“I understand. She just sometimes gets down about it, that’s all. Sometimes I get down about it.”
“I know you do. And I’m real sorry for that. But I appreciate how you try to keep my spirits up, Holdin’ all your own shit in.” Rick gave a short laugh. “You always did that. Held stuff in.”
“Sometimes you’ve got to. Or you’ll come completely apart,” Ryann said.
“Or maybe you just gotta find an outlet. Something to take some of the pressure off. What folks be doin’ these days? Aerobics? Yoga? Do some a’ that.”
Ryann laughed, and imagined Rick smiling in return. “Don’t worry, I have an outlet,” she said, thinking of the men she occasionally lassoed and brought home with her.
“You got a man?” Rick asked, as always astute. “Some big-head who work for a bank or some shit?”
“Nope.”
The recorded voice interrupted them, letting them know the call was about to be disconnected and Ryann felt the familiar sadness. Each time they talked on the phone, she began the call with reluctance, because it reminded her of what he had done, where he was, and what his life was like now.
But then they started talking and within seconds, it was just her and Rick, talking … the way they always had—comfortably, affectionately. And she would almost forget for a minute or two, what his circumstances were.
But then that damned voice would come across the line, and remind her.
“I gotta go,” he said. His voice sounded tight, so Ryann knew she wasn’t the only one holding things in.
“I know. I love you,” she said.
He was the only person she ever said that to, with all the feeling those words deserved and without an undercurrent of irony, or a harsh tone to dilute the sentiment.
“I lo…”
The phone went dead.
Taking a deep breath, Ryann stood on the patio for a moment to collect herself. She let her head fall back and looked up at the purple sky. It wasn’t yet completely dark, and she could still see the clouds. It was that magic hour when the sun and moon were both visible. One retreating while the other waited in the wings.
Turning, she went back into the house.
Spencer was seated once again, but this time on the sofa, still eating. He looked up when she entered.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“Yeah. Fine.” Ryann pursed her lips because she had a sudden inexplicable urge to tell him about Rick. And no one knew about Rick, not even Ivy.
She sat next to Spencer and saw that he had replenished her food, and the cartons were sitting on the table as well.
“So, what were we saying before the phone rang?” Ryann asked, trying to distract him from her shift in mood.
Spencer looked at her for a few long seconds. “Doesn’t matter.”
“How’d you get a name like ‘Spencer’ anyway?” she asked, lightening her tone. “I bet it got you into more than a few fights as a kid.”
He laughed. “Yeah, it did. But I held my own.”
Ryann smiled back. “I’m sure. Any siblings?”
“Two sisters. Joyce and May. Both older.”
“Wow. Your parents were into the old-fashioned names, huh? I mean we were late seventies babies. I would’ve thought you’d get a fashionable name for that time, like DaQuan, and your sisters would be Tiffany and Treniece.”
Spencer laughed again. He had a deep, rumbling, straight-from-the-soul kind of laugh. Just listening to it lifted her spirits. And he had perfectly white, very straight teeth. It made him look young, even though his laugh created lines at the corners of his eyes.
“PKs. Preachers’ kids don’t get anything fashionable.”
“You’re a PK?” Ryann turned in her seat and looked at him head-on.
Spencer nodded, and then she thought she saw something fleeting cross his face. Like regret.
“Are you still close to your father?”
“Mother. My mother was the preacher. My father used to be as well, then …” his voice trailed off.
“Okay. Now the plot thickens,” Ryann turned completely around now, sitting cross-legged on the sofa and facing Spencer, watching as he shoveled more of the noodles and rice into his mouth. “You’re going to have to tell me what that was like growing up. So, did she have a church, or …?”
“Yeah, but that was later. First, she just had a degree in theology, and worked in a library. She was a scholar of the Bible. Then she met my father, who was like a storefront preacher. Had no formal training but was anointed. Or at least that’s what people said.” His tone was ironic, as though he personally was not a believer in his father’s anointing. “He and my mother got married, had some kids, and built the church with him at the forefront, her in the background.”
