Sixty-Nine

by Pynk

Genres: African American Women's Fiction

Synopsis

It's New Year's Eve 2008, and best friends Magnolia Butler, Rebe Richardson, and Darla Clark, all born in 1969, are about to turn the dreaded 4-0 in January 2009. Magnolia, a New Year's Day baby, is childless, and always a bridesmaid, never a bride. Rebe, the mother of a college-aged daughter named Trinity, has just gone through a divorce from a man whose sexual appetite far exceeded her desires and abilities. Darla is also a New Year's Day baby, still mourning her husband's death after five years. After way too many glasses of champagne, Rebe, challenges them to open their minds in a way they'd never done before, daring them to try something new...sexually. Sixty-Nine is a liberating story about sisterhood and friendship, and about how past experiences and beliefs can influence one's views about life and sex.

Release date: March 25, 2011

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 368

Sample

My first thank-you is to you, my cherished readers, who have embraced Erotic City and Sexaholics so deeply. I graciously appreciate your support. Erotica is a genre that many people desire, and I enjoy writing dramatic
erotic stories that bring satisfaction to my readers.


To my family, your love and patience is immeasurable. You are my blood, heart and soul, always and in all ways.

To my KP—feedback, patience, cheering me on and staying positive, believing in me, supporting me, loving me, and just being
you. Forever love, no matter what!


I’d like to offer a major thankxxx to HoneyB, Bryan Cleveland, Jean Holloway, Vonda Howard, Cydney Rax, Shani-Greene Dowdell,
S. B. Redd, Kendra Norman Bellamy, Denise Bolds, Ella Curry and EDC Creations, TaNisha Webb and the Fall Into Book Literary
Conference, Harriet Klausner, Outwrite Bookstore and Coffeehouse, Medu Bookstore, Nubian Books, Tasha Martin and all the chapters
of SistahFriend Book Club, Mocha Ochoa and the NAACP, Mashawn Mickels and SBS Book Club, Novel Vixen’s Book Club, APOOO Book Club, OOSA Online Book Club, Book Remarks, Urban Reviews, Michelle
Gipson and Written Magazine, the Decatur Book Festival, Angela Jenkins, Heather Covington and Disilgold, Curtis Bunn and the
National Book Club Conference, my Cola—for the scene-matching song choices, to all the blog sites that were part of my virtual
blog tour for Sexaholics (for the features and reviews), and each and every book club who participated in the wild and sexy Pynk’s Girls’ Night In
pajama events across the country.


To my awesome agent, Andrew Stuart—I cherish you, and by that I mean you were hard earned in my career and I value you. You
are appreciated for the gem that you are. A big Pynk cheer to you!


Thankxxx to my cherished Grand Central Publishing family: Jamie Raab, executive vice president and publisher, for having me
onboard; Karen Thomas, executive editor (this is my fifth book with you), I thank God for your trust, your belief in my work,
and for your amazing revision letters—your hard work makes all the difference in the world in my books and your talents have
not gone unnoticed; my darling and talented Latoya Smith, as well as Linda Duggins, Samantha Kelly, Anna Balasi, Miriam Parker,
Renee Supriano, and others—I am blessed to be a GCP author.


Sexaholics came out at a time last year when sexual addiction was in the headlines so often that the timing could not have been any
more perfect. I researched the subject quite extensively, and I’ve found that some readers referred the title to loved ones
who suffered from sex addiction, like the characters from my novel. It’s important to show what can happen inside the lives
of those afflicted with serious issues, and I’m glad Sexaholics was received so well.


The opposite side of the addiction spectrum is the book you’re holding in your hands right now, my third Pynk novel, Sixty-Nine. It’s about sexual repression, a topic that is also very common and extremely serious. Though Magnolia, Rebe, and Darla have
different thoughts about sex than those characters in Sexaholics, their issues and outcomes are just as dramatic, and as with Sexaholics, for them it’s a test of will, a test of change, a test of faith, and in the case of Sixty-Nine, a test of friendship.


There’s more to come in 2012! With all the political scandals involving sexual affairs and coercion, just check out the juicy
chapter excerpt from Politics. Escorts. Blackmail., about three call girls and one call guy in New York City, led by madam Money Watts, who get caught up in some kinky and
dangerous political wranglings. You’ll find the provocative excerpt at the end of Sixty-Nine.


