As he walked into the foyer, I ran to meet him and kissed him passionately on the lips. He looked at me almost surprised. So this was how he wanted to play, huh? Okay, I was game. I noticed he was a little sweaty for some reason, which turned me on even more. “Sorry, hon. Just missed seeing you around,” I said as I took his briefcase. And then I looked for the bag with the stuff in it. He didn’t have one. But then again, he’s not that stupid. He probably put it in his briefcase, although it was feeling lighter than usual. But that still did not explain why he called and asked me those questions. Forget about it, I thought, as he headed for the bedroom after looking at the mail on the end table.
Umm, I got it. He was trying to throw me off. He had already bought the stuff and left it in his closet, and he’ll call me in a few minutes to come inside the room. He was so sweet. But after pulling off his shirt and slacks to take a quick shower, he put on everything I hated. Not a tank top, which I always liked seeing him wear, or the neat little Reebok shorts Shaq gave him, which I loved because whenever he would squat, his thing would wink out of the corner at me. No, he put on these holey sweatpants and this ratty Tyson vs. Spinks T-shirt. It has these big holes under the armpit, and he knows I hate it with a passion. He walked back into the living room wearing one black sock and one red, yellow, and green Kwanza sock and sandals, and asked, “How was the veal?”
How was the veal? “I, umm, I don’t know. I was waiting on you,” I said to him as he walked into the kitchen. Okay, I got it. He just wants me to ask him. But I don’t want to go there. Henry Davis, I know you pretty damn—
“Oh, hon? Thanks for answering those questions for me earlier,” he shouted from the kitchen above the sound of cabinet and refrigerator doors opening and closing. “We were interviewing this hotshot pollster and he said that certain voters liked certain traits in candidates. So I asked him for polls he had done for other companies to test him, and in a poll of women from forty to seventy, you did pretty good. You had the correct answer for each one I asked him. Do we have any jelly?”
What the fuck? I was taking a damn survey for old ladies? No, he was lying. I know this man. He was just trying to throw me off. “Well, that’s nice, dear. Yes, we have jelly. It’s in the fridge behind the milk . . . on the bottom shelf.” What the hell he want jelly for?
“Thanks,” he yelled with a mouthful of food. “Do you want to eat in here or in the dining room?” he said, smacking like a kid.
“Ahh, wherever you like.”
“Let’s eat in here. No need messing up the dining room for Kadesha tomorrow.”
Okay, Teddy, you doing a damn good job. Almost too damn good, I thought, walking into the kitchen with a you-can’t-fool-me expression.
As we ate, I watched him chew his food so fast I thought I would have to practice the Heimlich maneuver on him before the night was over. I swear, he was chewing like a camel on crack cocaine.
“Sorry I’m eating like this, boo. I flew right in from Dulles, had a three-hour layover in St. Louis, and all I’ve eaten today is a handful of stale peanuts. Have you ever wondered why they give you such a small bag of nuts anyway? What’s the deal with that?”
Who the hell are you? Jerry Seinfeld? Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, Henry, I thought while continuing to smile.
Then he said, “Damn, I almost forgot,” and wiping his mouth with the end of his shirt, he walked into the living room.
You asshole, you better do something and do something fast, I was thinking.
He came back with the briefcase. Ahh, the briefcase. I had forgotten about the briefcase. The very light briefcase. He opened it and grabbed the phone.
“Hon, I hope you don’t mind. I need to confirm the reservation for my flight tomorrow. I forgot to have the new secretary do it,” he said, looking at me.
As I held my steak knife, I realized how easy it would be to stab him there on the spot, right between his third and fourth rib. If I got lucky, I’d get a female like Judge Judy who would not have the heart to convict me after hearing all of the facts. I could just hear her saying, “He asked you what your favorite candy was, and your favorite scent, two weeks before your anniversary, and then he planned to leave town? Honey, you were provoked. He got what he deserved. Case dismissed!”
