Between Lovers (19 page)

“Sorry to hear.”

“Don't be. I was devastated, but it freed me. Didn't get my degree, didn't work this hard to sit at home and fold socks. I'm no boy toy who wants to spend all weekend separating whites from colors.”

My tongue moves across my teeth.

She says, “My husband would come home with lotion on his back. That was how I knew. No way for a man to put lotion all over his own back, not miss a single spot, not without help.”

Her confession surprises me. I ask, “What did you do?”

“Kept being a good wife, hoping he'd come home the way he left, with an ashy back. Always hoping for people to change into what I want them to be, but they never do.”

She nibbles her bottom lip.

I attempt to dig deeper. “Considering how you come at me, how rugged your tongue is, that's pretty passive.”

“I've changed. You have to learn to ask the hard questions, even when you know the answers. I used to be afraid to do that. Afraid of the truth.”

“What changed you?”

“Law school brings out the rough part of everybody. A blessing and a curse. Plus, I'm older. Like to think the years have changed me for the better. Who I am now sure isn't who I was then. Life is so much better when a woman gives up chasing dick. So many problems go away. Diseases too.”

“If you say so.”

“But I did love him.” She sighs in a way that says she misses him as well. “My husband was Oakland PD. Stopped somebody for speeding. A no-brainer. And they shot him so they wouldn't get a ticket and have their car insurance go up.”

I have no idea what to say. Her tenderness catches me off guard.

Ayanna asks me, “What's your best time at the L.A. Marathon?”

“Last March did it in four hours, seven minutes.”

“Nine-minute miles. Hmm.”

“What?”

“Thought you were faster,” she replies with a smirk, then waits for me to ask her the obvious. When I don't fall into her game, she tells me anyway, “My best is three-fifty-two.”

“Well, I ran four-oh-seven in a hard, cold rain with the wind in my face for the first fifteen miles. Had to skip over lakes, a wind shear pretty much came and went the rest of the time.”

“San Francisco is tougher than L.A. More hills. Stay in L.A. It's flat and running flat is for wimps. You'd suck wind up here.”

“Well, like I said, I ran in a storm.”

I chew my bottom lip. There is competition.

I ask, “So, what are you?”

She chuckles, a brief noise that tells me she knows what I'm asking. Her tone becomes political as she says, “I know who I am. Nicole is walking a line. No matter how much you want to, you can't be both. It's like having a white parent and a black parent and trying to say you're both black and white. Society says you can't be both. Can only be one.”

“Like praising two gods.”

“That's extreme, but I guess you could say that.”

“Tonight,” I say before I pause, “in a way we're two gods.”

“Two religions. Yep, we're two religions.”

“Can't have two religions. No man can serve two masters.”

She nods. “Once again I agree with you.”

“But a master can have two slaves.”

Her eyes widen, then she grins down at her fingernails as she shifts, clears the uneasiness from her throat. I've struck a nerve.

“That's the way society rules,” she says. “Unwritten laws of shame and guilt that keep every culture in its own box. Society slides you a box and you crawl inside. Everybody lives in a box.”

“Not everybody. I live in a wide-open field. No shame in my game.”

In a tone I assume she uses in the courtroom, she stresses, “Everybody. ”

I pause, take a deep breath, then nod, let the tension ease before I ask, “What box do you belong in?”

“Whatever box Nicole is in. And there's only room for two.”

Behind us the toilet flushes. I didn't hear Nicole pass by and come back into the bedroom. From her reaction, neither did Ayanna. Nicole is still on the phone, but her voice is calmer, as if she's resolved whatever conflict had arisen. The shower comes on, steam walks into the bedroom from the open bathroom, creating a mist, like a spotlight before show time.

I ask, “We're on your home turf. Your castle. What's the next move?”

“I don't know about you, but I take a deep breath and practice kindness. I take the focus off my needs and accentuate the unmet needs of someone I love more than life itself. Something I've done too often. I've done it for my family, for my friends, for my lovers. One day maybe somebody will do it for me.”

