Afterburn: a novel

by Zane

  Felix, Mike, and Dwayne—my best friends from high school—had all decided to attend different schools. We’d decided that we could wreak four times the havoc by spreading out nationwide and meeting women from all over the country; possibly the world. They were more into being pussy bandits—seeing how many women they could get in the sack—while I was trying to find the real thing with someone special.

  I’d never forgotten the expression on Roxie’s face the night of my sixteenth birthday party, after I’d been sucked off by that hooker. I ended up sleeping with an older woman my first time. Her name was Joan and she worked as a nurse at the Washington Hospital Center. I’d taken a summer job there in the morgue. Dismal job but it was the only thing I could find at the time. My parents, both elementary educators, couldn’t fathom why I’d choose to do that kind of work. They said I could do landscaping, painting, or work as a plumbing apprentice. None of that interested me and besides, no one was banging down my door to hire a seventeen-year-old.

  Working at the morgue had given me a new appreciation of life. I remember my first day, seeing the dead bodies and thinking, So this is how it all ends! To think that one day I would be laid out on a slab, headed to a funeral home to be embalmed so I could push up daisies in a cemetery made me want to live each day to the fullest even more. I guess that’s why I went for it when Joan, a thirty-three-year-old single mother of two, asked me out on a date. At first, she didn’t realize I was still a minor; I definitely didn’t look it. I lied and told her I was twenty-four. She bought it; hook, line and sinker.

  Our first date was the circus, believe it or not. There I was surrounded by clowns, stinky elephants, and tigers, holding cotton candy in one hand and a stuffed giraffe in the other. Joan’s two kids—a three-year-old boy named Adam and a five-year-old girl named Patti—were both products of a short-lived marriage. Joan’s ex-husband wanted no part of sharing custody and had, in fact, moved away to California, which was as removed as he could get without leaving the country altogether.

  The daddy thing wasn’t fairing too well with me but I hung in there for two months. Joan was surprised that I didn’t try to have sex with her right away. I was equally surprised that she didn’t expect me to rock her world from time to time. She’d been married and had borne two kids so she was obviously experienced; something I definitely was not.

  It all came to a head one night while Joan’s kids were spending the night with her parents in Richmond, Virginia. We were sitting on the floor in front of her fireplace, watching the kindling merge into the flames, when she came right out and asked, “Yardley, don’t you find me attractive?”

  “Of course,” I immediately answered.

  “Then why haven’t you tried to fuck me?”

  Fuck? Not make love, have sex with me, but fuck!

  “That’s such a harsh statement,” I told her. “I’d like to think that if we do anything, it would be making love, not fucking.”

  “What’s the difference?” she inquired with a serious expression on her face.

  At that point I was curious. Here was a woman with much familiarity with sex and she didn’t know the difference between making love and fucking. I’d always thought there was a clearly defined line; even though I hadn’t done either.

  I attempted to answer anyway. “Making love is when two people genuinely care about each other and want to ensure pleasure for the other person. Fucking is when each person is out for themselves.”

  She giggled and took a sip of her Chardonnay. I was drinking a beer, even though I wasn’t of age.

  “Okay, whatever,” she said. “That still doesn’t tell me why you haven’t made a move on me.”

  “You haven’t made a move on me either; other than kissing.” I teased her long auburn hair with my finger. “Besides, your kids are always here and I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing something with them in the house.”

  That was a true statement. The few times I’d considered trying to get in her pants, the kids were in the apartment. Though they were asleep, I didn’t want to run the risk of one or both of them waking up and catching us in the act. Joan had no local friends or family and barely associated with co-workers—other than me—so whenever we went out, the kids always tagged along.

  Joan got on her knees and started unbuttoning her blouse. “The kids aren’t here now. We’re all alone and we can do whatever pleases us.”

