That’s all I said. Didn’t want to get too specific, mention her uncle. That’d derail the passion soon to happen. Her hazel eyes were really something. I wanted passion. Even if for just a crumb of time, I wanted and needed the passion.
She said, “You move me in so many ways.”
“I’m about to move you to the bedroom and fuck the shit out of you.”
A knowing smile, recognition of verbal foreplay. “Patience is a virtue.”
I said, “Even Job would want the pussy right now.”
My complicated woman with hazel eyes and skin almost as light blushed. She never admitted to liking the dirty talk, but she did. Part of being successful with my women was having a deep understanding of them, what made them tick, what didn’t. My wife-to-be was a closet freak that liked being talked to dirty.
She took my hand, softly, by the fingers, and guided me through the living room toward the bedroom. “Fuck a fuck swing,” she muttered under her breath.
Victory was mine.
In the bedroom, she said, “I wasn’t snooping, Michael, but I found one of your videos in the closet. I watched it.”
I immediately said, “Mercedez is beautiful, but fake. There isn’t a woman alive with real breasts that look like hers. And Briana Banks, fake, too. Her breasts are beautiful, I won’t even deny that, but then again, they’re so big they almost look painful in some way. Plus, I don’t really like white girls like that.”
My wife-to-be frowned. “I was talking about the Spike Lee documentary you told me about. Jim Brown: All-American.”
“Oh,” was all I could say. “I spoke too soon, huh?”
She laughed. “Mercedez? She was the Latina?”
I nodded.
“Saw her take that guy in her mouth.” She shivered. “She didn’t just lick around the tip, like I’d do if I did that.” She frowned, seemingly pained by that admission. Understanding my earlier criticism, even though it was proposed as constructive, even though I’d said she wasn’t the problem. That it was a we thing. She knew better after watching that video. I’d left it half-hidden on purpose. Let her see all the things that were missing from our sex life. All the things she didn’t do. She’d be doing them in no time.
And I’d know then. I’d know I really had her.
I asked, “What did you think about that?”
She shook her head, hugged herself. “She took the whole thing in her mouth. I mean, Michael, deep back in her throat. Did it with ease, too. And the look on his face was pure ecstasy. I’ve never seen you look like that.”
“It turned you on?”
She nodded. “He was almost as big as you. Wondered if I could do that.”
“She’s a professional,” I offered.
“And what’s the other one’s name…the white girl…Tyra…? Banks?”
“Briana.”
“Yeah, her.” She frowned deeper. “Same thing. How do they do that?”
I shrugged.
“You like watching that stuff, don’t you, Michael?”
“Not too often.”
“I rewound the tape to where it was when I first watched it,” she said.
“And?”
“I checked it again two days later and it was at a different spot.”
I didn’t say anything. There was nothing to be said. I’d calculated and planned carefully. It was all falling into place perfectly.
She continued, “The next day after that it was at a different spot. You watched it two days in a row.”
I didn’t say anything. I just listened to the obsession that was edging itself into her life, into her voice, into her way of thinking and analyzing and eventually living. That obsession would make her blind to what was happening right under her nose. That obsession would be my best friend. That obsession would allow me entry into the financial part of her life that I cared about most.
“I don’t want my man depending on…” She moved closer to me. “I’m not losing you to Mercedez and Tyra.”
“Briana.”
“Briana, Tyra, Benny Hanna…whoever. I’m not losing you to anyone.”
She’d shown traces of Jacqueline with that statement. It endeared me to her all the more. Hazel eyes and that. It was enough to make a man fall in love. But I wouldn’t. If everything she said from now on had Jacqueline’s wit draped over it, I wouldn’t fall in love. It wouldn’t prevent me from betraying her in the worst way. I was stone. A statue. Statues didn’t have emotions. And that was me.
“There’s the camcorder,” she said. She nodded in its direction.
“What are you saying?”
