The Vow

by Denene Millner

  “Look, ladies,” I whispered tightly as I flashed Coretta a fake smile. “Can we try to act like we’ve matured in the ten years since I’ve last seen him?”

  “Ain’t nobody trying to say we haven’t matured,” said Amaya. “All we’re saying is that Damon’s looking good and this weekend is a prime opportunity for your celibate behind to ring in the New Year properly. And your girls ain’t trying to let you miss out, acting like you all grown up and shit.”

  “Preach,” said Viv, as she raised her glass in agreement.

  “First of all, I am not ‘celibate’…”

  “When’s the last time you had sex?” they both demanded as they cut me off.

  “Let me rephrase,” said Amaya. “When was the last time you had good sex?”

  “Awww, damn, girl,” said Viv as she snapped her fingers. “She’s got you there.”

  “For your nosey information, I’m seeing someone.” As soon as I said it I wished I could grab the words back. Why’d I go and say that?

  “Who?” they both demanded.

  “None of your business,” I answered defensively, picking at my crème brûlée. I could see them out of the corner of my eye going down a short list of potential partners.

  “Wait a minute, are you talking about that tired lawyer you introduced us to a couple of weeks ago at G. Garvins?” said Viv as she snapped her fingers at the memory of the three of us having a celebratory dinner for Viv’s birthday.

  “You guys did seem awful cozy,” said Amaya, who nodded in agreement.

  “If you all must be all up in mine, yes, it was Garrett James.”

  “Eww,” they both screeched. Coretta shot us another sharp look. Instead of worrying about our convo, Mrs. Johnson needed to focus on her husband, the Good Reverend Doctor, who flirted with Amaya every time the old bat left the table.

  “Garrett James, for your information, is a really great guy, and a very accomplished attorney,” I said.

  “Whatever,” Viv said, dismissively waving a forkful of her dessert at me. “All I know is that when he realized Amaya and I weren’t lawyers or potential clients he didn’t have two words to say to us. And it’s my guess that Garrett Lame couldn’t put in work if instructions from the Kama Sutra were written into one of his legal briefs.”

  “I know that’s right,” said Amaya. “I mean, he’s fine and all, but he did seem kinda siddity-acting.”

  “Shows what you two know,” I said. “We’ve been having a great time together.”

  “So why haven’t you told us about you spending time with him?” quizzed Amaya. “Because he’s w-w-wack,” she summarized by making scratching motions on an imaginary turntable.

  “He’s not wack,” I shot back. After being in a dating black hole for nearly two years, honestly, I was just happy to have someone who called a second time when he said he would, and this looked like it might, maybe, sorta, possibly, if the moon, planets, and stars aligned in the right way, turn into something decent. Garrett and I hadn’t actually done the do yet, but we’d had some heavy petting here and there, so the sex looked promising. And Lord knows I could use some.

  “Please, girl,” said Viv. “It’s been so long since you’ve had some good ’n plenty that if he was laying the pipe right, he’d be sitting at this table with us right now.”

  “Whatever, ladies,” I said. I returned to my dessert and tried to discreetly scan the room under lowered lashes to see where Damon was.

  Shoot, who were they to talk? Neither one of them was doing any better than me in the relationship department. Viv, at thirty-two, was also another one who seemed to have it all “on paper.” She was a senior reporter who covered the breakups and makeups behind the scenes and between the sheets of the celeb set for the Los Angeles Daily News. But on the personal tip, my girl Viv was a complete mess. Still hung up on her son’s father, Sean, she was only having ex-sex with him and could never seem to make a clean break. He, on the other hand, didn’t seem to have a problem seeing other people. But Viv continued to love his dirty drawers. And after each disastrous time they hooked up, Amaya and I would receive the teary recap. Viv had already excused herself numerous times during dinner to “call and check on Corey.” Girlfriend thought we hadn’t noticed but we both knew full well that Viv was really calling to see if anyone else was over there with Sean.

  I’ve told her a million times she needs to let that one go.

