After The Dance

by Lori D. Johnson

  HIM

  I knew at a glance the window of opportunity Faye had so begrudgingly granted me was a small one with a worn sash and a faulty jamb. Even with my talent for laying on the butter thick, and in all the right places, I understood at any given moment the whole thing could come crashing down on me like a double-edged guillotine. But I figured what the hell, it was worth the pain if only to get another glimpse of ol’ girl’s ever-elusive “soft and gentle side.”

  So while she sat there pretending to be engaged by the news of the day, I went ahead and stuck my neck out. I nudged her and said, “You sure everything was all right last night?”

  She rustled the paper before clearing her throat and saying, “That’s the second time you’ve asked. Might you be just a tad insecure about your abilities, or lack thereof?”

  There’d been a twinge of amusement in her voice, but I told her in all seriousness, “If you ever meet a man who tells you he’s not—he’s a liar.”

  She cut her eyes at me and said, “Like I told you last night, Carl, everything was fine.”

  I let her take a couple swigs of the coffee before I eased up on her with a “Well, don’t you want to know how it was for me?”

  The entire right side of her face drew up like a fist and a big ol’ vein in her neck popped out and started pulsating. Still, rather than confront me head-on, she kept her gaze fixed in front of her as she issued me a right frigid “No, not if you’re getting ready to tell me you didn’t get yours.”

  I said, “Is that all there is to it for you—getting yours?”

  She slapped the paper shut and said, “Basically, yes. And let me clue you in on another little secret—had I known there’d be a ‘morning-after critique’ I wouldn’t have opted to stick around.”

  When she jumped up I grabbed her hand and said, “Faye, don’t be like that. I’m glad you stayed. That was the best part of the night for me.”

  She got loud behind that. “And what was so unsatisfactory about the rest?”

  I’ll be dog if I was just gonna come right out and tell her that for all it was worth, I might as well have kicked it with a porno and a doggone party doll. So I niced it up. I told her, “Faye, in a lot of ways you were everything I could have hoped for—soft, warm, eager …”

  “But?” she said in a way that let me know she wasn’t ’bout to take too much more of my beating ’round her bush.

  So I said, “But it’s just some things I think are meant to be both savored and shared, like good books, fine wines, sunsets in autumn … sex. I just think last night could have been better for both of us if things hadn’t been so … rushed.”

  After speaking my piece I waited a couple seconds for her to fly into a fit. When she didn’t, I squeezed her hand and asked, “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

  She stared at me like I was a two-headed alien with a double set of nostrils and a big green booger hanging outta each. Then she plopped down next to me and said, “What you want me to say, Carl? I’m sorry it was so awful for you, all right?”

  I was like, “Awful?! Who said anything about it being awful?”

  “Well, maybe you need to go ahead and break it down for me,” she said, “because besides a moment or two of pleasure, I’m not exactly sure what it is you’re looking to get out of this relationship.”

  I said, “Faye, I know this thing between us isn’t supposed to last more than a minute. And I don’t have any qualms with that. I just think the interaction between us could be a hell of a lot more intense and mutually gratifying than it has been. Write it off as me being vain, if you like, but all I’m saying is, years from now when you look back on this experience, I want you to smile and I want your pleasure to have my name written on it.”

  She made a gagging noise and said, “Not only is that vain, it’s asinine, it’s insane, it’s … it’s …”

  “Pretty damn scary,” I filled in for her, knowing full well the truth was something she was hardly ready to admit, much less hear aloud. But I threw it out there anyway. “It frightens you, doesn’t it? Just the mere possibility that I might be capable of taking you someplace you’ve never been before.”

  She blinked a couple times and said, “You know something? I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, I know you don’t,” I told her. “But you could if you wanted to. The thing is you have to want to, Faye. Now, when and if you ever decide you do, I’ll be more than happy to school you.”

  She said, “Yeah, well, that’s terribly generous of you, but like I told you, right now I’ve got a few other things of a more spiritual nature to be tending to.”

