Vulnerable

by Bonita Thompson

  “Thirty-seven?”

  “Thirty-seven and some change, yes.”

  “And when’s your birthday?”

  “December.”

  “Okay, I know my mother would think this is rude…”

  “No, no Botox or facelifts or Restylane. But…yes, my lips. Collagen. And I confess it’s because so many other women in my line of work, and actresses, do it. It’s the one thing I felt I had to give in to.” She was forthright.

  His eyes fell onto her hands, wrapped around the small teacup. “You look…nice,” he felt obliged to tell her.

  Solemn, she thanked him. D’Becca lowered her eyes since his rested on hers longer than she felt at ease with. “This is really good tea, by the way.”

  “I think you said that already.”

  “Oh, I did, didn’t I.” D’Becca was on the verge of feeling—this guy was a little too…He was starting to make her feel much too self-conscious, something D’Becca had not felt in a long while.

  “Are you through here?”

  “You mean in the bookstore?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, yeah, I guess. Why?”

  They walked through city centre where a variety of shops dominated the quaint streets near the pier and landed a stone’s throw from, what the locals loosely referred to it as, “the centre.” The streets leading into Rawn’s neighborhood, between the pier and the centre, were wide-laned and tree-lined. The homes, built close to one another, were modest but charming, unlike the homes in D’Becca’s neighborhood, Crescent Hills, on the opposite side of the centre. The real estate was pricy, and pseudo-baroque with meticulously manicured lawns that were so perfectly green they looked synthetic. Where D’Becca resided, each address in the rolling neighborhood had luxury vehicles parked behind gated driveways. Conversely, street parking was the norm in Rawn’s neighborhood, because many of the dwellings had no off-street parking.

  “I’ve always liked this side of Crescent Island. It’s attractive,” D’Becca said.

  “What? As opposed to Crescent Hills?”

  “The real charm is west of the centre. Expensive real estate doesn’t necessarily mean charm.”

  “Why are you living on Crescent Island? Why not live in the city? Seattle has some really great neighborhoods.”

  “When I was working in Paris and Milan, I dreamed of coming home—back to the States—and living in a place that was unspoiled. A well-kept secret. I couldn’t believe it when my dream came true. I mean it was here all this time and I didn’t even know it. I’d heard about Crescent Island—the forgotten island—but never came over here. A few years back I had this large, really great apartment on Queen Anne Hill. I loved it, and not because it was also rent-controlled. It had one of those not-so-easy-to-come-by Seattle views—Lake Union from one window, and the Needle from another. Yet I wanted to be tucked away. Like so away from anything remotely urban.”

  “Do you like what you do—modeling?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “I’m not familiar with your work, and I don’t mean to…Isn’t modeling a short-lived career?”

  “Is that your way of saying I’m too old to be modeling?”

  “No…” Rawn chuckled.

  “I like that about you already.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You’re earnest.” D’Becca had a faraway look in her eyes. “I think about it often. Not being prepared. When I lived in Paris, there were days when I’d walk through each arrondissement. I was very much alone. When I wanted to remind myself of why I was there, I’d walk through the Jardin du Luxembourg, or I’d sit in the church in Saint-Germaine-des-Prés for hours. It was something about that church. I didn’t have a franc to my name. Yet I was so happy. I didn’t know it back then, but I was. Happy.”

  “I can see you in Paris broke, and happy. You would make the most of it, I can tell.”

  “I came to Seattle without anything except a small, cheap bag I bought at—it was a store like Kmart. It was stuffed with Tees and denim, which I lived in back then. I was this skinny girl, sixteen, if you can believe that. I wanted to go to L.A., but Seattle was as close as my three-hundred dollars could take me, and far enough from my small North Dakota hometown that could smother you to death.”

  “Things appear to have worked out.” D’Becca did not deliver one of her spirited comebacks. Rawn looked over to her. “So have you got any other plans?”

