Davida was bent over the chair in the living room, her purple skirt hiked up over her tight brown butt. She had on a pair of those black thong panties the President likes, and I was yanking on them as I jugged her coochie from behind. The muscles in her buffed arms stood out all sculpted-like as she braced against the top of the chair.

"I missed you, Zelmont," she gushed.

I slapped her ass and she moaned. I slapped it harder several times, making it blush. She moaned some more as I did her from behind. That's my girl. Damn. I felt like a million bucks. "I'm about ready to bust, baby."

She grabbed my johnson and eased me out of her. She turned around and dropped to her knees, taking me in her mouth. Damn. I got all lightheaded as I shot my load while she worked her lips all over my rod.

"Damn, girl. You been watchin' those Penthouse videos or something." I just stood there gasping, my pants down around my ankles. She laughed and sashayed over to the coffee table. I watched her as she bent down and straightened her muscled body up, taking a drink of juice. She made a big thing of running her tongue over her lips, knowing it was driving me wild.

"Now I come over here to say hi, and you go and ravage me." She smiled, moving back toward me. "You know I have an appointment with a producer over at Polygram at 10." She started to play with my balls.

I slipped a hand under her skirt, putting my finger between her wet legs. "You show him what you got there, Davida, and he won't know how fat to write your check." We kissed as we stood there, feeling each other up.

She took my hand and sucked on my finger. "There's a party for the NFL owners over at Napoleon's new club on Thursday. Want to come?"

"Stadanko gonna be there?" I was getting hard again. Maybe the hip wasn't the best, but I could still make it rain when it counted.

Davida walked backwards, holding my member. She unzipped her skirt and took it off carefully so it wouldn't get wrinkled, then folded it and placed it on the coffee table.

I pulled off her panties and bit on them between my teeth. She laid on the couch and I got on top of her. "Him and his self-actualization wife." She nibbled on my ear. "Plus some city council people and the Coliseum commissioners."

"Cool," I grunted between thrusts. "I'll be on the down low, smile and laugh at his weak-ass jokes."

"Get on his good side," she whispered in my ear.

I sat back and put the panties around the back of her neck. I tugged on them, rocking her head as we banged. Slowly, I crossed the panties across her throat. Her eyes got wide as she held onto my rib cage. I pulled tighter.

"Faster," she hollered.

I pulled the panties even tighter, her breath gurgling out from her throat. I got scared and excited and let up. She hit my arm with her fist her signal for me to continue. I pulled tighter again and her dark eyes got so round they all but swallowed me up. She pulled me close, driving her tongue into my mouth. I still had hold of the panties, my arms pinned against her. Davida could barely breathe, but she grabbed my forearms as I tried to right myself.

She dug her nails into my butt and I bucked like a mule in a stall, letting go of the panties. She held onto me and we crashed onto the floor. We finished there, scooting around in heat.

''Shit,'' she said, rubbing her butt as she got up. She looked over her shoulder, turning her leg to try and get a look at the red mark on her butt. "You big ol' panther." She gently pushed the point of her shoe underneath my balls.

I laid on the floor, looking up at her and laughing. "Hey, is Weems gonna be there?"

She gave me a funny look as she marched off to the bathroom. "You must have taken too hard a hit in Germany, baby. What the hell would that Christian creep be doin' in a den of sin like Napoleon's club?"

"He's the football commissioner." I got up, disoriented. Rough sex did it to me every time. "His holiness might be there to keep everybody in line." Where the hell did my Jockeys go? A quick pain went through my leg, and my knee went out from under me for a second. I sank down, leveraging myself against the coffee table.

"What you doin' in there, boy?" Davida called from the bathroom.

"Nothin'," I said, "just lookin' for my underwear." I massaged my upper thigh.

"Make some coffee, will you, baby?" She got the shower going.

"Okay." I tried to keep the strain out of my voice. I got up and made my way to the kitchen, hoping to work the kink loose in my hip. The socket was grinding and I took a punch at the cupboard, frustrated.

"You ain't going nuts out there without me, are you, Zelmont?"

"Yeah, that's it, Davida." I leaned my butt against the drain, working my leg up and down until the hip joint moved back into place.

Later I left Davida's apartment in Lennox and went over to the NFL offices on Century Park East. I signed some papers for my pension. I had about fifty grand left in the bank after living expenses and fronting the high life in Spain. Fifty grand might be a lot to some, but I was used to a certain lifestyle, and that wasn't gonna get it.

Plus I knew I couldn't get out of sending at least ten or so to that ballbuster Terri in Savannah. It had been damn near a year since I'd last mailed her a wad of dough. And there was no way a judge, let alone her low-rent Johnnie Cochran of a father, would let me plead poverty. But the mortgage on the pad was kicking my tail, so the half-a-hundred wasn't gonna last long at the rate I was going.

I spent the next couple of days trying to chase down the other people who owed me money. Most of them were unfindable or just plain gone, no forwarding address. In a pool hall near Lynwood, I ran down Harper "Lemon" Woods, who owed me 20Gs.

"Eight in this pocket." He tapped the hole with his cue, glancing past me. Like I was some bitch he never intended to call again.

He stroked the white ball and it angled against the eight, sending the ball against the cushion. The black ball banked and sunk just where he'd predicted. The guy he was playing, an older gent in a brown leather jacket, handed over two Benjamins.

"You got nothin' to say, man?"

"What?" he barked. "I'm supposed to be lightin' up fire-crackers 'cause you strolled in?" He held the cue in both hands like he was gonna do a Jackie Chan on me.

"Where's the money you owe me?" People were watching. Brown jacket moved back. I moved in on Woods.

"You gettin' all in my business like I'm some mark."

"I want my money"

"Shit, Raines, everybody knows you ain't nothin' but yesterday's news." He looked around, grinning and seeing if he got a reaction from the others.

"The twenty grand that belongs to me is fresh in my mind." I didn't wait for a reply or for him to swing the cue. I straight hit him in the jaw, knocking him back against a table. I jumped forward, but Woods tripped me with the cue. Off balance, I fell against a stool, crashing to the floor.

"Who the fuck you think you is?" Woods screamed, pulling out a gun from underneath his loose-knit shirt. He had it pointed at my head, sideways like he probably saw gangsters do on TV shows.

There was no way I was gonna do the backdown in front of a crowd. "You better get that thing out of my face, fool." I got off the floor.

"The only thing I'm gonna do is bust some caps in your ego, you arrogant motherfuckah. Like I'm supposed to be all intimidated 'cause you think your reputation is gonna scare me." He shoved the Glock alongside my cheek. "Now what you better do, Zelmont, is walk the fuck out of here and see if you can make like Adam Sandler and be the waterboy for the Barons or some shit." That got a laugh from the dudes standing around the joint.

I held up my palms. "Okay, man. You the one with the gun. I guess that makes it your world."