So You Call Yourself a Man

by Carl Weber

  Works every time, I thought. I never met a kid who wouldn’t take a bribe. All you have to do is find out his weakness. With some kids it’s candy, others it’s TV. I’ve got a nephew who won’t shut up unless you give him a dollar.

  I picked him up, placing him on my lap. “Do you know who I am?”

  He nodded his head repeatedly as he sucked on his lollipop. “You my daddy!”

  I almost dropped him off my lap, I was so stunned by his reply. I don’t know what I was expecting him to say, but it wasn’t that. “Who told you that?”

  He jumped down and headed toward a love seat across the room. Then he climbed up on it, pulling a photo album off the end table and on to his lap. He started flipping pages like he knew what he was doing and I walked over to investigate. About ten pages into the album he stopped, pointing at a picture. “Mommy and daddy,” he said in his rather cute child’s voice before pointing to another picture and repeating the same words.

  I took a good look at each picture, and to my surprise, each photograph had a picture of Michelle and me at various times during our relationship. I was surprised she kept those pictures and even more surprised that she showed them to her son. Now, if you ask me, that shit was low. She’d already had junior here brainwashed that I was his dad. I wondered, how long had she been showing him my picture? Not that it mattered. The damage was done now.

  I started to walk to the kitchen. “Come on, little man, let’s get your Lion King cup and get you some juice, so you can go back to bed and I can think.”

  I swear, I’d barely turned my back for two seconds when I heard Marcus sputtering and choking. I rushed back into the living room and there he was, laying sprawled out on the floor, gagging, with his hands near his throat. My heart was doing summersaults in my chest as I dashed across the room and grabbed him.

  “What’s wrong?” His lips were turning blue and he gagged. I immediately turned his back to me. In one swift movement I delivered the Heimlich maneuver, and the lollipop spewed out of his little mouth. Relieved, I had to choke back my own feelings. What the hell was I thinking about? Giving him that stupid lollipop almost killed him. Without thinking, I held Marcus close to my chest to calm both him and myself. His little heart was trotting like a racehorse and so was mine. After Marcus caught his breath again, he began crying in deep gasps.

  “It’s all right son, it’s all right, Daddy’s here. You’re going to be all right,” I said in a soothing voice. I thanked God Cathy had made me take a CPR class at the Y when our boys were infants. When he finally calmed down, I said, “Here. Let’s go get your juice.”

  “I wanna play with Majesty,” Marcus protested between hiccups. As if on cue, the dog began to bark from the laundry room.

  “Okay. I’ll let you play with Majesty or whatever his name is for a little while, then back to bed you go.”

  After Marcus drank his juice and went to the toilet, he romped around with his little mutt until he dozed off in the middle of the floor. I picked him up and carried him to his bedroom, feeling something stirring in my gut. Marcus had his arm wrapped snugly around my neck.

  I laid him down in his twin bed and shook my head. Lord, what if something had happened to him while he was with me? I don’t think I could’ve lived with that. He was a good kid, even if he wasn’t my son. And if he was my flesh and blood and died…dear Lord, I didn’t even wanna think about it.

  10

  Sonny

  “Ladies and gentlemen, please raise your glasses one more time and join me as I wish my best friend, Brent, and his lovely bride, Alison, farewell before they depart on their honeymoon.”

  Cheers and clinking glasses echoed throughout the Westbury Manor reception hall as Brent and Alison took center stage. I handed the microphone to Brent so he and his bride could say their final good-byes, then slipped into the crowd to check in with my wife. It had been one of the most emotional wedding ceremonies I’d ever been to. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the place after Brent and Alison recited from memory their very personal vows. If that wasn’t enough, the Westbury Manor reception hall looked like something out of a magazine, and the food they served tasted like it came from a five-star restaurant. Add in DJ Smooth, arguably the best old-school DJ in Queens, and you had the best wedding I’d ever been to, including my own. I’m sure the whole affair set Brent and Alison back a pretty penny.