Remember, live your sexy dreams, responsibly!

Smooches,

Pynk

xoxo

Please visit me at www.authorpynk.com, where you will find my Facebook link as well as information regarding upcoming titles,
and feel free to sign my guestbook. My email address is [email protected].




The Undersexed

As I mentioned in my acknowledgments, while my previous title, Sexaholics, was about the oversexed, this title, Sixty-Nine, is about the undersexed.


Sixty-Nine is not about the literal sexual position, 69; it is about three undersexed women, Magnolia, Rebe, and Darla, who were all
born in 1969, and who are about to turn the big 4-0. They are dissatisfied with their lives in general; more specifically,
when it comes to sex, they yearn to live their sexy dreams.


I watched The Oprah Winfrey Show a while back when she had as a guest a sex therapist named Dr. Laura Berman who talked about sexual problems in women. Some
women do not have orgasms and they fake it with their men, who are sometimes none the wiser because often those men tend to
get theirs, so that’s all he wrote. There are some women who have little, tiny, non-earth-shattering orgasms that don’t quite
live up to what they see in porno movies, or hear about from their sexual-creature-like friends. Some women get very close
to having the big O, but get stuck and hold back because of a thought that creeps into their heads that tells them they’re
trashy or slutty for feeling so good.


Orgasms are both physical and mental, and though some women really do have medical reasons that affect their libido and their
ability to experience an orgasm—usually involving their pelvic floor or blood flow, or as a side effect to certain medications—a
lot of women fall into the one basic sex trap that I feel so strongly about dispelling. The thought that we’ve bought into
from the time we were little, that sex is dirty.

As some of you may know from reading my first Pynk book, Erotic City, that’s the main reason why I decided to write erotica, to hopefully educate through fiction.


While I definitely believe that moderation is key, because we must have boundaries and not run off hog wild, so to speak,
it is my desire to contribute in some way to the liberation of women and show all sides of sex, good and bad. But in the long
run, I hope my books encourage women to love their bodies and feel good about reading scenes that turn them on so tough they
can’t wait to get home and take care of themselves, and/or pounce on their mates. I hope my writing teaches women about what
healthy sex should be. Sometimes you learn that by reading about what healthy sex is not. To read erotica is not sinful, and
it is my desire that the guilt so many of us women feel will eventually be shattered to pieces.


We must learn to tell the truth about how we feel about sex and about what we think about sex, and figure out where those
bad thoughts came from. Also, as Milan Kennedy, the main character in Erotic City, stated, “Women have wet dreams, too.” We cannot be afraid to ask for what we want in and out of bed. We women are not second-class
citizens. Nor are we sex objects.


All in all, views about sex are sometimes deemed to be issues of morality, and issues of sexism.

I’d like women to learn to be what I call sex-see…seeing sex in a whole new way, mentally, visually, and physically.

After all, we are sensual and sexual beings. We are allowed to experience sexual pleasure. We have to let go of negative messages
about sex among consenting adults—negative messages that tell us sex is wrong. I believe we can make a conscious decision
to dispel those messages that breed guilt.


I’m talking about safe sex. Yes, there are prices to be paid relating to teen pregnancy and HIV, etc. You are responsible
for yourself. Make good decisions based on who you are. And take in the rest as learning tools. When in Rome, don’t necessarily
do as the Romans do, unless you think it’s the best decision for you. Most importantly, love yourself first.


If you are fearful and keep thinking you shouldn’t talk in bed or let go and enjoy your orgasm, ask yourself what it is that
you’re afraid of. We all had messages about sex when we were growing up. Most times, if sex was brought up, we were told it
was vulgar and not acceptable, especially when we were young girls. And we were told we shouldn’t talk about it. We got dressed
up and went to church, and the information we came away with was that sex should only be experienced for purposes of procreation.
I know that’s how my parents raised me, even though my mother was more liberated than most. Back then, parents who wanted
their daughters to remain virgins until marriage surely had good intentions, but the other side of the coin is to encourage safe sex because most of
the time, teens are going to do it anyway (I know I did), yet still feel guilty afterward, and that’s when, in my opinion,
the confusion starts. The more you tell someone they can’t do something, the more they want to do it, kind of like the Adam
and Eve theory. And from a biblical standpoint, it’s all about our own individual interpretations; however, that’s a different
conversation.


