Decadence (3 page)

“Next time.”

“My treat. Want to thank you for getting my hair wet.”

“Would love to, but today isn't good for me.”

“Whoever she is, she must have you on lockdown.”

Bret waved good-bye and jogged to his car. His engine started, rumbled like the muscle car it was, and right away I heard Eric Church singing “Springsteen.” I was learning about country artists. Windshield wipers came to life. Headlights woke up. Bret tooted his horn. For a moment there was a gaze in his eyes, a memory, an acknowledgment. Then he was gone, flying down Atlanta Road, turning right and blending with traffic heading toward the East-West Connector.

No one would ever think that we'd had a shared sexual encounter. To country music. Now country music was a soundtrack to memory. Country music told stories about first loves, about memoirs, about the feeling about the past and loves you'd never have again. It might have a twang, or be religious, might have a redneck feel, even might have a Confederate flag, but it was intelligent, it was passionate, it was music you could play in front of your friends, family, and children. And when he hung out at places that played country, there might be a fight from time to time, but nobody was shot, no police were called because they fought man-to-man and the loser acknowledged his loss and went on his way, sometimes even buying the man who whupped his ass a tall one before he left the bar. That was how Bret felt about it.

I respected and admired that. Hip-hop only had fuck songs and R & B barely had a pulse. Maybe it was hard to be romantic in a culture that didn't portray itself as romantic, not in more than three decades.

The former solider named Bret had pleased me. He was meek but his sex was remarkable. My inner thighs, my neck, he had done things to make me unleash the beast.

When intromission had changed to intermission and his lingam had turned flaccid and I was ready to raise my right hand in a fist so I could scream and declare myself winner of that never-ending session of lovemaking, he had taken two washcloths and cut four-inch slits in their centers. While I lay on the bed naked, in rapture, simmering, barely alive, barely awake, shifting and wondering what he was doing, he filled a bowl with hot water. He let the towels soak. He kissed me awhile, touched my face, then had me recline, put me on my back with my knees bent, legs open. He wrung out one of the steaming washcloths. Bret looked at it, turned it until the cut was vertical, like the slit of a yoni. He put the washcloth on me, put it on top of my sex, lined the slit from the washcloth up with the opening that nature had given me. I moaned. The heat from the towel felt amazing. Bret leaned forward and put his tongue through the slit of the towel. It was mind-blowing. It was the best tongue massage I had ever had. Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print was different. His was unforgettable. He ate me and stimulated my nipples, made my body surge with oxytocin, enough to drown us both. I died. Over and over I saw more than one hundred billion galaxies, saw a billion stars, and I died.

When the towel cooled down, he put it back in the bowl and took out the other warmed towel; wrung it out, lined it up, and again gave me his tongue. His tongue went so deep. The heat from his mouth, the heat from the towels, indescribable. It was the best oral orgasm I'd ever felt. He had left me spent. I was a sweaty Trinidadian rag doll with a sensitive clitoris and nipples and reddened skin and a satisfied smile. There were forty-five miles of nerves in the skin of a human being. He had kissed every inch of mine.

He had told me, “I've never been to bed with a woman born in another country.”

“Is it any different?”

“Maybe because this scenario is new to me. You're amazing. Both of you are amazing.”

Then we had looked over at her. The woman we had picked up while barhopping. We had found her partying at Rooftop 866, enjoying the spectacular view as we swayed to the rhythm of the house beats. She had looked like a good girl, like Carrie Underwood, but she was a tourist, a Vancouverite in town for a weekend of fun, the whiskey in her blood sending her to us, making her join in as we had danced, making her smile that smile of debauchery. Bret had told her that she was sweeter than a Krispy Kreme doughnut when the HOT light was turned on. The hue of her skin, her nice frame, and the electricity that ran when she touched us, it had caused Bret to look at us, try to understand if he had to pick one of us, but when I had asked them if they were good at sharing, when she had smiled, then when Bret had smiled like he was the luckiest man on the planet. It had been a three-way at the W Midtown. We had been in an unscheduled ménage à trois. He had taken a warm towel to her, pleased her as I squeezed and kissed her breasts.

We had participated in the abnormal. And what was abnormal, to me, felt so very normal.

