The Cocktail Club

by Pat Tucker

  There was nothing I could do once he was inside. A small part of me had no desire to try to put up a struggle. I watched as Chandler wandered down the hall. He glanced at the pictures that lined the wall, and then he moved into my family room and began to look at the pictures on the mantel. Warning lights flashed brightly in my head.

  “It smells good in here,” he said. He turned to look at me and added, “Kind of like bacon, eggs, and vanilla?”

  That’s when I remembered my bath.

  “You have to go. Go, and I will come meet you,” I said.

  “I’m going to stay,” he said calmly.

  I stared at him in utter disbelief. He hadn’t moved an inch.

  “You can’t. Kevin could come back,” I stammered.

  “He won’t. It’s been more than an hour. He’s gone for the day,” Chandler said. He looked around the room again. “So, were you cooking?”

  “Oh, no, I was about to take a bath when the doorbell rang,” I said.

  His eyebrows inched upward and a twinkle danced in his eyes. When the devilish grin spread across his face, I read what was on his mind. That was another opportunity for me to do the right thing, but I didn’t want to.

  “You have to go, Chandler.” I didn’t sound convincing, but I tried.

  He waved his arm in a sweeping movement and smiled.

  “After you. Where’s the bath? Upstairs?” He tilted his head upward.

  “Let’s not do this, not here,” I pleaded.

  He inched closer and pulled me into his arms. His scent awakened something in me, and I was in trouble. The hold he had over me was like nothing I’d ever felt before. As if in a trance, I put one foot in front of the other and took shaky steps.

  Chandler pointed to the drink in my hand. “Oh, wait. Where’s the rest of that?”

  I motioned silently in the direction of the refrigerator. I used the back of my hand to wipe the moistness from his kiss. He stepped toward the refrigerator, opened the door, and grabbed the glass pitcher.

  “Okay. I’m ready now,” he said.

  I couldn’t move.

  “Let’s go. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to,” he whispered.

  49

  PETA

  I jumped when I heard the frantic knock at my front door. I looked down at the bloody mess near my feet and felt conflicted. Has the knocking gone on for an eternity? What if I don’t answer? Who was it anyway?

  My heart raced as I tried to figure out the best thing to do. It didn’t matter who was at the door, they had to have known I was home—both my car and Kyle’s were outside. Beverly was going to leave it after her ride came.

  My mouth felt dry and my hands were unsteady. When I heard the door open, I didn’t know whether I should walk up front to try to keep whoever it was away or simply stand there.

  There wasn’t much time to decide.

  “Peta, sorry. I had to pee,” Beverly said, then suddenly screamed. “Oh, shit! What the hell—” She stumbled back a bit. “What in the hell happened here? Oh, sweet Jesus! Is he—” She started breathing hard. “Oh, God, don’t tell me he’s—”

  I shook my head. I had no idea. I could hardly feel my feet. “I don’t know. I don’t know,” I repeated.

  “What the hell?” Beverly rushed toward us and bent down over Kyle’s body. I didn’t move a muscle.

  I watched as she reached down and pressed a couple of fingers near his neck. I couldn’t move.

  “Where do you keep your dishtowels?” Beverly asked. She was frantic.

  It was an odd question, but I pointed toward the drawer. She moved quickly. She opened it, grabbed a can of vegetables from the pantry, wrapped it in the towel and opened the French doors that stood to the left of the kitchen.

  I watched as she used the towel to turn the knob. She stepped outside and then broke one of the windowpanes closest to the lock and came back in. Once back inside, Beverly’s wild eyes looked around. She put the towel and can in her purse. Then she grabbed the phone from the counter.

  “OH MY GOD!” she cried. “We need an ambulance quickly. We walked in to my boss’s house and found someone stabbed on the floor,” Beverly cried. “Hurry! He’s lost lots of blood!”

  Beverly hung up the phone and looked at me.

  “Hurry, go wash your hands,” she said. “Peta, do you hear me talking to you? Go wash your hands!”

