Chardonnay: A Novel

by Jacquilynn Martine

  “Yes that’s true.”

  “Well why you didn’t tell me.” I said tracking out of the bank walking towards the parking garage Konstance parked in. She wasn’t anywhere in sight. I had spent the night at her house to try and get away from everyone. It worked thus far.

  “If you would have asked—”

  “That’s bull, so you mean to tell me that for the next approximately twenty eight years I will be getting twenty grand a year?!”

  “Actually one thousand six hundred and sixty six a month...he wanted you to have a steady income without being spoiled.”

  “I—I can’t believe this. For some reason I don’t believe you!”

  She huffed and spat out,

  “Chardonnay stop being a brat about this!”

  “I want to see the estate papers! Immediately!”

  “Call your Aunt Marjorie.” and she hung up.

  To know that your inherited that much money and denied it for small sums is redundant. Ten minutes later my mother called back, which was not her style.

  “Chardonnay, will you please come back home?”

  “I’m not sure I want to...” I said leaning up against Konstance car under the hot parking garage.

  “Well, I’m doing something I haven’t done in a while. Cooking, I’ve been doing that a lot lately. Darling, please.”

  She never begged my mercy or company for anything and it may have been the last she would do so. This may have been my chance at getting her to change me getting small payments instead of a lump sum of money. Konstance came around the block with five shopping bags—all obtained in an hour.

  “Alright, I’ll be there.”

  20

  Love’s Cry

  I returned home to find my mother cooking in the kitchen. She looked better today, almost normal and normal wasn’t usual for her. Her hair was down to her shoulders and she had on jeans with a regular shirt. Along way from her dress and hair up-do.

  “Hey Ma.How you feeling?”

  “I’m feeling better. Glad you could make it.”

  I nodded my head.

  “Where have you been?” she asked.

  “I’ve been with Konnie.” I said heading up the back stairs.

  “Oh, Myron’s been calling you.” she said with a smile.

  I turned and walked upstairs to my room. I slammed the door to block the outside world and went to take a shower. I let the stream of warm water flush down my back to the crack of my behind as I relaxed my tense muscles. I leaned up against the cold tiled wall to catch my balance. The world was becoming too heavy. I stepped out the shower, dripping wet, and went to my medicine cabinet. I had a horrible head ache. My hands began shaking as I went through the cabinet, knocking over bottles. Then I heard my room door open.

  I looked to my left and gently closed the door to the medicine cabinet back. I reached for a towel and when I came back out, Myron was sitting on my bed.

  At first I thought I was seeing things. The radio had been left on from my routine of listening to music while I undressed. LeToya’s Torn was on. How relevant. My mother had to be desperate to get us back together; I knew this was all her doing. He had on a black Marithe Francois Girbaud t-shirt with his bling around his neck. It hung to his navel. His earrings beamed at me. His pants fit baggy but not off his butt or hugging it just the way I liked them.

  “Myron, what are you doing here?” I said wrapping my towel tighter.

  “I wanted to give you something.”

  He got up, grabbed my waist, and pulled me to the bed. He sat down and looked up at me.

  “What?” I said.

  He pulled a red ribbon out if his pocket, one I hadn’t seen in years.

  “You remember this?” he said as he smiled.

  “Yeah, but do you?”

  “Yes I do. After all I saved it. It was the first time we met. Our parents were having Christmas together. I was eight and you were seven. We didn’t get along for nothing.” he said laughing.

  “No we didn’t. But I thought you were cute.” I said pinching his soft cheek.

  “Yeah, I tried to kiss you, but you pushed my face away. I pulled your hair and this fell out. I put it in my pocket because I was scared that if I lost it, I would lose you. There wouldn’t be a connection to you.”

  I was speechless. I didn’t know he had that ribbon after all these years. I cried and told my momma I lost it. It was one of my favorites. She told me I would have many more ribbons, just like I would have men.

