For Lovers Only

by Alex Hairston

  Erin and Kenya smiled at Joel and said good morning.

  He was kind of upset, but instead of voicing his complaints he just swallowed his words along with a portion of his male pride. His silence was far more dramatic than words.

  It was obvious that the three had too much idle time on their hands. There wasn’t much to do besides have fun and immerse themselves deeper into a smorgasbord of hedonistic behavior. That’s pretty much what happens when three insatiable lovers attempt to live a reality based on fantasy and curiosity. Everything they did seemed to revolve around one main theme—sex. They began to make subtle mistakes that seemed to have become acceptable or seemed to become the norm.

  Jealousy tried to make its way into the picture, but Joel wouldn’t allow it inside. The three had reached a point where they had begun to experience moments of feeling left out, as interpersonal relationships developed within the threesome. Erin and Kenya had a warm and loving relationship established long before they met Joel. He began to wonder whether the girls had used the threesome concept as an excuse to explore their sexuality. Things were starting to get somewhat complex. Any relationship as eccentric as theirs was without a doubt susceptible to some degree of complication.

  Joel tried to act unaffected. He looked at Erin and Kenya and said, “Good morning. What got y’all up so early?”

  Erin casually removed her towel and began to dry off. “I don’t know. I slept really good last night.”

  Kenya helped dry Erin’s back and said, “So did I. And you obviously slept well because you slept right through the two of us moving around and talking.”

  Joel sat up in bed and asked, “What do y’all have planned for today?”

  Erin said, “I dunno. Let’s go to the mall.”

  Joel asked, “The mall? I know you’re not a big shopper. So, what are you in the mood for ... some socializing?”

  “No, I’m in the mood for some shopping. I need something to make me look as good as I feel.”

  Joel raised an eyebrow and asked, “Did I miss something?”

  Erin replied, “No. What do you mean?”

  “You know ... the action in the shower ... you and Kenya.”

  Kenya removed her towel and began to dry herself off. “If you consider us showering together and washing each other’s backs action, then you missed it.”

  Erin looked at Kenya and said, “Sounds like he’s complaining to me.”

  Kenya said, “Sounds like that to me, too.”

  The girls giggled.

  Joel said, “Maybe I am. What’s so funny?”

  Kenya said, “Nothing.”

  As Erin slipped into her underwear she said, “Well, you didn’t hear me complaining last night when you went venturing off into the living room with Kenya.”

  Joel said, “But I’m sure you wanted to.”

  Erin twisted her lips and shrugged her right shoulder. “I dunno ... maybe I should have complained.”

  Kenya made a strange face and said, “Since we’re putting it all out there, Erin, I need to complain about all of the times you basically forced me into the backseat whenever we’ve ridden in Joel’s truck.”

  Erin looked shocked and then confused. “Do I do that?”

  Kenya replied quickly, “Yeah.”

  Joel nodded his head and said, “Yeah, you do.”

  Erin laughed. “Dag, listen to us ... complaining.”

  Kenya put on her panties and said, “It looks like we need to make a few minor adjustments to help work out the kinks.”

  Erin said, “Things don’t have to be complicated. We have a relationship with different modes of expression that offers a wide range of feelings and experiences. As a threesome, I don’t think we should be preprogrammed or restricted to one mode like traditional relationships. We’re better than that. If we need alone time with someone within the threesome, then it should happen. As long as we come back together and share, then everything should be okay.”

  Kenya and Joel looked at each other with an expression that said they needed to bury their secret even deeper. They quickly refocused their attention on Erin.

  Joel said, “I agree.”

  Kenya took a deep breath and said, “So do I.”

  The telephone rang and Joel picked up the receiver and said, “Hello.”

  “Hi, Joel,” his mother said.

  “Hey, Ma. How are you?”

  “Fine, and you?”

  “I’m all right. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing. Just calling to remind you about my procedure in the morning.”

  “I haven’t forgotten.”

