In the Night of the Heat

by Blair Underwood

  You shouldn’t have told her, my Evil Voice said.

  I put my arm around April to soften the way it sounded. “Baby, I didn’t know. They’d used it for a press junket. In the back of my mind, I wondered, but…you’ve interviewed people in hotel rooms, April. You know most meetings don’t include nudity. Be fair.”

  But you could have guessed, I heard her thinking, and she sat with that thought a while. I had culpability, too, and we both knew it. I could have left when Lynda Jewell first mentioned Pauline. I could have left when she unbuttoned her shirt.

  “I was stupid,” I said. “I won’t put myself in that position again.”

  “I can’t believe her!” April said finally, and I was glad her anger had found its rightful target. April’s mouth moved like a fish fighting to breathe, speechless with rage.

  That reminded me: I’d forgotten to feed the fish again.

  April followed me downstairs. When she regained her voice, her mouth set loose a flurry of curses rhyming with “rich,” and some that never leave my mouth but rhyme with “runt.” My ears felt polluted to hear April’s sweet voice wrapped around that language as we passed my father’s closed door. It was almost as bad as hearing Chela curse.

  “Shhhh,” I said. “You’re gonna get us both kicked out of my own house.”

  “She called your agent for that?”

  “It’s over, April.”

  “Trust me, it’s not. If she was as mad as you said, she won’t let that go.”

  Len hadn’t heard the full story yet. I’d managed to avoid his eager postmeeting calls because of the weekend, but he deserved a full disclosure by Monday. Len had always warned me my reputation was at risk. And if Lynda Jewell made good on her threat to bad-mouth me, my future in Hollywood was already my past. Hollywood is a small town.

  Once the fish were safely fed, I led April back upstairs. Toward the shower.

  By silent agreement, we were finished talking, or thinking, about Lynda Jewell.

  The upstairs bathroom didn’t have a double-headed shower like the one I’d given to Chela, but it was still a worthy meeting place. That night, it was sanctuary. Raising my finger to my lips, I locked the door behind us. Just in case Chela came looking.

  To the untutored, sex in the shower can be a nightmare. It sounds great in theory, but too many passionate inspirations go awry against wet shower tiles. Luckily, I’d had great teachers.

  While April undressed, I tested the water stream and temperature, keeping my eyes on my task. I knew April’s body well by then—it was mine, as she liked telling me, and I loved to hear—but sometimes I denied myself the vision of April’s nakedness as long as possible before lovemaking. I liked the surprise of her, new and fresh to my eyes.

  “It’s ready for you, miss,” I said, like the perfect hotel porter.

  “Thank you, sir,” she said, and slipped past me in a blur of brown nakedness.

  We were both playing the game of newness.

  I peeled off the formfitting black shirt and black slacks I’d worn to the fund-raiser, my all-purpose L.A. Chic that saved me from the hassle of a suit and tie. Last, my black briefs. The small bathroom smelled like us immediately; a combination of perspiration, old cologne, and subtle body scents; some sour, some sweet. Already, the mirror was beginning to fog.

  In the cabinet, I found two sea wool sponges I’d been saving for that occasion. I had been waiting to bring April back into my shower for a long time. Somehow, with the diminishing number of encounters, the shower rarely felt right. The bathroom was too close to Chela’s space, and it always seemed safest to pen April’s ardor in the bedroom rather than to risk snuffing it by opening the door.

  I made a silent apology for the water I was about to waste. I have a Takagi on-demand water heater, so I was planning to take my time. Showers are designed for bathing, after all, and there’s no better way to begin a journey of flesh. Grooming is primal.

  I sidled in behind her and assessed my favorite view. I can close my eyes and still see exactly how April’s ass looked that night: perfect proportions of roundness and firmness, with cascading streams gliding from its mighty shelf like a gentle waterfall. April was slender everywhere except where she burst forth in compensation. The weak wand I’d had in Lynda Jewell’s hotel room couldn’t compare to the club rising against my belly, a genie summoned by a rub from April’s bare, wet ass. I could have stared at her ass all night. Hell, some nights I almost did. It looked good by the light of the moon, but damp and gleaming?

