Leftovers With Benefits: An Interracial Contemporary Romance

by C. L. Donley

  “About the same. Turns out the ER is pretty much 24 hours of crazy,” Kenya commented over leftover chicken pot pie. Now it was nearly 1am and they were on second dinner.

  “I meant seeing the sun.”

  Kenya forgot she’d had that conversation with Kevin.

  “Oh, yeah. It is nice. Especially this time of year.”

  “Fall is my favorite.”

  “Mine too.”

  “I’m really glad we get four seasons here.”

  “I’ve been here my whole life. I guess I take it for granted.”

  “Any more wine in that bottle?”

  Kenya handed him the Kindzmarauli when she was done pouring. He poured the remnants into the empty glass on the coffee table.

  “Can I ask you a personal question?”

  Kenya stopped mid-sip to look up at him.

  “Of a sexual nature?” he added.

  Kenya finished her sip.

  “It’s that time of the night already?” she casually asked.

  “Did he ever… your ex, I mean…”

  “We never did give him his nickname.”

  “You’re right,” Kevin remembered.

  “What was the name of the guy that did a bid and got out at the beginning of the movie? Gary what’s his name.”

  “Sirius Black?”

  “Hmm… that’s a bit too obvious, don’t you think?”

  “He didn’t do a bid, he escaped,” Kevin said, letting the silence fester before launching into his question.

  “Did you guys, um…do oral sex?”

  Kenya smacked her swig of wine.

  “Did we ‘do’ oral sex?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, we are married and older than twelve, so we ‘did’ oral sex, yes.”

  “Like, often?” he asked.

  “Like, every time.”

  “Every time?”

  Kenya nodded slowly as she drew her lips inward.

  “Pretty much.”

  “Both of you?”

  Kenya let a breath of laughter escape.

  “Am I being white again?”

  Kenya laughed even more at his question.

  “I… think surveying a black couple’s oral sex habits is beyond the limit of my expertise.”

  “Malfoy,” he suddenly volunteered.

  Kenya tilted her head this way and that, entertaining the suggestion. “Yeah. Wasn’t his dad named Lucifer?”

  “Lucius.”

  “Fucking Malfoy.”

  “Not many villains to choose from,” Kevin commented. He went quiet, his silence pregnant.

  Kenya gave him the out, though she couldn’t deny she was curious where he was going with all of it.

  “I’m already regretting my curiosity, but… why’d you ask that?”

  “About the oral sex?”

  This friggin guy, she thought.

  “It seemed like that was just the setup question.”

  “Peter Pettigrew? It’s more fun to say.”

  Kenya gave him a reprimanding look, refusing to humor him.

  “Spill it,” she said.

  Finally, he shrugged and gave a sigh.

  “She didn’t like to give it. Or get it.”

  Kenya raised an eyebrow.

  “Really,” Kenya remarked. She couldn’t contain the ribbon of skepticism in her voice.

  “What?”

  Kenya drew her shoulders up and raised her eyebrows, making an elongated shrug, trying to let him down easy. About something.

  “Spill it,” he echoed back to her.

  “Just that…” Kenya wrinkled her face as she gingerly continued, “I doubt very highly that he would cheat, leave his wife, and that they would have a baby on the way, if she wasn’t giving him head. On the regular.”

  Kenya watched his expression grow thoughtful.

  “Are you fucking serious?”

  “I mean… we dated for two years before we got married, and it was… a point of contention. For a long time. I mean I basically went into Olympic training… do you know what I mean?”

  “…No,” he confessed.

  “It means I’m very good,” Kenya nodded sleepily.

  “He really considered it a dealbreaker?”

  “He said he didn’t feel loved if he couldn’t ‘feel my effort.’”

  Kevin just sat looking dumbfounded.

  “I was 25 at the time,” Kenya added.

  “I’m starting to think we’re better off, the two of us.”

  “Why do you say that?” Kenya laughed.

