Full Figured 7 Read online

  Nisha and I dipped into the empty bathroom. In the mirror I saw that my hair was flattened in the back, my makeup smeared beneath my eyes, and I had small spots of sweat that seeped through the thin material of my dress. Quickly I fluffed my weave, powdered my face, and reapplied lipstick. I grabbed a bunch of paper towels and inside the stall I wiped myself and dabbed my stomach and chest until it was dry. Nisha reapplied lipstick and touched up her makeup also.

  “Think anyone will know?” she asked, her lips curved into a sexy smile.

  “I do believe we’re glowing,” I told her.

  Back in the hallway I debated whether I wanted to go back to the VIP section, or leave to upload and view the pictures. I needed to look through them and choose the best one for the final piece of our plan.

  “Are you about to leave?” Nisha asked.

  I was hesitant to go back upstairs to Ace and sit next to her like I hadn’t just allowed another woman to have me. I’d have to go pretend like I hadn’t just cum all over Nisha’s fingers in a darkened hallway with a couple hundred people partying and dancing in the next room. And after the picture was revealed, she would realize that was what I had gone to do when I left her side for twenty-five minutes. I knew I had been ruthless with her feelings and the plan, but was I that cruel and cold-hearted?

  Still, I walked to the edge of the staircase that led to the VIP section. I peeked up at Ace, who sat comfortably surrounded by her peers, a few men I recognized as the managers of some local rap artists. The guys chugged back beers while Ace sucked on another drink. She leaned back in her chair, her legs open and sitting quite unladylike, apparently oblivious to the fact that I was still gone. I turned back around.

  “I’m going to escape through the back exit,” I told Nisha.

  “Okay. Sandy is inside somewhere waiting for me. Call me when you’ve taken a look and picked a photo. Can I see which one first?”

  “Of course, my dear. I know we both want to look good for our big reveal.”

  We took a step back and kissed one more time, smearing the lipstick we had just reapplied. Nisha wrapped her arms around my body, caressed my ass, and squeezed.

  “Mmm. I could get high off of you,” she whispered.

  I tapped the vein in her arm. “Whenever you need a hit, I’m here.”

  “I think I’m always strung out,” she told me.

  “A little sugar injection will do that to you.” I winked at her. “I’ll call you in the morning.” I walked quickly to the back of the hallway, passing the place where only minutes before I had an amazing orgasm. I smiled. I opened the exit door and looked around. The alley was dark and smelled of warm garbage and liquor. The front of the club was about forty feet away. I stepped outside and ran in that direction, forgetting that I hadn’t called the driver to meet me in the front. When I reached the sidewalk, I saw that there was a line that extended almost to the exact place in which I stood. I tried to turn my back and walk away but it was too late.

  “Sugar?” someone called to me. “Sugar?” the person yelled louder.

  I exhaled, put on my biggest, fakest smile, and turned around. Almost everyone in the line also turned around to face me at the same time. For the next fifteen minutes I signed autographs and took pictures with fans. Many asked why I was leaving the party so early. My excuse was the usual, because I wasn’t feeling well. The nosey ones wanted to know why I was coming out of a dark alley and not escorted by security or at least a friend. I laughed off their questions and said sometimes celebrities have to make quick and quiet escapes. “It was unsuccessful tonight,” I joked with them. After a few final photos, my limo pulled up and I told everyone I had to go. The driver opened my door and just as he was closing it, I heard my name again. “Sugar! Sugar, wait!”

  “Close it,” I muttered to him, which he did swiftly.

  “Home, please,” I told him. I didn’t want to go back to the hotel and chance Ace knocking on my door. I sent Yoshi a message: I’m not returning to the room. Bring items to my condo at ten a.m. That way I’d have an opportunity to upload the pics, go through them, and get them ready for delivery the next day. I smiled smugly to myself. Yes, it was time for everyone to see just what Sugar was all about.

  Chapter 12

  Sugar Freak

  “I can’t find it,” I shrieked into the phone. I was sitting in my kitchen sipping on a shot of gin with a trembling left hand.

