Taboo 2:. Yoshe

it was.

      Before they got back together, Sierra was involved with Rasheed Gordon, a former inmate from Five North. Lamont was surprised at her. He would have never thought that Sierra Howell, a self-proclaimed perfectionist, would have ever compromised her career for anyone, especially a crook.

      After that, Lamont could not stand by and listen to other officers drag Sierra’s name through the mud. Some even resorted to making up falsehoods without having any burden of proof. Lamont found himself defending her honor a few times, almost coming to blows with one of his good friends a few years ago.

      “Yo, L, I’ve been hearin’ some things about your girl, man,” said Kaseem Brown one day while they were both in the captains’ locker room getting dressed to go home. Kaseem and Lamont were good friends ever since coming to the correction department seventeen years before. They were even promoted to captain at the same time.

      Lamont frowned at Kaseem. “What have you been hearin’?” he inquired.

      Kaseem closed his locker and sat on the bench. “I know you heard the rumors. Tell me that you heard the rumors.”

      Lamont had heard the rumors, but that’s all they were to him—rumors. He didn’t want to entertain the Department of Correction gossip mill, especially when it came to his people.

      “Nah,” Lamont lied with a straight face. “I haven’t heard anything. Why?”

      Kaseem shook his head. “Dude, people around here are talkin’ about Howell. I heard that she supposedly had a relationship with an inmate! Isn’t she pregnant?”

      Lamont stopped getting dressed. “C’mon, Kas. Don’t you see that big-ass stomach of hers when you come over to the house? Yeah, she’s pregnant, man!”

      Lamont’s heart fluttered because no one knew that the baby wasn’t his, except him, Sierra, and his half sister, Monique Phillips, and she wasn’t telling a soul.

      Kaseem sighed. “Damn, L. I know that you can’t be that stupid. I think Howell is playin’ you, homie!”

      Lamont frowned and stood up. “What the fuck do you mean, she’s playin’ me? How do you figure this?”

      Kaseem sensed the hostility in Lamont’s voice and body language, but that didn’t stop him from running his mouth.

      “I keep hearin’ that she was involved with this one inmate. The guy’s name was, um, what is this crook’s name? Anyway, I do know that he was in Five North at one time.” Kaseem tapped his feet on the floor and looked up in the air like he was desperately trying to remember the name of the inmate. “Damn! I can’t remember the crook’s name, but isn’t Five North her steady housing area?”

      A smile came over Lamont’s face. “Yeah, it is. So what the hell is really good, Kas? What are you tryin’ to tell me, man?”

      Kaseem stood up. “I’m sayin’ that you may need to get a DNA test when that baby is born. You never know, but Howell just might be pregnant by some crook and not you, man! Heard that she was havin’ sex with that dude in his cell and everything. Listen, if that is a crook’s baby and you stay with this chick, you are goin’ to be raisin’ his bastard child. Truthfully speakin’, you don’t need to be associated with her!”

      Lamont’s body tensed up. He looked at Kaseem, and, from the expression on his so-called friend’s face, he saw that he was dead serious.

      “You gotta be kiddin’ me, right, Kas? You seriously believe that my woman is pregnant by some inmate?” Lamont asked, leaning his head to one side.

      Kaseem nodded his head and puffed his chest out a little. “Yes, I am serious! You’re my boy and I can’t stand by and watch you get played like that. You know how some of these broads are, L. We done laid up with a few of them and you know firsthand that they’re easy as shit! To be honest, they’re not above lettin’ one of these grimy-ass crooks get some of the skins, too. I just can’t knowingly fuck behind one of them motherfuckers!”

      Suddenly, Lamont pushed Kaseem against the lockers. Kaseem had a shocked look on his face and pushed Lamont back. Before they could actually fight, two other captains walked into the locker room just in time and rushed to break it up.

      “You disrespectful piece of shit! You’re gonna actually sit in my face and talk about my girl like that?”

      Kaseem straightened out his wrinkled uniform shirt. “Fuck you and your bitch, L! You always been a fuckin’ sucker for a ho! All you’re doin right now is tryin’ to turn a ho into a housewife!” Kaseem yelled out.

      The two friends tried to rush each other again, and the other two captains stepped in to try to get them to reason with each other. After a few moments, their colleagues managed to calm them down. They were still angry at each other, of course, but their close bond was broken. It wasn’t until after Messiah was a year old that Kaseem came to Lamont and apologized for his hurtful comments. Lamont accepted his apology and they managed to repair their friendship.

      Although his delivery was sort of harsh, Lamont knew that Kaseem was only looking out for his best interest. Lamont appreciated the gesture, but when it came to Sierra, the love of his life, he always got defensive. Not to mention, it wasn’t easy accepting that she had actually had a child for Rasheed and not him.

      Lamont realized that Sierra bearing a son for Rasheed was only karma for his actions in the past. During their previous relationship, Lamont had an affair with Deja Sutton. Deja ended up pregnant with Lamont’s first child. Sierra was devastated by this. Lamont felt the same way when he found out that she was pregnant by Rasheed.

      After having a baby with a woman he had cheated on Sierra with, was he really at liberty to say anything about how Messiah was conceived? If it was a problem, Lamont only had one choice, and that was to let Sierra be. But it was obvious that he could not do that because she had a hold on him.

      However, after he and Kaseem had that altercation, Lamont knew that he was a different man. Hearing how his buddy felt about Sierra and women in general, Lamont was disgusted. At one time, Lamont would have entertained Kaseem’s views about women.

      The old Lamont was a player extraordinaire, and breaking women’s hearts was a game to him. It gave his ego a boost to see a woman break down over him, because he was an insecure, narcissistic jackass. Lamont was doing to women what his mother had done to him, and that was rip his heart to pieces when she left him and his father. It was his revenge on womankind, but how could he tell anyone this? Lamont portrayed the image of a ladies’ man knowing that he was really the one who was afraid of being hurt.

      So even though Sierra’s prior relationship with Rasheed was forbidden to many, Lamont learned to not care about what was being said about them. Sierra was a good woman, and, most importantly, his woman, inmate’s baby mama and all.

      Sitting in his small office, Lamont smiled. He didn’t want to fight with Sierra over petty bullshit, so he called her post.

      “Howell. Five North,” Sierra said, picking up the phone on the first ring.

      “Hey, baby, how are you?” Lamont asked.

      “Fine. You?” she replied in a curt tone.

      Lamont chuckled. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry about yesterday. You didn’t even wanna give me none last night and you know I can’t have that. I need my stuff anytime I want it!”

      Sierra chuckled too. “You can only get this when I want you to have it.”

      “I hear that!” Lamont replied. “Anyway, what are you doin’?”

      Sierra sighed. “Nothin’. I’m doin’ that same thing I do every day and that’s babysit these grown-ass men.” She paused. “Oh, yeah, some new jack introduced herself to me today. Her name is India Charles.”

      Lamont frowned. “Don’t know her. There are so many new officers in here after that class came out of the academy last year. They salute me so much; I don’t even stop to look at nametags