by Dr. Xyz
Carlos escorted Nicola into the luxurious lobby of the recently renovated Ritz-Carlton. After a brief checkin, a uniformed concierge and bellman personally escorted them up to the most expensive suite in the five-star hotel. It boasted the best in European-inspired décor. With crystal chandeliers in the dining area, a telescope that magnified a magnificent view of Central Park, and a massive Louis the Fourteenth bed covered with the finest Egyptian cotton to be found on the planet, Carlos was certain he’d spent his fivethousand dollars well.
He had planned this evening to be extra special. He had scheduled breakfast in bed for the next morning and a carriage ride around Central Park afterward, which he hoped would be the perfect way to end their first “sleep-over” together.
Carlos dismissed the private valet. He wanted complete privacy with his lady. Once alone, he triumphantly turned around to Nicola, thinking she had been properly impressed and asked, “Well, how do you like it?”
She went over to the California king-sized bed, sat on it, bounced up and down to check the mattress out, and simply said, “Good solid springs. We should have lots of fun on this.”
Not getting the response he expected, Carlos shrugged his shoulders and opened a magnum of Dom Pérignon that he had ordered especially for the occasion. He poured the bubbly champagne into two crystal flutes. Interlocking their arms, they sipped the liquid in unison. Room service interrupted and rolled in the finest beluga caviar and a tray of chocolate-dipped strawberries.
He used the pearl-lined spoon to spread the fish eggs on a toast point and popped it into Nicola’s awaiting mouth. A few crumbs fell down her décolletage. His eager tongue licked them off. The tiniest of moans escaped from the back of Nicola’s throat.
Never taking her eyes off of him, she reached for a strawberry and dropped it into Carlos’s hungry mouth. Red, sticky, sweet juice seeped out. Nicola greedily lapped up every drop. Back and forth, they fed each other in an erotically charged “dance.”
A half-hour later, the bottle was empty and the food was gone. They were both giddy and seemingly ready to consummate their relationship. Nicola kissed Carlos on the forehead and disappeared into the bathroom to prepare for the evening’s activities.
As she shut the door behind her, Carlos scratched his bald head. It was hard for him to read Nicola. With other females, he could always figure out their entire game. It was usually so transparent and weak that after the sex, he was finished with the woman.
Nicola seemed to be impressed by the surroundings. She seemed to be enjoying herself with him but, at the same time, she also seemed bored.
Had she been here before with someone else? Had her rich ex-husband taken her to five-star hotels before? Was this entire scene too blasé? The thoughts gnawed at him as his level of anxiety spiraled upward. But no, Carlos rejected the notion that she was bored. It was a ridiculous idea. Carlos laughed at his insecure musings. How could she not want him? He had planned the perfect evening. Of course she was having a good time. No, Nicola was having a great time with him.
Yes, everything was indeed perfect, except for one thing. Carlos totally underestimated the combined effect an entire bottle of champagne and only three hours of sleep in the last two days would have on his body. While waiting for Nicola to come out of the bathroom, he convinced himself that stealing a few moments of REM would be just what the doctor ordered. Poor Carlos. Sleep attacked him like a hungry lion attacks a piece of freshly killed meat.
Nicola prepared for their night together in the luxurious bathroom. It was completely covered with the best Italian marble. The fixtures were all fourteen-carat gold. She languished in the spacious Jacuzzi tub and soaked in water scented with essence of lavender. The hotel had spared no expense to provide only the best bath oils and soap.
She stepped out of the tub and entered the shower stall, where over twenty strategically positioned jets engulfed her in a cool mist of water that immediately reinvigorated her senses. Wanting company, she called out to Carlos to join her in the shower. He never responded.
Nicola emerged from the bathroom covered in a white, thick terrycloth robe and discovered Carlos sprawled out on the bed virtually unresponsive. She tried everything to revive him; took off all of his clothes; even massaged every erotic site on the male body. Nicola knew them all. The only response she got was when she thought she heard him say, “I don’t want any ice cream. I don’t like ice cream.” He was dead to the world.
