" I gots to get up and get these braids out of my head!!! " Braids are definitely not for lovemaking she thought. More than one man had sent her reeling in pain right when everything was getting good by pulling on those suckers and last night just took the cake!!! Getting back to last night-- who was this lying next to her on her most sacred of days??  Most women would panic at the thought of not knowing who was sharing their bed, but not Lanovia. Only two men were allowed to violate the specialness of Mondays. Her third beau knew that he was a work " thang " only. He was never allowed into the sanctity of her home cause he just couldn't handle it. He was already too much of a liability with his young self!!

Oh, how Lanovia loved her precious Mondays!  She turned on her back, placed her hands behind her head and smiled as she looked up at the imported ceiling fan slowly wafting above.  One of her beaus had brought it back from a business trip to Milan.  The smooth, black satin sheets caressing her skin were from another suitor.  As her eyes canvassed the room, she realized that the only purchase for it she had made, was the bed!  How many other women there were out there who could say that, Lanovia did not know.  What she did know was that she had it like that and she fully intended to enjoy it and milk it for all it was worth.  "After all," as mama always said..."beauty don't last forever.  You gotta go after what you want while your body says its o.k.  When your face and body give up, you betta be married, or out of the needing business!"  Lanovia almost laughed out loud thinking of her mama.  "Mama is a trip," she thought, "always making up her own quotes to make her point."

Lanovia was only allowed two days off a week due to her beauty salon business. Sunday and Monday. Sundays were for family and church and pleasing mama, which only left Mondays free and totally Lanovia's!! Well, that is, Lanovia's and anyone she allowed to share in her pleasures. One turn to her left and a tap on his shoulder would tell Novee, ( the name she allowed people she liked to call her), just how special this particular Monday would be.

Who lay behind her? Was it David, her intellectual suitor of only two months who walked into her shop one day by accident when he intended to go to Mila's next door. Lanovia wanted to keep him for herself from that moment on and stuttered when he asked if he was in the right shop. The brother was definitely fine! Tall, dark and handsome was an understatement when it came to David! But alas, he was in the wrong shop and Lanovia and three of her customers tried to tell him this simultaneously. As soon as he stepped out of the door, Lanovia started. " Whose damn shop is this anyway??!!" she screeched in an irritating, high-pitched tone. "Yours, Novee" two of the three women drawled, not even looking up from the bridal book they where browsing through. Kim, the third offender, was different . " Seems to me," Kim started, " fine man like that needs some help, an equally fine woman ought to speak up and help the brother Novee, that's all" Kim teased as she reached over to high five her partner KoKo who was under the dryer. KoKo couldn't hear a thing under that damn hot dryer and didn't respond to her girl's action. This ticked Kim off as she was used to having her way about any and everything. " Seems to me, an equally fine woman with a job ought to speak up and help the brother Kim, and that woman would be me!" Lanovia thought as she strolled past Kim to get to KoKo and the scorching dryer. " Damn-----, shoulda said that straight to her face too," Lanovia thought.

Anyway, getting back to reality and the quietness of her bedroom made Lanovia realize that she really did not know who lay behind her!! She suddenly felt slightly queasy right in the pit of her stomach. Too much wine last night, she convinced herself. But, all kidding aside, who was in her bed? Laying with three men had its downfalls, and this was definitely one of them. " Well, one things for sure," Lanovia thought," it ain't Jason! The thought of her "young one", as she preferred to think of her twenty year old boyfriend, sent Lanovia's mind into reels of sexual bliss! "Hell, they can call it robbing the cradle or anything else they want to! Man makes you feel that good, you sticks with him." Lanovia smiled as she thought of how she was getting over. Not even her closest girl, Mila, knew about Jason. Mila thought of him as just what he was, a guy sent over by the Temp agency to keep the shop clean. "Yeah, he kept the place clean alright", Lanovia mused, "and his present boss has absolutely no complaints!" Lanovia loved the dangers of living on the edge. Why else would she have a boyfriend cleaning her shop, a boyfriend with a shop right next door to her shop, and a boyfriend who frequently visited her shop??? "Yeah," she thought, "one day the stuff is going to hit the fan big time! But you might as well have fun while you can!!"

