by Francis Ray
“Would you like something to drink?” Savannah asked, proud that she had a respectable-looking refrigerator now.
“Thanks,” he said, and leaned against the kitchen counter.
Savannah prepared him a glass of iced tea. She broke off a slice of Italian bread. “Would you like a piece?”
“Yeah.” He smiled and took the warm piece of bread from her hand. Its warmth seemed to travel from his skin to the bread, down to her arms.
They both chewed their bread silently, focused on each other’s moving mouths.
“So,” Savannah said uncomfortably, forcing her eyes off his luscious lips and big, brown eyes. There was some moisture from the summer heat forming along his hairline, which was a low-cut fade. She wanted to lick the sweat off. And she’d never been the domestic kind, so she didn’t know what else to do. “Do you want some chicken?”
“What’s that?” he said, pointing to her Man Jar in the kitchen cabinet. He chewed on his soft bread and studied it.
Savannah wondered if she should tell the truth or lie. “They’re sour sticks. I like collecting all the colors.”
They both stood, quietly eating, as he finished the last of his iced tea. Savannah felt foolish for telling him she collected sour sticks. “Thank you,” he said, putting his empty glass in the sink. “And if you ever need anything, I’m in eleven-E.”
“Same here. Thanks for the ride,” Savannah said, bewildered that he didn’t try harder to stay.
At the door he turned around and asked, “Why don’t you have more reds in your jar? That’s the best flavor,” he said, his eyes softening again.
“I’m working on it.” She smiled and slowly closed the door.
Part Two
SAVANNAH HADN’T SEEN Clinton for an entire two weeks. In between she had seen Chyno twice, or as much as she could see of him in the dark. But she didn’t walk Chyno in and out of her building, as she usually did. She didn’t want to be caught with any other man until she knew what was going on with Clinton. He obviously had been spying on her, and they both knew that he had been talking about her when he mentioned a girl in his building with numerous men. She wanted to keep her profile low, but it was hard, because Clinton wasn’t stepping up. She thought they would at least have had sex by now after those flirty moments in her kitchen. Considering he lived in the same building and she thought it would make seeing each other effortless.
She studied his schedule as much as she could. He was off Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, because his car would be parked on the block when she returned from school on those days. On the other days she’d hear him zoom off sometime after six A.M. She wanted him to come to her, but something told her he was waiting for her to make the next move.
On Thursday evening, Savannah met Giselle at SugarCane. It was Savannah’s idea, just in case Clinton would pop in.
“Why do we need to buy ten-dollar margaritas so you can see this man again? You can just go up a few flights and ring his door.” Giselle said, frowning as she looked at the extensive drink menu.
“Maybe I need to be drunk to do that?” Savannah rolled her eyes at Giselle. Just because Giselle wasn’t getting any action, she didn’t have to rain on her parade, she thought.
“You don’t have to be drunk to do anything. Not you!” Giselle said, waving her finger at Savannah. “If it was all about getting drunk we could have bought a cheap-ass bottle of E & J and some Coke, like we used to do way back when.”
Savannah sighed. Giselle was always good at calling her out when she was faking. “Okay, well, I’m hoping he will be here tonight. It was a Thursday when we saw him here last.”
“Yep, but now you know he lives in your building. Go upstairs and act like you have a broken pipe or something. I can’t believe you.” Giselle laughed. But when she saw she was laughing alone, she put her hand on Savannah’s knee. “You really like him, don’t you?”
“Me? Please, I don’t even know him. And imagine, he lives in my building and we haven’t even fucked. That is a definite sign that I don’t—”
“You do!” Giselle covered her mouth in awe. “That’s why you’re acting all flaky. If I know you, you have no qualms about taking control of situations with guys. Now you have one who can possibly see your dirt. Ain’t God good?”
“Shut up, Giselle.” Savannah laughed nervously. “I do like him. I mean, there’s just some quiet vulnerability about him. And the way he helped me with my groceries and . . . and . . . I don’t know. Maybe I’m just making all this up.”
