“Yeah?” I replied.
“Why were you single before me? Why didn’t you have a woman?”
“Why you ask that?”
She rolled over to face me, and my eyes instantly fell to her big, juicy breasts. I licked my lips and lifted my eyes to hers.
“Because I need to know why nobody been getting that good dick,” she said.
That had me grinning. “Oh, so I wasn’t just talking shit, huh?”
“Hell no!”
I chuckled. “Uh, after I broke up with the woman I had been with for like twelve years, I messed with a couple of women, but I was celibate for like seven, eight years until you. I was trying to deal with too much shit to deal with a woman, then. And why didn’t you have a man, because that pussy is fire!”
“I had one, but…”
“What?”
“It’s embarrassing. What happened between us is embarrassing.”
“But you can tell me.”
She didn’t reply.
“If you tell me what happened with him, I’ll tell you what happened with my ex, and I ain’t never told no one about that. No one.” Huh? Did I just say that?
“You will?”
“Uh…y-yeah.”
She sighed, and her eyes left mine as she stared at something behind me. The wall, I guess. “Me and Gavin—that’s his name, Gavin Kowalski—”
“He’s white?!” Damn, I didn’t mean to yell that.
“No, I ain’t never had sex with a white man, so you can calm your hotep ass down. He was adopted by some rich white people.”
“Oh…”
“Anyway, we were together for like six months, lived together for five months, and things were going good. He was irresponsible as hell, wanted to be a thug but was really just a confused rebel against his parents, but he seemed to really care about me, you know? It took a while for me to get up the nerve, but eventually, I asked him if he’d help me out, if he’d marry me, and he said…he said he’d never marry me, that I wasn’t the type of girl men marry. He said I was too loud and ghetto and fat, that I was the type you fuck until you find something better. Then he left, told me to get my shit out of his apartment and be gone when he got back. Mind you, we got the apartment together, but it was in his name. Still, I left. Left all my furniture there because I…I gave up. I was like, if the man I’ve been with all this time won’t help me and would say that stuff to me, what’s the use?” She looked at me and smiled. “Then you rescued me.”
“What do you mean you gave up?” I asked.
“I…I thought about just ending it all. Gavin made me feel worthless, but not just him. Men have screwed me and dumped me before, treated me like a joke, and then there was the threat of deportation. I just…I didn’t think life was worth living anymore.”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. “I’m sorry you felt like that, but I’m glad you didn’t do it. I’m glad you’re here with me now.”
“Me, too. Neil, some of the guys in my past said I was too touchy-feely. Like right now, I really wanna be up under you, but I don’t wanna make you mad.”
“The guys in your past were some asshole fuck boys. If you wanna touch me, anytime day or night, then you can touch me. I’m your husband, baby. My body is your body.”
“And my body is your body?”
“Hell yeah.”
She grinned as she scooted closer to me. “Your turn.”
“Yeah, I did say that, huh?”
“Mm-hmm.”
I wrapped my arm around her. “Me and Emery got together in junior high, stayed together through high school. I mean, we’d break up sometimes, fall out or whatever, but we always got back together. She followed me to Romey University in Tennessee; then she followed me to LA. We lived together in my house.”
“The one you live in now?”
“The one we live in now.”
“Yeah…”
“We were good, but I’ve always had a crazy sexual appetite—”
“No shit.”
I laughed. “Yeah, and I’ve always liked exploring things, learning, and that didn’t stop with sex. We tried everything, anything. She loved me, so if I thought it up, she’d do it. If I cheated, she forgave me. I asked for an open relationship, and she was cool with it. If I wanted to tie her up, she was down. If I wanted to fuck in a movie theater, she was with it. And when I asked for a threesome, she was game as long as she could choose the girl.
“Emery was a hair stylist, and she chose the woman who managed the salon she worked at, Gala, an older woman with a banging body. Shit, I was having so much fun with them, I didn’t notice how much fun they were having with each other. After the first time, Emery started asking if we could do it again, and my dumb ass was excited, thinking how lucky I was that my woman was so open sexually, so willing to accommodate my needs. Three months after that first threesome, Emery announced to me that she was leaving me because she and Gala were in love. Baby, I was a man whose ego was built on his sexual prowess. I studied how to please women, read books on the g-spot, didn’t feel satisfied unless I knew my partner had at least three orgasms, so that shit? It ripped a hole in my pride. She’d traded in my dick for a pussy!”
“Well, I’ma tell you right now. It didn’t have a damn thing to do with your dick. On God, it didn’t.”
“I’ve had enough counseling to figure that much out, but thanks, baby, Anyway, not only was my ego destroyed, but at the same time, I was crushed by guilt. I’d taken advantage of her love for me, pushed her so far with my sexual exploration that I’d pushed her away. Still, I thought maybe this breakup was like the others and she’d come back to me. When she didn’t, I lost myself. Started drinking to numb the pain, because as stupid as I was, I really did love her. Started gambling because…I don’t know. I liked how it felt to win, made me feel like I wasn’t a complete fuck-up, but the problem was, I didn’t always win. Then one day, I looked up, years had passed, and my life was a fucking mess. Things were so fucked up, I couldn’t see through the loss and pain to recognize the blessings I had. Ev’s always been there for me. So has Leland. Nolan was my best friend growing up. My family loved me. I couldn’t see any of that, though.”