As Henry hung up the phone, he looked at me with veal crumbs sprinkled around his pie hole. “I love you, honey boo.”
Fuck you, Henry Davis! “I love you too,” I replied with a smile.
Later that night I sat on the love seat in the den pretending to read as Henry watched the Florida Marlins game on television. At around ten-thirty I gave up. Sometimes my overactive imagination would get me in trouble, and this was one of those times. Teddy had given me over twenty years of romance, but he screwed up this time. I know he still loves me, I thought as I walked across the room and kissed him on the top of the head.
“Where you going?” he asked, grabbing my hand and looking over the glasses he only wore in the house. For some reason, we both looked down at my hand. It was my left hand and we both looked at my wedding ring.
“I’m getting sleepy,” I said, and broke the hold. Please ask me not to go to bed because you have something special planned for me somewhere in this house. But who was I kidding? I had been here all day. He didn’t have anything in the house or his briefcase.
He said, “I’ll be there in a minute as soon as the eighth inning is over.”
I smiled and gave him an I-know-we’re-gonna-make-love look, and headed to our bedroom. As I turned on the bedroom light, I could no longer stay mad at him. I don’t know why, but he was no longer getting to me. I sat in front of the mirror to roll my hair, then I looked at the reflection of our bed. The comforter was pulled back, and he had left rose petals on the black silk sheets. On the pillowcase was a lavender envelope that read, “open me.” Inside it was a poem.
You read me so well
I know I am not a poet, but you read me so well.
I’ll try to write a poem to you, about the way I feel.
You make me smile, you push me to excel.
When others smile on the outside, you smile for me inside as well.
I know I’m not a poet, but Yvette Leslie Davis, you read me so well.
This was the first time the man had ever written me a poem, and as I held it over my heart, I felt emotions brewing inside. I can honestly say if he had left me a strand of cultured pearls on my pillow, I would not have felt as special as I did at that moment.
Seductively I walked into the den and noticed the television was playing, but the only thing on the couch was the dent in the leather where he had been sitting. “Teddy?” I called. Then I saw another lavender envelope on the television and I knew it was officially on. I opened it and read:
The coldest place in the house is where you will find the next clue.
And after you find it, ohhh the things I will do to you.
This was getting good. The last time I remembered being this excited, I was twelve years old and running down the stairs at dawn on December 25. I headed for the fridge to find lavender envelope number three taped to the Smuckers jar.
Eat too much of me and people will start to stare.
To find number four open me. I’m on the chair.
Now, this one threw me until I turned around and noticed his briefcase on the dinette chair. On top of a red and black lace blindfold the next clue read:
Take me with you to a very special place.
Tonight I will wrap myself around you,
I will cover your eyes as he kisses your face
And does all of the things you want him to do.
Now walk to the back door to begin this special night.
Look left and right and then stop when you see the light.
I almost tripped as I headed for the back door. As I looked at our yard, I saw a tent behind our pool. It was illuminated with a purple light, which reflected along with the moonlight off the water, and I could see the outline of my Teddy
inside of it. He was posing and casting these slow, sensuous, erotic shadows on the walls of the tent. As I walked closer, I noticed there were piles of beach sand surrounding it. . . .
“Teddy, what are you doing?” I asked.
He turned off the light and turned on the music as I walked into the tent. It was our song.
Sometimes we are graced by angels
Amongst us here on earth
“Happy anniversary, dah-ling. May I have this donee?” he asked in a terrible impersonation of Antonio Banderas. And he asked it as if there were a possibility I would say no. Just like on the night he proposed.
As we danced in a tight C formation, I saw the Nipples of Venus candy and smelled the Jasmine potpourri in the air. When we stopped moving momentarily so he could light another candle, I even saw white rose petals in the sand. “You are just too . . .” I started to say as we began our dance again. “But how? How did you do all of this?”
