Free Exit Strategy by L. V. Lewis Page A

at my heart, to the point of aching. I think of Tristan and the time he dragged me into my office and fucked me until I couldn’t see straight after watching me conduct my little orchestra the first time. I swear everything is an aphrodisiac to that man.
At the thought of Tristan, Fairy Hoochie Mama takes a nosedive off my shoulder. The little bitch has feigned suicide half a dozen times since I left Tristan, and Triple-G is just about ready for her straight-jacket, she’s believed her fairy opposite dead so many times.
This time is no exception, Triple-G takes her pulse, pronounces her dead, and then proceeds to sob as if the world has come to an end. A gurney appears. Triple-G rolls Fairy Hoochie Mama onto it and they disappear to resume their strike. I don’t know why they keep up the charade when they know they’re going to come back again and try to convince me that my friendship with Carmelo is somehow a slight against Tristan.
“Is the Prince of the Loop at all musically inclined?”
“Yes, he plays a mean saxophone.”
“Damn. I wanted to at least have one up on that stud, musically.”
It might be difficult to find anyone who’s got one up on Tristan White. I think I knew this when he took me into his Grotto the first time, and he’s only upped the ante since then.
“I bet he can’t dance like a brother,” Carmelo says, taking me into his arms and dancing us around the room to the ballad currently playing. As we’re spinning, I glance at the oblong window on the door to the studio, and I could swear Tristan is standing there. When Carmelo spins me again, I look, but there’s no one there.
I pull away from Carmelo. “Have them take it from the top, and we’ll record when I get back.”
I rush out of the studio to Tracey’s desk. She looks up at me, startled.
“Hey, Tracey. Was Mr. White just here?”
“Not that I’m aware of. I just came from the ladies’ room,” she says. The phone rings, and she holds up a finger.
“Kente Studio Records . . .”
I turn and head toward the showroom. Just as I cross the threshold, I see Tristan’s limo leaving the parking lot and merging with traffic on the street in front of the store.
I slip my cell phone out of my pocket and dial Tristan’s number, but he doesn’t pick up. Shit! He probably saw me dancing with Carmelo, looking for all the world like a girl who didn’t leave the man she loves high and dry just a few weeks before. Tristan is too proud. He will not come back again.
And if he did come back, what would I do? Tell him why I spaz out every time he says anything that resembles something my father might have said? Tristan White may be a man who craves control and has adopted a sexual lifestyle that gives him that, but he’s never been abused by one of his parents.
I wander back to the studio door, collect myself, and then enter the room with a smile. “Let’s take it from the top.” I signal the guys in the booth, and we begin to record tracks. Eventually, the music consumes me enough to take Tristan and everything else off my mind. That is, until a sheriff’s deputy shows up at the studio, adding another chink into what’s to become a doozy of a fucked-up day.
When Tracey calls me out of the studio, thankfully she’s shown the deputy into my office so the staff isn’t gawking at us. Jada, and the fairies follow me in seconds later.
Arrest this bitch, Fairy Hoochie Mama says. It ought to be against the law for any heifer to give up the kind of dick-tation Tristan was laying down.
Word! Triple-G declares, waving a pair of miniature handcuffs.
I ignore them and greet my visitor. “What can I do for you officer?”
Jada closes the door and leans back on it with her arms folded over her chest. I’m glad she’s with me so I don’t have to face whatever this is, fairies notwithstanding, alone.
The Deputy removes his hat. “Are you Keisha Anarosa Beale?”
“I am,” I say a tad defensively.
“Deputy Wick Carlson with the Cook County