Decadence (2 page)

When I stirred from my erotic dream,
from the sex dream I couldn't remember, I woke up lubricated, lips swollen, the sweetness of my own honey dampening my thighs. I touched where I ached. I touched moistness. I had had an orgasm. I had had a wonderful orgasm and the fire was alive. I rubbed fingers over my inflamed lips and honey. Then I held two fingers there. Felt myself pulsating.

I was engorged as if I had a powerful female erection.

My cellular rang and I jerked as if I had been caught touching myself, as if someone in the shadows had seen me tasting myself. Skype. It was the most annoying, the ugliest, most irritating ringtone ever invented. Eerie. Almost paranormal. Someone was Skyping me in the middle of the night. It was Hazel Tamana Bijou. It was my mother. I grappled for the phone and accepted the call. Her beautiful face came up on the screen. It was impossibly early in Beverly Hills, California. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She was letting it grow long again. She had on glasses. No makeup. She had on a sweaty T-shirt and shorts. She had been in her gym lifting weights or running, maybe both. My energetic mother. Last year she had moved from her three-level home in View Park and returned to the home that I had grown up in, the estate that had become hers when she married my stepfather. She was once again living in luxury in a sophisticated yet charming stone French Provincial reminiscent of a vineyard home that should be in the South of France instead of on Mulholland Drive.

For a moment I missed home. I missed that house. The good times. For a moment I was a little girl running around that yard again.

I clicked on a light and in a voice that hadn't normalized said, “Yeah, Mummy, wha?”

“Yuh wake up, Trini.”

“I go to bed Trini craving Crix and I dream I Trini wearing red, white, and black and I dream I eat doubles and bake and shark and pelau and I wake up singing the Chimok Bakery song and craving a roti like a true Trini. And I have Benji on my ringtone. Lord, I jus dream I was in hotel in Port of Spain.”

She laughed. “Doh forget yuh interview.”

“You in real trouble, wee. Wake me over that. Jus another interview.”

She was in the kitchen putting kale leaves, a cucumber, celery stalks, two green apples, lemon, and a piece of ginger on the counter, a cutting board and her overworked Jack LaLanne juicer at her side.

She said, “All interview important. Doh forget nah. I know you, Miss Bijou.”

The juicer kicked on. I wanted to scream.

She said, “During the interview talk bout de film and make sure tuh mention Trinidad as much as yuh can. If they think yuh is American Black yuh get less respect, so let 'em know yuh is Trini.”

“Bye, Mommy. Ah gone. Love you.”

“What yuh think about us buying a condo on the properties behind The Falls at West Mall? It will cost about a million and we can lease it out to a diplomat long-term.”

“Mom. Ask me when I wake. I real damn sleepy.”

“It's on a high floor that faces the sea. Three bedrooms. It will cost under a million.”

“US or Trini dollars?”

“One million US. That would be about six-point-five million in Trini dollars.”

“Yuh mad? How you going to call me in the middle of the night asking for a cazillion dollars?”

“I bought you a new car. I just bought you a brand-new BMW.”

“I didn't ask you to. My roadster is fine.”

“It's too small. You need to be in a bigger car.”

“If you like the new car so much I'll send it back with a thank-you note.”

“We can lease the condo out to a diplomat long-term and it go pay for itself. It's on the side of the island with all of the private schools and expats, so they will be willing to pay ridiculously high rent.”

“Mom. Geh your hand out of my money. Ask me again when I wake. I real damn sleepy.”

“Swear jar.”

“Whatever.”

“Go sleep. Call me after the interview. And mend your cacology. No slang. You are a Hampton girl. A USC woman. Represent.”

“I shall speak with perfect diction and make my mother proud.”

“And reconsider doing the television interview in Atlanta with Jewell Stewark.”

“How many times do I have to tell you that I don't like her?”

“The Jewell of the South, or whatever they call her, she does a great interview.”

“Why are you still talking? Mommy, please. How many times I tell you I sleepy?”

“Why don't you like her? She's an island girl.”

“Wait. Hold on, wait a minute.”

“I'm hanging up. Go to sleep and wake up with a better attitude, which I doubt.”

“Mommy, don't play with me. Get in the light and let me see something.”

She laughed as she moved in front of the Viking appliances. “What are you trying to see?”

“You know what I am trying to see. Oh my God. No you didn't.”

She laughed harder. “Was wondering when you were going to notice.”

“You dyed your hair? How dare you dye your hair.”

“There is only one mother in this conversation.”

“And she is behaving like a child. What color is that, Mommy?”

