The Cocktail Club (30 page)

Chandler didn't need much coaxing. He had gone from spectator to full-fledged participant in less than sixty seconds. I watched as
he undressed. His body was beautiful.

Once in the tub with me, he pulled my body close to his and held me tightly. We kissed long and hard. I ran my fingers through his thick, wavy hair and pulled and tugged at it.

Everything about him felt so incredibly good to me. He had a way of making me feel like I'd die without his touch.

Suddenly, he pulled back and began to manhandle me. Chandler grabbed my hair, turned my body around, and pushed me over the edge of the tub.

“This is what you like, isn't it?” he growled.

I didn't get the chance to answer. When I opened my mouth to speak, the sensation of him filling me all but took my breath away.

“Give it to me,” he said.

I tried. I pushed back against his thrusts and gave in when his body told me he wanted me to. Our bodies moved in sync. It had gotten to the point that I didn't even want sex with my husband anymore. All I wanted was Chandler.

“Oh, shit! I'm cumming,” he cried.

That announcement brought me so much joy, it hadn't occurred to me that he didn't have on a condom. When I felt him release inside of me, and he collapsed onto my back, I actually felt fortunate.

“Let's move to the bed,” he said. “I want to satisfy you completely.”

I wanted to tell him that he already had, but instead of putting up any resistance whatsoever, I dipped back into the tub, then got out like he asked. He slid his wet hand up my thigh and rubbed me as I moved.

In the bedroom, atop my marital bed, Chandler dove face first between my thighs.

I loved everything he did to me. We complemented each other in so many ways. I was happy with him. And as we lay in the
afterglow of magnificent, unprotected sex, I began to imagine my life with him. On the surface, I understood that it was the ultimate no-no, but that didn't stop me from considering the impossible.

Unable to tell exactly when I had fallen off to sleep, I bolted up and realized what had gone down.

“Chandler, wake up! Wake up!” I shook his body violently. This foolishness had to stop. We had become entirely too careless.

The clock said it was ten minutes after two in the afternoon.

“Damn! I had a lunch meeting I couldn't miss.”

Chandler flashed his gorgeous smile. “Oops. Didn't mean to distract you.” He laughed groggily.

“C'mon, you. Let's go shower. You need to get out of here.”

“Awww, you putting me out already? Thought I had earned the right to hang around,” he said.

“As tempting as that offer is, we'd better get cleaned up and get you on your way, so I can fix dinner for later.”

“Do you do that every day?”

“What?”

“Fix breakfast, lunch, and dinner?”

“Yup, I sure do. My family wants to eat every single day.” I sighed dramatically.

Chandler pulled me into his arms and held me. “Why couldn't we have met long ago?”

I eased back and tilted my head to look up at him.

“Be honest. Would you have been willing to date a black woman back then?”

“Darby, white men don't care about women's skin color. It's you guys who do. Most black women won't date outside their race, but I'm glad you did.”

We were not dating. I didn't know what we were doing, but we
couldn't date. I began to make my way back to the bathroom. Chandler was hot on my heels.

“Is that what you think we're doing here? I mean, dating? I'm married, Chandler, and I won't leave my husband.”

“Oh spare me, Darby. You've told me all of that before, remember? Besides, I didn't ask you to leave him—not yet anyway.”

We showered together, had sex one last time, and then got dressed. I walked him to the front door. We embraced, and he held on to me like he wasn't sure whether he should let me go.

“Dinner,” I whispered.

“Oh, yes, dinner,” he repeated and slid his tongue into my mouth.

We kissed some more. Hotter and heavier than before, and I wasn't sure I wanted him to leave. The clock was ticking, but once again, he had stirred something in me and I felt like I needed him to finish what he had started.

“If you don't let me go now, I'm gonna take you right here on that couch,” he said. Chandler took my hand and lowered it to his crotch. I opened my hand and grabbed as much of him as I could.

He felt like steel. And, had the clock not been ticking, I would've had him again. But it was already after four. Kevin and the boys would be home by five-thirty.

“Look at what you do to me.” Chandler chuckled. When I moved back and tugged at the door, he had the most massive wood I'd seen protruding from a man's pants.

We laughed as I swung the door open, and suddenly, our laughter stopped and turned to instant shock.

IVEE

I
looked around the classroom and wanted to gouge my own eyes out. The people who sat in the chairs looked like they belonged behind bars. There were two skinhead-type guys who had tattoos etched into their scalps.

Another guy had a star similar to the Houston Astros Baseball team logo tattooed near his right eye, and all I could wonder was who in their right mind would give him a job.

The women in the class looked just as bad. If they didn't look like masculine she-males, they looked like hookers. And not the high-priced, call girl types either.

“What's your name?” an equally rough-looking woman, who sat at the front of the room, asked.

“Oh, I'm Ivee Henderson.”

“Okay, gotcha,” she said and marked my name on a list.

I rolled my eyes and walked toward the back of the room. I thought better of it when I realized there was a little gang action going on back there.

The moment I realized I wasn't welcomed in that section, I sat near where I stood. I was not looking forward to being taught anything about alcohol. I knew everything I needed to know. As a matter of fact, I wished I could have a few shots to help me get through my very first class.

