cristal
The cold and frigid beach air rushed swiftly up her long cinnamon hued legs, landing almost intentionally beneath her too short dress, causing her to quiver just slightly. It felt as if the air itself wanted to reprimand her for not wearing any panties. Her bald vagina was tickled and alert, deciding for itself to flirt with the sobering sensation as she climbed out from the backseat of the warm car into the salty smelling ocean air. She tossed a quick "Thank You!" over her shoulder to the young Uber driver. She didn't wait for him to respond as she slammed the car door shut, and without looking back she knew that he was watching her ass, legs, and thighs just hoping to see something spill out of place before she was long gone from his car and view. For the entire car ride from the Beverly Hills Hotel all the way to Long Beach, he never uttered a single word to her. Between scrutinizing the many photos she'd taken that evening, finally deciding on one, editing the photo to unachievable levels of perfection, and uploading it on instagram; she'd occasionally allow her eyes to glance up and see the young white driver staring at her from the rear view mirror. Her plump breast were on full display so she didn't blame him for looking, she knew the attention they attracted and that's why she'd purchased them. However it still felt uncomfortable knowing he could crash and kill them both because he couldn't resist staring at her. The driver dropped her off at 383 East Ocean Blvd, but she actually lived three buildings down and across the street. Years of watching ‘Law & Order: SVU’ episodes, and the time she'd spent exotic dancing in Las Vegas kept her in a slight state of paranoia, which always made her teeter on the side of extreme caution. She'd seen some crazy shit and dealt with a few crazies in her young life. Nonetheless, she slept comfortably knowing only a select handful of people knew where she truly lived. Pretending to walk into the high rise building, once the driver pulled off and she was certain he couldn't see her, she spun around and headed in the direction of her building.
The heels of her shoes made a “tic tack” sound echoing boldly off the dead silence of the apartment building courtyard. At 3am the only other sounds besides the ones she made came from rustling banana palm leaves that swayed in the lazy November breeze. The movements they made seemed magnified by the aqua blue light illuminating from the community pool in the center of the apartment building. The pressured swelling in her feet intensified with each and every step she took. Unbeknownst to whoever could be watching her presently, the way she walked, composed extending each long leg effortlessly, one in front of the other never missing a beat; you would never know the pain that attacked the arches of her feet. By 7am her feet would be swollen, and screaming bloody hell. When she'd tried on the strappy YSL heels she knew they'd be torture, but she also knew the thin four inch heel would make her calves look toned, and place her gracefully at a height of five feet ten inches even. All of her heels were high, which would have people silently wondering if she was one of the aspiring models they might have seen on a runway or in a print ad. They would stare at the exotic face, paired with the exaggerated height and assume that she must be a model. She refused to be unnoticed with the other five foot eight nobodies in their safe and comfortable heels. No one took them or their amateurish height serious. At least no one she cared about. Therefore, the pain from the heels was a small investment.
Soon as she got into her apartment Crystal stripped out of the navy blue Herve Leger bandage dress, with extreme caution, careful not to disrupt the price tag still attached inside of it. She’d be returning it back to Bloomingdales sometime during the up coming week, when her friend Stacy who was a sales associate there could return it for her hassle free. Stacy hooked Crystal and and her best friend Nicole up like this, and they allowed her to tag along when she could to events. Every hand washed the other in their warped superficial circles. The $860 dollars that the dress cost would be paying her car note and cell phone bill for this month. Her mother had warned her against getting the 5 series BMW, and she ignored her. What advice could her mother truly give her about her life style when she barely had one outside of cooking and cleaning for her current husband. There was absolutely no shame in her behavior, this was the way life was at the moment, but if things went her way, sooner than later she’d have a closet full of the provocative, too damn expensive dresses in every color her materialistic heart desired.
