Decadence (22 page)

“I freaked out. I didn't handle the situation very well. Went to Becky's Buckroe Florist to order one hundred and one roses for you.”

“Didn't get them.”

“Didn't think you would accept them.”

“You're right. And by the way, I hate roses.”

“Since when? You loved them in college.”

“One day you were my man, the next it was all over.”

“We broke up abruptly. My wandering eye got the best of me.”

“I learned a lot from that abrupt breakup. Almost as much as I learned reading Henry Miller.”

“So did I. Learned more from our breakup than I did in any class.”

“I learned about love's power but I've also learned about its downside. Love has too many side effects. I suffered them all. Nausea, lack of appetite, temporary paralysis, weight gain, vomiting, headaches, drowsiness, nose bleeds, diarrhea, constipation, unexplained rash, changes in moods, irrational behavior, anal bleeding, thoughts of suicide that lasted all of ten seconds, thoughts of seeing you and running you over in my car that lasted all of two years, irregular cycle and spotting between periods. I would have rather had cancer.”

“Jesus.”

“It was a living death. I used to pray that something bad happened to you on the field.”

“Guess you got your wish.”

“Not really. I wanted to see you carried off the field with a broken neck, paralyzed from the neck down. But I settled for a blown-out knee. Can't say that I was sad the day I heard that tackle had ended your football career. I popped open a bottle of wine, put on some soca by Alison Hinds, turned up the volume, and danced my ass off.”

“Damn.”

“What goes around comes around.”

“Back then I wanted to come back to you.”

“You're happy now?”

“She's my wife. She's a benevolent woman. She belongs to a dozen charities and supports a dozen causes, and is a churchgoing woman. But she's not my soul mate. You were my soul mate.”

“When did you start believing in that soul-mate bullshit?”

“When did you stop?”

“The day that I broke up with you.”

“When you were gone, I believed. When we were done, I realized that the concept was real.”

“Whatever.”

“I fucked it up. I knew that I'd never get over that one mistake.”

“Healing a broken heart isn't easy.”

“Neither is living with regret.”

“Why did it turn out that way?”

“Please forgive me.”

“There were a hundred women you could've chosen. Maybe a thousand women at the school would have loved to have you as their man. You chose the one you . . . you chose her. The part about her being tutored by me, her being my friend, didn't that matter to you at all?

“She was the outlier and worked her way into your bed. Somehow I ended up becoming the outlier. She stayed with you to prove a point and give the middle finger to her parents, the school, and society.”

“I never saw you as an outlier. If anyone was, that was me.”

“You chose her over me. You kicked me out of your dorm.”

“Because you were going crazy.”

“You made security escort me away and she stayed.”

“I loved you so much.”

“What type of love was that? If that's love, I'd hate to see hate.”

A moment passed. “You made it known that you were done with me. You would've killed her if I hadn't had you removed.”

“I would have.”

“You would have killed me if I had let you stay.”

“How many times had you fucked her before you got busted?”

He hesitated. “A few times. She would sneak by after her session with you, on the days you had another tutoring session right after hers.”

“While I tutored other students, you were having sex with her?”

“She only came by a few times. At first it was to talk to me about making an appearance for a benefit. Something to do with raising money for starving kids in Africa or Haiti, can't remember.”

“Keep it real. That means that you were with her a lot. Was she the only one? Be honest. We can be honest. Were there other women on campus? Were you having sex with more of the people I tutored?”

He said, “You know how they are, the groupies. They throw themselves at the players. They sneak into the dorms in the middle of the night. They show up naked, ready to have sex without talking.”

“There were others?”

“Let's not go down that road.”

“There were others.”

“But no matter how many times I was with her, or anyone else, it was just sex. It was physical, never emotional. It meant nothing.”

“Just another workout. Just another team on the field.”

“Interesting analogy. But it was sex. Not love.”

“Love me while you fuck other women.”

