Blocked

Cherise stared at the blank computer screen. There were words somewhere in her mind, but she could not get to them.  They were trapped between memories of her last orgasm and the repeated attempts by Mr. Smith to get in contact with her.  For the last two days, her brain had been taken hostage by images of being wrapped around his brown body in various positions and locations. The way his fingers would hungrily graze her skin as though he could taste its sweet vanilla flavor through his fingertips. The carefully laid kisses on the nape of her neck and small of her back. The involuntary vibration in her thighs when it got too good to her.  With a sigh, Cherise removed her glasses to rub her temples. “Focus!” she whispered into the early morning quiet of the office.

But her brain was racked. Mr. Smith was in town to preview his new album to the press. Cherise had been relieved when the assignment was initially given to  another writer.  Her relief was short lived as assignments were rearranged after a writer had a death in the family. Of course Cherise ended up covering Mr. Smith’s listening party.  She’d tried during the staff meeting to keep her face together, but she swore that she’d felt it shatter and land in pieces on the office floor. Despite her best efforts to prevent it, she’d have to talk to him now. The careful dodging and short responses to his emails and texts had been pointless. The career gods were mocking her.  Perhaps even rolling on Heaven’s floors laughing hysterically at her expense.

Cherise had absolutely no clue how she was going to handle the evening. She’d spent two days planning her approach to the interview, but nothing stuck. She’d been obsessing over what she’d wear, but by some strange happening her entire wardrobe had morphed into ugly over night. It was ridiculous and she knew it. She needed to be talked down.  If only she could talk to her girls, but neither of them knew about Mr. Smith.  Cherise tried to imagine what they’d say. Mya had a penchant for mischief so she’d throw Cherise a  pair of Jimmy Choos and tell her to give him what he’s asking for. Peyton would give her the screw face and say, “You gonna let a man interfere with doing your job? You need to get your shit together ASAP.” Cherise had to chuckle at the amount of energy she was wasting on her silliness. She sat back in her chair and set her locks free from the messy knot she’d tied in her frustration. “I am trippin for real,” she said to no one in particular.

“Talking to ourselves this morning?” a voice broke through the fog in her mind. It was Morgan, the assistant fashion editor and one of her closest friends on staff.

“Something like that,” Cherise replied, a hint of dryness in her voice.

“Well, I’ve got some hot new samples from Tracy Reese and Giuseppe. Wanna raid the closet before the rest of these heifers  get hold of all the good stuff?”

Cherise smiled. The career gods hated her, but the wardrobe gods were clearly on her side. “Sure.” If she had to walk into hell, she was going to strut through the fiery gates in a pair of free Giuseppes.

Why is Cherise so against seeing Mr. Smith? Find out here.

Cherise’s Industry Rules

Cherise was awakened by the sound of her phone vibrating against the nightstand.   She immediately sat up and searched for a clock.  She’d been up until 2AM working on her article.  The effort had been painstaking, trying to fill the pages with words and ideas that weren’t in her interview notes and she’d crashed and burned after finally putting together something worth reading.  Now she sat up in bed, feeling like she’d only gotten an hour’s sleep as slivers of sunlight began to peak through the New York City skyline.  Was it really morning already?

The urgent buzzing of her phone broke her thoughts.  Who the hell was calling or texting her at this time of day/night?  Eyes still half-closed, she fumbled around the nightstand until her hands finally landed on her iPhone. The light from the phone forced her eyes open to read the alert across the screen.  ”Text Message from Mr. Smith.” Her heart skipped a slight beat at the sight of his name as she touched the screen to read the message. “Wassup? I’m in town next weekend. Let’s hook up.”  Cherise smiled slyly, her mind rewinding to their last encounter.  Before she could answer the text, common sense kicked in and she sighed. “Damn,” she whispered into the silence of her bedroom.

Working as an entertainment journalist came with a set of rules.  Sure, the rules in Cherise’s case were self-imposed, but they were rules nonetheless.  The first rule on her list was to not screw around with artists.  In her eyes, it tainted her credibility.  Her dealings with Mr. Smith was a violation of that rule, and no matter how much she tried to rationalize the situation, it was still against her moral code.  She had to give herself a break, though.  It wasn’t as though it had always been that way.  She’d met him long before the rule had even been created, when she was still a student at Howard University.  She was the editor of the entertainment section of Howard’s newspaper and he was an up and coming songwriter visiting for Howard’s famed Homecoming festivities.  Their shared passion for music caused them to click instantly and they were inseparable for the remainder of the weekend.  Over the years, they kept in touch via phone, email, and the occasional visit where they would casually pick up where they left off during their initial meeting and then go back to their separate worlds.