“Girl, listen to me. All them men you sleep with cannot compare to one man who can take care of you, protect you, and make your toes twist in bed like cheese curls. One man, Savannah. What is so hard about that?”
Savannah just shook her head. She was always overly concerned whether a man liked her or not. Since Derrick, she was afraid to let any man pursue her, so instead she’d pursue and dismiss them before they could. She didn’t want to put herself out there to get rejected. But she did have a need to be wanted, to be desired in more ways than just the sexual. She was tired—tired of trying so hard.
“I just don’t want to mess this up,” Savannah said.
“It hasn’t even started!” Giselle said as the bartender set down their drinks. “Give it time to develop. Just fall back and see what he’s working with.”
“That is what I’ve been doing. Trust me, I’ve had plenty of fantasies about showing up buck naked at his door at three A.M. But I just couldn’t. And this is from a woman who can do that with a man like Jacques, who I rarely see and am not really into.”
“See, that’s it. That’s why I know you are into Clinton. You just don’t think he will like what he sees when he gets to see it. Savannah, you really are one of those women who are aggressive, and you like sex. Don’t change that to make some man like you. But don’t think that is all you have. You know what you gotta do.”
On her way home that evening, Clinton’s car was still parked outside. Maybe he was home all night, she thought, doing what good men like him did. Liquid encouragement urged her to ring his bell. It was only ten P.M. But she wasn’t drunk enough. She searched her brown suede pocketbook for her keys and turned the latch on her door. She looked down and picked up a brown package that lay by her feet.
Red is my favorite flavor. Talk to you soon. C.
Inside the bag was a package of red sour sticks.
Soon? Soon? When is that supposed to be? she thought. Soon was a word she liked to use with men, and usually she meant, I’ll call you when I feel like it. And to leave a pack of red sour sticks? She flung the package on the table, dropped her bag to the ground, and slammed the door behind her. She didn’t bother with the elevator. She raced up the four flights to his apartment. He wasn’t going to start playing head games already, she thought. She was the player, not the played.
Savannah knocked impatiently on his door. She smelled her breath with her hand and there was a slight liquor odor. He’s gonna think I’m not only drunk, but crazy, too, coming up to his apartment like he owes rent.
Savannah turned around. Then the door opened and she heard, “Savannah?”
Clinton was standing at his door, rubbing his eyes. It looked to her like he had been asleep. Alone, she hoped.
“What’s up with the red sour sticks?” she asked.
“Do you want to come in?” Clinton pulled his black cotton robe around his waist. Savannah could see his massive chest peeking through the open slit.
She walked toward him and peered at his apartment from the door. Everything was pitch-black, with a stream of light coming from a back room. From what she could tell it looked cozy and smelled nice, like vanilla. She not only wanted to come in, but stay, too.
Clinton opened his door farther. “Hey, I saw your place; you can at least see mine.”
Savannah walked into his apartment, a larger version of her own. The walls were painted white, with a wicker basket on the table full of mail, and a large fish tank taking up h
alf the wall in the living room.
“This is nice,” she said, unusually reserved.
“Look, I got the sour sticks because you needed more red. Are you mad?”
“What do you mean?” Savannah asked defensively. There was no way Clinton could know what she really did with that candy, she thought. “I like candy like anyone else. I was meaning to get the red ones anyway.”
A smile danced across Clinton’s lips, but his furrowed forehead announced how confused he was.
She wanted to change the subject to a topic she was more adept at handling. “Can I see your bedroom?”
Clinton’s smile stayed pasted to his brown, luscious lips. “I didn’t see yours.”
“Do you want to?”
“I never thought about it,” he said.
Savannah rolled her eyes and walked to the door. Here he is again actin’ like it’s all about him. “Okay, well, I gotta get up early in the morning. We’ll talk soon.”
