young Atlanta man, Darrel Walker. Darrel has been a player since he was old enough to
know the meaning of the term, as has Rex, his best buddy since childhood. Darrel is a
skilled love-em-and-leave-em man, cutting his swath through the clubs, until one night he
meets a woman he can't play. Instead, model Brandi Brown plays him. A short courtship in
which the body rules the heart, and a shorter marriage follows, till Darrel finds Brandi in their
marital bed--with company.
That's the end of the marriage for Darrel, but not for Brandi, who continues to taunt him. After
a few months of isolation, he's willing to try the scene again, and once again finds a woman
who's on the edge of being psychotic. Eventually Darrel determines to find the right woman,
one whom he can actually love, for life. His progress to that path is heartwrenching; but
finally, ex-player Darrel is determined to keep to the right path.
Author Rod Cornelius keeps his readers alternating between smiling and chuckling,
nodding our heads in agreement, and tugging at our heartstrings over the sad moves Darrel
goes through in his path to true love. His characters are well-developed and the plot races
along. Even the unlikable characters get their turn in the sun for character delineation. Single
Again is well worth reading, and this reviewer is looking forward to the next novel from Rod
Cornelius.
----Annie Haws of Euro-Reviews
1/2007- 5 STAR EXCELLENT
In the Beginning…
A wise man once told me that a man needs a woman in his life like a turtle needs
the shell on his back. Well, he wasn’t all too wise. As a matter of fact, he was this
old, drunk guy that I met at this bar a couple years ago, weeping about his wife
leaving him with nothing but the shirt on his back. At the time, I couldn’t
understand what in the world would make him come up with such a weird
comparison turtles and relationships. I just took it as the alcohol talking. Besides,
that was when I was in the prime of my mac-daddy days. Relationship jargon was
just that jargon! And in reference to what my Uncle Jim once told me, I was young,
dumb and always trying to find some. By no means was I trying to feel any kind of
a relationship, or more blatantly, anything lasting longer than a one night stand.
So at the time, I didn’t know what that guy meant, why he was saying it, or why in
the hell he was saying it to me.
But like I stated earlier, that was back in the prime of my player days, which
virtually ended when I met Brandi Brown. Brandi, by far, was the woman of my
dreams. Never in my life had I met a lady like her. To me, she was all that a man
could want in a woman. But out of all the places in the world I could’ve met her, I
met her at a club. I first laid eyes on her in the midst of celebrating my boy Rex’s
birthday at this little club we hit frequently called the Hot Spot. We walked in,
chillin’, like we normally did, and unexpectedly, we both spotted her at the same
time.
“Man, look ‘a here!” yelled Rex as his eyes zeroed in on her in the middle of the
dance floor. “You ever saw her in here before?”
“Hell nah,” I quickly replied.
She was dancing all by herself wearing this tight, black body skirt that revealed
every perfectly placed curve on her body. She had long, thick, black hair that
dangled down to her shoulders, a lightly tanned complexion, and luscious, plump
lips. She freely swayed to the jazzy tunes that played as if she was the only soul
in the joint. This chick was so hot, not a guy in the club had the nerve to
approach her. You could literally look around and view every guy in the house
sneaking peaks at her when their women turned their heads, or if they were by
themselves, they just lustfully stared. I even caught a glimpse of a couple of
envious females looking her way with frowns on their faces.
“Damn!” I grunted under my breath.
“Now that’s dangerous,” proclaimed Rex.
“You gonna holla’, birthday boy?”
“Hell nah, she’s too damn scandalous!” he replied. “You holla’.”
I grinned, “My game’s good, but I don’t know about that.”
“Just do it for me. Show me what I taught you.”
“What you taught me?”
“Yeah, you know I taught you everything you know about the opposite sex.”
He was just scared his ego was going to get hurt. “Whatever, Rex.” As I
continued to stare at her, something overwhelmed my body, perhaps just
hormones, but I became strangely determined to meet this lady. Not just that, but
something was telling me that I had to say something to her as if it was my
destiny. Suddenly, I became transfixed on kissing those luscious, full lips of hers
while sliding my hands up and down her slender back, drawing her firm, naked
body against mine. Yes indeed, I was going to approach this precious victim of
Godly beauty. I truly felt it would’ve been an opportunity missed if I’d done
otherwise. “You know what?” I took a deep breath. “I’m gonna do it.”
He smiled, “Do that thang, pimp-a-licious.”
“Pimp-a-licious, gonna do that thang, man!” If only I was as confident as I
sounded. But I had to do it. I had to meet this lady. So I loaded all of the mental
weapons that my brain harbored, and I strolled to my destiny.
