Making the Hook-Up

by Cole Riley

  “You must have some past to be so scared of everything,” he said, motioning for her to drink up. “What are you afraid of?”

  “Myself. You wouldn’t understand that. I’ve seen your kind of man before.”

  “What kind of man is that?” he asked, gulping the last of his spirits.

  “The kind of man who no longer believes in anything, not even in himself,” she said. “The kind of man who wants to corrupt and poison everything he touches. Am I right?”

  “Maybe,” he muttered and covered his face with his hands.

  He said nothing else and continued to drink until he became sleepy. She drank one last drink with him and went to the bathroom where she stripped down to her blouse and panties, showered and washed her hair. At first, she wondered what he might do to her, but then he dismissed her fear and surrendered to the gentle spray of water. God was with her. No harm could come to her, not with Him by her side. When she returned, he said she could have the bed, and the sofa would be his for the night. He promised her there would be no funny stuff. It didn’t take long for her to fall asleep. He got up and walked to the bedroom door and stood there, listening to her soft breathing, watching her lying on her side.

  He could see that Elizabeth was truly a splendid woman for a beauty nearing thirty-five, with a pleasing face, great legs and a magnificent, mature set of breasts. The temptation to satisfy his curiosity was so intense that he turned to leave but did not.

  Instead he knelt by her bed and moved his hand lightly along the length of her exposed leg. He continued his explorations of her warm flesh until she sighed in her slumber and flipped on her other side, turning her rear to him. Carefully, he slid under the sheets next to her, still in his underwear, and as soon as his skin touched hers, he felt himself get hard. She was now awake, pretending to be deep in sleep, but every inch of her body was sensitized to his presence. There was no doubt that she wanted him, the first man she’d laid in bed with for longer than she could remember. Far too long.

  Somewhere in the room was the solitary glow of a burning candle. Fortunately, he was not the manner of man who approached lovemaking as a chore to be finished as quickly as possible. His fingers hoisted the back of her blouse, gently unsnapped her bra, then massaged the softness of her shoulders, back and the nape of her neck. It was growing more difficult for her to continue her Sleeping Beauty act, especially when she felt his patient kisses blaze along her spine, on the rise and ebb of her hips and the satin mounds of her rear. His intrusive fingers, his kissing and cuddling, fueled the pitched battle between her desire and virtue. He smiled to himself because her body responded although she fought every impulse to make his task of seduction any easier. For a moment, she barely opened her eyes to drink in his body in shadow, hunched over her with his distended spear of skin in hand. Once inside her, he moved his hips up and down slowly, building her passion skillfully like a campfire, and when he almost slipped out, she twisted under him to hold him fast within her. She swallowed hard with each penetration, shivering but never withdrawing from the power of his thrusts. Something happened inside her. All of her inhibitions in her life no longer mattered. This was a real man, not fantasy but real. The blood roared within his veins, his sex puffed up to a size where it hurt him to be in her, but he couldn’t help himself with the background music of her moaning and talking filthy to him. He felt his seed rise yet he could not come, and she bucked and rolled in frustration on the bed after he withdrew from her without warning.

  With a graceful motion, he lifted her from the bed and carried her kicking to the bathroom where he placed her against the sink, facing away from him. Now he climbed on her, gripping her around the waist as if frightened of being thrown, and danced into her with gyrating hips. There was a touch of something urgent and hysterical in their second coupling. Now at last she felt like a real woman, no longer a prisoner of her past. This unsuspecting man, she knew at that moment, had resurrected all of the emotions pent up by layers of deception, disillusionment and disappointment. He shouted and sagged into the wall behind her, his sex sputtering. Afterward, relishing the wonderful feeling of intimacy between them, they stayed in their individual poses, in the tiny cell of the bathroom, waiting for their hearts to quiet.

  He smiled wickedly. “Was that all right?”

