by RM Johnson
“I’m getting married,” I offered, smiling shyly. “On Sunday. In three days.”
“Well!” the woman said, a huge smile spreading across her chubby face. “Congratulations!” And then she turned and yelled over her shoulder toward a back room. “You hear that, Betty? This man’s getting married on Sunday.”
“You don’t say,” a voice came from the back room, and then another chunky woman wearing an apron, and a scarf on her head, and holding some uncut flowers, came out, glanced at me, and said, “That is so wonderful.” Then she looked me over harder, approval in her eyes.
“But, boy, if it don’t work out, you come on back here, all right, ’cause Betty’ll gladly take you, divorced, separated, hell, still married for that matter. I ain’t no playa’ hata’. I’m a participata’. You want my pager number, baby?” Both women had a good laugh at her remarks.
“Naw,” I said, “but thanks anyway. I’m sure we’ll work out.”
“Give that fine man half off those roses, Pat,” Betty said, then walked over to the counter, and said, very politely, “I was just playing with you, young man. But congratulations, and I hope you have a wonderful wedding.”
That was the plan, I thought to myself as I walked through the thick pedestrian traffic of Michigan Avenue with the roses in one hand, my cell phone in the other, dialing Faith’s number at work. I hadn’t spoken to her all day and it was already … I turned my wrist to look at my watch … ten after four. The phone rang like six times, and then I heard the break in the tone that meant it was skipping over to her voice mail.
“Hi, this is Faith Sheppard at the Lincoln Park Social Center. I’m sorry I’m unable to take your …”
I clicked her off. “I’m sorry, too,” I said, still walking, staring at the phone as if it were her, and it could give me answers to what she was doing at that moment. Was she still mad at what happened last night? Was she not calling me, and not answering my calls, on purpose? No, that was ridiculous. She was just busy as she always was, counseling people about abortions, pregnancy, and all the other difficult issues the community comes to her with.
Just then my cell phone started ringing.
“Hello,” I said, hoping it was Faith.
“Hey, Jayson,” Faith said, not sounding very enthused to be speaking to me.
“I tried calling you.”
“Really.”
“Yeah,” I said, still happy to be hearing her voice, even though she sounded like she could care less to be hearing mine.
“Oh, okay. How’s your day going?”
“Fine now that I’m talking to you,” I said, smiling.
The phone was silent. I stepped off the sidewalk, moved into the doorway of a Marshall Field’s department store, and said, “What’s going on with you? This morning you left without kissing me or saying goodbye, and now you’re acting like … like you don’t even want to talk to me.”
“That’s because I talked to …” Faith blurted out, but then stopped herself.
“Talked to who?” I asked, but I figured she was talking about Karen, since Karen had already told me they spoke this morning.
“No. Nothing. Never mind.”
“Faith, tell me. Is it about last night? The thing with Asha?”
Again, there was silence, then finally she said, “No, Jayson. It’s not the thing with Asha.” But she said it like it really was that and she was pissed that I didn’t know it.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I’m sure.”
“In four days, you’ll be Mrs. Abrahms. You know that.”
“Jayson, I should be going, I got …”
“But hold it. Am I going to see you tonight?”
“Um. Not tonight. Karen and I are going to discuss some wedding things over drinks. You don’t mind, do you?”
“No. Of course not,” I said, smiling to myself, knowing that’s just what Karen told her to get her to the hotel for the surprise party. “I don’t mind at all, as long as you don’t have too nice of a time.”
“Never without you, baby,” she said in a tone that managed to convince me that she was telling the truth.
After checking out some buildings that had been foreclosed on, and going by my South Side properties, as I had planned earlier, I ate a light dinner of salad and roasted chicken that I’d picked up, already prepared from Dominick’s. When I finished, I showered, and excitedly got ready for the party.
I had called Karen earlier just to make sure that everything was going as planned.
“Oh, yeah. Everything is perfect. I am so proud of myself,” she said, and I could hear her pride coming through the phone. “Did you get the roses?”