  After maneuvering my way through the crowd now surrounding the Williamses on the dance floor, I found an empty table toward the back of the hall. I sat down, pulled out my cell phone, and dialed my wife. We talked for about fifteen minutes and I told her about the wedding. She was jealous, of course, and wished she was there, but said nothing could tear her away from packing up our belongings so we could move them to New York. Jessica was excited about our move. She probably asked me fifteen times a day when I was coming home to move them out.

  “Excuse me, sir. Can I have this dance?” a warm, sexy voice purred just as I hung up the phone.

  I looked up to see the woman who took my virginity, my high school sweetheart, Tiffany Boyd. She was still as pretty as they come, with her smooth bronze skin highlighted by a large dimple on her right cheek. She’d gained a little weight over the years, most of which ended up around her hips, and of course you know I didn’t mind that, being the ass man that I am.

  “It’s been a long time, Tiffany. I heard a rumor that you married crazy-ass Kareem.” I started to laugh but stopped when I saw her expression.

  “Crazy is right,” she said as she sat beside me. That man put me through hell before I divorced him.”

  “Oh, wow, I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “So am I, but he’s out of my life now.” She smiled, changing the subject. “So, speaking of rumors, I heard you were dead.”

  “No, I’m still alive and kicking.” We both laughed.

  It’s funny how you don’t think about a person for years and then they pop up and your mind is flooded with memories. Right now, most of mine had to do with sex and how Tiffany used to put it on me every night in the backseat of my father’s car. Boy, did she have some good damn pussy. My dick was getting hard just thinking about it. I was glad I was sitting down so the table could cover it.

  Tiffany was a year older than me. We started dating in my sophomore year of high school. She was one of those girls who never had any girlfriends and was always hanging around with a bunch of guys. Truth is, she had a reputation for being a slut, and the only reason I started to date her was because I wanted to lose my virginity.

  What I didn’t know was that it wasn’t as easy to get in her pants as everyone said. Oh, she wasn’t a virgin, but you could count the guys she’d been with on one hand. I found out later that many a brother had lied on their dicks when it came to her, including my boy Brent. Let him tell it, all you had to do was buy her an ice-cream sundae or a shake from Baskin-Robbins and take her for a walk down by Roy Wilkins Park, and she’d do all the rest. I must have bought twenty-five sundaes and another thirty shakes before I finally got some, and even then, she didn’t initiate it. Funny thing is, by the time she did give me some, I really liked her and didn’t give a damn what her reputation was. From that point on, we were boyfriend and girlfriend, an inseparable pair. That is, until she graduated and joined the Navy without telling me.

  “How you doing, Tiffany? You’re looking good.” My eyes were fixated on her hips. Deep down, I wanted to ask her to turn around so I could see her ass.

  “Thanks.” Her dimple got deeper. “You’re not looking so bad yourself for a dead man.”

  “You know what they say. Embalming fluid helps preserve your youth.” I rubbed my hand across my smoothly shaved face. We both cracked up, laughing.

  “Oh, Lord, Sonny, you still crazy. You know that?” She was still chuckling.

  “Yeah, and you’re still the prettiest girl at the prom. Did you know that?”

  Don’t ask me where that came from, because I don’t have a clue, but neither one of
us was laughing anymore. We were staring at each other, our eyes doing all the talking, reminiscing about what quite possibly was the greatest night of either of our lives. I loved my wife more than anything in the world, and when she married me she made me the happiest man in the world, but the happiest night of my life would always be the night of Tiffany’s senior prom.

  The lights in the hall got dim when the DJ announced that Brent and Alison had just left the building and he would only be playing three more songs. As if it were scripted, the next song he played was “Endless Love.”

  “Remember this?” Tiffany finally broke our silence.

  “How could I ever forget our song?”

  “So, can a sister get a dance or what?” She placed a hand on her hip.

  “Sure,” I told her as I stood, trying my best to use my tuxedo jacket to hide my erection.

