The Hard Way (Box Set) Read online

  “Yes,” he replied, bending low to take my lips with his. “How else will you explain us both touching the mirror at the same time, or how you just happen to be my true mate?”

  I couldn’t argue with his reasoning. I couldn’t say anything anyway. I was too busy eating at his mouth, taking in his unique flavor, playing catch-me with his tongue.

  Besides, who could explain the greatest bit of magic ever created?

  Who could explain love?

  Welcome to Prefect City

  Stephanie Burke

  It isn’t easy being a young black woman trying to find a place in the corporate world. Fed up with her life, Shaquandra utters these fateful words: “I wish I was in a soap opera. Five minutes after you get there, you’re a millionaire and everyone loves you.”

  Be careful what you wish for. When the four fairy godfathers whisk her away to “Perfect” City, she discovers that everything isn’t always “prefect”. Between Voodoo Priestesses, the white woman who swears she’s Shaquandra’s sister, the four Fairy Godfathers, the Italian Mob, the Demon Lawyer, and the KGB, Shaquandra will be lucky if she gets out alive. Things really get interesting when she falls madly in lust with the Egyptian Assassin who keeps saving her life.

  Chapter One

  “Just in time for another fast-paced episode of… Perfect!”

  “Well, it’s not like I have anywhere else to go,” Shaquandra murmured as she settled deeper into her comfortable couch.

  Dressed in all of her ratty, terry-clothed splendor, the out-of-work accountant cuddled her closest friends closer. Her friends being three bags of assorted potato chips, one bag of barbecue pork rinds, two packages of popcorn, cheese and caramel flavored respectively, one box of pocky… and a fifth of tequila. She poured another shot of tequila into a tumbler, took the shot, and chased it with a swig of lime juice from the nearby plastic lime-shaped squeeze bottle. She had no place to be since she got downsized by corporate America.

  All of her resumes were electronically filed, her interviews from headhunters were conducted by phone, and her unemployment check came straight to her front door.

  Now, with her snackable friends gathered around, she settled down for the next round of relentlessly sexist pointless soft porn known as the daytime soaps.

  “You know,” she gurgled to her pet potato chip Chippy Three Thousand, named thusly because she had eaten his two thousand nine hundred ninety-nine predecessors, “look at that chick.” She pointed to an overly developed blonde with underdeveloped acting ability. “She was a drunk prostitute turning tricks for her younger brother on the Perfect Strip. Now she’s a millionaire heiress with a handsome, mysterious fiancé. Damn, I wish I was in a soap opera. Five minutes after you get there, you’re a millionaire and everyone loves you.”

  Chippy had nothing to say, so she tossed him into her mouth and poured out a little liquor for her newly fallen brother who didn’t make it. And she poured it right down her throat.

  She was adding a second memorial shot to her tumbler when the first fly buzzed around her head. Absently, she swatted it away and returned to her TV viewing. Brad was about to announce to the world that he was a product of the first male birth, an experiment gone wrong back in the seventies… and that he was the mother of Christy’s baby, and that Christy was really Christian and had only married the aged oil baron for his money and not for love.

  Christy, neé Christian before the sex change operation, was about to rise up and invite the alien horde waiting just out of range of the Star Wars defense grid to come and make slaves of the human race when the second fly dive-bombed her.

  Did I forget to close a window or something?

  The third fly landed in her drink.

  Cursing, she tilted the glass to peer inside and saw something that almost made her swear off drinking for life. The fly in her drink was reclining on a melting ice cube and smoking a cigar, and damned if it didn’t smell like those Cuban things her ex-boss loved.

  She was about to let out the prerequisite B-movie scream when someone speaking behind her pulled her attention in that direction.

  “Ignore Murray, love,” the gravelly voice rasped. “You got the good top shelf stuff and Murray needed to wet his whistle.”

  “M-Murray?” she stuttered as she slowly turned her head toward that voice.

  Maybe it was Chippy coming to claim revenge for all his fallen brethren. But all she saw was another fly. This one was also smoking a cigar and brandishing a metal wand with a heart on the tip.

