Daddy is quiet, contemplative. He takes another spoonful of mousse. “What do you think you’re doing?” he asks. “I’m trying to get my man to see that he doesn’t have to look any further—that I’m that smart, hardworking, God-fearing, beautiful woman he’s been searching for all his life. But then again, I’m not really clear on why I have to do all this convincing. That’s the dilemma of the black woman in America. We’re in crisis.”
“Crisis?” he laughs. “How you figure?”
“You Negroes have worked yourselves into such a tizzy, what with rap videos and pop culture, and these big-boobed silicone mannequins with their weaves down their backs dancing all up in our screens, and these lyrics screaming to everyone that sex is a commodity, not something special shared between two people. You’re always hunting for the next hot chick ready to sleep with you in exchange for a ride in the front seat of your expensive cars, while the rest of us normal girls—the ones who’ll cook your dinner, wash your clothes, take care of your kids, bring home some cash from our little jobs, and make sure we sex you up proper—we don’t get a second glance. Ask me why.”
“I don’t have to, I’m sure you’re going to tell me,” he laughs.
“It’s not funny, Jerome,” I say, getting serious, and a little mad. “The reason why is because black men have been deluded into thinking that if they have a five spot, a shiny car, a fresh line-up, and a hard dick, then they’re somebody black women are supposed to be fighting over.”
“That’s only because you all put black men on a pedestal like we’re hot commodities,” he says.
“So if I started treating Sean like shit, then he’d marry me? How does he win with a woman who mistreats him?”
“That’s just it, though—it’s not about winning—it’s about being able to feel like a man…” he starts to explain, but I cut him off.
“But cooking, cleaning, and taking care of him doesn’t make him feel like a man?”
“Let me finish,” he says. “It’s about being able to feel like a man and being able to make the decision about when and how you’re going to fall in love—and that doesn’t involve timetables and clocks and schedules that you didn’t have any part in. And if you start making them think that their life is going to be reduced to putting the kids to sleep, watching Leno, having sex, then falling asleep—all at the same exact time every night, then they really won’t want to have anything to do with it. It’s the loss of freedom and variety and the fear of boredom that men are running away from. And you can say all you want about the video hos and body image and all that, but men are literal creatures and they want to have what they see.”
“And every black man on the planet just happens to like the same thing: the red-boned, long-haired, thin, hour-glass vision of perfection flooding BET?”
“Well, that’s not my particular preference, but I can see how someone could be attracted to that,” he says nervously, scratching his eyebrows.
“Well then just what is your type? Because if your dating history serves me correct, the high-profile chicks you used to saunter around town with all fit that bill.”
“You should know by now not to believe everything you see in the gossip pages,” he shoots. “Just because you saw it and somebody gave their interpretation of what they thought was happening doesn’t make it true.”
“Well, if that’s not your type, then what is?”
Daddy is quiet for a moment. He takes a sip from his wineglass, then lifts his napkin from his lap to wipe his thick lips and goatee. The flickering candles make his eyes dance. “Actually, if I had a type, she’d be a lot like you,” he says, leaning in.
Whoa. The birds stop chirping. The DJ scratches the record. All noise ceases. That sounded like a come-on. Was that a come-on? Yes, Viv, that was a come-on. What to do? I don’t say a word. He keeps going.
“She’d be smart like you. And loyal, like you. And pretty like you. And thick and juicy, just like you…” he says before leaning in. And, after a beat of silence, he plants a soft, warm kiss on my lips.
I move my head back just slightly, making our lips disconnect. He’s caught me off-guard and I am not so sure I want to take it there. But his lips taste so good. And the wine has me buzzed. This time it is I who move in. I fall into his lips, soft as pillows. And then I kiss him again. And again. When I lean in for another, he parts his lips and licks my tongue. We sink into each other’s embrace, our tongues probing the insides of each other’s mouths—a make-out session that would make two junior-high kids, skipping seventh period to perfect their make-out game, sit up and take notes. I am grateful, though, when he pulls back and starts planting soft kisses on my neck and my cheeks, and my forehead, and my ears (that’s my spot!). But his tongue is quickly becoming too wet—one thing I couldn’t ever stand was a sloppy kisser, and Jerome is fast becoming the king of the slobbery tongue game.