“You said he ‘used to be a preacher’ as well,” Ryann pointed out. “What happened?”
“You know what it can be like in the church,” Spencer said matter-of-factly. “Women making up eighty percent of the congregation, turning all that worship for God and transferring it to the pastor. He fell victim to that.” Spencer shrugged.
Ryann gave a short laugh. “So, you’re telling me he got involved with women in the church. And you think he was the victim in that scenario?”
“Yeah.” Spencer turned his golden eyes in her direction. “Not of the women, necessarily. But of pride, arrogance …”
“Okay, ‘cause you and me was gon’ have to duke that one out if you said the women were at fault. I don’t like to talk bad ‘bout nobody’s daddy, but …”
“Don’t worry. I’m done defending him.”
“But you used to?”
Spencer nodded and put down his fork. Reaching for a napkin, he wiped both his hands and leaned back, spreading his arms along the back of the sofa. One arm was close to Ryann’s shoulder. She was painfully aware of it there.
“I used to,” he confirmed. “But hold up. We’re diggin’ all into my family history. Tell me a little bit about yours.”
“Fair enough. But finish the story first. What happened with your father and mother?”
“Eighteen-year old girl in the choir, Leslie Sampson, got pregnant. Showed up at our house one day after dinner and told my mother. My father denied it could be his. And my mother told Leslie, ‘I’m sorry, but I have to believe pastor.’ And that set Leslie off. After that, she told anyone who would listen.
“But Leslie was That Girl, so people didn’t believe her at first. And I definitely didn’t believe her. I was maybe fourteen and already I’d heard about Leslie. How she let boys ‘do it’ to her, how Jason Lord put his hand in her panties during a church trip … shit like that. And my Dad was a target. He was a light-skinned, light-eyed brother back when that shit made people think you were handsome automatically.”
Ryann laughed at that. “So what changed people’s minds and made them believe her?”
“A couple other women came forward. Not in the open, but telling their girlfriends, things like that. So, the rumors were flyin’ and the congregation was dwindling each Sunday. My parents were fightin’ all the time. Then Leslie started to show and all the women were out there speculating on how pregnant she was. And whether she had to have been seventeen when it happened. And shit … after that, the wolves descended. People were talking about him stepping down as pastor and all that.”
Thinking about how difficult that had to have been for his family, his sisters and mother, Ryann touched his thigh. Spencer looked surprised, but her touch seemed to spur him on, give him the reassurance he needed to finish his story.
“Then one night when they were having another of their blowout fights, my father said something that changed the whole game. My mother was saying how disgraceful it was, and that Leslie was a child. ‘A child!’ she kept saying. And then my father said, ‘the age of consent in Virginia is seventeen.’”
Ryann gave a soft gasp. “So he admitted it?”
“I don’t think he meant to,” Spencer said ruefully. “But in the
heat of the moment, his justification to himself slipped out, I guess. And after that, it was done. Both of them got real quiet and the fight was over. A week later, my father left. With one of the women in the congregation—someone no one even knew he was involved with because she didn’t say a word—and some money, too. Half the money in my parents’ shared account, and some from the church as well.”
Ryann squeezed his leg. “Did you ever see him again?”
“Oh yeah. He didn’t go far. We were in Hampton, Virginia. He moved here. To DC. My mother didn’t press charges about the church money. She didn’t even tell anyone. She just quit her day-job and set about rebuilding the church without him. Succeeded too.”
“And how were you and your sisters? How did …?”
“They took my mother’s side, the way girls will. The way I should have. But I was mad, not at him, but at her. I mean, the way I saw it then? Leslie was a little ‘ho and it was all her fault. I didn’t let myself believe there were others. So, while my mother was rebuilding the church, working long hours, doin’ community outreach? And while my sisters were supporting her, I was rebelling. Runnin’ amok. Giving them all kinds of hell. And then when I turned sixteen, I moved to DC to live with my father and gave him some hell too.” Spencer reached for his wineglass and emptied it, then turned to look at Ryann. “And that’s it.”