  “I need a back-up plan for my back-up plan since the first back-up plan failed.” She chuckled, attempting to camouflage what she genuinely felt. “Unlike you, I don’t have fancy degrees. I self-educated myself when I came to Seattle. I spent every moment in the library when it was open learning about everything. I remember trying to get through the Bhagavad Gita one summer, but I wasn’t ready for that. My first year in Paris, I even tried to read Dangerous Liaisons in French. I’d read most of the book on the Métro, but I spent just as much time referring to my French dictionary. It’s how I began to understand French. Anyway, I read some of the great poets, like Rumi and Gibran. I read Gandhi books and I must have read and studied every speech I could get my hands on by the Kennedy brothers and King. I learned Spanish completely on my own, and I can speak it pretty well. I was a glutton for all kinds of knowledge, and with only a GED.”

  “Did you eventually learn French when you worked in Paris?”

  “I never really learned the language. I can have short conversations in French, and there are words I can say with a really sexy accent,” she joked. “But I hung around mostly American and British models. Other models I often worked with…their first language was Dutch or French or German, and they wanted to improve their English…I picked up the language here and there. I actually speak fran-glais. Can you speak French?”

  “My family’s Haitian. They speak French and Creole.”

  “But not fran-glais?” she teased.

  “Not fran-glais.”

  She looked over at him. Through her travels and throughout her life after leaving North Dakota, D’Becca had befriended black men. She never saw a black man in the way she saw Rawn.

  “You have discipline, that’s good,” Rawn said. It brought D’Becca out of her wandering thoughts. “Have you thought about going back to school?”

  “I was all about becoming somebody. I wanted to be relevant, and I also needed to survive. Besides, I eventually managed a really great life back then. When you’re in the middle of loving your life, you don’t think about the future that much. And, besides, I was into a lot. Drugs—mostly E, but it was like the thing everyone did so…And I slept around. But I’m not particularly proud of that part of my story. I see it so clearly now, and that makes life so fascinating.”

  “What’s that?”

  “How we learn in hindsight instead of learning in the process.” Her mind wandered. “I grew up too fast. But because I did self-educate myself—that’s the part of my story I’m most proud of.”

  “Story? That’s interesting.”

  “What about you? What part of your story would you frame?”

  Rawn was attracted to the fact that D’Becca was so quick-witted. She was clever.

  Before he could respond, and out of the blue, a hard rain descended from the mysteriously dark sky, mixed with mothball-size frozen raindrops. Instinctively, Rawn reached for D’Becca’s hand and said, “Come on, let’s go to my place. I’m a block away.”

  Hand-in-hand, they jogged through the hail and rain—the overlapping cherry blossoms, which speckled some of the streets in the neighborhood, offered them a degree of shelter.

  The apartment was dark when Rawn unlocked the door and they went inside, catching their breath. In quick strides he walked across the room to illuminate the space. D’Becca stood by the opened door, the clearly audible sound of heavy rain striking against the asphalt. She wanted—needed—to leave. She did not trust herself to stay, even for a little while. Her afternoon with Rawn was intrinsically pleasurable. It should end now while she fe
lt strong enough, and the nascent of their connection was casual; there was very little depth. Her eyes lingered on the shiny black piano taking up a corner, and the books that were arranged all over the room.

  “I like your place. How many books do you think you have?”

  “Half of them are back-home. But here, probably one-hundred.”

  “There must be another room where you store them.”

  “The kitchen, my bedroom.” Rawn shrugged.

  D’Becca could not shake it: Rawn touched her intensely, and it was a new feeling; deeper than anything else she could recall being struck by before. “Amazing!” She swallowed hard.

  “Let me grab a towel so you can dry yourself off.”

  Rawn left her in the living room and D’Becca shut the front door.

