Love Frustration

by RM Johnson

“A cup of green tea and a bran muffin.”

  A moment later the boy with the paper hat set down the tea and the muffin before me.

  “So what do we have to talk about?”

  Karen took a sip from her latte then set it back on the counter. “Last night was pretty … I don’t know … crazy. I mean, the way you and I were acting was no different than usual, but I thought about it, and this is almost my girl’s wedding day. There really shouldn’t have been any reason for that, you know.”

  “I never really took the time to think about it,” I said, “but I guess you’re right.”

  “Like I said last night, we really need to stop it, period. I mean for good,” Karen said. “What do you think?”

  “I’m with that, one hundred percent,” I said, breaking a piece off my muffin, and sticking it in my mouth. “But what I want to know is, why did it ever start? From the first day I met you, Karen, you disliked me. Why was that?”

  Karen looked away, scooted around a little on her stool so she wouldn’t have to face me. She looked back at me after a second, like she was trying to hide something. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

  “Really? You don’t know what I’m talking about?”

  “Nope.”

  “All those times when Faith and I first started dating and she told you that I was taking her to the show, or out to dinner at a certain restaurant, and you’d show up, sitting behind us at the movies, or a couple of tables away at the restaurant, saying that you had planned to go there before she told you we were. You don’t know anything about that?” I asked, looking at her suspiciously.

  “Nope.”

  “And all the times that you told her you saw me out with some strange woman, kissing in the park, or holding hands in the mall. I guess you don’t know anything about that, either?”

  “All right, all right,” Karen said, conceding. “Do you know how long me and Faith have known each other?”

  “No.”

  “Like, eight years, or something. And for that time we’ve been almost inseparable. We’d go to the gym and work out together. On Wednesdays, we’d go for after-work drinks. Fridays nights we’d go to the movies, Saturday nights, we’d go out clubbin’, and Sunday mornings, we’d go to church and then brunch afterward. And then you came along,” she said with a grunt. “You came along and took up all her time. I barely saw her anymore.”

  “So you hated me for that?”

  “Was I supposed to love you for it?”

  “I didn’t deserve that kind of treatment just because Faith decided she wanted to spend time with her man.” Karen lowered her head, nodded a little. “I agree,” she said, under her breath. “But it wasn’t just that. Way back when you all first started dating, Faith told me about your girl, Asha. She wasn’t sure if something was still going on between you two.”

  “But there wasn’t.”

  “That’s what your mouth says.”

  “There wasn’t!” I objected louder.

  “Really. Then how about now?” Karen asked, a cunning look in her eye.

  “Now I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Karen looked at me long and hard, as if she was waiting for me to break down or something and tell her the real truth. Then she said, “I spoke to Faith this morning. She told me about everything that happened last night. Outside the restaurant, back at your place. How do you think that makes her feel?”

  “I know. But, Karen, you have to believe me when I tell you there’s nothing going on with me and Asha. If you only knew how much I loved Faith, how excited I am about the fact that I’m going to be married to her.”

  And again, Karen was looking at me strangely, canting her head, scrutinizing me from different angles. “You’re being honest, aren’t you?”

  “Of course I am. Why would I marry her if I didn’t love her. I love the damn girl.”

  It took a minute, but Karen cracked a small smile. “I believe you, Jayson. I think I always knew how you felt about her. I was just missing her so much. But now that I realize that this is going to happen even after all the efforts I made to stop it, and Lord knows I’ve tried. I know that I’m just going to have to accept you. And that’s the real reason I asked you out here.” Karen grabbed her purse, dug into it, brought out something blue, the size of a credit card with small holes in it. She extended it to me. I took it.

  “What is it?” I asked, turning it over in my hand.

  “It’s a key card. The new Hilton. You know, on State Street,” Karen said, smiling wide. “Tonight I’m throwing you and Faith a surprise wedding party. It’s kinda my way of apologizing to both of you for acting like an ass all this time.”