Staring at Carlos’s strikingly handsome face, his six-foot lean muscular body and a limp dick that even non-erect was frightfully huge, she shook her head in disappointment. Pissed and horny as hell, she admitted to herself, Damn, I should have dumped him for the brother.
He had tried so hard to impress her with the hotel room. She didn’t have the heart to tell the boy that in the first year of their marriage, she and Harrison had virtually lived at the Ritz. Carlos was so full of himself. She was slowly growing bored with his “mini record mogul” persona. He really needed to score big in the bed if he wanted Nicola to stick around.
She compared him with her ex-husband. Say what she might about him, Harrison never bored her. His entrepreneurial exploits and the life they were able to live because of the fringe benefits associated with wealth, made life exciting for her. The cruelest of ironies was, though she had been thoroughly satisfied with their relationship, Harrison obviously wasn’t.
He craved something she could never provide him. Just like Carlos couldn’t give her what she so desperately needed at that moment. A good, long, deep screw. Her little G-Spot was throbbing just looking at the lusciousness that lived between Carlos’s legs. She smiled. Maybe, just maybe, she’d have to give the boy another chance.
Not wanting to waste a perfectly good night, she decided to get dressed and cruise the neighborhood clubs. There were a few in the area. Maybe she’d get lucky and find a real hunk. She wrote a quick note for Carlos and stepped out into the night. Like a hunter on an African safari, Nicola was out for wild game…the kind that could screw her all night long.
Carlos awoke the next morning with a monster of a headache. He reached out for Nicola only to discover the note she had left behind on the night table: “Sorry we missed our first night together. There will be others. Kisses, Nicola.”
Carlos banged his head against the bedpost. “Damn, damn, damn!” How could his body betray him so? What the hell could Nicola possibly be thinking about him now? None of it could be good. He tried to reach her on her cell phone, but she didn’t answer.
His only message was from Tarik, reminding him of their early afternoon meeting with Uncle Link, their family’s attorney. He’d totally forgotten about the whole affair when he had planned the evening with Nicola. Maybe her “early departure” was a good thing. Quickly chasing away that thought, he entertained the notion of canceling with the guys and stopping by her house.
But business was business. He decided to go forward with the meeting. They were too close to the finish line for him to start acting wishy-washy now. Nicola would have to understand.
But where had she gone in the middle of the night? Why couldn’t she have stayed with him and been there in the morning? Where else or who else could have been more important than the two of them being together, even if he was dead sleep? Who was she with? Was she with another man? Was she with someone she cared about more than him? Did she even care about him at all?
The thoughts about Nicola’s loyalty made his head throb with pain. It was so intense, he could barely stand it. He called room service and ordered a painkiller. Waiting for the medicine, he felt like his world was spinning around him.
And then the world stopped moving. That’s when he heard the voice, a clear voice pleading with him. She made me do it, Carlos. Your mama. She made me do it. I loved your mama. I never wanted to hurt her. Really, I didn’t. Just eat your ice cream, boy. It’s your favorite. Eat all of your ice cream.
The voice was so loud and real that he looked around to see if his
father, Hector Salinas, was standing next to him. But Hector was dead. Carlos checked all the rooms in the suite to prove no one was there.
He shook his head and rubbed his eyes. What was happening to him? He hadn’t thought about that day since it had happened eighteen years ago. Why could he hear his father’s voice as if he was in the room? WHY? It made no sense. No sense at all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Ophelia tossed and turned the entire night. She couldn’t get her son out of her mind. Tarik had stormed out of her office without a word when she had told him the news. She hadn’t seen him that angry and confused since she had first explained to him that Pops was not his biological father. It had taken them both a couple of years to straighten things out after that revelation. Tarik was older now. She was sure his response was pure shock and that he’d calm down.