One quick shower later, with a face scrubbed clear and free of the makeup and false eyelashes that had adorned it earlier, she made her way to the tiny, yet modern kitchen hoping she could find something inside of it, though she knew nothing would be there because when she had left hours before there wasn't shit there. She couldn't even order a pizza, her debit card was overdrawn and that wouldn't clear until 9am. Sighs. She didn’t realize just how hungry she was until her stomach roared loudly, followed with a sharp cramp getting her attention. Her eyes automatically darted over to the remainder of contents in the pouch of 'Flat Tummy Tea' sitting on her dining room table. She made a quick mental note to herself that she'd need to do a video soon of herself sipping the disgusting, putrid smelling garbage. The 1.1 million followers she had just on instagram (1.5 in total if you combined all her social media accounts) needed to believe that's how she achieved and maintained her washboard midsection. They didn't need to know that an occasional snort of cocaine, and lipo were the real elixir. Besides she needed the $500 dollar check from them too. That money would go towards her rent. Her stomach growled again, louder this time, and felt like something was stabbing her internally. She hadn’t eaten in almost seven hours. She couldn’t eat at least two hours before putting on the dress and risking her flat stomach show a bulge in the too tight clingy material. Eating while out was definitely something no one did. That was the equivalent to walking into an upscale event barefoot. No one said it, but everyone knew it: the men with money didn’t look twice at the women who ate freely from one of the delicious smelling hours de vours prepared by some of the finest chefs in Los Angeles. The waiters and waitresses wafted through these events with gourmet appetizers on trays, the delicious smells lingering under the noses of every beautiful woman in attendance and hardly any indulged. Nope. They, the men, were attracted to the women who showed just the right amount of bleached white teeth with every fake smile, and sipped the finest dry tasting champagne easily like water never revealing a drunken step or slurred word.
It was all a game. So that’s what her and her best friend Nicole did all night long, they played the game. They drank champagne, laughed at jokes that weren’t the slightest bit of funny told by men who owned multi-million dollar businesses, yachts, and chateaus in France. The party they’d attended that night was an invite only, fundraiser for a charity that was trying to raise money for some crisis in Africa. She couldn’t remember if it was for the hungry children or the children kidnapped by the rebels. And if she had to be honest, she didn't care. Too much awful shit happened on that continent for her to keep up, it was depressing. But as long as her name was on the guest list, she'd be right there pretending to care like everyone else. Hell she needed a fundraiser her damn self, as broke as she was. The charity, which she also couldn’t remember the name of, was headed by the wife of some major Hollywood movie producer. The stunning, young, white wife looked like she was easily twenty five plus years younger than her fat, geeky, glasses wearing husband. Seeing them standing together in a line somewhere, you'd assume they didn't even know one another, let alone that they'd exchanged marital vows.That only meant one thing: millions. Staring at them while the wife spoke gracefully to the room as if she were reading a TelePrompTer hidden somewhere only she could see; Crystal almost smirked aloud. She'd slow down on the champagne. Her best friend Nicole had gotten them on the guest list to this party and pretty much every other party, awards show, and grand opening they attended. Nicole's boss was a major entertainment lawyer for A-list actors and actresses. Nicole was his executive assistant, a fancy term for secretary at his law firm. Nicole got them access to events weekly that not one single member of the 'Basketball Wives of LA’ would ever even be allowed to enter. Crystal was thankful for that, she’d be mortified to have one of the ignorant women start brawling at these sorts of events. Being one of the very few blacks in attendance, they’d easily be associated with them and possibly thrown out with them, or shunned to the point of wanting to leave. Crystal knew almost every single girl that had been featured on Mona’s shows. More than half of them did it out of desperation, a last ditch effort at achieving some level of fame and a few checks coming in to pay for the empty mansions they rented. Crystal was broke, but she wasn't going out like that. Throwing drinks in the faces of other women, and wearing silly gowns to reunion shows only to fight and holler hoping you got invited for another season of fuckery wasn't part of her plan. No.