I began bobbing my head to the music, trying to look as hip and slick as I possibly
could. I’d bagged many fine females in the past but not as gorgeous as this one.
As I drew near, she noticed me approaching her. “Hi!” I nervously blurted out.
She gave me a slight nod, still grooving to the tunes. I quickly realized she was
going to be an arrogant one. “So, are you dancing by yourself?” Sometimes the
obvious should never be put into question form. Again she said nothing. I looked
back at Rex. He had grabbed himself a chair in the corner, steadily observing my
actions like a gospel stage play. Man, I couldn’t let him see this woman get the
best of me. I would never hear the end of it from him. I quickly turned to her. “Do
you mind if I dance with you?”
She stopped dancing and examined me from head to toe. A petite smile appeared
upon her face. Nervous and dumbfounded, I smiled right back at her. And that’s
when she approached me. Before I knew it, her lips were against mine. Instantly,
my mind went haywire.
“I don’t feel like dancing anymore,” she softly replied into my ear. Her sweet voice
had a hint of an English accent in it.
With my mind on sabbatical, I could only come back with, “Well, what do you
wanna do?”
She grabbed me by my hand. “Come on, love.”
I looked over to Rex whose mouth had virtually fell in his lap as my feet mindlessly
followed this woman off of the dance floor. I didn’t know what to do next as I simply
followed her lead. In a matter of seconds, we were outside in the middle of the
parking lot.
“I hope your friend drove tonight,” she threw a set of keys into my hands as we
walked down a row of cars.
“He did,” I said. Really it didn’t matter who drove, because if I did, he was gonna
be out of luck this night. And I knew he’d do the same to me. If he were me in the
same situation and he was walking out of the club with such a beautiful lady and I
was going to need a ride home, he would just leave my ass hitchhiking. But
fortunately for him, he drove because I would gladly return the hypothetical favor.
We stopped at a red convertible with the top down. I opened the passenger door
for her, and I anxiously jumped in on the driver side. Never had something so
spontaneous happened to me with such a beautiful lady. I just wanted to get to
wherever she wanted us to go, however quickly we could get there and see where
things would go from there.
She gently placed her hand on my thigh. “Go straight down Main, take a left on
Brenton, and pull into the driveway of the third house on the right.”
Straight and direct, just what I liked. As I pulled out of the parking lot, I realized I
didn’t even know what this woman’s name was. She just stared out of the window
like she didn’t even care. I could’ve been Charles Manson for all she knew, but
even worse than that, she could’ve been.
“Hey, do you have a name?” She didn’t answer. She blatantly ignored me, just
like she did when I first approached her in the club. Now see, it’s things like that,
that makes a man think with his brain and not his jimmy all of the time. But then I
took another glance at her body and quickly realized how much more powerful a
man’s jimmy is than his brain. As a matter of fact, it is his brain. Besides, this
chick was a perfect ten. A ten, then some. And those are just too hard to come
by at times.
Her directions led me straight to a two-story brick house smack-dab in the middle
of Brenton Avenue. “Keys,” she chillingly requested. A brief thought of being
stranded in the middle of nowhere swiftly raced through my mind. I gave her the
keys. “Come on,” she said. Thank you, Jesus. I couldn’t bare the thought of
walking all the way back to that club and trying to quickly compose a lie to Rex as
to why I was perspiring so badly.
I jumped out of the car and shadowed her tracks like a starving dog sniffing for a
meaty bone. She opened the door to the house and flicked on the lights beside
the entrance. As I stepped into her crib, I began to instantly think that this
experience had to be some kind of cruel joke sponsored by my subconscious and
somehow, I was sleeping and couldn’t wake up. And the way it was beginning to
feel, this was gonna be a wet one.
She glanced back at me, “Close the door.” I shut the door and followed her up the
stairs. The house really didn’t have much in it. In fact, it looked unlived in
altogether. The walls were neatly entangled with an assortment of oil paintings
but not much furniture consumed the home. Nonetheless, my primary concern
rested on just one piece of furniture in particular¾the bed!
We walked into what had to have been the master bedroom. It was humongous.
An exquisite Persian rug laced the floor. There was a huge floor-length window
open, and the nightly breeze blew her finely-silk draperies into the room. Most
significantly of all, she had this massive king-sized bed in the center of the room.
I looked around, not trying to seem overly-amazed. “So this is yours?”
“Nope!” she said as she walked alongside her bed, slowly sliding her fingers
across the satin sheets.
Damn! I knew she had to have a man, somewhere.
“Well, it is for now. My agency is leasing this place for me until I find some place to
live down here,” she said.
“Oh,” I said relieved that there was no sign of any manly presence in her life so
far. “All this for you, huh?”