But that makes no never mind, particularly when I feel his palm on my breast. My nipples harden almost instantly—and my clit swells at the same pace. I reach up and run my left hand over the back of his head and gently guide his lips toward the left side of my sweater; I run my right hand across the muscles on his shoulders, down to his rock hard biceps, which I give a little squeeze. I’m still not sure if it is his muscles or his tongue that made me moan, but I know the moment he lifts my sweater, pushes my bra aside, and takes my nipple into his mouth that I was going to ride his ass into the sunset.
“You are so sexy,” he says, between mouthfuls of my breast, as he starts tugging at my belt. “I’ve been waiting to feel those legs wrapped around me.”
I don’t say anything back—I haven’t, until that very moment, allowed myself to think about what it would be like to fuck Daddy. Sure, I’d probably considered it fleetingly back when he was at the top of his game and I was actually into his music—but this? This wasn’t something I came prepared to do. I actually considered putting a stop to it all—how would it look, me talking about trying to marry my baby’s daddy in one breath, and then letting some rapper nail me to his sofa the next. It is my libido, though, that was calling the shots—not my common sense. So instead of getting up off that couch and taking my ass home to my child, I lean back into the plush fabric and pull Daddy closer still—pushed his head into my breast, and then my stomach, and then giggle as he loosens the button to my jeans, and pulls the zipper down, his tongue and lips doing all the talking they needed to get me to settle in for the first sexual escapade I’d had with a man other than Sean in, shoot, God knows how long. Years.
I’m not sure it hadn’t been that long for Daddy, too, or if he is just a zealous kinda lover, because he is pretty hasty—almost forceful—when he pulls my pants and panties off and dives into my vagina like it is his last meal. I’m not quite prepared for his tongue to jam onto my clit so quickly—normally I need to work up to direct contact to get the kind of sensation it takes for me to come, and this time is no exception. I lift my thighs into the air and wriggle a bit to get him to move his tongue down a little, and he complies, but he is still chomping on me like I was a bucket of Popeyes. His front teeth are digging into my skin so hard that I consider either pushing his head away or asking him to stop, but then he sticks his tongue deep inside my vagina and starts to lick all around and makes me feel so good that I lift my thighs to him, this time for doing it right. I slowly rotate my ass, meeting each one of his licks with a thrust of my hips, going faster and faster still, until it seems like he was fucking me with his tongue. “Oh God,” I moan, opening my legs wider to give him full access to my clit. Just a few more strategic licks and I am going to come—hard. “Yes,” I say softly.
Just as I felt myself about to climax, he jams his finger into my ass. “Ow,” I say, unable to hold back my displeasure. He doesn’t seem to notice, though; he neither realizes that his anal intrusion hurts, nor that it’s messed up my high. In fact, he moves his tongue action from my vagina down to my ass—is licking and sucking like someone’d spread his mousse a
ll over it. He rubs my clit with his thumb, which I guess feels kinda good, except that I wanted more tongue there, instead of in my asshole. Just as I was about to work my vagina back into his mouth, he reels back, spits on me, and jams his finger in again. “Jerome!” I call out, a frown on my face.
He doesn’t look up, just keeps fumbling his fingers all over my vagina and ass. “Feels good, baby—go ’head, call Daddy’s name,” he mumbles as he puts his tongue back on my clit. That eases the pain a bit, but damn—did he just spit on me? Ugh. And why is his middle finger still jammed in my ass?
Just as it starts to feel good again, and I am hiking my hips back into the air to meet his tongue thrusts, he stops altogether, stands up, pulls his pants down and hops on top of me. His penis is hard—he wriggles it around on my thigh as he tries to stick his tongue in my mouth. I don’t play that—there’s nothing more nasty to me than a man who tries to stick his tongue in my mouth after he’s just finished licking my ass and vagina. So I turn my head in time enough for his tongue to land in my ear, which isn’t what I mean to do, considering he had a face full of my bodily juices, but it is better he gets them on my cheek and ear (well, I really prefer he wipe his mouth on a towel or washcloth or something) than my lips.
