Welcome Back, My Love

by Niobia Bryant

  He’s home!

  Quickly she turned the car onto the dirt packed drive and parked beside his truck. She was trembling with relief and some apprehension as she rushed from her car and up the steps. She paused, not sure whether to use her key or knock.

  She chose the latter.

  Knock-knock-knock-knock.

  Her heart pounded so hard and fast that she was amazed she didn’t faint.

  Footsteps echoed from within.

  Releasing a breath through pursed lips she ran a shaky hand through her hair at the moment just before the thin metal door opened and Armstrong filled the doorway.

  “Mann-Mann,” she said, stepping forward to press her body against his and to wrap her arms around his neck as she kissed his cheek. “I've missed you so much.”

  Her happiness shifted to dismay as he pressed strong hands to her waist not to hug her close but to push her body away from his.

  Feeling rejected she held her hands up and stepped back from him. Her face now cold. “So now I can’t touch you?” she asked, unable to hide her pain and rising anger.

  Armstrong’s face was confused. “I’m sorry but who are you?” he asked, looking at her without a bit of recognition.

  ∞

  The feel of the woman’s soft lips and her body locked against his sparked an instant awareness. Goosebumps raced across his body and his heart pounded as a desire to hold her closer felt like second nature to him.

  Still, lost inside his own mind and trying to reconnect the dots left him needing clarity. He felt the chill of both her demeanor and the space he put between them. An urge to comfort her filled him and confused him further.

  “What do you mean who am I?” she asked, her eyes studying him.

  He stepped back and pulled the door wide. “Come in,” he said.

  She did, reaching the center of the small living room to turn and face him.

  Armstrong closed the door, taking in her beauty in the black jumpsuit she wore. Her eyes drew him in and he couldn’t explain the innate desire he had to take away the pain clearly etched in her pretty face. He walked further into the room. “For the last month, I’ve been in a hospital in Greenville—”

  “What?” she said, her face filled with horror as she reached for him but then withdrew her touch before it landed. It was clear that at that moment she was almost as unsure and confused as he. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  Her obvious concern comforted him.

  “No,” he admitted. “I can’t remember anything about my life. Nothing. Not my name. Not this house. Not you. The doctors say I have amnesia.”

  Emotions raced across her face. Several times she opened her mouth as if to speak but the words never came.

  Who is she?

  A sister?

  He hoped not with the way his body responded to her.

  She did reach him then, taking one of his hands in both of hers. “Mann-Mann,” she began.

  He frowned. “Mann-Mann?” he repeated.

  “It’s my nickname for you,” she explained, stroking his hand with her thumb.

  “Who are you to me?” Armstrong asked.

  “It’s me, Meena,” she stressed, her eyes imploring him to remember. “We’ve been in love for the past three years.”

  Wow.

  “You’re my lady?” he asked, struggling to make it all make sense.

  Meena nodded, releasing his hand to press a palm against his cheek. “Since the day you stopped me at a red light to get my number,” she said, her eyes sad. “Remember?”

  He shook his head, denying her. “I’m sorry,” he told her, truly meaning it.

  Meena dropped her hands to her side and took a step back. “After three years, now I’m just a stranger to you?” she asked, turning away from him.

  His eyes dipped to take in the sight of her from behind, including her plump buttocks perfectly framed but by the close cut of her pants. He forced himself to look away.

  Meena began to pace with one hand on her hip and the other massaging her forehead.

  He crossed his arms over his chest and watched her, finding her movement amusing. “Is this normal?” he asked.

  She glanced over at him. “It helps me think and process...and...and deal.”

  “Maybe I need to pace,” he said, sitting down on the leather loveseat. “I have a lot to think, process, and deal with.”

  Meena paced some more. “I have so many questions and you don’t have any answers,” she said.

  “The doctors said my memory may come back.”

  “And then you can tell me why in the world you were in Greenville,” she said, stopping mid-pace to look over at him.

  “So you don’t know?” he asked.

  Meena shook her head.

  They fell silent as their eyes locked.

  His heart hammered and his body felt more alive than ever from just her gaze on him.

  My brain doesn’t remember her, but my body damn sure does.

  Armstrong set his elbows on his knees and covered his face with his hands. He hated feeling so out of his element.

  All of his senses were suddenly heightened and he knew before he lowered his hands that this woman—this stranger—was close.

  He was right.

  Meena stood before him and he tilted his head back to look up at her. “I wish I remembered you,” he said truthfully.

  Meena knelt between his open legs. “Let me help you to remember?” she asked, her face now level with his and her words breezing against his mouth.

  Armstrong’s body went still and he kept his hands pressed to his knees as she gripped his shoulders and leaned in to kiss him. And when she stroked his bottom lip with her tongue he shivered as if cold but there was no truth to that because her kisses infused him with pure heat.

  “Mann-Mann,” she whispered against his lips, slanting her head to the left and then the right as she kissed him a dozen more times. “Remember me. Remember this.”

  He felt heady and had to grip his knees, digging his fingers in deep to keep from reaching for her. Holding her. Having her.