She grinned. “Yeap.”
I walked over to the window and gazed down at the dimly lit street. I didn’t want to
seem too anxious for what she had to offer. “Nice view.”
“I’ll say,” she replied.
I could almost feel her eyes cutting through my back. I turned around, thinking
maybe I could slip a little bit of my own arrogance in there. “I was referring to the
street.”
“I was, too. What else would I be referring to?”
Ooh, low blow, and can’t say that I didn’t deserve it. As she took a seat on the
bed, I just stared at her, not having a clue to where things were headed. But if I
knew anything, I definitely had to have them go the direction I wanted them to.
“So,” I took a deep breath. “Why did you bring me here?”
“Why did you come?” she quickly combated.
“What? You grabbed my hand and led the way.”
“You’re a grown man. I’m quite sure you could’ve stopped me.”
“I could’ve, but why would I want to stop you?”
“Uh, because you have respect for yourself and you wouldn’t want to become
victim to a one night stand.”
Playing it witty, I quickly turned my head acting as if I was surprised, “Is that what
this is, a one night stand? Well, I have never…”
“This is not a one night stand,” she said, really surprising me.
“It isn’t?”
“No.”
“Really?” I threw my hands up, looking side to side. “Then what is this?”
She grinned. “It’s a show!”
“What, you talking about like Candid Camera, or something?” I began looking
around, searching for any hidden cameras I hadn’t noticed. I knew the whole get-
up was too good to be true.
“No, silly,” she laughed.
I was severely intrigued. “Then what type of show are you talking about?”
“A strip-show.”
Suddenly I had a smile the size of Texas on my face. “Oh, for real?” I quickly
planted myself onto a chair next to the window. “Go ahead.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” she walked to me and stood in front of me.
I looked up at her like a little boy, waiting for his mother’s response to a request to
go outside and play. “What am I not getting?”
She pulled me up on my feet. “I’m not stripping, silly. You are.”
“You must be outta’ your mind!”
A blank look posted upon her face.
“How can I just take my clothes off in front of you? I don’t even know your name. I
mean, don’t get me wrong, you do look good and all, but…”
She placed her finger on my lips. “My name is Brandi Brown. I am a model for the
Black Friday Modeling Agency. I was born in Long Beach, California. I spent a
majority of my childhood in London with my mother. I’m twenty-four years old, and
I picked you out of a club full of yearning men to be my private entertainment for
tonight. Now you can either do as I request or you won’t have to worry about
getting any more of these ever again.”
She gently removed her finger and pressed her lips against mine. I just stood
there, frozen, enjoying the unbelievable softness of her lips. After a few moments
of her allowing me to sample heaven, she backed away. I took a deep breath,
wondering what was it that I had gotten myself into. I was always accustomed to
being the one in charge, but that just wasn’t the case this night.
“The choice is yours.” She walked to the bed and spread out on her side with her
face resting in the palm of her hand.
Her eyes stayed glued on me. She knew that she blatantly left the ball in my
court. By no means did I have a problem with how my body looked. I was a fairly
fit brother although I could stand to do just a few extra sit-ups every now and then.
“My name is Darrel, by the way. I just thought I’d throw that at you.” She knew
she had all the cards in her hands, and that’s what was killing me. I had never
been the pupil, always the teacher. But this lady was teaching me something
new. Something I was very unfamiliar with. And even though I was down in
unfamiliar territory, I remained intrigued. Very intrigued. “So let me get this
straight. You just want me to take all my clothes off for you with no questions
asked? Might I ask what’s in it for me? I know it’s got to be more than a kiss. I
mean, I got that from you just by asking for a dance.”
“Me. Your prize will be me.”
Being ever so clever, I asked, “What part of you? The neck, the rib, the
thigh¾what? You can’t leave a brotha’ in suspense like that ‘cause I gotta know
what I’m getting. I don’t know about you.”
“Your prize will be all of me that you’d like.”
I smiled, “Well if that’s the case…,” I turned to the window to close the curtains.
“With the curtains open.”
I immediately turned around. “Say what?”
“I don’t want you to close the curtains. Don’t you like the breeze it brings into the
room?”
“Yeah, but there’s like, peeping-toms and stuff like that out there! I can undress
just fine without the wind coming in and strange folks staring at my rear end.”
She nods her head. “You are a confident black man, aren’t you?”
“Hell yeah!” I announced. “But that doesn’t have anything to do with having my
ass being exposed to all of the Atlanta night life.
“Well, love, I only get involved with confident men,” she explained. “And the way I
see it, if you want someone as precious as I am, then you can’t be bashful about
it. Because once you’ve gone Brandi Brown, you never come back.”