“Grey’s Anatomy. A black woman is behind that show. Not that I’ll watch it now that they jettisoned Isaiah Washington. But, well, a black woman is behind the show. Writer and producer, I believe. Did you know that, Michael?”
“Yes. But what does that—?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what I’m saying and how it pertains to anything with us. I’m just nervous. I have never done anything like this, baby.”
“Never done anything like what?”
“Taped myself having sex with a man. And on a fuck swing at that.” Her hazel eyes honed in on me. “But then, I’ve never loved a man as much as I love you before, either. We should get in some practice. So I can get comfortable in front of the camera. Before we spend all that money on a…a swing.”
“You…?”
“Yes, Michael. I want to film us in action. Right now.”
The camcorder was on the dresser in our bedroom. Her bedroom actually, but I’d taken it as mine. Taken everything as mine. Shared everything with her. At some point soon, the sharing would end. It would be all mine. Mine alone.
She moved away from me, went over to the dresser, took up the camcorder, and fondled it. Her back was to me. I could see the indecision in her posture. She juggled it a couple times in her hand, got used to its weight. Then she turned to face me. She smiled. A courage-gathering smile. She flicked the power button on the camcorder, handed it to me. I took it carefully. And right there, in the middle of our bedroom, she started to undress. I licked my lips as she swayed seductively while disrobing.
She stopped. Nodded at the hard erection in my pants. Then at the camcorder. I had the camcorder down by my side. I was hypnotized by her beauty, seduced by her movements. She was pure liquid, so effortlessly sexy in how she moved. Moved better than Nikki, and Nikki had honed her moves on stage at the Liquid Kitty. I’d never seen this side of my wife-to-be before. I couldn’t move. I was mesmerized. Affected. Something I never let myself get when dealing with the wives.
“Why don’t you point both of those at me, Michael.”
I smiled sheepishly, raised the camcorder. She started the undressing dance again. I hoped the camcorder picked up the hazel in her eyes. I hoped it caught every detail, even the most minute, in her body. That dimple in her side that led to the washboard abs, the birthmark on her wrist, the tight V of her pussy. I wished the recorder could pick up the scent of her pussy. Strawberries. I was romanticizing it, I believe, but I swear her pussy smelled and tasted like fruit sometimes. Many nights ended with her juices on my lips and fingers.
“You like how I move, Michael?”
“Yes.”
“You want to make love to me?”
“I want to fuck you,” I said. “I want to hit that as hard as I can.”
“You’re brick, aren’t you, Michael?”
I touched my dick, rubbed it, nodded. “Yeah, baby, I’m brick.”
“I did that to you?”
“Yes.”
“You know why?”
“Because you love me.”
“I do, Michael. So much. Every day with you is like a holiday. Christmas, Thanksgiving, Martin Luther King’s birthday, a sales day at Macy’s…”
Light from the hall crawled into the room. It lit her body. She was under the spotlight. My wife-to-be had the television on. Music Choice channel. She loved the variety of music the digital
cable offered. Always turned it on when we made love. We never fucked in silence. Hip hop, classic R & B, Latin music. She loved it all. “Darlin’ Darlin’ Baby” was playing then. The O’Jays, one of my favorites. On the wall above her head was a print of Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Petunias.” I’d gotten the print for her. I knew a great deal about art and things of that sort. My range of wisdom impressed women, won me wives. Knowledge was like a long, hard, thick dick that always satisfied. Trust me on this.
“I’m feeling so close to you today, Michael.”
I nodded. “Me, too. Never felt closer to you.”
And I meant it. That startled me for a moment.
I cleared my throat. “Keep moving like you were doing. I want more images.” I focused the camcorder on her.
She moved. She moved me. Hazel eyes. A sleek body. Movements like liquid. Moved better than Nikki. Never knew she had that in her. Wondered what other surprises she had.
I swallowed. Tried to focus. Couldn’t.
I looked past her, eyed one of her end tables. She collected African art. Anything to do with Africa. There was a sabar stick and a djembe drum on the table. She’d bought them from a street vendor in New York, down in the Village. Supposed African guy dressed in full garb from the Motherland. He said the items were from Senegal. I suspected a factory in Trenton, New Jersey.