  Okay, she decided, slowly putting down the tumbler. It was definitely time to give up on spirits of a Latin origin. Time to switch to good old-fashioned German beer. She never saw flies with wands smoking cigars and resting on ice cubes, stealing sips of her good hooch, when she was wasted on Jagermeister.

  “We are not flies,” another voice huffed, joining the second cigar-smoking… thing that was hovering above her face. “We are personal, paternal, aviated, size-challenged inner desire granters.”

  “Did I say that out loud?” she gasped. Then his words, or at least some of them, penetrated her alcohol-fogged brain. “What?”

  “Ignore Carl,” the first personal paternal… flying thing interrupted. “He is playing the PC, card-holding metrosexual nowadays. His cigar is a legal Cuban,” he whispered in his rough voice, “and he has manicures to prevent tobacco stains on his fingers and nails.”

  “I’m dreaming,” she muttered. “This is a tequila induced fantasy.”

  “Then I would hate to see your nightmares,” another fly added as it joined the two hovering over her shocked face. “I mean really, look at those drapes and that carpet. Was your designer Martha Screw Up? I mean, plastic backings! Who has plastic backings on drapes? And that color! Neutral is not a color, darling -- it’s a country, like Switzerland!”

  “Okay,” Shaquandra muttered, desperately holding her panic at bay. “My brain is fried, I am receiving fashion advice from an insect.”

  “Decorating advice,” the perturbed voice corrected. “If I was going to give you fashion advice, I would say something about that terry cloth robe. Hello? It is so Laverne and Shirley! I mean, get out of the seventies.” Then he added, in an aside to the others, “And a little wax will take care of that unibrow, ducky. Wax is for black people, too!”

  “I need a drink!” Shaquandra’s voice cracked as she felt herself slipping farther into insanity. She reached for her tumbler, forgetting her tequila moocher until the glass was at her lips. A movement made her look down with a whimper, just in time to catch the first of several cigar smoke rings that the floating fly blew at her.

  “I think you’ve had too much,” the first fly mused as she very carefully placed the tumbler back on the table.

  “I think you may be right,” she agreed, her voice reedy and thin.

  She was shocked that her voice sounded that normal. Hell, she had just impressed herself. “Okay,” she continued, sliding back into her couch to hide her trembling limbs. “Talk to me.”

  She was now ready for the pronouncement that the world was coming to an end or that Jenna Jameson, Nicole Ritchie, Anna Nicole Smith, Paris Hilton, and Michael Jackson had decided to form a Christian Coalition and give up sex, liquor, scandals, shocking people, and plastic surgery altogether.

  “We,” the first voice began formally, “are your Fairy Godfathers.”

  “Personal paternal…” the second voice began, but was cut off.

  “Fairy godfathers, Carl! We have wings and we wear tutus!”

  “Enhanced body sheaths,” Carl muttered, but fell quiet as the rest of the fly-fairy -- or was it the fairy-fly -- contingency shot him glares.

  “Carl the PC, Murray the drunk, Phil the fashion consultant, and I am Carter the leader. We are your four fairy godfathers!” Carter sounded pleased with himself.

  Shaquandra stared.

  “Well?” He flew in closer, close enough for her to see that the fly really did have a tiny face… that was covered with a
five o’clock shadow. It was wearing, sure enough, a small black tutu and had a cigar clamped between its lips, lips that spread into a smile without dropping the precious cigar.

  “Get out!” She hid deeper in her comfy neutral colored couch and fiddled with her snack friends.

  “Truly!” Carter added, shifting his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other without the use of his hands, a truly skilled and magnificent feat.

  “No,” Shaquandra stated. “Get out. Get out of my house! Get out now!” Her voice rose with each word, until she was nearly roaring.

  “You…” Carter stammered, a confused expression crossing his tiny little face. “Maybe you are not understanding us…”

  “Get out! Get out! Getoutgetoutgetoutgetout!” Then she was on her feet ad swatting at the little buzzing creeps like mad. “Get out of my house!”

