David allowed me to unzip my coat and then helped me out of it before ushering me to the booth to sit. He laid my coat on the seat next to us as he slid in next to me.
“You’re looking good,” he said, complimenting me.
“Thank you, and so are you.”
“You’re going to catch a cold that’s going to put you on your ass.”
I chuckled, then asked to have a sip of his water before responding. “I know, but you know I love the cold. This is perfect weather for me.”
He smiled. Sipped on the same straw I had and then looked around. “See how all those men were staring at that ass, though?”
I always laughed when we fell into our way of teasing one another. There we were, two professionals who sometimes spoke as if we had only just graduated from high school.
“Nobody is looking at me when everyone is fixated on you,” I said and slyly nodded to the table full of flamboyantly gay males who couldn’t stop looking at David.
He looked over at them and then back at me with a scowl. David didn’t care for effeminate males. They weren’t his type of hype.
“I don’t understand that shit,” he commented, with his lips turned down into a frown. “If I wanted a woman, I’d be with one. When I want a man, I want a man,” he said.
We’d had that conversation before. Nothing turned him off more than feminine males. He liked his men the same way I liked mine. We stopped talking for a moment so the waiter could take my order, or so I thought.
“I already ordered for you,” David told me.
I watched as the waiter placed a glass of Riesling in front of me and the Sushi Boat for Four. Sake was David’s choice of drink. I smiled. He knew me so well.
“So, we’re not waiting on Michael to eat?” I asked after we had blessed the food.
He shook his head, one arm wrapped around me. “Nah.”
To the people looking on, we probably looked like lovers instead of best friends, especially as we shared the B-52 roll. He fed me. I fed him. We forwent the silverware and used our fingers. When his tongue brushed against my fingers, my pussy vibrated. I inhaled and exhaled slowly. I smiled because he smirked. He’d felt that jolt of energy between us too.
“Say yes,” he whispered, daring me. “One time . . . say yes.”
I rolled my shoulders, sipped my wine, but I didn’t say yes.
I said, “No.”
All he did was laugh.
We were well into our sushi when David’s phone rang.
“What’s up?” he answered as he wiped his mouth with the black cloth napkin. “Nah, we’re in here. First floor. In the booth in the center . . . What? No, you have to pay to park.... Follow the signs to find the parking deck. . . .”
“Tell him if he parks on the first level, it’s only six bucks for six hours,” I said, trying to be a part of the conversation. Whenever David talked to men, I felt intimidated . . . inadequate.
“He’s good,” David said to me, then got back on his phone. “A’ight. Give me a second.” David hung up his phone and then slid out of the booth.
“Where you going?” I asked him.
“Going to meet him so he won’t get lost trying to find us.”
“It’s not that hard to find this place if he parks on level one. Just tell him to come up the escalators—”
“Summer,” David said to stop me.
“What?”
“Can I go get my friend and bring him back?” he asked with a smile.
Shrugging, I said, “I guess.”
He leaned down to kiss my lips—something we did from time to time—and then walked off. I sat there for a moment, taking in the music and my surroundings. Place was as crowded as usual on a Friday. My nerves were jittery, for some reason. So I asked the waitress to tell David I’d gone to the bathroom if he happened to make it back to the booth before I did. The bathroom at Strip looked like a one-bedroom apartment. An oversize mirror took up the wall to the left. A rectangular sink with four faucets sat to the right, and the stalls were big enough to hold at least four people each.
I handled my business with the toilet bowl man, washed my hands, and decided to add a little lip gloss to my lips. I made sure the shorts I had on weren’t riding too far up my crack, and then walked back out. As soon as I did, all heads turned to look at me. The gay males at the table in front of the booth all looked me up and down. I looked over and saw that David had sat back down. As soon as the other patrons moved out of my way, I was able to see that someone—I assumed it was Michael—was sitting with him.
I didn’t know what I’d expected Michael to look like. Wait, I was lying. I had expected him, had wanted him, to be ugly as sin, but that wasn’t what he actually looked like. He stood. He was still in his double-breasted trench coat. The coat was open, and I saw that he was wearing wing-tip dress shoes, chocolate-brown dress slacks, and a baby-blue button-down, which was in stark contrast to his milk chocolate skin. Jesus be some panty liners, I thought. My thong got real uncomfortable as it slid around due to the wetness invading my private parts. Michael was still standing as I approached, and David jumped to his feet when he saw me. Michael might have lived up north, but he was still cognizant of his Southern roots. Neither man would sit when a lady in their company entered the room.
Michael was taller than David. A low-cut Caesar with deep waves adorned his head. His hair had been tapered and razor shaped to perfection. There was no facial hair, and his lips . . . dear God, his lips were so damn thick and plush that I found myself wanting to kiss him on sight. David tilted his head as he watched me. He knew me. Knew I was a sucker for what Michael represented. He was a married man, and I had a track record of sleeping with married men. They weren’t my problem. We’d fuck, and then I could send them back home for their wives to deal with. So sue me. Being with another woman’s man wasn’t beneath me.
“Michael, this is Summer. Summer, this is Michael, another good friend of mine,” David said after I’d finally reached the table.