  But now I was looking at that very ribbon that had come back to me by that very man.

  “From that little love struck boy I became a stupid man. Not that I don’t feel the same, but along the way I got lost in what you meant to me. Now that little boy is looking back at me now and saying, ‘What are you doing?’“

  “Don’t let me lose you Chardonnay over this drug thing. That’s why I go so crazy. I can’t handle the thought.”

  Myron pulled me closer. He rested his head on my stomach as he held me, kissed my stomach and let go.

  Myron lay back on my bed rubbing his eyes. He then pulled me on top of him and my towel fell. I reached for it but he stopped me.

  “Myron, my body is changing.” I said pulling the towel. That much was true. I had gained a significant amount of weight over the past two months due to stress and yo-yo eating.

  “Don’t be shy, I love everything about you.” Myron said as he laid me down and rubbed my stomach, holding my nude, buxom body in his secure arms.

  “Myron—” I said jumping up quickly.

  “Chardonnay, for what it’s worth please let me stay.”

  “I can’t. For one this is my parent’s place, two I’m still trying to deal with Slim being in the hospital...I think, three you ain’t got it like that!” I said as I climbed over Myron.

  Myron leaned up on his elbows and laughed.

  “What? Char your parents are gone, Slim can’t love you like I can, and you ain’t got it like that!” he said as he snapped his fingers.

  “Oh really, my mother just left us here alone? Ma!”

  She didn’t answer. I called my father’s name. They were gone. I couldn’t believe it. Myron stood up and walked towards my nudity.

  “I was in the living room when you walked in and your mother left the house for us. I’ll leave if that’s really what you want.” Myron whispered in my ear, touching my stomach from behind.

  I was vulnerable and he knew it. Then my phone rang. Myron ran to answer it.

  “Don’t!” I said scared it would be Slim.

  “Hello!” said Myron.

  “What’s up man! Naw she’s not here may I take a message. Oh here she is.”

  I snatched the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Chardonnay, it’s Micah Waterford honey.”

  “Oh hi Micah.”

  “You got your stuff together for tomorrow? This is big business baby!”

  “Ready for what tomorrow?!” I said not knowing if I was on or off with anything that had to do with Jase.

  “He’s invited us to a huge dinner party! And I think you need to be prepared for it!” Micah said with a hinted enthusiasm in his voice.

  “I guess, but why?” I said not wanting to get into detail around Myron.

  “Don’t ask why—ask why not! We meet at seven in the morning on the dot—”

  “I thought you said it was a dinner party?”

  “Why yes—in Sierra Leone!”

  “Where the hell is that? A new club or something?”

  Micah laughed at me,

  “Chile we’re talking West Africa! You’ve never heard of—” Myron snatched the phone out my hand and said,

  “Dude, can you call her back another time—thanks!” I snatch it back.

  “Was that your beau? He has to be a cutie, he sounded that way anyway.

  Is he White—he sounds like a White boy—Chardonnay has jungle fever!” exclaimed Micah.

  “He’s nowhere near White. H
e’s African and Korean. And—he’s just my ex!”

  “Eww! He got it like that?! The only ex I ever invited over was the one who’s dick I couldn’t get over!”

  “What! No he don’t got it like that. I’ll talk to you later about this Micah.”

  “There is no later! I’ve bought our plane tickets and made the final reservations...the rest is all expenses paid by Mr. Vonseigneur.”

  I shook my head, I knew I wanted this but now looking at Myron I wanted him.

  “Micah, tell him I couldn’t make it. I’m sorry.” I said and hung up after deciding that life wasn’t for me.

  Myron was going to the NFL and wanted me and I didn’t have to work for a damned thing if I didn’t want to.Myron came up from behind me. He wrapped his arms around my waist. He kissed my neck and it felt so damn good. He picked me up and wrapped my legs around his body. He laid me on my bed and kissed me vigorously but softly. Before I knew it, his clothes were off. Myron’s eyes never left mine, he kissed every inch of my body releasing my flowing juices. His girth filled me whole and stretched my walls with all passion and no remorse. He moaned, sounding as if he were crying a stream of rivers. His breath touched mine, mixing our souls as we inhaled each other’s breath. I whispered,

  “You do got it like that.”

