Knock-knock-knock.

Fifteen seconds passed, and the apartment door remained closed.

Knock-knock-knock-knock-knock.

“Alright!” a woman’s voice shrieked from inside. “Gimme a damn minute.”

It ended up being two.

When the door opened, Jasmine spun and marched to a grey armchair. She sat and lapped her legs, tilting her head from side to side.

A tall, slim man entered the space; lips folded, and he matched her head movement. “Where’s his stuff?”

Jasmine pointed to her left at a clump of three large garbage bags next to the kitchen island, and the man snickered.

“You just gonna stand there, or you gonna take his shit and leave?” Jasmine arched forward and clapped her palms together, causing the drawstrings on her cropped pullover hoodie to flutter. The man raised his hands in surrender and padded toward the bags.

“Wait.” Jasmine stood up, her puffy pudendum rounding out the front of her booty shorts. “I shouldn’t be rude to you. I’m sorry, Dre.”

“It’s alright. I’ll be outta ya hair in no time.”

“No-no, it’s not alright. Jeez.” Jasmine palmed her forehead and sashayed past him toward the kitchen. “You want anything to drink? Anything to eat?”

“Nah-nah, it’s cool.”

“Relax, I ain’t gonna poison you, boy.” She giggled, and Dre nodded in the affirmative. She verbally listed the available snacks and beverages, and he selected beer and leftover tuna sandwiches from a recently attended picnic.

“I’m really sorry things didn’t work out between you two.” Dre downed a tuna square and a quick swig of beer.

“Yeah, me too.” She stared into the distance and then caught herself. “Why are you doing this for him, Dre?”

“What do you mean?”

“This. Picking up his shit for him. What, he ain’t man enough to get it his damn self?” The volume increased on each of the last three words of that question.

Dre sat up straight and said, “He said that you told him to get his shit before month-end or you’d be giving it away to charity. Then you also told him that you’d gut him if he came over.”

“Oh.” Jasmine straightened and searched about the room with a grimace. “Damn, I did say that.”

As she stood with her hands on her hips, Dre couldn’t help but admire their width and structure. Out of respect for his boy, he avoided checking her out while they were a couple, but now that had passed, he didn’t mind sneaking a peek. No harm from taking a few glances at her toned legs, rounded ass or plump vulva, was there? Her brown eyes, thick lips and curly hair bore no threat, as looking at your boy’s ex was within moral acceptability, right? He had no intention of ever fucking her anyway, so what would it hurt?

“Yeah,” he said, stuffing his face. “So since the month is ending in two days, and we’re not gonna miss Super-Duper Indy Wrestling 15, which is tomorrow night, that’s why I’m here now.”

“God, do you guys go to that every year? Swear there’s been about fifty of those.”

“You only been around since number thirteen.” Dre shook his head. “Being extra, as usual.”

Jasmine waved him off and asked, “Not that I care about why he goes, but why do you go with him to that every damn year?”

“Man, we been wrestling fans since we was little kids. Obsessed, man, all we’d talk about sometimes an entire day was wrestling. So you know, from the first Super Indy show, we promised each other as sixteen-year-olds to hit it once it’s in town. It’s one of our traditions.”

“A tradition you do the most upkeep for. Lemme guess: you bought the tickets for the show again this year?” Dre shrugged. “And you’ll be the one that’ll be suggesting what upcoming movies y’all gonna watch.”

“So what? Troy’s always been that laid-back type you gotta get behind sometimes. And doing this for him is nothing,” Dre said. “This is just how we are, feel me? Always doing stuff for each other.”

“You mean how you are. Always felt more like you was doing stuff for him than the other way around.”

“You just hatin’ because you’re broken up now.”

“It ain’t too late for me to extend that guttin’ threat to friends and associates.”

Dre winced in a chuckling response.

“Hey.” Jasmine’s light tone disappeared, and she looked him dead in the eye. “Do you know the real reason why Troy and I broke up?”