  Art.

  I soaped up my sponge and touched the small of her back.

  She gasped, feigning surprise. “Who’s that?” She only turned halfway, as if she couldn’t see me. She crossed her arms high to cover her breasts.

  “The wind,” I whispered. I’m not sure she heard me over the beating water.

  April was role-playing, but tight knots of muscles in her back showed me how tense she was. A sudden thought broke my concentration, almost as if it was hidden in the rushing water itself: You’re losing her. My Evil Voice had followed me home.

  No you’re not, my hand with the sponge assured me. Not tonight.

  I slid the sponge’s coarse soapiness across April’s shoulder blades. Up and down her spine. The sponge kissed the back of her neck. Her head nodded forward, and her face and hair were washed in the shower stream. April usually didn’t like getting her braids wet, but she didn’t seem to notice. I heard her moan gently, appreciating the sponge’s path.

  I savored her ass the way I would a rich dessert, and I almost lost myself there. My slow circles met her curves as her contours took me by the hand. The sponge sank into the dimpled valley of her flank and rose again to the summit. A little pressure, and the sponge teased between the two halves that made her whole. I slid the sponge down deep through her thighs, then scaled the twin peaks again.

  I already ached to slip inside of her, and we were just getting started. I gave my body a taste, pressing against her for a quick visit with her hot skin. Warm soap oiled us, electrifying each pore. This time, I was the one who moaned.

  But I stepped away, and April turned around to face me. Still pretending to be blind, she patted my cheeks and nose. Next, she soaped up her hands and ran them across my chest. Beneath her fingertips, my abdomen locked tight, too, but not from stress—from a desire for release. While I moved my sponge to April’s shoulders, her hands descended to grasp the firmness rising tall between us. Both hands. Like I said, I’m blessed.

  I pulsed in rhythm to her fingers’ caresses. April’s first strokes were a nest of butterflies, gentle and fluttering, and I felt myself pressing harder against her for a more lingering touch. Her hand’s strokes tightened with urgency. Her thumb explored every ridge as her palm clamped across my taut skin with a rhythm so delicious it was almost agony. April’s confidence as a lover had grown during our time together, but it was more than that: She touched me as if she might never again have the chance. I floated in the sweet chaos of April’s touch and the bath of hot water. My toes curled against the shower tiles.

  My guest shower is built with a narrow elevated shelf in the corner, probably designed as a shampoo caddy, but it has other uses as well. When April sat on the shelf, her face nestled my groin. Her tongue lapped at the beads of water that had washed away the soap. Any man knows that hot water makes testicles stretch and breathe, and April enjoyed having more skin to play with. Her hands roamed, and her mouth followed.

  A slight adjustment of her face, coupled with my unconscious rising to my tiptoes, and I felt April’s lips and tongue slide along my skin, then clamp tight. Gently, she sucked and caressed while wet fingers stroked above making spirals and counterspirals that made my breath catch. She was like someone new. After weeks of reserve, April had set herself free.

  “Damn, girl…” I whispered, almost a plea. Please stop. Please never stop.

  Instead of falling shut, my eyes fought to stay open, searching for hers.

  When our g
azes caught, electricity broiled from my groin up and down my spine. The vision of her petite sweetness nearly overwhelmed me. Beautiful. Whatever that word meant to me, April defined it. April was beautiful. You could marry a girl like this, a new voice said, before my thoughts were swallowed in the void of sensation. It wasn’t my Evil Voice, this time. It was a voice I had never heard before.

  Gently, I held April beneath her armpits and lifted. “Stand up, baby,” I said. Following my guidance, April carefully stood up on the shelf, bracing herself against the wet shower walls. I held her waist tightly. “Don’t worry,” I said, desire hoarsened my voice. “I’ve got you.”

  Again, the shelf put us at the perfect height.

  I don’t mind unwashed skin—I can delight in a woman’s 101 flavors. But freshly washed skin has its rewards, too, if only because women often worry that their taste won’t be fresh enough. April’s hips pivoted forward as she presented herself to me.

