by RM Johnson
But when she woke up this morning, she knew she had not really lost that desire at all. If anything it had only grown, and she knew that because of the voraciousness with which she had this woman, the willingness she exhibited in being had by this woman.
Asha tried to tell herself it wasn’t really her participating, that it was another woman. She herself was just a spectator, standing on the sidelines, witnessing these unforgivable actions. But she knew that wasn’t the case because of the point of view she had while dreaming, because of the angle at which she held the woman’s breasts in her hands, while that woman was above her, straddling her. If it wasn’t Asha experiencing those things, how could she have felt that woman’s warm breath on the side of her face, felt the soft skin of her belly, felt it quiver when Asha kissed her softly there. If it wasn’t Asha but someone else, how could she have heard her name every single time that woman called out her name, even though it was no higher than a whisper. If it wasn’t her, how could she have known what that woman tasted like? This bothered Asha the most.
Asha clamped her eyes shut in the back of the cab, trying to force the thought out of her head, the taste off her tongue, even though the glands in the back of her throat caused her mouth to water some.
Why was this happening to her? Was it because this was what she really wanted? But no! She wouldn’t answer that, because maybe if she stopped thinking about it altogether, it would simply go away. Wasn’t that how it all worked? Asha thought, feeling her spirits rise the slightest bit. Wasn’t that the reason she dreamt about all of that to begin with, because she was so worried about it?
That was exactly right, she told herself, forcing a smile upon her face. And besides, she had other things to think about, like bumping into Jayson’s psycho fiancée this morning as she was leaving for work. Faith had been coming down the stairs just as Asha was coming out of her apartment.
“How you doing, Faith?” Asha said, trying to sound cheery, trying to act as though she wasn’t pissed at what Faith had Jayson try to do to their friendship.
“Good morning, Asha,” Faith said, looking sympathetically at Asha. “I’m sorry about Jayson having to end your friendship.”
He didn’t tell Faith that he hadn’t gone through with it, Asha thought. She didn’t know why in the hell not, but Asha would keep what happened quiet if that was how he wanted it.
“I told him that maybe he should reconsider, that maybe you weren’t that clingy a person after all,” Faith said with an air. Asha wondered just what in the hell she was talking about, what pipe she had been smoking her bad drugs from.
“But he said no. He said it was best to get rid of you because being friends with you was taking too much time away from being with me. And besides, he wasn’t really enjoying your company anyway.”
Asha couldn’t believe her ears, couldn’t believe this woman had the nerve to stand there and lie to her.
“What did you just say to me?” Asha said, catching attitude, placing her hands on her hips.
“I said, Jayson never really enjoyed being with you recently anyway. He just tolerated you.”
“Oh, really,” Asha said, knowing she shouldn’t do what she was about to do, but she couldn’t help it. The bitch deserved it.
“Yes really.”
“Well, if he just tolerated me, I wonder why he didn’t actually end our friendship. I wonder why after he recited that nonsense you put in his mouth, he took it all back. I wonder why he told me that if you were to have him, you’d have to have the both of us,” Asha said, grinning. “Package deal, baby.”
Faith glared at Asha slyly, breathing hard, looking as if she were about to explode. “No, he didn’t say that. I know him. He wouldn’t say that.”
“You can’t know him that well, because he surely lied to you last night.”
Faith looked even angrier than before. Asha saw her fists clench at her sides, and she welcomed the woman trying to step up and test her, see what she was made of. But she knew Faith wasn’t that stupid.
“I wonder what else he’s lying to you about?” Asha said, knowing that she was doing nothing but getting her friend into more trouble, but she couldn’t help herself.
Faith gave Asha a confused look, and Asha couldn’t tell if she was about to charge at her, or break down and cry. “We’ll see who has the last laugh,” Faith spat. Then she yanked the door open, and stormed out down the stairs.
