Love Is Overdue

by Natalie Myrie

  That night, as I walked through the front door, knowing that Ben would be there in less than four hours, I only prayed my old mother would be the one sitting there, and not the raging lunatic I had become far too used to by now.

  I found her out on the small patio off the kitchen, flipping through some magazines. I let my breath out in relief. She had wanted to be outside – that was usually a good sign.

  “Hey, Mama, how was your day?” I leaned up against the railing casually. We still didn’t have any patio furniture.

  She sighed. “Why are there so many bushes out here, I can’t even see anything – it’s like an outdoor prison.” She glanced over at me. “Didn’t you think of that, Gabriela?”

  No. I didn’t. But I had no time for this conversation.

  “Remember when you told me you wanted to meet Ben?” I paused briefly. “He’ll be here tonight.”

  Her expression didn’t change. “I don’t feel like visitors.”

  I had expected this. “That’s too bad, Mama, but this is my house too. And I’m a grown woman. I can have my boyfriend over whenever the fuck I want.”

  I could tell she hadn’t expected that response but she pretended not to show it. “Look at me, Gabriela.” Her voice was pained. “What is he going to think?”

  I thought for a moment. “I’m not worried about that. But if you want I can fix your hair up for you…little make up wouldn’t hurt either…if you’re up for it.”

  Ω

  For some reason my mother decided to relax a little. After I made dinner and we’d both eaten, I opened up a bottle of red wine and set about fixing her up for the evening. Whereas most days she refused to even change out of her housecoat, that evening I helped her into a pretty purple summer dress she used to wear when I was a teenager. I pulled her hair out of her standard librarian bun and pinned it back loosely, curling up some of the tendrils around her face with my curling iron, and applied a little colour to her lips and her cheeks. I couldn’t help feeling quite impressed with myself. The beautiful young woman I used to stare at in all her old photographs was still trapped inside there, and that night I helped bring her out again. I hadn’t seen her look that beautiful in a long time.

  I held the mirror up to her face once I was done. “You still got it,” I teased her, starting to feel a little warm from the glass of wine I was sipping. I hadn’t drank in a while.

  She just rolled her eyes at me. “Get me my quilt, Gabriela – this dress and slippers, it’s disgraceful…”

  I laughed at that, but helped pull her mohair afghan up over her waist and covering her legs. “You look elegant – like Carmen Miranda,” I teased her.

  And so by the time Ben texted me to say he was five minutes away, all I had accomplished myself was to brush my teeth and fix up my pony tail. A t-shirt and yoga pants was the best he was getting out of me. It was all I ever wore at home anymore.

  I opened the front door and smiled when I saw him, looking as delicious as ever in just his t-shirt and jeans. “Hey.” I let my breath out.

  He gave me a little suspicious look.

  “Yes, I started without you,” I admitted quickly.

  “Started what?”

  “Drinking.”

  I braced myself then as I led him into the kitchen where my mother was waiting, along with my bottle of wine.

  I watched her expression as she finally laid eyes on him for the first time. She actually smiled, if only slightly.

  I took a deep breath. “Ben…I’d like you to meet my mother.”

  He took a step forward. “It’s nice to meet you…”

  “Ana Carolina Pereira,” my mother introduced herself formally. “But you may call me Ana.”

  Ω

  “My very first lover was a black man.”

  Ben had sat down and joined us at the kitchen table and we had been making simple small talk for about ten minutes – safe topics ranging from work, school, family, the weather – when my mother decided to stir the pot with her extremely sexually inappropriate, random outburst.

  I watched Ben’s eyes go wide as I nearly spit out my mouthful of wine.

  “Mama!” I shot her some dagger eyes.

  “What?” She didn’t look bothered. “I met him when I was fourteen years old – my family was on vacation in Copacabana – we got lost on the beach, my sister and I. We asked him for directions but instead he took us to his house in Rio and I smoked my first chalice that day…among other things…”

  I was absolutely mortified but Ben actually laughed – just slightly.

