The show continued with more hot soul music. The Seattle Phenomenal Queens, Lady A, Madam Howell, and crème de la crème Bascom, brought the house down with down-home R&B, and they did a set of music before a comedian took the stage for a short while. After he had people laughing and enjoying their drinks and refills, the co-host, Permanency, reminded the audience that the affair was for a worthy cause to help local youth and, to please help in any way they could with either time or donations.
Then, she introduced a few VIPs in the audience. Several others were introduced before Gabrielle Brandywine. To her surprise, she received a welcoming response, and she stood and waved. Despite her politics, women seemed to understand she was an achieved black woman first, and her job couldn’t have been unproblematic, whatever her political affiliation was. It did help that she was widely known for her fashion sense in clothing and hair. Gabrielle had been on the front cover of many magazines.
Gabrielle attended a black church while in Washington, D.C. and whenever asked in non-political interviews, she spoke of black music, books, culture, and other arts and entertainment. Her life, to many African Americans, was a paradox.
She’d had one rumored romance with a retired Black Hall of Fame NBA player prior to meeting Psalms, but that was all everyone ever knew of her intimate, personal life.
After the long ovation for Gabrielle, the co-host invited Psalms Black to the stage to play stand-up bass, and Mintfurd Big Boy to the microphone.
Both men looked to be able to knock Roman temple columns down like Hercules. Mintfurd seemed to make the stage shrink. Psalms played a few bass runs to get the groove going. Gabrielle smiled knowing those were the same expressions he made when he was in the throes of making love to her. When he was about to get off, he would make intense, almost painful, expressions that were so sexy to her. Then as she always did, her eyes went to his fingers, and she became wet again.
Mintfurd opened his lips, and despite his massive size, his handsome face expelled words in a rich tone. Women in the crowd sighed and lost breaths. His hands moved while he recited his spoken word as if he were dancing, or holding, a woman.
Ode to Your Sweet Ass
Can’t mask that scent
Please baby gurl, don’t powder it, don’t perfume it
Like a gold miner, I dig down into your cave and come out dirty, but satisfied
Both you and me
Can’t dam your river
But I fill every hole that’s open and it’s still seeping wetness out of control
Smellin’ it
Filthy but clean
Pheromone city
Erotic country
Slippin’ into your darkness
Open to freak interpretation
Your hips speaking volumes
Slammin’
On my face
Dance baby dance
Spanking and snapping to the beat
Curlin’ your toes
My tongue is putting it down in your groove
My tongue is polishing your crown jewel
Breasts sweating
Beast-like movements
Grunts
Uncontrolled
On time
Release the hounds
My tongue wallows in it
Side to side, and then, back to in and out
Tongue strokin’
Tight in between
Slide in where I fit in
I sit you down on mountain
Bootsy sings, “Stretchin’ Out”
Damn…do you smell it?
It’s funky in here
Play that funky music on my face
Do me, with your funky ass
Backing it up
Pounding forward
Breaking glass
You shout, “$#!+”
I say, “Take it, with all your sweet pretty little @$$”
I grab hair, pulling in the reins
Not slowing down, just controlling the action
Love your funky stuff
Love the feeling building up
I keep filling you up
You stay bent over taking it all
You feel me cummin’ all the way through you
And it smells funky sweet in here
I go to sleep with my nose resting in that scent that can’t be masked
Mintfurd stepped back from the microphone and bowed his head. Psalms changed the groove on the bass to a slow-jam pace as the crowd clapped and snapped fingers.
The single ladies, Velvet and Darcelle, sat at a table next to their married or coupled friends. The tables were almost connected, so Gabrielle and Darcelle were next to each other. The two had quickly connected, both being lawyers and with political backgrounds. Velvet and Gabrielle noticed Darcelle sat stone faced, like she was transfixed by a magic potion.
Little Darcelle, all five feet and stout, 130 pounds of her, got lost in Mintfurd’s voice. His poem and how intensely erotic it was, and the power she felt from the visual of a man ten times her size seized her complete consciousness.
Maybe her own physical size had kept her from looking at men who tipped the scales at 200-pounds plus. Mintfurd clearly tipped the scales at well over, but something about him and his persona turned her insides into a whirlpool.
Gabrielle looked behind Darcelle’s head as did Velvet, and they connected in thought, smiling at each other and nodding. Velvet knew Darcelle needed some mental separation from what had been happening in her life, yet had doubts those two could have a meeting of the minds.
Mintfurd and Velvet were close enough for her to know Mintfurd had a freakish nature, and was most likely the last thing Darcelle needed to encounter.
Mintfurd didn’t know what a relationship was; he had no experience in love. If he’d had any, it had been once upon a time before he’d become such a big boy, and that was a long time ago. His life was sex with prostitutes; he had shared that with Velvet. The thought of Darcelle moving from bad to bad made Velvet shake her head at the thought.
Lights on the stage and candles on the tables slowly moved side to side as if a wave must have hit the ferry. The room became quiet, and Mintfurd moved close to the microphone again. He recited another poem after Psalms had finished a bass solo and started walking his bass notes up and down.
