Underneath It All by Erica Mena Read Free Book Online Page A

me.
                  He gave me chills in a good way, like that feeling of someone slowly caressing your skin, making the goose bumps rise and your hair stand on end. He looked very mean and I could tell from his demeanor that he was used to intimidating people and getting what he wanted.
                  I had been dressed in a black dress that plunged down to my navel and it was obvious that his attention was on the parts of me that were exposed. I felt like he was slowly drawing me into him the longer he stared. It was as if I was being hypnotized. In a very cool yet commanding way he placed his phone in my hand and told me to put my number in it. His screen saver was a picture of him in an old school Ferrari and I should’ve known then that he was self-absorbed.
                  When I looked up and went to hand him his phone back his eyes were glued on my stomach. He told me that he loved my stomach and I don’t know if he knew then that that very statement would ring true in our future when I would become pregnant with his child. Maybe he did have a vision of me having his son, who knows, but he said that he fell in love with my stomach the day that he met me.
                  Right before we began shooting he put his chain around my neck where it rest against my navel. After the video was over Joe had to go which meant that Raul had to leave with him and I could tell that Joe’s wife saw the attraction between us as she smiled from across the room. I waved back at her and after everyone said goodbye I went back to my dressing room to pack up and go home.
                  Kathy, who was a friend of mine from Junior high school came over my house that night and we were preparing to get dressed and go out to a teen party. I wondered if he had known my actual age would he have still been gawking at me like that. My phone began to ring and Kathy informed me that it was a New York number. I took the phone away from her and answered it only to find out that it was Raul.
                  I could tell from the way that he was talking to me that he was used to getting pussy thrown at him left and right. He was very arrogant and cocky and he had a way of manipulating his words in order to get people to do what he wanted. At first I was shocked and a little scared that he had called. Even though I was mildly attracted to him I had just lost Trent and the wounds were still fresh.
                  I hadn’t really mourned him so these feelings I was having towards Raul didn’t seem right. I felt as if I was disrespecting someone who was no longer here. I didn’t want to be with anyone but Trent so I blew him off. I kept him at bay for two months; I even labeled his number in my phone as “Terror Squad, Don’t Answer.” I was giving him every excuse I possibly could in an effort to avoid him. Had I known then, what I know now, I never would’ve given in and answered the phone.
    *****
                  I continued to pour myself into my work headfirst and after shooting the Fabolous and Chris Brown videos I had finally begun to get recognition from the Hip Hop community and different publications. I was asked to do November’s issue of XXL Eye Candy and I was ecstatic, these were the very magazines that I used to look at when I was younger, the very girls that I used to aspire to be like and now I could finally stop pretending. I finally had a chance to make my dreams a reality.
                  Word got around really fast once the issue of XXL came out. Me and a friend of mine had gone out to celebrate and we actually had to pay off the bouncers because I was underage so we lied and told them that we were there to also bring in my twenty first birthday. We had put up posters from the magazine all throughout the club and before you knew it a little bit of everyone was there. I was getting passed drinks left and right and after a