Now back to the orgasm! :) The sex therapist on Oprah said that when you’re about to experience your own orgasm, if you hold yourself back because of the negative voices from
your past, you will cheat yourself and disallow the erotic experience of a burst of a beautiful, euphoric, intense pleasure
rolling through your body that, from a physiological standpoint, can bond you to your partner just because of the pheromones
produced from the rush itself. That is a proven fact. I know there are some women who, even though they may not hear the negative
voices from the past, still hold back because the sensation is so strong they get scared and freeze up. I’m there with you.
I can surely understand that!


If you’re one of the many women who have repressed feelings about sex, and you feel you’re too frigid and rigid in bed, maybe
you need to think about what you can do to begin to let go of the embarrassing and shameful ties that bind. Refuse to carry
those old messages and voices in your head that tell you sex is lewd, immoral, and improper. If necessary, think in terms
of experiencing romance with your partner, as opposed to quickies, so that you can take the time to really excite yourself
and your mate. Take the time to talk about each other’s erogenous zones. Make foreplay last longer, starting with a sex text
early in the day. Tell yourself you deserve to be pleasured, that it’s good and loving, and that you’ll still be a nice girl
and a respectable lady in the morning. Remember: it’s women who ask men, “Will you respect me in the morning?” Why is it men
never ask women that?


Anyway, think in terms of nonmissionary, and feel free to masturbate healthily if you so desire. Masturbating in moderation
is not slutty either.


Train yourself to replace the outdated messages with new ones. It’s called a sexual adjustment. Remember, you are a sensual
and sexual woman, and you’re allowed to experience a happy and fulfilling sex life as a private, personal choice.


While you turn the pages to get to know the characters in Sixty-Nine as they struggle to escape from their undersexed worlds, keep in mind that these three coming-of-age women make conscious
decisions to explore erotic sides of themselves they never knew existed. I call it sexploration.


The bottom line is that Sixty-Nine is a liberating story about sisterhood and friendship, and about how our past experiences and beliefs can influence our views
about life, and about sex. How shame and dysfunction and abuse can keep us repressed. And how guilt can keep us from truly
viewing sex as a pleasurable act. Sixty-Nine is a novel about going beyond one’s self-inflicted boundaries to fully experience true sensuality. But, by taking these risks,
one never knows what lies on the other side of our comfort zones. The comfort zone that protected us from our fears of abandonment,
negative self-image, broken hearts, being seen as whorish, being rejected and ashamed. Feelings that meant we’d rather be
alone than intimate and vulnerable. Though it is true that in some cases, if one is irresponsible, one may find that some
things are better left alone.


So, my dear readers, please enjoy my girls, Magnolia, Rebe, and Darla as they find out what it’s like to go beyond the missionary,
and experience the erotic edge of a real-life sixty-nine.


Prologue



 

 

Girlfriends

MIAMI DADE COLLEGE—MIAMI, FLORIDA

1989

She really did love her best friends, but less than twenty years ago she slept with one of her best friends’ man and got pregnant.


Magnolia Butler, Rebe Palo, and Darla Humphrey were the epitome of BFF’s way before the term BFF ever came into popularity. In fact, they were so tight and so meant to be, they were all born in 1969, Magnolia and Darla
on January 1, and Rebe on February 14.


Magnolia and Darla were juniors at Miami Dade College in Miami, Florida, and Rebe was a sophomore, since she graduated from
high school a year late. They no longer lived in dorms. Magnolia and Darla were roommates in a small two-bedroom apartment
down the street from campus. Rebe lived less than a mile away in a rented house with her high school sweetheart, Trent. They
had a three-year-old girl together named Trinity, yet still managed to maneuver through the rigors of college life, even though
their relationship was rocky.