  “He taught me many things – it was beautiful…I will never forget him,” she continued to reminisce. Then her eyes fixed back on Ben. “He robbed us blind. Once we got back on the bus to the hotel we notice all the money was gone. Disappeared. Just like my virginity.” She raised her glass. “Cheers.”

  “Okaaaay…” I grabbed the bottle and filled up my own glass quickly. “Thank you for that, Mama.”

  “What are your intentions with my daughter?”

  “Mama, please!” I was seriously beginning to regret the idiocy of my decision to have Ben over.

  “It’s okay, Gabby,” Ben assured me easily, not looking overly concerned. He looked back over at my mother. “I care about your daughter very much.”

  She just stared back at Ben then, sizing him up. “You are very handsome. I don’t think it’s a problem for you to find a woman.”

  I was about to attempt to intervene again but Ben beat me to it. “Well that depends.”

  “On what?” My mother wanted to know.

  “On what type of woman I’m lookin’ for,” Ben answered easily.

  My mother nodded slowly. Her speech was starting to slur a bit, and mixed with her heavy accent I was worried Ben wouldn’t be able to understand her soon. “So it is true what they say…”

  Ben didn’t say anything to that, giving her a bit of a questioning look with his eyes.

  “Well…you know…ever since Gabriela was a little girl I always told her she is beautiful…even as a big girl…she can find someone that will love her, she must just be patient, you know…”

  I wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

  But Ben just smiled. “Well…” I watched him take a moment to think. “Patience is a virtue,” he said slowly. “My mother taught me that too… She used to wake up at four am just to catch the sun rise. She would just sit and wait for it…”

  My mother gave him a puzzled look, but me…I just wanted to lean over and kiss him.

  Ω

  Ben waited for me as I helped my mother get to bed. It took a while. Although I had the routine pretty much down it was still always a minimum of 30 minutes, but considering all the extra work we’d put into getting ready that evening, it took a bit longer.

  But once she was settled and comfortable and done asking me ridiculous questions about Ben and whether or not I was planning to run off and marry him and leave her to die a slow and painful death absolutely and completely alone, I breathed a sigh of relief that it was only 11:30 pm and I could now finally go and have him all to myself.

  He closed the door to my bedroom so softly it barely made a noise.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, since it was the only thing I could think of saying after everything that had just happened.

  “Shh…” He stood right in front of me, staring me down. “Take your clothes off…you want some help?”

  I stared back at him, laughing softly. “What?”

  His hands circled my waist then, pulling my t-shirt up gently. “I can’t waste any more time…who knows how long I have and when I’ll get another chance…” His voice was so soft but deadly serious.

  I caught my breath, my body already on fire. “What?” I whispered back. “To fuck me?”

  My shirt was over my head and in a pile on the floor. Ben’s fingers were already running down my spine and unclasping my bra. “No,” he whispered back, kissing me ever so softly.

  His answer surpris
ed me. “Oh…then what?” I wondered, in between tender kisses.

  My bra was in a pile on the floor with my t-shirt. His hands ran around my rib cage and cupped them gently, my nipples tingling under the warmth of his fingers. “I didn’t come here to fuck you, Gabby.” His words surprised me…made my blood rush a little faster. “I just want to be with you…we could be playing chess…or watching paint dry – I don’t really give a fuck, baby…”

  He had me pushed up against the wall, his hands running relentlessly all over my body, my knees beginning to buckle, as his mouth ran kisses along my jaw, my ear, my throat…

  “And so I’m getting naked why?” I gasped, his hands reaching around my middle again, dipping under the waist of my yoga pants and squeezing my ass.

  “Everything feels better naked,” he whispered back.

  I laughed at that, but Ben hushed me again.

  “How am I gonna keep you from making so much noise?” he whispered, his hands back all over my breasts again.