“I said, seven dollars, forty cents,” the cabbie said, snapping Asha out of her daydream. He was leaning over his seat, one hand extended, the other pointing at the meter.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Asha said, pulling a ten-dollar bill out of her purse and passing it to him. “Keep the change.” Asha rode up to the twelfth floor on a crowded elevator, thinking that Jayson would have huge problems with Faith today and in the future. Asha wished that she could’ve saved him from those problems, and realized that if she wasn’t dealing with her own terrible issues, she wouldn’t have had to save him, because they would’ve probably still been together. But she couldn’t butt into their problems. Even though Asha felt Faith wasn’t right for Jayson, he would have to figure that out for himself.
The elevator doors opened on the twelfth floor. Asha squeezed her way through the wall of people around her and got off. There was a large reception area that opened up before her, the walls, tables, and reception desk were all an orangish cherrywood. The carpeting on the floor was thick and plush, a rich dark gold color, as were the two leather sofas and chairs in the waiting area.
Behind the huge, circular reception desk, sat a cute, petite brunette, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, wearing thin, black-framed glasses and a white smock. Affixed to the front of the waist-high desk were huge black letters that read, “Phillipe Cozi.”
Asha rushed up to the desk. “Susie, is my ten o’clock here yet?” she said, glancing at the clock on the wall in front of her. It read ten-thirty.
“Yeah,” Susie said, “but she just walked in ten minutes ago. I sent her back, so she should be just about ready.”
“Sue, you’re a sweetheart. What would we do without you?” Asha said, hurrying to her client.
“No problem,” Sue called back to her, smiling. “Everything is cool. Just take it easy.”
Take it easy, Asha thought to herself, as she pushed her way into the locker room. That’s easy for her to say. She probably didn’t have a best friend who was trying to get rid of her because the psycho woman he was infatuated with was telling him to do so. And she was sure Sue didn’t have to worry about her dreams tormenting her, telling her something about herself that she truly didn’t want to hear. And she didn’t have to worry that if she did listen to those dreams, accept what they were conveying to her, that word would get out, and she would run the very real risk of getting fired from her job.
Take it easy. “Yeah, right,” Asha blew, as she slipped on some white pants, a white top, and a white smock. That was the last thing she could do. But she would give it a shot. Asha walked into the small room adjacent to the locker room, adjusted the lights, lowered the table, making sure it was clean, covering it with a sheet, and verifying that everything she needed was on the small table beside her.
She would give “taking it easy” a try, stop thinking about what was bothering her, which just happened to be the entire population of beautiful women. If she could just keep her mind off them for an entire day, then maybe, little by little, she’d lose her desire for them altogether. Yeah, that might work.
“Okay, Chanda. I’m ready for you now,” Asha said. And out of another locker room came a beautiful honey brown woman, a body like a goddess, padding barefoot across the carpet, wearing only a towel wrapped around her body.
“Sorry I’m late,” Asha said, smiling, focusing her attention past Chanda, and not on the way the bright white towel hugged her shapely brown curves. “Traffic.”
“No problem. I was stuck in it too,” she said, climbing on the table, and lying on her stomach.
“So
what will it be today?” Asha said, feeling her entire body start to warm with anxiety.
“How about a full body massage?” Chanda said, closing her eyes, and letting out a long, relaxing sigh. “And lots of oil.”
Great. Yeah, sure thing, Asha thought. And while I’m squirting it all over your fine, firm body, and rubbing it into your soft, sensuous skin, I’ll just try and do what Sue said, and take it easy.
6
I woke up this morning, rolled over in bed, and was surprised to see that Faith wasn’t there. I sat up, looked around the room, listened for a moment to hear if she was in the bathroom, but there were no sounds of running water, no teeth being brushed. Nothing.
When Faith spent the night, which was three or four days a week, she normally nudged me awake, bent over me, and gave me a kiss when she was leaving. “Have a good day,” she’d say. Then as I fell back into sleep, she’d walk out the door, jump in her car, and leave.