“What made you decide to turn your life around?”
“I got tired of being miserable, the family loser, but what really woke me up was seeing how happy Nolan was with your girl, Bridgette. I was like damn, Nolan found his queen? I mean, I love my brother, but he can be an asshole sometimes, an arrogant one. Then I looked at Ev, Leland, and Kat, all happily married, living their best lives…and I knew it was time for me to stop acting like my mama didn’t raise me better than that.”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For sharing that with me.”
“You’re welcome. Sage?”
“Yeah?”
“You ready for me to share some more of this dick with you?”
She climbed on top of me, giving me a slow kiss. “Like you said about me touching you, I’m your wife. If you want to give me this dick…give me this dick.”
And I gave it to her like a motherfucker.
16
“You look good, baby. I like the way you tied that scarf on your head, and that dress? Damn!” he said into my ear, as I studied the menu in the hotel’s restaurant.
“Thank you. You don’t know how to act seeing me in clothes, do you?” I looked up at him with a raised eyebrow as he sat back in his seat and laughed.
“What you tryna say?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Nothing that you don’t already know, like we’ve been here three days, and this is the first time we’ve stepped out of our suite. It’s been nothing but sex, sleep, room service, sex, sex, shower with sex, room service, sleep, room service, sex while waiting for room service, sex because the sun rose, sex because there was a half-moon, room service, sleep…did I forget anything? Oh, yeah…sex!”
“I got a lot of catching up to do. You complaining?”
&n
bsp; “You think I am?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I need to start withholding some of that sex you’re talking about.”
“Really?”
“Shit, no.”
I guffawed and then quickly covered my mouth. “My bad. I’m working on not being so loud in public.”
“Be as loud as you want. I don’t give a fuck what these white folks think.”
“I guess being married to a woke man has its advantages.”
“You know it.”
After the waiter finally came and took our orders, I said, “Since we are now married and have had sex three hundred and sixty-two-point-seven times, I think we should get to know each other better.”
“I already told you what happened with my ex. My family doesn’t even know that.”
“And I appreciate that, but I wanna know more.”
“Okay…what you wanna know?”
“What do you like to do besides read and fuck?”
He laughed again. “Uh…I like to listen to music.”
“For real?” I chirped. “Who’s your favorite artist?”
“Hmm, it’s a tie between Common and Mos Def.”
“Why does that not surprise me?”
He shrugged. “Who’s yours?”
“Big-motherfucking-South! The GOAT of rap! Who else?”
He grinned. “Is that right? You like my brother, huh?”
“Yes! Can’t nobody touch him as far as I’m concerned. If I didn’t know you were woke and stuff, I would’ve expected him to be your favorite, too.”
“He is. I didn’t think I needed to say that. Mos Def and Common come after him, of course.”
“What’s your favorite Big South song?” I asked.
He tapped his fingers on the table for a few seconds, and said, “Panty Gag.”
“Yeah, that’s a bop for sure. But my fave is Stop and Frisk. Now, that’s a classic!”
“Yeah, but I wrote the music for Panty Gag, so…”
“That’s right! You did! Wow, you’ve got talent, Neil!”
“I do all right. So, what else you wanna know about me?”
“Why are you hotep?”
“Well, because ever since I was little, I didn’t understand why everything we learned was so…white. We’re taught that classical music is white, classical art is white, classical dance is ballet—white. All the great thinkers—white, but the first university was built by Africans in Africa. Shidddd, let our oppressors tell it, the Africans or the Chinese or anyone from civilizations that came before white civilization didn’t do shit. Do you know that at one point they tried to say Egyptians were black-skinned white people? I mean, that shit was an accepted fact! They stay stealing stuff and taking credit for creating it. I just ain’t never bought into that Eurocentric bullshit.”
“That’s why you hate white people?”
“I don’t hate white people, I hate white supremacy. I hate white lies and not the innocent lies they label as white lies. You see how perverse that shit is? A white lie is an innocent lie? What the fuck is an innocent lie? That shit don’t exist. But that’s what they do…they make stuff benefit them. They stole this land, then made it illegal to steal. They murdered all them damn Native Americans and then made murder illegal. They lie, but when they lie, it’s okay. Everybody else lies and it’s perjury. Naw, I don’t hate white people; I just don’t fear them or believe everything they try to feed us, and I’m committed to furthering my race, a race a lot of them seem to want to exterminate. I ain’t one of them niggas who talks black and fucks white, because that shit is backwards as hell to me. Them niggas are breeding themselves out and ain’t got sense enough to see it. And all they can say is black women are too difficult to be with. What kinda weak beta male shit is that?”
“Uh…”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to go on a tangent, but it’s a lot of shit that bothers me.”
“It’s okay. You’re just…passionate. I bet Nolan dating all those Ukrainians really got under your skin.”