  She began walking around the generous room, taking in how personal and unpretentious it was. She decided Rawn had an artsy nature. She loved the black-painted hardwood flooring and generous windows. She started flipping through his albums and was surprised someone his age even bothered with LPs anymore. From the corner of her eye, she could see a photograph atop a set of books, and D’Becca was moved to reach for it because Rawn was posed with a young woman. It had to be his sister, Tera—the resemblance between them was striking. If their smiles were sincere, in that moment they were quite happy and the world owed them nothing. She returned the photograph to its place and walked to a chess set made of granite which was set on a small, round table. Gingerly she touched one of the pieces. D’Becca was not schooled in chess, although she was familiar with the pieces. Studying the arrangement of the pieces, she could tell Rawn was in the middle of something because a king, a bishop and a pawn were not in the initial position. Above the chess set, she was arrested by a stunning piece of artwork in an expensive-looking frame. The painting stood out in the otherwise unassuming room.

  Rawn returned holding a towel. “Here you go.”

  She reached for the thick chocolate-colored towel and started to dry herself off. “Thank you. I was admiring your painting.”

  Rawn glanced over at the hanging artwork. “It was my grandfather’s. He was an artist. When he passed away, he left some of his work to me. Perhaps you can see the New Orleans theme in his work.”

  “Yes, I do. I love New Orleans.” She draped the towel around her neck. “Can I take off my jacket? It’s soaking wet.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Rawn helped D’Becca take off her jean jacket.

  “You must be a big fan of Dante Godreau. You have all of his albums.”

  With his head bowed slightly, Rawn replied, “He’s…was a genius.”

  “It was so tragic, his sudden death. It reminds me how swiftly life can be taken away. There you are, standing in a bodega to purchase a pack of smokes…”

  “I’ve always been a fan of Godreau’s music,” Rawn butted in. “He changed—his influence on a generation was incredible. It wasn’t that widely commercial influence. But he managed to leave his flair on the culture, and he stayed relevant. You know?”

  “I saw him once. In Rio de Janeiro. Did you know that one of his daughters lives in Seattle?”

  “Really? I didn’t know that.”

  She wanted to shift the mood. D’Becca sensed that Rawn was still moved by the musician’s violent, recent death. “So… Can I see the rest of your apartment?”

  A year from now, Rawn would not be able to recall how it got so far so fast, and why he invited D’Becca to his apartment. But a force would sculpture the outcome of that choice. His decision was not necessarily reckless but no doubt impulsive. And in that moment Rawn concentrated more on how unsure of himself he was feeling more so than the impetuosity of the situation; it was not how he generally handled situations with a woman. He always made sure he had an out. “Sure. Come on.”

  They entered the large kitchen where books were piled in various areas of the room. Bottles of wine were in a simple wine rack and majority of them with Chateau Ste. Michelle labels. A cookbook was set on the counter like it had been looked through that morning; and there was an espresso machine and French press. At one end Rawn made a corner into office space, and a computer and dozens of books assembled the farmhouse console table and the sandstone floor.

  D’Becca liked what she saw and in her mind tried to think of a way out—she was too attracted to Rawn, and she was at risk of losing herself.

  “You make life seem so simple.”

  It was the first time Rawn detected some level of vulnerability. Not just in her voice, but in her body language, in her eyes. D’Becca let her guard down.

  “What do you mean?” Rawn asked.

  “I don’t know. In talking to you. Being around you. You make it seem so easy.” She looked thoughtful and curiously apprehensive.

  “Not always, but yes, I think life’s pretty straightforward.”

  “God, I wish I could think like that.”

  “Come with me.”

  They walked a hallway ten feet long give or take, and Rawn stopped to point out another painting hanging on the wall.

  “This one is quiet. Gentle. Not as extravagant as the other one.”

  “You have a good eye,” he said. “I agree with you.”

  “You have a Steinway. Do you play?”

  He wiggled his hand facetiously. “A little.”