This morning she didn’t wake me up, and I really don’t believe she kissed me goodbye. I drove her here from the restaurant last night, so I gotta assume that maybe she was still feeling a little funny about the Asha thing last night, and took a cab to work this morning, rather than deal with me.
It was probably for the best, I told myself. I had a hell of a lot of work to do. I had to look at some new buildings and check the condition of a few of my South Side properties. Besides, Faith knew the deal. She knew how much I loved her, and that whatever arguments we had, I wasn’t going to give up on her.
“Do you believe that?” I’d asked her last night, after we had gotten undressed and were lying under the covers in the dark.
“Just go to sleep, Jayson. It’s been a long day,” she said, not seeming to care about my question.
“No,” I said, leaning over her and turning on the bedside lamp. She squinted against the bright light. “I want to know if you believe that I love you, and that you’re the most important thing in my life.”
She rolled toward me, on her side, looking deeply into my eyes, as if searching for the answer, then she smiled a little, and said, “Yeah, Jayson. I believe you.” She kissed me on the cheek, then said, “Now go to sleep.”
I looked at my alarm clock and saw that it was a little after ten-thirty. Damn, I really had to start getting up earlier, I thought, climbing out of bed. I went into the bathroom, took a shower, toweled off, then stood in front of the full-length mirror, examining myself.
Not bad, I thought, flexing my left bicep, watching it swell into a tight, hard ball under the skin of my arm. I flexed my pectorals, watched them jump at my command. I tightened the muscles in my thighs, wrapped a hand around one of them, and felt the hardness there. But I also noticed that it wasn’t as hard as it once was. I placed a palm flat against my belly, and although my abs still felt like an old cobblestone street, there was a thin layer of fat developing over them. It was something that I should take care of, maybe by working out at the gym more. But I knew that wasn’t the reason why my body was softening. It was the way I’d been eating, the late night dinners with Faith, not caring what was on my plate, and then being okay with skipping a day or two at the gym. I mean, what difference did it really make? Faith loved the way I looked, and we were about to get married, so why did I still need to be wearing myself down, working out for two hours everyday. Staying in shape would be good enough, I had told myself. I didn’t have to look like the Incredible Hulk anymore. But it had been three days since the last time I went, so I would force myself to go this morning.
When I came back home from the gym, sipping on a protein shake, I was glad that I had gone. I felt revitalized, my body felt tight under the sweats I was wearing, and I’d pretty much forgotten about the Faith and Asha situation.
I hit the shower again, adjusted the water to the hottest temperature I could stand. The steaming spray felt good striking the muscles in my back. It relaxed me some, but nothing compared to what I used to get when I was dating Asha. She would massage me so well that afterward I would lie on the bed unable to move, feeling as though my body hadn’t a single bone or muscle in it, as if it were made of warm Jell-O.
She was nice enough to keep giving me massages even after we had stopped dating. I know how sexual that sounds, but it was a friendly thing, innocent, helpful and nothing more. My muscles were tight, leaving me sore and aching, and she had the skill and talent to relieve that. She even did it for me after I started dating Faith.
“Now you know, if that new girlfriend of yours walked in here right now, saw you on your stomach, half naked, me straddling you, she would skin you alive. You know that, don’t you?” Asha said, smoothing more oil on my back, deeply massaging the muscles there with her fists. It felt so good I wanted to pass out.
“Just massage, wench! I don’t pay you to talk, but to massage. Now massage. Massage!” I said, joking. We both laughed, getting a kick out of that. But when I heard a shuffle outside my front door, and it opened before either one of us could get up, we no longer found anything funny.
Faith stood just inside my apartment door, holding two bags of KFC, home on a lunch break, no doubt wanting to surprise me. There she was, the key I had given her just the night before in her shaking hand. Her mouth was hanging open, nothing coming out but a barely audible gasp.
I quickly moved to my feet, pushing Asha off me. She spilled over onto the floor with a thud.