“Yeah.”
“You still got the key?”
“Yeah, still got it.”
“And what time did I tell you to come?”
“Ten. Karen! I got it, all right. I’ll be there with bells swinging from my ears, all right.”
“Good.”
“Good,” I said, about to hang up, when Karen said, “And oh, Jayson. You’re going to love this. You’re really going to be surprised.”
At 9:45 P.M., I pulled my car up to the hotel. The valet got the door for me, and gave me a ticket. I walked up the stairs of the hotel, through the glass doors, and past an older, well-dressed couple. The man was wearing a tuxedo, and the woman on his arm was wearing a beautiful, beaded ball gown. They were both graying slightly, the man a little more than the woman, and as I passed them, I could hear the woman chuckle at something the man had whispered into her ear. She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. They were married, I told myself, trying not to stare, admire them too boldly. But they were married and wonderfully happy together, and that’s how me and Faith will be. Ten, twenty years from now, we will be the same way, like that distinguished, madly in love, aging couple.
I stood in front of the elevator, after punching the up button, and waited for the doors to slide open. After they did, I allowed two women in jeans to step off, then I got on. I punched the fourteen button with the hand I was holding Faith’s roses with, while with my other hand shoved into my pocket, I turned over and over the key card to room 1415.
I really hoped that Faith would be surprised, hoped that this would relieve some of the stress and worry she’d been having about Asha and me. Something told me it would. As the elevator continued to carry me up to the fourteenth floor, I couldn’t help but think about the night I proposed to her.
“Stop it,” I grunted, lying naked across her bed, gripping tight handfuls of the linen, trying with everything to control myself.
“You don’t like it?” she managed to warble, her mouth still around me, her hands still busy sliding up and down the length of me.
“I’m not ready yet,” I said, guiding her eagerly bobbing head away from my middle, then grabbing her around the waist and flipping her over onto her back.
“I want you to get yours, know what I’m sayin’?” I said, slyly, easing into her. But that wasn’t all I had planned for her, I thought, as I slid easily deep inside her. She let her head fall back, her eyes rolling back with the pleasure she was feeling. I kissed her gently on the nose, the chin, and then softly on her lips.
“I love you,” I whispered to her, as she opened her legs more, letting me farther into her warm inside.
“I …” she started to say, but I thrust myself into her, making her moan in ecstasy instead of speaking the words she wanted to say.
“What was that?” I said, teasing her.
“I said, I love …” and again, I slid farther in her, and this time she groaned long and hard, her muscles down there clamping around me.
“Stop that, and let me tell you I love you, will you!” Faith said, laughing and grabbing my butt hard with both hands. “I love you, Jayson Abrahms,” she said softly.
“Really?”
“Yeah,” she said, looking up at me through barely parted eyelids.
“How much do you love me?” I said, still moving
in and out of her.
But she didn’t answer right away, because she was lost in a moment of pleasure, her eyes, once again, swimming in the back of her head. Then she looked up at me, wearily, and said, “Oh, so much.”
“How much?”
She breathed out hard. “A lot. Oooh, a lot.”
“But how much is a lot?” And by this time I had her in the position, legs hooked around my arms, spread all the way open. I was pushing her toward orgasm, demanding that she come, and while I was doing that, I was fumbling blindly for something just under the mattress, finally feeling it, and grabbing it.
She cried out in a series of grunts, and curse words, unable to tell me just how much a lot was.
“You can’t tell me?” I said, breathing furiously, sweat dripping from my body as I continued to make love to her, careful to stop myself from feeling all the pleasure I was giving her.
“I’m about to … I’m gonna …”
“About to what? Gonna what?” I said, feeling that she was almost there.
“I love you a lot! A whole lot! And … and …” and now I could feel her muscles, not just down there, but all over her body contracting, and she was starting to make this weird breathing noise, like a car stalling, trying to start but unable. That always happened just before she came. But I wasn’t going to allow that to happen before I said, “Is that enough to marry me?”