Still standing in the barren kitchen, lost in her thoughts, and even hungrier now that she visually saw her lack of food, she jumped when she heard her iPhone alert go off indicating she had a text message. Who was texting her at almost 4am? Surely not Nicole, she was spending the night with her boss, who she'd been sleeping with for the entire two years she'd been working for him... Locating her phone she smiled when she saw who the text message was from, Aaron and it simply read:
“Crystal”
One of the most desired black men in Southern California, Aaron Calvert had made his fortune buying up homes throughout the valley when anyone who wasn't a meth addict wanted to live there. He demoed the cheap homes, built shopping centers and condos in place of them, and helped usher in the now 'hipster' crowd that flocked to the area. He was in his mid fifties, handsome in a Blair Underwood sorta way, and arrogant. She was in love with him. And she hated it. She'd fallen in love with him on their very first date. Already there for business, he’d flown her to San Francisco to have a steak dinner with him, served privately in the ballroom of the Hopkins Hotel. He informed her that he'd chosen this specific place to have dinner with her, because the twenty foot tall painting of Queen Calafia, the amazonian black woman that few knew the state of California was named for, was who she looked like to him when he first saw her. Crystal stared up in awe at the stunning black queen, her high cheekbones, and piercing almond shaped piercing eyes seemed to be staring directly at Cristal. With her eyes cast down, she looked at Aaron, he was staring at her intently. Right through her. It scared her almost, she felt her heart flutter and she knew right at that very moment he was going to ruin her life and she'd let him. Because she loved him. Right then, right there. They had sex as soon as they arrived back to his hotel room that same night. After which they dated many times, but it never blossomed into anything. He would text, invite her out somewhere amazing, she’d accept and they’d end up having kinky sex. Of course she wanted more, but knew not to be too pushy. Men of his caliber didn’t respond well to pressure from women. Her phone vibrated in her hand, jolting her out of her reminiscing. It was another message from him.
Aaron:
“I almost ripped that blue dress off of you. You looked…more
Beautiful than the last time I saw you. I want to see you tomorrow,
Meet me at Maestros 9:30. Don’t wear any panties”
She smiled and got aroused at the same time reading the text. Again, her vagina had a mind of its own. She hadn't even seen him at the event the entire night, but it was pretty packed with people. She wondered for a quick second why he wouldn't speak to her if he’d seen her there. Aha, he must have been there with his wife, Bianca Calvert. Yes, Aaron was married. He hadn't told her until the third time they'd slept together. That date he showed up with a huge box, a Chanel purse inside of it. After he sexed her body for hours, then he told her that he was married. Crystal pretended to be hurt. Even faked a few tears. Truthfully she could've cared less. She was in love with him, his money, his gifts and the way her dominated her like no man ever had. She only pretended to be hurt for the theatrics of it all. So if he saw her, and he didn't speak that must've meant his wife was with him.
Before she could think further about the ordeal, try to come up with any reasoning why he hadn’t at least texted her while they were at the same event to let her know he was in attendance, her neck began to itch from the costume jewelry necklace she'd worn. It was a fake diamond tennis necklace that complimented the dress. In hours she’d have an ugly ashy rash surely. Then her stomach reminded her she was starving, with no food in her house. She looked over at the blue dress she’d spent her last on and scratched her neck again getting irritated with her own self. Here she was getting texted and fucked by a multi millionaire and returning dresses he liked to see her in. In that instant Crystal knew something in her life had to change. Fast. She opened the instagram app on her phone, the picture she'd posted two hours ago on instagram already had 10k likes. She didn't even have 100 dollars cash in her apartment. She felt small and inferior just thinking about the reality of her life. If anyone knew how her life really was what would they think about her?
Tired and now somewhat depressed after analyzing the reality of everything Crystal headed to her bedroom to get some rest. As she entered the dark room, she almost tripped and fell over a pile on the floor. After she steadied herself, she turned on the lights to see what was in the pile. Looking down at the pile of waist trainers for the various companies she advertised for on instagram, FACEBOOK, Snapchat, twitter and tumblr. She picked one up, fastened it on and stripped out of her pajamas down to her bra and boy short underwear. With just the right angle, a selfie of herself laid across her bed would surely get 15k likes. She smiled sleepily just thinking about the comments people would leave admiring her body. Praising her. She felt better already……like a social media queen.