a person was. All you had to do was tell them no , and it drove them to do the most insane things.
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