Magnolia and Darla were not only childless, which was just how each of them wanted it to be, but they were still virgins.
Magnolia, who was Trinity’s godmother, just hadn’t made the right connection with any of the guys she’d met so far. Not enough
to share her body with anyway. So she decided to wait. Darla made a serious connection and was saving herself for marriage.
She was dating a fellow student who was a starting pitcher on the college’s baseball team, named Aaron Clark, and Darla and
Aaron were set to be married the summer after they graduated. They’d both agreed to wait, postpone consummating their relationship,
just to make sure the night was extra special. Aaron had been around the block a few times, but Darla, who was raised with
Christian values by conservative parents, witnessed every girl in her family get pregnant by the time they were sixteen. She
wanted to be different. Not only did she want it, but her parents required it. “Save yourself for marriage. A man wants a
virtuous woman. Sex is not recreational. Sex is between a husband and a wife. No man will want you if you’re sullied. Not
as a wife anyway. Sex before marriage is a sin.” And Darla believed it. It was important to her to honor those puritanical
values in the name of her mother, who passed away in a car accident while driving to pick Darla up when Darla was a high school
freshman. Darla’s father vowed to never remarry. Darla had witnessed a true-love example, up front and in living color. And
she wanted the same. But fate, as crazy as it can be, had other plans.


Magnolia was the child of a mistress to a married man. She never met her father. Her mother had been his chick-on-the-side
before getting pregnant. When she broke the news to him, he simply stopped seeing her. One night when Magnolia was a baby,
her mother went out to have a final conversation with her married lover, leaving Magnolia alone. She didn’t come back. She
had suffered a nervous breakdown in a hotel room where they’d met to talk, and when he left, Magnolia’s mother flipped out
and tried to kill herself by jumping off a fifth-floor balcony. The next morning, when Magnolia’s grandparents found out,
they rushed to baby Magnolia and took her in, ending up being the only mother and father she’d ever know. Her mother had been
a drifter since then. And Magnolia made no bones about telling everyone she could care less about her mom. Nothing else mattered
other than making sure she never turned out to be like June Butler.


Born in Maui, Rebe Palo, half-black and half-Hawaiian, and her family moved to Ocala, Florida, when she was four. She grew
up in a not-so-nice neighborhood, where her older brother was in and out of what his mother called gangs. Her mom and dad
divorced when she was seven. Her dad ran off, being a rolling stone enjoying his newfound freedom, so Rebe and her brother
were raised by her black mother who was so overbearing and bossy, she could have turned the tide on Donald Trump and fired
him. Rebe dealt with watching her temperamental mother always preaching what she never practiced, so much so that her mother
charmed her way into becoming pastor at a small Baptist church by the time Rebe was twelve. Five years later, Rebe got pregnant,
but by then, her whole life had changed. By then, Rebe and her brother would be victims, and her life would never be the same.


By Magnolia and Darla’s graduation day nearly two years in the future, it would turn out that Rebe and her baby’s daddy broke
up after she accused him of being an addict, and he spread rumors that she was not only crazy, but so moody he’d almost have
to rape her to get her to have sex with him.


Darla and Aaron would end up taking a spring-break cruise to the Bahamas to elope before their senior year just so they could
finally have sex.


And Magnolia would date a hot Italian guy her senior year named Gabe Pastore. That is, until she’d catch him cheating on her
in the backseat of his car at a drive-in movie. Magnolia had followed him. She always was the snoop.


During that year, one of them would end up pregnant.

And would have an abortion.

Yet her BFF’s would never know about it.

Or maybe they would.

And the father was either Rebe’s man, Trent, who’d die from a drug overdose four years later; Darla’s man, Aaron, who’d have
a fatal heart attack in 2004; or Magnolia’s ex, Gabe, who ended up marrying a well-known porn actress in Hollywood.


One of them was the father of an innocent baby that never ever had a chance at this thing called life.

A life that has a funny way of paying people back.

Payback that in an instant would flip these best friends’ worlds from a six to a nine by the time they were forty, coming
to a literal head all in the name of sex.


One



 

 

Girlfriends

INT.—LIV NIGHTCLUB INSIDE THE FONTAINEBLEAU HOTEL—LATE EVENING

December 31, 2008

It had been the coldest winter in ten years in Miami, though the temperatures were on a slight upswing lately. The sharp, beachfront
chill that lingered in the Florida air on the outside was still no match for the three hot girlfriends who’d checked their
coats, sporting their sexy, skimpy evening wear for a celebration of out with the old and in with the new, like no other year of their lives. It was a recognition of necessary crossroads.