“It's a color called ecru.”

“You dyed your hair and you didn't tell me? You didn't ask me my opinion?”

“You like or is that a stern frown of disapprobation?”

“It's beautiful. You let you hair grow long. Now you color your hair super light brown like you a teenager. Look at your body. No fat. Yeah, I disapprove of it all. Now you look younger than me. I hate you. I want my mommy to look like a mommy. How you get your hair dyed and not ask me if I like the color first? Then call me at this early hour just so I can see it? That mean you just had it done today. So evil.”

“Nice to have haters. You're nobody if nobody hates you. Now tell Siri to remind you to call your mommy and tell her how much you love her when you wake up and have some sense in your head.”

I hung up and dropped my iPhone, licked the inside of my mouth, expected to taste exotic fruits. The world was silent. It was the piceous hour just before dawn. Smyrna, Georgia, was gentle at this hour. This was the hour for suburban refucks, for the second round of making love. This was the time of night made for reaching for your lover, it was the time for second rounds, for refucks, for middle of the night orgasms. The storm was strong outside of my windows. All I could feel was the storm inside of my body. I thought that I had danced my heat away last night. I had spent the evening in town in the Old Fourth Ward on Edgewood, had danced to house music, African salsa, and jungle music from eleven P
.
M. until two in the morning. I had come home, showered, crawled in bed.

Dancing hadn't been enough. Three hours of dancing hadn't burned away the fire of need.

Last night I should have driven to Decadence. I had joined, but I hadn't found the bravery to make the four-hour drive and venture into the unknown alone. There had been a hellified series of interviews followed by an arduous and expensive screening process that required recent medical records. The last interview had been in NYC at Trump Tower. I guess that it was there because of their international clientele. The club also required up-to-date blood tests of its current members. The club did its best to ensure that all patrons entered this world disease-free. After being screened for all transmittable diseases known to man, I had passed with flying colors. And like everyone else, I would have to be screened on a regular basis. They offered many services, the best of everything that money could buy.

I hadn't found the courage to make that drive.

Maybe because I felt like I would be betraying Prada. Or maybe I used Prada as an excuse. Seemed like forever since I'd seen Prada. Since I had met him in Trinidad, his businesses had expanded over the last few years, businesses that were scattered from Jamaica to Trinidad, radio, television, real estate, retail, and now his businesses and empire were marching across other parts of Europe, attempting to do to Europe in some ways what Walmart has done to America and a few countries beyond, only on a higher level. He who owned media shaped the world and its values.

My libido didn't care about business. My yoni craved the sweet intrusion of lingam. Six weeks had passed. Six weeks of not being touched. Six weeks of being ablaze. Six weeks of celibacy was starting to drive me as mad as a woman in solitary confinement.

My arousal was as distressing as it was perplexing. My arousal was part of me, part of my humanness that I had tried to explain, to comprehend. Nude, I took the elevator upstairs, too turned-on to walk up one flight of stairs, went to my office, an office that also had unpacked boxes of books all over, sat in my leather chair, turned on my laptop, and began typing. As a side project, one that I took on in between working on the script and ghostwriting, I had been journaling my life, had been writing the unexpurgated version of my existence, the version of my life that was unbowdlerized. I was a long way from being done writing the novel that would be my greatest labor of love. I had much living to do.
Abnormal Desires
, by Anonymous. I only worked on that novel in spurts. No one knew that I was writing about my life in detail, the good, the bad, chronicling my lovers, not for the sake of counting notches on bedposts, but as a way of being able to look at myself objectively, if that would ever be possible. The eye couldn't see itself. But it was all there, without shame, without apologies. The parts that were erotic—such as the run around Stone Mountain, the remembrance of wonderful lovers—each time awakened the sexual fire within me.

And enemies.

I touched my neck where a knife had been, and I remembered.

Still haunted by the fragments of my dream, I stared out at the darkness, wishing. No matter how I positioned myself, or what I did to distract myself, I tingled. I remembered the dream. A man's hands on my ankles. Me on my back. His tongue inside of me. Taking on two lovers, as I had done in the past, as I had enjoyed being made love to then. Taking on three lovers, as I had never done. Decadence. The interviewer that had conducted the final interview had planted that seed.

I typed fast. I typed faster. I typed as fast as I could.