  I stared at her. She was beautiful but I wasn’t sure sleeping with her was the right thing to do. I hadn’t been truthful about my age. She and I could never have a serious relationship because of the age difference and the fact that I wasn’t ready to be anyone’s daddy. I was going away to college soon and the thing between us would undoubtedly have to end. Yet, I yearned to experience sex and Joan was willing to experience it with me.

  I’d been jacking off regularly since the Angel mishap, looking at pornos and dirty magazines, so I could build up my stamina and hold out longer when I did actually have sex. I’d come so quickly from that blow job that I was determined that sisters wouldn’t crack on me throughout life for busting nuts within seconds. I felt like it was time. When Joan removed her shirt, then her bra, I realized it was definitely time.

  We made love—not fucked—by the fire. Joan rode me first, nice and slow, and my dick caught the rhythm with her pussy muscles contracting up and down my shaft. I was swollen with pride when I lasted and lasted and lasted. The art of masturbation had paid off. It took me at least thirty minutes to achieve a full-blown orgasm. I got the feeling she had several.

  After a brief rest, Joan rubbed me to stiffness again and I entered her from behind. The brothers had all been right; there was nothing like hitting it doggy-style. Not only did it allow for deeper penetration but the view of a woman’s ass, so round and scrumptious, bouncing around in the air while she moans with delight, is incredible. One of the men’s magazines I subscribed to had recently done a poll of the favorite sexual positions of men. Doggy-style had won out by a higher percentage and now it had my vote also.

  I felt guilty later on that night when I had to leave Joan. She begged me to spend the night with her; especially since the kids were away. It had never come up before. I don’t think she would’ve allowed me to stay the entire night while they were around. She’d mentioned that she didn’t let men do that since her divorce because she didn’t want them to get too attached or misconstrue the situation. She’d admittedly had lovers but nothing serious.

  “I have to go, Joan,” I told her, getting up from the living room floor and getting dressed.

  “But we haven’t done it in my bedroom yet,” she stated suggestively. “We have free reign of the house. We can really get a workout.”

  “I don’t know quite how to tell you this, but…”

  She got up, still nude, and wrapped her arms around my neck. “But what, baby?…”

  “You know I live with my parents, right?” I asked her.

  “Yes, and that’s cool. I lived with mine until I got married.”

  I let out a nervous chuckle. “Yeah, but I need to get home.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s eleven forty-five.”

  Then she threw her head back in laughter. “So?”

  “So, I have a midnight curfew,” I blurted out. She let go of me. “Think about it, Joan. Since we’ve been dating, have you ever seen me after midnight?”

  Because the kids were always out with us, we never stayed out late and I would always stay only a few minutes once we came back. Long enough to make out on the couch, get hard, and then excuse myself.

  She still didn’t get it. “Why would you have a midnight curfew? At your age?”

  I lowered my head in shame as I finished getting dressed. “That’s the point, Joan. I’m only seventeen.”

  “Wha…Wha…Wha…” She was really struggling. Then I spotted it; a flicker of anger in her eyes. “What did you just say to me? You’re only seventeen!”

  “I’m sorry, Joan. I should’ve
told you.” She hauled off and slapped me across my chin. “Damn, not again!” I exclaimed, remembering Roxie doing the same thing a year earlier.

  Joan stood there, in the middle of the floor, butt ass naked, gasping for air.

  I kissed her on the cheek. “I really have to go. Can we discuss this later?”

  She still wouldn’t speak to me. I glanced at my watch and realized I’d be grounded if I wasn’t back in Silver Spring in ten minutes and it was a twenty-minute drive. Not only did my parents impose a midnight curfew but so did the local police. On a provisional license, I couldn’t be out on the road after midnight; for any reason.

  I kissed Joan on the cheek and left. In the car on the way home, I was listening to the latest Tupac CD and thinking about the situation. I really should’ve come clean about my age up front, but what was done was done. I didn’t mean to hurt her but I’d placed her in an uncomfortable position.

