SEX ON PISMO BEACH by Tweet
Page 16
“Yes, mother,” Fox snickered while rolling her eyes.
“So seriously Fox—why don’t’ you come back to Warm Leatherette with me and Adam? Take some time to rediscover yourself and get your vision back.”
Green eyes sparkling over blushing apple cheeks, Fox said, “I hear there’s a lot of hot sex at that place!”
January burst out laughing. “Do not even think about hot sex!”
But in reality, walking fantasies of hot sex were like a constant shadow trembling in the nervous systems of Adam Crown and January Knuckle-Joy.
Before the ring, it had seemed that the flood of desire building up behind the dam wall could keep from bursting. And then like a tonic—a clever new song called “Fech-Fech” by a mysterious new recording artist named Daisy started being played in the dance clubs all across Europe.
With European youth and black jet-setters alike knowing that the term “Fech-Fech” is Egyptian for quicksand, January couldn’t get Daisy’s song out of her head. It was the fucking jam!
Daisy:
Fech-Fech
I want to get wet.
Fech-Fech
Lick my ears…kiss my neck.
As Adam’s race car burned up the circuit pavement, his wheels of fire spinning through Monte Carlo as January watched through binoculars, her eyes following the crown on his helmet in a daze—her slender hands stopped to clap. Humming the melody voraciously, her lips trembled, “Fech-fech.”
“So when are you two going to consummate the love?” Yves Malle asked January during an amazing oil and pasta meal. Their plates had been hand-served by Monte Carlo’s Picasso of food preparation, Chef Alain Ducasse, at what was Yves’s favorite restaurant—the Le Louis XV.
“Consummate?” January asked while dropping her fork. She and Fendi both laughed as Yves said, “I am an expert lover from the old European lion days, young lady. I can tell by looking in your eyes—the passion is building to ripeness, but no one is biting of the skin to allow the juice to escape.”
“We’re in love,” she finally admitted, “But we’re waiting until it’s the right moment. I need to divorce Buck Knuckle-Joy.”
A woman across the way who January thought sure was supermodel Christy Turlington waved to the table and ex-model Fendi threw kisses waving back.
“Nonsense,” Yves said. “You don’t have to get a divorce in order to fuck the man you really love. It’s a waste of good drama.” Yves was serious. He said, “You know what I see in your eyes, young lamb?”
January giggled. “What do you see Grand Yves?”
“I see a girl who’s scared—scared that she’s finally stumbled upon the real thing and scared that she might be consumed by it.”
January knew nothing of Adam and Yves Malle’s previous match-making manipulations in Paris. The animalism in his words, when spoken amidst the glamour of Monte Carlo, seemed to carry enormous wisdom. In amazement, January thought about the way American blacks had once made such fun of rich whites hop-pose ‘n skipping across the globe; yet here she was—so relating to the impulsive decadence of it all.
“You know how I lived to be this old? Fucking, that’s how.”
“Jan-Jan needs a break from Buck,” Fendi smiled as she secretly recalled all the great masturbation she and Yves had shared while watching the sex tape of herself and Buck at the estate in Paris. She and the old man couldn’t wait to get to the Mardi Gras at Warm Leatherette and see all the languidly artful American sex that would be taking place.
“Fucking, that’s how…but love; real true love…love is even more potent,” Yves Malle told her as he sucked down an oyster and clamped the shell closed.
He said, “There are four types of love, January—the first is Eros—the of love sexual stimulation, the love of exploring mental and physical passions. The second love is Agape; the state of unconditional love; all consuming emotional and spiritual devotion sometimes to the point of superstition, hysteria, but usually, just mutual aching human need. The third love is called Storage—the love of family; having, protecting and providing for those who will carry on our heritage and through which we never die; family. And the fourth love, my child, is called Phileo—Greek like this delicious food prepared by the great Chef Alain Ducasse—the love of friends; fellow travelers that we meet in love and come to cherish.”