  And Amaya, well, she was probably the only one of us who didn’t have it all “on paper.” Sexy in a sort of young Pam Grier kind of way, she’d won a contest to be the spokesmodel in a hair-relaxer commercial while we were in undergrad. Bitten by the acting bug, she’d been doing the Hollywood hustle ever since. She supports herself with roles in music videos and small movie parts, but mostly sustains her lifestyle of the rich and scandalous thanks to the generous support of industry players, tattoo-laced athletes or rappers, plus the residuals from that old commercial, which airs during Soul Train reruns.

  So, needless to say, I certainly wasn’t about to take advice from the two of them regarding what to do about Damon.

  “I’m going out for a cigarette,” I said and excused myself before either of them could get in another word. Ducking out of the room, I asked one of the waiters where I could light up. He must have thought I wanted to smoke some herb because he pointed to a dimly lit terrace just off of the ballroom.

  I opened the French doors and stepped out into the chilly air. I’d run out of there so quickly I had forgotten my jacket, and the little top provided zero protection. Shivering, I lit my cigarette quickly so I could smoke and get back inside, where it was warm. I was so busy hopping around, trying to heat up, that I didn’t hear the door open behind me.

  “Nice night,” said Damon as he stepped out onto the terrace and shut the door.

  “Uh-huh.” I immediately wished I’d gone to the bar. Did he follow me out here? He is looking too good for the two of us to be out here alone. Viv and Amaya were right—I hadn’t had that itch scratched nicely in a while. And he brought back so many memories.

  A sister can only be so strong.

  “Cold?” he asked as he slipped off his suit jacket and draped it around my shoulders before I could answer. The warm fabric smelled of his cologne. This man might make me hurt him.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled and pulled his jacket tightly around my shoulders, continuing to puff on my cigarette. Even though he closed the doors behind him, we still heard the band playing softly inside the dining room.

  “So how’s L.A. treating you?” asked Damon. Hmmm… so he’s been keeping up with me… I told him that I was happily on track to make partner.

  “You’ve accomplished everything you always said you would do, Tris.” Without you, I wanted to say but held my tongue.

  “Yeah, you’re right. What about you?” I forced myself to ask. I didn’t want it to seem as if I was keeping up with him.

  “New York is cool. Just doing my thing at the bank. You know, just trying to make it.” It was so like him to downplay his success, but I knew he was doing more than “just trying to make it.” At dinner someone had passed around a copy of Black Enterprise, which mentioned Damon in their roundup of the top black execs on Wall Street.

  “How are your folks?” I asked as I looked up at him out the corner of my eye.

  “Good. Howard and Diana sold their dental practice a few years ago and are now hell bent on seeing every corner of the globe,” he answered. “I never know where they are until I get a postcard in the mail from someplace like Johannesburg or Anchorage, Alaska.”

  “That’s great.”

  “What about your pops, your sister?”

  “They’re great,” I said with a forced smile. If Damon noticed my discomfort, he didn’t let on. “Daddy retired. My sister’s still the same.”

  “That’s good. So what about you?” he asked, turning to look at me, then copping a drag on my cigarette. “You’re looking good. Real good, Tris. You must be beating broth
ers off with a stick out there inL.A.”

  “Oh, you know… ” I said, unwilling to elaborate.

  “Seeing anybody special?” he asked and looked into my eyes as if he could read the answer in them before I spoke.

  “I wouldn’t say special, but you know… ”

  “So, when did you start smoking?” he asked, changing the subject. “You used to give me so much grief about smoking in college.”

  “In law school it was either cigarettes or crack, and I didn’t think being a crack head would help me make law review.”

  “Wow, you even choose your vices based on career impact. You always were focused.”

  “You’d know that better than anyone else,” I shot back pointedly.

  “You’re not still mad about that, are you?” he asked as he passed the cigarette back to me.

  “Of course not. I’m just saying that you should know better than anyone else about how focused I can be.”

  “Would it help to say I’m sorry for what happened?”

