One Night (9 page)

I drew in a deep breath, many deep breaths, curt exhales, gasped as my breath fogged from my mouth, then panted, actually snorted, and let out one long exhale as I sang, “Damn, damn, damn.”

I eased away, light-headed, but he pulled me back to his tongue. The kiss became so intense, too passionate, too hungry, too greedy. I imagined the collapse of every building from West Covina to San Ysidro to Santa Monica, imagined the earth swallowing every man-made structure. The kiss set off landslides, snow avalanches, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions of ice in my head, inside my body.

I whispered, “You're grinding on me. Told you not to grind on me.”

“Sorry about that.”

“No, don't stop. Just position yourself . . . little this way . . . little that way . . . right there.”

If I had a fault line, he was definitely on my fault line. He was on my focus, on the spot where it all begins, moving against me. It felt so good. Like we were in a club slow dancing to a love song.

He kissed me and I kissed him and I was shaking, shaking and moving against him. He moved his cock clockwise, and my callipygous backside joined in, only it moved in the opposite direction.

I didn't know how to stop. I didn't know how to end this moment. The twitches were small, but he felt them, could tell by the way I moved that his serenade had me wanting to sing him a lullaby.

I enjoyed the moment for what it was, something that shouldn't be happening, yet it was.

People walked by. Cars started. Horns blew across six lanes of traffic.

I said, “Okay, okay, okay. That's enough. No more kisses.”

Out of breath, we stood in stunned silence. Twitches continued. Then I held his face and pulled him back to me. It was another slow and easy kiss. He stirred me. The kissing had me starry-eyed.

Chest rising and falling, my voice heavy, I said, “Curiosity satisfied?”

“Not really. May I move your hair back away from your neck?”

“Whatever you're thinking will cost you more cheesecake just for thinking it.”

He pulled my dreadlocks back, sucked my neck for a while. Sucked my neck, sucked my ear, sucked my neck. For two or three minutes, my toes curled inside my Timberlands.

He created an earthquake inside me, and earthquakes cause damage.

He stopped. Kissed me again. Soft kisses. And again. And again. And again.

Eyes closed, feeling him as I kissed him, I asked, “Don't you need to get to your distraught wife?”

“Your voice is husky; sounds like honey and bourbon.”

I whispered, “Time out, time out, time out. What the hell do you think you're doing?”

“Your tongue tastes so sweet.”

“It's the candy.”

“This is sweeter than candy.”

We kissed. My brain, the same region that is affected by addictive drugs like cocaine, was flooded with dopamine. Sweet dopamine spiked. My brain was stimulated. My body was stimulated.

This wasn't right. Sentiment covered the logical part of me, came like a harbor wave.

And as we kissed I pulled him closer, and my inappropriate thoughts became words, rolled off of my tongue, sounded heated and felt like fire when I asked, “Do you have to go to your wife right now?”

“What else is there to do in the rain?”

“You have an hour?”

“I should be able to manage an hour. What do you want to do?”

“We could go drive Sunset Boulevard and see the ex-men.”

“The movie?”

“No, real ex-men. We can go watch the transvestites; we might see Eddie Murphy.”

“I was hoping you'd want to go bowling.”

“We could stop grinding and playing kissing games and you could go buy condoms.”

That caught him off guard. I felt exposed, like I had crossed a line.

He kept his face close to mine, his lips on mine as he asked, “Are you serious?”

“You want some of this tonight? Guilty pleasure with no strings attached.”

“Are you teasing me?”

“Who jokes about condoms this close to Christmas?”

“You're trembling.”

“Because I think I just put myself out there and made a fool of myself.”

He sucked my bottom lip. “You're interested in me in that way?”

“Dude, I think I just asked you if you wanted to have sex.”

“Why would you want to have sex with me?”

“You're turning this around? What, am I the dude now? Don't make me the dude, dude.”

“I'm surprised, that's all. Girls like you are never interested in a guy like me.”

“You're hot. Disgusting, but hot.”

“Since when do you think I am hot?”

“So do you want some of this or not? And you're old enough to know what
some
means.”

He pulled me back to him. “I think that we are attracted to one another.”

“The way you kissed my neck, I wanted to rip your freakin' clothes off.”

“Are you serious about condoms?”

“Do you have time? I have to be somewhere soon, so cut to the chase.”

“I'll find time.”

“Take me to Pompeii, find us a romping shop in a comfortable fornicave.”

“I can figure out the word
fornicave
. Romping shop?”

“A bed. Do you want to get us a warm, dry place to kick it for an hour?”

“You're smiling and laughing a little, so I can't judge how serious you are.”

“I mean, you don't have to. You have a distraught wife. I don't want to be out of line.”

“I want you, too. I don't know this area. Where can we go?”