Bret had handled me well. He had handled me as if he were a cognoscente, a connoisseur, and an expert in the art of pleasure. The man formerly employed by Uncle Sam had handled both of us so very well. I had watched Bret with the Vancouverite. Their lovemaking went to a new level of intensity. Strangers in a rented bed. He had her legs wide, an ankle in each hand as he stroked her. She pulled sheets and lost it. I lay on the bed with them and watched until I witnessed her screaming orgasm. She was loud, so loud that I had to clasp my hand over her mouth. For a while, as Bret stroked her, I held her neck, choked her. She loved that. The way he sexed her aroused me. The way she came and came and trembled and said things in her Canadian accent aroused me. Bret was on something. Jack Daniel's. L-arginine. Saw palmetto. Tongkat ali. Yohimbe. Something damn good kept him filled with power. Soon I had let her go and I moved behind him, kissed his neck, sucked his ear, and gave him a new level of stimulation. Then he strained, stretched, took her with one of her legs over his shoulder. I sucked her toes and Bret made his skin beat hers and she screamed. He was lost inside of the Vancouverite. She came again. Bret kept stroking her and I moved and sat on her face, let my yoni muffle her lewd screams and cries, made us into the perfect triangle, kissed Bret as she ate and sucked on me. We were like that until she trembled and moaned and cried out that she couldn't breathe. I moved away from her and her mouth became a letter
O
and she quaked from crown to corns. Since my Sunshine days, I had watched a lot of women come. It was a fetish. Seeing the pleasure in others turned me on. Bret tried not to, but he came, his release powerful and copious. I watched his face as he came. I stroked his chin as he lost control. It was spiritual. The energy. The primal, barbaric grunts. Watched him transition from madness, strain, become fire and rock, and release, then watched him return to peace. He could barely breathe. She was barely able to breathe. It was like she had been killed, then resurrected. When he was done he didn't withdraw from her. He kissed me as he was inside of her, and when our passionate kiss had finally eased, when it had ended, he looked down at her, asked her if she was okay, sprinkled soft kisses on her dank face. She smiled and they rubbed noses.

An hour after she had arrived, she had orgasmed many times, and then fulfilled in both pleasure and curiosity, she showered, gave us kisses, and with her hair wet and back in a ponytail, she called a taxi and left to head back to the Four Seasons in Buckhead, reconnected with her Canadian friends. It was Bret and I the rest of the night. Until the break of dawn. It had been one of those nights when my need was so high it terrified me. I wanted to fellate, suck lingam because it turned me on. I wanted to suck because sucking made me feel good. I wanted to be fucked hard, wanted my ass smacked, wanted bites on my neck, wanted my skin sucked, wanted my nipples pinched, wanted come in my yoni, mouth, wanted come in my ass and on my skin, wanted a hard and unapologetic session, wanted to fuck a man the same way, wanted to fuck a man senseless while he fucked me without mercy, wanted to be lubed and fucked in my chocolate star after my yoni and mouth had been fucked. I had wanted Prada, he was familiar, he was tied to my emotions, we had known each other for many seasons, and we were lusty and cerebral together, our sex amazing and intense, romantic and lovey-dovey. Romantic and lovey-dovey was good, holding hands and flirting was good, but I was liquored up and hormonal and wanted strange; I wanted hot and hard, wanted hard and at that moment, wanted it nasty from a new lover, from a mystery, from a man whore who would be added to the zipless count, and the nastier the better. Then as Rascal Flatts played on the radio I had crept out of the room, purse over shoulder, shoes in one hand and my jewelry and car keys in the other, left him sleeping, my trademark red heart and smiley face drawn on the mirror in lipstick the hue of lust and love. I had been tempted to do something that I never did, leave my name and phone number, but I didn't.

But we had run into each other again by happenstance.

Then on the Fourth of July we had hooked up at Lenox Square and run the Peachtree Road Race. We had been sharing heat in a different way ever since.

As rain fell, I smiled and imagined that some lucky Southern bitch was waiting for him now, probably had a bowl of cheese grits, sausage, and eggs sunny-side up waiting for him at the table. While he ate his cheese grits, she would probably be underneath the table sucking his balls as she stroked his lingam.

He was distracting without trying to be, despite how convoluted my life had become. I was glad that he was my friend. Or whatever we were now, I was glad. I enjoyed the energy of a man in my world.