Then I stopped, sat shifting in my chair, inhaling, exhaling, nipples hard, moaning softly, rubbing my neck, bouncing my leg, chewing my bottom lip. I stood up, kept my hand on the back of my neck, and walked in circles, danced in circles. I needed maintenance. Day in and out, I stayed busy, but at times I was severely lonely. Even though I preferred to live my life unfettered, lately I had been craving a male roommate, someone less than a husband, a lover who was not quite a boyfriend, but more than a booty call, a man who would quell that loneliness and feed my need for perpetual pleasure. This was my only need. Could be worse. Could be addicted to a dozen pills, or a food addict. My sin now as it had been for the last few years, as this body aged and hormones remained aflame, was the need for pleasure. My sensual hunger was always present and invisible to all. My hunger for orgasm was in every breath and unseen, hidden behind an Audrey Hepburn smile on Caribbean brown skin. But it was more than sex I wanted. Most days I was jeans and running shoes, but sometimes I was girlier than I wanted to admit. Sometimes I needed to be pampered and treated in a special way by a man. Sometimes I had moments when I wanted to be protected and taken care of, despite my independence, despite my feminist streak, despite my obsession with self-sufficiency, despite my battle with the laws written by men, for men, the laws that oppressed and stymied the progress of women. I wanted to have permission to be lazy. I needed someone to have my back so I could take a breath, relax, and close my eyes and dream the dream of a well-protected queen. But I worked. I worked hard. The need for intimacy had never interfered with my job, and the pursuit of fantasies had never done me any harm, no more than a few emotional scars, so that told me that I had no addiction, just desire. In the battle with human nature, I remained the victor.

By late morning
there was a break in the storm. As soon as I finished the interview, my cellular buzzed with a text.

TWENTY MINUTES?

I responded in the affirmative. I changed, stretched, and hurried out of Ivy Walk dressed in black workout gear from head to toe, including my winter gloves and cap. Clouds over Smyrna were like one unending layer of dirty cotton. With a frown and a few unkind words to the makers of the storms, I jogged through the security gates, my eyes still monitoring the skies.

The distance from his bed to mine was no more than five minutes, ten minutes if there was traffic. He was five foot ten with skin that always looked like it had been kissed by the sun. His name was Bret. I had no idea what his last name was, only that he was former military, drove a Mustang, dark blue convertible. His music was bumping, but not too loud. Country music. Brantley Gilbert, “Country Must Be Country Wide.” Bret and I had met last summer, after I had returned to the States from my season of travel. We were in Virginia Highland at a bar. There he was, dressed in simple Wranglers, brown cowboy boots, and an AC/DC T-shirt that showed off his rock-hard arms. A few drinks later we were barhopping from Ponce de Leon to North Highland to Glen Iris Drive, laughing and flirting and dancing. That night he had been a zipless encounter. Probably the best zipless encounter that I had had to date. It had been like a romantic BFE—boyfriend experience. It had been a summer night of need, both physical and emotional. I would have preferred to be with Prada, but he lived and worked across the pond. But I was a neighbor with Bret in a big small town called Atlanta, where country music, gospel, and crass hip-hop ruled the airwaves.

I had had a one-night stand with a man who loved fishing, hunting, and baseball.

I said, “Hey, Bret. Thought that you would've passed on running on an ugly day like today.”

“Anytime I'm not where it's one hundred and twenty degrees, not almost six thousand miles from home, not dressed in full uniform and carrying eighty pounds of gear and worried about driving over a bomb, it's a good day. Men in Afghanistan and Iraq are begging for weather like this.”

He owned a soft accent that echoed South Carolina, his bucolic place of birth.

I said, “Streets. I think we should skip the Silver Comet Trail and run the streets.”

“Some parts might be flooded. I want to run, not swim.”

“Aren't you the man who loves to do mud runs all over the South?”

“You should come with me on the next one. It's in Florida.”

“How far?”

“Only a five-K.”

“When a man asks a woman to run over three miles in ankle-deep mud, she has arrived.”

“Anyway. We should drive five minutes over to the Silver Comet Trail.”

I looked up at the sky, held my hand out with the palm toward the sky, as if I were gifted with the powers of meteorology. The Silver Comet Trail started about five minutes away, a fully paved trail that began in Smyrna and extended sixty-one miles to where it connected with the Chief Ladiga Trail and ended ninety-four miles later in Anniston, Alabama. I'd biked most of the trail twice in the last year.

It was a state trail. There was no traffic. It was safe. But today I wasn't feeling the trail.