  “And like I told you,” I said, lowering my voice to just above a whisper and riding my mack for all it was worth, “hospitality aside, I’m not out to keep you anyplace you don’t want to be.”

  Then she was like, “Besides, what makes you think you even have what it takes to school me?”

  Man, as much yak as this girl was slinging, you’da thought her tail would have been halfway out the door already. But she’d barely budged. That was my tip-off. That’s when I realized that something about my game intrigued her, and the task left to me was coming up with the right combination of words and deeds that would draw her into the full swing of things.

  HER

  In all the years I’ve been kicking it, no man has ever indicated that my stuff wasn’t up to snuff. So, heck yeah, I took offense at Carl’s suggestion that I might need some tutoring in the sexual-arts arena. What made him think he was all that in the sack or, moreover, owned the proper skills necessary to bring me up to par?

  Keep in mind that all throughout the course of our conversation, Carl was cutting up and nibbling on bits and pieces of fruit. He was right in the middle of slicing into one of the large strawberries when I asked him to come with some proof that he could walk it like he talked it.

  When he lifted his hand and extended his arm toward me, my first thought was, Please, what does he think this is? One of those freaking B-movies he rents every Friday night? I know he is not fixing to try and feed my behind.

  But as it turned out, it wasn’t my mouth the brother wanted just yet. Uh-uh, his first target was, of all places, my left earlobe. And like a newborn whose instinct it is to turn his or her head toward the source when touched on the cheek, my initial reflex when I felt the hairs on the back of Carl’s hand brush against the side of my face was to close my eyes and lean into the sensation.

  It was a momentary lapse. Three seconds if that. But as any player worth his or her pepper knows, one slip, however slight, is all it takes to ruin a cover. And on spying the crack he’d so skillfully coaxed into creation, Carl didn’t waste any time in trying to see just how much wider he could pry it.

  He pressed the wet fruit to my flesh and a cool shock wave of pleasure flooded my system and swept open durn near every closed pore in my body. He bent his head toward mine and whispered, “I’m pretty sure I could show you better than I could tell you. But since you don’t have the time and I’m not into crash courses, I guess we’ll just have to save our lesson for later.”

  Girl, I had my lips fixed to tell the brother where and exactly how he could get off without me, when all of a sudden I felt the caterpillar-like creep of his mustache and the warmth of his tongue picking up where the cool wetness of the strawberry left off. Honey, in all of one smooth suck, that man had drawn my earlobe into his mouth and my “you’d better go on somewhere” response back into the far recesses of my throat, where it near ’bout choked me.

  And you’d best believe, in those few seconds I gained a greater appreciation for what sister Eve must have wrestled with that day in the garden when she ran upon Mister Snake and got gamed into taking a bite out that durn apple. Like, girlfriend, I knew the deal, but at that point I was too far gone to wanna do right.

  When I finally stopped gurgling and regained my voice, instead of yelling for Carl to stop, about all I found the strength to mutter was, “I k
now what you’re doing, Carl. You’re trying to make me lose my religion, aren’t you?”

  “To the contrary,” he said before easing open the top of the robe I’d borrowed and, with fruit in hand, commenced a slow downward zigzag to the fleshiest portion of my shoulder. On finding a spot he liked, he stopped and drew a series of strawberry-scented circles, one inside the other, while winding up his explanation.

  “I’m a God-fearing man. And after all the shouting is done, rest assured, I’m going to be the first to proclaim that to Him goes all the glory.” And with that bit of blasphemy, the brother proceeded to plant his mouth on the fruit-drawn target and swirl his tongue in the bull’s-eye.

  It was all good, girl, and I’d be lying if I sat up here and said otherwise. But I must confess to getting just a little nervous when the brother started untying the robe. Bouncing around in the dark with him was one thing, but being butt-ass naked with him in the light of day was quite another.

