Decadence (14 page)

“
How have you been?
How the
fuck
do you think I've been?”

“Calm down, sweetie.”

“He watched me. Are you sure that he watched me?”

“He walked in the room right after you did.”

“He followed me?”

“Seems to be that way. His eyes were on you the whole time.”

My orgasmic mood had been short-lived and now fear rode my nerves. Happiness abated and now I was terrified. My mother. Imagined her finding out. I massaged my temples, took a deep breath, and picked up my pace. Only now it felt as if I were fleeing through the moans and sex of the huddled masses. Rosetta did the same. There were more than three-hundred-thousand inhabited places in the world, close to two hundred recognized countries in the world, almost twenty-five-thousand miles around the world, seven continents and more than two million islands existed on this third rock from the sun, and he was here.

I had been blindsided and I was angry at my reaction to him.

Being where what society deemed as bad behavior was seen as being natural, if not an entitlement, then running into someone that I knew had left me in shock. Seeing Chris Eidos Alleyne appear out of nowhere had all but paralyzed me. For a moment I regressed, was no longer an adult, no longer a liberated woman, but I was a young girl, the daughter of my mother. I felt my mother's gigantic shadow. I panicked. But my mother was in Los Angeles and with the rising of her sun would be leaving for Amsterdam. Then I thought about everyone I knew, stared into the crowd and looked for other familiar faces. Which was ludicrous. My stepfather, I couldn't imagine him being here. He was under fifty but still too seasoned, even though the women whom he preferred, based on the trophy woman he left my mother for, would fit in seamlessly. Relatives from Trinidad wouldn't dare partake of a place this hedonistic. Now I was ill tempered and paranoid.

Before I made it deep inside the undressing area, to add insult to injury, I found myself staring into the bright eyes of a woman who wore a seven-carat marquis diamond ring, oval shaped, maybe like a football. Chris's wife. My former friend. He had married the woman he had betrayed me with. I had been her tutor and she had proven to me that there was no version of Hippocratic oath between women, that we didn't have a true sisterhood because we were unable to keep the promise to do to each other no harm; we didn't behave ethically and honestly. We were hunters. With smiles, charisma, cooked meals, uxorial behavior, and the pleasures of sex, we attained what we desired.

We were face-to-face, practically nose-to-nose, as we had been during our fights. My emotions boiled. She told me, “Good fucking,” then kindly stepped around me, her breasts bouncing, her hips swaying like she was measuring time, her wedding ring sparkling as she kept going. She kept going as if I were nobody, as if I were nothing.

After I showered,
I had taken a million deep breaths. Twenty minutes passed. Twenty minutes of disbelief. I wasn't angry, but I was not unangry. As I dried my skin, Rosetta came back to where I was. She was nude. Her makeup redone. The stylist had given her a quick and dirty hairstyle.

“Are you okay?”

“He watched me in Eros. He followed me and watched me.”

“Are you leaving?”

“My ex . . . after the way we broke up . . . that's . . . humiliating.”

Rosetta asked, “Was he your first?”

“He might as well have been.”

“First true love.”

“The one who fucked it up for everybody else.”

“So he might as well have been.”

I blinked as if I were coming out of a trance.

My eyes had been opened so long they had become oval deserts.

She said, “His wife?”

“We were friends. Me, her, and my college roommate were like the Three Musketeers. I tutored his wife, taught her how to cook.”

“Your bestie robbed you of your first true love. Some deep shit.”

“Yes, indeed. We had so many fights. Was almost kicked out of college.”

“Sounds like it's not over. This can get ugly. Walk away.”

“Not walking away. I walked away then. Not now. Not tonight.”

I went to the women who assisted the members and paid to have my makeup redone, had them do an outstanding job, lotioned my body. Then, with Rosetta in tow, I went to revisit my past. We walked the compound, hunted for them, and then we saw them on the multiple screens. I wanted to know how he ended up at Decadence. But I knew the answer. The answer was where our truths intersected. Religious people of the same faith ended up at the same churches. Screenwriters ended up at seminars; salsa dancers at the same clubs. Swingers. It was its own world. The word would spread and libertines would end up at the same institutions for adult behavior. And a subset of that subculture, the ones who would pay for extreme privacy, ended up at Decadence.