Gently, Yves Malle pushed a thick white folder in January’s direction.
“What’s this?”
“My investigation of who might have put a hit on you.”
“Grand Yves! You didn’t have to do that.”
“Oh yes I did—in the name of Phileo and my promise to Papa Sinatra that I would look after you. I have looked deep into this matter and for now I can tell you one thing—it’s not Noble Sinatra or any of the Sinatra family behind this.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“I’m definite January—there’s someone else who wants you removed. And when I find out who they are—they’ll wish they never wasted their time.”
~*~
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
May Day Foster pushed open the door, glad to be back amongst the familiar surroundings of her luxurious penthouse apartment at the Trump Tower in Philadelphia.
She still did nursing from time to time, but only because she cared about people and missed listening to their stories and watching them, with a little tender love and care, heal them selves. For the most part, however, she enjoyed living off the surplus money that her daughter transferred to her account once a month.
“What is that smell?” she asked herself with a round of sniffing and peering around the spacious art deco living room. Then, in exasperation at the faintness of it, she decided to get reacquainted with her own life. She rang up her friend Maxwell and told let him know she was grilling some steaks on the terrace.
“While you were in Europe I got into some other things,” he informed her. “I might be up for a hit and run later in the week.”
What the hell? May Day hung up. “Why do the brothers in Philly not treat me like the men in Europe did? And not once did I indulge myself! I need a bath, some tea and a good fat joint.”
By routine, she flipped on her home answering service.
“What’s the difference between a nigger and a bag of shit?” asked a craggily horror-movie voice over and over. Each time the caller gave the answer, the answer was the same, “The bag!”
Turning the volume up as high as possible, she was listening—but she was still checking for her penthouse guns.
He’s using the word ‘nigger’ so that I won’t think its black folks behind this, her mind clicked. Spellbound and studious, May Day listened as the Demon-croaking horror movie voice said, “One twin is already dead—and unless the other one stays away from Adam Crown—there’s not going to be anything left but March.”
May Day gasped!
She had just pulled back her bedroom covers!
Her hands flew to her mouth and her eyes bulged in horror as she saw strewn across her bed like it was a new nightgown—an opened plastic medical bag containing the fetuses of aborted twin girl babies and stamped in huge white block letters “Chestnut Abortion Clinic—Removal #217.”
“One twin is already dead—and unless the other one stays away from Adam Crown—there’s not going to be anything but March.”
May Day flipped open her cell phone to call the police—but at that exact moment; she was receiving a call from a number in Georgia. She clicked on it, “Hello.”
“Hello there—is this January’s mom, May Day Foster?”
“Who in the fuck is this?”
“Oh dear—you’ve been getting the threats, too, I see. It’s Adam Crown’s mother, Queenie Crown.”
“Oh…I’m sorry, Mrs. Crown.”
The woman broke down crying. “I tell you it’s terrible—Otis and I have had to file a complaint with our local district attorney. We’re getting obscene calls and someone mai
led us a box containing aborted twin boys wrapped in a plastic hospital bag.”
“Twin boys, you said—not girls?”
“Yes; they’re threatening to kill Adam if he doesn’t stay away from your daughter.”
May Day let go of a deep sigh. Immediately, she thought “Buck Knuckle-Joy”—thug kid to famous boxer and sure enough somebody who’d have connection to mobsters and be driven by jealousy.
Cryptically the voice laughed filling up her penthouse, “What’s the difference between a nigger and a bag of shit—the bag!”
~*~
Black man aside black woman as though their strides were art in motion against the backdrop of this mercilessly white European paradise; their profiles glowing with a twin-like chocolate sheen, Adam Crown and January continued strolling along the intersection of Monte Carlo Street and La Condamine—Adam bursting with suspense as he watched January chomp around the Scone containing the hidden ring.