“Sweetness and self-sacrifice add up to nothing.”

She sighs. “Tell me something new. Experience has taught me that. But I can't stop.”

“If you allow her to violate your boundaries, it's on you.”

“I could tell you the same.”

“I was talking to myself.”

“Excuse me for interrupting.”

I say, “You can always tell her you don't want to.”

“Talking to yourself?”

“No, to you.”

She responds, “You could too.”

“Then you must want to.”

She smirks. “In some weird, perverted way, I want to see what makes you so special.”

“Same here.”

“I don't understand why she's so hooked on you.”

“Same here.”

“You offer her nothing that I can't give.”

“Adam and Eve, Ayanna. You can't give her that.”

She sips, hands the glass to me. I sip, hand it back.

She says, “I want to understand why you're so special. I tell myself that's why I'm here. I want to show you that you're not needed. Can you dig it?”

“Like a grave. But admit this too; I'm a good-looking motherfucker and you want to.”

“Don't flatter yourself. Yellow men have never been my thang.” She chuckles, then pats my hand with her cool, sweaty palm. With warmth she says, “Sex without love is a war fought with the genitals.”

“I agree with you a hundred percent on that one, Counselor. I've had quite a few wars.”

“Me too,” she says. “Truth or truth?”

“Sure.”

“You want this kind of battle, don't you? To be on this battlefield is every man's wish.”

I shake my head. “Not every man.”

“You're full of shit.” Then she whispers, “Remember the rules.”

It's cold outside. Very cold, some wind sings in the trees. But we stay in the night's chill.

I pat her hand. She holds my finger. Her lips move, and the expression on her face tells me that she's about to say something positive, something very human, but she doesn't give in. For a moment there is a spiritual connection. My energy mixes with her life force. Almost feels like love.

Her lips look soft, and I remember how they felt when they pressed against mine. Not like I thought they would be. Powerful, magnetic, sweet lips. She licks them. I lick mine. Nicole knows that for me, kissing is the ultimate seduction. I think it means the same for Ayanna. One kiss, we exchange energy, become part of each other for eternity, and no matter how hard we wish to go back to ignorance, we can‘t, because we're no longer strangers. One kiss, we're familiar forever. Again she licks her lips as she stares at my face. Again I do the same.

Our names are called; we both jump a bit. We step inside like children responding to a bell at the end of recess. No, not recess. Like kids who were caught playing doctor in their parents' closet.

Nicole creeps through the dim candlelight, moves with the ease of a cat, her boldness tuned to high, shoe-less so she seems shorter, more vulnerable. Our topless dancer waiting for us to sing her a song of approval, her small brown breasts so round and womanlike. She has a very ethereal expression, and her natural beauty dulls my head, intoxicates me with the power of a shot of heated rum. Nicole winks at Ayanna but comes to me first, energetic with breathless excitement. She has created this night.

Nicole kisses me, gives me little tastes, little bites, we don't rush, nibbling lips, taking each other's breath until every cell in my body catches fire. She's tipsy, her breath sweet and sour, her flesh so eager. She pulls my head to her right breast, the most sensitive one, my favorite appetizer, and gives her thick nipple to me and I praise it with the warmth and wetness of my mouth, fall into my own music, my own rhythm; the world falls away.

Ayanna is watching us.

Trembles roll through Nicole's body. That excites me.

“Ayanna,” Nicole says. “Come here, kiss me, baby.”

Ayanna eases into our space, her patchouli aroma mixing with Nicole's herbal scent, and while I feed and caress her wonderful breast, above me are the sounds of tender whines and deep kisses. Their breaths create a warm breeze raking against my neck, flowing into my hair.

Ayanna is swallowing Nicole's throaty moans. She has one hand on Nicole's other breast, the other moving up and down the round of Nicole's butt. My fingers drift between Nicole's legs, fingers raking across her soft, damp, narrow hole, massaging that spot that swells, touching Ayanna's humid fingers at the same time, both of us trying to prove that we can please Nicole better than the other.