“I think so. He…” Dre gulped down his last tuna sandwich and beer remnants before resuming. “Sorry about that. You saw some messages between him and some chick.”

“Tale as old as time.” Jasmine sucked her teeth. “But it’s more than that, though.”

“How so?”

“It’s about the girl he cheated on me with. Did he tell you who it was?”

“Nah, he never did.”

“That’s cap.”

“Nah, I’m serious. He’d always tell me about his conquests, but he never said anything to me about this.”

“Conquests.” Jasmine folded her arms and crossed her eyes.

“Sorry.” Dre slapped his forehead. “I’m stupid as fuck and shouldn’t have said that.”

“You might be telling the truth now that I think about it. Even if he mentioned a name, he would’ve lied.”

“Why you say that?”

“Because…” Jasmine paused, leaving her mouth hung open and continued, “… it was your ex, Marta.”

Dre stared at Jasmine without blinking for what seemed a never-ending moment. “What are you talking about?”

“The girl he cheated on me with was Marta.”

Dre stood up and showed no emotion before walking to the garbage bags. “Lying doesn’t suit you.” He slung one bag over his shoulder. “I’ma start carrying these down to my car.”

“Dre, I swear I’m not lying.” He walked out, not looking back at her as she spoke. She tapped her foot until he returned to collect the others, but she stopped him.

“Hey look, you don’t believe me, but think about it. You’re so damn loyal to him that you’ve never come around me with any disrespect. And believe me, I wish ya did.”

“Girl, get over yourself.” Dre went to her right to pick up another bag, but she stepped in front of him. He went the opposite direction but received a similar result.

“You’ve been checking me out moments after getting here. Never did that while Troy and I were together though, and you know what that is? That’s self-control, which is something he doesn’t have.”

“Jasmine, I’ma only say this once: Move.”

Jasmine stepped aside, and Dre picked up the second bag, carrying it downstairs. When he went back upstairs for the third, she tried to block him again.

“Dre, wait a minute. I’m not fucking with you. I’m telling the truth.”

“Jasmine… move.”

She stood tall, pushing up her chest and clenching her fists before saying, “Make me.” Dre looked away, smirked and in one quick motion, picked her up over one shoulder and set her on her feet, out of the way of the final garbage bag. Startled, Jasmine’s nipples printed through her hoodie, and her jaw dropped, before she shouted at him again when he was almost through the door:

“Wait, I can prove it!”

Dre halted mid-step and while still looking forward, said, “Don’t piss me off with more games.”

“No games.” Jasmine walked toward him and he turned, laying the bag on the floor. She grabbed his hand and led him back to the kitchen island, unlocked her phone and entered a messaging app to show her most recent chat with Marta:

Marta: Hey, I heard you and Troy recently broke up.

Jasmine: Yeah. Found out he cheated, so I dumped his ass. He didn’t even bother saving the bitch’s number. Imagine that: Getting ya guts rearranged and not being a name in a muthafucka’s phone.

Marta: Yeah, about that...  not gonna stay and chat long, but wanted to tell you that I’m that nameless bitch.

Jasmine looked at Dre, whose sour mug should have been in the dictionary next to the word “unimpressed.” Even as he continued reading their conversation, he remained stoic.

“This your proof? Your evidence? Don’t mean shit to me, ‘cause she never liked Troy, anyway. Probably lying.”

“For what reason?” Jasmine threw her hands into the air, her face incredulous with disbelief. “What is she gaining by messaging me? Why not just message you instead? That’s where she could do real damage.”

A crack in Dre’s stoicism appeared as he slouched momentarily and said, “She couldn’t message me if she wanted to: I blocked her.”

“And lemme guess: You ain’t been answering her calls either.”

“She hasn’t tried to call me in about a month now. But yeah, I stopped answering her calls a little bit after I found out she was messing around on me. Anyway, this don’t mean shit to me. Don’t mean a damn thing.”

“Call him and ask, then.” Jasmine tapped his chest with her phone.

