Control

by Omar Tyree

Genres: African American Women's Fiction; Psychological Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

Six talented but dangerously toxic personalities in the entertainment hotbed of Atlanta push their psychologist to her own vulnerable limits – and maybe beyond – in this enthralling, knife-edged thriller from NAACP Image Award-winning author Omar Tyree.

Dr. Victoria Benning knows it’s unethical to discuss the therapy sessions of her clients, but the drama of their unpredictable lives tests her professional role like never before.

First, she counsels Mrs. Melody, a brutally honest, gorgeous rap artist who relies on sexual leverage with men to elevate her music career. Then there’s Charles Clay, a hot young film director and master manipulator with a fetish for opportunistic women. Tyrell Hodge is a frustrated screenwriter, part-time driver, and full-time complainer who desperately needs a break. Dark & Moody is a music producer who prays for a blood sacrifice in order to succeed. Joseph Drake, a venture capitalist from a powerful, slave-ownership family, now suffers from a spell of White guilt.

And Destiny Flowers is a hopeless dreamer who struggles to keep her mouth and mind at peace—while harassing the tolerant doctor she hopes will ultimately help her.

Working around the clock, Dr. Benning observes a troubling, treacherous common denominator that plagues all six clients: a desperate impulse to grasp control of everything and everyone in their lives—no matter the cost. It’s a struggle with which she’s all too familiar. Determined to head-off tragedy, she comes up with a brilliant game plan to make their collective talents work in everyone’s favor. . .

But just as she moves into action, inexplicable events quickly turn fatal, as the doctor finds her plan, her career, and her personal life all spiraling into madness—and hopelessly out of control.

Release date: May 21, 2024

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

“THAT’S NOT A TYPO. I CALL MYSELF MRS. MELODY BECAUSE I’M married to the game,” she told me. “I got no husband, no boyfriends, no managers, or none of that shit. They all just get in the fuckin’ way. Jealous motherfuckas. So, I do a lot of shit on my own.”

She sat down in my office wearing a lime-green, wraparound one-piece with golden heels that made me think of the character Poison Ivy in Batman. But her style and body were ten times tighter. And she looked biracial with smooth tanned skin, dark, almond-shaped eyes, and slippery, dark brown hair that moved easily on her scalp, the kind of hair that guys loved to touch to make sure it’s real.

I asked her, “How long have you felt that way?”

“About three years. I just got tired of motherfuckas catching feelings and fuckin’ up the business. So, like, I get in the studio to record. And the producers be feeling me to the point of wanting to give me free tracks or whatever. But then your dumb-ass boyfriend or manager starts tripping on some jealous shit.

“They pulling you aside, like, ‘I’on like how he looking at you. We here strictly on business.’ So, then the motherfucka charges us a thousand dollars and shit, when I could’a got the shit for free myself.”

“But it is business,” I reminded her. “You’re not getting my services for free.”

She glared at me with her dark, sexy, piercing eyes that I’m quite sure she’s used a lot with the guys. But I was a professional, old-school woman from up North, who didn’t go that way. So, she smiled and shrugged.

“I mean, some things you gotta pay for. But you don’t charge nowhere near as much as these producers,” she commented. “So, I ain’t sweatin’ it. Fuck it. I need somebody to talk to who won’t judge me. Right?”

She eyed me again to test what my professional ethics were.

“I may not be here to judge you, but I am here to help, and if I can offer you a better suggestion on how to conduct your business, I will,” I told her.

“That’s fair. That’s what I’m here for. But I get a lot more done with my career by myself now, and I just take friends with me. Because the reality is, guys are always gonna catch feelings for a pretty girl, particularly if they think she’s available. But once you have all these other motherfuckas in the way, they start changing their minds on deals and shit.”

“Okay, but”—I chose my words carefully to nail the point home to her—“business is still business. I mean, how would you feel if a handsome guy expected to get your restaurant cooking for free, just because he looked good?”

She pierced me with her eyes again. “I mean, that would be my choice. I could tell a motherfucka, ‘No, you gon’ pay for it.’ Or I could give it to him for free. That’s my choice. But if somebody else jumps in the fuckin’ way, then it’s not my choice. You know what I mean? I just wanna be in control of my own shit now. That’s what I came up here to do in Atlanta.”