  “Nearly a decade has passed since we had that fight. Surely you don’t think I’m still mad?” I hoped he would believe me and let it go.

  I met Damon our freshman year, when he was handing out copies of a black student newspaper on the quad. I had tried to walk by without taking a copy of the paper he had just started.

  “Look, sister, there ain’t but a few of us black folks on this campus. We got to stick together,” he had called after me. I turned back around and looked at him. He smiled and wrote his phone number on the copy of the paper he gave me. I was hooked. We shared the same biting sense of humor, a love of blaxploitation movies, Langston Hughes’s poetry, and greasy Chinese takeout. We coordinated our class schedules so we could see each other as much as possible. And then there was the sex. Damon had been my first and he studied my body like it was a required course he had to pass. We were adventurous, we’d do it anywhere. The library stacks, back in the stockroom at his job, on his little desk at the newspaper office, the bathroom at a party. We didn’t care. Practically overnight I became one of those sorry sisters who drops all her girls for a man. Luckily, Viv and Amaya, who said they were just happy to see me getting some, also liked Damon, so they didn’t give me too much grief. Not that it would have mattered, because Damon had me wide open.

  The only thing we fought about was when he claimed I didn’t have enough time for him. I tried to explain to him that I had to work hard. This degree was my ticket out of the ’hood. I swore I wasn’t going back to South Central. And I was going to help my family get out, too. I wasn’t like Damon; I didn’t have an upper-middle-class family of medical professionals that I could fall back and depend on to write check after check for tuition. I had student loans to rival the national deficit. I had to make it on my own. There was no other choice. I was frustrated that he couldn’t see that. Our disagreements became more frequent toward the end of our senior year, because nothing was going to stop me from graduating at the top of our class and getting into law school.

  On the eve of graduation, Damon begged me to spend our last night at school with him, but I’d been finalizing my valedictory address and told him I couldn’t. We’d had a huge fight that ended with me storming out of Damon’s apartment after he accused me of always putting everything else before our relationship. The next day I delivered my address and headed to a summer law program at the University of Chicago. He’d landed a job with Merrill Lynch and moved to New York. We tried to keep in touch, and he was always asking me to come to New York to see him, but I was too busy with my classes. Our strained conversations, with him accusing me of never having time for us, became less frequent and eventually just stopped. And we hadn’t seen each other since.

  I’d wanted to pick up the phone so many times. Just to call and hear his voice. Make sure that he was okay, but my pride wouldn’t let me. I threw myself into my law studies, graduated at the top of my class, and buried all those feelings for Damon. Or so I thought.

  “You know, I’ve thought about you a lot over the years,” he said.

  “Yeah?” I didn’t want to admit that I had thought about him, too, but had been too proud to reach out. We were both silent for a few moments, each of us lost in our own memories. Suddenly he took my hand in his and brought it to his lips. Even though it was freezing outside on the balcony, I felt myself warm up, my pulse quicken. He kissed me on the lips. His lips were full and soft like I remembered. I opened my mouth just enough for him to slip his tongue inside. I dropped my cigarette and wrapped my arms around his shoulders, leaning into his body. His hands slipped underneath his blazer to caress my bare back.

  “What are we doing?” I asked as I pulled away from him.

  “You’ve always asked too many questions,” he said as he smiled and pulled me back into his arms, then began to nuzzle my neck just below my ear. Damn, he knows that’s my spot. He moved up to my cheek and then back to my lips before I could protest. My mouth seemed to have a mind of its own as I inhaled his intoxicating scent. Maybe Viv and Amaya were right: this should be my night to get some. I nipped at his lips. What’s wrong with having one last night together?

  “Feels like you’re trying to start something out here,” he said, his tone suddenly husky. Just the sound of his voice made me wet. It’s been a long time since I’d felt this excited. I tried to run down a mental list of the pros and cons of starting something with Damon tonight. But as his hands moved around my back to reach inside the thin strips of silk covering my breasts, my mind was made up.