  “Wait, what? What do you mean you can’t find it?” Nisha asked, sounding close to the same panic-stricken state I was in.

  “What I mean is I can’t find the fucking memory card. It’s not in my clutch.”

  “Okay, okay, I can’t breathe,” she said. I heard her inhale and exhale loudly several times. “I remember giving you the card. What happened after you left the club?”

  “I went out the back exit but then I got noticed by everybody standing outside, that’s what happened. I ended up out there for fifteen damn minutes signing autographs.”

  “Where was the card?”

  “It should have been in my clutch where I put it,” I told her. “I’ve turned it upside down looking for it. It’s not in there. I don’t know what to do. This wasn’t the plan.” I shook my head furiously, trying to figure out how our scheme had suddenly gone wrong.

  After I confessed to Nisha that Ace was more than just my manager but my partner as well, I also expressed to her my frustrations over the years of having to live in secret. I told her about the many arguments Ace and I had had because she refused to let me come out, and that she was also unwilling to publicly admit that she and I were in a relationship. I told her that I had had enough living in secrecy. Nisha and I then conspired together to reveal my secret in an explosive manner, one that would be unforgettable and create the coming-out headline I desired. We schemed to fake the release of one of the photos of her and me caught together intimately. The entertainment industry would eat it up. We lived in a time when information was instantaneous and we knew that the release of one or two photos would light up the Internet. We didn’t worry about our reputations; celebrities were caught in compromising positions all the time and survived, if not thrived, afterward.

  “Look at Kim,” Nisha had said. “She was Paris’ flunky before that sex video came out. Look at her now; she’s one of the most famous people in the world. That could and should be you, Sugar.”

  We had planned to meet in the bathroom and then escape the club with Rock Sandy. From there we were to go to Nisha’s truck, a Ford Escape, which had been parked on a quiet street a few blocks from the club. Rock Sandy was the planned photographer, and on camera would catch us kissing and groping one another in the vehicle. We were to be so absorbed in our passion that we didn’t even notice we were being photographed. With that being the original plan, we weren’t sure if Rock Sandy would have captured Nisha finger fucking me. We didn’t want to publish that picture anyway; that was just for our own pleasure. We would have cropped the photos, and at least images of our bodies wrapped around one another would be all the evidence needed to blast to the world that I was gay.

  When Prestin offered us a hideaway space with security protection on top of it, the plan became simple. It would have been easy enough to act like a sneaky photographer caught us in a compromising position. We had both been pleased that the scheme seemed to have come together so smoothly. Until the plan fell fast through the cracks with the loss of the memory card.

  “It’s got to be somewhere. You checked the limo?”

  “I’ve checked everywhere, Nisha, it’s gone. This is so fucked up.” I shook my head.

  “What are we going to do? If someone else gets their hands on those pictures . . .” She left the sentence unfinished.

  “I know, I’m supposed to be in control. Shit, this wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  “All we can do now is wait,” she concluded.

  “Wait for what?” I asked, exasperated. “I can’t sit here knowing those pictures are out somewhere, probably o
n somebody else’s computer right now.”

  “We don’t have any other choice but to wait for them to show up, and I don’t mean show up by someone turning the card in to the lost and found. I think we’re going to get Internet coverage and the headlines you wanted, just not the way we planned.” Nisha’s voice cracked.

  “I’m sorry,” I said softly. “I didn’t expect this to happen.”

  “I know you didn’t but you have to know I never would have done this if I thought someone else would get their hands on those pictures. What if they send them to my family? My parents? My brother and sisters? I thought there would be just one picture posted, Sugar, just one of us kissing or something. Fucking you was just going to be the added bonus. What if they’re all revealed? One big-ass slideshow of us fucking in a goddamn hallway? What if that happens? Then what?” She started to cry.

  “Calm down, Nisha, calm down. I won’t let that happen.”

  “How do you know? You can’t promise me that.”