And not a second later, she exploded, screaming out, “What!” She tried grabbing me, digging her nails into my back, as she endured the eruptions that rumbled through her body, but I grabbed one of her hands, her left one, and slid the ring I had taken from under the mattress onto her finger.
An entire minute later, after her breathing slowed to just a little quicker than normal, and the tremors in her legs settled to just a little twitching, she turned her head lazily in my direction and said, “Why did you grab my hand like that?”
“Why don’t you look and see,” I said, smiling.
She looked bewildered for a moment, then raised her hand, and after seeing the karat and a half, she gasped, practically choked.
“Oh my god. Oh my god,” she said softly, looking down at it, but it was in a way that made me feel that something was wrong. She pulled herself from the bed, walked over to the candle that sat burning on her dresser, and dipped the ring into its light.
“Oh my god!”
“What’s wrong?” I asked, concerned. “You don’t like it?”
“No, no. It’s beautiful,” she said, quickly looking up at me, smiling sheepishly, then turning her face back down to the ring. “But you want to marry me?” she asked, in a way that made the thought seem ridiculous.
I got out of bed, practically ran to her, taking her in my arms. “What are you talking about? Of course I want to marry you. Do you know how much I love you?” She looked up at me, with what seemed like worry in her eyes. I didn’t understand. This was supposed to be a happy occasion.
“Do you know?” I asked again.
“But—” she tried to say, but I stopped her.
“There is no but. I love you to pieces. Do you know that?”
She nodded her head. “Yeah,” she said softly. “But are you sure?”
I didn’t know what all the questioning was about, but I felt honored, thinking that she must’ve thought she wasn’t good enough for me or something. Then I smiled, trying to make her feel more comfortable, hoping some of my happiness would rub off on her. “I was never more sure of anything in my life, baby,” I said, answering her question, then I gave her a huge hug.
She wrapped her arms around me too and said, “Okay, baby. I love you, too.”
“So what does that mean? Will you marry me?” I asked, pulling away from her, so I could look into her eyes.
“Yes. I will marry you,” she said, smiling and hugging me again. And at that moment, I was the happiest I’d ever been in my entire life.
The elevator doors slid open with a ding. I stepped off, and followed the little arrow on the wall before me, pointing toward rooms 1401 through 1418. As I walked down the hall, I felt a quiet, calming peace about me. Yes, in just four days we’d be married, and life would be what I’d always wanted it to be, but never thought it could be. I would have the love that always seemed to escape me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed 1413 as I passed it, and I slid my hand back into my pocket, fishing out the key card. I walked another few feet, stepped squarely in front of 1415, heard the sound of muffled voices. I slid the card into the door lock, saw the little green light illuminate, and turned the handle thinking, Faith’s going to be so surprised, I can’t wait to see her face. But when I opened the door, it wasn’t her face that caught my attention, but her body. Her naked body, squirming on all fours, her hands and knees sinking deep into the cushions of the sofa, as a well-built, naked, brown man stood behind her, moaning in ecstasy, his bare body covered with sweat as he grabbed Faith from behind, slowly sliding himself in and out of her.
9
It was 10 P.M. Asha was seated in her favorite restaurant, an upper-end establishment by the name of Banderra on Michigan Avenue. The room was big, but the ceiling was low. At the back of the restaurant was a huge open oven, where tall flames cooked a number of chickens as they rotated over and over on a spit. At the front were long, floor-to-ceiling windows looking down on the fine stores of Michigan Avenue, and the late-night window shoppers who, hand in hand, occasionally stopped in front of them. The restaurant was dark, candles dancing on each of the tables, illuminating the faces of people engaged in intimate conversations.
Asha was also deep in an intimate discussion, but it was with herself, for she was just unable to keep her mind off what happened to her earlier.
“So what do we do now?” Asha had asked, after she slowly pulled her lips from Angie’s.