For a second I didn’t even know what to say. I was tongue-tied. There I was, with the sexiest black men—men, period—in the place. I was intent on taking Michael’s hand to shake it, but he pulled me into a hug, which sent me reeling. The man smelled like he bathed with African black soap, and I noticed some other fragrance, which I couldn’t identify. It was so natural that I had to sniff him again to lock the smell in my nostrils.
“Nice to meet you, Summer,” Michael said as he pulled back from the hug. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
I smiled and finally found my voice. “It’s nice to finally meet you as well. I can say I’ve heard a lot about you too.”
He smiled. A Colgate smile had nothing on David’s and Michael’s smiles. David moved over so I could slide into the booth. The two of them sat down, flanking me. I looked like a piece of caramel sandwiched between two pieces of chocolate. I was their Milky Way Simply Caramel bar.
The waiter came over and took Michael’s drink order, a Guinness Extra Stout, but he refrained from ordering food for the moment.
“So, Summer, how’d you end up on the arm of this one?” he asked and then stood again to take his coat off.
So call me a perverted cunt, but the print, the bulge in that man’s pants made me lick my lips. I took a sip of my wine and glanced around to see if anyone else saw what I saw. Apparently, a few men and women did, because all their eyes had zoomed in on it.
I cleared my throat and then looked over at him as he sat back down. On one side of me, David’s thigh rubbed against mine. On the other side, Michael’s thigh did the same. I had a fever.
“I was an unemployed chick walking through Lenox Square.”
“Why Lenox Square, if you were unemployed?” Michael asked.
“Was looking for work.”
“David told me you have two degrees. Why the mall for a job?”
“Nobody was calling me back. So I dumbed down my résumé and started looking into retail.”
; “Did you get a job there?” Michael asked.
I shook my head. “Didn’t have to. I went on a date with David, and he offered me a job the next day.”
Michael quirked a brow and did a slight head tilt. The way he smirked told me what he was thinking.
“I didn’t fuck him to get this job, if that’s what you’re thinking. But I’m not above it.”
Michael laughed. “You’re funny, Summer.”
I turned to look at David, to see why he wasn’t saying anything. He was watching me and Michael with an amused expression on his face.
“I know. David tells me all the time,” I said to Michael. “You okay?” I asked David.
David nodded. “I’m good.”
“You sure? You ain’t saying much.”
“Just letting you two talk.”
“You don’t want to catch up with your friend?” I asked.
“I’ve known the asshole long enough,” David quipped, then gave Michael the once-over and grunted. “Nothing’s changed.”
Michael gave a hearty chuckle and thanked the waiter, who had just sat his beer down. After we assured him that we didn’t need anything else, the waiter walked away with a smile.
“Hater has never been a good job reference, bruh,” Michael quipped back. “So you always spend the night at his house, playing Twister in booty shorts?” he asked me out of the blue.
He must have seen that photo of me and David on Facebook. That was one thing I hated. I knew Michael could see me on Facebook, but because you had to be his friend to see anything about him, I wasn’t able to do the same snooping as he was. Trust me, I’d tried.
There was something about the way those two were not talking that got to me. I’d asked David if he had fucked Michael, and he had said no. But there was some tension in the air that I could feel.
Still, I answered his question. “Most times. David likes to look at my ass. I like to give him my ass to look at. What better way than a game of Twister?” I put a piece of sushi in my mouth as David laughed. After I swallowed the sushi, I turned to face Michael. “You done grilling me now or nah?” I asked.
Michael laughed too. “I wanted to see if you were hell, like he said you were. He always talks about you, so I wanted to see the woman, the myth, the enigma myself. Those are all words he has used to describe you.”
I could see the sincerity in his eyes. I saw the way he looked at his best friend, and I noticed they both chuckled the same way. Maybe David’s quietness was due to the fact that he was allowing us to talk, and not to some other shit, as I had been thinking. I smiled and offered Michael some sushi. I didn’t know him well enough to be feeding him with my fingers, so I pulled the utensils from the black cloth napkin. Placed a few pieces of sushi on a small plate for him and then slid the plate to him. Then I turned back to offer David some with my fingers. I loved that piece of intimacy he and I shared. It was the closest thing I had had to a relationship with a man in two years. I didn’t pull back when he pulled me closer to him.
As the night went on, the three of us talked about different things. Talked about the Falcons lackluster football season, along with the Giants. Talked about politics and religion. I was surprised to learn that Michael wasn’t a fan of President Obama. Wasn’t surprised that despite that fact, he still hadn’t voted for Romney in the elections. I laughed when he told us he had voted for Roseanne Barr. I erupted in stomach-churning laughter when he told me about the shit he and David had gotten into back in college. He talked about the foursome he and David had had with two sisters, one of whom had happened to get her period and didn’t know it. Michael had thought she was just that sopping wet. He had pulled his fingers out of her fire and had had bloody digits. He’d been so turned off that he’d walked out of the room.
“Did you at least wash your hands?” I asked, screwing up my face.
Michael shrugged. “Man, look, I don’t even know. Can’t remember. Just know I started calling the shawty Carrie afterward.”