I nodded to her, acknowledging her point. “Okay. I get that. But we all give up some control to people who can make better business decisions for us.”

“Did you give up control of your shit?” she asked me.

“When I first started, yeah. I had to build my own client base and reputation. Nobody’s gonna go to a girl fresh out of college.”

“But once you had your own clients, you did your own shit, right?”

Cunning. She was a chess player, looking for her checkmate. I nodded to her from behind my desk. “Of course. We all want control once we know what we’re doing.”

She grinned. “Well, I know what I’m doing now. And what I found out is that guys are always looking for a hookup if they think they can get some. It’s like a trade-off. And it never stops. I’m talkin’ ’bout from the twenty-five-year-olds to the fifties. They all want some of this bright yellow pussy. And if you don’t know how to manipulate that then shame on you.”

I smiled, even though I didn’t want to. I was sending her the wrong message. So, I quickly rebuked her logic.

“That actually feeds right into the Neanderthal philosophy that ‘boys will be boys’ and makes situations worse for young women and not better. We need more men to behave, and not act out like that.”

She frowned immediately and said, “Please. You really think that women’s lib shit is gon’ stop guys from being guys? Music is the wrong fuckin’ business for that. If you want guys to keep their dicks in their pants, then go be an elementary school teacher. Ain’t no guys in there but math and gym instructors. But in the rap game . . . these guys out here all want pussy, and that’s the rappers, the producers, the managers, promoters, fathers, uncles, cousins, you name it.”

She counted them all off on her fingers, and I failed to hold in my chuckle. This girl, Mrs. Melody, was that raw with hers.

“Now tell me I’m lying,” she challenged me.

“You may have to change your profession,” I joked. “No, but seriously . . . you can actually set young women back by agreeing to those terms, because then they’ll expect the next girl to do the same.”

She frowned and disputed it. “No, they won’t. Just like us, guys choose who they want to fuck with for free, and who they wanna charge. And if the next bitch walks in with her boyfriend, her manager, and her mother, and they’re not attracted to her anyway, then they gon’ charge the bitch.

“Everybody ain’t getting shit for free. Please don’t believe that,” she continued. “It’s just like at the clubs. The pretty bitches get in for free, and the ugly bitches gotta pay. Unless they come early or bring the pretty bitches with them. Then they get an ugly-bitch-for-free pass.”

I mean, this girl here . . . What else could I say?

“If you have it all figured out already”—I opened my palms to her in surrender—“then what do you need me for?”

She shrugged. “Just somebody to talk to about my career. I mean, you don’t cost that much. I got a hundred dollars for an hour.”

I grinned at her, deviously. “Or, you could get one of your guys to pay for it, right?”

“Exactly. And I’ll just tell him it makes me feel better. It’s my therapy.”

I continued to listen to her and pull it all together. “So . . . what happens when all of these freebies want a payoff?”

Mrs. Melody didn’t flinch. “Then you fuck the ones you need. But you don’t ever fuck ’em all. ’Cause see, some guys give you more before you fuck ’em, and other guys give you more after. You just have to figure out which ones are which.”

At that point, my professionalism flew out the window. I just wanted to talk to this young girl and see where she was really coming from.

“What does your mother think about all of this?”

She looked appalled. “My mother? I don’t talk to her about my shit. She got a regular job doing regular shit. And I would never wanna be like that. There’s way too much in this world to do.”

I was confused. Most kids follow in their parents’ footsteps, unless she wasn’t raised by her mother.

“Were you around your mother coming up?”

“Yeah, my mother and my older sister. They do what they do, and I do what I do.”

Wow! Where was the remorse? Where was the guilt? Was it my job to make her feel guilty? She had me working.

“So . . . I don’t know what to say,” I admitted.

“Don’t say anything, just let me talk,” she responded. “That’s therapy enough. Sometimes you just need to talk about shit.”

“So, you do feel guilty if you need to talk about it,” I concluded.

She paused. “I mean . . . not totally guilty, because these guys are what they are. I just need someone mature enough to bounce shit off of, because my girlfriends be on some other shit sometimes, and can’t really relate.”