“Wait a minute,” he said, walking behind her. Her back was pressed against his living room wall. Yeah, I knew he wanted this. Savannah searched his expression with her eyes, and it spoke of everything she was feeling. She closed her eyes and felt the warmth of his lips cover her own. His tongue pressed against her lips, parting them some more. Savannah wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders. She ran her hands down his firm, solid ass and realized he wasn’t wearing any drawers. The thought of his hardness just hanging loose and ready wet her panties.
“Mmmm,” Clinton said as he kissed the groove between her neck and collarbone. “Now can I show you my bedroom?”
Savannah pulled her body away from him. She just couldn’t. She didn’t want it to go down like this with Clinton. Even for her, it was too soon. She wanted him to like her before he liked anything else on her.
“I gotta go,” she said, and brushed past him. Clinton watched her disappear out the door.
At three A.M. she heard two knocks on her door. There was no question in her mind that it was Clinton. She lay on her back and promised to open it if he knocked again. But thoughts of ignoring him ravaged her brain. Knock. Knock. All she could see was his chest and those sexy, thick lips of his canvassing her body like a paintbrush.
She slid out of bed, half-naked, and draped the soft peach cotton sheets around her. She turned on her stereo to her favorite slow-jam station and unlocked the door. Before Clinton entered, she dashed to her bedroom and waited in the dark under the covers.
His shadow appeared in her bedroom doorway. “Savannah, you in here?”
She used the remote and turned the music up a little louder and couldn’t believe her ears. “Juicy Fruit” by Mtume was playing, and that used to be her jam from her junior high school days.
Clinton stood at the end of her bed with a quiet, confident posture.
Please don’t say anything, Savannah thought. She had always wanted to be taken this way in the dark by a “stranger.”
Clinton peeled off his charcoal-colored sweatpants and white wife-beater shirt. He climbed into the bed beside her, and the heat from his skin seeped through hers. The cool metal from his gold chain sent goose bumps down her back.
“Shhiiit,” he said with a deep, entrenching moan. He pulled up on her ample, arched behind and cupped her breasts in his hands.
Savannah sang the words to the song as Clinton grew harder against her back. She turned over and hummed as she took a good look into his sleepy, smiling brown eyes. She spread her legs more to give him full entry.
Their tongues teased each other.
Then his head dipped under the covers.
“Ohhhh!” Savannah shouted as she felt his hot tongue wedge between her throbbing lips. He squirmed his body to get better access to her wet middle. Savannah bent her knees all the way back as he held her thighs around his face as if he were eating the hell out of a succulent watermelon. He licked and sucked her until she came.
By now, there was no song that could compete for Savannah’s attention. Clinton rolled over on his back and rubbed his dick. Savannah stared at it as if he were daring her to suck his impressive piece of work. He massaged it slowly in his hand, beckoning Savannah to give him the same treatment he gave her.
Just when she was about to, he gripped her hips and sat her on him. With little effort, she managed to take his hardness all the way inside her. She rode him hard and long. She finally got him, she thought. His eyes were rolled back, and he bit his lower lip as beads of sweat rolled down his forehead. Good, take that. She squeezed her thigh muscles and sucked his hardness deeper inside her. Clinton moaned, “Damn!” Savannah kept pumping away, breathless. By now most men would be asking for mercy, but Clinton just kept moving with her.
“Stay still,” she murmured, pushing his chest down.
Clinton smiled at her with his eyes closed. “Baby, I think you finally met someone who can hang as long as you do.”
Savannah rested her chest against his, and he slapped her behind several times. He stuck his finger inside her ass as she continued riding him on top. She had never felt such a sensational and unusual feeling at the same time. He dug his finger deeper inside, pushing her pussy hard against him. Damn, Savannah thought. He’s fucking the shit out of me. Not exactly what she had planned, because he was the one who was supposed to get whipped.
An hour later, Savannah lay weak and spent beside Clinton. He was up and alert, eating out of a bag of Doritos.
