Page 24 of Heart of Sin
Her apartment in BLANK Vegas is as real as it gets. The six-hundred square foot space is cramped, with cracks in the wall and AC that barely works, but Tasha’s managed to spruce it up to make it as pleasant as possible with furry rugs and cheetah print—and it always smells amazing.
Just like her.
Tasha Henson, self-proclaimed hustler boss bitch who only deals with men for money, is letting me sleep in herbed. It’s such a feat I can’t help feeling like the king of the fucking world for accomplishing it.
“What’s that smile for?” she asks.
Caught red-handed, I wipe it off my face. “Just thinking about how comfy this bed is.”
“You mean my bed with the broken boxspring?” Tasha snorts from the bathroom doorway. Her hair’s wrapped up in one of those silky scarves as she wanders over in her underwear clutching a bottle of nail polish. She balances on the edge of the bed with the heel of her foot propped up, unscrewing the nail polish’s top.
I sit up. “Your boxspring’s broken? Is that what that creak is? Is that why you never let us mess around in your bed? Here I was thinking it was ‘cuz I was too heavy.”
“I mean, Idocall you big guy. You do be tearing it up.” She smiles flintily at me from over her shoulder. “My bed can’t handle a normal guy. It would sink through the floor with you.”
“I’ll buy you a new one. Boxspring, mattress, frame. All of it.”
“Don’t need one. This one’s still holding up.”
“Barely. Why haven’t you bought one with all those stacks you’re making?”
“I spend my money on things I want, big guy. If I wanted a new boxspring, I’d have one.”
In other words,drop it.
I let it go. Tasha can get funny when it comes to money. Though I get it. I used to be the same way, growing up how I did, where we struggled for so many years. I had a complex about being viewed a certain way.
However, I have wondered… what does she do with all the money she makes? I’m paying her over ten grand a visit. My visits are almost monthly. That’s on top of the money she was pulling at the Dollhouse. Her apartment is rundown. Her car too. She dresses nice, but not in designers. Where is it going?
Tasha bends her knee up to her chest and paints her first toenail. “We should do something fun today. We’re always either at your penthouse, my apartment, or the casinos. Let’s go see a movie or something.”
“Think there’s a Marvel flick or something out. You like those? Lots of beefy men in tight suits.”
“I have my own beefy man.”
“Who’s beefier? Captain America or me?”
“Don’t do that. Don’t put me on the spot like that.”
“You’ve got to pick one, Tash. Only one of us has made you come four times straight. Just throwing that out there.”
She cracks up with a loud laugh and accidentally runs her nail polish brush the wrong way across her toe. “Shit! See what you did? I just covered my whole baby toe in Champagne Dreams. Can you grab me the nail polish remover?”
It’s the least I can do as I get up from the bed—and notice the squeak of her boxspring more than ever—only to receive a taste of my own medicine when I return.
“What about you? You’re telling me you’re turning down whatever chick in a skintight leather catsuit, titties all out? Scarlett what’s-her-face?”
“You have no idea about these movies, do you?”
“This is true.”
“How aboutyouin a skintight leather catsuit with your tits all out?”
“Louis!” She shrieks in laughter as I set down the nail polish remover instead of handing it over to her, wrapping my arms around her and burying my face into her neck for kisses. She tries to shrug me off while holding the little nail polish wand and keeping her wet toes balanced on the foot of the bed.
I’m about to tell her fuck bothering with painting the rest of them. I’ll just take her to a local salon to have somebody do them for her when fists pound on her apartment door.
The kind of pounding the cops do when they’re about to bust open your door.