Always (11 page)

Nineteen-eighty-three. I guess you could say that was the year I started my drive toward being elected president in earnest. Let me back up a little. When I was at FAMU, I ruptured a vertebra during the last game of the football season. They tried rehab, but nothing really worked. So it was a bittersweet time in my life. Yes, I was upset because now I had to get assistance from my parents and work to stay in school, but it was sweet in a way. Because of my size, when people looked at me they would always say, “Damn, I know you play football somewhere.” It was a way to say, “Yeah, I did, but, man, my back went out.” Don't misunderstand me. I loved the sport. But I knew what my goals were, and even if I had had the opportunity to play pro football, looking back, I would have turned it down and parlayed the attention I would have gained from doing that into a congressional seat.

Know why I love politics? In many respects it is the ultimate sport society has to offer. First you come up through the Minor Leagues (local politics, etc.), then you graduate to the Big Leagues (national politics) and then there's a playoff, (primaries) until you reach the Superbowl (presidential election). Along the way we keep score (polls) and there's bloodshed (scandal) and if you win you're the champion (in office) until the next season.

I met Yvette Leslie Shaw at my job while in college and she was only in town forty-eight hours. Since she lived in California, I knew my work was cut out for me, so I asked her if I could take her out to dinner and a movie. She told me she didn't want to leave her friend alone, but when she
went back in the hotel room I got the impression by looking at them through the open curtains that she wanted her friend to come along for security.

I forget what movie we went to see, but I do remember her friend Veronica. I'd noticed both of them a couple of days before I built up the courage to make a move on Leslie, but actually it was Veronica who caught my eye at first. But then I crossed her off my list when I noticed that she would only try to get the attention of white guys or very fair-skinned brothers.

So while we were at the movies, I gave Leslie fifty cents to buy us some more popcorn, and out of nowhere, Veronica starts telling me about her
blond
boyfriend who lived in Santa Cruz, California. She made sure I knew that his eyes were as blue as Paul Newman's and that he wanted her to learn how to surf. Next she starts telling me how much she liked
red
men with curly hair. How she thought
red
brothers were so much finer then white men and how our butts were nicer and our thighs were so powerful looking. She said, just as Leslie returned with the jumbo buttered popcorn, how she had never
done
a red brother but would love to someday. I never told Leslie about that conversation until we were married. When I did, she laughed about it and said she knew. They'd set a trap for me, which is why Leslie kept giving me the opportunity to grab the bait. When I didn't, she knew I was the one. Women are funny like that sometimes.

After Leslie left Tallahassee, we wrote letters back and forth constantly. She sent me a postcard from every city they traveled to, and when they arrived back in California three weeks later, she had twenty-five letters from me in her box. I was sending her two letters a day at that time. I would have given anything to see her smile when she opened the mailbox. She said the day after she arrived home, the mailman came to her door, and when she walked out he smiled at her and said, “I only have these two letters for you today, but the reason I knocked on the door was
to
see
the lady who inspired someone to write so many love letters.”

I made a concerted effort to let Leslie know how I felt. I did not want to scare her away, but I definitely wanted her to know that I was interested in her.

Seeing Cheryl the day my car broke down in Lake City stung. It hurt beyond description. But looking at her, I wasn't mad. Why? I guess because when I saw them drive up, and him get out of the car, I watched her with the baby. I watched her kiss and rub her nose against that child's as if everything else in the entire world ran a distant second. And I knew she had found love in a much greater sense then I would or could provide. Watching her with that baby was akin to watching love take the form of flesh and blood. When she got out of the car, I watched her walk back and forth a couple of times before she saw me, and then, well, it appeared we both stopped breathing.

I didn't see cars passing or even feel the wind against my skin. All I saw was an opportunity to make it right. Then Darius walked out and it dawned on me for the first time that it was totally, completely, and unmistakably over between Cheryl and me. It had been years since I'd seen her, but in my heart the thought that we would never be together again had never jelled. I'd heard rumors that she and Darius were a pair ever since he'd left town, but hearing it and seeing it were two different things. As she drove away in that old Chevrolet, I saw her looking back as if kissing us good-bye. And on that day I was finally able to close that chapter of my life once and for all. At least that's what I assumed.