  April never waxed, but she kept her pubic hair clipped low. Beneath my careful fingers, folds of dark brown gave way to the blood-fed pink hidden within. I explored her with the matching pink of my tongue, gently probing, lapping at the water in hopes of a taste of her. I lathered my hand with soap and reached behind her. While my tongue worked on April from the front, my slippery finger probed from behind.

  April let out a gasp, shivering, and her arm fell from the shower wall, tightening around my neck. Her whole body went so tight that my index finger was held hostage inside of her.

  “I’ve got you, baby,” I said again, and she relaxed. Freed from the tight clamp, my finger wormed its way deeper. Even after years of marriage, most women’s bodies are terra incognita to their men. The vagina gets most of the attention, but there are plenty of nerve endings in its backyard, too. In a shower, there’s no excuse to leave any entry untended.

  April hissed into my ear, clinging for balance as her knees trembled. “Oh, God…Ohhh…” To keep from crying out as an orgasm jittered throughout her frame, she bit into my shoulder.

  Biting from April was something new. The flash of near pain sharpened my senses, and my need to be inside of her surged. Carefully, I turned April around and helped her ease down from her perch. With one arm wound around her waist to help her keep her balance, I lifted her leg, resting the crook of her knee across my forearm. My body sought its way to hers. Penetration is much easier from behind in a shower, but I held April facing me. I didn’t want to lose sight of the joy and wonder in her face, even for a blink.

  We had plenty of soap, but I wasn’t tempted. Soap is an irritant to a woman, and there’s no quicker way to spoil the moment. Water isn’t the lubricant it appears to be, either. Instead, I trusted the juices my foreplay had stirred inside of April. Her scent, a fleshy undertone in the shower’s downpour, told me she was ready.

  “Guide me,” I whispered, and April’s hands groped for me again. She led my body’s blind, rigid desire to the place where her heat reached its nexus. Suddenly, with a virgin’s tremor, I realized I had slipped inside of her. She bore down with her mouth open wide as I filled her, and I was consumed by her endless, grasping embrace. I climbed as high as physics allowed. We rocked and moved together beneath the shower stream, whimpering in chorus.

  For all we knew, water and pleasure washed us both clean away.

  Later, without saying a word, April climbed nude beneath my sheets. I nestled beside her, spooning her as I enjoyed the treat of her company through the long night. The humiliation I’d felt with Lynda Jewell was nearly forgotten with her healing presence, as if April confirmed only the best parts of me. Like the first time she slept in my bed.

  I had drifted off before I was awakened by April’s wordless anxieties. She hadn’t moved or made a sound, but I knew from her breathing that she wasn’t asleep. I gazed toward her in the darkness until I saw a glimmer from her eyes.

  Tears?

  My heart caught. “Baby?” I said.

  “I’m sorry I woke you up,” she said in a tiny voice. Trying to hide the tears.

  “What’s wrong?”

  It took her only seconds to answer, but the wait was years. Maybe I had lost her trust, which can’t be replaced. I’ve rarely felt so helpless as I did waiting for her to tell me my fate.

  April sighed a long, fractured sigh. I heard her nose bubble. “Ten…I’m just lying here thinking…and I might not ever have another chance like this. I have to go to South Africa.”

  I wondered why it had taken her so long to figure that out.

  I wanted to try to talk her out of it, but that would have been selfish. Most people travel less, not more, as they grow older. April was twenty-eight. It was her time.

  “I know.”

  I thought about Alice, the actress who had left me my house in her will. She’d never had any children, and I was her favorite house-sitter, so she made the job permanent when she died. With April and Chela and Dad around, the house felt less like Alice’s and more like mine, but within those walls Alice was rarely far from my mind. Alice was the closest thing I’d had to a relationship—and she was a client, not a true lover. I saw Alice very late into her life, until she was as old as Billy Dee. I was almost young enough to be her grandson.

  Maybe if life had promised Alice more of a future, I would have wanted her in mine. I can’t say; my thoughts had never dwelled there. But she was my longest-standing client, and my favorite. Every few months, she’d call and send me a ticket to join her in Calcutta, or Tokyo, or Johannesburg, and then she’d kiss me fondly good-bye at the airport, send me home, and vanish for a while. She had a “gentleman friend” the whole time I knew her. Sometimes Alice and I traveled together, and she introduced me as her nephew. Sometimes she left me behind to water her plants and feed her fish. In Alice’s memory, I fought to keep those neons and tetras alive. All the original fish had died, but you replace one at a time, so the actual pet is the tank.