  Mrs. Davis paused for a moment, then asked, “I already know the answer, but I’ll ask anyway. You wanna join me at church this morning?”

  Joel looked at his alarm clock and said, “It’s ten thirty-eight and there’s no way I can make it to church by eleven.”

  “We’ve got service going all day. Anytime you arrive for church is on time. God cares about your presence and not your lateness. He’ll help you work on your timing once you put forth the effort. Our eleven o’clock service doesn’t end until two. You can show up later this afternoon and stick around for our three-thirty service if you want.”

  Erin whispered something in Kenya’s ear. They started acting silly, trying to make Joel laugh. When that didn’t work they tried their best to distract him by dancing and shaking their butts like the video girls he loved to watch.

  They had an obvious effect on him. He looked distracted and said, “Whew ... I don’t know. Ah ... Ma ... let me see now. Umm ... shoot. What was I saying?”

  Mrs. Davis said, “That’s a shame. I remember when you wouldn’t go a Sunday without going to church. Now everything else seems to come first. I hear that girl laughing in the background. Is that more than one I hear? Who is that?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Those are my neighbors from across the hall.”

  “Isn’t it kind of early for them to be in your apartment, don’t you think?”

  “Not really. We were just about to have breakfast.”

  “Yeah right, tell me anything. Are y’all in the kitchen or in the bedroom?”

  Joel cleared his throat, but couldn’t really clear his lie. “We’re in the kitchen, of course.”

  “I pray to God you don’t have them in your bedroom. Are you still fornicating?”

  “C’mon, Ma. What kind of question is that? You know I am. I’m not married and I can’t deprive myself of certain pleasures.”

  Erin and Kenya stopped acting silly and looked at each other, then at Joel, wondering exactly what the heck he and his mother were talking about.

  Mrs. Davis said the same line she had been feeding Joel for years. “You need to learn how to find pleasure in other things besides sex.”

  “Please don’t lecture me.”

  “All right, I’ll stop. Since you can’t make it to church, why don’t you come here this evening for dinner? I’d be glad to have you. I won’t stay for our three-thirty service. Instead I’ll make you a good old-fashioned Sunday dinner. Does that sound okay to you?”

  “Yeah, that sounds good. Can I bring my friends?”

  “Sure, the more the merrier. Are they Christians?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Good. That’s a start. I gotta go. I’ve got a pot of greens cooking now and I’ll fry the chicken as soon as I get back from church. Tell your friends I said hi.”

  Joel looked at Erin and Kenya and said, “My mother said hi.”

  Erin and Kenya sang out at the same time, “Hi, Mom.” Joel asked, “Did you hear them?”

  “Yes, I heard them. Okay Joel, let me go now. You be good and I’ll see y’all later.”

  “All right. Enjoy church and we’ll see you this evening.”

  Joel hung up the phone. He looked at Erin and Kenya. With laughter in his voice he said, “Y’all are soooo ignorant.”

  Erin looked at Kenya and asked, “Did you just hear him call us ignorant?”

  Ke
nya replied, “Yeah, but I think it went beyond ignorant. He said we were soooo ignorant.”

  Erin said, “I think we’re gonna have to kick some butt.”

  Kenya said, “C’mon, let’s get him.”

  Erin and Kenya were full of childlike energy. They dove on the bed and attacked Joel. He loved to play-fight and welcomed their kinky playful challenge. They were topless, wearing nothing but panties. The girls tried to grab hold of Joel to get him in a headlock, but they couldn’t. He was way too strong, swift and agile for them to handle. He ended up tossing them around on the bed and roughing them up a bit—all in the name of fun. He piled them on top of each other, spanked their butts for a minute, and then began to tickle them half to death. He eventually gave in to the girls and let them pin him on the bed. Erin and Kenya celebrated their fake victory and then crashed on the bed on opposite sides of Joel.

  Trying to regain her breath Erin said, “That was so much fun.”

  Kenya responded, “Next time we need to rough him up a little more.”

