Can't Get Enough of Your Love (8 page)

“I'll look out for you.”

I thanked him again for the drink and jogged away real slow.

I came back two days later, this time in my “she-she” jogging outfit.

“There she is,” he said from his perch on the Blazer.

“Hey.”

“Catch you when you come back by?”

“Sure.”

I did only eight wind sprints that day, but not because it was hot or I was tired. Karl had intrigued me by
not
using any lines or really hitting on me. I kind of wondered why any man would be sitting on the hood of his Blazer on a hot August day for maybe three days in a row, but maybe he was there only to see me again. He had a bottle of Gatorade for me when I jogged back, and I took that as a sign of something big.

“You do any weight training?” he asked.

“Some.” Which was a lie and a half. I've just always been naturally muscular.

“Maybe we can work out together sometime.”

I
could
have asked, “Are you asking me out on a date?” but I didn't. Who goes weightlifting on a date? I also
could
have said, “We could work out at your place right now.” I'm pretty forward, but I'm not that forward. “Sure,” I said. “We can do that.”

“Breckinridge has a weight room,” he said. “I can meet you there tomorrow around seven.”

“Okay. Seven.”

The next day, precisely at seven, he showed up at the Breckinridge Middle School weight room, and we worked out. He was helpful and charming, and though I made it obvious that I had never lifted any weights before, he helped me with my technique, let me borrow his weight belt, and spotted me. We were just two athletes
improving our bodies, and I spent most of my time wondering what our two athletic bodies could do to each other in bed.

I was sitting on a weight bench toweling off when he asked, “You doing anything this evening?”

I was sweaty, stank, and sore, and yet he wanted to see more of me. “No.”

“Want to hang out?”

“Sure. I'd like to go home and take a shower first.”

He
didn't
say, “Can I join you?” though I probably would have let him if Mama wasn't at home. “Me, too. I'll meet you downtown at Corned Beef, say around ten?”

At Corned Beef and Company, which is a little restaurant and bar in Center in the Square, we drank sodas after I told him that I didn't drink. He didn't question it, didn't wonder about it, and didn't make me feel like a child because of it.

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Twenty-two.”

I stared into my Coke. “I'm twenty-four.”

He
didn't
ask, “You got a problem with it?” or say “Age ain't nothing but a number.” Instead, he asked, “Want to go for a walk?”

“Sure.”

We walked through Elmwood Park, and once we were in the relative darkness under the bridge connecting one part of the main library to the other, he kissed my cheek. He
didn't
say anything, and I
didn't
say anything. We just kept … walking together, not holding hands, smiling mostly.

It was cute.

We walked up to where my car and his Blazer were
parked, and without him even asking, I got into his Blazer, we went back to his place, and …

It was very nice.

Okay, it was more than nice. I am, well, active when it comes to lovemaking, often wearing a man out. With Karl, though, I had met my match. It was as if we were in competition to see who could put a worse sexual hurting on the other. It was exhausting, it was erotic, it required several water breaks—even a little ice that didn't stay ice for long on my back.

I miss those first few meetings because they contained the
longest
conversations we ever had. He wasn't into being an entrepreneur yet. That came later. He had a marketing degree, and he was trying to figure out how to put it to use on his own terms. He despised corporate America, doubting it'd ever hire him because of his skin color and all those tattoos. He had dreams of having his own store and being his own man, and I had dreams of
us
owning
our
own store and being financially independent.

Then he started taking trips to New York to “do his thing,” buying fake Coach bags and bootleg DVDs to sell down here. This led to several broken dates and many nights of me sitting by the phone. It was the same old pattern I had just been through with four other men. I received fewer phone calls
from
him and made more pages
to
him. It was so aggravating not to be able to contact him directly. I offered to buy him a cell phone, but he only told me, “I'm old school, Peanut.”

That was his only explanation.