  And, man, how badly I wanted to add something to that, but I held it in, because it seemed Karen was truly making a sincere effort to be nice.

  “I want everything to start off fresh. Forget the past, forget everything we’ve said about each other, and move on.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing this woman say. I controlled my urge to look over my shoulder for some huge sledgehammer to swing down from the ceiling and splatter me where I sat, or for my seat to eject and shoot me through the roof of this place, as I fell victim to Karen’s cunning scheme. But like I said before, she seemed really sincere.

  “So what do you say? You coming?”

  I gave her one final look of uncertainty, then relaxed and said, “Of course. What would a wedding party be without the groom?” And then I couldn’t believe it, didn’t know just what the hell came over me, but I got up from my stool and gave the woman a hug. I wrapped my arms around her, and she wrapped hers around me, and I squeezed, thinking that she wasn’t that bad a person after all.

  I let her go after a second, because I didn’t want her to get the wrong idea and start humping on me like a horny dog trying to screw the neighbor’s leg, or worse, have her running back to Faith, telling her, “Girl, he tried to come on to me, in broad daylight, right in the middle of Starbucks. That’s right, girl, he had his hand all down the back of my jeans, grabbin’ my ass.”

  But looking down at her, that smile still plastered across her face, I realized that she was past all that now. Those games were over.

  “Now the room number is 1415,” she said, touching the key card in my hand. “Come around ten o’clock. Don’t knock or nothin’,” Karen said, barely able to contain her excitement. “Just come on in. I want you to surprise her. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Good,” Karen said, grabbing her purse, giving me that smile one last time, then turning to walk away. She stopped all of a sudden, turned back around, halfway to the door, and said, “Oh yeah. And bring a dozen roses. You know how your girl loves roses.”

  “Cool. Good idea. Will do,” I said, as I watched Karen go. And again, I thought, Karen might not be that bad after all.

  7

  Asha sat in the small Phillipe Cozi Day Spa break room, with a couple of old, worn sofas, a small coffee table, a fridge, a sink, and a tiny microwave, munching from a bag of cinnamon-flavored mini rice cakes. They tasted more like Styrofoam than cinnamon, but her mind wasn’t on what was churning around in her mouth, but on the decision she’d just made.

  “Uhhhh, let me see,” Asha said, speaking to a client on the phone, her finger running down the slots on today’s appointment sheet. Her finger had rested on an opening, 2:30 P.M., but she didn’t say anything. What was happening was that Asha was in complete turmoil. This woman on the phone, Angie Winston, had been a client of hers for only two months, but over the course of her weekly visits, Asha had managed to develop a serious problem with her.

  Asha remembered the first time Angie came into the spa. Asha was sitting at the reception desk killing time with Sue when the woman walked in carrying a tiny, scruffy, brown terrier in one arm and a huge Nordstrom shopping bag in the other. She wore faded and torn, hip-hugging jeans, and a BEBE T-shirt, no bra underneath. A colorful African print cloth was wrapped around her
hair and the cutest sandals exposed her well-manicured, painted toes.

  “How can I help you, ma’am?” Sue said, sitting up in her chair.

  “I want to make an appointment for a massage,” Angie said. “And please don’t call me ma’am. I’m thirty-nine but I hope I haven’t hit ma’am status yet.” She smiled.

  Sue laughed, as she asked the woman her name, and for what day she wanted the appointment.

  “Have you been here before? Is there anyone in particular you want to do your massage?” Sue asked.

  Angie looked over at Asha, catching Asha by surprise, embarrassing her, for Asha was temporarily zoned out, gazing at the two faint imprints of Angie’s nipples pressing against her red T-shirt.

  “How about you?” Angie said. “You seem attentive.” And Asha knew that she was making a comment about Asha looking at her breasts, damn near salivating over them.

  “Oh, yeah.” Asha jumped, turning her eyes to the floor. “I can do it. Put her in my book, Sue,” Asha said, turning as red as her new client’s T-shirt.

