“New people. Two men and another woman.”
That was all I said, didn’t tell him they had tried to gun me down, kept it rough and rugged, remaining the Gideon who owned no doubts or fears.
I asked, “The other job here in Nashville, what is it?”
He said it was a fresh contract on the board president of a condo association, a woman who had turned into a dictator, and the neighbors wanted her removed. The target was controlling delinquency reports, a bitch in high heels when challenged. Somebody had passed the hat and taken up a collection.
I took the job.
Konstantin said, “Gotta run. Have to make a stop. Wife wants me to pick her up some things from this health food store. Have to make a quick stop and take care of my honey-dos.”
We disconnected, ended the call, and I stared at the world, eyes wide open, seeing nothing.
My mind on the shit I needed to let go of. But I couldn’t.
None of them knew I had died in London. None knew I had failed. No one but me.
More than a few nights that failure returned to me in my dreams, modified in its own horrific way. I felt the plastic bag over my head, my hands and legs bound by duct tape. Plastic was over my head but I could see, with a clearness that rivaled HDTV, the clearest of all horrors. The woman from Detroit was there, standing over me. And as I died, she danced. In my dream I could feel the capillaries breaking in my eyes, light receding toward a moment of permanent darkness. I’d wake up panting, sweating.
Anger rose inside me, the kind that made veins rise as hands became fists and trembled.
I had died. I had failed. I wasn’t invulnerable, invincible, or perfect.
I had been lucky. It was nothing but fucking luck. A rabbit’s foot. A horseshoe.
That failure would haunt me forever, that ghostly sensation going with me to my grave.
That was what I was thinking as I left Joseph-Beth, sipping on my latte, on my way to visit the board president of a condo association, a woman I would go after like she was my problem from Detroit.
Fourteen
the damned
Her moans
were long and winding, her swarthy lover’s stroke ambitious, steady, and intense. Red Stripe beer, weed, and E in her bloodstream, every sense magnified in a wonderful way. Her young lover went deep inside her, and that depth felt good. His strong hands squeezed her backside and he pulled out to the edge, went deep again. His stroke made her moan as she grabbed the edge of the bed, released falsetto sounds. He moved his hands to the bends of her knees, pushed her knees back up to the sides of her head, went in and out of her so fast, so deep, his stroke steady.
He slowed down, smiled at her as he talked dirty to her in dialect. She moaned loud, talked erotic in English. He stroked her like he wanted to get nominated for a porn award.
She cursed.
She was losing it, so messed up.
Her young lover hit spots that caused tears to flow. So turned on.
He sucked her nipples, put fingers in places fingers shouldn’t be; all of that badness felt too damn good. He gave her chills. Everything felt so surreal. So damn wonderful.
In bed she was so weak. So submissive. Sex made her feel so fragile, so dominated.
“Yuh wan’ me fuck you sweet like dis nuh?”
“Yeah, yeah, shit yeah.”
“Dis black dick sweet you nuh?”
“Yeah, yeah, shit yeah.”
“Tun ova you pan you belly so me cyan fuck you backway.”
“I don’t . . . I don’t . . .”
“Me wan’ pull you hair an’ reach right up inside da pussy dey. Me wan’ ride you, wan’ drive me cock right up and lef it dey, den fuck you long and hard, drive me skin up ’gainst you.”
“I don’t . . . don’t . . . understand a word you’re saying.”
He flipped her over, put her breasts and face deep into the white pillow. She caught her breath, got comfortable, turned her face so she didn’t suffocate, anticipating pain and pleasure. Her young lover positioned himself behind her, eased back inside, gripped her short hair, and stroked hard, rode her, moved in deep and held, filled her up, drove her insane as she cried and moved against him. He made her beg. She begged for him to fuck her. He gave her long strokes, his skin slapping against hers.
Her cellular rang. The ringtone she had given her husband.
The call went to voice mail.