It wasn’t working.
Thoughts of Senegal, and the things of that land, weren’t strong enough to wipe away what I was feeling.
The bedroom was colorful. She’d decorated it, of course. Her favorite color, violet, was prevalent. But there was an abundance of other color, too. Every item in there was bought with a purpose, bought with care. She made sure everything blended perfectly. She was even more in touch with the spectrum of colors than Dawn. And Dawn dreamed in color.
I was affected. A new emotion. This changed the stakes.
I couldn’t play with this situation. I couldn’t afford to take my eyes off the prize. The timetable had to change now. The normal seduction I preferred wouldn’t work. Not with me feeling the way I was feeling at that moment. I realized we might not make it to the altar. I might have to move even before we jumped the broom. I’d have to convince her to let me into her financial world sooner rather than later.
“Are you ready for me, Michael?”
I nodded.
She moved to the bed. Eased onto it. Lay back, spread her legs.
Her pussy smiled at me. Her pussy laughed at me. Her pussy mocked me.
I carefully placed the camcorder in the stand, pointed it expertly at the bed, angling it so it would record everything. Then I disrobed quickly and moved to shut her pussy up.
Eyes on the prize. I would win.
CHAPTER 6
JACQUELINE
My life with Todd is broken up into two parts. The day we married, and the day we met. Both days reshaped my view of life completely.
I don’t like to focus on the wedding day much anymore, but I can’t shake away memories of the day we met. I search my brain for clues to what was to come. Did I miss something that could have prepared me for his treachery, his betrayal? As of yet I haven’t discovered any missed clues. Either I was blind, or he was that good. I’d say a combination of both is most likely.
I have a relatively slim build, but I’m still quite busty, with childbearing hips and a high-set ass. My skin is the brown of white bread crust. I have a perfect complexion free of blemishes. I require very little makeup—a rich mauve lipstick, a touch of lavender eye shadow if I’m really trying to be cute. My eyes are shaped like almonds, in a shade of brown that could look gold in the right light. Sexy eyes, I’ve always been told. My lips are full, and with the mauve lipstick, which carries an impressive gloss, men can’t help but think naughty thoughts.
So I was used to men approaching me, but always with the same tired lines, only slight variations. Very few of those pickup attempts made me feel special. I heard what every woman heard. As you can imagine, it took a lot to pique my interest. Very few men, I’d found, were up to the challenge.
Todd had my ear after just two words: “Vivrant thing.”
Three years ago, I was in a Karibu bookstore down in Maryland, had my nose in a Toni Morrison novel, Jazz, enjoying her prose, rising to a higher level with each word I read. I’d been reading a particularly beautiful passage over and over and over again. I couldn’t stop reading it for some reason. Violet had gone mad, tried to cut open the face of her husband’s dead mistress at the funeral. I was lost in that passage. I didn’t want to be disturbed. But I turned to the man with the rich baritone voice and asked him what his problem was. He had to have a problem to disturb a woman so engrossed in her reading. That took nerve.
He smiled. I noticed deep dimples that made something inside of me shift. I did my best to ignore that. It was a superficial thing, those dimples, and superficial things had messed up many a woman’s life.
He said, “No problem. Saw you and just had to pass on that message. That you’re a vivrant thing.”
I said, “I’m twenty-nine. Vibrant isn’t a compliment if that’s where you were going. I should be vibrant.”
He moved closer, despite my attitude. Unafraid of the challenge I’d put in front of him. The roadblock I’d erected. Points. He gained quite a few with that move. Women like a confident man. Not too confident, but with the right mix. He seemed to have it.
“Not vibrant,” he explained, “vivrant. There’s a subtle difference.”