  She was right, I couldn’t, and I couldn’t tell her I hadn’t already visualized the entire slideshow myself and felt sick when I pictured Momma’s face when she saw the photos.

  “You’re right, I can’t promise that, but I’ll do my best to protect both of us,” I told her.

  I heard light sniffles over the phone as she continued to cry softly. “I have to go. Please call me if you hear anything.”

  “I will.” We hung up and I set the phone on the island in the kitchen.

  It was eight a.m. and for six hours since I had gotten home I had mentally repeated my steps from the hallway to the bathroom, back to the hallway, into the alley, and outside of the club. I had gone over it a hundred times in my mind and still I hadn’t been able to figure out what happened to the memory card. My clutch had been closed the entire time except for when I touched up my makeup and for five seconds when I opened it to get a pen to sign autographs. Except for those five seconds, I repeated to myself. Had the memory card fallen out and I hadn’t noticed?

  I went into my bedroom and lay across the bed. I closed my eyes and tried to force my memory back to the moment when I opened my clutch, reached inside for my favorite pen, and closed it again. If I focused hard enough maybe I would recall seeing the small black chip fall to the ground without my having noticed it. I couldn’t force the memory, no matter how hard I tried. I fell asleep, exhausted from not having slept at all.

  About an hour later I heard the front door open and a minute later Yoshi entered the room. “Miss Sugar?” Slowly I sat up. “I brought your things.” She had two bags over her small shoulders and two in each hand. She set them down in the corner of my room, then left and came right back. She handed my phone to me. “It’s buzzing like crazy in there.”

  I looked at my phone and saw ten missed calls from Ace, fifteen from Nisha, and hundreds of Twitter notifications. I unlocked the screen and opened my Twitter account. My body froze when I saw it: a tweet from ThatGirl@lonestar5115 to Sugar @SugarChitown with one of the photos from the previous night. One that looked like it was right in the midst of my orgasm with my mouth open in the shape of an O with my expression an elated frown, and Nisha’s hand hidden underneath my dress. The look on her face was aggressive; she seemed satisfied to have brought me such intense pleasure. Sugar’s A Freak! the person had typed. I didn’t move. I couldn’t move. I was in total shock.

  “Miss Sugar?” Yoshi came to my side. She saw the picture on my screen and gasped. She said something in another language, and then delicately she removed the phone from my hand and set it to my side.

  How did this happen? I questioned while Yoshi left the room and returned with a bottle of water. “Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it,” Momma once told me. I got it. The front door opened again and startled me out of my terrified state. Ace. She stormed into the bedroom.

  “Get out,” she yelled to Yoshi and slammed the door behind Yoshi after she ran out of the room. Ace had on lightweight pajama bottoms and a tank. It looked like she rolled out of bed and ran the five blocks between our condos.

  Ace held up her phone with the picture of me and Nisha on display. “What the fuck is this shit?” she asked, each word slow and angry, her eyes dark with anger.

  I hadn’t had time to digest what had just happened, nor had time to gather my composure before I had to respond to Ace’s fury. “You fuckin’ this little bitch now?” she went on. “Eleven years I devoted to you and this is the gratitude I get?”

  Ace’s reaction was exactly as I had anticipated. Only I hadn’t had the time to prepare for it as I thought I would. I thought I would know exactly what picture would be published online and when it would occur. I was supposed to know which Web site would blast the photo first and I would have control over the headline. I would have had time to put together a well-prepared response. I had none of that.

  I didn’t know if I should tell her the truth of what happened. That it had been my plan to leak photos to the press as my big coming-out story, but instead I lost the pictures and someone else beat me at my own game. If my original plan had worked out, I never would have revealed the truth behind the story and confessed that Nisha and I had concocted the entire scheme ourselves. I was at a loss as to how to handle the situation.

  “Have you seen these comments?” she questioned. “People are calling you everything from a dyke to a ho to an immoral freak.”

  I didn’t want to believe her. I was Sugar; everybody was supposed to love me regardless of my sexuality, and regardless of how they found out about it.

