I popped the Steel Magnolias videocassette into the VCR and leaned back to watch it for the umpteenth time. It always makes me cry, and I was PMSing so hard that a Hallmark commercial could have sent me over the edge.
I was just at the part where Julia Roberts is going to have her seizure. I clutched the pillow to my chest and held my breath.
Ring, ring, ring.
Don’t the phone always ring at the most inopportune times?
It better not be that damn Nadine again, or I swear I’m going to call the cops.
I snatched up the remote and pressed Pause before I answered.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s Eric.”
“Hey,” I breathed.
“What you doing?”
“Getting ready for a date.”
“Liar.” He laughed.
“What, you think I don’t date?”
“I’m in the neighborhood.”
“And?”
“Thought I might come up and see you.”
“For what?”
“Well, I got a few dollars I wanted to give you to send to Eric at camp.”
“That’s your excuse for coming here? You could have dropped it in the mail, or, better yet, sent the check directly to the camp.”
“C’mon, girl, stop giving me such a hard time,” he said, laughing.
I thought that right about now a warm body was better than a long hard cry, and I said, “Okay, c’mon up.” But I told myself that this was the last time.
Twenty-Six
Sometime before ten o’clock that morning I regained my senses, opened my eyes, and found myself splayed out, buck naked in between the silk sheets of a king-size bed. I blinked, thinking this must be a dream, because Noah wouldn’t let me use his silk sheets on that godforsaken, backbreaking futon of his.
I tried to look to the left, but that only started my head to hurting, so I looked up and was met by my own disheveled reflection in the mirrored ceiling above me.
Where the fuck was I?
Slowly, carefully, I sat up and looked around. There wasn’t much else to the room. A nightstand, empty except for a glass of water. I looked over the edge of the bed and saw that my Kenneth Coles were safe and sound and placed neatly together on the carpeted floor. I turned my head to see that my purse was hanging from the knob of what I assumed was a closet door. And on the chair beside it my pantsuit was draped.
Now my head was pounding and the bright morning light that eased through the floor-to-ceiling windows did all but blind me as I tossed the covers to the side, cautiously threw my legs over the edge of the bed, and stood up.
The room swam, and my stomach turned over for a minute. “C’mon, don’t puke,” I told myself as I tiptoed over to the chair and retrieved my jumpsuit. I then moved back to the bed, sat down, and slipped my shoes on. Up again, I eased my purse from the knob, opened it, and examined the contents.
Everything was there.
I moved to the only other door in the room and pulled it open.
Stepping into a large, open, white-walled space, my feet fell on hardwood floors and the clicking sound of my heels sent an echo as loud as an explosion.
I froze, terrified as I stared at the long sheer white curtains that billowed in the soft summer air flowing through the open windows.
I eased myself up onto the balls of my feet and moved on.
Two large white and blue pinstriped sofas sat in the middle of what was the living area, and an entertainment center covered nearly one half of the wall.
My eyes darted around the room in search of an exit, but I could see nothing but walls, and then my eyes fell on another long hallway.
Holding my breath, I crept forward, as silent as a snake moving through high grass. Halfway down the hall I could see the beginnings of a green and gold granite kitchen counter. The sound of a flushing toilet froze me in my tracks.
There was no way I could cover the distance back to the bedroom in time, so I looked wildly around for a closet to duck into, but there was nothing around but solid white walls.
Shit!
A sound came from behind the kitchen counter, and then I heard a heavy sigh that was distinctly female.
I stood there praying for God to make me invisible.
A woman walked out of the kitchen and into the hallway. Her back was to me, and I held my breath for good measure as I began tiptoeing backwards.
Just as I took my fourth step, Abimbola appeared from a door in the hallway.
He was dressed in green bikini briefs and his body looked as if it were chiseled from stone. “Well, good morning, Chevanese,” he said with a big broad smile.
The woman swung around, her eyes locking with mine. “Oh, yes, good morning, Chevanese,” she said, offering me a sunny smile.
“I’m Cassius,” the woman said, walking toward me with her hand extended. She was beautiful—striking. So good-looking that I forgot not knowing where the hell I was and started mentally processing her look so that I could imitate it sometime in the near future. Well, if these two didn’t kill me.
I cautiously offered my hand.
“Well,” Cassius said as she took my hand in hers, “nice to finally meet you.” She leaned in and kissed me on my left cheek and then my right. She smelled rich. I inhaled deeply. I loved that smell.
“Um, s-same here,” I stuttered.
Abimbola approached and threw his arms around Cassius’s waist. Pulling her into him, he kissed her neck and then looked at me and said, “You were quite ripped last night. You wouldn’t . . . or couldn’t tell me where you lived, so I brought you here.”
My eyes swung from Cassius to Abimbola and then back to Cassius. I must be still sleeping, I thought as I gave my head a vigorous shake.
“Are you okay?” Cassius asked. “Can I get you some black tea, or maybe some coffee?”
“What the fuck is going on here?” I heard myself say.
Cassius made a face, undid Abimbola’s arms from her waist, and strolled into the kitchen. Abimbola turned and watched her walk away before turning back to me again.