Survived
Deep cuts
Burns of all degrees
Don’t care
I need love
All of the past…made me come to my knees
I lay spread out in pain
Don’t care
I give my faith to love again
I kneel in grace
Giving another chance
To love again
I will
I’ll give my all
I’ll climb up yesterday’s ladder
From which I fell
To be loved again
Only thing I die for is love
Tears have left traces like growth rings of an old tree toppled over, but I spring anew with the scent of tenderness again
I have drowned in pools of hurt feelings, I couldn’t make it to shore
But with love I can synchronize swim up from darkness
My heart will walk on water if love is on banks of reality
Before foolishness pushed my heart in front of train wrecks waiting to happen
Why would it be any different again?
You, you, you, my love
I give in to you for hope and faith
Pain from emotional bullets and mean-spirited knifes, and modes of failed operations
I know the pain
But I live to stand before you
Even though my heart flatlined before
But then you, you, you, my love
Like an injection of love serum
I’m love ever ready
Again, I’m released from room A to Z
I walk out into the sunshine
On the curb in front of Loveland Infirmary of Hope
I wai
t for a ride to go give my love again
To you, you, you, my love
I survived…for you.
The recital was so emotionally performed, some women had tears on their faces, and almost all stood and applauded. His voice remained and echoed in Darcelle. She had not clapped or said one word. Frozen in place, she looked, but she’d heard it all.
Even at his massive size, Mintford moved with the grace of a man about to tango across the room. Many women had crushes on his voice and pretty-handsome face by the time he exited the stage, but Mintfurd’s size was still too much for all, except for Darcelle.
With the entertainment over, dancing took place, and a Gerald Alston song played, “Take Me Where You Want To.” It went along nicely with the romantic piece Mintfurd had done.
Velvet had a big smile on her face while playing an inner porno movie in her head. She was watching Darcelle and Mintfurd having sex in her mind with Darcelle squatting down. She could see Darcelle riding Mintfurd’s tongue, and it going into the small woman. She could imagine what else the two could do. Velvet’s lips pursed tight in a sinister smile with the thought, Some rivers can’t be damned.
The evening ended with more dancing as the ferry returned to the dock.
CHAPTER 13
Voyage to Atlantis
Psalms made one more inspection of the boat, making sure everyone had vacated. The sound system was still on and Jimi Hendrix’s “All Along the Watchtower” had Psalms walking to the beat. He double-checked from the engine room and helm. For what he planned, Psalms needed the boat to be secured, and no intrusions potentially causing an interruption. The security system guarded the boat against anyone coming aboard after docking, but maybe lovers had hidden away seeking adventure. It had happened before. Sometimes people had too much to drink, and passed out or hid away to have some private fun.
There was an incident on the ferry during the event. A husband and his wife on the lower deck got in a shouting match. The man grabbed his wife’s face and cupped her cheeks tightly, trying to hush her. The security team broke it up and brought the husband and wife to a room away from spectators. Psalms came to the room along with Mintfurd.
Psalms stared at the man, but his eyes scanned the woman differently because of tell-tale signs of something more. He rolled his lips and spoke. “You were invited to be with classy people and enjoy all that we have, the food, drink, and music, and you act a fool?”
The husband tried to sound hard. “Hey, fuck you, man! And let me and my woman out of this room and off your fucking boat!”
Psalms moved quickly in the direction of the man, and everybody stepped back in fear, except for Mintfurd Big Boy, and Zelda. Zelda was a tough girl, training to watch how Psalms and Mintfurd operated. Psalms didn’t touch the man, but instead he slowly reached for the wife’s arm, and slid up the long sleeve of her sweater. She held her breath out of fear. Her light, tea-colored arms had black-coffee and plum-colored bruises. “Don’t move,” he said. “I’m going to look—”
“Hey, get your hands off my woman! Who in the fuck do you think you are?” The husband stood maybe an inch taller than Psalms, but seemed smaller in stature. His voice was crumbling bravado as Psalms’ face grew tight and his eyes narrowed.
Psalms ignored the man, more pissed that someone had vouched for him to be on the boat. He would check that person later. Psalms spoke to the wife again. “Don’t move. I’m going to look at your neck.”
Her eyes blinked as he pulled her turtleneck sweater down to her collarbone. The same colored bruises were on her lower neck. A melting iceberg of tears was dissolving her makeup. One could see, at one time and not that long ago, she had a black eye. An extremely pretty woman in her forties was aging fast from stress and abuse.
Psalms nodded to Mintfurd, and he ushered the woman out of the room, and the other security officer and woman left Psalms alone with the husband.
The former Navy SEAL and ex-Secret Service agent went to work on the wife-beating husband. Unlike the husband’s crudeness in inflicting pain on his wife, Psalms left no marks, and the man wasn’t allowed to make any sounds.
When done, Psalms opened the door, and Mintfurd went to the wife sitting across the way with the female security officer, and they brought her back into the room. The woman saw her husband crying like a child who had received a whooping. He was in immense pain as he whimpered.
“Ma’am.” Psalms waited for the woman to look up at him and connect eye to eye. “Listen to me; it’s for your own good. This lady here is going to ask you some questions. Please answer all of them. Do you have children with this man?”