  My mother gave me a fifteen-minute lecture when I arrived home late and then went upstairs to watch the late news. I got into bed and mulled over my first sexual experience. I was pleased but was Joan? Once again, I’d hurt a woman; something I’d never planned to do ever again.

  The following Monday at work, Joan avoided me for the first seven hours of her shift. I cornered her in the nurses’ lounge and made my best attempt at an apology. It didn’t work. She sat there and glared at me while I explained how attracted I’d been to her, how friendly she’d been to me, and how the lie seemed to gestate itself into more lies as time went along.

  In the end, all I got from Joan was, “Yardley, you’ve put me in an uncomfortable position. I had sex with a child last night and for that, I could go to jail. Do you realize that? You put me in jeopardy. I’m a mother and I’m a responsible adult and I’d appreciate it if you’d never speak to me again or even look in my direction, for that matter.”

  I respected Joan’s wishes and left her alone for the remaining few weeks that I worked in the hospital morgue that summer. I started dating this girl named Lori when school started back up. She attended our rival school, Paint Branch, and she was cute and very sweet. We had sex about once a month during our senior year. Then she’d left to attend Hampton University and I’d headed to North Carolina Central.

  Being a member of a frat, especially my frat, meant that all the women wanted to offer you their sex. They thought it would make them popular or land them a husband; mostly all they ended up with was disrespect. I’d faltered a time or two and participated in the numerous orgies that went on in the frat house. Part of my initiation into the frat was to run a train on this one chick who loved thinking she was the ultimate piece of ass. Thinking back now, I realize that she suffered from low self-esteem—like many of the women attending the school—and we were dead wrong for taking advantage of her. She ended up dropping out of school after getting pregnant and having no clue who fathered the child. It was more than a year after I’d been with her or else I would’ve done the right thing and demanded a paternity test; even if it was only to be relieved by the process of elimination. I couldn’t live with myself if I thought a child was out there somewhere, fatherless because of my actions. That’s why I’d always practiced safe sex but even that isn’t foolproof.

  Belford and the twelve other pledges went over during homecoming week at the end of October. We’d nicknamed the line the Tribe of Thirteen. Everything changed the night they went over. They went from being our objects of desecration to our brothers for eternity. I went all out for Belford, my protégé, and bought him a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue for several hundred bucks. He and I sat on the roof of the frat house and drank it shot by shot while people stormed the yard celebrating all the fraternities and sororities that had lines go over that night, and homecoming in general.

  NCCU was known for partying, from full-blown parties in the cafeteria that were reminiscent of that lunchroom scene from the movie Fame to keg parties where everyone ended up completely smashed. Instead of getting laid like the rest of his line brothers that night, Belford chose to spend the time talking to me about life. I made sure he recognized that I was proud of him for being honored for his grades. He could’ve played the spoiled role and breezed through college simply because of his lineage. He had higher aspirations than that. In fact, he wanted to surpass his father and that was one hell of a goal to aspire to.

  Belford became one of my best friends. He started coming home with me on holidays and I spent one summer with his family in Maine. Their compound—you couldn’t even refer to it as a house—was on more than two hundred acres and had more than half a mile of oceanfront. Belford, Sr. had a seventy-foot yacht that was out of this world. We used to go out on it early in the morning and not come back until the next morning, chilling in the entertainment room or crashing in one of the five bedrooms lined with cherrywood.

  They had both an indoor and outdoor pool. The tile surrounding the outdoor pool was imported from Jerusalem and never got hot. They had a pool house worth more than most people’s houses and a showroom garage with a marble floor and more than two million dollars worth of automobiles housed inside.

  Belford had an older sister who was hot and not remotely interested in me. That was a good thing because I’d never do anything to jeopardize our friendship. Contrary to what a lot of people assumed, I wasn’t his friend because he was wealthy. I was Belford’s friend because he was mine. We had a mutual respect for one another. When he came home with me to my parents’ three-bedroom house, there was no comparison to his world, but he fit right in. Dwayne, Mike, and Felix thought he was mad cool and we used to go clubbing every weekend.