  I moved over to the sink and washed my hands. They trembled so much I thought they’d fall off.

  “I need you to pull it together. We walked in here and found him like this! Stop looking like you saw a ghost.”

  A few minutes later, I heard sirens. Everything happened so quickly I could hardly keep up. The moment we heard movement at the door, Beverly guided me down over Kyle’s body.

  “Put his head in your lap,” she instructed.

  I did everything she told me without any questions or resistance.

  “Houston Fire Department Paramedics,” a voice announced.

  “In here! Over here,” Beverly said. Two uniformed men rushed into the room.

  “Ma’am,” one of them said to me. “Let us take over from here.”

  I got up and stepped back. I watched as paramedics put a breathing mask on Kyle’s face.

  The paramedic looked at me and asked how long we had been in there. I stammered through my answer as Beverly glanced in my direction every few minutes.

  An officer asked Beverly to repeat her story.

  “Yeah, so we pulled up, and when we came in, there he was,” she said.

  “Ma’am, what happened?”

  “I-ah, I tried to move the knife,” I stammered.

  He wrote that down on his notepad.

  “Yeah, that’s when I told her not to touch it. I explained to her that he could die if she did,” Beverly chimed in.

  The officer looked at her and said, “Yeah, that was very smart.”

  He turned his focus back on me.

  “Who lives here?” he asked.

  “My daughter and I,” I said. “But he came over a lot,” I added.

  “She’s real shaken up over this,” Beverly said to the officer. “The paramedics had to tell her to move out of the way because she kept trying to help.”

  “Yeah, she was cradling his head in her lap,” a paramedic confirmed, “and from what I can tell, he suffered blunt trauma to the back of the head.”

  Another officer walked up. He looked at the detective who spoke to Beverly and me and said, “Looks like forced entry over there.” The officer pointed toward the back door where broken glass still lay scattered on the floor.

  “Okay,” the detective said.

  His glare raked over me, then switched to Beverly. “You do know we are going to interview Mr. Nixon, right?”

  Beverly put on a tough-girl stance.

  “Shoot, he better tell y’all the truth! We heroes! We saved his life, if you ask me,” she proudly proclaimed.

  The gravity of what I had done fell heavy on my shoulders. Kyle would be dead had Beverly not come in when she did. I stood and watched, but I had no desire to help him.

  As far as I was concerned, he had ruined my life, and I didn’t feel like he deserved to live. The drinks I’d had may have clouded my judgment a bit, but I was still very pissed.

  The detective looked at us for a long while, and I wasn’t sure if he wanted to arrest us, or was simply trying to intimidate us with his mean-mug stare. It didn’t seem to have any impact on Beverly, but two minutes more, and I would’ve probably confessed to everything.

  “If you don’t have any more questions for us, I wanna take her upstairs so she can lie down,” Beverly said.

  All I could think was, What in the world would I have done without her?

  “That’s it for now,” he said. “But don’t go anywhere far. We’ll be in touch after we’ve had a chance to talk to Mr. Nixon.”

  “Okay, good. You do that,” Beverly said.

  I watched as she walked with him toward t
he front door.

  When she came back alone, she looked at me and frowned.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” she asked.

  I shook my head. I had no words. I felt defeated. It was obvious to me that my days of freedom were numbered and none of it really mattered anymore.

  “What time does your daughter get home?” she asked.

  “Oh, God, Kendal,” I stammered.

  “Here, let’s get this mess cleaned up. Where’s your bleach? You got any candles?” Beverly asked.

  50

  DARBY

  No jury in the state of Texas would ever convict him! All Kevin would need was one sympathetic man or woman who had ever been done wrong before being seated in that box. That’s all it would take for him to walk out of jail a free man. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind.

  Chandler and I had polished off the mimosas, and I sent him downstairs to get something stronger. What started out in the bathroom as him simply watching as I eased into the tub had taken a turn, and I was completely lost.