Since I was young, broke, and in college, a long-distance relationship with Leslie was difficult to sustain. We could only afford to talk on the phone once a week. So every Sunday, between six-thirty and eight-thirty, we would alternate calling. It seemed by the time I said, “Hello, Leslie, how are you?” it was time to hang up. In all honesty, my feelings for her were not as strong as they were for Cheryl. I thought that was because Cheryl was my first in most
ways. But I worked hard on my grades, and Leslie and I put together a plan to meet for the summer since her father decided not to spring for another cross-country trip for her. I would get an internship on the West Coast or she would get one on the East Coast and somehow we would get together. And it worked. My internship counselor at FAMU pulled a few strings and got me a job in southern California. I got an internship in Paramount Studios Legal Department in L.A., so she decided to stay in town as well and work as a paralegal for a law firm.

It was going to be strange being together that much. Being able to see her, feel her, touch her every day. As I rode the bus cross country, I thought about my first time. Her name was Toni, but everyone called her Li'l Momma.

Shortly, after breaking up with Cheryl I met Li'l Momma on a weekend trip to FAMU. Although she was younger, she was much more experienced. Her tongue darted back and forth like a snake. She started at my toes and explored every inch of my body.

When I went to my dorm room, although I was walking straight, it felt like my hips were still moving round and round. So the first thing I did when I got to the room was to call my Li'l Momma.

When she answered the phone I could tell she was surprised since I had copied the number from her phone without her seeing it.

She told me how much she “enjoyed what happened,” but her voice was not the same. We said goodbye but I held on the phone trying to figure out what went wrong. She hung up but the phone was still off the hook. I heard a man say “Who was that?” Must have been her father. “Where he from?” Maybe it was her brother. Then I heard a smack smack smack and grunting sound of a kiss that could only come from her man.

Soon my thoughts of Toni were replaced by Leslie and my biggest fear, which was that the distance was keeping us together and that once we were in the same city, the relationship would fizzle. As I traveled closer to the Golden
State, I wondered if I could ever fulfill this fantasy I had created on the phone.

The first night I was in the City of Angels, she came over to my apartment. To be honest, I'd had sex a couple of times by then with coeds whose names left me as soon as they left my arms. I had never made love at that time, and I really did not understand the distinction between the two. I'd heard women say things like, “I don't want to screw, I want to make love.” I'd never understood the true meaning of that until I made love for the very first time with Yvette Leslie Shaw.

Leslie came over, just beating the rain, and brought a couple of books. No wine, no cheese, no candles. Just a couple of thick Russian literature books she thought I would enjoy reading. So I tried to read between the lines. Was she trying to tell me to slow down? That we had all summer? Did she think I was her intellectual inferior? I mean, we'd set fire to the phone lines our conversations were so hot, but was all of that just talk?

I took the books, read the titles, and said thank you. When she was in Florida, I never remembered her smoking. Since we had not kissed, I never got close enough to smell tobacco on her. That night she smelled like she was a brand tester for Phillip Morris. Being a jock, I was against smoking, and even during a time when a lot of people were into it, it was never done in our household. So when I smelled the stench on Leslie, it was a major turn-off, but I think she thought I knew she smoked and I couldn't imagine telling her I had a problem with it. So I learned to live with it and the subject never came up.

Leslie wore these big thick Buddy Holly glasses, and as I set the books down, she grabbed me without saying a word and yanked me toward her, which caused her glasses to tumble to the floor—so hard I thought they may have broken. She didn't seem to care. She kissed hard, but sensuously. Then she pushed me, causing me to fall backwards onto the bed, and she straddled her legs across my pelvis. I was a sculpted two-hundred pounds at that time and she must have been about a buck-o-eight. But she was totally in
control. I'd never seen this side of her. I'd always watched what I'd written to her because I did not want to offend her womanhood while all this time she had this freak inside just waiting to come out. She unbuttoned my shirt so fast buttons popped off of it and bounced off the tile floor like a broken strand of pearls as she started to taste my nipple in slow, soft circles. This was the first time anyone had done that, and as I felt my nipple harden it gave me a tremor. My eyes were wide open as I looked at the ceiling trying to gather myself, then I flipped over on top and just looked at her. In part because of the eroticism and in part to make sure it was still my Leslie.