  I thought about Jessica and the kids back in Seattle. Like I said earlier, I’d never cheated on my wife before, but dancing wasn’t cheating, so I didn’t feel any guilt. Tiffany led the way to the dance floor, and for the first time, I saw that bodacious ass of hers. It looked just like a Georgia peach in that tight-fitting dress, and my dick got just a little bit harder.

  When we got on the dance floor, Tiffany wrapped her arms around my neck and placed her head on my shoulder. She was so soft and smelled so good that I just wanted to squeeze her and pull her in close, but I resisted. I didn’t want her to feel my bulging manhood up against her dress. I wanted to believe she wouldn’t mind, but the last thing I needed was to get slapped on the dance floor at Brent’s wedding.

  “I love this song,” she whispered, snuggling her head up against my neck. She pulled me in a little closer, and I’m sure she could feel what was going on down below. “Whenever I hear it, I think of you and the prom. That was the best night of my life.”

  “Mine too.” I couldn’t see her face, but I was sure she was smiling from the sigh she let out. She pulled me in closer and my stuff slid right up against the soft mound between her legs.

  “You’ve got me feeling like we’re in high school again, Sonny.” I rubbed my hands against the skin where her dress was open in the back. “I’m starting to feel like it’s the prom all over again.” I didn’t reply. I was too busy enjoying the pleasure of our bodies rubbing up against each other.

  “That was the first time I ever spent the entire night with a man.”

  “For me that was the first night for a lot of things,” I whispered.

  “I’ll never forget that night. That was the first time you ever went down on me.”

  “You know, I had to read a book to find out what to do.”

  “What’s the name of that book? ’Cause there’s a lot of men that need to read it. You were the absolute bomb.” Now I was blushing.

  “It’s called The Joy of Sex.”

  “Oh, it was a joy, all right.” She reached behind and moved my hands lower. I stopped them at her waist, opening my eyes to see who might be looking. I wanted to feel Tiffany’s ass, to massage it with my hands, but I was afraid someone might see me. Fortunately, most of the guests had left shortly after the bride and groom, and everyone on the dance floor was preoccupied. I slowly guided my hands below her waist, feeling the soft globes of her perfectly round backside.

  “That’s not too much for you to handle, is it?” she teased. “She’s a little bigger than she used to be back in the day.”

  “Nah,” I replied, my hands continuing to roam. “You don’t have to worry. I can handle it. I like ’em big.”

  “Good.” She pulled me in closer and our two-step became a flat-footed grind.

  We danced like that for at least one more song without a word being said, and I was starting to feel woozy. I hadn’t had more than one or two glasses of champagne throughout the night, but I felt like I was drunk. I’d heard of people getting sex-drunk, but I’d always thought of it as an urban myth until now.

  I think Tiffany was just as intoxicated as I was because the way she was grinding up against me, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she was close to orgasm.

  “Sonny,” she whispered halfway through the third song.

  “Yes?”

  “My kids are with my ex-husband tonight. I was wondering if you’d like to come home with me.”

  I lifted my head and looked in her eyes. I would have gone anywhere with her at that moment. “Yeah, I’ll go home with you,” I replied without any hesitation.

  I bent down to kiss her, but the music stopped and the lights came on before our lips could meet. We stepped apart, but it was hard because we were still drawn to each other. I tried to position my rock-hard manhood in my pants so it wouldn’t be so conspicuous, while Tiffany scrambled to push down her hiked-up dress. We got ourselves together just in time, because her girlfriend called her from the door like she was her mama, and on top of that, James was headed our way.

  “I’ll meet you in the parking lot. I gotta get rid of my friend,” she said.

  “No problem. Looks like I’m gonna have to do the same.”

  She stepped toward me as if she wanted a kiss, then stepped back when she glanced at her friend. “I’ll be outside,” she mouthed then walked toward the door, switching her ass just for my benefit. I couldn’t wait to get her out of that dress.