  I pushed away his hands, but instead of getting riled like I thought he might, Carl said, “It’s okay. Just lay back and relax.” Then he kissed me, a long lingering one on the lips this time, and in the process reached for the belt again.

  But still, I wasn’t ready to give it up just yet. I told him, “You know if we do this, you’ll only have one strike left.”

  He leaned across me, pressed a button on the tape player situated on the nightstand closest to us, and said, “Here, maybe this will help.”

  Girl, when Barry White’s “Playing Your Game, Baby” came oozing out the speakers, it took every ounce of restraint in me not to holler. Carl, with his crazy self, jumped up and started doing a slow dance/striptease around the room. He said, “You like that, don’t you? Uh-huh, I knew you would.”

  “You’re a nut” is all I could say when he crawled into the bed with me and reached for the robe’s ties again.

  I held my breath as he peeled back the terry cloth and, with his eyes still focused on my face, cruised his fingertips over my lower forty-eight, like a man who knew where he aimed to go and wasn’t in any particular hurry to get there.

  “It’s show-and-tell time,” he said, his voice seemingly caught up somewhere in that crowded space between mumble and moan.

  I told him I got the “show” part, “But what exactly is it I’m supposed to be telling you?” I asked.

  He got another strawberry, bit into it, and smiled. And, girl, before I could summon forth so much as the warm blush of a single self-conscious thought, this man was squeezing droplets of juice in and around my navel.

  “Why not start with what I need to know” is what I think I heard him say. His tongue-twirling chase of the strawberry rivulets sliding across my skin had me more than just a little distracted, if you know what I mean. But if memory serves me right, the brother’s rap went something like, “You’ve got to talk to me, baby. Tell me what I need to know. If it’s too fast, I’ll slow it down. If it’s too hard, I’ll make it soft. The only way I’m gonna know is if you tell me. The only way you’re gonna know I can is if you let me.”

  So … I let him, as much as I could. And … he did what he said he would, girl. The man showed me something. And there are no words to describe just how truly … truly wonderful, it really, really was.

  HIM

  I could tell Faye wasn’t used to giving instructions. But in order for me to do right by ol’ girl, I had to get her to tell me what she liked where. Wasn’t it Johnny Taylor who said you gotta give a woman “what she wants, when she wants it, how she wants it, every single time she needs it”? Well, essentially that’s the thrust of my whole program.

  A few minutes of exposure is all I was asking and a willingness to hang back and let me take the lead some. But like a lot of women who’ve been hurt, Faye thinks if a man finds out where and how she’s vulnerable, he’s gonna make it his primary goal and official business to somehow use that information against her. I’m not that guy. She ought to know that by now. Why would I want to hurt her? There’s nothing of value for me to gain by bringing her pain. But pleasure, hey, now that’s another story altogether. These young dogs out here can say what they want, but any true player for real knows it’s all about the “feel good”—his, as well as his woman’s.

  My sole aim that morning with the whole strawberry escapade thing was to show Faye that my desire for her was earnest-felt and that I could please her if she’d let me. I’m saying, man, I went so far as to suck the girl’s toes and kiss the bottoms of her feet. After I’d popped what was left of the spent berry into my mouth, I diced us up a fresh one and invited ol’ girl to take a stab at doing for me what I’d just done for her.

  I pointed out a nice place on my neck for her to start, trusting that her sense of give and take would keep her from opting to just walk off and leave a brother hanging. Her first few attempts were kinda shy and awkward, but I kept encouraging her and it wasn’t long before ol’ girl was giving it as good as she’d gotten.

  The grand finale seemed well within reach. But no sooner had I positioned my body above hers did I see this look on her face that told me she was about to be sick. I hovered over her for a moment, waiting to see if she was fixing to start throwing up, having heart palpitations or somethin’. Man, the last thing in the world I wanted was chick freakin’ out on me.

  So I told her, “If you’re not ready to do this, then we won’t.”