I said, “If we start at mile zero and run eight or nine miles out on the trail we'll probably be somewhere near Sailors Parkway. Look at the clouds. That's too far out and if the rain returns, we'll have to swim back. This way we won't ever be more than three or so miles from here. I'm thinking. Hold on. If we run the loop to Cumberland Boulevard the entire run, we'll have plenty of places to duck for cover. Gas stations, fast-food places, even the mall or Costco or Chuck E. Cheese.”

“True. If we get beyond that we have Home Depot or Starbucks, even the Cobb County Sheriff's station, that's if it starts to come down hard by the time we're on that side.”

“So we are in agreement?”

Bret nodded in agreement. He wore black running tights, Nikes, a sweat top, gloves, cap.

He said, “Are you serious about going on the mud run?”

“You know me. I'll try anything once.”

He nodded, convinced. “How did that place turn out?”

“Which?”

“When you flew up to New York to have that chat. The interview at the one-of-a-kind place with the steep membership fee.”

“It was fine. Not supposed to talk about it after at this point.”

“Sounds like it's better than the place you had contemplated, the place off Fulton Industrial. I don't care for that part of town.”

“Oh yeah. Decadence is at an entire other level.”

I told him that I had never made it inside of Trapeze. I told Bret that I was afraid that I would run into my former lover, or my former lovers, if I had gone there. I didn't want to run into the identical sins. They were my past. There were many more swingers clubs, many more institutions that made it possible for the adult lifestyle to thrive in Atlanta, in the heart of conservative Bible thumpers: Venus, Tina the Swinger, Swinging Atlanta, Luxuria, Club Desire, Atlanta United Socials, 2Risque. Too many to count, some congregated in mansions out by Lake Murray in Lexington, South Carolina, and at some meetings they were still old-school, they still dropped keys in bowls and left with a random sex partner.

That told me a lot. I knew that my spirit was out of control, but I was not alone in my journey.

Bret said, “You're going to do it. The place called Decadence.”

“I'm a member. At least for the next year I'm a member of that adult-themed country club.”

“Trapeze would have been a lot cheaper, based on what you told me.”

“How would you know how much Trapeze would cost?”

“Was curious. Looked it up online. Besides, they advertise in
Rolling Out
magazine. I guess that means the locals go there.”

“Yeah. If I do get up the nerves to go, I definitely don't want to run into my next-door neighbors. They are not attractive, not at all.”

He laughed a little, then he nodded. I grinned. He was a former military man who understood the concept of Need to Know.

He knew that I was interested in joining a club that celebrated being an adult. He hadn't been judgmental, just nodded and smiled a smile that was indecipherable, yet felt mannish. He told me that I was a queen, a ruler, a sensual goddess walking amongst mere mortals. The same words that he had told me the first night we met. The man could dance and that was a turn-on. He danced all night like he was at Carnival. Soon one thing had led to another, the moon was high and I was a sensual vampire, in search of nourishment. Kissing in the parking lot. Kiss after kiss after kiss until I told him that we needed to stop or get a room. After the one-night stand we had run across each other again at Home Depot on Cumberland and Paces Ferry, right up the road from my new dwelling. Seeing him again, seeing him on my side of town, that was a surprising moment. He was with his two kids, a son and a daughter, ages seven and ten. He was in daddy mode. While I bought lightbulbs and cleansers and he had duplicate keys made and selected paint for a bedroom, we talked as if we knew each other, as if that night of sex at a hotel in the heart of Midtown had never happened. People assumed that we were a family. I told him my real name, gave him my cellular number, and within three days we became text buddies. He hasn't ever called me. Only sent texts. Never mentioned that night.

We had gone to a Wednesday WindDown at Centennial Park and when that fun and dancing was over we went to a movie at the independent theater near Piedmont Park at the Midtown Promenade on Monroe. Had watched a Norwegian film,
Turn Me On, Dammit!
After the film that I loved and he was ambivalent about because it had subtitles, we had stopped at Après Diem, sat at a candlelit table outside the sexy restaurant—sexy because of it being nighttime, sexy because we were surrounded by couples who were so into each other. We talked and talked and talked. In the middle of the conversation he reached over and grabbed my hand.

But he let it go and never tried to hold it again. I wondered if I had done something wrong.

When we were done eating, drinking, and talking, he walked to his car and I headed to mine and we drove in the same direction for a while, then he continued past my exit at Atlanta Road.

Part of me had hoped that he was stalking me, following me home to take this yoni.

We'd gone out a dozen times since, had always met at the location of the event, but he had never tried to seduce me again. A dozen times I had wished that he had tried. A dozen times I had been weak for his sexual healing. Including last night. He had been my dancing partner until the crack of dawn. We had shared that energy for hours.