Then he started paying more attention to his body than mine. Less talk, more action, little conversation before, during, or after lovemaking. It was all “hit it and quit it.” I mean, we used to do foreplay all the time,
you know, flirting on the phone whenever he'd call me back, grabbing and touching in his Blazer, so that by the time we got back to his place, I was swimming in my own juices. Gradually, we flirted less, with fewer touches and grabs, did just enough foreplay to get him started …

It got old.

And I wasn't going to do “old” anymore.

I
f the old Karl could have come around more often, I wouldn't have had to add Juan Carlos, who has always been more interested in my pleasure than his pleasure.

And as with Karl, Juan Carlos and I met by accident. Actually, it was the Rabbit's fault. My car broke down on Williamson Road a block from Berglund Auto World last fall. It just quit in the left lane. I put my flashers on and waited for help while cars whizzed by me on both sides. No one stopped to help me. No one.

Enter Juan Carlos.

He came out of nowhere and said, “I will help you.”

“Thank you,” I said, looking at his nice ass and little thin moustache.

“If you steer, I will push,” he said.

You know I was thinking nasty thoughts when he said that. I hadn't had any good loving for weeks, since Karl was off doing “his thing.”

Juan Carlos first stopped traffic in both lanes simply
by holding out his hands, and then he pushed the Rabbit smoothly into the lot at Berglund.

“You're only doing this so y'all can fix it and charge me an arm and a leg,” I said when I got out.

“I will fix it for you,” he said. “Pop the hood.”

And then … I watched him work on my car, pulling this, adjusting that, getting all greasy. I also watched his ass and fantasized. He ended up adding two quarts of oil, some coolant, and some water to my radiator. He added something to my oil, closed the hood, and told me to start it up.

It didn't start. It only clicked a bit, then nothing.

“You need a battery, too,” he said.

No
, I thought,
I need my hands on that ass of yours
. I had so many hoochie thoughts that day.

“Do you have my size?” I asked, staring directly at his package. I was sure he had my size. “I mean, do you have batteries for VWs?”

“I am sure we do. Wait inside where it is cooler, and I will get you a battery.”

“I'll wait right here,” I said. I enjoyed watching him work.

He put in a new battery, and the Rabbit came back to life. He came over to my window. “No charge.”

I didn't have any money on me, anyway, but I protested. “I have to pay you somehow.”

“It is okay. You needed help. I helped.”

I liked his attitude
then
. “Well, don't you want to … test it out? You know, make sure everything else is working.” I licked my lips. “I'll even let you drive.”

He shrugged. “Okay.”

So … we took a drive, and he drove the hell out my Rabbit, zipping us up Williamson Road. I watched him
shift gears with those big hands of his … imagining those big hands squeezing my girls.

Yeah, I was horny.

I had him pull into an empty lot on Plantation Road so I could drive. He parked, got out, came over to my side, opened my door … and I pulled him in.

There wasn't much room on the passenger side, even when I pushed the seat all the way back, but somehow I managed to get his pants off, my pants off, his stuff where it belonged …

I, um, I attacked his ass.

Twice.

When he was through—I could have gone another round—I drove him back to Berglund.

“I want to see you again,” I said.

“I would like that,” he said.

I didn't tell him that I had a boyfriend, and I didn't feel guilty about it. That surprised me at first, but then I reasoned, “I don't have a ring on this finger.”

Later, I didn't have to pay full price for a new radiator, new struts, or new brakes thanks to Juan Carlos's employee discount. I'm lucky that way, I guess. My Rabbit has had more oil changes and, in general, I have had better maintenance on my car
and
my body with Juan Carlos, but I get to pick and choose when I get “serviced.” I didn't have to sit by the phone anymore after that. If Karl was AWOL, Juan Carlos was on.

And if Juan Carlos didn't have such a bad attitude, I wouldn't have had to add Roger.

See, it's all Karl's fault.

Okay, I know I'm rationalizing. I probably would have added the other two even if Karl had been faithful (I doubt he has been), had been around more than once a month, and had been a better conversationalist.