“And you think I can relate?” I questioned her.

“I know you can,” she answered. “In your profession, I know you hear a lot of crazy shit in here, so what I’m saying ain’t new to you. You’ve heard it all. Right?”

“Not exactly. I hear new situations all the time,” I explained.

“And each time you hear something new, you have to deal with it like a professional. That’s what I meant by ‘mature enough.’ Some people just aren’t built to deal with it. But you are. That’s why you went into this profession. Right?”

She had a point. I could take it. Whatever she had to dish out to me. That was my job. She was right.

“So . . . what’s your ultimate career goal, to get shit for free and fuck your way to the top with the right people?” I wanted to be as frank and as crass as she was.

She nodded and said, “Basically. I got three hot-ass songs out now, all because I made the right moves with the right people. And yeah, you’re right. I do feel guilty about it sometimes. Sometimes, I’m like, ‘What the fuck am I doing?’ But then I think about the alternative of not getting shit done and not having hot songs out, because you turned motherfuckas down, and I don’t feel guilty about it anymore.

“You know, you gotta do what you gotta do to be where you wanna be,” she assessed. “And if not . . . then go get a regular fuckin’ job. So, I don’t complain, I just explain, and it’s water down the fuckin’ drain, with no strain on my brain . . . You want me to say that ah-gain?”

I smiled at her. The girl had me. I wanted to protect her and to be her big friend.

“Am I gonna be the one you tell everything to now?” I asked, still grinning.

She grinned back at me. “I’m trying to see. So far so good. But umm . . . I just feel more in control this way. Like . . . when a guy thinks he’s gon’ get some pussy, he’ll wait for you. But if he don’t think there’s a possibility, then he’s more likely to move on to the next bitch, and you lose the power of that moment. Then you’re starting all over again. And I just got tired of that starting all over again shit.

“So, I learned how to say yes to the right people,” she concluded. “And that changed everything. Shit really started happening for me.”

I nodded to her. What could I say? The girl got me to put my professional guard down. She made a lot of sense. But I was still concerned about her. And she was right, I knew a lot about everything, maybe too much. So, I warned her.

“I hear your logic and philosophy, and it may have gotten you farther along than before, but life forces us to keep making the proper adjustments. And there’s gonna come a time, very soon, when you don’t need to do what you’re doing right now. When you get on that Cardi B, Nicki Minaj, Megan Thee Stallion level, that’s when sleeping around becomes a problem more than a method of advancement, because every industry guy will want the same treatment from you. You feel me?”

“Well, they’re not gonna get it,” she quipped with a chuckle. “But once I get on that Cardi, Nicki, and Megan’s level, then you’re right. I’ll use more of my money to control shit. I’m doing more of that now. The more money I get, the more I pay for the shit I wanna pay for. Just like the guys do.”

That was my first meeting and session with Mrs. Melody. And I felt really comfortable with her, as if I could do her a lot of good. She had climbed into my mental space.

IN HIS MID-THIRTIES, CHARLES CLAY WAS THE VERBAL OPPOSITE OF Mrs. Melody. He didn’t curse much at all and was a rather bland conversationalist. But his lack of conversation didn’t matter. He was a highly sought-after film director in the Atlanta area that everyone wanted to work with. And he had landed in my office, of all places. I honestly had to stop myself from fanning out and stick to business. However, I at least had to tell him that I was an admirer.

“Ah, before we get started, I just wanted to say that I love your work. You’re a special filmmaker. I really feel like I know the characters in your movies.”

He grinned and nodded from my client’s lounge chair. “Thank you. I appreciate it.” He sat up tall and straight and crossed his legs.

He looked smaller than I imagined him from TV. And younger. He looked more like twenty-something than in his thirties. I could imagine him getting carded at the twenty-five-and-up nightclubs and bars. He even dressed like a younger man. He was overly neat, like a recent college grad who was trying to fit into the real world by wearing layers of what he thought was professional attire with freshly ironed shirts and sports jackets.

He had that look of heading over to the Gap to find the cheapest professional shirts and khakis, while being intimidated by the stuffiness and high prices of upscale department stores.