Savannah stayed quiet as Clinton chuckled and laughed at an old rerun of Seinfeld. A feeling of insecurity crept up on her. What if she wasn’t good enough in bed? He was supposed to be asleep, she thought. And did he even come? All she could remember was having multiples, and that had never happened before. But she felt incomplete. There was something that she had to do. Something she was good at, and was sure would turn Clinton out—at least for the rest of the morning.
As he munched on his chips and laughed at the television, Savannah slowly slid back under the covers.
“Savannah, you gotta listen to this part. This is the scene where Kramer . . . Kramer . . . Shiiit . . .” Clinton dropped the bag of Doritos to the ground.
Savannah licked him like the lollipop they sang about earlier. With each inch of him in her mouth, she lost herself in the crinkly hairs between his legs. She immersed herself in his aloe scent and relished the tenderness of his skin on her tongue.
“Baby . . . baby, oh, damn.” Clinton said those words so many times, Savannah looked around just to make sure they were still alone.
Finally, when she was through putting on her best performance of the evening, she stayed up and watched the early-morning news as Clinton lay asleep with his head nestled in the crook of her arm. Just as things were supposed to be.
At noon the following day, Clinton and Savannah were still together. While he slept, Savannah had unwrapped the red sour sticks and slid one out and into the jar. Wearing only panties and a bra, she stared at the small jar on her kitchen counter and wondered how many sticks it would take until she tired of Clinton. But she couldn’t picture that. The head she had given him was the kind reserved for a boyfriend, and she hadn’t had one of those in years. As she put the jar away, out of sight, she felt a warm hand slide down her arms.
“Good morning—or should I say good afternoon?” Clinton said with a heavy laugh, and squeezed her into him.
“Oh,” Savannah said, putting the jar in the cabinet. “I didn’t want to wake you, but I’ve got some things to do soon.” She felt bad about lying, but figured she’d make it easier for him to leave if he wanted to.
“Anything you need help with?” he asked.
“No. Thanks.” Savannah pulled out a pan and some butter. “Like grilled cheese?”
Clinton nodded and folded his arms across his bare chest. “Why did you put only one sour stick in when I bought you a whole pack?” He held the jar in his hands.
Savannah flinched. “I wasn’t finished putting them away.”
Clinton didn’t respond
, and it left an uncomfortable silence between them. Then he asked, “Am I supposed to be red or something?” He laughed nervously.
“No,” Savannah sighed with frustration as she flipped the sandwiches. She was tired of his questions, and didn’t understand when firefighters got so smart anyway. “It’s just something I do. Some people like sorting M&M’s and I like sour sticks. Ready to eat?”
Clinton gave her a sarcastic smile that said he was determined to get to the bottom of her candy fascination.
Over the next two weeks, Savannah and Clinton exchanged nights at each other’s apartments. They ordered in food, rented movies, and secluded themselves behind closed doors, where they explored each other’s bodies until the break of dawn. By now Clinton had acquired eight sour sticks, which left little room in her jar for more. The crowded jar was a sign that it was time to clear out the clutter.
On Friday evening on her way home from school, Savannah couldn’t wait to see Clinton, who said he had a special evening planned for them. She scrambled around her lingerie drawer looking for the perfect outfit. Lace? Fishnet? Silk? There were too many sexy numbers to choose from. She decided to just go naked, with a cheetah-print robe and some furry red high heeled slippers.
She combed her shoulder length black weave until it was smooth and soft. On her lips she dabbed a red glossy lipstick that complemented her dark skin. Her nails were still fresh from a French manicure she’d had a week ago. As she massaged her body with her favorite man-snatching perfume, Hanae Mori, the phone rang. She dashed around the room for her cordless but couldn’t find it.
“Savannah, I’ll be there by eight o’clock. You’ll be pleasantly surprised tonight,” Clinton said on the machine, and it clicked off.
