by Carl Weber
I started laughing and covered my mouth.
“C’mon now, don’t hold out on me. I been waitin’ years to share sex stories with you.” RaShanda wiggled her fingers like a loan shark. “Give it up.”
“Some things are too personal.”
“You ain’t no good, Donna. You wrong now. As much as I done told your ass. You know secrets that I was planning to carry to my grave. Gimme the 411.”
Placing her shades back on her eyes, RaShanda pulled out a cigarette, leaned back on the sofa cushion, and crossed her legs. I was silent for the longest time.
“Oh, all right,” I finally said. “What you wanna know?”
“Who is it?”
“I can’t tell you right now.”
“Oh, Lord, don’t tell me it’s that cute little friend of Dante’s. He been sniffing behind your ass for years.”
“No! It’s not Shorty,” I replied quickly.
“Well, do I know him?” I smiled instead of giving her an answer. I think she got the hint so she continued her interrogation. “Well, tell me this. Does he satisfy you?”
I paused for dramatic effect and turned my head away, making her wait for my answer. “I didn’t like it the first couple of times, but after that…Oh my God, it was the bomb! I have three or four orgasms every time. It’s so good we’ve named it.”
We both jumped up in the air and screamed with excitement as we high-fived. “Damn, now that’s what I’m talking about! Sounds like you found a brother with some skills. Assuming he is a brother, now.”
I nodded.
“What’s your favorite position?”
I reluctantly answered her question. “I love it on top.”
“Child, that’s the number one position. You can ride that bad boy and break him like a bronco. Do you let him suck on your titties when you come?”
I shook my head. “RaShanda, you so nasty.”
“Well, ’scuse me, Miss Just-Got-Some. I been telling you about all my conquests since we was damn near kids, and now you want to clam up on me.”
“Okay. Yeah, I do.”
“Do what?” She was something else.
“Like my breasts kissed.”
“Oh, looka here at Miss Proper. Now, when you talkin’ about lovemaking, you got to get funky.” RaShanda stood, popping her fingers, and started dancing and singing, “We gonna have a funky good time.” She stopped singing then high-fived me.
“Yeah. Don’t that shit feel good?”
We screamed in laughter again. “Can you get yours when you’re on the bottom?” she asked.
“Uh-huh. Why?”
“That mean whoever he is, he’s big.”
“How would I know the difference? This is my first and hopefully only man.”
“Yeah, yeah, right.” She was skeptical. “Well, let me tell you something. With those big ones, you getting that wall-to-wall carpeting. Men that are hung—well, especially if they know how to garden with that tool—they really know how to blow the dust off that thang. So, how big is he?” RaShanda held out her hands to show six inches, eight inches, or twelve inches.
I let out an exaggerated sigh. “Dang, don’t you have any shame?”
“Ain’t no shame in my game.”
“I see. Well, that’s for me to know and you to find out, Miss Thang.”
“Oh, you gon’ be dirty like that and not tell Mother everything. Girl, I’m the reason you gettin’ your nuts already. It took me almost a year after my first time before I started reaching a climax. I have told you every good position and how to get to that G-spot and use that clit since we were fourteen.”
I thought about the time when we were fourteen and RaShanda told me to go in the bathroom and use a mirror to look down at my pubic area so I would know where the clitoris was located. “Okay. Granted, you did make it easier for me to figure things out. Thanks. But I’ve come to you with a problem you never told me about.”
“What’s that?”
“What if a man asks you to do something you’re uncomfortable with doing?”
“Like what? Suck his dick? Girl, you better give that man some head.”
“No, I already do that.” I paused. “My friend asked if I would let him have anal sex with me.”
She laughed. Then she laughed harder.
“What’s so funny?”
“Men. That’s what’s so funny.” She continued to laugh and I started laughing right along with her without even knowing the joke. “I ain’t met a man alive that didn’t wanna fuck me in the ass, and that includes your brother.”
I sat back in my chair, shocked. “Dante?”
“Yes, Dante. He ain’t no different than the rest. He’s a little more respectful and he doesn’t kiss and tell, but when it comes down to it, he’s just a man, and they all want the same thing. At first they want some pussy and some head. Then after a while they get bored with that and wanna fuck you in the ass.”
“But why?”
“Because they’re all secretly gay. Ain’t you read that book by J. L. King, On the Down Low?”
“Really? So you think he’s gay?” My eyes widened and my heart started pounding.
“No.” She laughed. “I’m kidding. It’s probably because it’s taboo. He’s probably just trying to see how freaky you are. Shit. I’m surprised he ain’t asked you to have a threesome with another woman.”
“He would never ask me to do that.”
She smirked. “Yeah, right. Whatever you say. I bet you never thought he’d wanna fuck you in the ass.”
I lowered my head. Damn, I hated it when she was right. “So have you ever tried anal?”
She sat back in her chair. “Yeah, but not often.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Oh, it can definitely hurt, but if you’re with the right brother, it can be fun. It’s a feeling you have to get you used to, sort of an acquired taste.”
We stared at each other in silence for a few seconds.