I could imagine his entire outfit costing him less than a hundred dollars. He even wore the no-thrills Vans shoes that the skateboarders liked to wear. His shoes were a three on a man who was considered a nine. Charles Clay was that well respected in the film circles. But you wouldn’t know it through his clothes.

“So, in our first conversations, you were saying that you wanted to figure out why people were taking you the wrong way,” I began. We’d had a couple of phone calls before our first scheduled session, face-to-face.

“Yeah, I think I just need to talk more, actually,” he responded, and chuckled. “You know, I tend to do more watching than talking. So, when I do talk, I don’t really understand what they expected me to say. It’s like, my conversation is different from what they expect.”

I nodded back to him. “Yeah, that can happen a lot when people have expectations of someone they planned or hoped to meet. In other words, if they didn’t know you and never planned to meet you, they wouldn’t have any preconceived expectations of your conversation. But in your position, if you’re in a room of twenty people who all want to meet you, and you don’t get a chance to address them all as a group, then each person will have their own ideas of what they expect.

“You know what I mean?” I asked him. “I could expect you to be one way, and the next person will expect you to be another.”

He stared at me before he commented, as if he was studying my face. “Yeah, but that puts a lot of additional pressure on me to read each person’s mind.”

I shook it off. “Not necessarily. You don’t have to be what everyone expects you to be. Just be yourself.”

He chuckled, awkwardly. “Yeah, but that seems to be the problem. I’m never in line with what they expect.”

I paused. I needed a fresh example from him. “Okay . . . so, how do people respond to you? Explain it.”

Before he answered, he looked around my office. “Would you happen to have a bottle or a cup of water?”

I paused. His sudden request for water annoyed me. I was ready for him to answer my question, not ask me for water. Nevertheless, I obliged.

“Oh, sure, I’ll get you some water.” Unfortunately, I didn’t have any water in my office, so I had to walk out to the vending machines in the hallway and buy him a bottle. When I returned with it, he asked me if I had any lemon.

“I’m sorry, I meant to ask you when you walked out.”

I nodded and handed him the bottle of water. “Okay, we have lemons in the cafeteria with the tea and coffee.”

The problem was, the cafeteria was a farther walk than the vending machines. So, I began to think about the time as I walked. We hadn’t really gotten into our session yet, and eleven minutes had gone by. By the time I returned to the room, we had burned sixteen minutes.

“Thank you.” Charles poured the water into the coffee cup I handled him and squeezed fresh lemon juice into it. He seemed to take his time with everything.

When he finished his first sips of lemon water, we were at eighteen minutes.

“Okay, so . . . what I was asking you is how do people typically respond to you when you meet and talk to them? I need a clear example to work from.”

He nodded and studied my face again. “This is really good water . . . But ah . . . I don’t know. People don’t tend to say much at all. They just listen. It’s like, they don’t know what to say, really. But then they’ll make these little comments to my friends and associates.”

“Comments like what?”

“Ahhh . . . well, he’s really different. He’s ahhh . . .”

He stopped and poured more of his water into the cup and squeezed more lemon juice. I had given him three lemon slices on a small paper plate. He took another sip as I continued to wait for him. We were at twenty-one minutes and still waiting. Suddenly, I found myself staring at the cup in his hand.

Would you stop it with the fucking water? I’m trying to do my job here! I fumed in my head. It was as if he was trying to infuriate me on purpose. I know that wasn’t the case, but that’s how it felt. His water distraction was wasting our time!

“Okay, so, what kind of comments are typically being made about you?” I pressed him.

He nodded and exhaled, but he still didn’t answer. Not immediately.

“Ahhh . . . well, a lot of people say . . . he’s arrogant. And it seems like he’s not listening to me. And I don’t know, I just have a lot going on in my head. So, maybe I’m not listening. And they’re all just there in front of me.”

I felt the same way with him. You feel like you’re a production assistant waiting around for him to tell you what to do for his next movie scene. His meditative pacing and dismissiveness were mechanisms of control. And it made you feel insignificant, as if his time and thoughts were far more important than yours. Maybe it was unfair to think of him that way, but you did it anyway because he’s a popular and successful director.