  “Want to go upstairs?” I asked, smiling at him daringly.

  Damon pulled my hips into his and let me feel how much he wanted to. I’d forgotten how blessed he was and couldn’t wait to get reacquainted. He turned to open the door to the balcony. By the sound of the horns, the band was in the middle of an R&B flashback with a funky rendition of “Flashlight.” We escaped upstairs to my suite while all the guests dipped to the Electric Slide—the perfect song to distract attention from the fact that we’d disappeared. By the time we made it to my room the sexual tension crackling between us was almost visible. As Damon made his way over to me, I stood by the bed and poured some champagne into the two monogrammed flutes. I put an Isley Brothers CD from the gift basket into the player resting on the nightstand. Elise should have called her little gift the Booty Call Basket.

  “Here’s to reunions,” I said as I raised my glass and took a sip.

  “To reunions,” he said in agreement, and he also sipped. The champagne gave me courage. As I took his glass from him, a bit of the golden liquid dribbled down his chin and dropped onto his chest.

  “Hey, you got me wet,” he said jokingly.

  “Don’t worry about it, I’ll clean it up.” I clasped the back of his head and brought it down close to my face and flicked my tongue along his lips. Teasing him, I nipped at his full bottom lip with my teeth, sucking gently before moving along his chin, down his neck, and into the sprinkle of dark hairs along the opening of his shirt. As I unbuttoned his shirt I planted wet kisses along each peek of naked flesh, then helped him slip out of the shirt. My tongue traced the muscles along his shoulders, sometimes softly, sometimes hungrily. Before he could reach for me I pushed him down on the bed and stood between his legs.

  “Relax, baby,” I said, looking at him and letting him know that I was in control tonight; he should just do as he was told.

  Letting his jacket slip off of my shoulders, I took a few sips of champagne before I started to undress myself. I unsnapped the clasp on my top and let the halter drop into a silky puddle at his feet. I turned around and worked my hips slowly to the Isley Brothers’ beat, then let my pants drop to the floor. The moan that rose from the bed told me he appreciated the view, and the show. Turning around, I stood in front of him in my black La Perla thong and strappy Manolo Blahnik stilettos, and reached back to grab my champagne glass. The hungry look in his eyes told me my Pilates classes had been well worth the money, and the effort. I climbed ont
o the bed and straddled him. With a sly smile on my face, I took one more swallow before I tilted the glass and poured some champagne onto his chest.

  “You going to clean that up, too?”

  “But of course,” I said mischievously, then leaned down and began to lick the top of his chest and work around to his nipples. I remembered that they had always been sensitive, so I bit at them softly, pinched and pulled. Damon groaned and tried to grab at my hips. I playfully moved out of reach, sliding down his body, dragging my hard, standing-at-attention nipples along the way. They tingled at the warm sensation of his body and the cool liquid of the champagne. Using my tongue I followed the delicious rivulets. When the trail ended at his pants, I looked up at him and watched him stare at me as I unbuckled his belt and slowly pulled down his zipper. I told him to stand up and take off his pants. Then I pushed him back down on the bed, turned around, and sat on his lap; he felt more than ready. Clasping his hands, I brought them up around my body and sucked gently on two of his fingers, and then used them to trace my nipple. As he tried to squeeze my breast with one hand I pushed it down on my thigh. Then I took his other hand and sucked sensuously on one finger to give him a preview of what was to come. I could feel his heart beating against my back and I arched and let him caress my breasts as I rubbed my bottom slowly back and forth against his hardness. My head rolled back and I moaned. I was trying to maintain control of my seduction, but then the hand that had been resting on my thigh slid down between my thighs.

  “Open your legs,” he whispered in my ear as he kissed my neck and pinched at my nipple with the other hand. I tried to resist him, to keep my legs closed, but the tables were turning on me. “Open your legs, Trista.” I arched my back and slowly spread my legs. He laughed softly and slid his finger down into the velvety wetness and began to stroke me.