  She laughed and wiped the sweat from her forehead. How could she answer him? Sure, she was grateful for what he had given her but there was no future between them. His face wore an odd hurt expression. She flinched when he took her hand gallantly, kissed it and begged her to stay with him. No answer existed for his questions. In her heart, she felt a tenderness for this stranger who had revived her sensuality, but she fought down an urge to surrender to him and submit to his every wish and command. She answered his probing eyes and questions by putting her arms around his neck, kissing his serious face and crying as she never had for any other man.

  They talked for hours in the darkness, side by side on the bed. Sleep finally came to them both. The sound of a car pulling up outside awoke them and soon there was a hard knock at the door. Ray slid on a shirt, hopped into his jeans and padded bare-foot toward the living room. She sat up on the bed, grabbing for her clothing to cover her nakedness. Two beefy white policemen stood in the doorway, quizzing Ray about his whereabouts the previous day, ultimately informing him that he was under arrest. Ray protested but to no avail. She sighed at the terrifying vision of her lover handcuffed by the officers, his massive muscular chest gleaming with sweat.

  One of the officers found her purse on the sofa and fished around inside it. “You don’t care who you screw, do you, Miss Little?”

  Almost instantly, she was stuck by the compulsion to laugh. With the eyes of all the men fixed on her shapely frame, she faced them with a wild look in her stare, while she opened her blouse and adjusted her bra over her full breasts. Still laughing, she sat down and pulled her dress over her legs. They fidgeted, uneasy with the tantalizing spectacle of the woman.

  “Boys,” she said in a sultry voice, “take your prisoner and go. Bye, Ray. Thank you for a really wonderful evening.”

  “What did I tell you, Reverend Liz,” Ray said as the men marched him down the path to the police car. “I screw up everything, tarnish everybody and everything around me. That’s what I do best. Screw up. I’m sorry for all this.”

  Just the roughneck sound of his manly voice caressed something in her. “Ray, you’re much too hard on yourself,” she said. They were the last words she would ever say to her miracle lover bound for jail.

  She remained in the doorway until the car was just a dot on the highway. “You don’t care who you screw, do you, Miss Little?” That nonsense remark by the cracker officer only made her want to laugh again, only made her want to return to the tousled bed and think once more about the coupling of the previous night. Ray really sparked something inside her. One thing was for sure, she would never deny herself again, not in this life. And to tell the truth, the woman in her was alive, awake. Armed with this glorious knowledge, Elizabeth Little started laughing again, laughing until her entire body shook from the force of it. Certainly the Lord wouldn’t deny her this small moment of bliss.

  ALL DAY

  Asha French

  Take your panties off.”

  They were the first words Darius said when I answered the door. Shocked, I paused to eye the length of him, his usual shirt and tie replaced by an oversized tee and athletic shorts, his baseball cap turned backward like it always was when we were growing up. “I can’t even get a hello?”

  “Hey, babe. You look beautiful. Take your panties off.” Darius took his hat off and placed it on the coffee table in my living room, brushing past me to do so. My knees felt weak. It was literally getting harder to stand my ground. I wasn’t used to this side of Darius, my old friend who had only recently become a little more than that. I was usually the one barking orders—he preferred it that way—but today was different.

  It started with his phone
call around ten. When I picked up on the third ring, Darius’s voice was on the other end. “Good morning, beautiful.”

  “Whassup, Darius?”

  “Shit… I wanted to ask you something about Alicia’s barbecue today.”

  “Okay. Did your plans change?” I was doing my best to keep my tone neutral, my voice perky. I could usually share any feeling I had with Darius, but I was a little afraid that the recent turn of events had complicated our relationship. Now that we were having sex, I was afraid I’d have to do a little more to guard my heart—something I’d never had to do before with Darius. Sex complicates things.

  “You know better. Do I ever just pull out on you like that?”

  I giggled. I couldn’t help but remember his “pull out” the night before when I wrapped my legs around him and tightened myself around his dick the way I’d been practicing. I think I caught him off guard—or at least his eyes were telling me that much as he kissed my belly button and said, “What are you trying to do to me, girl?”