“Okay, I can feel what’s going on now,” I told him. “You need to do more than just talk to people, you need to be fully engaged. But if you’re gonna walk around in your own world and not hear what they’re saying to you, then you’re gonna keep getting what you’ve been getting. And it’s not about what you say, it’s more about how they feel.

“If you make people feel like they’re not important in the little time they have with you, then yeah, they’re gonna make their negative comments, because many people are insecure, particularly when up against a person of your stature,” I explained. “So, in their defense, they are going to think negatively about you, because you made them feel small, which damages their egos.”

He nodded to me, taking it all in. “I see. That’s fascinating. So, they’re judging me based on how they feel about themselves.”

I didn’t agree with his overly simplified logic. It sounded self-serving in defense of his own ego. So, I added my professional spin to it.

“Not necessarily. People come to you looking for positive affirmation. They’re not looking to be negative. They admire you. So, you want to give them a positive experience and not a negative one. And that takes work. That’s why network marketing people talk about working the room,” I told him. “That’s essentially what you’re doing. And you have to keep that in mind when you meet new people.”

He stared at my face again. “So, I’m working at my public events and appearances?”

He sounded puzzled by it, as if he had never heard of the idea of working a room before. Any media training would teach you that managing your public perception is important, particularly if you’re a public figure. And he was a popular public figure.

“Have you had media training before?” I asked him.

“Of course, I’ve had media training. But this is about the general public, not the media,” he argued.

“Well, who do you think the media does their jobs for?” I questioned.

He continued to search my face for answers and shrugged. “I guess the editors, program directors, television producers . . .”

His answer was unbelievable. He totally missed my point. I was rapidly losing respect for this man. Was he really the director, Charles Clay, or a look-alike imposter?

I cut him off and said, “No, the media does their jobs to benefit the general public. Newspapers, radio, and television are all reporting to the people, not to themselves. Otherwise, what is the point?”

I don’t know if he had somewhere else to go, but when he looked down at the gold watch on his wrist, he continued to irritate me.

“You have another appointment after this?” I asked.

He nodded. “I do.”

At least I had gotten to the bottom of his issue, and quickly. I nodded back from my desk and said, “Okay. Well, you have work to do,” I emphasized.

He looked confused again. “We’re not done yet, are we?”

Actually, I was done. I didn’t need to hear anything else from him. We were thirty-five minutes in, and I had heard enough. I wanted to get him out of my office before I became rude.

“Is there anything else you would like to tell me?” I asked him.

“Well, we have an hour, right?” he complained, still eyeing his watch.

“Not if we already know what the issue is. We can wrap this up right now. You want a twenty-five-minute discount?”

I meant it too. I’d had enough of that man. I could see why people called him arrogant. He had rubbed me the wrong way while I was trying to help him.

Charles looked at me and chuckled, as if he got a kick out of my candor.

He said, “I like you. You’re straight to the point.”

“Did you expect me to be some other way?” I commented. “This is my profession. You’re paying me to assess the problem and tell you what needs to happen to try and fix it. And I’ve done that.”

He took another patient sip of his water and said, “Have you ever acted in a film before?”

The question surprised me. I wasn’t expecting him to go there. I was prepared for a rant about respecting people’s time and professions. I was even set to call him an asshole to his face if he forced me to. Regardless of my degrees, at the end of the day, I was from Camden, New Jersey, and we didn’t play that disrespect shit! But once he asked me about acting in a movie . . . I backed down and went soft.

“No, I’ve never been in a movie before. Why?”

He continued to stare me down, as if looking through a camera lens. And it finally broke me. All of a sudden, I started wondering what he thought about me. I felt alone onstage with the lights and cameras in my face . . . waiting.

He said, “I’m just thinking. I could have a few different roles for you. You’re smart and professional, but I can tell you have a mean streak in you too. Where are you from?”

I said it proudly. “Camden, New Jersey.”

“Oh, right next to Philly. I’ve been there. Yeah, I could use that.”

I froze with exhilaration and felt silly. After all of that, his ass had me grinning.

“And what did you think about Camden?” I asked him.

“It’s a tough city. And with you guys being right next to Philly, it’s like you have . . .