My situation with Prada, if it was a situation, was more than enough at the moment. Still Bret lived one exit away, no more than two miles, two moments from my bed. I took sharp breaths, tried to have power over what was beyond control, and swallowed. If we had continued being lovers, maybe I wouldn't feel this fire that I felt right now. But it could have also ended up being a disaster.

That was my track record.

Once abnormal desires became the normal longing, not only was it incurable, it became preferred. I craved the absurd. I suppose that it was that way with men after they had gone to Brazil and had fun with many gorgeous women at once. After a few days as a sexual god, after hedonistic nights, returning to their wives and girlfriends and monogamy, it was no longer inspiring; it had to be less than remarkable, too normal. Normal was as flavorful as boiled tofu. The same for the randy women who went to Jamaica or Italy and experienced ménage à trois with handsome foreign lovers, then returned to dull husbands and boyfriends, to one-on-one loving, pretending that the sin-filled lovemaking that they had experienced hadn't changed them. But all came home ecstatic, yet depressed, some already planning the next escape to Brazil or Italy.

It was physical, but for me—even as I treaded in my own hypocrisy—it also felt spiritual.

Each time I took a lover, I wanted to learn more about life, about me, my humanness, wanted to find my own limit. I wanted to cross so many lines. What I wanted no one lover could do alone. Years before Bret I'd been with two men and the ménage à trois had taken me to a new altitude, then a woman was added to the awakening and it became a
ménage à quatre
, a beautiful four-headed beast, that matter between four had made me realize that there was more. I wanted love and the beauty of sex. I demanded it sinful yet classy, loving yet raunchy and vulgar, the smells of my lovers and me combining into one unique fragrance that should be bottled and sold by someone as famous and stunning as the provocative actress Regina Baptiste.

That had come to an end, but that was an ending I had mastered, an ending I had controlled. In every relationship that I had had, in all that had failed, I was the least common denominator. We were all the least common denominator in all of our miseries and pain.

Still, as needs persisted, they made me want to have a local lover. If I did have a capable lover within reach, that ache would be satiated more than intermittently. Maybe my mind wouldn't be on Decadence. For Bret, to explore him for a while, to continue to pick up a third lover, to have had fun in that preferred way, I would've delayed joining. It would have only been a delay, for I was on that road.

No man would be able to stop me from doing what it was in my destiny to do.

Drenched in sweat and rain,
I hurried back inside of my garage. Next to my ten-year-old Z4 was a sparkling new 6-series BMW. My mother bought that for me as a congratulations on my first major film project. She hated my roadster. She wanted her daughter to be in a safer car.

Unpacked U-Haul boxes were still all over my townhome, pretty much on all four levels, most of my life still sealed since the recent move. I had been here two months and I wasn't in a hurry to unpack.

Seemed like yesterday that I was ready to quit ATL, was ready to sell my old townhome inside of Park at Oakley Downs after affairs had gone bad, but the real estate market tanked and had left me trapped in what felt like a bad marriage with a stubborn and hateful bank. A little more than eighty days ago I found a foreclosure in Smyrna, five minutes from my old townhome, this one more modern; with much better amenities, tucked behind the gates of a much-desired area. It remained a bad time to sell, but a great time to buy. So I had to lease my old place to balance out the cash flow, had to lease the place where insanity had occurred, and I was able to cover the mortgage and association dues and pull a profit. I stopped and looked at my disorganized home, a cluttered and bewildered home that reflected my inner feelings.

Boxes, boxes, everywhere. My home was a minefield made of U-Haul boxes. Out of habit, I began opening a box the moment I stepped through the door. I guess I was unpacking one box at a time.

It was a smaller box, unlabeled, and heavy for its size. But it had been left near the dining area. I assumed that it was dishes. Or cutlery. Something for the kitchen. But the box didn't rattle like dishware.

When I ripped up the flap I saw that it was a box stuffed with pictures. No one takes Kodak photos and gets them developed, not anymore. At first I smiled, thought that maybe it was the box of photos of my mother when she was a child in Trinidad, the photos of her and her mother dressed in magenta salwar sets, or maybe the misplaced photos of me as a child along with my mother, both of us back on the island dressed in kurtis, duatas, silk sarees, and wide-legged pants. Actually I had hoped that it was the missing photos that we had taken when I was a teenager and we were home for Diwali. I had hoped that I had found the photos of us lighting deyas, our hands painted in henna.

I was wrong.