“You must have put some shit in my drink,” I said, pointing an accusing finger at him.
He must have, because I was a woman who knew how to hold my liquor.
“Well, no, it’s like I said: you had too much to drink,” he repeated and calmly folded his hands across his massive chest. “And just so you know, you removed your clothes yourself.” He winked. “I was the perfect gentleman.”
I tried to think backwards, but there was nothing.
This was too weird.
I started past him and down the hall. In the kitchen I caught sight of Cassius seated at a glass table, sipping from a mug and flipping through the paper. “It was nice meeting you,” she said as I moved toward a blue door at the end of the hallway.
“Yeah, likewise,” I said sarcastically.
I’d been wrestling with locks for a few seconds when Abimbola moved in behind me and his large hand gently brushed my hand away. “Let me,” he breathed as he expertly maneuvered the locks and then turned the doorknob. The door magically sprang open, and I was about to sprint into the hall when I heard him say, “Please, take this money for a taxi.”
Money?
I slowly turned around to see a hundred-dollar bill clutched in his hand and waving in my face.
“Thanks,” I muttered and snatched it from him before shooting through the hallway door that said EXIT above it in bright red letters.
I took the stairs three at a time until I found myself out on Seventeenth Street. I sucked in air as if I had been holding my breath for hours and willed my heart to stop running a marathon in my chest.
After I caught my breath and the strength in my legs returned, I moved briskly up Seventh Avenue until I hit Thirty-fourth Street, all the while trying to figure out what had just taken place but mostly trying to remember what had happened after my fourth glass of Cristal last night.
I remember coming out of th
e bathroom, having another glass of champagne, and then . . . and then nothing. My mind was a total blank. I smacked myself on the forehead. I am so stupid, I thought as I hustled along. I broke one of my own rules: Never leave your drink unattended.
But I actually hadn’t. I mean, it was a fresh glass.
Yeah, that Negro put something in my drink—one of those date rape drugs.
As the thought of rape entered my head, my feet came to a screeching halt.
Had I been raped? I looked down at my crotch. It didn’t feel like anything had been up in there.
Maybe he brought you home for the woman, an ominous voice whispered in my car.
“Yeah,” I said out loud. “Maybe she just ate me out all night,” I blurted at a passing woman and her boyfriend.
I shook my head and started walking again. No, no. None of that had happened. It’s like he said, I had too much to drink.
But what about the woman? the eerie voice came again.
A sister, a cousin, maybe.
Have you ever seen sisters and brothers behave like that?
Yeah, in that movie Flowers in the Attic.
What the hell did I care who she was? I was alive, safe, and unscarred, and, plus, I had money!
Macy’s loomed in front of me, and after I looked around to make sure that neither Cassius nor Abimbola was following me I ducked into the entryway and into the store.
Shopping always helped me to think, and I had a hundred dollars to spend. I rolled the money in my hand, but it felt strange. I moved to the beam near the escalator to examine the bill. The way things were going it was probably counterfeit. But when I opened up my hand, I realized that it wasn’t just one hundred-dollar bill, but two!
“What the fuck did I do to deserve this?” I said aloud, and the early-morning shoppers eyed me warily and clutched their pocketbooks as they moved past me.
Two hundred dollars? Already I could feel my head clearing.
I jumped on the escalator and yelled: “To the shoe floor, my good man!”
Twenty-Seven
Okay, I think I might have this thing licked! It’s been two weeks and I haven’t had one woman. Of course, I haven’t left my house, and that might have something to do with it.
But now I’m all out of sick days and vacation days and, Lord forgive me, I even used up three bereavement days when I called my superior and told him that my grandmother had died.
Sorry, Grandma!
So today will be my first day back out into the world. I’m confident that between all of the gay porn I’ve watched combined with the hours of phone sex with Zhan (my phone bill is going to be outrageous!) I’ll be back to my old self again.
It was just past nine o’clock and I was sipping some green tea and listening to a morning radio show. I could hear Chevy snoring like a hog in the bedroom above me. I didn’t know what she’d been doing, but working wasn’t it because she’d been hanging out until dawn and sleeping until noon for two weeks.
I couldn’t imagine that she was on vacation, but I had my own demons to deal with so I hadn’t had the time to question her about hers.
Okay, the clock says nine-thirty: time to hit the road. I placed my teacup in the sink, turned off the radio, snatched up my keys, and marched out the front door.
“Good morning, Ms. Anderson,” I sang to my neighbor, who was walking her border collie past my house. She was a small gray-haired white woman who’d never been seen without her fuchsia lipstick, a hideous color on her and something I think that Chevy would simply adore. Even now, at nine-thirty in the morning, her lips were smeared with it even though she was in curlers and a housedress.
“Morning, Noah!” She waved and then smiled to reveal a line of pink across her crooked yellow teeth.
That sight is enough to keep me off “fish” for the rest of my life, I told myself as I bounded up the street toward the train station.
On the subway platform, I was met with wall-to-wall people, indicating that the trains were backed up. What else was new?
Leaning over, I peered down the dark tunnel in search of the train, but the only thing I saw were rats scurrying across the tracks.