Time went by and the two advanced in their careers.  Mr. Smith stepped from behind the scenes and became a full-fledged R&B sensation and Cherise was slowly working her way up the urban entertainment journalism totem pole.  They began to run into each other at industry functions, during which Cherise would try her best to not be seen.  Her efforts were always futile and they’d always end up back at his hotel, dancing on his sheets.  It was always beyond good and in the moment, worth the mental anguish that Cherise often suffered as a consequence.

Not that it was a relationship.  It most certainly was not.  And their get-togethers weren’t even that frequent.  She probably saw him every three or four months.  Each time, he was warm and kind.  Never disrespectful or full of himself despite his newfound fame.  He was always that cool, charismatic guy that she’d met seven years ago at Howard.  And the sex.  The sex was always off the charts.  As much as she tried to suppress it, Cherise was weak against the calls of her libido.  Great sex had always been her weakness.  But with Mr. Smith, it was more like her kryptonite.

Unable to go back to sleep, she rose from her bed in search of jeans and a T-shirt.  The sun had completely broken through the clouds which meant that the Starbucks on the corner was open for business.  Perhaps a carmel macchiato (another of Cherise’s guilty pleasures) would ease her current frustrations and calm her mind.  Before hitting the door, she looked at her cell phone one last time.  It’s better if I just leave it, she said to herself.  Maybe she’d forget all about the text by the time she got back.

Want to know Cherise’s back story? Meet Cherise here.

The Girls

“Sooo, you couldn’t just say ‘No Marcus. I am not ready for you to lock me down and impregnate me with your rugrats.’  You had to pass out?” Peyton said in her usual sarcastic tone as she walked past Mya into the apartment.

“She had to pass out because she knew that a medical emergency was the only way you’d let her get away with being late to lunch,” Cherise stopped to hug Mya as she entered the apartment. “Hey, Cuzzo.  You alright?”

Mya had to chuckle.  Leave it to her girls to make light of her panic attack without pissing her off.  “I’m cool,” she answered as the three friends settled into the living room of her Brooklyn brownstone.  Between the incident at the restaurant earlier that day, hashing things out with Marcus and fielding her mother’s 1000 questions, Mya was emotionally exhausted.  A visit from her two closest friends, Peyton and Cherise was exactly what she needed to get her in better spirits while she figured out her next move.

As the three of them sat in her living room laughing and exchanging banter, it was hard to believe that they hadn’t all been friends forever.  Mya and Cherise were cousins and had been close since they were children, despite the fact that Cherise lived in D.C. while Mya lived in Atlanta.  Spending summers visiting her cousin and aunts had played a huge part in Mya’s wanting to come east for college and the two were always traveling back and forth between D.C. and Philly to visit each other during their college years.  They had also moved to New York together after graduation and were roommates their first two years in the city.  Cherise still lived in the tiny Harlem walk-up that the two of them used to share.  Though Mya had never been a fan of the apartment, Cherise had definitely given the place character with her funky decorative touch.  She was indeed a free spirit and had always encouraged Mya to go after what made her happy, even if it meant going against the grain.

Mya and Peyton had met during their sophomore year at Temple, when they were on line together for their sorority.   Peyton was the fiery ace on their line who withstood some of the more physically grueling experiences with ease while Mya had been the emotionally stronger number two who was able to keep Peyton’s temper in line during the more emotional hazing.  With Peyton’s take no shit personality, Mya never understood exactly why she’d pledged, but Peyton later explained that it was to prove that she could.  She’d been told that she had too much attitude to make it online and if anyone knew Peyton they knew that more than anything, she loved to prove people wrong.  Years after having crossed the sands, she and Peyton remained the closest of their ten line sisters.  Peyton had always been an advocate of Mya doing her own thing and it was that thinking that brought her and Cherise together as friends when they all first moved to New York.  While Peyton and Cherise had had some personality differences at the beginning of their relationship, they had developed a closeness over the last six years.  Most people who met them assumed that the three of them had all grown up together.

“So, now that Aunt Linda is in a tizzy and you’ve got Marcus waiting with bated breath, what you are going to do?” Cherise asked.  Mya had just caught them up on the rest of the story.  She’d asked Marcus for some time and space to consider his proposal.  Though he wasn’t crazy about the idea, it was clear that he didn’t have a choice in the matter. If he wanted to be with her, he’d have to play by her rules.  Her mother on the other hand had been a different story.  Apparently, Marcus had told her that he was going to propose so she was shocked to hear that Mya hadn’t readily accepted.  Mya believed that her mother was more upset about her turning down the ring than she was about the fact that her daughter had been so panicked at the thought of marrying Marucs that she had passed out in a restaurant.

“I’m leaving town,” Mya replied nonchalantly as she walked into her kitchen for a glass of water.  Predictably, Cherise and Peyton were on her heels two seconds later.

“Leaving town?” Cherise asked. “To go where? And for how long?”