“That’s a lot.”
“It was a long time ago,” Spencer said shrugging.
Ryann wanted to ask him if he was sure. She, of all people, knew how easy it was to carry things around for years and years, telling yourself you were ‘over it’ because you managed not to think about it. And then later discovering that the things you thought you were ‘over’ had been the most influential factors determining how you lived your life.
Standing, she extended a hand to him. “C’mon,” she said.
“Where to?”
She said nothing, but shifted her eyes in the direction of the stairs and then back again.
“Am I being rewarded for somethin’?”
“Call it what you want,” Ryann said, her eyes fixed on his. “But the offer’s only open for another thirty seconds, Spencer.”
Spencer appeared sculpted out of stone. The ridges of his chest, the ripples and bumps on his stomach were almost unreal. Like his choices in clothing, Spencer seemed to be fashioning his physical self as well, aiming for his idea of perfection. While he had a long way to go as far as attire was concerned, he had clearly been following a winning playbook to perfect his body.
They were on their knees, facing each other in the center of Ryann’s bed and Spencer had shed his shirt. Reaching out, she ran the tips of her fingers across his chest, down his sternum, following the line of fine hair down the center of his body. He was so still, it almost seemed he wasn’t breathing, but for the slight rise and fall of his shoulders.
When her fingers reached the waistband of his jeans, Spencer captured her wrist and tugged her toward him. Ryann leaned in, and they kissed. His lips, like hers, were full so their kisses were luxurious, wanton, and softly satisfying. They remembered instinctively what to do; so there were no clacking teeth, awkward changes of position or moments of hesitation. They fit.
Ryann’s heartbeat sped up. Low in her stomach and farther below, a warm familiar feeling pooled. Spencer lay back, pulling her on top of him, his lips still playing with and teasing hers, his tongue still moving against hers. Sometime, somehow, the red t-shirt was removed, and Ryann shrugged free of her bra when Spencer released the clasps in the rear. She raised herself to a sitting position, straddling his pelvis and then sliding backward to sit on his thighs. He watched her with a small smile as she undid the button-fly of his jeans and moved further backward, peeling away the jeans and boxer briefs beneath.
Fully tumescent, he was thick, heavy, and impressive in size. He was the man a group of girlfriends would giggle about over a bottle of wine, expressing their skepticism about whether they could ‘take all that.’ He was the man whose shoulders you gripped, digging your fingernails into his skin, urging him to go slow, give you a minute … take it just a little bit easy. But Ryann liked to walk that line between pleasure and pain, loved the feeling of being fully-occupied, and stretched almost to her limit.
Sitting back on her butt, she lifted her hips long enough to remove her leggings and underwear then positioned herself above Spencer, one knee on either side of him. He reached up and stroked her, and she closed her eyes, concentrating on the swirling sensation of his fingers and her own increasingly wet slickness.
Lowering herself onto him, she opened her eyes, just to see the almost vacant look of pleasure that descended over his features whenever she did this. When she arched her back, pressing her chest forward, he sat up, taking a nipple in his mouth, sucking it hard, so she grimaced. Both his hands gripped her full, wide hips, digging into the flesh, and pulling her fully onto him. Ryann gasped in pleasure-pain and Spencer held still for a few moments, waiting for her to soak him in. Then one hand fell between them and he stroked her again, helping her along on the process of softening for him, receiving him.
Ryann had learned long ago not to compare sexual partners, not to rate or rank them. Every man was different, and when the sex was good, there was no good, better, or best. Except … there was something about Spencer, and the watchful attentiveness he put into making love to her. He was patient, indefatigable and so, so strong. Ryann felt the coiled strength in his arms when they were locked around her, and the trembling tension in his legs and thighs when he was ploughing into her. And the rigid restraint in his arms, neck and shoulders when he wanted to go faster, harder, longer, but knew that she was spent.
