by Braya Spice
“Could you please return these to the sender?”
When Greg called me later, he had the nerve to ask why I had dissed his flowers.
I screamed so loudly in his ear that when I was done, my throat ached. “You crazy bastard!” I raged. “Stay the hell away from me!”
“I’m coming to get my daughter in two weeks.”
“If you want to see Sierra, I suggest you have your mom call me when that time comes. Until then leave me the fuck alone!”
When I spoke to Lavante again, I was happy to find out that he didn’t notice Greg at the restaurant, even though I know Greg walked right past him to race after me. I thought he would at least ask about Sierra and question whether I had really told the truth. He must have believed my lie about needing to give my daughter her medication, because he asked only if I had made it to her in time, and said that that night he went to hang out at Shotz. It was a bar and pool hall in Long Beach. I had never been, but I knew that Creole had been there.
I felt bad for lying to him, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. If I told him I had a crazy-ass baby father, it would probably scare him off before he got the chance to get to know me and before I got to know him. And since I liked him a lot already and wanted to be in his company a whole lot more, I didn’t want that to happen.
From that point on, Lavante and I spent so much time together, it seemed as though a year had passed rather than two months. He would call and tell me good morning and even phoned me in the middle of the night to tell me he was thinking of me. It definitely had an effect on my alertness at school and work, but all in all, I didn’t mind. He made me feel special. So special that I didn’t anticipate anything going wrong. Nothing could. The man had wined and dined me, and he was cool. So that was why I accepted his request to come over to my house one night. And I told myself that whatever went down, went down. I made sure I knocked out my homework, cooked Sierra dinner, then rushed to wash the dishes while she watched cartoons. One thing about my daughter, she wasn’t a wild type of child that needed her ass whipped every five minutes. She was a well-behaved child. I gave her a bath, washed her thick hair, greased her scalp, and put her right to bed. Then I prepared myself for Lavante coming through by bathing and lotioning myself down with Victoria’s Secret coconut lotion and perfume.
I didn’t feel nervous when he arrived. I just gave him a hug and a kiss.
“So how are you, Miss Lady?”
“I’m fine,” I murmured while looking up at him. Then slyly my eyes went to what he was packing between his legs.
Then, all of a sudden, his cell phone rang, and the song “Lovers and Friends” by Usher and Ludacris came on.
I was a little surprised to hear that from a man in his forties. But whatever. It was just a song. I watched him press a button on his phone and slip it back in his pocket.
We sat down in front of the TV.
“So how was your day?” I asked him. I scooted closer to him and felt an ache between my thighs. I wanted him to touch me. Damn! I desperately needed to get fucked.
He gave in to my request and kissed me softly on my lips. The ache between my legs grew more intense. He slipped off his shoes and lay back on the couch. He pulled me gently until I was lying sideways on the couch, on his chest.
I inhaled his aftershave.
When I felt his hand move to my left breast, I didn’t stop him, because that felt good too. Next, his lips were on mine, and I felt his tongue.
Before I had had only pecks from him, but this was the real thing. Although I didn’t like the way he kissed—his tongue was a bit heavy, leaving chunks of spit on my lips—his fingertips on my nipple felt like heaven and I didn’t want him to move, so I kept on kissing him.
By this time his other hand had strayed to my thigh and dropped farther.
I let out a moan when he found my panties.
He broke the silence by saying, “Maybe we should both get naked.”
It wasn’t the line I wanted to hear. I wanted him to take control, pull my dress and underclothes off of me, strip down, and give me what I forgot felt like.
But he didn’t. So I shyly smiled, stood, and grabbed him by his hand, walking him to my bedroom. Once we were both inside, I locked the bedroom door and pulled my dress off of me. I walked to the bed and lay on my back and watched him undress. He took his time, and I was a little anxious. After all, it had been two years since I had been with another man. I guess I should have taken notice that after he stripped down—and despite the fact that I was ass buck naked—he kept on his boxers and had a hand gripping his penile area. Maybe it was so big, he didn’t want to scare me! But this was a good kind of scared, so I remained patient. He crawled on the bed toward me, with the condom in his mouth.
He leaned over me. I pulled the condom from between his lips, and he placed tiny kisses on my breast, fondled me a bit more, and then reached for the condom in my hand. He then spread my thighs apart and stood between them. One hand was still on his crotch area. It was finally going to happen. I was going to share myself with another man. I hoped it was worth it. I was excited and actually a little sad at the same time, because I had thought Greg was going to be the only man I would ever be with sexually. He was the only man I had wanted to be with sexually. But it just didn’t work out that way. But still. I wanted to let Lavante know I wasn’t very experienced.
“Wait!”
“What, baby? What is it?”
“I have to tell you something. I haven’t had sex in two years, and I’ve only had one partner, my daughter’s father,” I blurted out all at once.
He looked down at me and smiled. “Is that all? Don’t worry, baby. I’ll be gentle.” But he looked hella nervous. Maybe he thought I wasn’t going to perform well, because I was rusty.
I closed my eyes and waited to feel him inside of me.
But all I felt was his knees bumping into me. And all I heard was the sound of him fumbling with the condom paper and him saying out of nowhere, “Damn!”