When it comes to body and sex, Karl is the clear winner. He treats his body like a temple, I am his worshipper, and when we get busy, it's a religious experience, just me and my African god. He's so good, um, pelvically (if that's even a word) that he has to be practicing elsewhere to keep his “thrusters” in tune.

When it comes to sheer passion, Juan Carlos has the others beat. He knows how to romance me with the occasional flower, to sing to me in a language I don't understand as much as I
feel
, to warm me from head to toe with his hands.

And when it comes to my mind and soul, Roger fills me to bursting, listening to my rants and criticisms, writing me poetry, giving advice only when I ask for it, and massaging my cares away with his hands and his words.

I've made them sound perfect, huh?

Well, they aren't perfect.

Karl chews his nails, Juan Carlos's nails are sometimes caked with grease, and Roger's nails are usually too long. Karl bathes in cologne, Juan Carlos sometimes smells like exhaust fumes and gasoline, and Roger nearly always smells like the great outdoors. All three make some seriously strange faces when they're angry—and sometimes during sex—that are not attractive at all. Juan Carlos's nostrils flare, Roger's ears wiggle, and Karl's upper lip curls until it touches his nose. None of them dresses all that well (not that I care, since I'm more interested in what's under their clothes), every last one of them wearing jeans and boots. And none of them is particularly smooth when it comes to the “right” thing to say to me to turn me on. In fact, most of the time I spend with Karl and Juan Carlos involves no dialogue whatsoever.

We just … get it on.

Now as for Roger … Damn, he makes me sigh, and though I know it's wrong to think this, I wish to God he was black. If he were black, we'd be married with 2.1 kids, a dog, and a picket fence already. Thinking that doesn't make me a racist, does it? I mean, Roger has soul, he has heart, he has this soft way of talking, those hazel eyes, that flaming curly red hair and matching goatee, which I've secretly nicknamed a “man-gina”—

Boy looks like his head is on fire even at night.

Of the three, he speaks to me, and I don't mean talking. He's not as—and
don't
be thinking I'm about to say “as big” or “as endowed” as the others … because he
is
—he's just not as fiery. He takes his time. He worships my body slowly, and after Juan Carlos and Karl, it's nice to be devoured slowly, as if I'm a seven-course meal he has to savor carefully, tenderly.

Though his hair could signal the space shuttle, Visine could use his entire head in an eye drops commercial, circus clowns are envious, and Ronald McDonald wants to sue him for hair-rights infringement.

Enough of the hair jokes.

Roger's passion just burns slowly, like that candle you keep in your bathroom for show that you decide to light one day and, for whatever reason, just won't burn itself out for months and months.

Roger's like that.

I just wish he didn't sell death.

H
e doesn't “sell” death exactly, but he makes such a creepy living.

His family runs Fairview Cemetery, which isn't that creepy. I mean, someone has to do it, right? And it must be a good business. It's just creepy that folks have to die to give him and his family a living.

I first met Roger at the front door of my mama's house one cool Saturday in late February while Mama was working overtime at the banking center. I had just gotten out of the shower, so I was barely wearing anything—no bra, no drawers, just some shorts and a T-shirt. And as soon as that cool air hit my girls, my nipples jumped to life.

“Good afternoon,” he said.

“Is it?” I asked.

“What?” he said.

“Afternoon.”

He looked at my toes, and they are some ragged-looking things. “Yes, ma'am. It's after three.”

“Oh.” I had had a wild night of passion at Karl's apartment the night before, so I had just gotten up.

He was still staring at my toes so much that I crossed one foot over the other, giving him a glimpse of only the five less crusty ones.

“Do you have a reason for ringing my doorbell?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, looking all good in a dark suit and tie and shiny black church shoes.

I thought he was a religious boy selling God, maybe half of a pair of Jehovah's Witnesses. I like messing with them, flirting with them mostly, and that day, my “outfit” left nothing to his imagination.