“Don't even think about the Crazy 8 Motel or Lakewood Inn. No trucker-hooker hot spots.”

“No problem. Any other suggestions?”

“There's a La Quinta Inn about a mile up the road.”

“No. You deserve better than a place where you park right outside your room.”

“Wow. Okay. Then we'll have to leave the area to make that happen.”

“I'll use my phone and ask Siri for a list of better hotels.”

“I'm a Samsung gal, but I'm not going to hate Siri for helping us out right now.”

“I'll get directions. You'll have to follow me.”

“First order of business. Condoms?”

“Have to buy them.”

“I'll follow you to get the condoms. I have to choose, not because I don't trust you or think you're not competent enough to choose a rubber, but because certain types make me itch like hell. Another brand makes me . . . break out . . . down there; that spermicide stuff, that spermicide nonoxynol-9, not only makes my vagina have a very bad reaction, but causes a smell, and that odor will stick around.”

“Understood.”

“I don't want to be alone. It's so Christmassy and cold and wet and dark, and I want to be warm and dry and not be so alone for a little while. Christmas is not an easy time of the year for me.”

“Understood. Winter and Christmas are hard times for a lot of people.”

“Christmas a bad time for you, too?”

“Right now, this is a bad Christmas season for me, but, like you, I don't want to be alone.”

“I'm talking too much, but how does it feel? Asking you to chill with me for an hour or so, how does that seem to you? I feel like a dude all of a sudden, and I am not a girl who wants to be a dude.”

“It feels like I just exited the nightmare of all nightmares and fell into a fantastic dream.”

I said, “Kiss me again. Let's make sure this is the real deal.”

Then he gave me the tongue again. I was more relaxed, more open, and could feel all that he transmitted. It was a song, a movement, passage of light, a playful character, like the second or third movement of a sonata or a symphony. It was poetry. I felt like I came. He rubbed against me and it felt like I was having small orgasms. I held him, shivered, became a storm, revealed how passionate I could be, tried to turn him out. He let loose and showed me the same. Another handful of minutes went by.

I blinked a dozen times, in a trance.

He asked, “Are you okay?”

“You're wearing boxers.”

“Boxers don't leave much to the imagination.”

“Oh, I'm imagining things I really shouldn't be imagining.”

He walked with me, held my right hand, that act telling me that he had claimed me, that he desired me in a sexual way. I didn't let him walk me all the way. Didn't want him to see the mess inside my VW. Didn't want him to look into my dilated pupils and ask me questions that would take me back to anger. I had been stressed. I had been anxious. I had been depressed. I had been hostile to the world.

I pulled my seat belt on, and then I checked behind me, looked for Natalie Rose. I expected to see my daughter in the backseat holding a doll in each hand. Old habit. The car seat was in my rearview. Too many Barbies scattered on the floor. They looked at me like I was being irresponsible, like I was being a bad mommy.

I hesitated. Turned the signal light on to go in the same direction as the fancy car, then aimed the steering wheel to go the opposite way. I could take off, zoom away, never see him again in my life.

I could end it at the kiss. I touched my dreadlocks. He had touched my dreadlocks. He had kissed me. After kissing someone like that, with that much passion, he was part of you. His DNA was inside my mouth. Philophobia, the fear of becoming attached, the fear of falling into something that felt like love, rose inside me. I shuddered like I had an acute case. But that was impossible. Orange County and I had nothing in common. It would just be sex; one night of bad sex with a handsome guy. It would be amusing. And since there was no sunshine, it might improve my dark mood for two minutes.

He wasn't husband material for me, and I wasn't wife material for him. This wasn't about anything beyond the next couple of hours. Those were the reasons to go with him and the reasons to run away.

Then I saw a break in traffic and pulled out as well, followed his trail, sped up, caught up with him. Whatever happened next wasn't about him. This was a decision. I made sure none of the Barbies could see me. Turned their heads to the side. It was about me, what my soul needed more than what my body desired. There wasn't any way I would end up drunk and wake up married to a stranger. I checked my cell again. No message from Chicken and Waffles. That confirmed my decision to walk the road less traveled. Everyone vanishes from life every now and then. I needed to vanish from the dystopia that existed both inside and outside of me. I could be a bad girlfriend for once. I could be a naughty mommy.

Again I looked back at the child's seat. Had thought I'd heard her laughing.

A block later, he left the slow-moving traffic and pulled into the turn lane. I thought he'd had a change of heart, that the distraught wife had called him sobbing and needed him by her side.

Part of me was hoping that she had.

He could engage me in conversation. He listened and had things to say worth hearing.

He had held my hand. Touched my hair. He had kissed me. Without warning, he had aroused me. He was very handsome. He was married; miserable, but married. He could talk about how unhappy he is, have sex with me, and be back between his wife's legs in time for Christmas, the memory of me forgotten, as if I never existed. I would be back with the guy I was seeing, possibly tonight, as if he never existed.