Angie smiled. “I don’t know. I’ll leave that up to you.”
“I want to see you again.”
“I was hoping you’d say that, because although you may not believe it now, I wasn’t coming in here just to seduce you. I really do need a massage once a week.”
“So, do you want my number or something?” Asha said, feeling a little awkward at that moment.
“No,” Angie said, touching Asha’s hand. “Let’s just keep it here for right now. What do you say?”
“Oh. Yeah, that sounds fine. So next Thursday then, hunh?”
“What if I said I can’t wait that long to see you? Would you have a problem massaging me twice a week?” Angie said.
Asha smiled, slyly. “Uh, it might be rough at first, but I think I could get used to it.”
“Good, well, put me down for Tuesday too, and I’ll see you then.”
“Will do,” Asha said, and received the kiss on the cheek Angie gave her. She watched as the older woman walked confidently down the hall, watched the slenderness of her waist, watched as her hips swayed, and a sweet tremor passed over Asha when she thought that just moments ago she was holding that woman in her arms.
Asha looked at the melting candle in front of her on the restaurant table. She lifted her wineglass, and absently took a sip, making it a point to try to seem interested in what was being said to her, but still she couldn’t keep her mind from thinking about what she’d done earlier that afternoon, and what kind of impact it would have on her life.
She had accepted that she was a lesbian, but how would she tell Jayson about it? And then there was Gill. Asha had to shake her head about that one. The man loved her more than any man ever had, was damn near on the verge of proposing, would probably throw himself in front of a train to save her life, and this was how she would repay him?
But it was only fair. She would have to tell him, and tell him soon.
Earlier that evening, Asha had said goodbye to Sue and the other girls she passed on the way out of the spa, then took the elevator down. It was 5:30 P.M., the same time she always got out, and the sun was still warm on this spring evening. That lifted Asha’
s spirits just a little as she went about the task of trying to flag down a cab in the thick rush hour traffic.
Gill and the problem about what she would do with him, how she would tell him, kept popping up in her head. Would she tell him the next time she saw him, the next time they spoke on the phone, or would she even tell him at all? Couldn’t she just dump him?
“I’m tired of you, Gill. Tired of all the nice things you buy me, of how you love me unconditionally, of the sex that most women would consider the greatest ever. I’m just tired, and you just aren’t enough, Gill. Now beat it.” Asha tried to hear herself saying the words. But she couldn’t lie to him like that, and besides, letting him go now probably wasn’t that great an idea. She was just entering this whole lesbian thing, and although it felt right, she wasn’t sure how it would turn out. It would be foolish to get rid of a man who loved her at this point. So Asha wouldn’t say anything to him just yet. And as long as he didn’t keep mentioning marriage, she could string this thing out a little farther.
The sound of a horn had yanked Asha out of her thoughts and pulled her attention to the curb. There rolling up beside her was Gill’s Jaguar, Gill smiling brightly behind the wheel. He leaned over the passenger seat and pushed open the door.
“C’mon, get in.”
Asha jumped into the seat, leaned over, and received the kiss she knew he had for her, feeling a bit strange after not long ago being kissed by Angie on the same cheek.
“How’s my Suga’puss feeling today?”
“Gill, I told you I wish you wouldn’t keep calling me that.”
“Well, if you’d stop making it so sweet, then I’d stop, but I don’t even think that’s possible. What do you think?” Gill said, grabbing one of her thighs.
“Guess not, Gill,” Asha said, smiling.
In the booth at the restaurant, Asha’s head was already feeling somewhat light as she slid her two fingers up and down the stem of the nearly empty wineglass. Just one or two more glasses of Merlot, and I’ll be able to get my mind off everything and enjoy this evening, she thought. She lifted the glass to her lips and tilted it back. She felt a warm hand cover her own, the one that was resting on the table, and it made her shudder. Maybe because it had brought back the memory from when they were home just a couple of hours before.