  “Do I make too much noise, Ben?” I whispered back.

  He squeezed so gently, pushing them up between his palms. “You’re the loudest fucking chick I ever met, Gabby,” he teased me, just as his mouth latched onto my nipple, sucking so gently, making me shudder.

  “Ohh…” I took a moment to recover. “So I come too fast, too hard and too loud when I’m with you…” I paused, as Ben’s tongue kept running all over and around my nipple, driving me absolutely crazy. “You may need to start gagging me or something,” I whispered then, teasing him back.

  He lifted his eyes then and slowly brought his mouth back up to mine. “I do that all the time, baby, it doesn’t help much…” He reminded me softly before we just started kissing all over again.

  He took his time and let me savour every second of it. Kissing was something Ben seemed to have down to a science – and he knew how much I loved it – so he always spent a lot of time on my mouth, my lips, my tongue… It always gave me shivers when I saw how my face seemed to give him as much pleasure as my body – and not just when he was fucking it either…

  He pulled back slowly. “Let’s go to bed.”

  I drew the covers back then and climbed in while I watched Ben undress slowly, taking his time, emptying his pockets of a ridiculous amount of crap – his phone, his keys, his wallet, a chain of about four or five condoms – and tossing everything down onto the night table. Ben and I definitely lacked diligence when it came to condoms but to his credit, he made more effort than I did.

  “Oh, I thought we weren’t fucking,” I teased him, eyeing the condoms, as he pulled his t-shirt up over his head and began working on his belt.

  He sucked his teeth at that. “We never use these anyway…it just makes me feel better knowin’ that I try,” he said with a little laugh, pulling off his jeans and his boxer briefs while I just kept staring. He pulled the covers back and climbed in next to me.

  I laughed softly. “If you say so…” My voice trailed off, though, as Ben’s naked body pushed up against mine.

  “It wasn’t so bad, you know,” he said softly, running his palm across my hip, dipping into the small of my back.

  “What?” I wanted to know.

  ‘Me…coming here,” he said simply.

  I thought for a moment and then just sighed. “She’s not herself, Ben…it’s like…the shit that comes out of her mouth, lately, I just…” My voice trailed off.

  Ben propped his head up on his hand, keeping his eyes on me, but he didn’t say anything right away.

  I hadn’t ever told Ben what Laz had told me the night he arrived…I hadn’t told anyone. And even though I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and the memory of that day so many years ago had come flooding back to me – drowning me, assaulting me, suffocating me – with such vividness, I still couldn’t face it. I wasn’t sure if I ever could…

  Ben’s hand kept stroking me gently. “Nobody can control the shit that comes out of anyone’s mouth, Gabby,” he said finally. “That’s what makes life so interesting…”

  I rolled my eyes but laughed softly. “You’re funny.”

  “Well, it’s true. I sometimes wonder about the shit that comes out of your mouth, too…” His voice was soft…teasing me…

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “I see.”

  He smiled. “Maybe that’s what keeps me comin’ back for more.”

  I sucked my breath in at the thought. “It was weird…she never had much of a filter, even when I was little,” I said softly, Ben’s body just warming me from the inside out. “Like when I got my period…I was still so young, only eleven, and her whole conversation with me about the whole thing, when I think back on it – was just one giant inappropriate nightmare. Her first concern was that now that I was a woman, losing the weight would be that much harder – I guess she thought puberty would have just taken care of all the baby fat on its own…” I sighed, remembering. “And then she just kept insisting that I start using tampons right away. I kept telling her I didn’t feel comfortable shoving anything up there – I wasn’t ready, you know – but she said it was important that I…how did she put it…prepare myself. At first I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about…I mean, I was eleven fucking years old...but she kept insisting, she said if I didn’t prepare myself properly, when a man shoves it in the first time, I’ll never be able to get over the pain.” I thought for a moment, still trying to wrap my head around the memory. “It scared the fucking shit out of me, Ben. The more I think about it now, I wonder sometimes how magical that first time had actually been for her…”

  Ben’s smile had faded slowly as he kept watching me and listening to me, and then he just brought his hand to my face, tracing my eyebrow lightly with the tips of his fingers. I tried to read the expression on his face but I couldn’t. He’d been looking at me like that a lot lately, though, almost like he wanted to say something but was stopping himself...deliberately.

