The passion in his eyes and his words finally won out.
Slowly turning in his arms, she faced him, her eyes glowing like sapphire. Snaking her hands around his neck, she smiled. His lips were so full and so close to hers and saying all the things she’d long to hear him say. Leveling her soft gaze on him she chuckled, then murmured, “You don’t miss a thing, do you?”
“Not when it comes to you,” he said, searching her lovely face.
“Why me, Ma’Kentu?” she asked, wiping a tear away.
“It’s the vibes you send my way.”
“The vibes?”
“Yes,” he said, his smile answering hers. “I felt them the moment I first laid eyes on you.”
Gazing searchingly into his eyes, she replied, “The moment you laid eyes on me, huh.”
“That very moment, Margo,” he said, with supplication in his voice.
“You’re sure about this?” she questioned.
“Yes, I am sure,” he whispered, probing her eyes.
There was a pause.
“But you’re a musician, Ma’Kentu. You are on the road a lot,” she said, yearning for his lips, lips that were only inches away from hers.
Kissing her forehead and rosy cheeks, as if he were anointing her, he said, “Margo, the life I live as a musician is a very wonderful and exciting life. I wouldn’t trade it for the world, but when the last note is played and the last concertgoer leaves the joint, and the last stage light is shut off, my world is often a very lonely world. Woman, you couldn’t have come into my life at a better time. So please, tell me how you feel about me.”
With her heart pounding wildly and unable to contain her pent up emotions any longer, she nestled into his embrace. “I care about you, Ma’Kentu,” she professed, her vibrant voice whispering lightly against his neck. “I’m just not so sure I’m ready to give you what you’re asking for in return.”
“What is there to be ready for?” he questioned her, pulling away.
“I don’t know. Perhaps it’s the uncertainty of the unknown,” she answered, as her eyes drank him up.
Gripping her loosely by the shoulders, he said, “Margo, there’s always an element of uncertainty in a relationship,” then replied with staid calmness, “Baby, a life without risk is a life without rewards. It’s no different in the arena of love.”
Turning away, she walked slowly over to the center of the room as his eyes followed her anxiously. Standing motionless, with her back to him, she hugged herself, as if to suppress a sudden chill.
Approaching her from behind, he spun her around until they were face-to-face. “Margo, please let’s give it a try,” he uttered, his voice low and full of emotion. “I can’t go on feeling the way I feel for you, and pretend it isn’t so.”
With averted eyes, she looked down and away, saying nothing…revealing nothing.
Ma’Kentu sighed with exasperation then headed for the door. Turning one last time to face her, he saw another tear replace the one she had just wiped away. Opening the door he exited.
Alone now, Margo’s eyes darted nervously back and forth. Matters would be far less complicated if it were not for Charlotte being in the picture, she thought. Her untimely presence was disruptive and it complicated things. This is why she suppressed her true feelings to him. But she also knew that he needed some reassurance that he meant something special to her. Whatever her state of emotional readiness was or wasn’t, she was not about to risk chasing him off.
Several paces into his short-lived walk he heard Margo cry out his name. He immediately stopped, his frozen mind reverberating from the pain and tension-filled emotion that was evident in her strained voice. Like a voice of anguish from afar, her outcry was enough to send a shiver down his spine.
Turning, his guarded eyes clung to hers, analyzing her reaction. He saw tears stream down her flush face like an open faucet.
Closing the distance between them, her voice trembled as she returned his glare. “Please don’t go.”
“I’m still here, baby,” he said emotionally.
”Look, I know I’ve been ambivalent about my feelings. The truth of the matter is, I am not sure what it is I’m feeling. I know I enjoy being around you, talking to you, listening to you play.” Then more mindful, she added, “And I know I want you in my world. I guess what I’m trying to say is…is, ooh God! I can show you better than I can tell you.” With that, she snaked her arms around his shoulders and brought her succulent lips up to meet his in a passionate union, finally giving him the love felt kiss he had longed for.
