Soul Dancing

by Arlene Brathwaite

Liana turned around, and grabbed the orange juice out the fridge. Seeing the lustful look in Wayne’s eyes made her self-conscious about her appearance. She subtly ran her hand through her hair as she poured the orange juice in the glass. She then put the plate of food in the microwave, and looked at her reflection in the microwave door. She cringed at what stared back at her.

  “You really didn’t have to go after the guy who did this to me,” she said, trying to take her mind off how terrible she looked.

  “Yes, I did. No man should get away with putting his hands on a female, especially one that I know.”

  “You actually saw him? I mean, you confronted him?”

  “No doubt.”

  Liana was shocked. “When you said you knew a guy who knew a guy, the first thought that came to my mind was Taz found out who did it and went after the dude himself. You know how he is.”

  “Taz did find out who did it. And being that I do know how he is, I had to go with him to make sure he didn’t do anything stupid.”

  The microwave beeped. Liana placed the plate of food in front of Wayne and watched him wolf it down.

  “I wish I was there.”

  Wayne stopped chewing. “What do you mean you wish you were there?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “You mean to tell me that if me and Taz would’ve held him down, you would’ve beaten him down?”

  “Fucking right. I would’ve beaten him like he stole something.” Liana smirked at her joke, but Wayne didn’t.

  “That shit ain’t funny, Liana. What dude did was wrong, but two wrongs don’t make a right.”

  “So, what are you saying? He gave you my shit back and you just let him walk?”

  Wayne didn’t say anything, so she took that as a yes.

  “This motherfucker knocks me the fuck out, robs me, and all you do is get my shit back? What about the shit you can’t get back, like my pride or me feeling safe going to the store at night?” She snatched the half-eaten plate from in front of him and tossed it in the sink. “Did you at least call the police?”

  Again, Wayne didn’t respond.

  Liana got up in his face. “You used to make me feel safe. Now, you make me sick. Get out!”

  “You need to listen to me and stop yelling before you wake Nana.”

  “Nana’s at church, like she is every Monday night, so she’s not here to save you. Shut the door behind you.” Liana headed upstairs.

  Liana sat on the edge of her bed, twirling her engagement ring, somewhat relieved that she had gotten it back. When she officially broke up with Ron and he asked for it back, she didn’t want him thinking she was running game on him to keep it by telling him that the ring was one of the items she was robbed of when she was carjacked. Liana sighed when she saw Wayne leaning against her doorframe.

  “You really need to go,” she said, looking away from him. She looked up at him when she felt his hand on her shoulder. “Wayne, please, you need to go.”

  When she looked into his eyes, she felt like she was transported to a plane where nothing or no one existed but them; and the only thing from reality that followed them to this vacuum of time was the words from Floetry flowing out of the CD player.

  It’s getting late…why you got to be here, beside me…watching, needing, and wanting me…

  Wayne leaned in to kiss her. No. Liana eyes fluttered. I’m not going to let this happen. I can’t let this happen. I refuse to let this happen. It took every ounce of her willpower to turn her face one degree to the left. Wayne’s lips grazed the corner of her mouth, and kept going until they touched down on her neck.

  Wayne’s kiss jump-started feelings in her that she’d buried long ago. She tilted her head back, as if in a trance and gave Wayne the most sensitive part of her neck. She wrapped her arms around his waist, and drew herself to him, fitting into his embrace like the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle.

  Wayne nibbled his way up her neck, all the way up to her earlobe. He reached up and held her face in his hands, and gently kissed the bruise on her cheek and then the one on her jaw, while she rubbed the backs of his hands. She stopped short when she felt his swollen knuckles and looked at them. She smiled. “You did put the beats on him.”

  Wayne winked. “Like he stole something.”

  “What happened to two wrongs don’t make a right?”

  “They don’t, but I believe in an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.”

