Decadence (36 page)

Chris was in the greeting area. I walked by all of the nude men, moved through the forest of lingams and went to him. He saw me, was surprised that I was here, and he became uneasy.

He whispered, “I didn't report what happened. I just told the medics that the sex, that we sort of took the fetish too far. I've called you over and over. I care about you, Nia. Always have. Always will.”

He told me he loved me. Said that he wished it had been only us. Said that he wished we had remained together. Said that the world would be perfect. He told me that it wasn't too late. He told me that we still had a chance to make it.

I stared at him for a moment. There were no erotic feelings. There was no Eros love, no erotic love. There was no Philos love, no love based on friendship. There was no unconditional love, no agape. Only happiness. I was happy that I had not been the one he had married. I was happy that I hadn't married him. Some dreams became nightmares.

I walked away from him and returned to the dressing room. When I came back out I was walking with Siobhán. I walked her to her husband. He had no idea what to think, or say, no idea what to do.

Siobhán said, “She told me everything. The phone calls. The masturbation. You brought her here. She scratched you. Not a cat.”

I asked her, “Permission to speak to your husband, Mrs. Alleyne?”

“As long as I am present for the conversation, Miss Bijou.”

“Out of respect for your marriage and the established rules of this fine country club for adults of various tastes and fetishes, I wouldn't have it any other way. From this moment I respect your ring.”

Chris wanted to walk away, but she held his hand, tugged him.

He looked at her. He looked at his pissed off, vainglorious wife. A moment passed and he was able to look at me. I wondered how this felt for him. This moment. This truth. I wondered how powerless he felt.

I told Chris, “I had a long conversation with Mona Marshall from college. I saw your son. Chris Junior is handsome. Very energetic.”

“You saw my son? That situation is very complicated.”

“As complicated as a quadratic equation. That's something you might have said back in the day. But seriously, you should call your kid. Your wife told me about the visitation issues. Mona is difficult. But how can you not call your
son
? How can a man not call his
son
?”

That instant as the three of us stood there, it took me a moment but I understood what I felt. It was what someone felt when they no longer believed in something. Chris had been my religion, now I no longer believed. He had been a false god. He was not important. The same went for his wife. She no longer mattered. I wouldn't waste anger.

In a calm tone of indifference, I said, “Chris, don't call my phone or e-mail me ever again. Don't contact me on Facebook ever again. Don't follow me on Twitter. Don't follow me here. Don't call me and tell me how you felt like you made a mistake back then and that you will leave your wife to be with me again. Don't end up dead in a ditch.”

Cheers and applause lit up the grand area. The sounds came from the wedding chapel. Someone had just married. Instead of the first dance, they would make love for the first time as a married couple.

I regarded Siobhán and with a curt smile I said, “Once again, good fucking, Mrs. Allyene.”

She nodded. “Same to you. Good fucking, Bijou.”

I moved through the crowd of beautiful people, smiled at members that I knew, and for a while I watched the orgy that had started on behalf of the erotic wedding. I watched a husband and wife take to the center of the room and kiss and make love. It was soft. It was tender. It was a love song composed of
oohs
and
aahs
. I joined in and applauded their first orgasms as a married couple, as husband and wife. Here comes the bride. Literally. Some women cried. Love made the hardest of the hard and the most cynical of us all cry. I cried too. It was an expression of how all women wanted to feel at some point. I saw other couples join in. No one shared. There were no ménage à trois. That was more than enough stimulation for them. It was beautiful. It was emotional.

Not long after that, I went to the library, sat on a red chair in a giant suite room filled with erotica. I found a leather-bound novel by Anaïs Nin. As videos of love played, I read parts of her journal.

As lovers made love, as a woman lay back on a sofa reading aloud as her lover licked the delicate folds of her yoni, as he praised her, I made myself comfortable, tuned them out, and read a hundred pages.

I read about Anaïs and her lovers. I read her works and searched for me on each page, in each situation, in every circumstance. Some pages I read a dozen times, each time feeling as if I were she.

But I was not. I wasn't Anaïs Nin. Nor Plath. Nor Rand. Yet I was parts of all of them. I gazed around the room; saw other women reading, some enjoying literature as they made love.

A kind server dressed in black lingerie came and offered us tea. I had peach mango with honey. The woman nearest me was reading as her lover pleased her, asked for tea and extra honey. She wanted extra honey. She filled her mouth with honey, and then sipped tea to melt the sweetness. She brought her lover's lingam to her face. She sucked his lingam with a mouth filled with melting sweetness. I eased down my book and I watched. When she was out of tea and honey, I offered her mine. She accepted, then continued. The server returned and brought her ice cubes. I smiled. She alternated between giving hot and cold stimulation. She drove him insane. She smiled at me and winked. I gave her the thumbs-up.

