Soul Siren by Aisha Duquesne Page A

issue…clouded in my head, so don’t you…” He took a deep, decisive breath and told her, “We’re going to work…on your songs.”
    Half naked in the near darkness, her hands clasped in her lap, she nodded. She had both won and lost.
    She says he made her come again with his hand as she lay there in her dishevelled clothes, and as her mouth opened for a soundless cry of ecstasy, he penetrated her again in one thrust, pulled himself out, and she watched, fascinated, as a syrupy jet stream of cum flew across her belly and another hit her neck just above the collarbone. “I love having him come on top of me,” she whispered to me once. “Mmmmphh!”
    Morgan kept his word. He helped her with the songs. You would think that maybe his show of integrity would adjust her outlook, but it only changed her view of Morgan. It was special to him, no others. This is how she could still behave the way she did towards Easy later, towards Luther and others right into her signing with Brown Skin Beats. After the success of the first album, she called me and said she’d pay my way to visit her in New York. At the time, I didn’t believe she could ever change.
    But what brought me down to Manhattan was not only the chance to visit my friend the new star but also the opportunity to investigate what was wrong. Because my friend Erica Jones had actually told me over the phone, “Oh, God, Mish, I met this new guy, and I think I’m in love with him!”
    As it happened, she wasn’t talking about Morgan.
    So I went down to New York an innocent, a babe in those big woods of steel and stone. I am not making excuses for myself. There are people who will tell you that, yes, I was a gentle person, a harmless one. I can honestly tell you that I flew down to New York and never dreamed that I would murder those men.

Shop Talk
                      
    I hold an x-ray up to candlelight
of your transparent lies
    The roses died two days ago
    No big surprise
    Tired of needing, emotional bleeding,
    of all your disappointments and how you criticise
                      
    Don’t whisper to me any more in darkness
    Don’t tell me you’ll change in warm sunlight…
                      
    T
he song was
“Late Night Promises.” Erica’s voice, unmistakable, coming out of the speakers of the hired car’s stereo as I was chauffeured through the Queens Midtown Tunnel. Not quite a limo, but I could tell my best friend must be moving up in the world, especially since her song had been on top of Billboard’s charts for God knows how many weeks now.
    After I had pulled my bags off the carousel at LaGuardia, I spotted the young white guy. He was checking a borrowed Christmas photo of me and holding up a cliché strip placard with MICHELLE BROWN neatly printed on it in felt marker.
    “My name’s Justin, and I got your ride for you, Miss Brown. Oh, here, let me get that for you.” I detected an Alabama drawl. “Miss Jones says she’s real sorry she can’t be here, but today’s supposed to be big for laying down the backing vocals on the eighth or ninth track. Maybe track seven, I can’t remember exactly.”
    I made a nervous laugh, my usual preface to an intrusive question. “So, like, who are you with?” Common sense told me the guy couldn’t possibly work for Erica. I knew she’d only just signed with someone, but she wasn’t that big yet. “You with the record company?”
    Discreet smile here. “I’m with
a
record company.”
    That’s about as much as I got out of him about his employer. He was chatty about everything else. Yep, this is Manhattan, Manhattan’s the best. So he lived somewhere in the city? Hell, no! He couldn’t afford that. He lived out in the Bronx with a couple of other guys for roommates. At the corner of 57th Street, I got out of the back seat at the stoplight and jumped in up front, confiding to him it just felt too weird being driven around like that.
    “Now aren’t