  For a second I could have sworn she was about to tell me to get up offa her, but then her eyes softened, and I felt her hands, one on my hip and the other you know where. She pulled me toward her, and in the process of leading me in she whispered, “Oh, I’m ready. You’d just better make this worth my while.”

  Now, a lesser man might have shriveled up in the face of such an ominous and potentially threatening task. Not me. You’d better believe if I hadn’t thought myself up for the challenge, I wouldn’t have put myself in that position, especially in light of my previous bit of floundering. But really, at that point, man, it wasn’t about the sex or even me liking the mean ol’ gal. At that point, it was more about my need to prove myself capable of giving her something … something beyond the simple mechanics of a good time.

  I knew I’d done something right when she arched her back and said, “Oooh, Carl!” rolling the r and wrapping the l around her tongue, like a young Eartha Kitt.

  And when we were through and she was lying there with her face buried in my chest, her body still twitching and jerking from the series of aftershocks that generally come in the wake of a job well done, I got the distinct impression that I’d taken her someplace she hadn’t visited in quite some time.

  HER

  Sure, I felt guilty afterward. Incredibly so. It was a Sunday morning, after all, and there I was laid up next to Carl, butt-ass naked and bathed in the soft-scented blend of strawberries and sex circulating beneath the sheets. But it had been years since my body had been treated with that kind of reverence and affection, you know, the kind brothers generally reserve for the care, handling, and maintenance of a new car. And no woman with any sense of decency just up and walks away from that kind of tenderness. It’s funny, but I almost felt like I owed him something.

  I got up shortly after 12:30 and washed up again. Another hot cup of coffee awaited me on my exit from the bathroom. Only this time when I went to pick it up, I couldn’t help but smile at the little something extra I saw sitting on the saucer. I glanced over at Carl, who was still lying undressed beneath the sheets, and told him, “Enough with the strawberries already.”

  He said, “Aww, girl, you know you loved it.” And he was right. I had. But I wasn’t about to let him know that.

  I’d plopped down near the end of the bed and was lo-tioning my legs when he started poking me with his foot. At first I ignored him, but my lack of response only seemed to make him even more determined to coax a rise out of me. He eased his foot out from under the covers, pressed it against me, and started wiggling his toes all up on my behind.

  I tur
ned around, looked at him, looked at his big crusty claw of a foot, and politely asked if a nail clipper was something he’d ever owned.

  He poked me again, but this time instead of letting him get away with it, I grabbed hold of his big clodhopper, wrestled it into submission, and with homeboy screaming and laughing like a woman, I tweaked his toes, pinched his heels, and raked my nails up and down his instep. Just as I was about to grab the other one, he caught my hands and, looking all serious said, “Careful now, that’s the foot you made me slam into the curb last weekend.”

  I was like, “Oh, so I made you do that?”

  He said, “Don’t play dumb. You know what I mean.”

  I reached for the foot again and told him to relax, I’d play nice.

  He looked skeptical when I reached into my purse and pulled out my oversize nail clippers. But as soon as I started massaging lotion into the dry, cracked skin on his feet, he stretched out on his back, like some big, shaggy overfed house dog who was only too happy to entertain a little petting and grooming.

  I lotioned, massaged, and trimmed the nails of first one foot and then the other. A few minutes went by with neither of us saying anything. The peace and quiet suited me just fine. But being that I was with Carl, I knew it wasn’t likely to last. Sure enough, after about five minutes he raised up on his elbows and said, “I’ve got to go pick up my son around two and take him to get some shoes. Why don’t you come with me?”

  “What?” I said. “And end up in the middle of some baby’s mama drama? Ah, thanks, but no thanks.” I let go of his foot and started collecting my things.

  He reached out and took me by the hand. “Don’t worry about Clarice. The only somebody she’s got beef with is me. She’s not going to give you any problems. Besides, since it was you who so kindly suggested that I keep him a change of clothes around here, I thought maybe you’d like to come along and help me pick something out at the mall.”