My ex. His wife. They were being featured. They were being applauded, were starting. Just getting on an oval-shaped bed, one that rotated underneath dim lights. He was naked. His wife. Siobhán. The woman I had tutored. The woman who used to dress in ragged jeans, tennis shoes, and wore a flower in her hair. She was stunning. Nothing like she had been when she was at Hampton. I don't recall ever seeing her in high heels, not once. Had never seen her wear a nice watch.

Chris was a Doer.

He had always been a star, the BMOC, the man in the spotlight.

This was his arena.

I wanted to see his intimacy up closer.

I wanted to violate his space as he had violated mine.

I followed the crowd.

As carnal enthusiasts crowded
into the smaller room and watched him, as his raging pheromones rose and stimulated practically every clitoris bearer in the room, as he too moved his hips and stirred his wife like a Caribbean man, I was right there. His dreadlocks were gone, his face now clean shaven. When I closed my eyes I recognized his every moan. With eyes opened I recognized, remembered his every move.

He was very handsome. She, gorgeous. Beauty attracted, as did skills. Everyone loved to see a beautiful woman with an oral fixation.

She massaged his lingam, this their sensual moment that started off as if it were a ceremony with her honoring his penis, not trying to arouse him, but praise him, recognize him as a man. She nurtured him. They were connected. Him inside of her mouth. They were one, amalgamated as lovers, as husband and wife. It was like watching his heart beat, then her heart beat in response. She massaged his testicles, then she sucked them, masturbated him. She changed, sucked him, massaged testicles. She licked down to his root, licked from his root to his hat.

He panted, “Yellow. Yellow. Yellow.”

She slowed down and grinned. That meant that he was about to come, but had delayed it. She glowed. She was a crowd favorite.

Soon, in a calmer breath, he whispered, “Green.”

While she sucked him, she did a handstand. He reached up and helped her balance herself. With her mouth filled with lingam she did a one-eighty, had started with her back to his face and with his help, turned until the front of her body faced his, and he eased her down, brought her sex down toward his face, and performed sixty-nine.

Women whispered, “Damn.”

Men whispered, “Damn.”

People bumped into me. Bumped Rosetta into me.

The room filled with couples, with men who loved to watch a beautiful woman suck cock, with women who loved to watch a Mandingo lick and suck on clit. Soon she mounted him. Then he turned her over. As my ex loved his wife, he watched me, found my eyes and stared at me, dared me. He fucked her and she sang an epithalamium and gave an angel its wings. My mouth was drier than Saudi Arabia. When I inhaled, his sex pheromones were strong, had been just as powerful in college. It was like smoking a joint, inhaling his scent had that effect, made women light-headed and hungry for his come.

In college, I used to sleep in one of his T-shirts, used to sleep inhaling his scents, pretending he was in my bed. Pheromones stimulated, made victims of us all, a trick of nature on the human species. I'd never lived in Trinidad full-time, but the Caribbean culture was in my blood and her men were my sin, my weakness, as if some lust or need for them had been preprogrammed into my soul. With eyes of jealousy, a heart of pain, and a wicked smile I inhaled the sweetness of his wife's elegant perfume. Her scent was soft, angelic, perfect, probably only detectable by my memories and me. I listened to the positive comments from the poltroons known as Watchers as I watched my past make love to his wife. It was truly a creative, romantic fuck session. I saw what she had done to move his heart from me to her in college. Passionate. Uninhibited. She was high on wine and maybe more. It was like being in his bridal suite on his honeymoon night.

Most of all, as memories resurrected, as old wounds opened, I saw how he had been with me. They moaned like Protestants. It was indeed like watching a religious experience. Dozens more congregated, more than had come to watch Quince and the Brit, or me and the Brit and Quince, or me and my lover from Curaçao. As my past made love to his wife, he took her through a gallery of positions, advanced positions, kinky positions that ignited the fires in others, some done sitting down, her diamonds sparkling, her heels looking amazing, her breathing deep and husky as they did positions that complemented each other, lustful positions, reverse cowgirl with her long shiny hair flowing to the floor, her riding him as I had ridden him when he had been mine, her sucking him as I had sucked him, massaging his lingam with her mouth, her breathing technique enviable, various versions of man on top, of woman on top, with her legs opened wide and spread into a split as his muscles flexed in dominance. She sat across him, their bodies in an X, and she took control. It was remarkable. Applause from the Watchers. My hands became dank fists. As they continued their give-and-take, as their pleasing harmony aroused many, my arms remained folded across my breasts. He pinned her ankles up behind her neck and stroked her. She sang. He pulled her into him over and over and over and over and over. He fucked her as he used to do me when we were in college.