RaShanda finally spoke up. “Now, you know I’m no prude, but this isn’t something you do with everybody. You gotta really love a brother to do that, and I don’t mean puppy love. Do you love him?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“This is the only word of advice I can give you. Don’t do anything you feel uncomfortable about doing. But if you want, I can show you the best way to make it comfortable for you.”
“Okay, but I still don’t know if I’m gonna do it.”
“Just the fact that you thinking ’bout it tells me this must be one special brother.”
I smiled. “He is, and I’m going to marry him someday soon.”
RaShanda smiled. “I bet you are.”
13
Tanisha
At the end of my shift I walked into the back room at work. My friend Natasha, the head bartender who was about to start her shift, was sitting on one of the room’s raggedy couches reading a Jet magazine. I gestured for her to give me a pull of the cigarette she was smoking. She handed it to me, and I took a long drag until my lungs couldn’t hold any more. I wasn’t really a smoker except when I drank, and I usually drank when I worked. So I was in the mood for a cigarette.
“You can have it,” Natasha said without looking up from her copy of Jet.
“Thanks,” I replied, taking another pull.
Natasha put down the magazine and looked up at me. “Where you been, girl? I ain’t seen you in about three, four weeks.”
“I been around. I just been trying to work days so I can watch my little brother at night. My mom is fuckin’ up so bad I’m afraid somebody’s gonna call CPS and they gonna take him away from me. Last night I found her passed out on the staircase of my building. Week before that she was letting dealers use our apartment as a crack house while I was at work.”
“Damn, and here I am thinking you was with that guy from the church you was talking about so much. You know how you bitches get once y’all get a man. Y’all don’t know how to call nobody.”
“You mean Dante? Hmmph. Don’t I wi
sh. I ain’t heard from him in almost a month.” I sighed, wishing she hadn’t brought him up. Not that I could forget him. He’d been on my mind ever since I watched his car pull away from my building four weeks ago.
“Uh-oh, what happened?” She patted the sofa cushion next to her, gesturing for me to sit.
I hesitated. I almost never trusted a woman enough to talk about a man. It had been a very long time since I’d done that, but this was different. This time my feelings were involved. I missed Dante more and more with each day that passed. When I’d get in from work, I would lie in bed and replay the evening of our first date over and over in my head like a broken record, trying to figure out just where I went wrong and how I could fix things. I’d been holding this in for almost a month, and I needed to get it off my chest. I sat next to Natasha on the couch.
“I thought you two straightened everything out that night you went to the church,” she said.
“We did.”
“Aw’ight, so what happened? He find out you was dancing?”
“Nah, it ain’t had nothing to do with that,” I glanced down at the floor, feeling ashamed. “I messed up, that’s what happened, and he ain’t called or come by since.”
I explained the story to Natasha, from dinner at Umberto’s to our time on the beach, from me being on my period to my offer to go down on Dante, from his rejection of my offer to my demand to go home. I also made it very clear that Dante tried his best to make things right when he brought me back to my house, but I wasn’t having it and he ended up leaving mad. The more I explained, the more she shook her head, until finally she spoke.
“You’re wrong,” she told me. “You didn’t mess up. You fucked up. Do you know how many sisters would kill for a man like that? Including me. Girl, you making us good sisters look bad.”
“I know, my mother said the same thing, and she’s a crackhead.”
“Look, if I were you, I’d call him.”
“I can’t call him. I wouldn’t know what to say.”
“Shit, you better make something up. Tell him you’re sorry and you wanna make it up to him. Ask him to dinner.”
“I can’t do that. He’s gonna think I’m sweating him.”
“You are, aren’t you?” Natasha asked.
“No, I’m not.”
“Yeah, you are. I mean shit, Tanisha, you wouldn’t have chased him down in the supermarket or offered to suck his dick on the first date if you weren’t sweating him. Stop putting your pride in front of your heart. If he’s everything you say he is, you need to call him before somebody else does. Brothers like that don’t come around but once in a lifetime.”
The thought of Dante and that Anita woman from the church popped into my mind and a jealous knot developed in my stomach. Generally, I ain’t got no problem blowing a guy off if it doesn’t work out, but this time I just couldn’t do it. Except for the humiliation at the end of the night, my date with Dante was the best one I’d ever been on.
I guess I had brought some of this on myself. It’s just like that old saying about the word assume. I made an ass out of myself assuming he just wanted me for a booty-call or, even worse, a blow job. It had taken a long time, but the truth had finally hit me. Dante did just wanna get to know me before we hit the sheets. I’d never known a brother like him, and now I was too afraid to talk to him to make things right.
Natasha tapped my thigh. “Seriously, do you like him?”
I lifted my head and nodded as I spoke. “More than I’ve ever liked any other man in my life. I can’t stop thinking about him. It’s like he’s invaded my head.”
Natasha sat back. “You should call him.”
“I can’t, Natasha. I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“I’m scared he’s not gonna wanna talk to me. And I can’t deal with that type of rejection because I’ve never felt like this about any other dude.”
She placed her hand over mine. “Well, if that’s the case, then you have to call him.” Natasha reached in her bag and pulled out her cell. “Call him.”
I shook my head and refused.