Without coming up for air, he instinctively wrapped his protective arms around her trembling form until her body was pressed hard against him. A sigh of pleasure escaped her. It was the moment she had longed for, too, to be touching him, kissing him, caressing him, and openly showing her true feelings for him.
“Now, what were you saying about desert?” he mumbled, as he withdrew his lips from hers long enough to inhaled. “Consider it back on the menu,” she chuckled. “Now, hush and kiss me again.” Obliging her, he smothered her lips with his own.
Ma’Kentu smiled, then placed his arms around her gently and guided her back to her room. Margo walked thoughtfully alongside of him. There was a trace of a smile on her face, too. She belonged beside this man. Better yet, she belonged in his arms. “Ma’Kentu, when we get back to my suite, there’s something I want to give you,” she told him.
Gazing into her misty eyes, he wondered what that could be.
Chapter 6
Margo understood the yearning and desire of her youthful vibrant body for this man. It had been a while for her. And she sensed it had been a while for him, too. A warm bloodied woman smitten by love and concupiscence, she was unfulfilled passion waiting to be consumed by a greater passion. And she wanted to believe that Ma’Kentu was the one man capable of fulfilling all of her dreams tonight. She knew because of the way her skin, still sensitized from his touch, continued to tingle and burn. She knew because of her rapid breathing. She knew because her trembling lips craved more of his hot, deep probing kisses. She knew because deep within her awakened loin, the uninhibited woman inside of her craved for the uninhibited man inside of him.
Just as moved and aroused, Ma’Kentu anxiously unfastened the buttons to her blouse, exposing her brassiere-supported breasts. He took a second to marvel at how endowed she was and how perfectly round her breasts were. A classic work of art indeed. Famed sculpture Michelangelo could not have designed them any better.
Exhaling a long breath, he stripped off his shirt, then went for the belt on his trousers. Margo lent a nervous but eager hand, then completely taking over the chore. Briefly, she would lift her chin up to accept his appreciative gaze and his hungry kisses.
As she waited anxiously, an erotic heat wave coursed throughout her passion-starved body as she wondered what it would be like making love to him. With her anticipation mounting, she imagined it being a powerful and rigorously intensive self-indulging workout. Brutal, but not in the real sense of the word, though every bit as satisfying as one could be from such an intense encounter. What she wanted, more than anything else now, was to be consumed by the rapturous flames of his manly desire. The very thought that she was about to be taken and ravished, stirred feelings inside of her she completely forgot she ever had. She wanted him and she wanted him now!
With his muscular dark brown chest exposed, she took pleasure in running her hands over him. She sighed faintly. It felt so good to be touching the warm and rapid breathing chest of a real man, not some unfeeling character in a dream.
As for him, having her perfumed body in his arms, her ravishing lips crushing against his own, was total bliss, a dream come true. What man wouldn’t be anxious to immerse himself in the concupiscent flames of such pent-up desire? Not any he could think of.
Slowly, and with deliberation, he gently unfastened her lacy brassiere. Unceremoniously, he tossed it aside. Bringing his hot mouth over her harden nipple he kissed, teas
ed and pulled gently with his lips until she nearly passed out from the sheer pleasure of it all, then he migrated over to her other awakening nipple. A wet trail of passionate kisses, along the nape of her neck, followed as he whispered how much he cared for her, needed her, and desired her.
He was just about to pull her on top of him when there was a loud ringing. At first he asked her to ignore it. But after several rings, she could take the ringing no more. Frustrated, she rose up, her hair disheveled, and reached for her cell phone. Who could it be, she wondered, placing the receiver to her ear. She looked in his direction and said, “It’s for you.”
“It must be Al,” he grimaced, rising to his feet, wondering what the urgency was. “Since my phone is being repaired, I gave him your number just in case the guys needed to contact me. I was hoping you wouldn’t mind.”
“No, no. It’s alright, darling,” she replied, stroking his arm as he took the phone in hand.
A minute later, he returned the phone to her, his face reflecting a mask of concern.
“What’s wrong,” she asked.