  She was beautiful, Asha thought, but not in the typical, Tyra Banks, commercial, leggy, supermodel way. But in an earthy, real woman, hair-is-kinda-messed-up-but-I-don’t-give-a-damn-because-I-know-I’m-still-fine way.

  Asha dreamt about her that night, Angie’s face appearing on that woman in the room she always dreamed about, Angie’s body under those clothes that slowly disappeared each time Asha had the dream.

  On the first day that Asha was supposed to massage Angie, she was trembling all the way to work, unable to calm down, to settle her nerves. She feared she might do something or say something stupid while she had the woman on her table. Oftentimes she wondered why she continued to put herself through this nonsense, and how she had ever wound up doing this job in the first place, when women posed such a temptation. At the time she became a masseuse, she was still in denial about who she really was. She told herself then that it’d be fun, relaxing for both her and her clients, and she would meet new people, do something that she was good at. But now she realized it was more than just that. She had a hunger, and she was subconsciously feeding it. But considering how bad she often felt about that, why didn’t she just turn right back around and go home. Call her boss, tell her she was quitting, and find some job where there was no temptation involved at all, like massaging men all day? The problem was, she truly did love her job. She loved talking to women, hearing them laugh, and making them feel wonderful, and who was to say that she should be jailed for getting a little innocent pleasure out of it herself.

  Asha waited by her table nervously as she thought about what it would be like to touch this particular woman. Asha closed her eyes, took deep relaxing breaths as she stood there, telling herself that she would be able to control not only her nerves but her hands as well. She told herself that she would get no enjoyment out of placing her hands on this woman’s body, that she would not get excited, that she would not imagine them together, imaging herself sliding out of her clothes and …

  “Excuse me,” Asha heard, and she was snapped out of her daydream before it could progress any further. When Asha looked up, she was shocked to see Angie standing by the locker room door totally naked.

  Asha’s eyes opened wide, she gasped, and she had to place a hand on her table because she felt a little light-headed.

  “No more towels,” Angie said, smiling, seeming very comfortable in her birthday suit.

  “Hunh,” Asha said, her gaze held captive by the fullness and the slope of Angie’s breasts, by the huge dark circles that stared straight at her.

  “No more towels in the locker room, Asha,” Angie said, again, chuckling this time.

  “Oh,” Asha said, and quickly averted her eyes. “Well, I’ll just have to get some more then,” Angie said, her voice cracking like that of a pubescent boy getting his first glance at a naked woman.

  Asha took a couple of steps toward Angie, then stopped, on quivering knees, realizing that Angie was standing just in front of the towel closet.

  “Um,” Asha said.

  “Yes?” Angie replied, smiling, looking as comfortable as if she had never worn a stitch of clothing in her life.

  “I need to get more towels, and they’re … um … behind you,” Asha said, only able to look up for a brief moment.

  “Go right ahead,” Angie said, stepping aside, but it was the tiniest step, and Asha would’ve had to have been paper-thin in order to get into that closet without at least brushing up against Angie, which was exactly what happened. It was by accident, of course, but she touched her while backing out of the closet with a stack of towels. Asha had grazed Angie’s soft, right breast with her bare elbow. Asha jumped away from her, as if she had burned herself on a hot stove, almost spilling the towels onto the floor. She quickly turned around, embarrassed, apologizing for what she had done. Angie just stood there, shaking her head, smiling, as if she had enjoyed the brief contact.

  After she had gotten over the discomfort of this incident, Asha was very proud of herself. She behaved very professionally, not allowing herself to get too involved in what she was doing. She didn’t massage her too sensually, didn’t slide her hands under the towel that lay over Angie’s midsection, and didn’t linger in any area for too long. Asha altogether avoided the area near and around the breasts, ass, and coochie, not wanting Angie to think she was trying anything funny on her. She never talked about anything other than topics appropriate for a six-year-old child. After it was over, Angie got off the table and smiled. She said that she enjoyed it, and that she’d be back next week.