They had tried to find Eli when the then fifteen years old Tarik had first wanted to meet him. He was naturally curious about him. She’d only told him that he was an artist, and that they were incompatible. So many men abandoned their children that it was unnecessary to fill in details. Most of Tarik’s friends were raised by single moms. They usually had very little, if any, contact with their dads. So she fed him the usual dysfunctional couple story. No details. She never told him that Eli was a low down drug addict who had almost killed him because of his negligence.
She also had never told him how she had never loved anyone like she had loved Eli Griffith. Never mentioned that in the first years of their separation, she had prayed he’d clean up his act and rejoin them as a family when he was released from jail. She would have left Pops for him. That was, until Jonathan had come along. When he was born she locked the doors tightly shut on all thoughts of reconciliation.
“I will not think about this shit!” Ophelia shouted out at the night. She pulled herself out of bed, put on her robe and went downstairs to the basement. The stench of beer and wine greeted her nostrils. The party had taken its toll on her usually immaculate space. Surveying the aftermath, she promised, “Tomorrow I will clean this mess, but tonight, I want a little amnesia.”
She headed straight for the bar. Not a real drinker, she did sometimes have an occasional glass of sherry whenever her “nerves” got the best of her. This was one of those times. She poured the dark purple fluid into the one clean crystal goblet she could find.
She laughed. Purple. Eli’s favorite color. It was that damn purple dress she had worn the night they’d met that had attracted Eli in the first place. She laughed even harder as she remembered how she had battled her roommate over the outfit that night and had won the right to wear it. If she had known all of the crap Eli would eventually bring into her life, she wouldn’t have fought as hard.
“Damn the color purple!” she remarked as she drained the glass dry. Still thinking about Eli, she poured more; this time filling it to the brim.
“I need this tonight.” As the alcohol took effect, Ophelia slithered onto the plush sectional couch. Slightly inebriated, all she could think about was how it had all began with her and Eli.
She was only a sophomore when they met. Young and beautiful, she had won the homecoming queen title unanimously. Before she knew Eli, her life had been filled with coming-out parties, trips all over the world with her parents, and attendance at a prestigious prep school in her hometown of Nashville, Tennessee.
Eli was a gorgeous, charming, twenty-five-year-old graduate student majoring in art and political science. He’d spent time in Africa running a program for the Peace Corps. Intelligent and articulate, his professors were convinced his art in time would be in the same company as Romare Bearden, Synthia Saint James and Ernie Barnes.
Ophelia was in love with Eli, and he loved and worshipped Ophelia. She was his “Dahomian” queen. They were inseparable after that first meeting. A year into their relationship, she had moved into his small, spartanly furnished apartment off campus. It was a completely different environment from the bourgeois Jack and Jill world her parents, both physicians, had raised her in. Now it was strictly black Bohemian. She was always in the midst of artists, poets, political activists and intellectuals.
When Ophelia’s mother, Dr. Victoria Rhodes, visited and discovered how her precious daughter lived, she went on a fierce campaign to destroy Eli and Ophelia’s relationship. Her attempts were all in vain. The more she tried to lure her with cars, fancy clothing and trips abroad, the more Ophelia clung to Eli.
At the end of her sophomore year, Ophelia got pregnant with Tarik. Eli begged and pleaded against an abortion. He was convinced it would be a sin to kill God’s tribute to their love. Her friends, who thought Eli was a loser with a capital “L,” begged her to get rid of both the baby and the baby’s daddy. Against Ophelia’s better judgment, she sided with Eli, and decided to go ahead with the pregnancy.
Rising up off the couch, feeling toasty and warm, Ophelia raised her empty glass. Tipsy, she spoke to Eli as if he were there. “That’s when your fine ass started to drift away, old boy. Couldn’t handle the responsibility of being a daddy. And all that…that pot, too. All it did was make you trifling; never finishing shit!”
She found her way to the bar. Emptying the bottle of Harvey’s into the glass, she made a toast. “Here’s to you, Eli… love of my life…” Carrying the drink with extra care, she went upstairs to her bedroom and sat down in her rocking chair. She rocked herself back down memory lane.