Her young lover changed positions, grabbed her and pulled her rear up high, did some move that had him squatting over her, went inside her at a brand-new angle, stroked and grunted. So damn intense. Like he wanted to crawl inside her. She let her young lover twist and turn her; he took her in so many positions, positions she had never been in, went inside her at angles that made sex feel brand-new, moved her around until she ended up on top of him. She squatted over her young lover. Made sure his condom was intact before she took him back inside. Her lover, a bona fide condom filler. Slim, toned, all muscles and dick. She moved up and down fast and hard, caught her breath, turned and rode him backward, moaned when he slapped her ass, wanted to scream when he put a finger of his left hand inside her ass, trembled, her lover finger-fucking her as she fucked him as hard as she could.
Her cellular rang again. Same ringtone.
She couldn’t stop coming. When one orgasm ended another took control of her. She moaned and cursed and held on to whatever she could hold on to. Her young lover moaned and cursed and said things in dialect she didn’t understand, his back arching as his dick stretched her open.
She held him until she stopped thrusting. Held him until she stopped coming.
Her lover came and she was glad, glad he would stop making her come like that.
She rolled away from him, rolled too far, began falling off the bed, and released a yell. As she tumbled his strong hands caught her, hands that were rough from years of hard work and labor. His callused hands pulled her back to the bed, hands that reminded her of the life she had left behind, her life as a little girl, a life of poverty and endless struggling, more pain than pleasure. Her heart raced as her young lover touched her sweaty side, pulled her toward him, panting and laughing, talking in his dialect. He moved up and looked in her eyes, his smile so wide. He sucked the fingers on his right hand.
“Me min haffu lick me fingas; cyan’ waste de juice.”
She caught her breath, looked at her watch. Almost three in the morning.
He had been pleasing her off and on since the sun went down, had been fucking her into the middle of forever, her rented lover a young man who had the stamina of a horse, a dick like one too.
He sat up, held his pride and joy in his hand, still hard enough to make her come again. She reached over, held it in her hand, measured its girth with her thumb and finger, and then measured her wrist. Becoming soft he was still larger than the circumference of her wrist.
She asked, “How you manage to stay that hard and fuck so long?”
“Me get some pills.”
“Viagra?”
“Dem betta dan Viagra. Mek me last forever.”
She closed her eyes, her insides still trembling. Nipples and clit swollen.
The fan blew across sweaty flesh. She was on a modest bed in a modest room in a modest hotel surrounded by a never-ending tropical garden that was a strip of sand away from the Caribbean Sea.
She said, “You’d better get home to your family.”
“Soon.”
“Where does your wife think you are?”
“Up de road. Club Rush.”
“If you give your woman sex like that, I know she will be up waiting for you.”
He laughed. “Party no get hot ’til tree. Dem party ’til de sun rise up.”
She moaned. “Damn. You have a steel pipe in that thing or what?”
He laughed harder.
“Goddamn, you have one hell of a cock.”
She opened her eyes, heard birds flitting through the foliage, moonlight shining through the palms, the song of the tree frogs and waves lapping on the beach. Trade winds rustled through the foliage. Her cellular rang again. Her husband’s ringtone. Calling over and over. At three in the morning.
Matthew was calling her back. Probably pissed that she hadn’t left the island as planned.
She didn’t answer. The sound of E and Red Stripe and sex would be in her voice.
Her rented lover passed her the joint; she shook her head, had had enough.
She scratched her legs, felt the irritation and swell of multiple mosquito bites.
Her lover was on his back. His chest rose and fell at a fast rate. The condom was still on. The condom was full and heavy with the fluids of life. She took it off her young lover. Inspected it.
She said, “Is this leaking?”
“Ee neva use.”
“What does that mean?”
He looked up. “It brand-new.”
She said, “I think this condom is leaking. It’s milky on the outside. Come milky.”
“One new condom haffu good. Ee safe. Ee nar go break. Guaranteed.”
“It’s brand-new.”
“Me sure a fu you cum pan de condom. You does cum hard and plenty. When you start fu come, you mek one man feel real good. You fuck good bwoy. Me shoulda gee you subben fu how good you fuck. White woman doesn’t fuck so. You move dem hips and you ass real fucking good. You know how fu wine like one island gyal.”