The worn box contained photos, but they were photos of someone else. For a moment I lost my breath and my heart ceased to function. His face caught me off guard, his sea-green eyes bored into mine as if he were here. Chris Eidos Alleyne.
Eidos
. His father gave him a middle name based on a concept in Plato's Theory of Forms. It felt like Chris
Eidos
Alleyne was inside the box in my hands, waiting on my return.

In one photo I was standing in front of him, on my tiptoes, kissing him, my hands pulling his long dreadlocks as his hands held my ass and pulled me into him. His best friend had taken that photo.

Rigoberto had taken that photo, the sun behind his head, his shadow falling across us, almost between us.

Underneath that was an eight-by-ten. Chris in his Hampton U football gear. Signed to me. With love. As I was his yesterday, his yesteryear, during my college days he was mine. Maybe not mine, because ownership, even in love, was an illusion. No woman owned any man and no man owned any woman. He was tall, muscular, articulate, a Mensa, and athletic. Copper skin. Bronze dreadlocks.

His photo looked so real. Underneath that eight-by-ten, all of the photos looked too real.

We'd broken up abruptly, violently; no wind down; no debriefing; no good-bye. The most painful good-byes were the ones that were never said, never explained. Good-byes without closure left open wounds. Memories rose. These memories were earthquakes. And as I stared at his face I breathed fire.

It was a box of lost memories from a part of my life that had happened more than five hundred miles away from here, from when I was in college. We were at Busch Gardens. Shopping at Coliseum Mall, outlets in Williamsburg, Patrick Henry Mall in Newport News. Peninsula Town Center had replaced Coliseum Mall but nothing had replaced the memories. In countless rolls of Kodak photos we were standing on the edges of the Atlantic Ocean. There were photos and cards and letters and newspapers from when I attended Hampton. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of photos of my ex from days gone by. And there were just as many newspaper clippings from the first man that I had loved in an adult way. Hundreds of sports section articles. Like I was an obsessed fan. A groupie. There was a journal that I used to write corny Love Is sayings in every day. I wrote one every damn day.
Love is drinking green tea in the morning as the sun rises. Love is early morning phone calls. Love is hours spent IMing each other. Love is sweet nothings and beautiful promises. Love is waking up before he does so I can watch him wake up
. There were also at least two dozen brochures regarding wedding dresses.
Love is sappy and sappy is good.
Guess I had done everything but hired a wedding planner and booked a wedding on the Chesapeake. I had longed to be engaged and married to him. I would've marched across the stage, received my degree, and while I was still wearing my cap and gown, walked up to a minister on the other side of the stage and married him ten seconds later. Without pause.
Love is kissing his photograph
. As Jane Austen had said, a woman's imagination was very rapid; it jumped from admiration to love, and leapt from love to matrimony in a moment. And from matrimony it leapt to reproduction and white picket fences.

That was who I was then.

Hundreds of photos. There were photos of Chris.

And Rigoberto.

My Dominican friend. I could see the plantain in his face.

He had been Chris's best friend.

There were countless photos of Siobhán and me.

In countless photos, from summer wear to winter gear, we looked like we were the best of friends. She would have been one of my bridesmaids. And there were photos of my roommate, Mona Marshall. We called her M&M. She would have been another bridesmaid.

M&M was the only good memory in that box. Rigoberto wasn't a bad memory, he wasn't a horrible memory, but he wasn't a neutral memory. His desire for me had complicated things as much as the way I had been betrayed by Chris. In photos I saw me, Chris, and Siobhán. In one, she was standing between me and Chris, his arm around both of us. The irony. Mona Marshall was the memory I could handle.

She had been my sister.

She had been the closest thing that I had had to a sister.

I hadn't heard from her in forever.

I remembered the night that we had double-dated.

I was with Chris.

She was with the man who impregnated her.

She had dropped out of college.

She had gone home to have a baby.

I'd never called her. Not once. I never sent an e-mail.

I'd become so consumed with my own life, with Chris, with the battles with Siobhán, that I had never reached out to Mona.

I had abandoned her.

That was how it felt at this moment.

During the roughest era of her life, I had abandoned her.

I thought about my mother.

When she was alone and pregnant with me.

I should have kept in touch with Mona Marshall.

I would have to look for her on Facebook.

In a trance, in the past, I stared at the photos for a while.