  “Hey, is that who I think it is? Is that your ex, Tiffany?” James pointed and we both watched her walk away.

  “Yeah, that’s her,” I said nonchalantly.

  “Man, she’s sure got a nice ass.” He laughed. “Bet you wish you could get some of that again.”

  “Yep, that’d be nice.” We stepped outside. I took out a pack of cigarettes from my tuxedo pocket. James caught me smirking as I placed one in my mouth.

  “What’s going on, man? What are you up to?”

  “Who, me?” I pointed at myself, grinning innocently.

  “Yeah, you. What were you two talking about?” James obviously sensed something, but I don’t think he understood the full magnitude of what was going on.

  “She wants me to go home with her tonight.” I lit my cigarette, my eyes still glued on Tiffany’s behind.

  James laughed. “Get the fuck outta here. She does not!”

  I gave him a very serious look. My words were condescending. “Okay, if you say so.”

  James studied my face. “Oh, shit. You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “Serious as a heart attack.”

  “Just like that. After all these years, she just walks up to you and asks you to sleep with her?”

  “Well, we did dance first.”

  He stared at me a moment, then finally said, “Daaaaaamn, women are bold these days.”

  “It’s the world we live in, bro. Look at how they treat Brent. Get used to it.”

  “So, what’d you tell her? You gonna do it?”

  I took a long drag of my cigarette, then exhaled as I answered his question with another question. “What would you tell the woman with the best coochie you ever had in your life if she offered you some?”

  I grinned smugly, smoking my cigarette as he contemplated my question. After a few seconds, he smiled, reaching in his wallet. He pulled out a condom and handed it to me. At that point, we both knew his answer.

  “Don’t make the same mistake I did. But don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” He patted me on the back, and I actually stuck out my chest with pride.

  “Don’t worry, I will…and a whole lot more.” I took another drag of my cigarette and started walking toward the door to get my coat.

  “Hey, Sonny? What about Jessica?”

  I stopped and turned toward my friend. “What about her? What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”

  11

  James

  Cathy and I were on our way home from Brent’s wedding when we got stuck in a terrible traffic jam on the Cross Island Parkway. Her head was on my shoulder and I was holding her hand as I drove. I think she fell asleep about ten minutes into the drive, although she made o
vertures before we left the reception that she wanted to make love when we got home. I didn’t have a problem with that at all. Matter of fact, it made me contemplate the question Sonny had posed to me before he left to sleep with Tiffany.

  What would you tell the woman with the best coochie you ever had in your life if she offered you some?

  As a man who wants to be honest with himself, I had to admit that I’d probably take her up on the offer. Thank God, unlike Sonny, the best coochie I’ve ever had belonged to my wife. Yeah, I cheated on her with Michelle a few years back, but I wasn’t proud of it, especially with all this craziness with her claiming I was her baby’s daddy. However, it wasn’t because of the sex that I strayed from my marriage. It was because we lost our connection as friends and we stopped talking to each other. Don’t get me wrong. There was a sexual connection between me and Michelle, but it would have never happened if Cathy and I hadn’t stopped being friends.

  When we finally pulled into the driveway, it started to rain hard. Despite the dreary weather, Cathy woke up smiling seductively, and it was obvious what was on her mind. She guided my hand to her crotch, pulling up her dress, and I could feel the heat through the thin material of her lace thong.

  “I’m so wet,” she whispered.

  I began to rub between her legs gently, and a soft moan escaped from her mouth as she rested her head back on her head-rest.

  “I want some, James. I want some bad.” She moaned again just as my fingers found the little button she called her “spot.” She closed her eyes and enjoyed my smooth, easy touch for a few seconds. “You know you owe me from last night.”

  We hadn’t had sex last night as we had planned. When I got home from babysitting Marcus, Cathy had been in a deep sleep, and to be truthful, I was glad. I was too mentally drained to do anything, especially after Marcus almost choked to death on that lollipop. All I wanted to do was go to sleep and forget.