  “Your… Malfoy sounds psychotic.”

  “Does he? I think there’s a lot of men who share that sentiment.”

  “Psychotic ones.”

  “He just wanted me to be into it.”

  “In the way that only he defined.”

  “Sometimes accommodating our partners means being uncomfortable.”

  “Yeah,” Kevin scoffed, “and he appreciated it so much he left.”

  Kenya silently took another sip of her wine.

  “I don’t like Malfoy. Let’s just use Voldermort for both of them,” she finally spoke.

  “Like as a collective?”

  “No. Well, if you want. I mean, if you said, ‘Voldemort always had a dry pussy,’ I think I’ll be able to deduce who you’re talking about.”

  Kevin gave a chuckle. “It wasn’t… dry it was—”

  “I swear I don’t care,” Kenya interrupted her wine sip to interject.

  Kevin was quiet, but only for a little while.

  “She always said it felt like she was being licked by a dog,” he said.

  “Oh, now I see,” Kenya slowly understood. “You’re just shit at it.”

  Kevin smirked a bit as he scoffed.

  “Uh, that’s definitely not the case.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “You’re not the only one in the oral sex Olympics.”

  “How’d you get in if your wife never liked to get it?”

  “I didn’t live in a cave before her. And she didn’t used to be that way. Not when we were dating.”

  “Well, why else would Voldemort lie about something like that?”

  “She wasn’t lying, she—”

  “Listen, if she left you for my Voldemort, please believe he is tonsil deep in that thing. Probably as we speak. Looking for the fucking holy grail.”

  Kevin sat quietly as an uncomfortable silence enveloped them.

  “I think maybe you need to face facts,” Kenya lectured.

  “And what facts are those?”

  “That your Voldemort straight up used you. Either that or she’s a monster. Or both.”

  Kevin was quiet a moment. “You think I don’t know that?”

  “Well if you know it, then stop bothering me about what ‘went wrong,’ whatever strain of humanity you think you’ve found in some faraway memory of the two of you. I mean, it was cute at first but I’m genuinely tired of hearing about the bitch. I’d rather call up my Voldemort and ask him what he loves about her. At least that would fucking make sense.”

  Kevin felt the lump in his throat.

  “She was my entire life for seven years. I can’t just shut that off.”

  “Fine. I get it. Just go bleed somewhere else. To someone else.”

  As blunt as she was being, he could tell that Kenya was stewing, more angry than she wanted to let on. They sat in silence a long moment, when Kevin gathered the courage to speak first.

  “I didn’t mean to… offend you. I just… it seemed like we understood each other—”

  “Why, just because our spouses cheated on us? No, sorry I don’t understand you,” Kenya said, calmly setting her goblet down on the coffee table, “I don’t understand what’s so fucking special about this bitch, that she’s got two husbands out of their ever loving minds about her. The only thing I do understand about her, is that in another four years or less, she’s probably going to be where I am now.”

  “You sure about th
at?”

  Kenya looked him square in the eyes.

  “I don’t need to be sure about that.”

  Kevin shrugged.

  “Let it out, Kevin, we’ve come this far.”

  Kevin’s mouth drew down at the corners.

  “I just… hope you’re not still holding your breath four years from now.”

  “Holding my breath about what, Kevin?”

  “You’re so sure your Voldemort used you, or is a monster. Or both.”

  “…Yeah?”

  “What if the problem’s you? What if you just… settled?”

  Kenya shifted in her chair.

  “So it’s my fault this happened to me.”

  “Not at all, I just meant—”

  “Who knows what the fuck you meant? By anything, Kevin?”

  She’d said his name about 5 times in one minute, and he didn’t know her that well, but he was pretty sure that meant she was mad.

  “I’m sorry. It’s the wine talking.”

  “Stand by your fucking statement, Kevin.”

  Six.

  Kevin didn’t say anything. He realized he was seeing a bit of the process at work, what makes a sweet, empathetic nurse key a car. Turns out it was plain old defense mechanisms.