For a moment, I thought my penis had ears. Instantly my manhood rose to the
occasion¾literally. Speaking on behalf of most men, we just love it when a woman
talks dirty to us. “Alright, Brandi, I guess I’ll just have to give you what your little
demented eyes have been dying to see. The Darrel Walker show, brought to you
live from Brenton Avenue. Get ready, baby!”
Quickly, I submerged into her little strip-tease game. I started by sliding my belt
off, slowly, while giving her this calm, demanding stare. Hell, if I was going to make
a total fool out of myself I decided I might as well have fun doing it. Next, I
unbuttoned my shirt.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about, love,” she yelled as she fanned herself.
I never stripped before, but obviously I was doing something right¾I hoped. In a
matter of moments, my shirt was off and I was unzipping my slacks. “You ready for
the main event, baby?”
“Yeah, love, momma’s ready for the main event.” she responded while licking her
lips.
I was beginning to get off on the little show. I pulled off my slacks and threw them
against the wall.
“Take it off. Take it off,” she demanded.
I blew her a kiss . “You don’t wanna see this.”
“Oh, yes I do. Yes, I do.”
Then I did it. I stripped off the boxers.
“Oh, yes!” she yelled. “Yes!”
I knew I was straight, but ole’ girl was blowing it out of proportion. But I loved it. I
heard a car cruising by, and someone yelled, “Nice ass, buddy!” Yeah, it was
embarrassing, but I was about to get something that nosey passerby wasn’t¾laid.
“You ready for some of this?” I asked, knowing that she had to be ready to feel the
total Darrel Walker experience.
“No, baby,” she groaned, “Not quite yet.”
“What?” I was totally baffled.
“You can have all of this, love,” she said as she rolled over on her back and
divided her legs while holding herself up on her elbows. Her beautiful brown eyes
tastefully observed my every motion. “But I want you to do one other thing for me.”
“What? What else do you want me to do?”
“Boo, I want you to do…‘The Bird’,” she quickly blurted out.
“Say what?”
“I want you to do ‘The Bird’ for me.”
Suddenly my manhood began to sink. “Oh, hell nah! Butt-naked?” I shook my
head, positively final with my decision.
Then she rose. “Oh, you’re gonna do it.”
“Baby girl, it’s been fun, but I ain’t doing no shit like that,” I commanded. I looked
towards the corner of the room trying to catch a glimpse of where I threw my pants.
“Darrel,” she purred. In an instance she regained my attention. “Can you really
say no to this?” She pulled off her blouse, slid off her skirt and held her hands
out like ‘what?’ My mouth dropped like a full sack of potatoes. “The bra and the
panties will definitely be next. Only if you’re man enough to earn them.”
With no mind control needed at this point, my brain played the beat to the Morris
Day classic, and my feet and hands did the rest. My God, I was doing ‘The Bird’! I
even did a spin. My eyes pleasantly rested on her beautifully tanned body as the
song repeated itself within my mind. She playfully nodded her head as she
hummed out the beat of the song while she sat on the edge of the bed.
“You fuckin’ pervert!” yelled someone in another car passing by.
She fingered me over. “Come over here, love.”
I danced all the way to her, still in rhythm. She got up, put her arms around my
neck and kissed me. That’s when I stopped. It was time for me to do my thing,
and I couldn’t say that it wasn’t well deserved. I had literally made an ass out of
myself, but I knew what laid ahead of me was a night of passion with the sexiest
woman I had ever laid eyes on.
“Take me, love,” she whispered into my ear.
I picked her up, placed her on the center of the bed, and the love making began.
By far, that was the most outrageous night of my life, and it certainly was the best
sex I’d ever had. It was so good that my way of thinking completely changed. And
after a few weeks of exclusively dating Miss Brandi Brown and having her move
into my crib, she easily became the butter to my bread, the cool to my breeze, and
the slickness in my step. And to the surprise of all the great players before me, all
bets were off. I got whipped!
Now for folks who don’t know, there ain’t nothing worse than a player that
suddenly gets whipped. He starts doing stupid shit like waiting by the phone all
night, asking dumb questions like, “Do you think about me when I’m away, baby?”
or “I know you love me¾do you love me, girl?” I was doing all of the above and
much, much more. That lady just messed me all up. But I didn’t fall into critical
status until that night I decided to finally hang up the jersey and asked her to
marry me. I got all on my knees and did it. And the story didn’t stop there. Uh-uh,
the story was just beginning.