  I mulled over it for a few seconds. Then I raised my wet leg out of the water and into the air. I was in bliss when Chandler and I were together.

  “You are so sexy,” he said.

  I turned to see him leaned against the wall as if he’d been watching me. It didn’t matter. I basked in the glow of his attention like it was the most natural thing to do.

  “So very, very sexy,” he said.

  It could’ve been the alcohol talking, or he could’ve meant every single word. But it didn’t change a thing. We were both so completely out of order, that at times, I stunned myself.

  By the time we had finished off the third round of drinks, I had lost all inhabitations and common sense. I moved around the tub like a carefree teen in love.

  “You should get in with me,” I teased. “The water’s perfect.” I felt good.

  Chandler didn’t need much coaxing. He had gone from spectator to full-fledged participant in less than sixty seconds. I watched as he undressed. His body was beautiful.

  Once in the tub with me, he pulled my body close to his and held me tightly. We kissed long and hard. I ran my fingers through his thick, wavy hair and pulled and tugged at it.

  Everything about him felt so incredibly good to me. He had a way of making me feel like I’d die without his touch.

  Suddenly, he pulled back and began to manhandle me. Chandler grabbed my hair, turned my body around, and pushed me over the edge of the tub.

  “This is what you like, isn’t it?” he growled.

  I didn’t get the chance to answer. When I opened my mouth to speak, the sensation of him filling me all but took my breath away.

  “Give it to me,” he said.

  I tried. I pushed back against his thrusts and gave in when his body told me he wanted me to. Our bodies moved in sync. It had gotten to the point that I didn’t even want sex with my husband anymore. All I wanted was Chandler.

  “Oh, shit! I’m cumming,” he cried.

  That announcement brought me so much joy, it hadn’t occurred to me that he didn’t have on a condom. When I felt him release inside of me, and he collapsed onto my back, I actually felt fortunate.

  “Let’s move to the bed,” he said. “I want to satisfy you completely.”

  I wanted to tell him that he already had, but instead of putting up any resistance whatsoever, I dipped back into the tub, then got out like he asked. He slid his wet hand up my thigh and rubbed me as I moved.

  In the bedroom, atop my marital bed, Chandler dove face first between my thighs.

  I loved everything he did to me. We complemented each other in so many ways. I was happy with him. And as we lay in the afterglow of magnificent, unprotected sex, I began to imagine my life with him. On the surface, I understood that it was the ultimate no-no, but that didn’t stop me from considering the impossible.

  Unable to tell exactly when I had fallen off to sleep, I bolted up and realized what had gone down.

  “Chandler, wake up! Wake up!” I shook his body violently. This foolishness had to stop. We had become entirely too careless.

  The clock said it was ten minutes after two in the afternoon.

  “Damn! I had a lunch meeting I couldn’t miss.”

  Chandler flashed his gorgeous smile. “Oops. Didn’t mean to distract you.” He laughed groggily.

  “C’mon, you. Let’s go shower. You need to get out of here.”

  “Awww, you putting me out already? Thought I had earned the right to hang around,” he said.

  “As tempting as that offer is, we’d better get cleaned up and get you on your way, so I can fix dinner for later.”

  “Do you do that every day?”

  “What?”

  “Fix breakfast, lunch, and dinner?”

  “Yup, I sure do. My family wants to eat every single day.” I sighed dramatically.

  Chandler pulled me into his arms and held me. “Why couldn’t we have met long ago?”

  I eased back and tilted my head to look up at him.

  “Be honest. Would you have been willing to date a black woman back then?”

  “Darby, white men don’t care about women’s skin color. It’s you guys who do. Most black women won’t date outside their race, but I’m glad you did.”

  We were not dating. I didn’t know what we were doing, but we couldn’t date. I began to make my way back to the bathroom. Chandler was hot on my heels.

  “Is that what you think we’re doing here? I mean, dating? I’m married, Chandler, and I won’t leave my husband.”

  “Oh spare me, Darby. You’ve told me all of that before, remember? Besides, I didn’t ask you to leave him—not yet anyway.”