  Rawn and D’Becca held each other’s eyes. She moved into him and as natural as she took in the air she breathed, her tongue traced over his moist, full lips—it was as though she had been dying to do it all day. There was little, if any, resistance, but a part of Rawn was unwilling to take it to such an extreme level. He wanted this woman; there was no ambiguity whatsoever. When D’Becca kissed him, he was powerless to defend himself.

  She unbuttoned Rawn’s rain-drenched shirt which clung stubbornly to his deep cocoa skin. He slipped her soft-fabric tee over her head. They kissed long and hard; their passion was raw. With the tip of her tongue, D’Becca outlined a tattoo the shape of a music symbol an inch above Rawn’s left breast.

  “I’m out of condoms.” While his voice was low, there was nothing vague about his words.

  “It’s okay.” She continued to kiss his saline skin, dark and smooth as rich, velvety chocolate.

  “No, really.” Rawn intended to sound convincing.

  With a whispery reply, D’Becca said, “It’s okay.”

  “Let me double-check.”

  “I’m safe. Aren’t you?”

  When his nipple was in D’Becca’s mouth, Rawn could not bring himself to suspend the rhythm. She pressed her collagen-injected lips against his chest like she had been trained. She unbuckled his leather belt and unfastened his in-style jeans.

  “Where’s the bedroom?”

  In the dim room, with streams of the shadowy sky trickling in through the roof windows, D’Becca methodically removed every stitch of Rawn’s clothing. Calm and seductive, she was confident, taunting him with a lick on his skin here, a sultry kiss there. She got excited in watching Rawn try to contain himself. When she caressed his full and hungry manhood, it aroused her. Since she was seventeen, D’Becca had not been with a man her own age, and certainly not one younger than she. Every lover—and even a number of what she called hit-and-runs—was at least ten years her senior, and taught her a number of ways to give men pleasure. Each man taught her something new, and there were some who taught her how to please herself. In retrospect, D’Becca could not recall every lover she had in some faraway land where she had spent nights and days and afternoons getting closer and closer to becoming the woman that would blow Rawn’s mind. Likewise for D’Becca, she felt a violent tremor when he released himself inside her and it never felt like that before; and what she felt was so intense and urgent.

  The quiet night was calm and extraordinarily serene. D’Becca, her breathing gentle, nestled into Rawn, her full breasts against his chest while she slept soundly. He was feeling the exquisite mixture of fear and elation. Later, when Rawn could look at th
e moment with clear, objective eyes, he would consider his lust for this woman—it was fierce and determined, and so much so he was willing to play Russian roulette with his life because Rawn always, always used a condom. In that impassioned moment, the chemical that created a severe pleasure sensation, a rush—epinephrine—kicked in. One afternoon, months from now, he would be sitting somewhere dazing blindly at whatever was in front of him, and he would ask himself why?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A humming sound interrupted Rawn’s peaceful slumber. Somewhat disoriented, he raised his torso and searched the immediate area to see where the sound was coming from. When the humming sound ceased, he rested comfortably against the fluffy pillow and closed his eyes. No sooner than Rawn began to slip into a peaceful sleep, the humming started up again. Confused, annoyed, he rose from the bed and began tossing the covers around, knowing that the sound was very close by. Naked, he jumped from the foot of the bed and looked around, growing impatient and frustrated. D’Becca was gone. The light sleeper that he was, he should have heard—at least felt—her slip away into the cool, pale rays of dawn. The humming noise finally abated. Rawn collapsed on the bed and yawned. Once more, the humming started up again, and because it seemed closer to him than before, he got on all fours and began seeking out the bothersome distraction. When he looked beneath the bed, he located D’Becca’s cellular hidden behind his shoe. Rawn reached for the silver-coated mobile and permanently silenced the ringtone.

  She’s got to come back to retrieve her cellular.

  When he stepped out of the shower, water glistening against his satin skin, Rawn reached for a towel and fixed it around his waist. The telephone rang. He expected it to be D’Becca. After all, she left her cellular and he knew she would eventually want to get it back.