  “Maybe you and your wine should get the fuck out,” she calmly said.

  “You know, I would but…I think I’m a little bit drunk.”

  “So? Call an Uber.”

  Kevin looked at her for a moment.

  “Okay.”

  “Great.”

  “I’ll uh, come to get my car. In the morning.”

  “Whatever.”

  Kenya didn’t move a muscle as he sat up, retrieved his phone from his pocket and opened the Uber app. Not even a minute later he was getting a call. He got up from the couch and took his phone call to the foyer, sitting on the stairs as Kenya still sat quietly on the couch, absentmindedly sipping wine.

  What the hell did he know? Nothing, that’s what. It’s not like Cecil walked around carrying a bundle of red flags. Besides, combat changed him. When she’d suggested that he get a pass while he was deployed, he shot her down immediately, reprimanding her for thinking like that. But then his best friend died. He almost died. He lost the use of his legs. Then he regained it. And it was like a beast was unleashed.

  She wasn’t even mad at first. Embarrassed, perhaps, but she had to admit she couldn’t imagine what he was going through, what he’d been through. Feeling like you were on borrowed time. Sure, she wished he’d had the courage to cut her loose a year or two ago, instead of waiting until he’d had a backup, but that was life. Even badass Marines fell short.

  How was that settling? The question crawled through her ear and buried itself in her brain.

  Eventually, Kenya wordlessly moved the dishes from the table to the kitchen sink, pretending there was a forcefield between the kitchen and the stairs. She didn’t stop to turn around as she heard the front door latch open, then quietly close again.

  * * *

  After waking up from the greatest sleep he’d had in years, Kevin took an Uber back to Kenya’s house the next morning.

  He got in his newly repaired car and started the engine. He was just about to drive off, but his foot was like lead. He didn’t want to just leave it the way it was, but he sure as hell didn’t want to face her.

  He realized just how little he knew about her situation, and as soon as he said what he said, he could see the untold story in her face.

  Kenya was practically the best friend he had right now. She made life bearable, she helped him process what happened, even while she helped him forget. He didn’t want to suffer the loss of another crucial relationship so soon after the last.

  It took every ounce of will to get over himself, get out of his car and knock on the front door. But he did. A moment later he heard the vague sound of footsteps coming up the stairs to the door. Slowly it opened.

  “Hi.”

  Kenya didn’t answer. She wrapped her robe around herself as she stood in the doorway.

  “Did I wake you?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Okay,” he began, sand filling his mouth. “Well anyway, I feel fucking terrible about last night. I can’t stand by my statement, I’m afraid. It was out of line. And probably wrong.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  “No, it was. I come here, I talk your ear off about Voldemort, I eat your leftovers. It’s sick, is what it is. I’m an idiot. How could I not see that these conversations were really hurting you? You had every right to get upset.”

  “I’ve been thinking… a lot. About what you said last night, actually.”

  Kevin braced himself. “Okay…”

  “And um… I think I wanna give you a blowjob.”

  Kevin didn’t make a sound as he tried to properly interpret what he’d just heard.

  “Beg your pardon?” he blinked.

  “Remember? The oral sex Olympics?”

  Oh, he thought. That part of the conversation.

  “Kenya, I didn’t bring that up to… I wasn’t implying…”

  “Look, Kevin. I hate my Voldemort for what he did to me, and I hate your Voldemort for what she did to you. You seem like a good guy from what I can tell. Besides that, quite frankly it’s been a few months and well…my libido is coming back hardcore, and I’d like to put a clean dick in my mouth without threat of personal or bodily injury. But unfortunately, I no longer have a husband and the internet is hella scary.”

  “I see,” Kevin answered hastily.

  “Do you? Because you’re looking a little peaked.”

  Kevin’s eyes widened a bit and then went back to normal, his pupils darting around as if wrestling with a thought.

  “I… geez. Can I come in?”