  “Ahhh, baby I know, ‘cause I’m gettin’ it like that.” he said grunting and moaning.

  He sexed me so hard and I couldn’t say no. I didn’t know I liked it so damn rough. Myron

  got more and more aggressive but careful not to hurt me. He held my legs all the way back behind my head.

  “Tell me you love me.” he said.

  “I love you.

  “Tell me you want me.”

  “I want you.”

  “What’s my name? Whats...my...natural...born...name!” Myron said as he pumped with every syllable

  “MYRON HANEUL LIM KENT!”

  I came for days with just that one hit he put on me. Myron lay on my chest. He was so quite. I looked down and his baby eyes were open.

  “Myron?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I...was just thinking about us. It seems like I fall in love with you more and more when I have sex with you. I’ve never felt that way before.” Myron said as if he was the first to discover sex in another light called making love.

  “Yeah, it’s crazy.”

  “Even your nectar down there, it smells so good. Every time I get a whiff I love you more.”

  I snuggled under him as he began to say,

  “Chardonnay?”

  “What?”

  “You going back to him, aren’t you?” he whispered, sounding as if he were releasing a dark secret. Our dark secret seeping from my walls. His come thick and sweet, draining from me, ready to tell the world.

  “Him who?”

  “The CEO. I know about him.”

  “I don’t even know him that well, Myron.”

  “But you like him.” Myron said fixing my words.

  “I don’t know. Believe it or not I’m confused.”

  Myron sat up at the edge of my bed and looked out the window as rain drops began to fall from the sky. He went to the window and let the fresh air in.

  He stood there not speaking, looking out, and listening to nature. The rumbles and thunder we just made love to echo back our cries.

  “Chardonnay...I’ve...met someone.” Myron said not looking at me.

  “Like who?”

  “A woman. I really like her. Look, I’m being a man and letting you know this,”

  I winced at that seeing how he would have been an even better man if he had told me this before he royally fucked me. He continued with,

  “I promised you I would. I care about her. If I was still playing games, I would have been with her while I was with you. But I’m not sure if I want to let you go.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” I said a bit jealous. My stomach turned and tears started at the corner of my eyes.

  “To see how much you love me. If you want me, I’ll stay. If not, I’ll be with her.”

  I got the feeling this was what he wanted to ask me the night my Pal pal died. Choose or you lose. Quite funny he waited to ask me until he got some for the last time. But the way I seen it we both had loose ends with other people so we were about even.

  Myron turned and looked at me. His eyes were filled with tears. He came back to the bed, rocked himself back and forth. He was scared.

  “You don’t need me to tell you-”

  “Yes I do. If you tell me you want him more, I’ll leave. But I can’t do it alone!”

  Myron’s muscular silhouette climbed over to me in the dark and fell in my lap. I felt horrible. Myron couldn’t let me go. A part of me wanted to tell him to be with the other girl, but another part said hell no. We fell asleep in our own liquids.

  Tears, sweat, my wetness, and his sweet cum flowing out of me back on to our bodies. Didn’t wash away what we knew was coming to an end. Wanted to wash ourselves with each other’s scent and be selfish with it. Every, last, drop. Then in the midst of the crickets and darkness, we woke up at the same time and stared at each other. Then kissed, sucked, licked, tasted the sweetness of each other. We made love again. He sucked the sweetness of my breast hard. Let me feed him my love. I kissed the C with the tiara crown that was over his heart. He kissed his M. We rocked and rocked, making love and held each other as if it were only for one night, rocking so slowly. As Myron fell asleep inside me, the rocking slowed.