  “Where’s your mind at?” Darius’s laughed, bringing me back to the phone call. “I was just calling to tell you to wear a dress.”

  “Tell me?”

  “Ask you to please, pretty please, wear a dress to the barbecue today.”

  “Wear a dress? Is this some bougie, Jack-and-Jill-ass party where I have to wear the right thing? Should I press my hair out too, just for good measure? You want me to wear makeup? I got a lighter shade…”

  “You forget who you’re talking to all the time, Janae. But it’s aight though. The dress is for me, you look better without makeup because you never get the shade right. No wonder you got a lighter shade. And Alicia thinks Jack and Jill is a Mother Goose rhyme, so it’s good. Now, you gonna wear a dress for me? Please?”

  “Yes.” I laughed, thinking about how having sex with Darius had really only complicated things for me. Before we had sex a few days ago, I’d been convinced that he was a nice guy—just not for me. Now that we’d taken it there, I was treating him like any other dude who was pressed for panties. I’d become a lot more guarded and was afraid about what it would do to our friendship. “Darius, my bad…”

  “No apology necessary. I was being allusive. I deserved all, well most, of that. I get it, although it does hurt my feelings when you forget how not lame I am.”

  “I know you’re not lame.”

  “And you’ll wear a dress for me?”

  “I guess I can make that happen for you.”

  “Good. See you in a few.”

  Those few hours felt like days as I toiled over the choices of dresses. I wanted to look casual, but not clumsy—put together, but not contrived. When I finally decided on a plain white, knee-length sundress with skinny straps, the doorbell rang. So now I was in an unzipped sundress with Darius demanding that I take off my panties.

  Darius moved behind me to zip my dress. He always knew exactly what I needed before I told him. When I felt his warm fingers against my back, then the nape of my neck, I felt my panties grow damp, clinging to me. Darius brushed his right hand across my nipple, holding it for a moment between his finger and thumb before dropping it lower and lower, until he’d reached the spot where my own wetness had begun to pool.

  “Need some help?”

  “Yeah. You can take them off yourself.”

  Darius turned me around so I could feel his hardness press against me through his shorts. I wrapped my arms around his neck and stood on the tips of my toes to kiss him. I loved Darius’s full lips. I playfully nibbled his bottom lip before letting go to dance my tongue around his. I felt his hands move up under the back of my dress, his fingertips at my hips pushing the weight of my soaking panties until they were halfway down. Darius pulled away from my searching kisses and began his southern trek.

  That’s what I called Darius’s slow, lazy trail to my pleasure spot. The first time he made the trek, I thought that he was taking so long because he didn’t know what he was doing. But he quickly showed me I was wrong. Now I know what he knows—the slower he goes, the more excited I am when he makes it to what he calls my “honeypot.” He was on his way there now, his big hands kneading the flesh of my behind. Darius started by kissing my neck as if it were an old lover with whom he’d just reunited. He moved farther down, kissing each nipple through the light cotton fabric. At the same time, he swept over my clit with his thumb, still kneading my ass. I inhaled sharply, “Ooh, Darius. Too much…” escaping my lips before I knew what I’d said.

  “You want me to stop?” He paused, searching my eyes.

  “No.” He walked me back toward the couch as my legs began to shake. He knew what I knew—that I wouldn’t be able to stand much longer with his mouth and hands working all over me. I felt the leather couch against the back of my legs and I sank down onto it, grabbing his shoulders as he pushed my dress up and began to lick my belly button. His tongue was a dizzying swirl and his hands were covered in my wet appreciation for their expertise. I stroked the muscles that lined his back as he pulled my soaking panties over one ankle, then the other. Darius kissed the soft stretch of skin between my belly button and my honeypot, his full lips stamping approval on every bulge, every stretch mark I’d ever complained about way back when we were “just friends.” He’d listened, I was learning.