“Please,” Dre scoffed. “Even if it were true, which it ain’t, he wouldn’t admit that to me. Come on now, you know better than that.”

“Alright, then call him and say you’re home with his stuff now, then tell him to call me.”

A staring contest played out, and losing didn’t fit any of the participant’s agendas that evening. Stances shifted and facial expressions unfurled as a decision needed to be made. To not follow through could be seen as believing that Troy dipped into the forbidden waters he was being accused of. Avoiding this challenge proved pointless.

“Just to shut you up and dead this once and for all, I’ma do it.” Dre plucked his phone from a pants pocket and dialed Troy’s number. When the phone picked up, he switched it to speaker mode.

“Yo, just got home with ya shit. Time you want me to bring it to you later, my G?”

“Maaan,” Troy started, “just holler at me whenever you ready, dawg. Once it ain’t past midnight.”

“Alright, man. ‘Ey look, she want you to call her.”

“The fuck for?”

“Shit, I don’t know,” Dre chuckled. “Give her a ring; see what she wants.”

“Probably missing the Magic stick.” They both chuckled, much to Jasmine’s eye-rolling annoyance.

“Anyhow, get your stuck in two-thousand and three ass to calling her, aight? Magic Stick. Man, you a stupid muthafucka.” Dre continued chuckling before they wrapped up the conversation, and he clicked out.

Seconds passed before Jasmine’s phone rang, stunning Dre as his boy always came across as the type to make women wait. In fact, one of his famous sayings over the years was: “You gotta make them bitches wait.”

“Hey,” she answered on speaker phone.

“Dre told me you wanted to talk.”

“I told him I wanted you to call me. Not the same as wanting to talk.”

“Whatever. What do you want?”

“To let you know, that I found out it was Marta you was banging.”

Dead air polluted their interaction for about ten seconds before Troy’s throat-clearing rattled from the nether realm.

“Listen, I don’t know what the hell you talking about, but that’s my man’s ex, aight. I wouldn’t do anything li–”

“And,” Jasmine said, “it was while they were still dating.”

The nether realm portal closed, and the dead air wreaked havoc for ten seconds longer than before, but Jasmine forced its end.

“Look, the reason I wanted you to call was to tell you that pissed me off because…” Her voice softened, and she began twirling her hair, then biting her bottom lip, “… I felt guilty that I said no when you asked about doing a threesome, ‘cause we could’ve fucked the bitch together.”

“You being serious, right now?” Troy asked.

“Of course I am, Troy. Look, it could still happen.” Dre interlocked his fingers behind his head, watching as Jasmine lied through her teeth with minimal effort. “I mean, Marta wouldn’t have been my first choice ‘cause she was with your boy… but she ain’t now.”

“Sheeeiit,” Troy said. “That’s what the fuck I’m talking about. I told her months ago that we should all be having sex together. Forget about that monogamy shit, know what I’m saying?”

Dre slid his palms from their previous position, to covering his face and he propped his elbows on the island’s countertop. In reaction, Jasmine‘s visage greyed like an overcast spring afternoon. Maybe in her quest to relay the truth, she could’ve been more mindful of Dre’s feelings in all of this. The truth was out there now, but at what cost? What had she really done?

“Anyhow,” Jasmine said, “we can organize something for another time, okay, Troy?”

“Hell yeah, that sounds good to me. Wait, you didn’t tell Dre, right?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Aight, keep all this between us. We’ll link.”

The call ended, and Jasmine caressed her frozen guest’s upper back and neck. “I’m so sorry, Dre.”

“Are you?” Dre stood up straight, his eyes bloodshot with betrayal. He walked past her and plopped into the armchair she sat in when he first arrived. Jasmine went to him and kneeled before his seated figure, which had its elbows propped on its thighs and hands clasped. She encased the latter with her own and scanned him with concern.

“I don’t feel good about you leaving right now,” she said. “I was so caught up with being right, I didn’t stop to think how it would really make you feel.”

“Twenty years of friendship,” Dre said, staring into the distance, his cheeks stained with tears. “Twenty goddamn years.”

