Something Deeper

by Shara Azod

  Lee stopped fidgeting and with a broad, mischievous smirk on her face said, “Oooh.”

  Sky couldn’t believe she was telling this to Lee, but she went on. What else were best friends for, but to drop all the doubts you had and test them against the unsuspecting B.F.F? “I was with him. Things got steamy and then the hostess showed up. Dante. Yes, I’m sure that’s her name.”

  Lee grinned, the smirk still on her face.

  She blew out a stream of smoke and whispered, “I didn’t take you for a threesome girl.”

  “I’m not,” Sky said coldly.

  “Oh, right.”

  “Anyway, she was there to finish their, their, you know, business,” Sky said, unable to say more. “I—I left after he told her to get gone, but not before I heard her call him lover.”

  “And?” Lee asked—eyebrows arched high above her eyes. Something Sky had witnessed her doing to her students when they were in trouble.

  “And it ruined my evening,” she said flatly. The emotions were too strong and mixed up to describe why this bothered her so. When she explained it to Lee out loud it didn’t sound so horrible. “You had to be there.”

  “Let me ask you this,” Lee said, not looking at her and gazing out across the street to the asphalt parking structure. “Did he ask you to leave when the girl showed up?”

  “No.”

  “Did he want you to leave?”

  “No. I—I don’t think so.”

  “Did he confess to sexing Dante?”

  “Well, no, he said he didn’t have sex with her, but she, she talked about him, uh, you know…”

  Lee snorted as she rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand.

  “Damn, Sky. They had a little oral sex and you’re all possessive,” Lee snorted again and glanced at her with humor threatening to erupt on her face. “They probably didn’t have sex.”

  Oral sex. They had oral sex with each other and I kissed those lips that were pinned on the vaginal lips of that skank, Dante. Augh!

  Sky listened to Lee go on with dread piling into her stomach.

  “You are not helping,” Sky snapped. “He’s a—a, boy toy! A tool for each woman there to, to use.”

  “You are such a stick in the mud!” Lee accused, chuckling. “It’s a freak party for crying out loud. People are going to mix it up. He didn’t lie to you, Sky. He had no reason. He could’ve invited Dante in, kicked your tight ass to the curb, and got his cock wet if he wanted. But he didn’t want her. He wanted you. And you left him with his nuts in a vice and blue balls to boot. I can’t take you anywhere!”

  “Whatever,” Sky brushed the strong argument Lee was making aside. Her ears ringing with the chunks of logical sense Lee made.

  Logic didn’t hold any sway this time. Nope. Her heart held all the cards and Cashmere’s were coming up tainted.

  All she could see was his chestnut hair fanned across Dante’s toned thighs, his nose and his pink lips buried against her black wet mound. She could almost hear Dante’s screaming as she writhed about on the bed, pumping against Cashmere’s handsome face.

  It didn’t matter anyway. Today she would return home to her life of lesson plans and grading. Perhaps by the time their rental car pulled into her driveway in Albuquerque, the memory of Cashmere would be a long gone.

  “Yeah, sure, suga,” Lee was saying, shaking her head at her. “Had it been me, I would’ve screwed his brains out and been done.”

  “Yes, but that’s the difference between me and you,” Sky snapped angrily and folded her arms across her chest. “You’re not a romantic.”

  Lee laughed.

  “I’m a realist, and rarely does love turn out like your favorite romance novel, chica.”

  All around thousands of teachers from all across the country moved to this room and that panel talking, laughing, and zipping by. Held yearly at the Riviera Hotel and Casino, the differentiated instruction conference brought so many to its embrace each year, that Sky wondered why so many schools weren’t doing better in terms of meeting students’ needs.

  “Come on, let’s go get some food,” Lee said, dropping her cigarette butt to the ground and grinding it out. “That café had some good scones.”

  Leaving the conference area, she and Lee passed the casino’s blackjack tables, and although she’d done fairly well for herself the first night she arrived, she passed by them without a second thought. Winning had made her happy for about thirty minutes, but nothing more.

  The false sense of happiness, temporary and unfulfilling, didn’t appease her. It was merely a taste, a tiny flavor of joy. She wanted something lasting and loving, steeped in respect and friendship, a meal. Sure, she wanted to have sex with Cashmere, to taste him like an appetizer, a single serving, to appease her carnal hunger, but his personality, kind, smooth, appealed to her too and spoke to something meatier beneath all that slick talk.

  And she had to admit, it felt wonderful to be desired. His words echoed in her head all night, and for the first time in four years, Sky masturbated to those wickedly whispered words, and to a fantasy Cashmere created. In that fantasy, she was the one in control and it was she who dazzled him. Brave and bold, like everyone in their fantasies, the fictional Sky had multiple orgasms that rocked her very core.

  All of that, of course, was imagined.

  Last night she had the chance to make it reality, she freaked out when Dante showed up. No way was she sharing with anyone. Besides, he was too damn young anyway.