For him, with the moment we had shared, with the wine, with my mood, it wouldn't have taken much to have me again.

I wondered if it was because he knew that Prada existed. He knew that Prada wasn't my boyfriend. He'd known about Prada from the first night. I had mentioned that I was seeing someone. I always did. It helped keep the zipless aspect of what I needed in perspective. He knew about Prada.

Just as I knew that he was about a year into being divorced. A horrible divorce.

Fiscally Bret knew that he was the opposite of Prada, his polar opposite at the bottom line.

Prada was an established man, good in bed and perfect on paper, the type who sent men like Bret to war to die for their profits. And based on how we met, Bret knew there was a heat simmering beneath my cool façade. He knew that during this season of my life, I was distracted, that I wasn't a loyal woman.

When we met to run, he was never invited inside my gates. I always came outside.

I'd never let him inside of my world and I'd never been invited inside of his.

We took to the sidewalk on Atlanta Road, headed up the incline jogging at an easy nine-minute-mile pace. The wind pushed into our faces, but not enough to make me want to surrender. It made me stronger. Soon we had passed where Paces Ferry ended, had also passed a series of new developments that ranged from $300K to $700K. When we passed Campbell High School, the school that Julia Roberts had attended, I was warmed up. Bret picked up the pace, pushed me, made me run faster than I would if I had been running alone. Less than three miles later we were moving down Spring Road breaking a seven-minute-mile pace, that area being lined with apartments, older properties of lesser value and an area that had changed from Caucasian to Black and now was rapidly becoming Asian, African, and Latino. The train tracks, the Farmers Market, and Deeply Rooted natural hair salon all went by in a blur. Bret took that route to Cumberland Parkway and turned right, looped back over the I-285 overpass toward the Cumberland Mall. I spotted a billboard that featured the local superstar anchor nicknamed the Jewell of the South.

Memories came like a thunderstorm.

With a grunt I spat at her face and picked up my pace.

He said, “You always spit at anything with her face on it.”

“Leave it alone.”

“You look at her like you want to cut her throat.”

“You're good at reading me. Too damn good at reading me.”

“What does that mean?”

“Means I don't have to explain what I feel to you.”

Cool raindrops mixed with my warm sweat. The storm was about to return. It always returned. The calm never ruled for long.

Bret asked, “You're okay with running in the rain?”

“Are you okay with running in the rain?”

“Weather enhances the challenge of the run.”

As Bret played country music on his MP3, I jammed Sy Smith, “Fast and Curious.” I ran on Bret's heels, made him my rabbit for the next nine miles. The rain worsened. So, we decided to cut the seventeen-mile run short, headed back in, took Cumberland Boulevard and its rolling hills past condos and luxury apartments. Near the end, after we had passed the Cobb County Sheriff's station, I moved by Bret, took the lead, and pretended I was running Fatuma down and beat her to the tape in the LA marathon. Lungs on fire, legs aching, I stopped at Atlanta Road. Ten seconds later Bret stopped near me, hands on his hips, panting. He was a gentleman, always let me win whenever I sprinted at the end. By then cold rain fell with a steady rhythm. A moment later, chest still heaving, I checked my time, checked it for each mile. My best mile had been six minutes and one second. The last mile was six minutes
and two seconds
. Disappointment rose.

I caught my breath. “What do I have to do to break a freaking six-minute mile?
Fuck
.”

“It's raining, it's cold, your clothes have weight, and the wind slows you down.”

“Six minutes and
one fucking second
. Might as well be a seven-minute mile.”

“You'll break six.”

“I know.”

“When Kobe learns that basketball is a team sport, you'll break six minutes.”

I cursed him. He laughed. He was a Hawks fan, a Miami Heat fan, despised all things Lakers. I was a blue state girl and he was a red state man. Chest rising and falling, sweat raining, I ached and it was a good pain. The anxiety from being in need of pleasure, for now, had been diminished. A harder rain had returned by the time I cooled down.

He said, “You've dropped a few more pounds.”

“Have I?”

“Your raw foods and juicing diet is really working.”

“I just have to make sure that I'm getting enough protein.”

For a few moments I stood with my face to the sky, mouth open, allowing heaven's cool orgasm to fall on my tongue. The winter rain here made me miss the summer and warm showers of Trinidad.

Bret watched me. When I realized he was staring, watching me with my mouth wide, swallowing, he moved his eyes to his sports watch.

He said, “I have to get back home.”

“No time to eat or grab a spot of tea at J. Christopher?”