As if transported via an airborne pathogen, the symptoms of sorrow spilled over her lower eyelids and stuffed her nostrils. Blank of thought, she let go of his hands, scuttled forward and gently kissed his forehead. Feathery kisses caressed his cheeks and then a single on the lips before she hugged him, so that his forehead sunk into her shoulder. They remained clinched for a few minutes until Dre rose from her shoulder, and they shared a gaze that displayed more familiarity than they had ever known.

“I’m so sorry he did that to you,” Jasmine said as Dre held the side of her face and swiped a rolling tear away with his thumb.

“You ain’t got nothin’ to apologize for.” He struggled to leak a smirk, and Jasmine scooted along her knees until their noses brushed. Two wrongs may not make a right, but Jasmine began leveling the playing field with a full-blown kiss on Dre’s mouth. The kissee retreated into the seat, separating their lips, and then shook his head slowly. The kisser lowered her fingers to the waistband of his pants and nodded with his same head-shaking rhythm. Whatever negative thoughts he had about what she was doing faded as he lifted his butt off the seat, allowing Jasmine to pull his joggers down and off. She fished his semi-erect cock through the boxer’s fly and completely hid his organ in her mouth. She waggled it around and then bobbed patiently, allowing the swelling behemoth to grow conspicuous. More of the exposed lower half gleamed with saliva as the minutes passed of her deliberately massaging it with her slippery gob, not glancing into his eyes once.

“Look at me,” Dre said, playing in her field of bountiful curls. His spittle-covered cock popped out of her, and she jacked it, two-handed, with a twisting motion.

“Like this?” She curled her bottom lip under her teeth and continued rubbing his cock.

“Yeah.” Jasmine fed his big prick into her mouth, keeping her eyes on him without fail. She kept the blowjob slow and sensual, having wet, slurpy sounds crackle against the air like ASMR. Departing from that playbook once, however, did lead to a deepthroat attempt where she gagged with an obscenely loud “Grack”, which stiffened it more.

Troy’s ex held the base of Dre’s piece and stood up, peeled her booty shorts off her hips – shimmying to let them fall to the floor – stepped out of them and turned to lower her entrance on his soon-to-be invading dick, but didn’t proceed.

“What’re you waiting for?” Dre asked, flexing his big cock, which seemed to lurch toward the heat descending from her hovering cunt.

“We can’t turn back after this.” Jasmine stuck mid-squat, dropping this knowledge on him while teasing him with her hefty, brown buns. One could say almost angering him. How dare she be so damn sexy, trying to be so goddamn moral at the eleventh hour?

“We’ve already gone too far.” Dre clenched his jaw and began a motion of spreading and squeezing her plump ass cheeks together, which drew a lick of her lips. She lowered, swallowing his beefy cock with her pink, slimy cunt. The undulations that followed were as mesmerizing as a swinging timepiece. No incantations or ridiculous commands came about, but the soft moans and repetitive “yes” wafting from Jasmine’s throat were synonymous with bewitchment for Dre. Some of him remained outside, so growing weary of this, he sunk his fingers into her plush hips and held her still on a downward thrust.

“Fuck,” Jasmine gasped and checked over her shoulder. “You wanna stop?”

“No.” Dre’s face stiffened. “I wanna go deeper.”

He pulled her hips fully over his penile base and released a low, guttural groan, but what made him engorge more was that Jasmine did the same. Throughout their sex, her moans and vocalizations were soft and dainty, but him filling her completely drew a primal beast from within as it did him.

“Motherfucker,” Jasmine spat – literally – and she growled while mashing her caramel buttocks against Dre’s pelvis. The question of how much longer this would last didn’t scratch her top ten in that moment as her colourful language, wicked facial expressions, and squishy bottom made Dre’s dick unflexible.

“Your dick’s bigger than his,” she said with a pained expression.

“Say it again,” Dre said through his teeth and wrapped his hands around her throat.