  Joel laughed and said, “That was fun. I think all three of us just had some type of fetish fulfilled.”

  Kenya said, “Especially you, with all of the tickling and spanking. We’ll have to do some role playing some time.”

  Joel said, “That’s fine with me. We can play sex slave, dirty cop busting two first-time prostitutes, or horny wife catching her cheating husband with his mistress, and so on and so on.”

  Erin smiled and said, “Mmmm ... we can have so much fun together. The possibilities are endless.”

  With a mischievous grin Kenya said, “I know. I can’t wait.”

  They lay in bed for a while watching television. A show about celebrity dream homes located in Miami caught their attention. Joel showered alone while the girls finished daydreaming. They all got dressed and headed to the Owings Mills Town Center.

  Chapter 27

  By noon it was hot and sticky outside. The temperature had soared to a miserable ninety-five degrees. All of the local news stations warned of the poor air quality and asked the public to go outside only if it was absolutely necessary. Not even the heat and humidity could tear Renee away from the hazy glass of Robert’s bedroom window. She looked exhausted, and her body was drenched with sweat. She had been outside of Robert’s house since eleven-thirty the previous night. Nothing mattered to her except exacting some sort of revenge for him dumping her so abruptly.

  Renee had driven around for hours the night before, with nowhere to go and no one to see, until she happened to notice Robert and his new girlfriend, Tamara, coming out of the AMC movie theater in Owings Mills. They never saw Renee, and she ended up following them to Robert’s house. He lived in a small two-bedroom ranch-style home located in the Woodlawn section of Baltimore County.

  Renee stood between a water hose caddy and some overgrown hedges on a mound of fresh mulch, watching Robert and Tamara make love. While standing there, Renee came to the conclusion that Robert was the most unimaginative man she had ever been with when it came to sex. He proved it by going through the exact same lovemaking techniques he used with her.

  Tamara and Robert lay on the same sheets that he and Renee lay on just a week ago. Renee figured that he probably didn’t have the common decency to even wash those musty sex-stained sheets. The two of them looked like they were too much into the act of making love to even care about the condition of the sheets. More than anything Renee was a woman scorned and her mind was telling her all kinds of things regardless of whether they were true or not.

  Renee had a flashback of the first day when things got a little heated and out of control between her and Robert. They had worked together for a couple of years and shared a mutual attraction. Renee considered him a hot prospect and often found herself fantasizing about him, especially on days she wasn’t really feeling Joel.

  Robert came into her office out of the blue and started some small talk, which led to them having lunch at a nearby restaurant. Actually he didn’t come into her office out of the blue. He sensed her vulnerability a mile away. Robert was an extremely handsome, articulate and charismatic brotha on the surface. But beneath all that he was nothing more than a conceited, conniving and deceitful playa who loved to take advantage of unsuspecting women in unstable relationships. He used a calculated approach that totally blindsided Renee. She was completely taken by his alluring dark eyes. The subtle but unforgettable fragrance of his cologne captivated and delighted her sense of smell. The much needed friendly male-female conversation reminded Renee that she was desirable. Robert’s ever-present boyish smile put her heart and mind at ease and paralyzed her defenses.

  Eventually Robert got to the point. He told Renee how beautiful she was and confessed to being attracted to her since the first time they laid eyes on each other. Renee welcomed the attention from Robert and she fell right into his trap. She never wondered why it took him two years to confess to his instant attraction. The real reason was that it took a while for her turn to come around. He was only one man who had lots of women to serve.

  Robert asked, “How are things at home?”

  “Not good. I’m not happy.”

  Renee had no reason to tell him what was going on at home, but she sold her man out in a matter of minutes and let her personal business out, without even thinking of the consequences. She automatically trusted a man who she knew very little about. Renee really only knew two things about Robert for sure: she liked him a lot, and where he worked. That was all it took.

  Robert calmly replied, “You deserve better. If I was your man I’d keep you happy ... I’d provide pleasure like you’ve never known. You wouldn’t have to ask for a thing because I’d make sure you had everything you’ve ever desired.”