“Little Maceo’s been picked up! He’s in jail. Al said it happened as they were about to leave the concert hall,” he said, reaching for his trousers to slip back into. “Anyway, I have to go down there and try to bail him out. We’re on the road again tomorrow. I can’t leave him here.”
“Why is he in jail? And is he alright?”
“I don’t know, yet.”
“What timing,” Margo uttered with disappointment in her gaze.
“I know,” Ma’Kentu added, pausing to kiss her on glossy wet lips. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright. It really is. Just remember to call me when you find out something,” she said, poignantly.
“I will, sweetheart.”
She dialed the Checker Cab Company, then brewed fresh coffee for him as he dressed and waited. Still riled up, the two tacitly considered going for it, a quickie of sorts, but admitted the moment had been tainted. Besides, they wanted to do it right. When the cab arrived, the two embraced. Tearing his gaze away from her, he departed.
Nearly two hours passed before Margo’s phone came to life. Though not usually the nervous type, the loud shrilling sound of her phone, especially when she was alone, startled her. But it was a new cell phone. Nine days old. With each passing day she wondered whether or not she would ever grow accustom to the unfriendly ringer.
Turning the television off, she sat the remote down and lifted the phone to her ear. It was a much calmer Ma’Kentu speaking. “Hello, Margo,” he said. “Listen, I’m about to leave the police station. I posted bond for Little Maceo. Right now he’s trying to flag down a cab.”
“What happened?” she asked, easing her legs onto the sofa and tucking them under her.
“Apparently there was a bench warrant out on him for non-payment of child-support. I didn’t even know that he had made his mark here, in DC. The man’s something else.”
“How did they know he was in town?”
“Someone from the court system must have gotten wind of our concert.”
“Sounds like your…”
“Yeah, I know it sounds like your typical musician.” he injected, defensively.
“Please, I was going to say that it sounds like your friend may need some professional help. That’s all.”
Realizing that he had just put his foot in his mouth, he quickly apologized.
“That’s alright, darling. I know you’re tired and a little frustrated.”
A little frustrated, he mused. Just two hours earlier he was just a kiss away from consummating his love for Margo. But thanks to Little Maceo’s inability to pass up on a romp in the hay, whatever Margo and Ma’Kentu had in mind would now have to wait.
Sinking back into the sofa Margo closed her eyes. “You know something,” she purred. “I miss you already.”
“I miss you, too, Margo.”
“Coming over afterwards?”
“Honey, you don’t know how bad I want to come over,” he professed. “But right now I have to make sure that Little Maceo gets back to the hotel. Then you and I are going to have a long chat. I’ve got to get this matter with Charlotte and Maceo resolved before we break camp tomorrow to head over to Norfolk.”
“Okay, honey. We’ll talk.”
The cabby asked if it was all right to discard the two now, since he did not want to attempt a U-turn on such a dark narrow road. Ma’Kentu replied that it was cool with him and crawled out of the cab, with Little Maceo in tow. Reaching in, he paid the cabby and shut the door. Stepping back the two watched as the cab lurched forward and disappeared down the asphalt road in a cloud of bellowing black smoke. A tune-up was definitely in order.
Crossing the narrow street the two walked over to the entrance of the luxury hotel. A wooden park bench, next to a young oak tree, was positioned off from the entrance near a vast garden. An amber light affixed to a nearby lamppost softly illuminated the area. The scene seemed more suitable for romance than for an ass-chewing. But that’s the breaks. It had been a long day and the two were weary. Sitting down, they began to talk. “As I said in the cab, Maceo, one’s past usually catches up to him or her sooner or later.”
“I know Bassman,” said Little Maceo, leafing through a fashion magazine he retrieved from the bench. Then more thoughtfully, “You know, I’ve had this problem for a long time. Beautiful women. Every time I think I have it licked, something like this happens. Honestly, I’ve tried protection but the damn things are too tight for my Mac Daddy, if you know what I mean. Hell, you know how much I love to dip, Bassman.”