She stroked her lover, eased two Altoids inside of her mouth, and as she allowed those to melt she looked my way again, gave me a friendly grin and asked, “Which piece of literature are you reading?”

“
Delta of Venus
.”

“
Little Birds
was my favorite.”

“Really?”

“That and
Cities of the Interior
.”

As she stroked her lover we said a few things about
Ladders to
Fire
,
Waste of Timelessness
,
Nearer the Moon
, and
A Spy in the House of Love
. Her lover had his eyes closed the entire time, mouth slacked, in heaven. She returned to him, suckled him, and I watched as the heat from the mints drove him mad. She sucked and blew air, created a cool sensation that blended with heat, used her tongue to paint his erection.

It didn't look like sex. It looked like unconditional love. They were in the honeymoon phase of their relationship, as I was in the honeymoon phase with this wonderful country club for swingers. She wore Ferragamo heels and watches and diamonds and pearls, another woman who had fallen victim to the Sudden Wealth Syndrome. She sucked. She slurped. He moaned. As they continued, I returned to reading. When that cerebral part of me was fulfilled, my sensual side demanded attention. I closed the book, told the lovers to have a good evening, and I searched for Rosetta.

While I searched the edifice for my friend, I saw Chris and Siobhán on the monitors. She had him. She was happy. Yet she was as miserable as a woman could become. Maybe that was why tonight she was working on another man.

Sinner's Bible. Exodus 20:14. It looked like they were following those scriptures. But I felt that it was more like Matthew 7:12: “In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.”

I tried to imagine what that would have felt like, to have married him only to find out he had impregnated my roommate. Then to find out he had bedded the woman I had tutored. To have had Siobhán stand in my wedding, then for all the truths to come out. That flashed in front of me. That montage of possibilities flashed in front of me. The humiliation that I had suffered at Hampton wouldn't have compared.

No matter his faults, no matter how he fucked her over, she had to have him. When a man was seen as a hero, no matter what he did, he was forgiven. Love blinded us all. I had seen undying loving in his son's eyes. I had seen confusion sparkle in M&M's eyes. My head was no longer clouded. Chris was not a king. Not a warrior. He was the court jester. He was a Mensa, but he was a fool. Even a well-educated man could still remain a fool. Educated fools filled the world.

•   •   •

Rosetta asked me,
“Are you sure?”

“I'm as ready as I will ever be.”

I saw their beautiful faces. Three men who wanted to give me my final fantasy. Triplets. My ultimate fantasy had been arranged for me.

They assured me that it was okay, that I was in a world sans bigotry, sans hypocrites. With each touch, absolute arousal ignited and imprisoned me. We went slowly. A mouth on my neck. A mouth on my breasts. A mouth sucking my toes. Then. A tongue kissing me. A tongue inside of my yoni. Teeth nibbling at my nipples. Then. A tongue sucking my ear. A tongue swirling my chocolate star. A tongue dancing with mine. Then. A tongue deep inside of my yoni as both breasts were being suckled. There were so many combinations and permutations of stimulation and they walked me through them all. They gave me triple penetration and every nerve ending danced. I got it good, but I gave it better. As I panted, as my moans did a ballet with their moans and echoed like chamber music, as I owned them, as I owned all who were connected with me, as I saw the face of God and gave Her angels many, many wings, in the shadows, someone else was watching, her Cuban face becoming clearer and clearer, as did her red DECADENCE towel. It was Anaïs. It was my interviewer. I smiled and reached for her, for my friend, for my sister in hedonism. She dropped her red DECADENCE towel. She wore jewels and skyscraper heels that added eight inches of verticalness to her frame. She came toward the bed, was eager to join us, excited to help me. As soon as she became part of the loved, as soon as she was penetrated and sang, Chandra appeared, smiling, needing the pleasure that her husband had denied her. She joined our party. It became a daisy chain of exotic love, a provocative session of laughs and moans and Kama Sutra, everyone pleasing and being pleased, moving lightly, nimbly, orgasms rising, angels taking flight; a slow-moving exchange where the faulty design of man never arrived, never intruded on the bliss of a woman. Soon the Brit and Quince Pulgadas appeared and joined the chain of love, and so did my lover from Curaçao and his wife. As we pleased one another, I looked up and saw the room was crowded, filled with Watchers.

Soon I would find love. I would tire of this walk and search for that one lover. I wanted a husband. I wanted a child. One day. Not right now. Not too soon. But while my eggs were young.

While I was young. While my mother was young.

The perfect man for me, in all honesty, at this point in my life, would be a man like me. An adventurous man who wanted to please me and not limit my desires. A male libertine, the reader of Henry Miller and Sartre. But I knew that I would want the opposite. A man who was like me would be a man for fantasies, for fun, for my journals, a man who would help me verify that the Ericsson Rule was correct.