Divorcée Rebe Palo-Richardson said, with a millisecond smirk on her chocolate face, the face she got from her mother, “Girl,
on my wedding night with Randall, I started my damn period. That should’ve been a definite warning sign that my marriage would
not last through the ebb and flow, so to speak, of holy matrimony.” Her micro-braided head rolled toward the two best friends
she’d known since high school. She tried to speak at a level just above the blaring celebratory music in the background.


She sat on the contemporary purple leather stool at the fully packed bar with her long, bare legs crossed like a prima ballerina.
Her stately gams, formed from her days as a dancer, extended far beyond the hem of her little black dress. A scripted tattoo
was etched along her right ankle, one of a few that served as life-messages upon her sexy body. Darla Humphrey, now Darla
Clark, sat on the other end, and Magnolia Butler was in the middle.


The trendy hotspot, called LIV, inside the Fontainebleau Hotel on the Miami Beach strip, was deliciously decorated in pale
blues and lavender, with dark wood bar tables, draped private VIP rooms, and two mirrored, elongated bars. Oversized plasma
TVs graced every wall, showing last-minute countdowns from most major cities.


Magnolia and Darla both lived nearby in Miami Beach. Rebe lived in Coconut Grove.

It was New Year’s Eve.

The well-promoted, well-attended bash was wall-to-wall packed.

The sounds of Whitney Houston’s “Exhale” serenaded the disco-like, neon-lit room. The soft mixture of pink and blue LED flashing-light
designs bounced along the walls and from the ceiling. The glass dance floor was a pastel menagerie of light grids that grooved
to the beat of the popular R&B music.


And it was 11:46 p.m.

“What? So after that you didn’t have sex because of your monthly visitor?” Extra thick and curvy Darla, a widow, leaned toward
her friends with her light brown, precision-cut hair with bangs that covered her high forehead. She wore platinum hoop earrings,
and a liquid silver minidress, looking like a lady disco ball. She picked up her fluted champagne glass and took a tiny sip
of the yellow label Brut, extending her manicured pinky as she swallowed. And she still wore her princess cut diamond wedding
ring on her ring finger.


Rebe scrunched up her nose, and her smoky eyes squinted like a foul wind had blown by. “Ewwww, yes, of course it stopped me,”
she said, squirming in her seat.


“All I know is he turned out to be a player, just like all the rest.” Magnolia knew all too well from the way Randall would
always look at her, checking her out whenever Rebe would turn her back. She frowned like she took his infidelities personally,
and gulped her vodka and peach schnapps. Her scarlet nails matched her knee-length strapless chiffon dress. Her gold slingbacks
were high and sexy.


Darla added, “There are ways to slow down the flow. That’s all I’m saying. Even I know that. I mean, it was your honeymoon.”

Rebe paused with a hold-up look for them both. “Oh, you, the one who hasn’t had sex in what, six years? I can’t believe you’ve
got the nerve to be giving me tips on anything.” She gave a snarl.


Darla raised her threaded brows. “It’s been five years, thank you very much, and I’m proud of it.” She gave a long blink.
“Anyway, you’re the one who started this topic of conversation, not me.”


“Yeah, well I wish I hadn’t. I was just trying to laugh off why my marriage may have failed, that’s all. Feeling a little
reflective.” Rebe twisted her generous lips and raised her glass, tipping a swallow of Perrier water into her mouth.


Magnolia kept her hands on her cocktail glass. “Hell, at least you had a wedding night. I think my man-picker is broken. It
has been as long as I can remember. And it’s probably a good guess that I’ll never find out what it’s like to even have a
wedding night. I mean, after all, thirty-nine will be gone in, ah,” Magnolia peeked at her diamond watch, “twelve minutes
and counting.”


Darla, a dental technician, tilted her head toward Magnolia as her lips gave way to her to-die-for bleached teeth. “Me too,
girl. I’ll be saying good-bye to thirty-nine right along with ya.”


Rebe added, “I’m right behind both of you. Remember when we were younger? We thought forty was damn near elderly. I mean,
all of our parents were the very age we are now.” She thought back for a minute. “Tell me, where in the hell did the time
go? My Lord.” She shook her head and gave Magnolia a reflective gaze.
. . .