I studied him for a moment. He was a little too conservative for my tastes. He was dressed in khaki pants, footed with Bruno Magli-looking shoes, wore a white cotton shirt buttoned up to his neck. But I had to admit, he was sexy and handsome. Well above the average height for a man. He had a light chocolate skin tone, neat haircut. Eyelashes you’d envy on a woman. And the face of a god. Strong jawline. Straight nose. Hint of a mustache and goatee that brought out the thickness of his lips. A scar bisected his left eyebrow. I could picture myself fingering the scar, kissing his eyelid. And then there were our surroundings. An independent black bookstore full of culture and knowledge. A man in a bookstore is a very erotic thing for me.
Quickly, I was as wet as a park bench after an April shower.
I said, “Vivrant? You’re making up words.”
He said, “Not mine. I stole that from Q-tip, actually.”
I said, “Q-who?”
He smiled. It really lit up his face. I had to steady my breathing. I licked my lips and swallowed some saliva because my mouth had turned cotton all of a sudden. I wanted to, but I wouldn’t allow myself a glance at his scar. I could envision myself making love to him, loving him. Loving him deep. And deep love, I knew, could get you in deep trouble. It always had for me.
“Q-tip,” he said. “Rapper, used to be in the group A Tribe Called Quest.”
I wrinkled my nose. “You like rap?”
He shrugged. “I like all types of music. I’m not completely into rap, but I heard that song playing one day and it stuck with me.”
“You look like the jazz type to me. So I bet you heard it playing on the stereo at some young girl’s house. You look like the type that robs the cradle.” I left out the most important detail: a young girl would want her cradle robbed by him. He was that fine.
He laughed. Busted.
Then he composed himself and said, “So you think you know my type?”
I held up Toni Morrison’s novel, waved it demonstratively, and said, “Like a book, bruh.”
He said, “Never judge a book by its cover.”
“Cliché. Besides, that’s what we all do.”
He said, “I’ve got to know your name.”
The urgency in his voice moved me. I didn’t want it to. But it did.
“Why?”
“Vivrant. Didn’t think I’d ever lay my eyes on a woman that would fit.”
I said, “Straight up trying to plagiarize your way into a sistah’s heart. Using somebody else’s word.”<
br />
“See.”
“What?”
He said, “You’re beautiful beyond words. Vivrant, as I said. And you just used plagiarize in everyday conversation. I’ve got to know your name.”
He spoke well. There was a passion about him. It ran deep, I could tell. I’d been too young when my father’s heart punched the clock to end its workday. A few months shy of thirteen, in fact. He was my everything, my foundation, my strength. And my father’s meaning to me was amplified because my mother was my everynot. Any man hoping to win my heart had some very big shoes to fill. And for some strange reason, just a few minutes after meeting him, I was feeling like this one could be The One.
I said, “Jacqueline.”
He nodded.
I added, “And I don’t like—”
“Being called Jackie or any other derivative of Jacqueline,” he cut in. “Just Jacqueline. The name your parents gave you.”
The name my father gave me.
I blinked a few times, touched my neck. I felt naked in front of him. “How did you know I was going to say that?”
He just smiled. “What’s your middle name, Jacqueline?”
I whispered, “Nia.”
“Purpose.”
“What?”
“Nia is Swahili for purpose,” he said. “One of the principles of Kwanzaa.”
I didn’t know that. He seemed to pick up on that fact.
He said, “I have a head full of useless knowledge, Jacqueline. At first you’ll think me fascinating…but in time you’ll grow tired of my Jeopardy rendition…and all that will remain to bond us will be my raw sexuality and your intense desire to be sexualized.”
“Presumptuous,” I said.
I had to say that. I couldn’t let him know how much he’d affected me. I couldn’t let him know the trifling thoughts shuffling through my head. I would have gathered together all the Bibles in Karibu and burned them in a pile before I let this man get away. If he wanted me, and it appeared he did, I was all his.
I added, with a twinge of sass, “And for the record I don’t like my sexuality raw. I’d prefer it heated.”
“Some like it hot.”
“Jacqueline Nia does.”
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