“I said call him!” She shoved the phone in my face. “If you don’t trust me, you’re gonna regret it the rest of your life.”
“Oh, all right.” I took the phone from her hand and dialed Dante’s number. I had it memorized.
As I listened to his phone ring, a chill ran down my spine. My heart was pounding and my palms were getting sweaty. After four rings, I was about to hang up. I didn’t want to leave a message on his voice mail. Before I could hang up, though, Dante answered.
“Hello.”
My heart skipped a beat at the sound of his voice. I almost hung up I was so nervous, but when I looked up at Natasha, she was pointing her fingers at the phone mouthing Talk to him!
Taking a deep breath, I finally spoke. “Hey, Dante,” I said, my voice quavering. “What’s crackin’?”
14
Dante
I was lying on the bed on top of the covers with all my clothes on. The TV was on but I wasn’t really paying attention. I had other things on my mind because even I couldn’t believe the situation I was in. My cell phone rang, interrupting the thoughts swirling around in my head.
“Hello.”
“Hey, Dante. What’s crackin’?” The voice was quiet and a little tentative but it seemed familiar.
“Who is this?” I asked.
“It’s Tanisha.” A smile crept up on my face and I sat up on the bed. I’d pretty much given up on her, yet she’d been on my mind just five minutes earlier.
“Tanisha,” I repeated, glad she couldn’t see my smile through the phone. “How’ve you been?”
“Fine, I guess…”
“So, what’s poppin’? I didn’t think you was ever gonna call me again.” I was trying to keep my emotions in check.
“I don’t know I just…I just…” She was obviously having a hard time expressing herself. “Dante, I just need to talk to you about how things ended between us. I know you weren’t acting that night. I just got an attitude to hide my embarrassment, and—”
I cut her off. “Look, I can’t talk right now. I’m a little busy, but you don’t have to apologize. I understand. We’re cool.”
“Are we cool enough to start all over again? I really like you, Dante, and I’d like to make it up to you. Maybe I can take you to dinner. This time the treat’s on me. I really wanna start over.”
“I’d like that,” I told her, and I think we both relaxed. “Just let me know where and when.”
“I don’t know yet. How about later tonight?”
“Give me a call in about half an hour. I just have to break a date with someone.”
“I’ll call you in an hour.” She sounded as happy as I felt.
“I’ll be looking forward to it.” I closed my phone and looked up. I was surprised to see Anita standing in the threshold of the bathroom. We were at a local motel we had visited many times before she got married. I had promised myself when she came back to New York that she was out of my system and I wasn’t going to mess with her, but here I was. After things fell apart with Tanisha, I had moped around for quite a while, and I think Anita sensed I was vulnerable. She caught me in my office at a weak moment and did everything she could to remind me of the skills she possessed. It didn’t take much for me to give in, and before long we were in the Jet Motel just like old times.
Anita was more than ready for action. She even had a bag in her trunk full of lingerie, wineglasses, and other supplies she thought she might need for our little reunion. I didn’t want to know how long she’d been carrying that bag around, but obviously she had been pretty confident from the start that eventually she would win me over. As cliché as it sounds, she had gone into the bathroom to slip into something a little more comfortable. That was when I lay on the bed slowly coming to my senses. She might have charmed me with promises of reliving the explosive sex we had shared in the past, but now I realized that couldn’t happen.
Back then I had loved this woman deeply, and that was part of what had made our sex so great. Now she had broken my heart and married another man. Things could never be what they were, especially since I had these feelings for Tanisha.
Before my phone rang, my big head was struggling with my little one. My body wanted to stay and get some action, but my heart knew I would only regret it later. Tanisha’s phone call had made it much easier for me to come to a decision. Now I had to deal with telling Anita, who was in the bathroom doorway dressed in white stilettos and a sheer pink negligee, that I was leaving. From the look on her face, though, it was obvious she had heard my conversation and already knew what was up.
“Who was that?” she asked angrily as she walked out of the bathroom.
“A friend.” I tried to sound casual.
“Male or female?”
“I don’t think that’s any of your business.” I was now sitting on the edge of the bed searching for my shoes. Anita bent down and grabbed them before I could reach them. That’s when I realized I’d made a bigger mistake than I thought.
“You going somewhere?” she taunted as she waved the shoes at me.
“I can’t do this, Anita. I thought I could, but I can’t.”
“Why? Who was that on the phone? Don’t tell me it was that hootchie who showed up at the church. I thought you said you were done with her.”
“I was mistaken,” I said tersely. I tried to remain calm as I approached her. “Now, can I have my shoes?”
“You’re not getting anything until I get what I want.” She gave me a wicked grin. “Take off your clothes.” I could see fire in her eyes.
“Look, Anita, I’m sorry, but I can’t do this.”
“I don’t wanna hear it, Dante.” She pushed me backward. “I said take off your clothes!”
I was taken aback by her demand. I knew she was aggressive, but this was a side of Anita I was just learning about. “I’m not taking off my clothes. Now gimme my shoes.” I sat up, reaching for my shoes.
“You want your shoes, you ungrateful son of a bitch? Well, take them!” She threw one of my shoes at me and it hit me in the side of the head. I felt a knot developing instantly.