  We showered together, had sex one last time, and then got dressed. I walked him to the front door. We embraced, and he held on to me like he wasn’t sure whether he should let me go.

  “Dinner,” I whispered.

  “Oh, yes, dinner,” he repeated and slid his tongue into my mouth.

  We kissed some more. Hotter and heavier than before, and I wasn’t sure I wanted him to leave. The clock was ticking, but once again, he had stirred something in me and I felt like I needed him to finish what he had started.

  “If you don’t let me go now, I’m gonna take you right here on that couch,” he said. Chandler took my hand and lowered it to his crotch. I opened my hand and grabbed as much of him as I could.

  He felt like steel. And, had the clock not been ticking, I would’ve had him again. But it was already after four. Kevin and the boys would be home by five-thirty.

  “Look at what you do to me.” Chandler chuckled. When I moved back and tugged at the door, he had the most massive wood I’d seen protruding from a man’s pants.

  We laughed as I swung the door open, and suddenly, our laughter stopped and turned to instant shock.

  51

  IVEE

  I looked around the classroom and wanted to gouge my own eyes out. The people who sat in the chairs looked like they belonged behind bars. There were two skinhead-type guys who had tattoos etched into their scalps.

  Another guy had a star similar to the Houston Astros Baseball team logo tattooed near his right eye, and all I could wonder was who in their right mind would give him a job.

  The women in the class looked just as bad. If they didn’t look like masculine she-males, they looked like hookers. And not the high-priced, call girl types either.

  “What’s your name?” an equally rough-looking woman, who sat at the front of the room, asked.

  “Oh, I’m Ivee Henderson.”

  “Okay, gotcha,” she said and marked my name on a list.

  I rolled my eyes and walked toward the back of the room. I thought better of it when I realized there was a little gang action going on back there.

  The moment I realized I wasn’t welcomed in that section, I sat near where I stood. I was not looking forward to being taught anything about alcohol. I knew everything I needed to know. As a matter
of fact, I wished I could have a few shots to help me get through my very first class.

  Moments after I was seated and tried to think better thoughts, the woman who sat at the front of the room began to speak.

  “Hey, everybody, what’s up? I’m Diane Watson. If you did not get stopped and arrested for DWI, did not get arrested for public intoxication, or are not court-mandated to take an alcohol, drug awareness program, this ain’t the class for you. I’ll wait for you to vacate the premises.”

  She waited and looked around the room. When no one moved, she waited a few more beats before she spoke again.

  “Okay, dig that. Now that we all where we supposed to be, why don’t we get down to business? All of us in here, we are adults. I don’t believe in babysitting no damn body. And they damn sure don’t pay me enough to babysit no grown folks. Y’all need to listen real good, so I can tell you how it’s gonna go down. And you betta’ make sure you listen ’cause I ain’t gon’ repeat myself. First off, you ain’t allowed to be late. Ain’t no exceptions to that rule. If you late, you disrupt the rest of us when you come in, and that throws everybody off. I give y’all a five-minute grace period. Not six, not ten. Five minutes, and that’s all. If you not up in here when I start, you will be counted absent, and I will report that to your probation officer, your judge, or whoever it was that thought you needed to be here.”

  She began to pace back and forth in front of the four rows of desks.

  “Secondly, ain’t nobody allowed to sit in the first two rows in this room. I’ll wait for the four of you to get up and move around.”

  Four people got up and scrambled to seats near the back of the room.

  “I don’t like feeling all crowded and stuff. Cool. Third, you can’t miss any session unless you’re in the hospital or dead! Ain’t no exceptions to that rule either.” She spread her right hand and used the other to count down two fingers. “In the hospital.” She pointed to the index finger. “Or dead.” She pointed to the middle finger.

  When she reached the end of her path, she pivoted, and began again. “The only person allowed to miss a class is yours truly.” She pointed at her chest with her thumb. “Now, raise your hand if you don’t understand rule number three!”