“We do foolish things when we're young.”

“What are we doing now?”

“We're adults now.”

“This looks pretty imprudent to me.”

He whispered, “You torture me. You shower naked. You make me masturbate. Now you sit in front of me. I can smell you. It's like I'm inhaling you. And this is nothing but torture. I taste you on my tongue.”

“I'm sadistic.”

“I guess that makes me masochistic.”

“Why are you staring at me like that?”

“Just the tip?”

“That was how you seduced me in college. With the tip.”

“Just the tip. Just let it taste you.”

“No.”

“Let it tell you how much it has missed you.”

“Your lingam talks now.”

“That mouth.”

“That sweet dick. That fat cock. That magical prick. I had given it so many names. But in the end, I just called it lingam. My lingam.”

“Just the tip.”

A moment passed and I repeated, “Just the tip.”

I looked at the multitude of memories that surrounded us in the alcove. I saw memories of the first flirt, the first phone call, the first date, the first hand-holding, the first kiss, the first laugh; flashbacked to the first time we did laundry together. Remembered going to the games and him waving to me from the field, remembered the first time that we studied together, the first time we had made love, the second time we had made love, recalled each time; and all of the warm memories ignited some false hope and I had become who I was then, a foolish believer, and I had surrendered to the pangs of an unrequited love.

I desired him. Part of me had never stopped desiring him.

We carried our past with us wherever we went.

He said, “Aren't you curious?”

“Forever curious.”

“About us. To know what we feel like now.”

“It used to be good.”

“Better than good.”

I whispered, “I'll want more than the tip. I'll want more.”

“It that permission to enter?”

I whispered, “Just the tip.”

“Just the edge of our memories.”

“Like the beginning, when it was good, when I was mad for you.”

“And I was mad too.”

“No more than the tip.”

“Just the tip, just the beginning.”

“The beginning was amazing.”

That was all he gave me for a long while, the mushroom of his lingam, the part that was designed to open a woman, to open a yoni that was lubricated from memories. Again I was in college, remembering the days before it all went to hell, swimming in the warmth of those feelings and promises. We were no longer like oil and water, no longer two mutually immiscible liquids. I took flight and the hands of time moved counterclockwise. I saw Homecoming. Spring Fest. I moaned like I was in the jazz ensemble. So did he. The mushroom, the hat, his head moved back and forth, became slick with my dampness. He teased me over and over. He teased me and teased himself. He became hard and I moved against his length, and he rubbed his length up and down my opening. Soon he gave me the tip again. Then a little more than the tip. Then a little more of the memories came to life. Saw us bowling at the six-lane alley. Roller-skating. Dancing in the ballroom. Sitting in the food court. He gave me more memories. Swimming. On Jet Skis. Boating on the weekend. I felt him opening me, easing inside of me. I trembled as he gave me more memories, memories that were as bright as yellow roses. We were back in the dorm. I expected to open my eyes and see that room. But when my eyes eased open, my past was staring in my face, unblinking, so much intensity, so much seriousness in his. He held my face and wanted to kiss me. I refused. It wasn't right to kiss a whore. Still, even as I tried to make him nothing in my world, he stirred those old feelings once again, and I lost my power and became fragile. I wanted more than just the tip. I wanted to go back in time and redo the way things had ended between us. I wanted to undo heartbreak. I wanted to undo hamburger fights and confrontations. I wanted to not let my emotions and needs and selfishness and desire for retribution allow Rigoberto between my legs. I wanted to not damage the friendship between two men. I wanted to remove myself from this trajectory of darkness.

He said, “I've missed you. I've missed you. I've missed you.”

“I've missed you too, Chris. I've missed you so fucking much.”