  “What?” I asked softly.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “Oh…so you just want to lie here and stare at me?”

  He let his breath out slowly. “Maybe…you’re easy on my eyes.”

  I smiled at that. “No…I think you want to say something.”

  “Yeah?” He paused, still watching me. “What do I wanna say, Gabriela?”

  “I can’t read your mind.”

  He smiled at that. “That’s good. You don’t want to read my mind.”

  I raised my eyebrows quizzically. “That’s upsetting,” I admitted.

  He kept watching me like that for a few more moments and then just pulled me closer. “Come here…” He started kissing me again and I lost myself in it for a while, as I always did, but then pulled back.

  “You’re acting weird.” I had to say it.

  “No…you’re just paranoid,” he whispered, as I felt his hand reach down between my legs.

  I sucked my breath in as his finger slid across my clit. “No…Ben…for real…” My voice broke as he slipped a finger inside me. I was so wet already. My body and my head were not cooperating. “Stop distracting me…”

  He met my eyes again. “You want me to stop?” he whispered, his fingers beginning to slowly pick up the pace, finding the perfect rhythm.

  I squirmed slightly, moaning softly as I felt the pleasure building, more so by how he was looking at me – as he always did – than anything else.

  “Shit…” I let my breath out. “Yes, I want you to stop.”

  “Hmm…” He sighed, sliding his finger out slowly, cupping my pussy in the palm of his hand. “You want me to use my mouth?” He stared back at me, his expression unchanged – not looking at all bothered by my pathetic protest.

  “Ben…please…” I was losing this battle fairly quickly.

  “Yes or no?”

  I bit my lip as he massaged me slowly with the palm of his hand…squeezing ever so gently. “Yes, but…”

  He sucked his teeth softly in that sexy way of his. “S
top it,” he snapped at me, looking dead serious. “Yes or no?”

  I sucked my breath in again, as I felt my whole body convulse in pleasure. “Oh fuck…” I moaned, my head still stupidly trying to fight him, but there was never any point to that and I knew it. My body didn’t know how to say no to him and probably never would.

  “Yes…” I gasped, my voice a faint whisper. He knew how to shut me up when he wanted to.

  I saw the flicker of a smile on his lips but it disappeared just as quickly. He lifted himself up on his two hands then, resting his palms on the mattress on either side of me, still staring down at me. “You gonna be quiet, right?” He stressed it again.

  Fuck, he was so goddamn demanding, it made me sick with passion.

  “Yes,” I repeated again, getting impatient. I’d flipped a total 180 in less than twenty seconds…

  “Mmm…” He licked his lips then. “Good, baby…” he whispered as his eyes finally dropped and his tongue trailed down between my breasts.

  I closed my eyes and held my breath then as his face kept moving lower, teasing me, taking his sweet time and making me squirm.

  “Shhh…” I felt his breath then as it teased my dripping wet pussy, his mouth just hovering over my clit, causing me to arch my back, so desperate for his mouth, those lips…that expert tongue… “Stay still, don’t move,” he ordered me as he blew lightly on my clit, the cool air sending another rippling wave of pleasure through my whole body.

  “Fuck, Ben, don’t tease me like that,” I groaned out of desperation, then quickly bit my lip.

  “Keep your fucking voice down, baby, am not playin’…”

  Oh shit… And so I just held my breath again, waiting, until finally I felt the heat of his tongue just seep through me and fill me and just warm me from the inside out. I felt my toes curl and my fingernails dig into my bed sheets.