“Well, I can’t take all of the credit. I sent Penelope to the store to pick up most of the stuff and I asked the neighbors if I could borrow some of their kids’ sand from their play box and whether the tent could get delivered to their house.” He smiled. “Oh yeah, I owe Kadesha fifty bucks for keeping her mouth shut. She saw us out here about three hours ago when I was talking to you on the cell phone and made sure you didn’t come out.”
When the song ended, he pulled out a surprise from behind his back. It was a pair of cute little sexy purple panties. “How did you know I wouldn’t be wearing any?” I said, and put them on, knowing they would be off before the elastic band closed on my waist.
“Well, I guess I can read you too.”
“But you asked me,” I said, looking at him, puzzled, “if I like boxers or—”
In two strokes he ripped off his shirt and dropped his sweatpants just like a Chippendale stripper. He had on a pair of purple silk briefs that could hardly restrain him. “I’m sorry she bought these so small. I told her I had a thirty-four waist. But it was the last minute and she grabbed a pair of thirties by mistake.”
“Ahh, remind me to send Mrs. Butler-Richardson a thankyou card.”
And then as the stereo played “Scandalous” by Prince, my Teddy turned me around and put the silk black and red blinder over my eyes and whispered into my ear words I could never forget. “Everything that happened to us yesterday, the good and the bad, is now history. Everything that happens tomorrow will always be a mystery.” Cupping my face in his large, soft hands, he said, “But today, my love, today is God’s gift to us, and that is why it’s called the present. There were many times I did not deserve your present, and sometimes I even turned my back on your presence, but you were still there . . . waiting . . . to give it to me time and time again. For being there, Yvette Leslie Shaw Davis, I thank you. I thank you more than words could ever express, because you gave me . . . through all the years . . . the present . . . of you.”
As the warmth of his voice in my ear subsided, a breeze of reassurance blew through me and I continued to melt as I heard him squeeze something in his hands and rub them together. My teeth clenched as he paused just to heighten my excitement. Then Henry began massaging my shoulders with the tips of his strong fingers. Slowly and evenly he deeply stroked the tension from my body as he had done previously to my mind with his words. I wanted to collapse on the spot, right on the sand with the little green army fighting men mixed in with it.
The heels of his oiled palms moved in big, deep circles down the edges of my back and then in tight shallow, circles up its valley. I started feeling light-headed from what had happened and what I knew would come to pass when he abruptly stopped what he was doing. “Teddy?” I knew he was there, I could feel his essence, but I couldn’t hear him.
Then from nowhere he kissed me on the nose, and I smiled. He kissed me again on the forehead, and unable to contain my joy, I laughed like a teenaged virgin. Then he stopped, and before I knew it, he was behind me again. As he blew softly on my skin, the oil on my back started to heat and I could feel his passion as I said, “Dayuummmm.”
Henry kissed me again and again, but now I wasn’t smiling because my breath staggered and my mouth formed a large O. He kissed my neck and continued kissing me down to the small of my back. He removed the underwear he had given me and I stood there as this man kissed my tush. His kisses left a trail from my lower back to the top of the divide. Back and forth his tongue slid, concentrating on just that one area. Up and down, round and round. He took his time as if that one spot had a large X on it and was the most important place on my entire body.
He paused as if he were trying to decide just how he would proceed and then he softly kissed the area where my thighs ended and my butt began. I stood there with my legs apart, my eyes rolled back, and my fingers locked behind my head as I tried to imagine what else this man could have in store. And on this night there was so much more to follow.