  Sure, there were other clients that Asha was attracted to, ones who had nice bodies, beautiful smiles, and great senses of humor, but there was something more about this woman. There was all that and something deeper, a confidence, a self-assuredness that was so appealing to Asha that at times she didn’t know how she could contain herself in Angie’s presence.

  And then there was her smell. Something like jasmine, but not quite. Sweeter, fruitier. Asha, on many occasions, wanted to ask her whether it was perfume, a musk, or a gel of some sort, but never was able to. Probably because she felt the question was too personal, might lead to Angie thinking that Asha had some other interest in her than just being her masseuse. But the real reason Asha didn’t ask her was because she knew in her heart that scent wasn’t store-bought. That scent was her own natural body aroma, and Asha would daydream sometimes, close her eyes, bring her hands to her nose, pieces of her clothing to her face, smiling at the fact that the wonderful smell had come off on her, followed her home. Asha would savor that scent, telling herself that if the woman smelled that good, then she had to taste …

  But Asha would manage those thoughts, as she did on the first day she massaged Angie. She would have to. And she did. For the next four sessions, Asha behaved just as she told herself she would. But during the fifth session, while Angie was lying on her belly, her arms above her head, her head to her side, Angie said, “That first day, when I walked in here, what were you looking at?”

  Asha stopped her hands from massaging Angie’s shoulders. She looked down at Angie’s back, feeling very exposed, as if this woman might have had insight into what she was thinking that very moment, what she had been thinking about her all along.

  “What did you say?”

  “You were looking at my breasts, weren’t you?” Angie said, her eyes still closed, not moving from her position, sounding very comfortable with what she was saying.

  “I …”

  “Don’t say you weren’t, because I know you were. My nipples started to stiffen because of how hard you were staring at them.” Angie giggled a little, Asha feeling her laughter as it shook through her back, into Asha’s hands, her arms, into her body, and into the pit of her stomach. She snatched her hands from Angie’s body.

  “And that same day, when I told you there were no towels, you were staring at me like you’d never seen a woman’s body before. And then you turned away, and you wo
uldn’t look at me. Why was that?” Angie said, still not turning up to look at Asha.

  Asha stood there, shocked, still unable to find words to use in her defense.

  “Is it the same reason why you’ve never really massaged me, why you aren’t really massaging me now?” And then Angie rolled over, sat up on the table, and swung her legs around over the side of it. She was now looking directly in Asha’s face, and although Asha tried to look away from her, just past her, the sight of her beautiful breasts, her confident smile, and that aroma of hers kept pulling Asha’s eyes back to her.

  “Is it because you like me, Asha? Because you find me attractive?”

  Yes! Yes! Goddammit, yes! Asha wanted to say. Wanted so badly to say yes, then grab the woman by her sun-bleached locks, pull her face forward and kiss her passionately; but she knew she couldn’t, knew it would make everything that she’d been trying so desperately to hold together fall apart. But it would feel so good, Asha thought to herself. And just imagining for a moment dropping the entire charade, Asha started to feel much better. But, again, she told herself she could never let that happen.

  “Talk to me, Asha,” Angie said, and Asha felt something warm grab her hand. It was Angie’s.

  Asha looked down at their hands touching, then she looked up at Angie, angrily almost, and said, “No. I don’t. I don’t find you attractive.”

  “Really,” Angie said, and she was smiling, and Asha wondered where that smile was coming from? Was she so damn confident that even though she was telling her that there was nothing there, Angie still believed there was?

  “Really!” Asha said, forcefully.

  “Really,” Angie said, very assured, the look on her face saying, If that was the case, why are you still holding my hand? And Angie gave Asha’s hand a little squeeze to bring her attention to that fact.

  Asha looked down again, shocked, as if her hand was doing things her mind had no knowledge of.

  “I think this session is over,” Asha said, pulling away from Angie.

  “Same time next week?” Angie asked, jumping down from the table.