After four months of being in a relationship with Brandi, I popped the question and
asked her to marry me. We were the definition of hot and heavy. There wasn’t a
moment when we were together that we weren’t in each other’s face, either about
to have sex or doing everything we could to get ‘bout it. And I think the one thing
that veered me towards thinking that I wanted to be with this woman forever was
the simple fact that she was everything I thought I ever wanted in a wife. She was
sexy, hard-working, and had a good head on her shoulders. And of course, she
was sexy again. So against everybody’s who was close to me wishes that actually
knew about the situation, I popped the question and at a small reception in Las
Vegas, I married her.
And the aftermath…. I think it was the great R&B artist, Percy Sledge, who sang
that song, ‘Take Time To Know Her’. How stupid we men are when we let our
penis do all of our thinking. Just like that song Mr. Sledge sang, Momma didn’t like
her, was totally against the marriage, and about two months after our wedding, I
caught this dread-headed bastard on top of my woman in my very own king-sized
bed. And one of the many things that I’ve learned from being whipped is, you just
don’t have any damn sense whatsoever. When I stumbled into that bedroom, she
looked towards me while the Rasta-man was all on top of her, huffin’ and puffin’.
“Darrel, you wanna join in?” she asked with her nails gripped into his ashy-ass
back.
The dude looked over to me, smiled and said, “You can have her next, mon. I’ll
only be another minute, dear boy.”
And I just stood there, dumb-witted, with my mouth wide open like I just missed the
ice cream truck. I couldn’t conjure up enough intelligence to say not one damn
thing. I just froze as they just kept on doing it as if I wasn’t even there. Then
suddenly, I finally broke out of that suspension of disbelief and yelled, “Get the
fuck off my wife!”
And the brotha’ paused and looked at me. He eased up off of her and said, “I
wasn’t finished yet, but you know the shit’s good, you can go ‘head, mon. I’ll join
in after I get a breather.”
Now at that moment, I do believe that’s when all realization of being an ass-kickin’
black man overwhelmed my body because I blacked out for a moment, and when I
came back to reality, the police had me in cuffs, sitting on my living room sofa, and
they were wheeling the brotha out on a stretcher. He wasn’t dead or nothing, but I
demandingly kicked his ass and unfortunately couldn’t recall any memory of it.
Wasn’t that a bitch? Then Brandi walked out of the bedroom, fully-clothed, with
one of the officers. She looked at me and couldn’t say a word.
The officer approached me. “Mr. Walker, would you please stand up and turn
around?” He relived me of the handcuffs. “I’m going to ask you to leave here
when we leave.” He looked over to Brandi. “In some states, he could’ve killed Mr.
Williams and got off like a fat rat. He wouldn’t have served not a day in jail.”
I tried to hold back my tears as I stared at her. She looked as if she wanted to
cry, but didn’t have enough nerve to do so.
“Mr. Walker, you’re free to get a change of clothing,” he said.
I walked towards the bedroom.
“No,” she yelled. “I’ll go.” She rushed into the bedroom.
“Well, vice-versa, it makes me no difference,” the cop nonchalantly replied. “As
long as one of you leave. I don’t wanna have to make another trip here tonight.
Adultery and fornication tends to bring the worst out of couples. Especially when
some stuff like what happened here tonight goes down.”
Unfortunately, all I could do was look at her. I was too damn dumb to say anything
and too damn whipped to tell her she needed to get the hell out and never come
back. I had it bad. She returned to the den and to my surprise she had her things
packed already. Bags in hand, she gave me one last stare and proceeded to the
door. But before she left, she turned around and said, “Darrel… I wish I could say
I was sorry, but I was only being me, love.”
I turned my eyes towards the ceiling, not wanting to hear anything she had to say.
She hurt me badly, and I was afraid that if I looked into her face I would’ve done
something stupid like break down. It was bad enough she played me for a fool.
There was no way in the world I was gonna let her see a tear drop from my eyes. I
was content with the idea of crying behind closed doors, but definitely not in front
of her. I wouldn’t give her the courtesy. So after she stood there for a moment,
waiting for me to reply, which obviously wasn’t going to happen, she sighed and
walked out.
Honestly, I wish I knew what the hell she meant by what she said. I thought I knew
her. I thought she loved me. I knew I loved her. Why’d she do it, I kept thinking.
Was I not doing something right? For the life of me, I couldn’t understand what
went wrong.
Within a few weeks I was able to get an annulment. That process went by fairly
quickly, since she didn’t deny the fact that she was the one that actually committed
the adulterous act. We set up a meeting to sign the necessary paperwork and
that was the last time I saw Brandi Brown. I told myself I would be through with
women for a very long time. Something inside of me, I felt, was irreplaceably lost.
And to my sudden surprise, I had become single again.