“I have no idea what you just said.”
Her young lover chuckled, closed his eyes, and nodded, a big smile on his face.
A small fear rose inside her. The biggest fear of all.
She staggered to the bathroom and flushed the condom, made sure his DNA was gone bye-bye, turned, sat on the toilet, grabbed a
Daily Observer,
read it as she waited for her water to flow.
Daily Observer
. Was looking for shoe sales, but saw a personal ad in the back. White British man had an ad looking for a very attractive black female; she had to be able to live in with him, no ties, no kids, and help manage his hotel in Dickenson Bay. The Brit wanted to pay between two thousand and four thousand E.C. depending on her attractiveness, that price negotiable. She did the math in her head. Divided by 2.7. That was between 740 and 1,480 dollars a month. Roughly one pair of Blahniks every full moon to move in and be an old British man’s day worker and nighttime bed warmer, sex-for-hire not mentioned, just reading between the lines.
She whispered, “No wonder they hate you tight-suit-wearing bastards.”
Foster care. Being shuffled around. Abused. Men who wanted to pay her to suck their dicks.
She did good, got out lucky. Considering. Could’ve been worse.
She flushed the toilet, turned on the shower, hopped in, and cleansed herself.
She ran water over her hair, her face, did that with warm water, then made the water cold.
Her husband was on her mind.
When she made it back to the bedroom her young lover was sitting up, wide awake and tipsy.
“So many damn mosquitoes. They didn’t bite me all day, now they are all over me.”
He shook his head, spoke slower. “Dem na like day or col’. E dark an’ warm in ya.”
His dialect didn’t sound so foreign now. She understood most of what he said.
They don’t like the day or cold. It’s dark and warm in here.
She grabbed some repellent, closed the windows, sprayed the rooms with Baygon, turned the air conditioner on high, and as the unit rattled to life, she sprayed OFF! on her legs and arms, sprayed her ankles, between her toes, repeated that two more times.
Her young lover said, “Misses Robinson.”
She didn’t look up, not at first, and then she remembered that was what she had told him to call her.
Mrs. Robinson
. The name of that character from that movie with Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft. She couldn’t remember the name of the movie. Only that the song from that movie was about the woman who had bedded a boy young enough to be her son. She smiled. Almost broke out singing.
Here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson, Jesus loves you more than you will know
.
He touched her skin, touched three spots, spots that were not mosquito bites, one on her left arm, one on her right shoulder, another on her right hip. She felt self-conscious, but she didn’t jump.
“Dem look lakka tree bullet hole. Ah who shot you?”
“Nobody living.”
He rubbed her healed wounds, touched where three memories had pierced her skin.
She reached for his penis, began stroking him in slow motion, made him thicken in her hand, made him moan, did that to take him away from her injuries, did that to get away from her memories.
He asked, “You wan’ fu go one nodda round?”
“How much?”
He laughed, raised the joint, and grinned. “All inclusive.”
She laughed at the way he imitated her accent. “Let me use the bathroom first.”
All of this for twenty dollars U.S. This was a bargain, mosquitoes and all.
When she was done she stood at the foot of the bed, admiring her lover. He was naked, body young and toned, firing up another joint, sipping his warming beer, and smiling at her like she was perfect. Her husband used to look at her like that, before they had married.
Then her young lover sat there, beer in one hand, joint in his mouth, wood rising.
She wanted to take him to America with her, hide him away, have him to herself.
She turned the television on.
Sex and the City
was on.
She said, “I’m going to meet them. All of them. Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha. I’m going to the movie premiere. It’s in New York. I’m going to meet everybody on the show. I’ll be wearing diamond mink eyelashes. And Blahniks. Can’t wait. Already excited. Bet it’ll be the best day in my life.”
Her young lover wasn’t paying attention. Too busy nursing his burning tree.
She said, “Take a quick shower with me. Let’s get cleaned up. Let’s go to the beach.”