  Suddenly there was a poof, a damned audible poofing sound, and suddenly four -- count them, four -- beefy buff type guys, wearing matching dark colored tutus, ballet slippers, and puffing on cigars, stood in her living room, all fisting heart-topped wands.

  She knew that they were there because in her wild, fly-flapping flight, she barreled into the one called Carter’s chest, then bounced, bottom first, onto the floor.

  “Now will you listen to us?”

  Shaquandra gaped like a slack jawed yokel at the four buff men, who were glaring down at her like she’d tried to kill them.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but in tandem, they each snapped open previously unnoticed mother of pearl wings and slammed equally large hands onto their hips, still fisting those damn wands.

  Numbly, she closed her mouth and nodded. Suddenly her four personal paternal flies were looking like a thug gang of four.

  “Good,” Carter snapped. “In that case, you made a wish and we are here to grant it.”

  “Wish?”

  “You wished for it, we grant it!” Carl continued. “Too bad you didn’t wish for decent living quarters.”

  “Or some better manners,” Phil added, sniffing around his cigar.

  Murray said nothing, but he reached down and picked up the nearly empty liquor bottle, shook it twice, and frowned at her.

  Shaquandra stared at the four winged fairies and gave in, just a little, to the urge to laugh hysterically. It started life as a chuckle and grew and grew in sound and in fervor.

  “I think we broke her,” Carl whispered loudly from behind a raised hand after a few long moments of manic laughter.

  Murray just nodded.

  “Grant and vacate?” Phil asked hopefully.

  “Post haste,” Carter whispered back and gave the others a nod. “Wands up!”

  In tandem, four little heart topped wands were hefted with all the reverence of the Olympic torch.

  “We grant thy wish!”

  Shaquandra paused in her laughter, the sound of the deep voices in stereo knocking her somewhat out of her stupor. She looked up just in time to receive the invocation… or rather, four heart topped metal wands bashing down on the top of her head.

  Again there was that “poof” sound, and the room began to spin.

  She must have blacked out for a moment, because when next she became aware of her surroundings, she was sitting in a damp clump of grass, leaning against a signpost, wearing the most God-awful red rhinestone stiletto heels on her feet. Her head felt like the whole defensive line of the Baltimore Ravens was parading through, double time!

  “What the fu…” she groaned, then a huge shadow blotted out the light.

  “You will be safe here… Jessica!” a deep male voice purred.

  “Jessica?” She looked up and saw a creature who looked like the Rock’s older, more handsome brother staring down at her, and dammit, it looked like he was a few donuts shy of a dozen.

  “I was sent to kill you, Jessica, but I find myself falling for you!”

  Suddenly from nowhere, there came a deep bass of an orchestral hit.

  Dum dum dummmm.

  Looking around for the band, she spotted no one. She looked up at tall, dark, and stupid to see if he would react to the sound, but he didn’t appear fazed at all. In fact, as the last notes died away, he continued speaking as if nothing untoward had happened.

  “I desire you so much!” he breathed. “Jessica, I love you!”

  “Um… you love me?” She stared at the man. Why were all the hot ones totally mad?

  “You doubt my love? Let me prove it!”

  He dropped to his knees and sank a bit into the damp earth, the look on his face determined and earnest. His hands gripped her knees, pulling them apart, tugging her damp and dirty formerly white terry cloth robe aside.

  All her startled and confused mind could come up with to counter this was, “But I’m still in my shoes!”

  “Kinky!” he purred. “I like it!” Then his head dropped and he began to dine on Shaquandra tartar!

  Okay, she decided as her toes curled in her tacky shoes. Maybe she could be Jessica in this dream, just for a little while. His warm tongue caressed her sensitive skin, making her squirm on her ass in the wet grass and not even give a damn. His breath wafted over her, sending her juices flowing as her desire for a real tongue-bath rose.

  “You smell so divine,” he whispered. “Can I taste you? Please? Can I lick you here?”

  His fingers gently caressed her throbbing clit, sending her breath hissing from between her teeth.