I should not follow him, but Susan was at the wheel now. Susan was determined to satisfy her curiosity.

He pulled back into traffic, fought rudeness and fought his way to the right lane. Now I assumed he had car problems, that the hit-and-run had created a mechanical issue. His turn signal illuminated and he pulled over. He'd located a 7-Eleven. And where there was a 7-Eleven, there were condoms.

I guess he had asked Siri for the closest place to buy prophylactics.

A Nissan filled with guys was in the turn lane right behind, also pulling into 7-Eleven.

In a few seconds, I'd wish we'd never gone inside that convenience store. There are more than fifty thousand 7-Elevens in sixteen countries, and those assholes chose to rob the one I was in.

When we arrived, the 7-Eleven was empty. One cashier. The man from Orange County was looking at bottles of wine. I was near the front, browsing fashion magazines. Thirty seconds after we arrived the double glass doors opened and bad news hurried in from the rain. Two pants-sagging fools. Could've been Asian or Mexican, or black guys who had one white parent. Same hue, same hair. One of the hoods turned, looked around. The other hood checked the aisles, passed bottled water, iced tea, energy drinks, crackers, cakes, and yogurts. I kept my eyes averted, silently told him I knew what was up, and didn't make direct eye contact. I knew that move. He was the lookout. Baggy pants and hoodies. It was the way they kept their dark hoodies over their heads after they entered the convenience store that announced this was going to be bad. Bad luck had followed me. This was going to be an act of violence. Then the third guy rushed in, armed with a gun, and ordered the store employee to open the register. I tried to signal to Orange County, wanted to scream, but he was walking toward the register.

He looked down at his watch, ignored the bad news waiting at the front of the store.

The one with the gun was busy making the store employee empty the cash register.

I hurried that way, out of instinct, wanting to protect, to stop Orange County.

Orange County glanced at me and shook his head.

He wanted me to stay where I was. He strolled right by the two lookouts.

They looked at the brown-skinned man in the nice gray suit like he had lost his mind.

He casually went toward the counter like he was about to pay for his two bottles. I thought he was going to put his bottles of wine on the counter. Then he gritted his teeth, became Denzel in
Training Day,
Idris Elba in
The Wire,
and, with the bottle in his right hand, pulled his arm back the way I imagined a man playing racquetball pulled back his racquet when he was about to execute a kill shot. Energy crackled as it passed from his legs and hips to his wrist without dissipating. The kinetic links never broke. He had perfect form. He held the neck of the bottle and brought the base across the left temple of the man holding the gun. The impact was fast and wicked, a dull thud, but it was loud. He followed through with his strike, his body twisting. He hit the man and the gun went off, exploded and echoed, sent a bullet into the cigarettes. The cashier screamed. I think I screamed, too. The other two guys ducked and yelled out in their native tongues. The wine bottle that the gunman had been hit with spun on impact, bounced off the back wall, hit energy pills, crashed to the floor and broke, that, too, sounding like a gunshot. There had been so much force behind that blow, plus kickback from the gun. When the gun had gone off, I had blinked, had recoiled and felt the energy from the blast roll through my body, awaken whatever part of me was still asleep, stimulate what had been numb. The gun tumbled behind the counter and fell into the hands of the cashier. The cashier screamed over and over, screamed like he was falling from the top of the Empire State Building. Gravity pulled the gunman to the tiled floor. He landed on his face, another dull thud.

Orange County turned and looked at the other guys, the second bottle now in his right hand.

They had seen the way he had hit their coworker.

Orange County gritted his teeth and nodded as if to tell them the next move was theirs.

They would've attacked him by now, like wolves, but I had come to the front of the store and I had my box cutter in my hand. Before they could rush him, they'd have to get by me. I was a wolverine, and a wolverine could run animals ten times its size out of the woods. They saw me, anxious, eyes on them, my blood now whisky and ice. They had paused, and in that pause they lost their advantage. The cashier had the gun. He was shaking, yelling in Arabic, but he had the gun in his hand. The thugs screamed in their thug language, barked at us like we had no right to interrupt them while they worked. They turned over stands filled with chips and junk food, bolted out of the store and left their friend behind, ran to a waiting car. Tires spun on damp pavement. Headlights came on after they took to the streets. They didn't come back with guns. Where they had been stood fear and anger wrapped in silence. The energy was powerful. My heart beat strong. It beat so damn strong. I floated over the scene, lived outside of my body.

I looked at the thug on the tile floor. Kicked his foot. He didn't move.

The man from Orange County smiled at the cashier, calmly said, “This the best wine you have?”

“Uh . . .uh . . .uh . . .we got chardonnays, merlots, and cabernets.”

“Is this the best sweet red wine you have? This one from Argentina?”

