Free The Corner III (No Way Out) by Alex Richardson, Lu Ann Wells

entrance. She took out her keys, unlocked the door and the two entered. Once inside the small apartment and the door closed, Styles grabbed Trish by the arm. His voice was stern when he said, “I saw you with that Slim mothafucka at the club and now having breakfast! What’s up with that?”
    “It’s nothing. He was in the place where I stop and eat. We talked and that’s all,” she said as she snatched her arm away from Styles.
    He thought about his aggressiveness and decided to tone it down a notch. He brushed her arm and then her cheek. “I’m sorry, baby, but I have to be careful. You do know who that man is, right?”
    She sobbed, “I told you I just met him. He’s a friend of the owner. Why do you have to grab me like that?” Her Spanish accent became prevalent.
    Styles kissed her cheek then said, “I’m sorry. I just have to be sure you’re really down with me. You know Slim is a known drug dealer. Yeah, he’s big time, but his time is about to run out. You and I are cool, and I wouldn’t want you to get caught up in his swagger.”
    He snaked his arm around the small of her back. She wanted to pull away, but simply went with the flow. Styles kissed her deeply, and she kissed him back. Passion was not thrown Style’s way even though he moaned as their tongues danced. His powerful hand cupped her breast as the other gripped her ass. Trish slowly ran her hand up his back until she reached the back of his bald head. He undressed her, then himself as they continued to kiss and fondle. He led her to the blue microfiber couch in the tiny living room. He parted her smooth legs and admired what she had to offer.
    “Damn you got a pretty pussy,” he said as he guided himself to her opening.
    “You’re not wearing a condom,” Trish said as she made a half-hearted attempt to close her legs.
    “I want to feel it,” Styles said as he slid his thickness inside her with one hard thrust that hurt Trish since she was dry from not being aroused. He commenced to stroke her hard and deep.
    When Trish first started sleeping with Styles, she didn’t mind. She was slightly attracted to his position as a detective. She liked how he promised to keep her out of jail, but then soon realized that he treated her as his property and that she’d become her mother. A whore to him, the difference—she wasn’t getting paid. She remembered her mother telling one of her friends how she thought of happy thoughts when she was with her johns. That she was in another world when conducting her business . So Trish did the same—thought about a happy thought. Imagined that it was Slim inside of her instead of the crooked cop, Styles.
    *     *     *
    Slim walked inside his downtown loft and closed the door. After deactivating the alarm system, he walked over to his one hundred and fifty gallon aquarium and raised the lid. Most of the cichlids swam to the top awaiting a feed. Slim opened the doors to the cabinet stand. Inside was a thirty gallon tank filled with feeder Guppies. Slim used the small green net to scoop a bunch of the small fish, then dumped them into the tank. The fish scattered as quickly as they could to find a refuge in the dangerous water. The cichlids seemed happy to have live food to hunt rather than the flake food they often received.
    “Ahh, I know you all are happy now. Steak instead of Ramen noodles,” Slim joked as he closed the lid and watched for a moment as the circle of life took place. He liked watching the way things went on in the food chain. Only the strong survive. It was nature, the way of life and the way animals treated life was sort of the way Slim looked at it and were some of the rules he lived by. They were rules that were around long before man, so he knew them to be rules that worked.
    It was morning, and he’d been up all night. He had had a good breakfast and conversation with Trish. She was witty, smart, funny and not to mention, beautiful. They talked and laughed over pancakes,