  By five-thirty that evening they were making love on top of Renee’s desk.

  Sweat poured from Renee’s forehead and tears poured from her eyes. No matter how much it hurt to watch Robert and Tamara, she just couldn’t take her eyes off of them. She tried to disconnect her personal feelings from the whole situation, but instead became mildly aroused by what she saw. Robert did something that was all too familiar to her. He put Tamara in a missionary position and covered her with his warm body while working his hips to her pleasure. Tamara put her legs together real tight and Robert rode a little higher so she could get the right amount of clitoral stimulation.

  It was as if Renee could feel Robert inside of her, she knew that position and his motions so well. For a moment she found herself wishing that she was in Tamara’s place, just to have someone to kiss and hold her that close while being deep inside of her.

  Tamara had her eyes closed and whined strangely, like she was going through different stages of orgasmic pleasure. Robert was about to climax when he thought he saw a vague image in his window out of the corner of his eye. His concentration was thrown off and so was his rhythm. He thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. When he looked again he clearly saw the top of a woman’s head in the bottom corner of his window. He instantly recognized the honey-blond hair, the forehead and the eyes. His body already shielded most of Tamara’s body. He quickly covered his ass with a sheet—as if Renee hadn’t already seen it.

  Robert and Renee’s eyes locked. He yelled, “Oh shit, Renee!”

  Renee burst out laughing because it was so funny to hear him call out her name in the middle of making love to another woman. Renee didn’t care that she was caught. She just stood where she was and gave him the finger.

  Tamara yelled, “What did you say? I know you didn’t just call me by that crazy bitch’s name.”

  Robert quickly replied, “No-no-no. There she is right there.”

  “Where is she?” Tamara asked as she looked around the room and then out the window.

  Renee smiled at her and gave her the double-whammy—two middle fingers. She banged the glass real hard with her hand, turned around and walked over to her Escalade.

  Tamara yelled, “Call the police!”

  Robert
knew that he had to nip Renee’s insane actions in the bud. He wasn’t the type of person who tolerated anybody trespassing on his property or trying to stalk him. He was wild and crazy enough to put an end to it himself.

  Without even thinking, Robert’s response was, “Fuck the police. I got this.”

  He jumped out of bed butt naked, slipped on a pair of beige see-through pajama pants and an old, worn-out Myrtle Beach T-shirt.

  Tamara said, “Damn, do you have to put all that on? She’ll be gone by the time your ass gets dressed.”

  “Shut the hell up,” Robert said as he stepped into his flip flops and headed outside to confront Renee.

  Robert knew that Renee had lost her mind because she was still parked a couple of doors down from his house. She sat in the driver’s seat of her Escalade with the engine running, singing along with a new Beyoncé song. She had the window up with the air conditioner running.

  Robert yelled through the glass, “You need to leave right now, and don’t ever come back around here again. If I see you around here again I’m gonna take it as a threat and I’m not sure what I might do to you.”

  Renee saw and partially heard Robert, but she kept singing right along with the song. He knocked on the glass and Renee ignored him.

  Tamara felt the need to come outside and let her presence be felt. She looked real special wearing Robert’s oversized blue terrycloth robe and slippers. Renee noticed Tamara in her peripheral vision, but didn’t react at all. Tamara marched right up to the driver’s-side door, shoved Robert aside and opened it. Renee panicked when she looked down and saw Tamara standing there yelling obscenities.

  Renee felt the need to defend herself. Her erratic behavior turned violent when she reached under her seat and pulled out an umbrella. All of a sudden she swooped down from her seat and started beating Tamara in the head and face with the umbrella’s wooden and metal handle. The sight of blood didn’t even make Renee stop. Robert’s hand around Renee’s wrist was the only thing that stopped her. Robert knew Tamara was wrong for confronting Renee and he kind of admired Renee’s gangsta fighting skills. He felt that this was an ass-whipping Tamara brought on herself for opening Renee’s door the way she did.