  “Does that mean your answer is yes?”

  “Wha— I… no.”

  “Then no, Kevin, you may not come in.”

  Kevin ran his fingers across his worried forehead.

  “Can I still come over for leftovers? You don’t have to hang out with me, I guess. If you don’t want. I get terrible heartburn from takeout food. But your food doesn’t do that for some reason. I’ve got Tupperware.”

  Kenya took a breath as though she was about to cuss him out, but thought the better of it.

  “Let’s just put aside for a second, the fact that now I’m starting to feel a little offended.”

  “It’s not that—”

  “You said that I settled. And long story short, I think you were right. There’s very little I can do about all that wasted time. My worst nightmare has happened. And now you’re here, and I’m here, talking about each other’s Voldemorts and their offspring conceived in hell, and you know what? It’s fuckin’ stupid. Have you been with anyone else since…?”

  “No—”

  “Neither have I.”

  “And that’s all I meant by saying no,” Kevin corrected, both his hands in front of him as if to guard himself from the negative implications, “I mean, it’s not that I wouldn’t, you’re beautiful. Not that you have to be beautiful to give me a blowjob it’s just…oh fuck,” Kevin covered both his eyes with his hands and took a deep breath. Kenya bit her lip and lowered her head, stifling a smile at his accidental compliment.

  “There’s still a lot of… emotions I gotta work through before I could think about being with anyone.”

  Kenya shifted her weight. “Well, it’s been months now. For me. I need to… either we make the most of this or we stop coming around each other. I mean, did you really bring up your Voldemort’s pussy to me last night?”

  “Technically you did. I just brought up oral sex. In general.”

  “No, technically you brought up…” Kenya sighed. “Who the fuck cares. And who knows what else you would’ve brought up if I hadn’t stopped you. You need an intervention, Kevin. You need a rebound. So do I.”

  “But why does it have to be each other?”

  “Who else?”

>   “It’s just… it’s kinda hard to be friends after a thing like that.”

  “Are we friends, Kevin? Or are we just fuck buddies too afraid to fuck? So we just pig out on crockpot meals instead? And drink?”

  Kevin’s brain was swirling. In a hundred years he couldn’t have guessed Kenya would propose what she was proposing. Though he couldn’t ignore its inherent logic.

  “… I need some time to think about this,” Kevin announced.

  “Fair enough,” Kenya replied.

  “Okay. I’m gonna… leave,” he said.

  “Safe travels, Kevin.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “Yeah.”

  Kenya closed the door in front of her and took a deep breath as she leaned against it.

  Well, that was fucking embarrassing, she thought.

  He did say he would think about, at least.

  At least he now knew where she stood. At least she wouldn’t have to keep letting him in, listen to him talk about someone else and then watch him leave.

  God, was she that desperate to get attention from someone? She pushed herself off the door and headed back up the stairs toward the kitchen, re-assuring herself that she’d made the right choice.

  No more taking in strays, she thought. Either show me your dick or get out of my face. Those are the new rules.

  She was congratulating herself on her new mantra when there was a bold knock at the door that gave her heart a jolt.

  For a second she didn’t move a muscle.

  Kenya slowly made her way down the half flight of stairs, back towards the front door, and opened it.

  There was Kevin, looking sheepishly at the ground, hands in his pockets.

  “It’s really over,” he said.

  Kenya took a deep audible breath as she looked on miserably at the sight of him.

  “Yes. And you want it to be. You have to,” Kenya replied.

  He swallowed. Slowly his eyes faced forward meeting hers as he sighed.

  “You do me, I do you?” he proposed.

  She looked at him with sympathy.

  He sounded defeated. If there wasn’t an unfamiliar undertone of desire in his voice, she may have nixed the idea altogether.

  “Deal,” she said.

  8

  Chapter 8

  What the hell was he doing?

  Inwardly Kevin was freaking out. How was he even going to be able to pull this off without having a panic attack?