“She tried to fight him in the hall of the hotel the next day because he called her that shit,” David said, chiming in as he laughed.
I laughed again. This was all very comical to me. Michael had turned out to be a cool guy. I liked his laugh. His personality was A1, but it was the impeccable way he carried himself that made him stand out as a king among men. When he stood to go to restroom and strolled away from the booth, he commanded attention. With one hand in his pocket and a walk that put Denzel to shame, he was the star of that show. He’d stolen the spotlight from David.
I took my new glass of wine to my mouth and turned my head to look at David, only to find that he had watched me watch Michael.
“Good to see you remembered I’m here with you,” he said.
“Huh?”
“Yeah.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Just saying, you’ve been all on his dick since he got here.”
I had to chuckle at that. “Sounds like you’re feeling some type of way because you can’t get on it. You mad, bruh?” I asked, to be funny. He gave me a look that said he wasn’t amused. “Oh, God, David, you can’t be serious.”
He shrugged, then said, “It’s cool. Making an observation. You’d rather be a home wrecker than an honest woman, huh? Okay. Got it.”
“Wait. What?”
“If you throw it at that nigga, he’s going to catch it, then toss you back in the dugout.”
“So now I’m throwing my pussy at him?”
“Calls it like I sees it,” he commented casually.
“You’re such a dick, David.”
“Eight inches of it when I’m in a zone. Nine if the pussy’s good.”
I punched him in his arm as hard as I could. He snatched me by the back of my hair and then brought my face directly to his.
We had an audience. I could see people watching from my peripheral. I knew if I took it there, David would too.
David
“Let me go, David!” Summer demanded.
I didn’t want to, though. Her lips were so close to mine that all I had to do was kiss her. All I had to do was suck her bottom lip into my mouth, like I was tempted to do. Yeah, she and I kissed each other on the lips all the time, but that was more of a friendly notion. The way I wanted to kiss her now had nothing to do with being friendly. I could feel her chest slowly rising, like there was pressure on it. The cat and mouse between us was at its breaking point. I knew people were watching. All eyes were on us, but I blocked them out. Didn’t care that they were eager to see what was going on and what would happen next. They didn’t know if I was abusing her or if we were a couple who enjoyed a little roughhousing with our displays of affection.
“Not letting you go anywhere,” I told her.
I gazed deep into the abyss of her eyes. Counted those freckles up close and then placed my lips gently against hers. Heard a few gasps from those around us when my other hand gripped her left breast as my tongue invaded her mouth. She gasped herself. She stopped breathing for a moment, so I remembered to breathe for both of us. I’d never been on this side of intimacy with her, and yet I knew what she liked. I knew she liked the firm grip of my hand in her hair. Could tell that the way my other hand squeezed her breast to the point of pain was about to be her undoing.
But it was her kiss . . . the way she moaned and leaned into me when her tongue danced with mine that took me under. I’d never felt her . . . I’d never tasted her the way I was in that moment. She’d accused me of being jealous, of being mad that she was all on another man’s dick, with me right there. That was the way we were. She would get jealous, I would become envious, and still . . . we were just friends.
I was jealous. Didn’t like to see her give another man the attention that had been reserved only for me. Even when she had been with other men, she had reserved the kind of attention she’d given to Michael only for me. Yes, I was jealous. Jealous of the way both of them were into one another. I could see what was to come a mile aw
ay. Michael was feeling her. He didn’t really say a lot to me, because there were still things to resolve between us. I wanted her. I wanted him. I wanted us . . . all at once. But I knew it would never happen. Could never happen.
I knew when Michael had invaded our personal space again. Smelled the scent that belonged only to him. That smell of Egyptian musk, black soap, and hemp shea butter. It was a scent one could never forget. I knew she’d smelled him too. She’d been alerted by the earthy, musky scent that only Michael carried. I was very familiar with his scent.
Summer pulled back from the kiss. She hung her head, laid her hands on my chest as she caught her breath. I loosened the grip on her hair. Started to massage her scalp as I held her close to me. I knew she was embarrassed that we had put on a show. I looked over at Michael, who was standing near the table full of flamboyant males, who were looking him up and down before turning their attention back to me and Summer. He had a glass of amber-colored liquor in his hand, his eyes on me. Summer already had my dick alive. The primitive look in Michael’s eyes spoke of times past, when he and I had shared secrets.
He stopped looking at me long enough to nod at Summer. I’d been so fixated on him that I hadn’t noticed that she’d noticed me observing him. She looked from him to me, then back to him. She picked up on what I didn’t want her to know. Before I could stop her, she shoved me away, grabbed her purse and coat, and then made a beeline for the exit.
“You should have told her,” Michael said to me after I’d slid out of the booth to go after her.
“Told her what?” I asked with a bit of annoyance in my voice.
“More than what you wanted her to know.”
For a long while we stared one another down. Then Michael chuckled, walked over to the booth, and sat down. I rushed outside, into the winter’s cold, to chase after Summer. I had left my coat behind, having forgotten the season in all the excitement. I remembered her telling me to tell Michael about parking on level one, and so I rushed down the escalator. I bumped into a few people on my way down, but I didn’t give a damn.
Bi-Satisfied Page 3