As a thousand moans filled the club, as I heard skin slapping against skin, as I heard laughter and celebration, his skin slapped against mine, and I held on to him, encouraged him to stroke me as my
oohs
blended with his
aahs
and we joined the chorus. He stroked me, pulled out, gave me his tongue, licked me, stroked me again, and licked me again. Then I sat on him, let him fill my insides, rose up and took him inside of my mouth, sucked, rode his face reverse, then turned and rode his tongue reverse cowgirl. Again I sat on his begging lingam and danced for a moment, then repeated, rose up from his erection, held it as I panted, confused, and I sucked him, tasted him, rode his face, did that over and over until he went mad and pushed me down on my back and gave my yoni his tongue again, tasted our flavors, growled as he made me come, come, come. I battled him, pushed him onto his back, sucked and sucked and sucked, and he held my head and strained as he came, just as I had held his head and strained when I came. The Watchers were outside our alcove, reduced to being Listeners of our sexual perversity. I know that they were there because as we finished, there was applause and whistles. Things were always different after the orgasm, when hormones had calmed, when reality stood tall, after that flaming and wretched need had been allowed to feed until full. When emotions and need were burned away, when lust was minimized, all that was left was the truth. We stayed sequestered in an alcove, the drapes closed, our sin hidden from the eyes of other sinners. He had been the first man I'd fallen in love with. I had had a high school love, but that was puppy love. And now he had been the last man to penetrate me. My first love. If I died right now, my last lover. There was madness in that poetry. The first man to break my heart in a romantic way had been the last man to break my skin, to widen, spread my fleshy folds and intrude me. When I was in college, when he had been but my second lover, I had wanted him to be the last man, the only man I allowed to enter me this way, for eternity and beyond. His familiar sting remained, his song just as beautiful, as familiar now as it had been during college.

Twenty-six minutes.

We'd left the present and taken a journey into the past. We had been together the way we used to be together for twenty-six minutes. It was the same. But it was different. Time had given both of us more sexual experience. His tongue verified that when I'd become his raspberry crème brûlée. My yoni quivered. Stomach pirouetted. Our sexual chemistry remained remarkable. He had matured in some ways. In sexual ways. He had sexual endurance now. Our connected bodies, our connected spirits had danced once again. The sex was good. The orgasm was more emotional than physical. It was like making love to a seasoned man, not to the boy he used to be. It was damn good. Because of emotions. Emotions had the power to make what was ordinary seem extraordinary. Emotions made what was wrong feel right.

I held his penis. Stroked it. Chris smiled.

He said, “I can't get it out of my mind.”

“What?”

Then he lowered his head. “I'm sorry.”

His expression changed.

I asked, “What's wrong?”

Chris whispered, “Rigofuckingberto flashed in my head.”

“You're joking, right?”

“Now and then it hits me. You fucked him. You fucked my
tigre
.”

“Rigoberto.”

Mentioning his name changed the temperature in the room.

I let his penis go. I let it fall and slap against his skin.

I said, “If you must know, I didn't fuck him. We made love.”

“You made love.”

“It was emotional for both of us. We cuddled. We hugged. I cried. We even managed to laugh for a moment. We embraced. We didn't fuck. Not at all. Not once. We made love. It was for pleasure, it was for healing, the kind that I needed to numb a pain that could not be numbed, but like I said it was with deep affection, with passion. He took care of me.”

“You and Rigoberto. It hurt me. It really fucked me up.”

“That was my intent. I didn't want the fight, but I was glad for it. He fought for me. You had thrown me out and he fought for me.”

“That was the worst time in my life. For me it was two deaths. One death was losing you, the other was losing a friend. I lost my best friend because of . . . back then . . . in the middle of all of that.”

“No one likes to be betrayed. No one likes how that feels, being stabbed in the back. Rigoberto just took the knife that you had put in my back and returned it to its owner.”

Chris whispered, “You slept with my best friend.”

“I slept with my friend. I met him before I met you. I knew him before I knew you. He introduced us. Not for him, there would have been no us. Maybe he felt betrayed when you called and asked me out. Amazing how you leave out the part about sleeping with Siobhán first.”