  Liana stood on her tiptoes, and ran her lips across his before sliding her tongue into his mouth. She desperately needed to taste him. Wayne’s hands slipped down her sides to her hips and then around her butt. He pulled her body against his so she could feel his hardness. Liana gently pressed against it, letting him know she felt it, and wanted to feel more of it. Wayne slid the robe off her shoulders and unsnapped her bra so quick that Liana’s breath got caught in her throat.

  “Too fast,” she said, breathless. “Way, too fast.”

  Wayne looked her in the eyes. “You’ve been back in town for a month. I say we’ve been moving too slow.” He slid her bra straps off her shoulders and smiled when she let the robe and bra fall to the floor. He looked at her erect nipples, and goose bumps appearing all over her body. “So beautiful,” he whispered, as he bent down and ran his tongue over her left nipple.

  Liana grabbed him by the back of the head and pulled him to the bed. She lay back as he continued to suck on her breasts.

  Wayne worked his way down her stomach, then to her belly button. As he ventured lower, Liana’s legs began to shake with anticipation. Wayne moved her panties to the side and stared at her glistening pearl. The heat of his breath moistened the most sensitive part of Liana’s body, causing her to arch her pelvis to his mouth. When he grazed her pink pearl with his tongue, Liana’s soul damn near leaped out of her body. Wayne’s second graze made her cry out. She clinched her teeth and grabbed a fistful of sheets while Wayne licked and sucked on her ravenously. He got energized off her juices as if he was swallowing pure adrenaline. When Wayne stood to take off his shirt, Liana sat up and started unbuttoning his pants. She pulled down his pants and underwear in one swoop, and gasped when Wayne’s manhood jumped out at her. She had forgotten how long and thick he was.

  Wayne pushed her back onto the bed and climbed between her legs. He rubbed his shaft up and down her opening, lubricating himself with her juices.

  Liana could feel her walls stretching to the limit as Wayne sunk into her. She tried to relax as he sank deeper and deeper until he hit rock bottom.

  She winced as she nibbled on his ear. “God, Wayne, I can feel you in my stomach.” She opened her legs wider as their bodies harmonized like R&B. They took turns sucking on each other’s tongues as the tempo picked up. Then the unimaginable happened. Liana felt Wayne getting bigger. She wrapped her legs around his waist and matched his thrusts. With a deep sigh, Wayne released inside of her. His spasms sent jolts of ecstasy through Liana causing her to come, and come, and come.

  They lay motionless, listening to each other’s heartbeat.

  Liana gasped as Wayne stirred inside her. “You need to pull out of me, you too damn big to be lying up in there.”

  “You used to let me lay up in you.”

  “It’s been a while since I had you inside me.”

  “You mean it’s been a while since you had something like this inside you.”

  “Get off me,” she said, blushing at his true statement.

  Wayne lay on his back and allowed her to lie on his chest and close her eyes.

  “What just happened?” she asked, rubbing his stomach.

  “Something that should’ve never stopped happening.”

  “I can still feel you inside me.” She lifted her head off his chest, looked into his eyes, and then put her head back down.

  “What?” he asked. “You know I can’t stand when you do that.”

  “I was going to tell you something, but I changed my mind.”

  “Liana!”

  She smil
ed. “Promise me your head won’t swell up.”

  “I promise.”

  “You’re the only man I’ve ever been able to come with back to back.” Liana sucked her teeth. “I should’ve never told you that.”

  “Remember our first time together?” Wayne whispered.

  “Yeah, it was right in this room, on my pink Barbie sheets. We were fourteen, and we had no idea what we were doing.”

  “Remember the promise we made to one another?”

  Liana didn’t answer.

  “Do you?”

  “We promised that we would be each other’s first… and last.”

  Wayne took a deep breath. “I never broke that promise.”

  Liana looked up at him in disbelief. “So, you mean to tell me you had sex with other women, fucked other women, but you just never made love to other women?”