I sat up and reached for his hands to help him before my little bit of wetness dried up. “Let me help.”
He must not have been expecting to feel my hands on him, ’cause when I reached for the opening in his boxers, something fell out and smacked me in my face. I screamed, horrified, and flew backward on the bed. My heart started beating. Now, I knew there was no such thing as a flying dick, but whatever it was, it was resting on my shoulder. I reached over and grabbed it and inspected it as best as I could in the dark. It was a pair of rolled-up socks.
“Lavante, why are there rolled-up socks in your boxers?” I tried to be calm when I asked, but this was some weird shit!
He turned his back on me and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, baby. It’s just that I hear all the talk about what ladies want and what they expect. I was embarrassed to tell you that I’m not packing like you thought I was. Every time women see construction workers, they think because we work with big tools, we automatically have big tools.”
Well, you not packing, like I thought you were, because you been wearing a sock the whole time! I thought.
Then came the moment I regretted. What I did and did not do, what I should have done.
I took a deep breath. “It’s okay. I like you, Lavante. You, not what’s in your boxers. But I still hope you got something in them.”
Dear God, he had to. I was nice, but not that nice.
He slipped back between my legs and rubbed my pussy, but I was the least bit turned on. Hell, to be honest, I wasn’t turned on at all. I would have rather had a threesome with Flavor Flav and Shabba Ranks than this fool, but for some reason I answered yes when he asked me in a husky, trying-to-be-sexy-but-not-quite-nailing-it voice, “You wanna see what’s in my boxers, Allure?”
“Hell no!” I wanted to scream. But I was too close and too far to turn back. This man was in my bed, and I was naked! What if I pissed him off by telling him what I wanted to really say, and that was, “Get the fuck out”?
So instead I swallowed hard and said, “Yes. I do.”
“Well, it’s not huge, Allure, but you will feel it. In fact I’m sure of it.”
“Okay. I’m in your hands.”
He lightly shoved me back onto the bed.
I tried to get a peek at it, but he turned his back on me. He was able to get his condom on a lot quicker than before, probably because he wasn’t trying to hold the fake dick socks in place.
I closed my eyes just as he was about to thrust inside of me, hoping I would be able to savor the moment.
The bed creaked as his weight pushed off, and then suddenly his weight was upon me. But the moment I was waiting for never came. Something was really wrong.
Maybe he is using his finger, I thought. But I opened my eyes to find him above me, moving up and down, his head thrown back in pleasure. But I wasn’t feeling a damn thing.
“You like it, baby?”
I smiled, moaned, and lied, “Yeah.” It was a very unpleasing experience.
“Is this gonna be my pussy, baby?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Suddenly his facial expression changed, like he was in pain—he jerked one last time into me, let out a loud moan, and collapsed on my chest.
That was it? What the hell was that?
I pushed him off of me and turned onto my side. I could not believe this shit. A muthafucking forty-year-old man couldn’t control his nut? Didn’t he watch that Katt Williams stand-up? He should have jacked off before he got to my house! Now he had done wasted my damn time. Not only had he pretended to be something he was not, but he couldn’t even perform like a real man. It was no wonder this man was still single. I was so pissed.
“What’s the matter, baby?”
In my mind, I had a lot of things I wanted to say, but my mom wouldn’t exactly be proud, so I turned over and slept.
I had waited two whole years for this shit!
Maybe it wasn’t all so bad, I thought in the morning, when he reached over and kissed me. Then he looked at me as if to ask permission and went between my legs with his head and tongue.
I had never been a big fan of oral sex, and was even less of a fan if you couldn’t do the shit right. Although I didn’t have vast experience with men to reflect on and compare, a woman’s intuition told me he didn’t know what the hell he was doing.
After five minutes of sucking and slobbering, and then drooling and moving his head across my pussy like he was tickling me, he loomed over me with a slick smile. “You gonna give me a little more before I go to work, baby?”
If it was like the little I received last night, the answer was, “Fuck no!” But then again, I thought, maybe I can give him a chance to redeem himself. Maybe since he got his first nut out the night before, this time he will be longer. But it turned out to be just as disappointing as the first time, and this time we did it doggy style. He couldn’t even get his ass slaps synchronized with when he dipped in my pussy. I didn’t like faking, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him the real. That his tongue and dick game was wack. Wack!
About two minutes later he dressed and was, thankfully, leaving.
He blew me a kiss as he laced up his work boots. I pulled the covers over my chest and managed another smile.
Fully dressed and happy, he walked back over to the bed, leaned over, and kissed me on the lips. “Walk me to the door, baby,” he whispered.
“Let me put on something.” My nightgown was lying on the side of the bed. I slipped it on and followed him to the door.
He gave me one last kiss and left.
Chapter 5
I had just kissed Lavante good-bye on another Sunday morning. Now, see, I wanted companionship and some good dick. The companionship he gave to me, but the good dick, he just could not give it to me. But I needed to have companionship around, so I put up with the bad sex. I knew sex wasn’t everything. Greg was good in bed and had pleased me in every way, but he’d treated me like shit. Lavante treated me well, but the sex was wack. So I kept him around. I wanted a man in my life, one that was respectful and hardworking. That was everything that Lavante was. Greg didn’t even want to work or care financially for his child.