But that is the least of my worries. Before I can really grasp what’s happening, he jumps up, snatches off his pants, climbs back onto the sofa, and thrusts his penis and balls into my face. His dick slides up the side of my cheek—his balls across my nose. It was like he is fucking my skin; I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be enjoying the sensation, or if he just can’t really navigate his dick into my mouth, but the thrusting goes on a little too long for my comfort. Finally, I crane my neck just a bit and take his penis into my mouth (silently thanking Amaya for inspiring me to take the advanced Blow and Get Low course to learn how to practically swallow a super-sized penis whole). Daddy’s dick is wide and impressively long—what he lacks in tongue game I sure as hell hope he can make up with in thrusts, because right about now he is coming up short. I lightly tap my fingers up and down the vein on the underside of his penis as I suck and lick it and suck some more. I grab it tight with my right hand and massage it as I stick it deeper into my mouth and suction-suck it on the way back out. With my left hand, I rub and gently pull his balls, which make him thrust his penis even harder into my mouth. Damn, even with my extra lessons, I can hardly handle his dick going that deep into my mouth, but I relax my throat muscles and let him go deeper still. “Yeah, suck it baby,” he says, thrusting harder. “Suck it. Suck it. Yeah, suck it, suck it—suuuuuuuuuuuck it! Aaaaaaargh!”
No, this nigga did not.
I try my best to seal my throat and turn my head to the side so the liquid can run out of my mouth, but by now he is in full come mode, grabbing onto the arm of the couch and fucking my mouth like he was riding ass. I gag as his sperm hits the back of my mouth and struggle not to swallow. I try to push him off of me, but he is still resistant; his body is still jerking and shivering as the last of his sperm trickles out. Finally, he pulls out and moves from over top of me; I shoot up and grab the dessert napkin to relieve my mouth of his liquid.
“Goddamn, girl—where you learn to suck a dick like that?” he says, smiling and completely oblivious to my spitting fury. “If I didn’t know any better, I’da thought you were a white girl!” he chuckles, reaching down and massaging himself.
Just as I fix my mouth to tell him not to ever, ever, ever do that shit again, my cell phone rings, jarring both of us. I consider not answering it but then I think better of it; the only somebody who would be calling my cell phone at this hour is my mom, who is watching Corey.
“Excuse me,” I say curtly, pushing myself up and around him, “I have to get that.” I reach into my purse, pull my cell out, and check the number; it is my mother. She is calling me from her cell phone, which is weird, seeing as she is supposed to be at my house, getting Corey ready for bed. Why doesn’t she just use the house phone? “Hey, Mom,” I say into the receiver. “What’s up?”
“It’s Corey,” she says. I don’t really remember much after she tells me something is wrong with my baby. I was bending over and collecting my panties off the floor within a millisecond; everything in the room goes black, except for my clothes and the door. I think I hear “not well,” “ambulance,” “hospital,” and “working on him,” but I definitely hear “Cedars.”
“I’ll see you there,” I said, shutting the phone and grabbing my keys.
“What’s wrong?” Daddy asked, the terror in his eyes mirroring mine.
“It’s Corey,” I say, rushing to the door.
Daddy grabs his coat and follows me out.
It takes only about ten minutes to get to Cedars-Sinai, though it feels like ten hours. I say a silent “Thank you” to God for Daddy, because I know my car would have been wrapped around a pole within seconds of my getting behind the wheel if I had tried to drive. Daddy takes my keys and commandeers the car, while I alternately try to get my mom back on the phone and find Sean. Alas, I can’t reach either of them, which makes me even more terrified. How am I to be sure that my child is even alive? I feel so vulnerable. I want to claw my heart out.
“Viv, you gotta calm down,” Daddy says, reaching over to rub my hand. I don’t want to feel his touch, or hear his voice. I just want to see my child. How would I ever live without him? How could I breathe? “Everything is going to be all right,” he insists.