The cashier snapped, “
He pointed a gun in my face
.”

“How much is the wine that I have in front of me?”

“For you? Anything you want is free. You saved my life. Both of you saved my life. You are a great couple. You are the best husband and wife in the world. I will give you what you need for free.”

“No. I'll pay. Would hate for you to lose your job over a bottle of wine.”

“I'm calling the police.”

“No police. Not yet. Let me finish shopping.”

I said, “His car just got wrecked, so he's very irritable. He's having what seem like mood swings, and might be depressed because of his marriage. So, basically, he's PMSing and having a really bad night.”

The clerk was wide-eyed, on autopilot, his voice at a pitch higher than Mike Tyson's, he was talking so fast. “Anything else? Slurpee? Glazed doughnut? Milk?
USA Today
newspaper?”

The man from Orange County took his time and said, “Condoms.”

“Condoms? You need condoms?”

I said, “We just met and we're about to go have sex for the first and last time.”

The man from Orange Country said, “She has a boyfriend who loves chicken and waffles.”

I said, “He's married to a rich, distraught, jealous chick who probably loves oysters and caviar.”

The cashier trembled and said, “
That man on the ground pointed a gun in my face
.”

The cashier dumped all the condoms on the counter, dozens spilling to the damp and dirty floor. Then he manically dumped energy drinks and cartons of U.S.A. Black Gold natural enhancement sex pills, Vigour Gold, Wolf Shark, and a dozen other penis-hardening pills in front of us as well.

He took deep breaths, and, with tears in his eyes, said, “Take them all. You can have all of them.”

Orange County displayed his trademark frown, aimed it up at the store's security camera.

I picked two packs of flavored Durex, fruity flavors, both claiming to have an ingredient that kept a man from coming too soon. I dropped both boxes next to the red wine. Since my vagina didn't have taste buds, the flavored condoms implied something that wasn't going to happen. Unless he did something first, I'd never go down. I'd fallen for that trick before. But this guy wasn't going to be around tomorrow. He was as disposable to me as I was to him, so fellatio wasn't an option.

While Orange County wasn't looking I palmed a small package of stay-hard pills. The package said that it was the top-rated erection pill Zytenz. I eased that inside my pocket and winked at the cashier. He was too traumatized to care. I picked up an energy drink, too. While I did that, the door swung open and I tensed. But it wasn't more thugstateers. A group of old people arrived, flooded inside the 7-Eleven, and started shopping. Thug on the damp tile, the store in disarray, the old folks marched in and stepped over everything. Blacks. Asians. Spanish speaking. Casino crawlers. Like the casino, they were all nitty-gritty and in desperate need of face-lifts. The legion of losers stormed in in search of lottery tickets and food cheaper and better than what the casino had to offer. This world was dull, possessed no elegance. They wanted cigarettes and beer so they could get back to the ocean of green tables in a third-rate casino where people from all walks of life gathered to play poker. I'd spent many nights at that poker table when I wore my ring on my left hand, had spent too many days and nights married to the wrong man.

Orange County handed the shaken cashier his American Express charge card. He paid for the wine and the condoms. We left, went back out into the brisk air and rain. We stood at the front of the store, in a cramped parking lot, in an area populated by vagrants. Orange County massaged his right hand.

I dropped the box cutter in the pocket of my Lakers jacket, then opened the energy drink.

He said, “You're still trembling. Thought you were tough.”

“I'm at my toughest when I'm scared.”

I handed him the energy drink. His hand was shaking a little.

Then I opened the Zytenz. I handed him two pills.

He asked, “What's this?”

“Aspirin.”

Without questioning me, he opened the energy drink, then threw the pills in his mouth and washed both down. I took the energy drink from him, took a nervous sip. We'd kissed; we'd shared fluids by kissing. I wiped my nose, wiped sweat from my forehead, pulled my dreadlocks from my face, threw my scarf around my neck, and then three-pointed the energy drink into the garbage bin not far from us.

Over the sound of traffic and rain, again, like clockwork, sirens came alive in the distance.

His voice trembled when he said, “Everything that just happened, it's all on the security video in the store.”

“Just like the car accident at Denny's. They have us on video eating inside Denny's.”

“This is different. Way different than a hit-and-run.”

“But if we run, this could be considered a hit-buy-condoms-and-run-so-you-can-hit-it-too.”

“You never stop with the wisecracks, do you?”

I told him, “If we stay, you might get a key to the city in a ceremony. Would be a small key.”

“Still wisecracking.”

“Could be a big Christmas reward. You'd be online and make the local paper.”

Orange County wanted nothing to do with the police.

The sirens came closer.

With my Lakers jacket shielding me from the cold winter rain, I hurried toward my VW.

Condoms and wine in his hands, Orange County jogged toward his injured luxury car.