“Boy, do I know. But Maceo, when are you going to realize that being thrown in jail for non-payment of child-support can get pretty old, pretty tiring, after a while?”
“I’m already tired,” he replied in a strained voice, setting the magazine down beside him.
“Who is she, anyway? The woman who’s claiming child-support from you?”
“Oh, just a crazy Zeak-the-freak dancer I holed up with for a couple of days last year before I met you and joined the band. You remember, Bassman. It was at that three-day music workshop, sponsored by Howard University, where we first met. Man, those were the days. Anyway, I don’t even remember the broad’s name. You know how it is on the road. Now she’s saying that I’m the father of her child. A child I did not even know existed before tonight.”
“It happens all the time, Maceo,” Ma’Kentu added, matter-of-factly. “Especially to guys who live on the edge.”
“But why me, Bassman?”
“Like I said, because you live on the edge, Maceo,” he replied. “And like most players, you take a lot of risks. But more importantly, my friend, you know we’re about to break big on the national scene. Man, we’re so close! Look, Maceo, I need you! The band needs you. But we cannot run the risk of your womanizing getting in the way of our success. You must promise me you’ll put a stop to this. Perhaps see one of those sex therapists.”
Gazing out into the distance, Little Maceo searched his thoughts, then said, “Bassman, it’s like you said. My past is beginning to catch up to me. It’s scary. But you know something? With the exception of the backstage incident in Baltimore I haven’t really done anything lately. I’ve been on my best behavior. Look, I would never do anything to jeopardize the success of the band. I would never do that.”
“Then it is my hope that you will remain with the band and complete the tour.”
“Word up, Bassman. I’m here for you,” he said, rising up. “You know something? When this tour is over, I’m going to see a medical doctor and a therapist. You never know. I might have some sort of hormonal problem or some deeply rooted psychological problem.”
Bemused, Ma’Kentu shook his head, saying, “Little Maceo, I think your only problem is learning self-restraint. That’s all, if you want to ask me.”
“Hey, it’s not easy when you’re blessed where it counts the most. You know the saying…if you don’t use it, you‘ll lo
se it. I just don’t want any of the ladies to miss out on anything. Especially when its hammer-tyme.”
“Heey!” Ma’Kentu leered, finally standing up. “I thought you were being serious about all of this?”
“I am, Bassman.” Little Maceo chuckled. “You know clowning around is just another one of my traits, just as much as women are my passion and weakness. But then, who doesn’t have a weakness? And furthermore, who do you know that doesn’t take an occasional risk?”
Ma’Kentu couldn’t name anyone. But then, he didn’t try to.
As the two walked Little Maceo picked up where he had left off in their conversation.
“You know, there was a time I used to be afraid of taking risks. And it didn’t help that I was born short. Man, when it came to women, the fear of rejection was real, very daunting. You know, there’s humility in rejection and pain associated with being hurt. So, I just kept to myself.”
Understandably, Ma’Kentu asked, “So what changed you? What brought you out of your shell?”
“Playing the sax and growing tired of being alone. You see, it was an aunt of mine who got me to finally realize that one has to be a risk taker if he or she is ever going to enjoy life to the fullest. I also realized that if I was ever going to hook up with women I was going to have to risk possible rejection in order to win them over.”
“That’s for sure,” Ma’Kentu said.
“Fortunately, I learned to make women laugh and feel at ease around me. Only then did they begin to latch onto me. Only then did I begin to build up my confidence. Playing the sax also helped.”
“In what way?”
“People, especially women, began to see me as being larger than life. You know how it is, the groupies, and all. I must admit, I did get kind of carried away over the years.”
“Yes you did. Just promise me you’ll stay out of trouble, at least for tonight, so that I can go to my room and crash. It is getting rather late.”
“Sure, you’ve got my word, Bassman,” he replied in a tone Ma’Kentu thought was just a little too noncommittal. Arriving at their respective suites, the two parted ways. As for his planned rendezvous with Margo, it would have to wait until another day.
Bassment Deep Page 10