  Unsure, Sky didn’t know how she was going to rid herself of the monumental wedge of yearning in her heart and her puss. He was someone who drank life from a full cup overflowing with positive joy, erupting with vitality.

  Exactly what she needed to recharge her life.

  Scanning the throngs of people, Sky tried to force herself to think about something other than him, and his disastrous mistake of trying to bed two birds last night. Maybe with time, she might be successful with shrinking it to nothing more than a tiny blip on her subconscious—maybe.

  At least it was a plan.

  Chapter 5

  October

  “Damn, Cash. What the hell you up to in here?” Marcus asked, pushing his bulky 6’ 3” into Cashmere’s apartment. His irate voice boomed throughout the apartment. His afro seemed to make him seem taller, if that was even possible. “I just got up.”

  “Sorry, I was, uh, busy,” Cashmere said, as he yanked a light sweater over his head. Barefoot in jeans and a tan sweater, he closed the door with a soft click.

  San Diego didn’t really get cold like other spots in the U.S., but October delivered cooler temperatures. His apartment, right off Caramel Mountain Road, one of the many exits off of I-15 heading north, didn’t allow him many large furniture pieces. Much of his place had a minimalist look-- out of necessity, not desire.

  Marcus nodded in the direction of Cashmere’s bedroom.

  “You got somebody special up in there? Cute little college honey?”

  Nah, Marcus. I’m hoping to snare a cougar.

  Marcus’s tone implied he’d like to stay and watch or hell, participate, but Cashmere didn’t like sharing—something Marcus should already know. After all, Marcus and Cashmere had once shared a girl, Angela, unbeknownst to both of them. Once Angela’s two-timing was discovered, they ditched her and formed a friendship of their own. Marcus invited him to his first freak party and Cashmere had been going ever since—a whopping six months.

  Before the Vegas one. He hadn’t been to any since Vegas.

  “No, just me,” Cashmere said, opening the door to his bedroom and stepping back to allow Marcus a look inside at the messy bed and stark walls. “Been in a bit of dry spell.”

  Marcus sighed, and then turned to him, shaking his head in disappointment.

  “What’s up with you? Ever since you came back from the Vegas party you been acting strange. Passin’ on three freak parties in Pacific Beach and Chula Vista. Yo, talk to me. I’m your boy and I don’t like going to these
on my own, you know.”

  Cashmere hesitated. He isn’t serious. I’m not talking to him about this. We’re friends, but this mess with Caramel, ahh, it hurts to even think her name.

  “You’re a grown man, Marcus. You always score at the parties anyway. You don’t need me to hold your hand.”

  Marcus put his hand on Cashmere’s shoulder. Concern made his smooth ebony skin wrinkle around his eyes and his forehead to crease, making him ten years older.

  “True, true, but I’m trying to hook you up. Tell me. You get burned at that party? Tell me and I’ll call Dante and tell her to take the bitch off the list. Blacklist her. Cause if she infected you, you probably got somebody else, too.”

  Cashmere smiled. Oh, so that’s what you think happened?

  “I didn’t get a disease from anyone. I don’t wade into the water without a life vest. Anyway, the only play I got was from Dante. Struck out like a rookie ball player. Not that Dante doesn’t have her, uh, attributes.”

  The concern washed out of Marcus’s face and his trademark grin was back in place. A playboy and ex-football player rolled into one.

  “Dante?”

  “Yeah,” Cashmere said, shrugging it off, not wanting to talk about the Vegas party.

  “Ah, I get it. Your confidence is shaken. I got just the thing to help elevate your little gloom cloud.” Marcus reached into his jean pockets and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He unfolded it and extended the lime green postcard with big bold lettering. “I wanted to drop this off. This one’s in Vegas.”

  Cashmere stared at the card.

  Could she be at this one? Back in Vegas again? Maybe another conference?

  “Take it. I got another one,” Marcus said, thrusting it toward him.

  Cashmere took it with his adrenaline budding. Was it possible? How unlikely was it she would be there after what happened in July?

  When he looked up, Marcus was staring at him, his grin fluctuating between disappearing and maintaining its current wattage.

  “What’s eating you, man?”

  Cashmere shrugged as he went into the little kitchen to start a pot of coffee. A four cup coffeemaker, he would drain all of it with two mugs. Already noon on Saturday, he’d missed all chances to get to the beach before they became home to kids, teens, and tourists. Fall’s frosty breezes didn’t keep people from the beach—this was San Diego. Everyone went to the beach. Period.

  “Don’t avoid me, man. I can see it, Cash.” Marcus sat down on one of the two barstools in front of the kitchen’s island. “This ain’t you. I miss the old Cashmere. The funny man, the cool cucumber, the one smooth talker, the one and only white lightning, striking lust in hearts of black chicks all over San Diego.”

  Cashmere snorted as he put his back to Marcus.