  Good figment of my imagination, she thought as she bit down on her lower lip. Damn good figment.

  She spread her legs wider, inviting him to do more, to explore, to take her to a higher level of arousal. As far as dreams went, this one was not that bad.

  Then his finger was rubbing, playing with the moisture on her pussy lips, gently circling her opening before thrusting in deeply.

  “Oh… oh… God!” she gasped, clenching fistfuls of damp grass in her hands.

  Her moisture ran over his fingers, dampening the back of her robe as well as leaving her inner thighs shiny and slick.

  “More?” he asked, adding a second thick finger to the first, rotating them gently, scissoring them and stretching her for the taking.

  “Yes, please,” she gasped politely in between harsh breaths as her back arched up, thrusting her whole burning groin in his direction.

  “As you wish.”

  He parted her with those teasing fingers, exposed her thrumming clit and her swollen lips, and leaned in closer to get a bigger taste.

  But before things could get any more interesting, a voice from over the green hills called to her. “Jessica!”

  The Rock, Jr.’s head popped up from lapping at the skin of her upper thighs, and he glared over his shoulder in the direction of the voice.

  “I’ll return, my love,” he purred again, then the magical vibrating tone withdrew. In a flash, he totally withdrew from between her legs, and he was gone.

  Shaquandra turned toward the sound of that high pitched female voice screeching her name, and just stared at what she saw.

  A team of limos -- did limos come in teams? -- was headed in her direction, a wildly waving woman hanging from the rear side window of the one in the lead. “Jessica!”

  She blinked, as the woman seemed to float from the car to her side, gently patting her arm while scolding her soundly.

  “Why did you wander off? We were looking for you. And you fresh from a plane crash, too!”

  “Um, who are you?” This was getting maddening. One person would go. Another would take his or her place, and the confusion continued. This was one really fucked up dream! “And what plane crash?” Well, a crash would definitely explain all the screwy things rolling through her head.

  “You don’t remember?” The woman looked near to tears, then she smiled a smile that Shaquandra was sure was unflappable. “Of course you don’t remember! You’re distraught after your crash, and you being the only survivor as well. I am your baby half sister Jennifer!” The smile got brighter.

 
Shaquandra’s headache grew worse.

  “Half sister?” This woman was as white as new driven snow and as blonde as a bottle of bleach, and she was supposed to be Shaquandra’s sister?

  She looked down at her own cocoa colored arm, then back at the vanilla colored woman.

  “Yes, half sister, Jessica!” The woman threw out her arms in a way too melodramatic manner as she delivered her next line. “Welcome to Prefect City!”

  Chapter Two

  The limo ride was uneventful, and that was saying a lot for a black woman who was now the proud possessor of a blonde baby sister who just happened to be rolling in dough.

  But as Shaquandra was handed her first mimosa of the day, she decided this wasn’t all bad. She tuned out the other woman’s prattle, and instead mentally went over things in her head.

  Okay, she was in some kind of Latino-liquor hallucination. Now that she was rich and stuck in this particular fantasy, it didn’t seem quite so bad.

  She decided to ride it out as far as it would take her. And maybe if she hung in there long enough, the Rock, Jr. would make a return and actually finish what he’d started. The damp on the back of her robe was not all mud and morning dew… and was becoming increasingly uncomfortable.

  She paused in those thoughts as they pulled up in front of a building swarming with reporters.

  “Media savages,” Jennifer groaned, her eyes narrowing in anger as she spied the ravenous horde of paparazzi circling the team of limos. Voices cried, “Where is the heir? Bring out the heir! Roast her alive with garlic butter!”

  Okay, she imagined that last one, but from the way they were saluting, she couldn’t be too far off.

  “Okay, you stay here and I will go and rout them at the gate.”

  Shaquand… uh, Jessica, nodded and placed her empty champagne flute in the built-in bar.

  “You may want to clean up a little. I see the owner of the Prefect Press and the leaders of about three other worldwide media organizations here.” With one last smile, the blonde bopped away, slamming the door shut before the reporters swarmed that particular limo.