  “Why, Sugar, why would you do this?”

  Because I wanted to be free.

  Ace snapped her fingers in my face. “Don’t get silent on me now. Not only have you ruined your career, you messed up any chances of us ever being an open couple.”

  I grunted, suddenly out of my trance. “Don’t you dare try to say some shit like that to me now, Ace,” I snarled at her. “If you couldn’t commit to me openly after eleven years, don’t act like it was coming. Not now. Not now that you have this to use as an excuse. I’m not that stupid,” I reminded her.

  “Well it sure as hell isn’t happening now. When was this, last night? You went and fucked that little bitch last night? Is that why you never came back? You weren’t in your room, either. As a matter of fact . . .” Ace started roaming around my room, checking under the bed, the bathroom and the walk-in closet. “Is that skank bitch here? Where is she at?”

  “She’s not here, Ace. And stop calling her a bitch.”

  Ace rubbed her hands through her short hair. “How could you do this to me?”

  “Do what to you? Give myself to somebody else? Somebody who’s not afraid to show the public how she feels about me? You’ve been hiding me for too long. It’s over.”

  “So this is how you tell me it’s over, with it blasted all over the Internet?”

  I laughed at her. “As far as everyone else knows, I cheated on Franco, not you, remember? Nobody knows it’s over but me and you, just the way you set it up. Nobody will ever know your woman was fucking somebody else right under your nose.”

  Ace stepped forward like she wanted to charge toward me but thought better of it. “This is the stupidest shit you could have done right now.”

  “Whatever. I’ve been telling you for years that I wasn’t going to do this forever.”

  “A few months ago you said you’d lay low. What happened to that?”

  “I changed my mind.”

  “Yeah, ever since you met baby girl.”

  I rolled my eyes at Ace. “With or without Nisha, I was not going to stay suffocated by our secret. She came in handy at the right time.”

  “What’s your plan, Sugar? Because I’m out of this. I’m done. You have to clean up this shit on your own.”

  “No problem, I can do that. I’m Sugar, I’m capable of many things as you can see,” I said smugly, but on the inside uncertain how in the world I’d straighten up the mess I had made.
/>   She stepped forward and pointed in my face. “Keep my name out of your explanation. Whatever story you come up with about being a lesbian, don’t say shit about any type of relationship between us,” she warned.

  Even though I hadn’t expected her to say she’d be okay if anyone knew we had a relationship after the photo was released, I was once again hurt that she continued to be so adamant that no one find out about us.

  “What is it, Ace?” I demanded. “Are you ashamed of me? You can’t keep lying trying to convince me you’re that scared to come out of the closet. Your door is not that tight and it sure as hell ain’t even locked; everybody knows you’re a dyke.”

  Ace rubbed her temples with her fingertips and didn’t answer.

  “What is it?” I continued. “Is it because I’m not one of those skinny bitches you represent running around the stage half naked? Is that it? You don’t want anyone to know you’re in love with a big girl?”

  She didn’t answer. Instead of denying my allegation as a crazy statement, she looked at me, guilty, and then stared at the floor. I couldn’t believe it.

  “Wow.” My eyes began to water. “So that’s it? How can that be? All these years you blamed it on being closeted and trying to protect my career when really you were was ashamed of my size?”

  “You don’t understand, Sugar,” she said weakly.

  “You’re right, no, I don’t understand. Why would you even pursue me then? You could have had any of them skinny girls. Why me?”

  “Because I wanted you. I love a healthy-sized woman. I love your body and all your curves. You excite me. I love you, Sugar, you’ve got to know that.”

  Angry tears fell from my eyes. “No, you can’t love me,” I realized. “Love isn’t embarrassed. Love isn’t ashamed.”

  “Image is everything in this business,” she attempted to explain. “I’m around young, beautiful women all the time. But I chose you. I’ve been faithful to you all this time.”

  “Well you should have been fucking them little bitches if that’s what this has been about this whole time. I can’t believe you. I’m good enough to fuck, just as long as nobody know about it? Unbelievable.”