  “What I’m telling you is the only woman I ever had sex with, fucked or made love to was you.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  Liana got quiet for a moment. “I wanted you to be my first and my last, but—”

  “Don’t even say it, Liana.”

  “You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”

  “Let’s not go through this, not after the trip we just took.”

  “If you would just put yourself in my shoes, just for a minute, and try to understand what I was going through.”

  “Here we go,” Wayne said with a groan. “Let’s blame it on me, once again.”

  “How can you be so cold?” Liana pushed away from him. “You didn’t have a child growing inside you.”

  “Liana—”

  “And your father wasn’t up for parole.”

  “You were only two years old when your father went to prison.”

  “He killed my mother, Wayne! Why can’t you understand how that affected me? Why can’t you see that the stress of him coming home, and you pressuring me to get an abortion caused me to have a miscarriage?”

  “Liana—”

  “Don’t touch me.” She turned her back toward him. “You were glad I had a miscarriage.”

  “Now, that was cold.”

  “But it’s the truth. When you found out I was pregnant, you tried to convince me to get an abortion, but when you realized I wasn’t going to kill my baby you had no choice but to go along with it.”

  They lay in silence. Wayne knew there was nothing he could say that would change her mind about the events that happened years ago. So, he just lay there, stroking her hair and reminiscing on the events that led to their break up.

  When Liana told him she was pregnant, Wayne was elated initially. But reality slowly set in. They were sixteen and didn’t know the first thing about raising a child. He tried to get Liana to see that, but all she heard was abortion. Then, as if Liana’s situation wasn’t stressful enough, Nana had sat her down and for the first time told her the full story behind her mother’s death and how her father was responsible.

  Liana’s father was hooked on crack and then got her mother hooked. Then he started pimping her out to support their habit. One night, two men were having their way with her while Lee sat in the next room blasted out of his mind. The next morning when he woke up to use the bathroom, he discovered Anna sprawled out on the floor, dead. He called the police and then sat there on the bathroom floor hugging her and crying until the police arrived.

  Liana wondered why Nana had decided to tell her the full details of what happened. Her question was answered when Nana dropped the bomb. Liana’s father was going to the parole board, and there was a strong possibility that he was going to be released. Between the stress of being pregnant at sixteen, Wayne riding her to have an abortion, and the possibility of her father being released, she had a miscarriage. Mad at the world, Liana broke up with Wayne and went away to college for two years. As fate would have it, her father didn’t make the parole board. Liana believed it had something to do with the letter she wrote to them.

  Liana moved back to Albany two years later, after obtaining an associate degree and got a job at BJs until she could find something more rewarding. In the process, she hooked back up with Wayne, and they got engaged.

  Liana’s life couldn’t get any better. But then one day she received a letter from her father. She immediately dropped it and backed away. Wayne, not knowing what was going on, picked it up and read it. Her father was trying his best to express how sorry he was for what he did and how he was confident that he was going to make the upcoming parole board and couldn’t wait to see her face to face so he could apologize for all the hurt and pain he knew he caused her. When Wayne tried reading the letter to Liana, she cut him off, ran to the bedroom, and slammed the door.

  Wayne remembered standing there in the middle of the living room stuck on stupid, wishing he could kick himself in the butt. Unbeknown to Liana, Wayne’s father was doing a bid for selling cocaine to an undercover. He just so happened to meet up with Liana’s father in Clinton Correctional Facility. Wayne thought it would be a good idea to have Liana’s father write her a letter. His idea was the worst he ever had. Three days later, Liana had a nervous breakdown.

  In the hospital, when Liana finally had a chance to talk to Wayne alone, she explained to him that she couldn’t be in Albany when her father was released. Wayne didn’t understand what she was getting at until she just came out and asked him to move away with her. Wayne remembered telling her that he was born and raised in Albany, and that he couldn’t just up and leave his family. He tried to convince Liana that she was overreacting but she was adamant about leaving Albany, with or without him.