The woman shook her head, then said, “I have children, but he is their stepfather. My children, a boy and girl, are ten and eleven. We’ve been married for eight years…the beatings are getting worse.” She moaned as if she had a sour stomach and needed to have a bowel movement.
“You’re getting a divorce, and he is going to pay you a reasonable amount of child support, and you, ma’am, will not see this man for any reason whatsoever. It’s over. He’s not coming home with you. He understands. Do you understand?”
She nodded her head.
“I’ll have a lawyer contact you on Monday.” Psalms thought this would be one way for Darcelle to return a favor since he was going to help her with her ex-husband problem.
“You will not see this man ever! You will get counseling for you and your children; the lawyer will help you with that, too.”
• • •
Two hours later, Psalms walked through the empty ferry and either dimmed or turned off all the lights above the water line. He turned on the underwater lights on the open water side of the ferry. Streaks of red, yellow, and bright blue beamed through the water twenty meters away from the boat. With everything secure, he walked into the stateroom. Designed to look like a luxurious hotel’s open-floor planning room, it had every amenity.
Music filled the room; the group Cameo’s jam “Candy” blasted through the stereo. Gabrielle danced out of the bathroom; she had on a diving wetsuit, and was fixing her hair to go under a swim cap. She swung her rather big behind in a sexy, funky motion. Her curvaceous body drew Psalms’ eye, and he bopped his head to the music and her grooving. She danced for him, inciting his blood to flow. He wanted to tear the wetsuit off her body—quickly.
Under the wetsuit, her nipples protruded. He walked over to her, and squatted just far enough as she unzipped the suit, giving him access to her breasts. He placed his lips on her nipples and sucked hard. She combed her fingers through his cropped, wavy hair. He stepped back and licked his lips. She ran her fingers over his thick, wide lips, and leaned in and kissed, in slow motion, the wine-stain birthmark under his left eye. They both stepped back, and their stares ventured into imagining their bodies pounding each other. She loved the way he looked at her as if he were about to take her down to the floor and sex her up. Gabrielle wanted no foreplay, just the forced hardness of his thickness slowly, ever so slowly, inside her wetness. His eyes mesmerized her as he gazed. She wanted his hardness to pin her down and send slight aching pain with pleasure between her thick thighs. He wouldn’t hurt her unless she wanted him to, but the ardent look he gave her made her wet. The diving wetsuit was to keep water out, but it also kept moisture in. Her wetness made a sweet mess inside the suit.
Psalms slowly dropped his pants, and teased her eyes by turning to the side and ripping off his boxers.
He laughed softly. “It’s just underwear.”
“Hey, baby, coming off your ass, they’re not just underwear, honey. How about curtains to doors number one, two, and three?” She sucked her bottom lip and smiled.
Psalms changed in to a wetsuit. They were going for a midnight swim at 2 a.m. The Lake Washington water was cool, but not unbearable if wearing a wetsuit.
Nighttime swimming was something the two of them had done even before they had left the government. Psalms and Gabrielle had swum in parts of the Rhine River in Switzerland and France,
and in the waters off the shores of Tahiti, and the clear, blue waters of the southern Caribbean near St. Lucia. Both were avid swimmers. He grew up swimming in Northwest waters, and she swimming off the shores of Galveston, Texas, and sometimes in the dangerous bayous. She had no fear of the water.
The two of them had swum together in the Red Sea, the Nile River, and the Panama Canal. While backpacking in the Grand Canyon, they had swum against the current. They had often made love in the water, on top and under, and mostly at night.
It was going to be one of those nights. Psalms had waited to make sure that Gabrielle didn’t have too much to drink. She had a tendency to drink too much even though she never appeared drunk; she simply sipped all day, on most days.
From her days of climbing the political ladder, and as the Secretary of State, she often had to drink with the good ol’ boys. It was not something that she had done prior to her college days, but it had become a habit. She enjoyed taking the edge off after making decisions.
She and Psalms had a few talks about it, but he never forced her to quit or told her he wanted her to. He wanted her to question herself about her behavior. He knew people didn’t quit for others. People stopped a certain behavior when they were ready or when a certain event in their life forced them to. He also thought it was her way of dealing with the stress of the decisions that she had made and the outcomes of her past work.
“Assessments and conclusions, leading to declarations to do what had to be done and then awaiting the results of the end game, only the game never ends,” she’d said on the Sunday talk show circuit, along with, “I understand my dealings with issues and the decisions of any administration, is people lose and have lost their lives. But, their sacrifice is, was, and will always be, for the greater good of our country.”
Psalms imagined how Gabrielle grappled with the thought of whether or not she did the right thing. For the most part, he had left her alone when it came to her drinking. The woman had been the youngest Secretary of State of the United States and a woman—a black woman. How she chose to release tension, he felt, wasn’t his call.
• • •
The two of them made it to the deep water side of the docked ferry. With large swim fins on, they made it down the ladder into the water. Their wetsuits help to insulate them from the chilled lake water, and they had headlight bands on their heads, water goggles, and snorkels to assist their night swim.
One Safe Place Page 10