  Was that what Marcus saw in him? Thought of him? Is that what Caramel had seen or thought when she first saw him at the freak party? A white guy who preyed on black women because he saw them as inferior, as prey? Jesus!

  He turned back around to Marcus.

  Marcus’s hazel eyes watched Cashmere move about the kitchen, and they didn’t let go. The grin had vanished too.

  Marcus was serious.

  “Is that what you think of me?” Cashmere asked, meeting Marcus’s eyes at last, his ego smarting. “A white guy with a black girl fetish?”

  Marcus dropped his eyes to the counter. He took in a breath and let it out with deliberate patience. His shoulders rose and fell in a half-hearted shrug.

  When he raised his eyes to meet Cashmere’s again, the playboy was totally gone. Seated in front of him was another side of Marcus, perhaps the real Marcus, but one Cashmere had never seen before.

  “When we met, through Angela, I thought you had a black chick fetish. I figured you were just into our women. So, yeah, when we went to freak parties, you were hooking up with all the ladies.” He shrugged as if it didn’t matter to him, but Cashmere could see that this confession wasn’t the end of it.

  “And?”

  “And I figured you for that type of guy. Black chicks were good enough to screw, but not good enough to take home to your lily white momma.”

  Cashmere rolled his eyes and turned his back to Marcus, again.

  He released a breath, his lips trembling.

  Is that what every one of those women thought? He’s good for tonight, but not forever. Did they, like Marcus, believe he wouldn’t take them home to his mother and father? Talk about assumptions…

  “Hey man, you asked,” Marcus said, an edge on each word—a warning. “We’re still cool. I wasn’t judging you, but—but you asked what I thought. If the women were okay with getting down with you and freaking the hell outta you, what business was it of mine?”

  Cashmere didn’t respond. He poured his coffee into his mug, added sugar, and creamer.

  “Would it interest you to know that my parents split up when I was ten? My dad remarried a woman, Wanda, who not only served as a better mother than my own, but taught me a great deal about how to treat women and be a real man. How to love women and that being strong didn’t mean being tough, but kind.”

  He turned back to Marcus who had propped his head up on his elbow.

  “What’s that got to do with anything? Oh, wait, is this where you tell me you grew up with black friends, and so that made you feel like one of us?”

  Cashmere shook his head. “No, there’s no way I can ever feel black. Sympathize with injustice and racism, yes, but actually claim to be or feel black. I can’t. No, the point of that little personal history is that Wanda was black. And I loved her as my mother. I remember thinking to myself that I wanted a woman just like her when I grew up. Not based on her race, but her character.”

  That sobered Marcus fairly quick. He sat up.

  “For real?”

  Cashmere sipped his hot liquid and nodded.

  “I’ve been looking ever since,” he said. “I’ve dated all kinds of women, for the record.”

  What he didn’t say to Marcus was that most of the women were more than ten years older than him. Angela had been one of a small handful of women he’d dated within his age range.

  Marcus’s leer flashed onto his face. “And you think you’d find her at freak parties?”

  “No, no,” Cashmere laughed. “Angela took me for a spin, and I was venting, trying to get my heart back together. I wasn’t thinking, only feeling, diving head first, no pun intended, into the warmth of a sexy girl’s body, and the lust she allowed me to spend. Nothing more. You know.”

  Marcus nodded, because he did know. Angela had ripped his heart to shreds too. The mutual pain inflicted on them had led to a wild life of freaking as many women as they could. Marcus was still stuck in the mode, but he wasn’t. Not after Caramel.

  “So, what the hell happened in Vegas?”

  Cashmere took a brave drink of his coffee, the searing java burning his throat, before he sighed.

  Why does he want to know this? Is he working on a psychology degree I don’t know about?

  “Nothing.”

  Marcus wagged a finger at him, doing his best impersonation of an angry woman.

  “Oh, no you didn’t just lie to me.”

  Cashmere laughed, nearly spilling his coffee.

  “All right, but you aren’t going to like what you hear. It’s only going to ruin the image you already have of me. You’ll probably think a lot of it is bullshit anyway.”

  Marcus shrugged his massive shoulders and said, “Just spill it.”

  So he did. Cashmere told him about Caramel and how he felt about her. How, in his hotel room he made the decision to set her free rather than continue to force his way upon her. How furious she had been beneath her stony mask, but what surprised him was her hurt. The incident with Dante had wounded her, a stranger to him, he to her, but she had expected more—maybe even imagined more from him.

  And how, after two months, the only thing on his mind was her.

  Marcus shook his head, arms cross
ed over his wide chest, a smirk on his face.

  “You’re kidding me?”

  “No. Every woman I’ve met can’t compare to her maturity and class.”

  “You didn’t even get her real name? And you’re sure? She’s way older than you. Like forty years old?”

  “Her age doesn’t matter, Marcus. After Angela and few other girls my age, I can’t tolerate the head games, the loops into my pockets for money, and the stupid high school attitude. I want someone secure in themselves already. Caramel had that and more.”