Later that evening Henry took out a blanket and we held each other under the stars. As I lay there, I wondered why this evening was so much better than previous nights. We’d had surprise dates in the past, but none of them were nearly as exotic and romantic as this one. It was not because, after removing the blindfold, he lifted me onto his hips, and as I held the quivering center pole of the tent, he pleasured himself in me. It was not because of the creative things he did when he held my waist in just the right spot, at just that right angle, with just the right movement and just enough force. That night would always stand out because as we lay on the blanket and listened to the soft wind mixed with the sound of swaying palms and crickets, my Teddy made me feel like I was the only thing in the world that mattered to him. That I was more important than financial gain, his Senate seat, even his bid for the immorality. On that night, unlike any other night we had been together, I felt if I told Henry Louis Davis the Second it was either me or the presidency, he would choose me. That he knew the measure of his success was not in what he dreamed, but holding on to what he had.
Yet the evening could not last forever, and soon dawn broke. A dog started barking, morning light replaced the moon and made a streak across our nude bodies, and that feeling of bliss subsided. As I think back, I realize I’ve never felt that way since.
We had our first official unofficial Davis in 2000 campaign meeting Labor Day weekend in 1995 in a small bungalow in the Hamptons. As charismatic, intelligent, romantic, and appealing as Teddy can be, I think his greatest strength is the ability to clearly see his own weaknesses. He and I both know he is not the best judge of character. In our congressional races as well as the first senatorial campaign, he hired people because they were nice or they needed the job. In the second Senate campaign, I assumed that duty and the campaign sailed along smoothly. We hired his brother as the campaign manager when he moved back to Miami from Lakeland, although most of the major decisions were made by me or Henry. But we needed someone else we could trust and whom we could let into our world without fearing he or she would be tempted by the world of tell-all literature. The Carter administration had had a few, Reagan and Bush even more. But in the nineties it seemed campaign staffers were taking notes on every seemingly insignificant thing that happened, with plans to stay only as long as it took to fill four hundred half-decent pages. We were lucky that with Herbert we knew this would never be a problem.
Herbert married Doris soon after Teddy and I got married, and to this day I don’t think she ever loved him. I remember the night Gerald, their eldest, was born. Gerald was a big baby just like Teddy and Herbert. After Gerald was born, Herbert walked out of the delivery room wiping sweat from his brow with his hand. There was a glow on his face as he sat down in his oversized green surgical scrubs and told us about the entire event step by step.
“When I was in there, I was holding Doris’s hand and she was gritting her teeth and I was scared to death,” he said. “I’d never seen her in so much pain, in so much agony. Then,” he said, staring at the paint on the wall just over our heads, “the d
octor said the baby was crowning. And I looked and saw the top of my son’s head. My son. Can you believe that?” Herbert looked at Teddy, and said, “You make love . . . to someone you love . . . and you watch that love grow for nine months. Man, I knew this was going to be incredible, but I never knew it was going to be like this. To watch your wife’s stomach swell just a little more each day and then panic no matter how much you tried to prepare when you heard those words.” With a smile he leaned back, exhausted, and said, “Hell, I think my water broke too.” Herbert looked at us, and said, “Guys, you don’t know what love is until you have a child.”
I swallowed so hard because I wanted one, even then, so badly. I had a baby doll fetish until high school. Not dolls that looked like women. But soft dolls who usually came with a bottle. As I held the dolls I wondered how it would feel to have a child moving and kicking inside of me. We told everyone we were not ready, that we didn’t want to have a kid because of this or that, but every time we said it I knew I was lying because just the powdery scent of a baby would make me crumble inside.
After ten years and two children, Herbert and Doris filed for divorce. One night she caught him in a compromising position with a lady of the night when we were on the road at a fund-raiser, and a couple of months later the marriage ended.
I don’t think most men would care as much as Herbert did when his wife took their kids, because he was in an almost comatose state for several weeks. He once told Henry that not seeing or hearing from his kids was the closest thing to death he’d ever experienced. Doris was nasty during the entire breakup, once making him clear it with her new boyfriend whether he could get his children for the weekend and even threatening to go to the tabloids with lies about Henry. But the deepest cut came when she didn’t allow K’ren and Gerald to see or speak to their father for over a year. In time he was able to function and did a very adequate job for us, but he was never the same after losing those children.
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