  “I don’t remember,” he admitted.

  Meena sat back on her haunches. Her eyes were dazed and her mouth plump from their kissing.

  She looked amazing.

  “You used to love to kiss me,” Meena said.

  “I still do,” he confessed, covering his crotch with both his hands to hide his throbbing erection.

  Her eyes darted down and her beautiful mouth formed into an “O” in awareness before she slowly arched one brow in a decidedly cocky manner.

  Armstrong jumped to his feet, his erection mistakenly swiping against her cheek. “Shit. Sorry,” he said, moving over to the front door.

  “You want me to go?” she asked, rising to her full height.

  “Yes before things go any further,” he said. “To make love to you feels like taking advantage of you because I honestly don’t know you right now.”

  “Mann-Mann—”

  “Please,” he stressed. “I don’t have but so much fight in me.”

  Meena picked up a pen and magazine on the coffee table and quickly scribbled on it. “My number,” she said. “I’ll go but I will be back. I’m not letting you get away from me again.”

  With one last playful tug of his beard, Meena exited and left him even more anxious about his condition than ever.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Two weeks later

  The stars and the moonlight were crisp and bright against the inky night sky. The weather ideal. A perfect night. Not even the hard ridges of the bed of the rusted red truck against his back and buttocks could ruin it. He arched his back and clenched his buttocks as he looked up at the soft and beautiful body of the woman sitting astride him. Her skin was smooth to his touch. Her breath sweet as she released a soft gasp of pleasure at the feel of him inside her. The feel of her hands against his chest gave him shivers and the kisses she bent down low to press to his mouth gave him renewed energy.


  And in an instant, she began to fade, her form disappearing before his eyes before he could make out her face and commit it to his memory. “No, don’t go,” he begged. “Please don’t go.”

  “Please...

  Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

  Armstrong flopped over in bed and reached on the nightstand for his new cell phone. There hadn’t been one with his belongings from the motel. Yet another mystery to be solved on just what happened to him.

  “Hello,” he said into the phone.

  “Did I wake you?”

  Zora.

  He smiled as he sat his naked body up on the side of the bed in the darkness. “I needed to get up anyway,” he admitted, tucking the phone between his ear and shoulder as he stretched his arms high above his head. “I took a nap after work and it went a little longer than I thought it would.”

  Zora chuckled. “Well, I’m just glad things are getting back to normal for you,” she said.

  “If you can call it that.”

  Once news of his return reached the residents of the small town of Holtsville he had many folks come to visit him. Friends. Co-workers. Even his former employers, Devon and Deshawn Jamison, and their wives had come bringing a basket of cooked foods, some funds to tide him over, and an offer to reclaim his former position.

  Armstrong had accepted all three kind acts of their generosity.

  “I can’t remember my name but I’m still good at construction,” he said. “And I'm well liked. People really seem to care about me and tell me stories about me being fun and nice to everybody. No family though. I asked and they said my Mom died, my dad was a no-show and I’m an only kid,” he explained to his new friend. “I just wish I knew why I was in Greenville in the first place when I have a life here.”

  “Is anything coming back to you? Any memories?” she asked.

  Armstrong thought of the dream that came to him almost nightly but refrained from sharing that with her. “No,” he replied.

  Please don’t go.

  “I was thinking I might drive down to Holtsville Saturday and check on you,” she said her voice hesitant.

  He smiled and scratched his beard. “It would be nice to see a familiar face,” he said. “Everyone is cool but I don’t know these people.”

  “You don’t really know me either,” she offered.

  “Yeah but right now I feel more comfortable around you than them,” he admitted, sitting the photo back down on the table.

  “I’ll book a hotel room to stay the night and head back home early Sunday morning to make it to church,” she said.

  “The closest ones are in Walterboro but it’s just a fifteen-minute drive,” he said.

  He frowned wondering where in his brain that piece of info had emerged. Am I finally remembering?

  “Armstrong?”

  He looked at the framed photo of him with his mother. It had been in his duffel bag from the motel. He had placed it on the nightstand by his bed, feeling like that’s where it belonged.

  “Armstrong?” she repeated.

  Closing his eyes, he shook his head a little. “Uh, yeah?”

  “I said I’ll call you on Saturday morning when I leave out,” she said.

  “Okay, Zora...and thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  He ended the call and picked up the photo, longing for the day he would feel a connection to the pretty woman. He was no more than ten and it was clear there was so much love between them. So many stories and moments shared.

  All of them lost to him.

  “Damn,” he swore.

  With a heavy breath, he looked around the bedroom and took in the silence of his life. No food on the stove being cooked by a loving wife. No laughter and thunderous footsteps from children running through the house. No comfort of a mother and siblings.

  He felt alone and lonely.

  “Shit.”

  He turned over the phone still in his hand. Meena. He wanted to call her. Hear her voice. Laugh at something funny she said. Be amazed by her quick wit and smarts. Ask her questions.

  But he didn’t.

  The look of disappointment and hurt in her eyes at his amnesia was more than he could handle.

  He tossed the phone onto the bed beside him.

  Knock-knock-knock-knock.