Unable to touch one another sexually, but wanting it so much, they were wondering aloud about when they would feel that it was the right moment to make love. Adam said, “I wouldn’t make love to you here in Monaco—not for our first time.”
“And why is that?”
“I’ve fucked too many girls in Monaco. What else is there for race car drivers to do?”
There it was like a brick in her face—reality.
One minute he was like a dream man cut straight from a romance novel; the next he was as human and jaded as any of the other dogs she’d ever known and tried to pet while their tails were wagging. Hearing how he’d traveled around the world fucking other women brought January back to earth and she rolled her eyes, getting a real attitude about it. She curtly dismissed any notion of ever sleeping with Adam Crown.
I’ve had enough cock in my ass, January thought to herself, wisely. Once she got back to America and divorced Buck, she’d let that be the last of these fuckers.
And just as she was telling herself all that…she bit down on something hard but undeniably “jewelry-like” in the scone she’d been munching. “What the fuck!”
With a crest of flickering diamonds, the sparkle of the largest one momentarily blinding January, the ring fell to the ground, January’s eyes still trying to make out what it was.
“It’s a friendship ring,” Adam chuckled as he bent down to pick it up. Amused by the look on her pouting brown face, he explained as he began putting it on the ring finger of her right hand, “The big pink diamond represents my ultimate target—your heart; the two lavender diamonds are to represent your beauty and the lone white diamond is me. It symbolizes my promise to you; the fact that you have me. The silver leaflet band stands for life and its unpredictability.”
January had to admit she was kind of impressed; it was nicer than most of the rings she’d bought herself for over a hundred thousand dollars at Cartier or Van Cleef and Arpels. Then again being a black girl from West Philly—receiving stuff like this from a male made her instantly suspicious. Though she was already plotting the elaborate gifts she was to give Adam in return, the heaviness of the ring sort of turned her cold. Girls in West Philly referred to such rings (friendship, promise) as “sucker rings.”
And when she’d been married to Papa Sinatra, he’d always taken her to the jeweler and let her pick out her own gifts. The heavy ring, as she spied her finger, kept blinding her. Yet from another view, what woman’s heart wouldn’t leap at the sheer stunning beauty of its lustrous flicker?
I officially don’t like it, January thought, but she thanked Adam anyway and they kissed.
“Don’t try to buy me,” January whispered in his ear, gently. “No matter what people say about women like me—it’s not stuff like this that really matters. It’s being accepted as ourselves or being in your arms that night in Spain when you danced my heart around the stars that really matters. It’s seeing the kind smile on a black man’s handsome face that turns the world on its head for me. Living life long enough teaches people how to really love, Adam—and I’m there now. I can be so much more than the gaudy light in this ring; I can love you.”
And as she reached up to smooth his brow with her hand, the matter-heavy magnetism within the brass python bracelet on January’s wrist got caught between his eyes, its meter grasping his imagination as if the Senufo tribeswomen who’d fashioned it were snapping their fingers in front of his face.
“I’m there now, too.”
“Adam?”
“Where again did you say you got this bracelet?”
“In Paris, but it was made by Senufo women from Africa. The python is their feminine symbol. It’s what their vaginas conquer; it’s what their wombs give birth to. Nothing expensive really…”
“That’s it!” Adam said as though he’d just figured out a mathematical equation. “You’ve never been to Africa.”
What their vaginas conquer; what their wombs give birth to—the python.
Under coarse prayers, January’s nipples hardened.
Tender and erotically, the handsome race car driver caressed the fine contours of her deep brown cheekbones; the gentle touch of his dark fingers stroking her clearly African mouth like a paint brush. At last, their hurricane was coming ashore. Adam pushed the flowing tendrils of her weave away from her face and peered as though he were lost in some infinite lake inside the mysterious depths of her almond brown eyes. From the burn in the center of his chest, he said as though it were a poem, “Africa is a place—that January’s never been.”