“It’s not what you think … what it seems,” I said, rushing over to Faith, seeing the horrid expression on her face, knowing she was about to either turn and leave or go into a rage if I didn’t explain this away.
“It’s really not what it looks like.”
But Faith wasn’t hearing me, wasn’t even looking at me at first, because her eyes were keenly focused on the beautiful woman with the great body, wearing a T-shirt tied in a knot to expose her flat belly, and short-shorts to expose her toned thighs. Then Faith’s glare landed on me, on my bare chest, the oil that was slathered all over me. Her eyes lowered some, then narrowed. And why did they do that? Maybe because she caught sight of, and this was a surprise to me, the half hard-on that was bulging mildly into my sweats.
Damn! I thought. That wasn’t a sexual boner though, but an I-feel-great-this-massage-is-relaxing-boner. Two totally different things. And I thought for a second, just a brief second, about trying to explain that to her. But then I realized that if I could speak every language known to man, I still wouldn’t be able to make her understand why she shouldn’t think anything of the erection that she was staring at, and couldn’t take credit for building. But what was truly the worst thing about that entire situation was that it was the first time that Faith had ever met Asha. After all the times I had been telling Faith about her, about my best friend, my buddy, and “Oh, you’re gonna love her,” this was how they met.
I realized that’s when it all started, the suspicions, the doubting about the relationship Asha and I shared. And sometimes I asked myself, could I really blame her? Yeah, kinda. She should’ve gotten over those doubts a long time ago, I thought as I turned off the shower water. Just then, the phone started ringing. That was always the case. The phone always rang at the most inopportune times, while you’re on the toilet, having sex, or taking a stupid shower.
I yanked a towel off the rack, threw it around me, and rushed to the phone, dripping a path of water behind me. I only rushed because I thought it was Faith calling. I wanted to talk to her, just hear her voice. But when I picked up the phone, it was Karen’s voice on the other end. “I jumped out of the shower to get this. If I’d known it was you, I would’ve let it ring,” I said.
“Well, if I’d known you were taking a shower, I wouldn’t have called,” she said. “I hate that I interrupted your annual ritual.”
“Karen, Faith’s not here,” I said, bluntly.
“I know Faith’s not there, that’s why I’m calling now. I want to meet you.”
“We’ve already met, Karen, and it’s something I’ll regret for
the rest of my life.”
“No, Jayson, I’m serious. We need to talk. The Starbucks on Dearborn.”
“About what?” I said, patting myself dry with the towel.
“It’s about Faith.”
“What about Faith?”
“Nothing bad.”
“Then why do we have to meet? Why can’t we just talk right here on the phone? This way I can hear what you have to tell me, but I won’t be forced to look at you.”
There was silence on the line for a long moment, then Karen said, “I thought we had a truce. I thought we were done with that childish behavior.”
She was right. She was trying to stick to what we’d agreed on, and I was the one behaving like an idiot.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“Good, now finish shaving your legs, slip on your panties, and meet me in fifteen minutes.” Before I could let her have it, she hung up.
When I walked into Starbucks, Karen was sitting at the counter, her face in a huge, wide cup of latte, lapping it up like a dog. Well, not really. She was drinking it normally, but still, it took everything within me to stop myself from making a comment. She actually looked human today, bordering on nice. Her hair was braided in cornrows. She wore a stylish, though cheap pair of shades, and the semitight jeans she had on made me realize that she truly didn’t have a lower half like an elephant, but something fairly attractive.
“So what’s the emergency? What’s so important about Faith that you just had to tell me face-to-face?”
“Have a seat,” she said, pulling out a stool. “It’s good to see you, Jayson,” she said, smiling, looking me over like she actually meant it.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, blowing her off. “We’ve agreed to be cordial, but not fall in love, all right?”
“Whatever. Do you want something? I’m buying since I brought you out.”
“Yeah.”
Karen motioned for the pimply-faced, slim teenage boy working behind the counter.
“What can I get you?”