Yolanda Parks of TV One, Michael Baisden, Cherisse Gage, Lissa Woodson, Jeremy “JL” Woodson, Barbara Cooper, Carmen Polk, Shannette Slaughter, Larry Addison, Gloria Mallette, E. Lynn Harris, Lou Richie, Jessie Evans, Chris Farr, Brian Shaw, Phil Doherty, Bill Johnson, Pete Morales, Carl Weber, Victoria Christopher Murray, Ruth and Howard Kees, Vanessa Ibanitoru (my friend since third grade), Brenda and Aaron Clark, and my McDonogh No. 35 Roneagles family, thanks for your continued support.
To my entire Kensington family, Joan, Jessica, Mary, Maureen, Nicole, Steven Zacharius, and Barbara Bennett, I am grateful for all you do.
I love my editor, Karen Thomas. Karen, you have a magnificent head on your shoulders. You’re a powerful and brilliant woman operating the most successful African-American imprint, Dafina Books.
To Claudia Menza, my agent, although we’ve separated, I still love and respect you. When all of the contractual obligations are fulfilled, we will have presented eleven books.
Last, but damn sure nuff not least, Felicia Polk, you are forever my best friend and the world’s greatest publicist. May God bless you beyond measure. Thanks for believing in me.
The acknowledgments for my next book are dedicated to book clubs and bookstore owners and managers. I appreciate your love and support.
I have so many more people to acknowledge, but I also have other books to write, so if I didn’t mention you this time, forgive me now, remind me later.
PREFACE
Soul Mates Dissipate, Never Again Once More, He’s Just a Friend, Somebody’s Gotta Be on Top, Nothing Has Ever Felt Like This, and When Somebody Loves You Back are intertwined. I recommend reading the series in the order listed above. You can preview an excerpt of each novel at www.MaryMorrison.com and www.SweeterThanHoney.net.
Next is my Sweeter than Honey series. Pussy is sweeter than honey and more valuable than money. Women everywhere, after reading this series, will become sexually, spiritually, and emotionally empowered, learning, that is, if they don’t already know, women are a triple threat—possessing power, passion, and all the pussy in the world. Fellas, just when you thought it couldn’t get any sweeter for the ladies, more women are earning good salaries and/or owning and operating businesses. Therefore, men who are liabilities can kiss a Sweeter than Honey asset good-bye.
Sweeter than Honey women worship themselves. They don’t hesitate to sit on a man’s face, give him a taste, and ultimately do him right, but only if he comes correct. Sweeter than Honey women demand respect. I know what you guys are thinking…what about the women who disrespect men? Most women respond to the way they are treated. So don’t undermine a woman’s intelligence, expecting her to accept your chauvinistic behavior (i.e., infidelity, lies, control tactics, abuse, etc.). When you genuinely love your woman, she’ll truly love you, but it’s going to cost you. Sweeter than Honey women never give their sweetness away for free.
My Dicktation series is also forthcoming. Dicktation is set in my hometown of New Orleans, which was virtually destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Having grown up in, as we say, Nawlins, I’d like to bring the “City that Care Forgot,” back to life and create visuals for those of you who’d planned on but hadn’t visited New Orleans.
For those of you who’ve left your stamp or stench on The Big Easy by being oh so sleazy, and you know you were off the muthafuckin’ chain—one step away from starring in a Snoop Dog Gone Wild video—if the natives called you cheese-zy ba-ba you are going to love the series. For y’all, Dicktation will reignite fond memories of—Essence, Mardi Gras, Jazz Fest, the French Quarters, Bayou Classic, Bourbon Street, Harrah’s Casino, Comic View, 7140, Second Lines, and all the shit you can’t tell nobody, probably ’cause your ass couldn’t remember, but couldn’t wait to do again.
New Orleans will forever be a city like no other, especially after the city is rebuilt, but it’ll never be the same. Therefore, I must do justice to both the before and the after depictions. Dicktation will arise and arouse like no other work I’ve done…until then, enjoy Sweeter than Honey, and remember you are what you eat, so stay sweet.
PROLOGUE
A black woman did it all…because she had to.
She did it all and she did it well, caring for others while neglecting herself. Four hundred and fifty years of birthing babies for white masters and black slaves sold off to the highest bidder, leaving her to raise her children all alone. Four hundred fifty–plus years struggling for freedom, while black men died, for what they seemingly couldn’t live with today, dignity.
Whose fault was that?
If only a man could teach a boy how to become a man, then the question would be rhetorical. If the black woman birthed the black man, raised the black man, loved the black man she gave life to, then when did the black man begin disrespecting the black woman, replacing her birth name with bitch?
Bitch. Bastard. Incontestably the black man could win at one thing: throwing a boomerang. The black man’s life would forever remain incomplete until he learned how to love and respect the black woman. Good or bad—what he believed was golden—a dick didn’t mean shit when the black man chose not to give back to the black woman what she’d freely given to him. Unconditional love. Respect. Devotion.
Freedom came with a price, and now that the black woman could choose her mate, her fate was the same, leaving her to take on more responsibility than she should, but not more than she could, so she carried on doing all she could do, the best she knew how. It’s been proven that if one tried to do everything, one would risk doing nothing well.
After dropping off the kids, working nine-to-five and then sometimes five-to-nine, picking up the kids, cooking dinner, changing diapers, checking homework, and lying down for a four—should be eight—hours’ rest, did the black woman have any quantitative time to invest in her children’s future? If she made time, did she have any qualitative time for herself? If the mother was unhealthy, the children were unhealthy too.
When the alarm clock sounded, the next day was a replica of yesterday, and it seemed like the groundhog saw its shadow every day because each tomorrow for the next eighteen-years-plus brought sorrows that would make demands of the black woman to carry on, humming the same old hymn…“I won’t complain.”
Who would take care of the black woman while she sacrificed to rear her kids, pay the bills, and all too often, sleep alone at night, wondering if her direct deposit would post in time to keep the lights on, or balance her checkbook the day before payday to restock the refrigerator before emptying the cabinets, or feed her children the last few slices of bread while she watched them eat?
The black woman didn’t need anybody’s empathy. She was a survivor by nature. The Mother of Jesus, many denied the undeniable, but what the black woman fell short of was an epiphany: a lesson in how to love herself first. How to stop stressing about not knowing if her baby daddy—daddies—would ever show up at his children’s events, parent-teacher conferences, if he’d ever pay her child support, and ultimately to stop worrying about whom he had sex with when he wasn’t loving her, that is, if he’d ever loved her.
Love or the lack thereof, based on his mother’s mistakes, Darius reluctantly admitted to himself, what most men at some point in their lives experienced; he was terrified of two things: falling in love and failure. No one had taught him how to attain one while avoiding the other. Either, or would render him vulnerable. Destroy his character. Ultimately strip him of his manhood.
A man in love was weak for his woman. Would do anything for his woman. The more he gave, the more control she wanted. Darius didn’t want to be hard on women; he had to be. The cold, callous, careless, arrogant, inconsiderate, selfish person ruling his existence, primarily with his dick, wasn’t him. But if Darius didn’t protect his heart, who would? Surely not the women who’d emotionally broken him down. Like the one blabbering on the other end of his cell phone wasting his time, burning up his daytime minutes.