A Higher Fire
Ivory Coast, West Africa
“The two who will fly…”
From the moment they’d drifted out of the high tech airport in the modern capital city of Yamoussoukro and wandered upon a small riverside village famous for its hand painted cloth; the Senufo town of Fakaha—it had been like stepping back in time.
A euphoric high clouded everything before that moment.
January gasped, flinching her shoulders in surprise, as Senufo virgin girls poured the most profoundly beautiful-smelling scented water over head and shoulders; their black clasping hands pulling her head back to massage the “crown” of her scalp, as simultaneously, they rubbed a clay-like paint into the fire that had become her bare tingling flesh.
“The two who will fly…the two who will fuck...”
In obedience, Adam nodded to the gray haired flute and banjo players. And clacking two rocks together between two fingers—the old African woman Fat Tagba yelped loudly, calling out to the villagers of Fakaha that the moment was now—that they must come by the doll house temple and see the dolls she has dug up.
Leaving rice patties and fishermen’s nets behind, some of the tribe’s people wandered in as though called to church. Others smirked, snickered and kept at what they were doing. But in the bodies of these two African-American tourists; Adam Crown and January Knuckle-Joy—Fat Tagba declared that the “Poro-Sandogo” would channel the spirits of two very sacred ancestors of the Senufo people…the warrior King Nafana and his final wife, the first to be immortalized in brass instead of wood, Princess Kpem-bele.
She claimed, “Though life is short—it is also wide. And now their ancestors have called them home, and through the ritual of lovemaking—enter into all of us once more.”
The hardness of January’s nipples hadn’t subsided since their arrival in Africa, and no matter how she tried to care that she was naked—she couldn’t feel it. Across on the men’s side, Adam was naked and being painted in two shades of silvery clay as well—“wo” (dark) and “fi” (light). But there was such a natural comfort in his resignation, that like him, January felt she could just about fall asleep right there.
The villagers gathered in a circle, their penetrating stares looking for as deeply as they could at Adam and January’s faces and bodies, trying to see some trace of the great lovers King Nafana and Princess Kpem-bele, but overwhelmingly they were skeptical.
Despite Hollywood movies depicting ancient Africans looking l
ike Euro-brown westerners, the villagers knew that their ancestral royalty had looked exactly like Senufo; of the deepest black complexions; the most African of hair; faces completely Negroid. And in these two Americans they just couldn’t see Senufo.
“It is true,” Fat Tagba insisted. “These are the dolls that I buried in earth’s black vagina of clay and soil. These are the ones who have come back to us by order of the ancestors—the ones I have prepared the shell house and bed of sheeted cotton for.”
The shell house; the bed of sheeted cotton—just the thought of such splendor appealed to the romanticism of the villagers.
Still, someone in the crowd clicked on his Walk-man and disinterestedly began playing the audio from “Grey’s Anatomy” final season. A Senufo woman, wearing a Miley Cyrus t-shirt, remarked that she wanted to get back home and catch her South African soap operas.
Two teenagers, sitting on bikes that they would use for riding to the capital city to use the internet café stared with perplexity. Would they be allowed to see the African-American man fuck the lady right there on the ground, they wondered?
“Life is short, but it is also very wide…these are the two who will love.”
“Many of us make jokes about the old ways!” Fat Tagba admonished the crowd. “But this animal act is how we all got here; this love between man and woman—is our god on earth—the joining that bleeds and brings dreams into the living.”
Nothing the Senufo people were discussing phased Adam and January, because the herbs in the clay became like a subtle tranquil lull in their blood streams by then. They felt as though they really were about to fly; yet drowsy.
The constant kiss between their silent glances was getting deeper and deeper.
Fat Tagba placed two fingers in the air.
“Two states of lovemaking,” she read aloud from old Senufo totem tablets. “The flesh against flesh in dreams…then awakening; the reality of passion compelling the soul to join with the moon; the art of nudity and all the points of truth it threads together.”