Rosetta stared, shivered, trembled, mouth opened in amazement, hardly breathing. She watched him in his most sensual form, in his athletic prowess, nude and naked, saw the original alpha male in congress. Her nipples were strong. She rocked from foot to foot.

I said, “Rosetta.”

“Yes?”

“Blink.”

She took a deep breath, her eyes rapidly opening and closing, and broke free from her stupor. She had been mesmerized. Embarrassment tinted her skin as indecipherable emotions tinted mine.

She whispered, “Sorry. He's . . . he's . . .”

“I know.”

Rosetta shuddered like she had the chills, as if electricity had been turned on inside of her body and in a jittery tone said, “You've seen enough. We should leave now. Let's go watch other couples.”

“I'm not leaving. Not yet.”

“Nia. You are standing here looking like you're about to explode and that is not good.”

“I'm not ready to leave.”

“Why not?”

“Because I want his wife to acknowledge me.”

Siobhán witnessed my emotions; saw lack of praise, unhidden disgust, and her voyeuristic smile became uneasy. My eyes left her, settled on him. I smiled. I exposed him, spoke his full Christian name. That caught his wife off guard. Saying his name had had the shattering effect of a high explosive. Siobhán looked at me. She squinted. Leaned toward me. Squinted again. She asked me who I was. I didn't answer. She asked Chris. No response. She asked again. She grabbed a red towel and covered herself. She felt uneasy. Now she was anxious.

I moved closer, squatted down next to her, close enough to speak at a normal tone so she could hear. I said, “We were friends; at least I thought that we were since we broke bread every time we met. Siobhán Kline, stop pretending that you don't know who the fuck I am.”

She whispered, “Bijou? Oh. My. God. Bijou?”

“My favorite cheerleader. Still as flexible as a contortionist and, Siobhán, you can suck dick. Not much on moving that little ass, but you could suck the yellow off a banana. Kudos. Same to you, Chris.”

She said, “Nia Simone Bijou. Oh. My. God.”

Fear. Abrupt fear showed in her eyes. She felt threatened.

Smile on my face, I stood up. I stepped back into the crowd.

Rosetta and I turned and left.

In times of madness, a woman was always bolder with a friend.

Old feelings rose from six feet under and followed me, each as attractive as a corpse on
The Walking Dead
, each just as rancid. Soon I felt my legs. Soon I could breathe. It wasn't me who had lost it and had a fit. I existed outside of myself. The person that had done that suffered from PTSD and was a person of diminished capacity, a ticking time bomb that had taken years to detonate. I had seen him, watched him, and relapsed. He was the origin of who I was today. If only bad memories could be created on an Etch A Sketch and when they were too much to bear, shake, erase, and start with a clean slate.

After that explosive moment, once we were on the other side of the compound, I had shaken it off. Every nerve ending came alive. My arms and legs shook, teeth clattered like I was nude at the South Pole.

Rosetta said things, but I was unable to hear a single word.

I returned to flirting, to making friends, to being touched, mild making out, to expressing myself as lovers made sounds as if they were at a nighttime prayer meeting to worship Dionysus or Orpheus. I returned to being bad, and I wanted him to see me be bad, wanted him to see others admiring me, lusting after me, wanted him to look at the monitors and to see the top-shelf option that he had missed out on. I could've been his wife. Maybe this could've been our world.

In the hallway at Decadence a man who looked like Idris Elba had sat on a red leather sofa as Rosetta rode him reverse cowgirl. I stood in front of his face, and as Rosetta rode, he ate me. Rosetta was feeling good and leaned her back into his chest and while he moved in and out of her, while the man who looked like Idris dined, I reached and rubbed her clit, strummed her sex, and sucked her breast as he led her into the mouth of an orgasm. I had sat on that man's face moving up and down and grinding and winding and she rode his strength and did the same.

Chris watched me. His wife violated me as well.

She stood at her husband's side. She stared. We made harsh eye contact over and over. She remembered how she had betrayed me.

She remembered what I could never forget.

Beyond its pearly gates, heaven had some hell within its walls.