“Yeah, that was problematic as hell for me, but he got his self together, and I’m glad. But unlike him, it was always my plan to marry a black woman and have black kids. Just didn’t know you’d be my wife.”
With inflated eyes, I asked, “You wanna have kids with me?”
“You’re my wife. Who else I’ma have ‘em with?”
I didn’t have an answer for that, so I said, “Um, is everything you read hotep stuff?”
“Mostly, but let’s do this right. Hotep has become a derogatory term, and although I use it sometimes because it has a good meaning, I actually subscribe to black empowerment and truth and gaining knowledge of self. I’m all about us loving ourselves for who we are as black people and embracing our skin, our hair, and our own culture without seeing it as inferior to white culture so that we can reach our full potential as a people. Using our own beauty as the standard and not theirs, our own greatness as a metric. I was a part of the black consciousness community, but I take issue with some of my conscious brothers.”
“Why?” I asked, taking a sip of my water.
“Well, in the past, I loved a black woman, but did not respect her. Neither did any of the brothers in the movement. They place blame on our queens for every-damn-thing, and most of the shit is our fault. We’re supposed to be leading, right? So if shit is fucked up, it’s on us. Ain’t nothing conscious or woke about a black man disrespecting black women, and I will never do it again.”
“I see.”
We paused our conversation as the waiter placed our plates in front of us, and as I cut into my chicken parmesan, Neil said, “Sage, let’s fall in love.”
I looked up to see him staring at me, his pasta primavera still sitting before him untouched. “What?” I asked, but I’d heard him loud and clear.
“Let’s fall in love.”
“You make it sound like it’s so simple for you. Real, reciprocated love isn’t that simple.”
“Yes, it is. All we gotta do is let it happen.”
“You really want to? You want to fall in love with me?”
“At this point, I think it’s inevitable, baby.”
I stared off into the distance and nodded. “Okay, then I’ll let it happen.”
He smiled at me. “Asé.”
“Asé,” I returned.
I don’t know why, but even with my horrible history when it came to love, I believed that if by some miracle we did fall in love, real love, it would work out. Maybe his confidence in us having a real marriage was rubbing off on me.
“Hey, what does hotep mean?” I asked.
“Peace.”
“Would you teach me more stuff?”
“You mean consciousness stuff?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I can’t be sleep when I’m married to a woke man.”
He chuckled. “Word? Well, you’re an entrepreneur. That’s woke as fuck, baby.”
“For real?”
“Yeah, you ain’t on that corporate plantation. No slave master, no boss to answer to but you.”
“So, I guess I’m not totally asleep. Just groggy, huh?”
Smiling, he said, “Yeah, I guess you are.”
“I still wanna learn from you, though.”
“Okay, let’s see. Well, first of all…did you know the original name for The Continent was Nubia and not Africa?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yeah, and…”
*****
With my head on his chest in the darkness of our suite, I asked, “What’s your favorite color?”
“Black,” he answered.
“Should’ve figured that.”
He chuckled. “What’s yours? White?”
“You know it. Favorite food?”
“Sweet potatoes. Yours?”
“My mom’s chicken gravy. It’ll make you hurt yourself!”
“Word? Can you make it?”
“Yeah. I can cook most of the stuff she makes, but I can’t promise it’ll be as go
od as hers.”
“You gonna cook for me sometimes?”
“You want me to?”
“Yeah, I’d love for you to.”
“Okay, I will…favorite movie? Black Panther? Malcolm X? Get Out?”
“So you think I’m that one-dimensional?”
“No…”
“Well, my favorite movie is The Wiz.”
I lifted my head and tried to see his face. “The Wiz? Are you serious?”
“Yeah…it was my mom’s favorite movie. She’d watch it all the time when I was little, and I grew to love it because of the memories attached to it.”
“Wow, that’s beautiful. She was a good woman. I can tell that from the way you and your siblings are. She raised some good kids.”
“Yeah, my mama was the best woman in the world. I think about her all the time, see her in my dreams. I miss the shit out of her, my daddy, too. So enough mushy stuff. What’s your favorite movie?”
“Just Wright with Queen Latifah and Common.”
“Yeah? Never seen that one.”
“It’s basically a fairy tale love story where the big girl gets the guy. I guess that’s always been a fantasy for me. Never thought it’d come true, but here I am with you, coochie vibrating from the punishment you just put on it. Dreams do come true!”
He laughed, tightening his arms around me. “Shit, you’re a dream come true, too. Got me thinking about tatting Superdick up. I’ma get ‘Property of Sage’ on him.”
“Really? Shoot, I would get ‘Neil’s Playground’ on my yoni if I wasn’t afraid of pain.”
“You ain’t gotta do that, but what you can do is ride this dick.”
“Say no more.”
“Neil? Or Nolan? Hiiiii!”
I’d know that voice anywhere.
I stopped in my tracks, ice bucket in hand, and turned around to face her. Esther Reese, Everett’s first wife, was ambling sloppily down the hotel’s hallway with the help of Dunn—Everett’s former bodyguard. He was working for Esther now? What was this dude doing, trying to work for all my brother’s enemies?
Let Me Free You (McClain Brothers Book 4) Page 8