I cursed myself for not picking up a newspaper as I began to try to amuse myself by surveying my fellow straphangers.
The neighborhood was changing so quickly: Not more than four years ago you wouldn’t have seen a white face, and now there must have been at least twenty of them. Blond-, brown-, and auburn-haired men in their Wall Street business attire. College-aged white girls in the low-rise jeans and cropped tops, with long flowing hair. The Utica Avenue train station is beginning to look like the 125th Harlem station, I thought to myself.
What black Brooklyn neighborhood would be next? I wondered.
Bushwick was the most likely candidate.
My eyes roamed from face to face. An old black man leaned up against one of the steel beams, looking at his watch and mumbling to himself; a young mother was wagging her finger in the face of her small child; and, to the horror of a middle-aged woman, two teenage boys played a game of who-can-spit-the-farthest-across-the-tracks.
I laughed to myself before peering down the tunnel again. I sighed and thanked the Lord when I saw the dim yellow headlights of an approaching train coming from the previous station. As I stepped back and prepared myself for the mad rush into the car, my back hit soft, supple breasts and my nose was instantly filled with the scent of Krizia perfume, and before I could even turn around I already knew I was in trouble.
“Excuse me,” I said as I swiftly spun around on my heels and came face-to-face with a statuesque brown-skinned woman with locks. She was so beautiful, she was perfection; she was so astonishing that I thought, This is what Venus the goddess of love must look like.
“No problem,” she said, barely looking at me. “Is it coming?”
If you want me to! my Johnson piped up, and I could already feel him beginning to stiffen.
“Um, yeah it is,” I said as I took in her Coca-Cola-bottle shape. Her breasts were standing at attention and, oh, my, are those nipples I see pushing through the thin material of her blouse? I looked closer. Yep, this beauty was braless!
Stop it!
I turned briskly away from her.
C’mon, man, don’t fight it! my penis screamed.
“Shut up!” I hissed at my crotch. The old man leaning on the beam stopped his mumbling and gave me a wary look.
When the train arrived and the door opened I didn’t step in but stepped aside and said, “After you,” to the Goddess Venus, who smiled at me and stepped in. My eyes fell on a behind that was plump and shaped like an apple.
“Goddamn,” I heard myself utter as she walked by me.
We jammed in like sardiness and somehow I ended up behind the Venus, both of our hands clinging to the same pole.
“I’m sorry,” I bent down and whispered in her ear as the train jerked out of the station.
“Sorry for what?” she said, turning sweet eyes on me.
“I’m apologizing early, because I know at some point I might . . . um . . . um . . .” I didn’t know quite how to phrase it.
Was it me, or did her smile just move from sweet to seductive?
She wiggled her index finger, indicating for me to bend in closer, so I did.
“Rub up against me?” she whispered and then let out a little giggle.
My head jerked back in surprise, and I stupidly shook it up and down.
“Don’t worry, I don’t mind,” she said and gave me a wink.
I would have thought that I was still in bed, still asleep and dreaming, if it wasn’t for the broad smile the old man on the other side of the pole was giving me.
My mouth went dry and I backed my pelvis as far away as I could from her apple-shaped ass, but with each station stop, more people piled in, pushing me closer to my end.
When we hit Jay Street Borough Hall, the lights went out. White women clutched their purses tighter to their bodies and someone uttered a
curse word beneath his breath just as Venus pushed her ass back, closing the one-inch space I had managed to keep between us.
The train pulled off and into the tunnel, throwing us into darkness, and Venus used that opportunity as well as the jostling of the train to her advantage and began rubbing her behind against my dick with expert precision.
Oh, the pleasure!
Sweat trickled down my temples and I found my hand grabbing ahold of her waist, pulling her closer to me.
“The next stop for this train will be Chambers Street,” the conductor belted out over the speakers, and a miserable groan went up from the passengers who needed to get off at one of the three stations we were skipping.
But Venus and I, well, we groaned with pleasure! We would have at least three more minutes to ride this erotic wave of bliss.
Just outside Chambers Street, the train came to a sudden halt and Venus and I slowed our feverish humping down to a slow grind that had me seeing stars. I bit down on my lip to keep from hollering out. She had brought me to the point of no return. I felt Johnson jerk and stiffen, and I knew he was going to blow.
Venus must have felt it too, because she grabbed ahold of the hand I had placed on her hip and squeezed.
The train jerked forward and I nearly bit a hole through my lip as I spewed semen all over my brand-spanking-new, just-out-of-the-package Calvin Klein briefs, and Venus, well, she screamed, “Oh fuck!” before letting out a long shuddering breath and then falling limp against me.
There was some giggling, and then a church woman hollered from across the car, “Don’t you be using that type of language in public!”
The lights came on and I swear all eyes were on us.
Venus pulled herself upright again and swiped some damp strands of hair from her face.
When we pulled into the Chambers Street stop, she walked off as if nothing at all had happened between us. She didn’t even turn around and wave goodbye. Nothing.
I knew now what cheap felt like.
I watched her calmly walk up the stairs and disappear before the doors slid closed again, and I was left wondering if I’d dreamed the whole thing.
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