“So how about you meet me on Ximeno Avenue? We can get a quick bite to eat tomorrow. You think you will be able to sneak away from work?” Lavante asked me.
The thought of seeing him hard at work made my coochie flip-flop in a way Lavante couldn’t make it do. But I tried to keep cool. “Yeah, but won’t you be working, and don’t you want to wait until later that night?”
We were supposed to meet for dinner. I wanted him to eat dinner with Sierra, but I felt it was too soon for him to meet her. Two months had passed, and I still felt I needed more time before introducing him to her. Greg had Sierra on the weekends now. So far he had been cool. There were no problems.
“Dinner ain’t enough. I need to see you again sooner, baby. Just meet me on Ximeno, near the traffic circle. We’ll be outside working. There’s this place close by that makes good burritos.” He kissed me one last time and left.
How sweet, I thought. He wanted me to see what he did. It made me feel special.
I made sure I looked nice the day I was supposed to meet Lavante for lunch. It was May and sunny, so I wore a floral summer dress with a pair of flats. I parked on the street. Cedric, the same man who was there when I first met Lavante, was there, and we exchanged smiles when I got out of my car. There were other men around working as well. Lavante was wearing his orange coveralls, and from the looks of it, we were not going to be able to go out to eat lunch like he had requested.
When I made it over to him, he said, “So much for lunch.”
“It’s okay. I’m not so hungry, anyway.”
“Well, you see what we do?” He gestured with his hand.
I looked around and saw two men digging a ditch, one driving a tractor, and two more pulling a long pipe off of a truck. “Yeah, looks very tiring.”
“Oh, it’s not so bad.” He paused and flashed a glance at the other guys, who were still working. “Well, I have to get back to work.”
“Well, I’ll see you later.”
He had already walked away.
When I made the U-turn to go back home, I saw the little Mexican restaurant he had told me about. I thought, If we can’t go eat lunch, why can’t I bring it to him? I went into the restaurant and ordered him a grande burrito, hoping that would be enough, and a large Coke with extra ice.
When I made it back over to where Lavante was working, he was driving the tractor and had his back to me. I knew he wouldn’t hear me if I called his name, and more importantly, I didn’t want to get in the way. A guy from his crew was near me, so I politely asked him to give the food to Lavante. He grabbed it and walked away.
Later that day, I was reading this story to Sierra. Ever since she was a baby, I had been doing this. I was on the last page when the phone rang.
“Hello?” I said.
“I thought I told you not to come back to my fucking job?” Lavante fired back.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard what the fuck I said.”
“Hold up—”
“Shut up, little girl.”
Before I could even respond, he continued, “Look, I’m not going to find anybody else to pay me twenty-three dollars an hour, and my job means a lot to me, so don’t ever come back up there unless I tell you to. Do you understand me?”
“Why are you going off like this?” I demanded. Although I tried to sound tough, there were tears in my eyes due to the way he was talking to me. Here I thought I was doing something nice for his little dick ass when I brought him food, and he was seriously disrespecting me!
He hung up.
To make matters worse than him hanging up on me, when I called his cell back repeatedly, he kept sending my call to voice mail. I called his home number. I was shocked to discover that the home number he had given me and had handwritten himself wasn’t his. A Mexican man answered t
he phone and said in a snappy voice before hanging up, “Wrong number.”
I gasped. He had never given me his real home number. Since I had always called him on his cell and was able to get a hold of him that way, I had never bothered to call his home number. Until now. Why didn’t he want to give me his home number? I thought. He had my home and my cell number. I had given them to him without a moment’s hesitation. I saw no reason for him not to give me his home number. I was a single woman. Did he have a wife he was hiding or a woman he didn’t tell me about that he lived with? Or did he plain out not want me to have his home number? Bottom line was he had straight played me.
I called the number again to make sure I had dialed the right number.
The same man yelled, “Wrong number!”
And on top of that he stood me up for dinner. But there was no way I was going to sit my ass in the house. So I picked up Sierra from Creole’s house. She had picked Sierra up from my babysitter so that I could go out with Lavante. I called Kendra, and we met up at El Torito for some Mexican food. It was Taco Tuesday. I’d show him. When he decided to call, I wouldn’t be there. He wasn’t the only one who could play games!
“Girl, he is tripping,” Kendra said. After dipping a chip in some salsa, she crunched on the chip with her mouth halfway open, grossing me out. But it wasn’t just that. I really had no appetite. So I sipped on a virgin margarita and eyed Sierra as she colored.
“Which part?”
“All of it. From the tripping about you coming up to his job ...” She paused to crunch on another chip. “To him giving you a fake number, to him standing you up. Seems to me that one of you needs to reevaluate this so called relationship. And from the looks of things ...” She shoved another chip in her mouth, crunched, and swallowed it before saying, “Allure, baby, it’s you.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean is that you don’t mean anything to him. Allure, you have no commitment.”
Her words were blunt, and they hurt. But I knew my friend loved me and was just keeping it one hundred. So I couldn’t get mad at her.