“I said your fucking dick is bigger than Troy’s!” Jasmine bellowed as her entire body quaked in orgasm, and strings of drool fell from her quivering lip. Spasms animated her body, and unintelligible words flew, but both settled as a semblance of her civility returned.

“You okay?” Dre asked as she reclined, resting her head on one of his shoulders. His boxer briefs at this point, were painted several shades darker by her juices.

“I’m golden.” She lifted off his stiff cock and slapped it against her inner thighs. “If that corny muthafucka thinks he’s got the magic stick, then what’s this you got?” More smacks of his heavy cock, ping-ponged between her thighs. “Whatever it is, I want more,” she whispered in his ear and reinserted his thickness. They remained in this position, kissing and him massaging her breasts under the hoodie, pinching her nipples throughout.

“Pull your legs back,” Dre said. After she did as instructed, he hooked her knee pits by his biceps and pressed his palms behind her neck in a full nelson position.

“Oh my god,” Jasmine said, appearing almost weightless as she bounced off his lap repeatedly with a healthy smacking sound. Upon them standing, Dre’s throat rumbled, and he rutted her in this vulnerable state as if his only concern was to release his very being into her. The harder he fucked her, the more her curls, feet, and hands flailed to every clap that bounced off their eardrums. She shrieked an elongated “fuck” during the ragdolling and pending eruption from Dre, which grew in decibels from his chest. His orgasmic cry placed most wild animals and Neanderthal men to shame as he grunted with every aggressive pump of semen that surged into Jasmine’s cunt.

“All that fucking nut, baby,” Jasmine panted, barely above a whisper, dangling parallel to the floor from his grip. “All that nut, give me all of it. Every fucking drop, you nasty muthafucka.” The longer his climax went, the weaker the spasms, and when finished, he unhooked and lay her on another couch on her side. Semen crept from between her labia, and Jasmine rested on her hands.

“You should get some rest,” Jasmine said, her eyes barely open.

“Nah, I’ll head home, clean up quick and carry over this stuff.” Dre shoved his thumb behind him.

“Dreee.” Jasmine raised her head for a moment. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

He asked for wipes, and she directed him to a nearby work tote. A few wipes later, he was clean, and she collected most of what he shot into her.

“It won’t be anything more than he deserves.” Dre pulled on his pants and slung the last garbage bag over his shoulder.

“That’s all it better be. This will not be the last time this happens, feel me?”

Dre dropped the package by the doorway, padded toward her and bent, kissing her as she remained curled up.

“I’ll see you…” He slapped a fleshy ass cheek and traced his fingers along her slit and clit, “… and you another day.” Jasmine giggled, and Dre smiled before collecting what he dropped and disappearing that night.

***

Three big, black garbage bags lay at the door of Dre’s supposed best friend, Troy. No amount of waiting would change his mind about what he planned to do as soon as Troy appeared. Jasmine suggested to not do anything stupid, which wasn’t a problem as Dre perceived his coming actions as logical and appropriate given the situation. He knocked on the door.

Muttering and rustling from inside phased through the door and into the apartment building hallway until Troy opened it, wiping his eyes.

“Yo, Dre, thanks for th–” Dre’s fist connected with Troy’s nose bridge and he fell back flat like a freshly cut tree.

“You’re welcome,” Dre said as Troy propped on an elbow and blinked slowly. He sat up and rubbed his nose, looking around to catch his bearings.

“Won’t make it to Super-Duper Indy Wrestling 15 tomorrow night with you,” Dre said. “No problem, though: just take Marta and then you can link with Jasmine for that threesome afterwards.”

For a few seconds, Troy sobered up from his punch-drunkenness and widened his eyes at Dre. “Wa-wait. Hold on. ”

Dre fetched the two tickets from his pocket and dropped them at Troy’s feet. “I’m breaking my promise to you, just like you broke your promise of friendship to me.” Dre shook his head, wrinkling his nose as he looked down at his former best friend before turning and vacating the traitor’s wilting presence.