  * * * *

  Although I had fallen asleep, it felt as if I had been up all night. Myron lay beside me; his muscular, ripped arms snuggled around me, his lips up against the nape of my neck as he slept. When I opened my eyes, unlike any other morning I had awaken and had to think of the dream I had of him...Jase was on my brain like a perm, burning, extracting, reacting. I turned to face Myron in my bed and thought my mother would be proud. Hump, so much for Ivy League schools. I didn’t think she had any real dreams of me becoming anything but a professional house wife to a rich, industrial, money hungry man. Unfortunately for her, Myron was all that plus a hustler. Then I reasoned she would take a liking to Jase, he was all that and more. But the problem was that I wanted more for myself. There were too many things I wanted to do before I left this earth, owning my own business was one of them. Setting me free was one of them, traveling to another country was one of them, leaving this forsaken town was...one of them. I nudged Myron until he began to moan that he was too tired to go to training camp.

  “Boy wake up—you’re not at camp! Hey—I need a favor from you.”

  His sleepy eyes blinked at me and he raised his brow so sexy,

  “Like what babe?”

  “I have something big going down I haven’t told anybody.”

  He rubbed his eyes and gave a yawn.

  “Yeah,”

  “Myron, I have a flight to catch and I’m meeting with some folks that could parallel an amazing career for me. This could be my one and only shot.”

  Myron sat quite. He didn’t react preponderantly supportive or negative and I knew all in my mind the only words he heard were flight to catch.

  “What’s it about?”

  “Well I could be working for a five hundred company...or model for them.”

  He looked at me seriously, suggesting that he now disagreed.

  “You know...I wasn’t too thrilled to see you with that dude,” he shook his head.

  “I knew he would take you from me one way or another.”

  “Take me from you? Baby I’m here with you now—even after knowing your father’s dealings. Myron, I don’t know if you know it or comprehend it, but I love you and I ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

  He kissed my lips gently.

  “And you tell your side line hoe you don’t need her no more.” I didn’t know who the girl was nor could I get around to potentially finding her. But for some reason I had appointed her as Tiffun
ie, the girl I saw when I was at the Plaza with Syndi. They sounded the same and her silhouette matched perfectly to the girl I saw in Myron’s bedroom window. The girl looked at me funny every time we seen each other, but why would he want her? She wasn’t even a ten in my book.

  “I understand you wanting to do this, but your leading a messy path—I don’t even mention you stripping because it’s not necessary to trace.”

  I looked at him and had to ask.

  “You’ve seen the tape?”

  He looked off, pulling away from me.

  “Myron you—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it!” he demanded sternly.

  “You knew?”

  “I heard. Now, the end of that. When is this flight?”

  “Today.”

  If I thought his face was as stiff as stone before I was not prepared for the cracks and brittle chips I would form in them later.

  “Today?”

  “Yes, My. Please support me on this.”

  “I have two more days in this city before I have to go to New England and you want me to see you off today? Nope.”

  “Myron! I have done everything to support you—this is my dream. Baby please!”

  “Okay,” he nodded his head as he stood from the bed,

  “On the notion you come visit me in the NY next month.”

  I inhaled and thought about it.

  “Maybe, but you’ll just be back here anyway.”

  “Koo. Now come ride my dick slow and hard before we go.”

  For an hour and thirty minutes I slowly rode his dick rotating in small circles as I sucked his delicious tongue. Myron watched my ass conform as it jiggled, ticked, and bounced on his loins from my dressing mirror—smacking both my cheeks with his full hands, separating and dropping them only to set off a small earth quake. That sensation sent a chill down my spine. He held on to my hips, jerking hard releasing his lust in me for seven full minutes before he stopped moving at all. Myron stared up at me—his eyes not blinking.

  “Did I ride it good, baby,” I said laughing as I kissed his neck, slowly stirring his milk in me. His breathing became short and his eyes began to flutter as he said,