  Darius lapped at my clit for a split second before he moved a little lower to kiss each lip, then lick the inside of each thigh. I could feel myself pulsing in excitement, my lower lips engorged. “Darius, please!” I practically yelled, one hand playing in Darius’s hair while the other was covering my own mouth so I wouldn’t scream. I moaned into that hand as Darius buried his face in my honeypot, licking and sucking until my legs shook uncontrollably. He held the hood down with his finger and thumb as he went back and forth between sucking and licking my little button. I felt my body climbing to the peak to which Darius had taken me time and time again, and I made the mistake of announcing it.

  I call it a mistake because as soon as he heard the words, “Dee, I’m gonna cum,” he pulled away abruptly and began to adjust my dress.

  “What the?”

  “Chill out, babe. I just want to try something new I read in this book called The All-Day Orgasm.” He picked his hat up from the table behind him and stood up, heading down the hall.

  “Darius, I ain’t trying to be mean, but I could give a fuck about a book right now.” I followed him to the bathroom, where he stood at the mirror rinsing my juices from his goatee.

  “I know, Janae.” Darius laughed. “You know I’mma take care of you.” He turned around and pulled me close, kissing first my mouth then both sides of my neck. I kissed his neck too, pulling the skin between my teeth and sucking. I felt him stiffen against my wetness and I wanted to feel him inside me now more than ever. I reached for the elastic band of his gym shorts.

  “Yeah, Darius. I know. Just let me…” Darius moved my hand away, standing back to kiss me at the top of my forehead.

  “We’ll be late.”

  “Dee, what is this?” I began to straighten myself out, annoyed with the game. As I fluffed out my afro where I’d flattened it against the sofa, I found Darius’s eyes in the mirror. He was standing behind me and putting on his cap. “Is this some more allusive stuff that you were doing earlier today?”

  “I want to see if I can extend your orgasm over hours. You know I’mma take care of you one way or the other, right?” He was behind me now, kissing my neck and rubbing my shoulders. I couldn’t help but shudder; my body was so tense that the slightest touch from Darius sent me climbing back up to that peak that he was hell-bent on keeping me away from.

  “And I’m just supposed to be frustrated all day?”

  “Don’t think frustrated; think excited. It’s about perspective.

  “I can’t think at all when you touch me like that, Darius.” I moved his hand away.

  “So do you want to try it? ’Cuz if you’re gonna be mad, we don’t even have to go to Alicia’s house. We can d
o it right here. I don’t mind.” His hands were on my hips and he pulled me back against him so that I felt his hardness against the small of my back. He moved his hands up and down my sides as he kissed the back of my neck.

  “Okay. If you can be that controlled, then so can I.” I laughed, turning around to kiss his lips. “I’ll see it as a challenge.” I was dizzy with anticipation, but I wanted to try this “new thing” that Darius had read about, so I walked toward the door.

  Once we were inside his car, he reached across me to buckle me. He was close enough for me to smell his cologne, which I hadn’t noticed before. I loved when his cologne mixed with the smell of his perspiration; the sweet stickiness of it made me lightheaded. “You smell so good,” I said as I kissed him behind his ear.

  “As do you,” he said, bending down to sniff my honeypot, which grew wet just because of his proximity to it.

  “Darius, you’re gonna make me walk into this barbecue with cum running down both legs.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll clean you up.” He winked, starting the car. Darius drove with his left hand, his right hand playing beneath my dress. He held my pussy in the palm of his hand, squeezing every other moment until I began to move against it. I reached over and began to stroke his dick through his shorts. He was stiff as stone—so hard that I began to get frustrated with this game all over again. His pointer and middle fingers were working my G-spot now while his thumb massaged my clit. I pressed my foot against the dashboard, bracing myself as Darius began to stroke faster and faster. I closed my eyes against the blinding light that made it feel like my head would explode. I came hard, my wetness covering Darius’s right hand, body shaking, eyes rolled back in my head. I didn’t say a word, though, because I’d decided that the start and stop was annoying.