When her parents had discovered that she was pregnant, they’d thought they had leverage. They’d proposed to care for Ophelia during the pregnancy back home in Tennessee until the baby was born. She would then leave the baby behind and finish the last two years at Hampton. When Ophelia tried to integrate Eli into the plan, both parents refused. They thought he was bad news, and felt the time apart would make her see things their way.
Eli, who had finally figured out that he was not the kind of daddy that Ophelia wanted him to be, tried to convince her to take her parents’ deal. It was real. He wasn’t. He could never give what they could. He wanted to be with Ophelia but since she was with child, he now understood that she needed more than just his loving ways. She needed things. Things a struggling artist couldn’t really provide.
She had refused her parents’ offer and, instead, she had chosen love.
Ophelia insisted they marry. Eli was not impressed by paper, but since she was his queen, he acquiesced. After a quick no frills ceremony at the courthouse, Mr. and Mrs. Griffith happily moved to Brooklyn, New York, with Eli’s favorite relative, Aunt May. Fortunately for them, she had a recently vacated attic apartment. Their plan was that he’d transfer to a New York City school, finish his masters degree and work at nights. She’d work and go to school part-time until the baby came.
Pregnancy changed Ophelia. She became a responsible disciplined woman. Intent on not accepting any help from family, she saved like a miser, knowing that her contribution to the income stream would dry up in the first few months of the baby’s life.
Eli maintained his Bohemian ways. He hooked up with the artist community right away. Aunt May was strict, so they couldn’t entertain like they had in Virginia. He often partied alone in the city. He never enrolled in school; he didn’t see the point. He tried to convince Ophelia that a true artist didn’t need paper to confirm his talent. No problem, except Ophelia realized that without the structure of an academic environment, Eli never finished a project. He also didn’t like working and couldn’t hold down a job. She knew he loved her and the baby that was coming, but just as her mother had predicted, he was useless as a breadwinner.
So, when their beautiful son, Tarik, was born, they agreed to shift roles. He stayed home with the baby while she worked and finished school.
It actually worked well for a whole year. He took better care of the baby than she did and was a better cook and housekeeper as well. Ophelia liked her job and loved coming home to a clean baby and house and whatever new delicious concoction Eli had conjured up in the kitchen. When the
baby turned six months, Eli started painting seriously again. Some of his work was even beginning to sell at the smaller galleries. He was so proud that he could contribute a few coins from the sale of his artwork. He loved his wife and son. Times were happy for both of them then. Their arrangement worked.
The honeymoon ended when her ultra-bourgeois mother, took a month away from a busy medical practice to “see the grandbaby.” She caused sheer havoc in their household. She criticized everything Eli did or didn’t do. She went out of her way to provoke him, hoping to unleash the tyrant she felt lurked deep in his persona. It was futile. There was no ogre hiding within Eli. Just more love. He never showed anger. He always thought it was a waste of creative energy.
This only irritated Ophelia’s mother even more, for she interpreted his non-confrontational behavior as additional proof of his weakness. She engaged a vicious campaign to convince Ophelia that there was something very wrong with a wife being the major breadwinner while the husband sat home on his ass doing “nothing but coloring with his crayons,” as she referred to Eli’s craft.
When the month-long visit was over, Ophelia insisted that Eli go out and get a real job. Reluctantly, he agreed that they needed more money and he had to be the one to bring it in. Aunt May took care of Tarik while Ophelia quit her job and attended nursing school.
Regular work had never agreed with poor, artistic Eli. He didn’t have that kind of discipline. He smoked, drank more, and hung out with his artistic friends. He spent less time with his family and eventually, no time at work. Seeing their paltry savings evaporate, Ophelia had to take on a graveyard shift at nearby Kings County Hospital.
The burden of school, the job, and raising the baby when she could…grew. Eli was driving her mad. She loved him, but she needed him to be a man; whatever that was. They had awful fights. Or rather she had awful fights. She spent endless hours verbally castrating him, hoping it would shame him into working harder.