“I’m going to California for a week.  I’ll spend a few days in San Francisco and then shoot down to San Diego to chill on the beach.  I really need to clear my head and I can’t do that with Marcus breathing down my neck and my mother pressuring me,”  Mya answered.  “Which is why neither of them is to know where I’m going.  I’ll tell them that I’m going out of town, but that’s it.  So I need you two to keep quiet.”

“What is there to think about?  You know good and damn well that you do not want to marry that man,” Peyton said.  “Passing out at the sight of a ring is indication enough of that.  You have to spend a week on a totally different coast to figure it out?”

Mya sighed.  “It’s not just about Marcus.  I have spent the last ten years of my life making compromises between what I want and the life my parents laid out for me.  I mean, I’ve done my own thing here and there, but only to an extent.  I need to make some serious decisions about the next phase of my life.  And that requires time and space, Peyton.”

Peyton nodded with understanding.  That was the nature of their relationship.  Mya was one of very few people who could occasionally shut Peyton up.

“Escaping to find yourself, huh?” Cherise said with a chuckle.

Mya shrugged. “Something like that.”  What they didn’t know was that she was actually escaping to find someone else.  And that her trip would include a stop in Los Angeles to do just that.

“So other than keep our mouths shut,” Peyton said. “What else do you need us to do?”

“Drive me to the airport in an hour,” Mya replied with a smile.  “My flight leaves at eight.”

Cherise Jackson

Three hours.  The most tedious, ridiculous three hours Cherise Jackson had ever suffered.  Three hours spent trying to pry an interesting conversation out of a syruped-up idiot who claimed to be the best rapper alive.  Cherise shifted the weight of her oversized Tracy Reese bag and sighed.  She really hated rappers.  Well, not all rappers.  She still had an eternal crush on Common that had lived in her heart since the very first time she heard “I Used to Love H.E.R.” And she couldn’t forget about Nas, whose “I Gave You Power” still gave her chills whenever she heard it.  And there was of course the original God MC, who was the author of her all-time favorite song “I Know You Got Soul.”  Why was she complaining?  This career was what she had worked for her entire life.  Ever since she had written that review of the “The Chronic” for her junior high school newspaper, she knew that it was her destiny to write about hip-hop.  Before she even knew that hip-hop journalists existed, she knew that she wanted to be one.

Four years at Howard University’s John H. Johnson School of Communications, a brutal two year sentence at Columbia University’s J school, multiple internships, and survival through the financial murkiness of the freelance world and Cherise had finally hit pay dirt.  Or something like it.  She had secured a job as a writer for Vibe Magazine, immediately following an unsatisfying stint at XXL that ended when she realized that hip-hop as she knew it was indeed dead.  Vibe was a better fit for her, and allowed her to cover some more interesting artists.  After a year of paying dues, she had finally earned her dream assignment-a cover story.  It just had to be about one of the new breed rappers.  She hated to feel old or out of touch, but in comparison to the artists that she’d grown up listening to, these cats left a lot to be desired.  Especially when they gave her barely a page worth of material that she was supposed to magically morph into a cover story. 

That dumbass.  She’d spent a good hour and a half of the interview trying to ignore his disgusting flirtations.  Ick.  That was another hazard of her profession, fighting off the sexual advances of  clown ass rappers.  Despite how much she tried to downplay it with her honey brown dreadlocks and neo-soul style, Cherise was still a sweet-faced, thick redbone underneath it all.  While she was perfectly comfortable in her own skin and loved the way her curves poured into her size 10 jeans, she hated the way her Coke bottle figure seemed to distract interviewees from the fact that she was indeed a journalist and not the second coming of Karrine Stephans.  This was especially the case with her last interviewee, who had a well-documented fetish for the curvy light-skinned breed.  Every girl he’d been linked to in the industry certainly fit the bill.

And to think, that idiot had made her late for her weekly lunch date with her girls.  Cherise was a good ten blocks away from the sushi bar and the little bit of cash she had was for lunch and train fare back to her Harlem apartment.  That meant that a cab was not an option.  She would have to truck those ten blocks in the knee-high chunky heels that were sure to murder her feet and endure the verbal lashing she’d receive from Peyton for her tardiness.  Why had she resigned herself to  the lifestyle of a starving artist again?  Well, there certainly were perks.  The press pass that allowed her admission into any concert she wished to attend.  And the free CDs and MP3s that kept her music collection on point.  And the hot industry parties she sometimes covered.  And the greatest perk of all, being an insider.  Cherise’s words helped to dictate what was hot.  Her voice was heard and her opinions mattered.  So, her interviewee had been a moron, her feet were killing her, and she was late for lunch.  She was living her dream and would not have it any other way.  With a sigh of acceptance, Cherise plugged her ears with the sound of Maroon 5 and began her trek.  The life of a writer in NYC…