Now, he remained almost still, simply stroking her, as she lifted and fell, arching, and bowing her back. Content to let her move the way she wanted, he concentrated on kissing her across her chest and playing with her nipples, using the tip of his tongue.
“Damn,” Spencer breathed. “I wanna see if you taste just as good as you feel.”
“No,” Ryann said, bowing toward him and clenching her thighs. “Not tonight. Tonight, I just want you like this. That’s all. I want you to make it hurt …”
Inside her, she felt Spencer twitch.
“And if you fuckin’ come, I will kill you,” she said.
He laughed. “I got a little bit more in me,” he said. “G’on. Do your thing …”
At that, Ryann grabbed his hands, prying them loose of her ass and shoving him backward, so he was lying supine once again.
Getting up off her knees, keeping him inside her, she instead sat with her full weight on him, feeling him touch a spot deep inside that gave her a strange tingle. Her eyes shut and she groaned. She needed leverage to move, so she grabbed his hands again, lacing her fingers through his, and moved up and down, in motions reminiscent of the deep squats she hated on those very rare occasions she made it to the gym.
“Damn, girl …” Spencer lifted off the bed, thrusting to meet her, and soon they found a rhythm that had them both moaning and grunting out an erotic symphony.
As their pace increased, so did the pressure and heat between Ryann’s legs. Spencer was coming apart too, she could tell, as his rhythm faltered and became more frantic.
“You comin’?” he asked in a deep breath, his voice urgent.
“No,” Ryann lied. “Don’t stop … Harder. Fuck me harder.”
Making a sound of impatience, Spencer released her hands and grabbed her hips again, flipping her almost effortlessly onto her back and grabbing her by one calf, hoisting the leg over his shoulder.
“Well you’re about to come now,” he said.
And as though he had commanded it, Ryann’s orgasm was upon her, and she was screaming, gripping both Spencer’s shoulders and giving herself over to it. Moments later, he tensed and let loose a loud curse, collapsing atop of her, chest heaving. After a moment, he lifted his head, then his torso, and cradled Ryann’s head between his forearms. He looked down
at her and bit his lower lip, shaking his head from side to side.
Smiling at him, Ryann tipped her chin upward and Spencer grinned, leaning in for a long, deep kiss.
“Hey.”
Ryann moaned and turned away from his voice. It wasn’t that late, probably, but she didn’t feel like getting up. Spencer had worn her out in the best of ways, and she intended to now get the long night’s sleep she was due.
“Ryann.”
“What?” she murmured testily. “You can let yourself out. The door locks when you shut it.”
“Ryann, get up.” His hand rested on her shoulder.
“Dammit, Spencer, what?” She batted the hand away, and sat up.
He was already up, and standing next to the bed, naked. The room was still partly lit, by the dim lamp near her walk-in closet. He was looking down at her, at the bed. Ryann followed his gaze and her eyes opened wide. Grappling next to her, she reached for the bedside lamp and cast the sheets further aside.
There, on the bed, was the unmistakable sign of blood. Deep crimson and stark against her light-blue fitted sheets. Opening her legs a little, she saw that there was more, staining her inner thighs. And just like that, her heart broke.
Her period.
She was late, but not pregnant.
Looking up at Spencer, she saw that his face was almost ashen. “You don’t think we …”
“Knocked the baby loose?” Ryann said dryly. “No. Looks like it was just a false alarm all along.” Taking a deep breath, she put the back of a hand to her forehead and sighed. Turning away from him, she lowered her feet to the floor on the side of the bed opposite Spencer so she wouldn’t have to look at him.
“What do you need me to do?” he asked.
Ryann paused for a moment. As strong as he was, she didn’t doubt that like most men he was weak and ridiculous when it came to women’s menstrual cycles. She didn’t need him to do anything, for God’s sake. She’d been having her period since she was twelve-years old.
“Leave,” she said, her voice flat. “I need you to just … leave.”
The Lover Page 5