All the sounds that Nicole has made for me, all the noises that I wish were special for me, echo for Ayanna as well. Maybe even better, because this is her greatest fantasy, and she responds to the dual stimulation with more intensity.

Nicole inhales hard through her nose, releases air in spurts from her mouth, as if she were sprinting up a steep hill. Her right leg trembles, face furrows with pleasure as she shivers and moans, her words so hot and humid, “Shit, I'm not ready to come. Not yet. Let's take a shower.”

Ayanna catches her breath, motions toward the sunken tub next to the shower, says, “I'd rather bathe.”

I know what Ayanna's doing, trying to delay. The same reason she diverted us to San Francisco.

“Next time,” Nicole says. “We'll eat fruit and bathe together next time.”

And that is the end of that.

Nicole is always so very clean. Another thing I've always loved about her, always appreciated about her. Always smells fresh, never musty, never owns any after-pee taste down in the triangle. My Queen of Clean Hygiene doesn't treat us like slaves, but instead becomes our servant, the one who is aiming to please two. She undresses Ayanna, kisses Ayanna's breasts, her neck, her eyes, her fingers, touches her between her legs, does all of that as Ayanna blinks in and out of what she is feeling and watches me. I lick my lips. Somewhere between sweltering breaths, Ayanna does the same, blinks and licks and blinks and licks. My eyes stay on her body, which is slim, not much to behold. But she's toned, she's articulate, she's blunt, she's intelligent, she's feminine, she's athletic, she's arrogant, she's confident, she's aggressive, so I understand what's erotic and appealing about her. We're physical people who thrive on mental stimulation. Fools with educations and ambitions, and attracted to the same.

Ayanna's breasts remind me of sunrise in Maui, and her nipples are blacker than the long winter nights in Alaska. The most beautiful nipples I've ever seen. Full, erect, so thick. Blackberries screaming to be taken into a nice warm mouth. Moisture rises on her skin like morning dew. My eyes drift over her curves, over her lines, drift until they stop on her vagina, on her true ayanna, a beautiful flower with soft, curly black hair.

My adversary and me stare at each other, licking our lips, struggling to remember the rules of this war.

Seeing a woman naked for the first time is like visiting a new place. It forces you to take in the texture, inhale all the sweet smells, crave the tastes, admire a marvelous creation, encourages you to pack up your needs and journey into the unknown. To become immersed in that land, in its hills and valleys, to wet your mouth in the rivers, to be drawn into the undercurrents.

Nicole removes my pants, underwear, socks, shirt. Folds my clothes and leaves some things on the brown leather chair, some things on the leather ottoman. My skin is cool but nervous sweat trickles down my back, finds its way into the crack of my rear.

Ayanna gazes at the lines that add up to me. No breathless excitement, just confidence and relaxed shoulders, then a long stare with piercing eyes that make me feel as if the skin is gone from my body.

At last, we're all naked in Nicole's garden.

We shower together. Lights off. Candles burning. Jazz on the radio.

Three shadows washing each other in the most personal places.

Nicole does most of the cleansing, again our servant, soaping us head to toe, rinsing us, then squatting and using a pumice stone to scrub the bottoms of our feet, making sure those erogenous zones are ready for the tasting. I leave them, stand outside the glass shower door on the tile floor, dripping water and drying off, listening to them, seeing their movements covered by the steam.

Even when the steam frosts the glass, the sounds from their lovemaking are so clear, like two instruments, Monk and Coltrane collaborating while Dizzy listens, and I can see their crisp notes floating in the air.

Ayanna comes out first, her heart-colored hair wet on the ends. Again our eyes meet. She chews her bottom lip. All of her insults, all of her harshness, all of that has evaporated like the steam that surrounds us.

Nicole is right behind her, her honey-blond locks looking a little wet.

Both of them are damp. Both have a glow that overshadows the light from the four scented candles.