Jason was so different though from both David and Clee, the eldest of her men. Different in wonderful ways. He was only a couple of inches taller than Lanovia and stockier than she preferred her men, but someone said that "variety is the spice of life", and Lanovia loved spice! Jason helped Lanovia enjoy the wild side of life. When she was with him she wanted to play video games and watch action movies and eat popcorn till she dropped. Because of the secretness of their affair, they had to enjoy each other either in the confines of her shop or in the once a month rendezvous they took to the small town two hours away. Jason was growing tired of this and Lanovia knew it. Lanovia was growing tired of trying to make their sessions special with all the constraints. To give him up or not to give him up,-- that was the question facing Lanovia more often than not lately. No time to think of that right now, she thought. "Gots to get up and get dressed for the monthly beauticians and barbers meeting across town." This made Lanovia smile a bit at the thought of seeing Cleophus, or Clee as he preferred to be called.

"Clee, Clee, Clee, my husband someday to be," Lanovia sang in her brain. What was it about this man that made her feel so happy, so comfortable, so protected, so loved? All the things a married man makes you feel, Clee made Lanovia feel. "It's a damn shame, him being a married man and all," Lanovia thought. She had always felt that their meeting was more fate than chance. It was a beauty and barbers convention in Atlanta that sealed their fate. Even now, Lanovia could kiss the organizer of the event or whoever it was that placed them at the same table the night of the banquet. Was it fate or chance that her lover David couldn't attend because he had the flu and Clee's wife Margaret couldn't attend because she had the same thing? "Chance my butt", Lanovia grinned to herself, "we were meant to be together. Why else would everything come together so right if it wasn't meant to be? Why else would he move his barber shop right into the empty building next door only one month after their meeting?" Cleophus Simmons was tall and intelligent like David, sweet and fun like Jason, and fair skinned and handsome as only Clee could be. Add to that politeness, ( He was the only man at the table to stand as she approached---come to think of it , the way some of those guys looked, he was probably THE ONLY MAN AT THE TABLE period!!!), he actually pulled out her chair for her to sit down, and made sure that she was included in the conversation at all times.  All that, and for a woman he didn't even know, told Lanovia she was dealing with a born and bred gentleman.  He was some twelve years older than Lanovia, but that only added to the mystique that was Clee. He was mature, considerate, had excellent posture, and a muscular physique that you could see right through that obviously expensive suit he was wearing. "What a man !", Lanovia thought, ignoring the hell out of that foot wide band on his wedding finger! " She must really be a paranoid sister to insist on so much gold", Lanovia grinned. "Hell, who do I think I'm kidding?," she grinned again, "as good as that man is looking, I'd a wrapped him from head to toe in gold foil if it would keep the hussies away!"

Reality again began to set in as Lanovia's thoughts returned to her bedroom and the wonder of who was in the bed with her. "Easy does it girl... its either David or Clee. Let me see..., the process of elimination tells me that its probably David. Surely Clee's wife convinced him to stay home and tend to their kids on his only true day off while she trotted off somewhere to pamper herself! The nerve of that woman!! If she knew like I know, she'd be home pampering Clee instead of leaving him to me.  Well anyway, I have David to myself today, and that's a pretty good consolation prize!" Lanovia thought to herself. Feeling plenty confident about herself and her men, she turned to her left side, snuggled close to her lover and whispered sexily in his ear, "Oh David, I just love having you here with me like this!" Clee rolled slowly onto his back staring straight up to the ceiling in rage and slowly seethed," WHO IS DAVID?!!!

Please continue to, Chapter II             (Order This Book)

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