  Most of the sisters ignored Belford, preferring to date “bad boys” and thugs. For the same reason, I found it hard to find women to date. If I wasn’t doing something exciting like pushing smack or gun-running, they weren’t into me. I decided to worry about women later and further my education after college. I’d always been fascinated with chiropractors; how they could actually realign bones and relieve the pain that millions of Americans suffer through because of injury, birth defects, degenerative arthritis, or even improper posture.

  Belford did follow in his father’s footsteps. He was in Hong Kong on business when he was murdered at the age of twenty-three for the money in his wallet and the gold chain his mother had presented to him on his eighteenth birthday with his initial on it.

  I cried for three days when I heard the news directly from his father, who was so shaken up that he could barely get the words out over the phone. He told me, “All the money in the world can’t buy happiness, Yardley. Remember that.”

  I said, “Yes, sir,” and then heard the click on the other end of the phone. He was right. Happiness was a state of mind. All I wanted was someone special to share my life with. Ultimately, I was determined to find her.

  True, we love life, not because we are used to living,

  but because we are used to loving.

  There is always some madness in love,

  but there is also always some reason in madness.

  —Friedrich Nietzsche

  Five

  Rayne, Age 28, Bank Administrator

  Washington, DC

  October 2003

  I should have known. I should have known. I should have known. The second Boom—short for Boomqueesha—opened her mouth exposing a mouthful of teeth with the remnants of Cheetos adhered to them, I should have known better.

  “Rayne, girl, my brother wanna meet you sumptin’ terrible.” She blurted this out to me while she was ripping huge green rollers and bobby pins out of my hair faster than those chefs demonstrate Ginsu knives on infomercials.

  I asked the obvious question, being that my only dealings with Boom were my weekly hair appointments. Every Thursday at 5:30 P.M. like clockwork. “How does he even know about me?”

  “Girl, he saw you walkin’ up out this joint a few weeks ago. Lookin’ all good and shit ’cause I’d hooked your do up as usual. You know how I be handlin’ thangs.�
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  Boom scanned the salon right quick to make sure all eyes and ears were on her. Any time she so much as hinted about her styling skills, she wanted an audience. Most of the women were too busy watching the Ricki Lake Show on the fuzzy black and white television leaned forty-five degrees to the right so the picture would come in halfway clear. The show was about “metrosexual” men. I’d never heard of the term but apparently it was a recent label for men who spent large amounts of time primping in the mirror, making sure their clothes were wrinkle free, and even shaving their body hair. Three women on the show were pleading for assistance to determine whether or not their men were actually bisexual. It was off the chain. Ricki had some drag queens on as judges who were quite entertaining all by themselves. They showed videotapes of the questionable guys going about their daily routines and if they couldn’t tell those men were sweet—even though they all proclaimed innocence to be strictly about punany—then something was seriously wrong with them. One of the guys even hung out in gay clubs and admitted to being flattered when homosexuals tried to flirt with him. He claimed that “a compliment is a compliment” and he was elated that both sexes found him attractive. I shook my head at the nonsense. Some women can’t see the forest for the trees.

  Boom was still waiting to make sure her comment had mad attention. A couple of the women sitting on the “pleather” chairs in the waiting area glanced up at her from the hairstyle magazines on their laps. One older woman, stranded in the hair dryer section even though her hair was already dry, stared at her. She let out a yawn, probably wondering when she would get into Boom’s chair so she could get her hair combed out and head home. Like most beauty salons, From Naps to Baps was like participating in a game of musical chairs.

  Satisfied that enough sisters had overheard her self-compliment, Boom continued. “Soon as you pulled off in your ride, Conquesto came runnin’ in here, all up in my grill, sweatin’ me for info on you like I’m four-one-one. Like I know what color panties you wear and shit. I told him I don’t be sniffin’ no hoochie’s drawers. If I wanna sniff drawers, I’ll sniff my own.”