  He looked out his bedroom to the front door, rising to his feet. He grabbed pajama bottoms and put them on to cover his nudity before he padded barefoot to the door.

  “Who?” he asked, his voice deep and loud.

  “Meena.”

  His heart thundered and his grip on the doorknob tightened.

  “I could just use my key,” she said through the door.

  Armstrong actually chuckled. The woman had so much spunk and he liked that. With a steadying breath, he opened the door. And again the very sight of her took his breath away.

  Meena wore her dark hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail that highlighted her bright eyes and high cheekbones. The gloss on her mouth seemed to plump up her lips. The coral strapless dress she wore was meant to tempt and tease.

  She succeeded.

  Parts of his body stirred in reaction to her.

  “You asked for time and I gave you that,” she said, breezing past him and filling his nostrils with the sweet scent of strawberries.

  He inhaled more of it as he closed the door. Naughtily he wondered if that scent was everywhere on her body. “I appreciate that time,” he said, sliding his hands into the pocket of his sleep pants.

  “I thought maybe we could talk,” she said. “Catch up. Try to help you jog your memory.”

  His eyes dipped down to the back and forth motion of her buttocks in the maxi dress. Her flesh moved so freely that he knew she wore no panties or just a thong. The thought of both brought his member to life and an erection was the last thing he needed at that moment. He sat down on the loveseat. “Why was I in Greenville?” he asked, needing a diversion and answers to questions that wouldn’t fade with time.

  Meena’s eyes shifted from his. “You’ve asked me that before and I still don’t have an answer for you,” she said. “I’m just glad you’re back.”

  “I’ve gone back to work and friends I don’t remember said I just up and quit one day with no explanation,” he said, looking at her. “What did I tell you?”

  She came over to sit on the loveseat beside him. “I honestly don’t know why you were in Greenville. I can only hope it wasn’t another woman,” she said.

  “I was staying in a motel and I checked in alone so I don’t think it was that,” he said, wanting to reassure her.

  “But you can’t say for sure. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “Where did you think I was all this time?” he asked, looking at her with his eyes filled with his doubts.

  “I thought you just ghosted me. Just left and was done. For the last month I just thought it was over,” she said.

  “Did I ever cheat on you or just disappear on you?”

  Meena shook her head. “No. Never,” she said emphatically. “We were good. In love. Happy. Inseparable.”

  A tear raced down her cheek.

  She loves me...or whomever she knew me to be.

  Pain shot across his chest at that and he reached up to catch the teardrop with his finger before it fell from the edge of her face.

  She offered him a thankful smile. “I wish I knew then what I know now because I never imagined it would be so hard living without you,” she said, looking over at him with her eyes wet with more tears.

  Armstrong reached for her hand and entwined their fingers, following a gut instinct to shelter her. “Everyone says I loved you,” he confessed, wishing the emotions and the memories attached to it were still there.

  She looked down at their hands as she caressed his thumb with her own. “You made every holiday and birthday so dope,” she said, her eyes twinkling at the recollections of their past.

  He wanted to share in that with her. “Tell me about us.”

  M
eena looked surprised. “Really?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “Okay,” she agreed, starting on a hot day in 2013 when he stopped her at a red light to ask for her phone number.

  ∞

  The hours faded away like nothing.

  Meena told Armstrong anything and everything about their love, except for the demise. Her regret over her decision not to marry him was so deep and piercing that she wished she could forget it.

  “And I really let you call me Mann-Mann?” he asked, coming out of the kitchen carrying two cans of soda.

  Meena eyed him. Wanting him. He was a handsome face with a muscular build. It didn’t help that his plaid sleep pants were slung low on his hips and failed at hiding the imprint of his long member within its folds.

  “Most of all I miss how good we were...together,” she said, biting her bottom lip as she followed the trail of soft hair on his chest dwindling to a thin line between the hard grooves of his rigid abdomen.

  He stood before her, handing her one of the sodas.

  She ignored it and stood up before him, pressing a soft kiss to the hard space between his square biceps. He shivered and she felt it. The thin metal of the cans cried out as his grip tightened around them. “Trust me, the way we made love was unforgettable,” she promised him, shifting her head to the left to lick at one of his taunt brown nipples.

  “Meena,” he moaned.

  His fight against his desire was clear...but so was his weakening resolve.

  “I haven’t seen or kissed or made love to you in six weeks,” she urged, reaching down between them to take his hardening inches snugly in her hand.

  The crunch of the cans echoed along with his hiss of pleasure as the overflowing soda wet their feet. Meena brought one hand up to stroke his back, loving the feel of the goosebumps that raced across his brown skin at her touch. She tilted her head to the side as she gripped the rim of his pants before jerking them down beyond his soft buttocks and around his strong muscular thighs.

  He closed his eyes as he leaned his head back until his Adam’s apple pressed against his neck.

  Looking down, she freed his dick over the elastic rim. She loved the look and feel of the thick hard inches with its smooth skin darker than the rest of his body.

  “Shit,” Armstrong swore, carelessly dropping the cans to the floors.