  As fate would have it, Ron, a guy who had been trying to get with Liana, called the hospital to see how she was doing. Liana broke down and explained her situation to him. He told her that he was moving to California in three weeks; and quickly added that she was more than welcome to come.

  Liana called everybody, except Wayne, and told them the wedding was off. She packed her stuff and moved to California with Ron, and left Nana to do the dirty work of telling Wayne that the wedding was off and that she had moved away.

  Liana’s father didn’t make the board, once again, but Liana couldn’t bring herself to come back to Albany and face the only man she ever loved. So, she got engaged to Ron and tried to make their relationship work, only Ron failed to mention that he was still sleeping with his baby mama.

  Meanwhile, Wayne was left to mend his shattered heart for the second time. This time around, he realized that the more something is broken and put back together, the more fragile it becomes. Wayne swore he was done with Liana. That was until he saw her at the Palace Theatre. He knew from the moment he spotted her that he couldn’t help himself. He would always welcome her back into his life with open arms.

  Liana turned over and put her head back on his chest, bringing Wayne back from his trip down memory lane. “I’m so sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For what I said. It was kind of cold.”

  Wayne grabbed her right hand, and twirled the engagement ring on her finger. “So, where do we go from here?”

  Liana took it off and tossed it on the nightstand. “Wherever our souls take us.”

  CHAPTER 7

  The next morning Liana and Wayne were jarred awake when the bedroom door banged open against the wall.

  “Oh… my… God,” Elizabeth gasped as she stopped short. Jenna and Reese pushed past her to see what stumped her in her tracks.

  “Here we are, bawling with tears and busting our asses to get over here to check up on you, and you’re laid up with… him,” Elizabeth said, almost retching.

  “C’mon,” Jenna said, tugging Elizabeth and Reese by the crook of their arms. “We’ll be back when you two are decent.”

  As Jenna pulled them out of the room, Elizabeth looked at Wayne as if he was vermin. Reese’s eyes stayed glued to the crumpled part of the sheets that were doing a poor job of concealing Wayne’s morning erec
tion.

  “Your friends are out of control,” Wayne said to Liana when the girls left the room. “They just walk into your room without knocking or warning?”

  “That’s how they are. Nana probably let them in, not knowing you were here.” Liana got out of bed and started picking his clothes off the floor, and tossing them at him. “You have to go.”

  “Wow! Use me, abuse me, and then kick me out like I’m some man whore.”

  She leaned over and kissed him. “You’re not some man whore. You’re my man whore, and don’t you forget it.”

  Wayne got dressed, and then turned on his phone. He didn’t even have time to clip it onto his belt before it began sounding off like an angry housewife. “Dad, what up?”

  “What up? Today’s my day off, that’s what’s up. And because you were nowhere to be found, I’m working my ass off on my day off. That’s what’s up. Where are you?”

  “I’m on my way.”

  “That’s not what I asked you.”

  “I’m at Nana’s.”

  “Nana’s? Oh… Nana’s. So the reason why I’m busting my ass on my day off is because you were in some pussy all night?”

  “Muslims don’t talk like that, Dad.”

  “Don’t tell me how I’m supposed to talk. I’m at the Bookman’s. Hurry up and get your ass over here so I can go back home.”

  Wayne hung up and called Cee at the garage to find out what time he could come by and pick up Liana’s truck so he could start working on it. Cee told him that he’d already come by and was working on the truck as they spoke.

  “You don’t play no games, huh?” Wayne said impressed.

  “I aims to please Massa,” Cee said, impersonating one of his ancestors back on the plantation.

  Wayne pecked Liana on the cheek and got on his way to the Bookman’s. When he got to the corner, his cell phone rang.

  “You didn’t get enough of me?” he said when he answered it.

  “Well, seeing how I don’t have any transportation, I was wondering if you could come by later and give me a ride to work.”

  “Work? You’re supposed to be on bed rest.”

  “I was supposed to be on bed rest last night, but that didn’t stop you from riding me like a race horse.”