“What if it’s not?” I say, tears streaming down my face. My wet mascara is fire in my eyes. “He’s only seven, Jerome. Seven,” I sob. “He’s my baby. I haven’t had a chance to raise him, to watch him grow. I never watched a sunset with him, or showed him the Big Dipper, or told him all about girls, or unconditional love. I’m not finished being a mom yet—he can’t be finished being a son. There’s so much more.”
“Viv—you’re talking crazy,” Daddy says. “You don’t know what’s happened, and you’re already leaping to the funeral. Your son is going to be fine—you have to believe that for it to be true.”
I nod. But the thought of my son dying without his mother by his side makes me cry harder still.
I don’t immediately see my mom when we burst through the emergency-room doors, but as soon as I tell the nurse my name, Daddy and I are ushered into a room just off the lobby. My child is hooked up to several machines—one is giving him oxygen, another monitors his heart rate, another pumps some kind of clear fluid into his arm. A doctor and a nurse stand over him, talking quietly to my mom.
“Mommy? What’s wrong with Corey,” I say frantically, bursting into tears as I rush over to him. He is pale and limp. “What’s wrong with my baby?”
“Vivian, calm down, honey. Be calm,” my mother says, hugging me and trying to pull me away from Corey.
“No,” I say firmly. “You tell me what’s wrong with my child right now!”
Daddy rubs my arm. “Viv, come on, you have to calm down,” he whispers quickly in my ear. “You’re going to upset Corey. He needs to see you with a level head. Talk to the doctors.”
I really have to will myself to focus enough to hear what the doctor is saying and actually comprehend it. Corey, he says, is suffering from acute respiratory failure, triggered by allergies that caused him to have an asthma attack. He’d fallen asleep from the trauma surrounding his not being able to breath—that and the medication. The plan is to admit him so that his bronchial tubes could be drained and he could be treated with medication that would ease his breathing.
“Does your family have a history of allergies or asthma?” the doctor asks. His nameplate says Houston. I look at my mom, and she shakes her head.
“No,” I answer quickly.
“How about his father’s side?”
That question is jarring—not just because I’m not sure of the answer, but also because it is the first time I realized that Sean still hasn’t returned my frantic phone calls or shown up at the hospital to see about his son. I immediately see red.
“I don’t know,” I say quietly. I see Dr. Houston shoot a look at the nurse—they immediately surmised that because my child’s father wasn’t in the room that I probably don’t even know who the daddy is, much less his medical history. Which means that I am either going to be dismissed as some poor, uninsured patient who can’t afford the good treatment, or I am going to have to set them straight this instant to make sure my child gets the best care possible. I’d come up against the single-mom stereotype before, but this isn’t the time for me to have to prove myself to these people. I just want my son to get better.
“His father, Dr. Jordan, will be here any minute,” I say, nodding and wiping tears from my eyes. “He’ll tell you about the other side of Corey’s family health history. In the meantime, is he going to be okay?”
“We’re going to have to admit him for observation. We’ll know a little bit more in the morning,” Dr. Houston says.
“He’s going to have to stay here?” I whimper.
“Ms. Jordan,” he says, assuming my last name is the same as Corey’s, and talking to me like I couldn’t understand the words coming out of his mouth, “your son suffered a severe asthma attack. Had your mother waited for the ambulance to arrive, he may not have made it. Keeping him here is the least of your worries right now.”
I try not to pay attention to the condescending attitude; Corey is all that matters now.
“We’ll have him in a room shortly,” Dr. Houston says before scribbling something on Corey’s medical chart and leaving the room, the nurse on his heels. Moments later, she reappears.
“Ms. Jordan, do you have health insurance?”
I shoot daggers into her oversized frame. “Of course,” I say, digging into my purse to get my card. “Here.”
“We’re going to need you to fill out some paperwork,” she says, taking the card from my hand.
“Fine—but I’d really like to spend some time with my child before I do. I just got here, and he needs me.” The nurse nods, turns on her heels, and walks out. I lean over Corey and give him a kiss on his forehead. He looks so helpless; I feel so helpless. I burst into tears again. My mother and Daddy jostle to console me. I shake them both off.
The Vow Page 21