Prada wasn't there.
I didn't see him in the crowd when the movie premiered in Leicester Square. He lived in London. One of his homes was in Central London. I walked the red carpet. Large crowd. Flashing cameras. My mother at my side. I saw Margareta and her husband. I saw others from Decadence. But I did not see Prada. Nor did I see Prada in the assembly when the movie premiered in Trinidad. The home crowd was amazing. It rivaled the fête that had happened at the airport when the Olympians brought home the medals. I was a Trini, like my mother. But I sensed that Prada was there. He was watching me, wanting me as I lived in the spotlight, as I was blinded by its glare, as I frowned at its tawdry, ugly, oppressive, and inane nature, as it fed on us, this business of show made for sharks and piranhas. Every moment I wanted to flee, tried to get away. He watched. He saw many billboards featuring me holding the latest phones. He desired me. He loved and lusted for me. But he knew that I was no good for him. Women like me, in the end, only made men suffer. Anaïs Nin had made her husband suffer. So had Ayn Rand. We emasculated the strongest of men, made tigers become lambs, then we resented them for being so weak. Or it was the other way; they made us suffer, as Frida Kahlo de Rivera had suffered in her marriage with Diego Rivera. Maybe I was born a bitch. Maybe I was born a writer. I was born to make man suffer.

No, Prada wasn't in London, but he was in the Caribbean, in my shadows, on the island of Trinidad. When my plane landed, I knew he was there. I sensed his presence when I had run the Savannah with my mother. We had run by a limo that was parked in the driveway on the side nearest NAPA. I had passed that limo when I was collected from the airport. And as we ran, that same limo had remained behind us until we made it to the side with the upside-down Hilton. The next day I sensed that he was there as I bought coffee at the Rituals outlet on the ground floor of the Nalis Library on Abercromby Street.

At the movie premiere I had seen the same stretch limo with darkened windows. The following day, I had seen the black limo with darkened windows when I had stepped out of Rituals. The license plates were the same. Two days later, I had seen him again when I was near UWI, in the town of Curepe buying doubles at my favorite doubles spot. That time, I had paused and looked toward the car. I saw the driver, an Indian man with a goatee, but the passenger was hidden, but a silhouette in the backseat.

Curious, I took a step toward the limo, and the driver immediately pulled away from the curb.

My lover, my lover.

My capitalistic, billionaire, proficient, whore-loving lover.

The opposite of love was indifference. He was not indifferent. He was in pain. Men wanted what they couldn't have and fled what challenged them. If not for your jealousy; if not for your jealousy; but for your jealousy. If not for your jealousy, I would search for you, find you, give you flowers and a ring. With hot tea and honey, with Altoids, I would humble myself and bring you back to me.

But never for a jealous man. That was one trait I would never find admirable, be it in myself or in the hearts of others. I desired a good relationship. I deserved a great relationship.

If only Prada had Bret's personality. I would've been done; this journey would have ended. A great relationship was when someone accepted your past, supported your present, and encouraged your future. He had flown half the world to bring me a dozen red roses. He loved me. Yet he hated me; that I knew for sure, for we hate that which we cannot control. Frustration is a form of anger and anger is hate. He couldn't deal with me in the present. He couldn't deal with his own past. I was stronger than he. Truth didn't terrify me. My strength, my audacities made me smile. That was the way I saw it.

She who won the battle was allowed to pen the tale of the war.

That was the way it would be written, with me as the victor.

•   •   •

My stepfather showed up at every premiere.
The Frenchman who had adopted me and made me his own was always there, here for me now as he had been there for me during my darkest hours during those college days. I loved him. He had broken my heart. But I loved him like I would no other.

Not for him, not for the man who had seen a beautiful Caribbean girl down by the Savannah and had fallen in lust, the man who had fallen in love with my mother and her rich brown skin that had been touched by the sun, I might be on the side of the road selling doubles. I might still be living in Trinidad. My mother would be at my side. Women who had wanted my father would be cutting her the side eye. And children who were my age, children who shared my father's bloodline would stare at me, their sister. Didn't matter. Our doubles would be the best doubles that anyone on the island had ever tasted.

Still. That wasn't my reality. That was the writer inside of me revising history. But still as we passed the Queen's Park Savannah I looked up into the hills, looked toward Laventille and saw the lights that dotted the slum where my mother was born, where my father was murdered, where I had never been.

I imagined my mother in intense arguments with other pregnant women. I remembered something that Siobhán had said to me. When we had first met in college she had said that she had been to Trinidad.

And she had met a girl who was about my age, a girl who looked just like me. We were in college, standing underneath Emancipation Oak when she said that. It was just now that I remembered that moment. I had siblings. How many, I had no idea. My father was a Caribbean man. I sensed they knew about me, that they had been in the crowd watching me as well. I sensed I had been watched for years.