  Her laugh was golden. I wish I had recorded her stories; she was the most fascinating person I have ever known. I missed her when she was gone. I still do. I remember sitting in Alice’s empty house, stir-crazy while I waited for her to come home. Waiting is excruciating work. I told myself only a fool would agree to a long-distance relationship. Not me. Never.

  That night, lying in bed beside the first woman who’d helped me understand why a man would want to be married, I remembered my vow: Never. I loved South Africa, but my drop-everything-and-leave days were long behind me. I had a role in a series for the first time in a decade. Responsibilities awaited me at home every day. Never.

  “I’ll wait for you,” my mouth said, surprising me. “Only six months, right?”

  April nestled her face against my bare shoulder, exactly where she’d gently bitten me, and I felt her shaking her head. “I’m not asking you to wait, Ten. I can’t. I won’t.”

  The room was so pitch that I couldn’t see her face. In the din of our whispered voices, I suddenly understood our rediscovery in the shower, and the clarity felt like an anvil straight to my gut. April’s caresses hadn’t meant she was loosening up, or letting me in.

  She had just wished me good-bye.

  SIX

  MONDAY, OCTOBER 20

  Dad was waiting for me when I came downstairs.

  It was almost three weeks after my shower with April, our last night in my bed. She was gone so fast, it all seemed like a dream. Being barred at the security gate on Sunday while April walked toward a plane to the other side of the world felt like a sentence. We could hardly look each other in the eye, as if we’d had a blowout instead of merely divergent lives.

  For days I’d been expecting bad news. Perhaps because when you hurt, it is hard to believe the rest of the world could possibly be in good order. I’d been cracking my father’s door open at night to make sure I could hear his long, strained breaths in the dark. My stomach was hurting even before I saw the look on Dad’s face, but his frown made the pain sharper.

  “You hear?” Dad said.

/>   “Chela?” I said, my first guess. It was almost 8 A.M. Chela was supposed to be up for school, but life doesn’t happen the way it’s supposed to. I steeled myself to hear that Chela was hurt, or had run away. Chela felt temporary, too.

  Dad shook his head and motioned toward the living room. “TV,” he said, truncating his sentence as usual. “T.D. Jackson.”

  Dad wheeled himself to the spot beside Marcela, who was planted on the sofa with a bowl of popcorn in her lap while she watched the wide-screen with fascinated eyes. I didn’t have to hear the CNN announcer’s voice to know what had happened. An aerial shot showed the facade of T.D. Jackson’s gated Mediterranean house in Pacific Palisades surrounded by LAPD vehicles, the scene draped in telltale yellow tape.

  BREAKING NEWS, the screen read. T.D. JACKSON FOUND DEAD.

  A stentorian announcer filled in the rest: “…details emerging in the death of T.D. Jackson, who was found dead at his desk this morning after an apparent gunshot…”

  “April get off okay?” Marcela asked me gently, realizing I was in the room.

  I nodded, but I barely heard her. My encounter with T.D. Jackson made the news report so personal that it felt like watching my own house on TV. Between that and the mention of April’s name, the pain in my stomach bloated into a boulder. I didn’t know the man—and there was a good chance he’d killed those two people—but I felt a stab of grief.

  I heard myself whisper, “Shit,” before I ever realized I’d spoken.

  I remembered T.D.’s manic, reddened eyes imploring mine while he grasped my hand, and that image morphed into April’s stone-jawed profile as she turned away from me at LAX. Your fault, my Evil Voice said, and this time I couldn’t disagree.

  Dad glanced at me meaningfully. I’d told him about T.D.’s request. “Reap whatchu sow…” Dad said. His idea of comforting words.

  The announcer went on: “…unnamed sources within the police department are speculating that Jackson, recently acquitted in the double murder of his ex-wife and her fiancé, might have shot himself at his desk, in a state of apparent depression about both financial and legal affairs…”