As she lay between my legs with just my jeans and her white cotton panties between her pleasure and my passion, I could feel her heat. She felt so warm I could hear her wetness as our hips kissed and she unzipped my pants.

The rest of that night could only be compared to the feeling one would get on a boat. A boat without a rudder. The waves were crashing all around us, the moon shining so bright it could be mistaken for the sun, and our bodies were moving like the edge of the ocean caressing the shore. I listened to her moans and responded with what she wanted. When her breathing became choppy and she panted for air, I could tell I was touching her the way she wanted to be touched and I would plunge harder. Her face, especially her eyebrows, gave me direction like an orchestra conductor would a symphony. When her eyebrows remained flat, it was a sign to keep moving around until I found just the right spot. A sharp arch of her brow said I was approaching a crescendo. When they slowly fell, they whispered, “Oww, I like it just like that.” And an open mouth needed no explanation at all.

On that night everything moved in rhythm. Boom, boom, boom. Boom, boom, boom. Our bodies met and became one deep into the night. One, two, three. One, two, three. More graceful than any moves made by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Boom, boom, boom. The curtains shook. One, two,
three. The rain fell. Boom, boom, boom. Was it just an illusion, a storm brewing, or the love within those walls?

And just as I thought it was over, it only improved. In the midst of making love, we increased the pace. We moved faster, and faster, and faster. I dug in because I knew what was about to happen. Leslie braced herself, preparing for the flood. “Do you want me to release?” I asked, not wanting to do it too fast or too slow. She said nothing so I asked again, only louder. This time she cupped one hand over my mouth and the other behind my head and shook my head back and forth. There was no need for words. And then a feeling akin to an electrical current cruised from my head, past my shoulders, through my stomach, and then into Leslie's body. I could feel it radiate through her fingers and toes, and return to my back and lower torso. Leslie froze and then quietly I felt her shake and shiver and then sigh beneath me. I remember my eyes rolling back and I grabbed the mattress trying to gather myself. I felt another tiny explosion and my body jerked and for a second I could not exhale. Then I looked down and my lips softly touched Leslie on the cheek when I heard her whisper, “No. Don't touch me,” as she slowly came down the mountain.

This was the first time I shed a tear after I released. I don't know why or where it came from. I just knew it felt good to be in love and to be loved again. It would feel good to fall asleep knowing no matter what was happening in my life, there was someone who loved me . . . only me . . . just for me.

That night was like nothing I'd ever experienced before. The windows were steamed when we entered the second phase of loving. The smell of desire blanketed the air, and I did something I had no idea I was ever going to do this way. At that point Leslie and I had never said the
L
word. So in the rhythm of our loving I whispered, “Leslie?”

“Yes?”

I repeated her name again, but louder. “Leslie?”

“Yes, baby?”

And then I had to say it one more time at the top of my
lungs. I knew my neighbor would hear, but I couldn't care less. “Leslie!”

“What, baby? What do you want?” she shouted back, with her hands grasping my lower back.

And then I said to the rhythm of the love we shared, “I know . . . you may not . . . really . . . love me yet . . . but tell me . . . you love me . . . please? . . . Just tell me . . . you love me.”

I could tell she did not know if I was serious or if this was a part of the moment we shared. I don't think she really cared, because at the top of her lungs she started to yell louder than before. She screamed so loudly the first time, I opened my eyes and watched her with her eyes slammed shut with emotion. Her hair was wet with sweat, and from the excitement of the moment I could feel the deep scratches on my back. The second time she screamed I was worried the security guard would knock his flashlight on the door. By the third scream, I knew this was a wave I should enjoy, and so I allowed the emotions to flow. “Yes! . . . Yes! . . . Henry, I love you . . . I love you, baby . . . I love you so much,” she said, and opened her eyes, held my face with her quivering soft hands, and kissed me with a liquid fire that rolled to the soles of my feet.