Moments after I was seated and tried to think better thoughts, the woman who sat at the front of the room began to speak.

“Hey, everybody, what's up? I'm Diane Watson. If you did
not
get stopped and arrested for DWI, did
not
get arrested for public intoxication, or are
not
court-mandated to take an alcohol, drug awareness program, this ain't the class for you. I'll wait for you to vacate the premises.”

She waited and looked around the room. When no one moved,
she waited a few more beats before she spoke again.

“Okay, dig that. Now that we all where we supposed to be, why don't we get down to business? All of us in here, we are adults. I don't believe in babysitting no damn body. And they damn sure don't pay me enough to babysit no grown folks. Y'all need to listen real good, so I can tell you how it's gonna go down. And you betta' make sure you listen 'cause I ain't gon' repeat myself. First off, you ain't allowed to be late. Ain't no exceptions to that rule. If you late, you disrupt the rest of us when you come in, and that throws everybody off. I give y'all a five-minute grace period. Not six, not ten. Five minutes, and that's all. If you not up in here when I start, you will be counted absent, and I will report that to your probation officer, your judge, or whoever it was that thought you needed to be here.”

She began to pace back and forth in front of the four rows of desks.

“Secondly, ain't nobody allowed to sit in the first two rows in this room. I'll wait for the four of you to get up and move around.”

Four people got up and scrambled to seats near the back of the room.

“I don't like feeling all crowded and stuff. Cool. Third, you can't miss any session unless you're in the hospital or dead! Ain't no exceptions to that rule either.” She spread her right hand and used the other to count down two fingers. “In the hospital.” She pointed to the index finger. “Or dead.” She pointed to the middle finger.

When she reached the end of her path, she pivoted, and began again. “The only person allowed to miss a class is yours truly.” She pointed at her chest with her thumb. “Now, raise your hand if you don't understand rule number three!”

She stopped and glanced around the room at each of our faces.

“Good. I love when I have me a sharp and attentive group. Also,
you can't come up in here high or drunk. If you do, or if I catch a contact, or you even look like you're under the influence of any substance or alcohol, ain't no point in you tryin' to concoct no lie, 'cause I'll call and have you arrested myself. Please do not test me!” she warned.

Her neck snaked while she issued that threat.

“You here 'cause you have a drinking problem. And the problem is more than you just gettin' drunk and fallin' down. I don't care why you drink. I don't care whether you deny your drinkin' problem. The bottom line is, if you didn't have a problem, you wouldn't be here,” she said.

I hated her already.

By the time she finished her rules, my desire to cause bodily injury to myself had intensified significantly. I couldn't believe I had to sit through not one, but three, of these retarded, brain-numbing, demeaning sessions.

And, honestly, who was that chick? What made her qualified to teach anybody anything? She looked like a recovering druggie who had lived a very hard life.

I braced myself and prepared for what I was certain would be the most difficult three hours of my life.

Everything she said rubbed me the wrong way. It wasn't simply
her ebonics that made me cringe. I understood that my anger was really misdirected, but I didn't care. Compared to the hoodlums in the class, I was a respectable, upstanding citizen, and I didn't appreciate having to be in the same room, much less the same category, as any of them.

What really tripped me out was the fact that some of them had the nerve to be trying to get to know one another. My ears perked as I heard a few of them as they traded notes about which drug classes and which instructors were best.

“Dude, Martinez is the homeboy! I can't tell you how many times he let us sign in and bounce!” one of the gang members boasted.

Hence the reason you're right back here again,
I wanted to say, but didn't.

I couldn't understand why the instructor hadn't shut them down. She was so busy laying down the law that the lawbreakers had free reign.

Hours later, unable to wrap my mind around how I'd ever made it through the first session, I nearly bolted for the door the minute the clock struck half past nine.

For the first time since it was installed, I had no problem blowing into the interlock device in my car. I wanted to get home, and I wanted to get there quickly.

Where did that tramp get off telling any of us we had a drinking problem? Who had died and left her in charge of anything? I was fit to be tied by the time I pulled up at home. The truth was, I wish I had someplace else to go. After being in class with that witch, the last place I wanted to be was at home up under Zion and his bad disposition.

I pulled into the driveway and dialed Darby's number. If nothing else, she could come pick me up, and we could go somewhere and have a drink. Just because I drank didn't make me an out-of-control alcoholic, and I didn't appreciate being treated like one either.

When Darby didn't answer, I considered Peta, but figured she'd be home with Kendal, and I wasn't trying to be around any kids.

The realization that my only other option was to go inside made me feel worse than I did in class. Had my life really crumbled to the kind of people who went to work, went home, rested, only to do it all over again?

My front door opened, and the porch light flicked on. All of a sudden, Zion walked out shirtless and barefoot. He approached the car.

“So, how long you planning to hang out in the car?”

“I'm coming in now,” I lied.

“Oh good, 'cause I saw you when you pulled up, and I've been waiting for you to come in. Ted called earlier, and I need to fill you in on the latest,” he said.

I rolled my eyes as I climbed out of the car. I wasn't sure what bugged me the most—the fact that my attorney always felt the need to update my husband instead of me, or the fact that my husband seemed to get some kind of controlling upper hand when he knew information about my case before I did.

PETA