Genevieve

by Eric Jerome Dickey

  “Talking about solutes… that made me remember taking this biology class when I was at Spelman, and Professor Davis was discussing the high glucose levels found in semen.”

  I smiled.

  She went on, “And this freshman, country girl with crooked teeth, raised her hand and said, ”If I understand what you are saying, there is a lot of glucose in male semen, as in sugar?“”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Professor Davis told her that was correct. Then the girl raised her hand again and asked, ”Then why doesn’t it taste sweet?“”

  I laughed.

  Genevieve sipped her wine. “First everybody was quiet, then the room, I’m talking the whole class exploded, burst out laughing. That girl turned bright red because she realized what she had implied. That girl picked up her books and, without a single word, hurried out of the class. Never went back. And, oh, as she was going out the door, oh my God, Professor Davis, her reply was classic. Totally straight-faced, she said, ”It doesn’t taste sweet because the taste buds for sweetness are on the tip of your tongue and not in the back of your throat.“”

  We laughed hard.

  I asked, “Was that red-faced girl you?”

  “No comment.”

  The ice had been broken. We’d become real people to each other.

  We talked a little more, our tones and words warmer, not so distant. She moved over to my side of the table. Leaned against me. We sat there drinking and holding hands.

  She said, “This is our fourth date.”

  “Okay.”

  She whispered, “Since this is our fourth date… I think we should…”

  “Should what?”

  “It’s the wine. I should’ve stopped at one glass of wine.”

  “Say it.”

  “Don’t make me say it.”

  “Say it.”

  She blushed and sipped her wine again. “Guess.”

  I raised a brow. “Go to church together?”

  She laughed. I smiled.

  “You are so silly.” Her voice turned sweet and husky. “We should engage in congress.”

  “Congress.”

  “Sex.”

  “I know what congress means.”

  I smiled wider, my insides turning, erection rising like I was a sixteen-year-old again.

  She sipped her wine. “What do you think? Or is the fourth date too soon?”

  “You’re the virgin. You tell me.”

  “Already using my words against me.”

  “Genevieve, you’re brilliant, you’re drop-dead gorgeous.”

  “Let me know. I ordered this little Victoria’s Secret thing over the Internet. Black, gold, and red kimono-style thing that has a big split, flower prints against black. I brought it with me.”

  “You planned on seducing me? In Fresno? What kind of woman are you?”

  She laughed.

  I said, “I don’t want to do anything that will make you feel uncomfortable.”

  “Would you like to see me in it?”

  “I’m imagining you… and I’m… speechless.”

  “I’ve asked you two questions and you haven’t answered either one.”

  “Yes. And hell yes.”

  She reached over, rubbed her fingers across my hand. “I’m going to the ladies’ room.”

  “I’ll get the check.”

  “No, leave the check. I’ll get the check. You paid last time.”

  Miss Independent took a few steps away, my eyes on her petite wonderment, then she stopped where she was, turned, and came back, her head down, hand rubbing across her hair.

  Genevieve sat in the booth next to me and said, “Things are out of order.”

  I asked, “How so?”

  “We’re talking about… doing that.”

  “Engaging in congress.”

  “Yes. And we’ve never kissed. Second date. We should’ve kissed on the second date.”

  I put my hand on her face and leaned toward her. She leaned her head, met me halfway. Our lips touched over and over, then mouths opened as eyes closed. Her tongue spoke to mine, said kind and hopeful things. We ended that kiss, stared into each other’s eyes, and kissed again. Then again. That out-of-character move surprised me. Her last kiss was brief, but it was strong and promising, tongue-sucking, intense, lip-biting. Combined, they left me feeling dizzy and light.

  She was heady, it showed in her eyes. And she looked relieved.

  Wished I had the power to TiVo that moment. How she softened as she gazed at me. How my expression did the same. How she shifted like my smile had created a fire that ran from her heart to her vagina. How her eyes closed like she was willing to give me her heart to break.

  I kissed her again. Gave her the kind of kiss that healed all wounds from lovers past.

  She whispered, “Having achieved everything you ever imagined and not having a man in your world, it’s like having all your fingers on one hand but missing your thumb.”

  She kissed me again.

  She asked, “What are thoughts made of?”

  “Why are you asking me something like that?”

  “Because I can’t stop thinking about you. Since I met you… can’t stop.”

  And I hadn’t stopped thinking about her. Her resume, outstanding. Perfect on paper. More desirable in person. Imagined her coming from a family of cerebral kings and queens.

  When a man was ready to propagate the species, he desired a woman with certain qualities, both professional and uxorial. He still needed a woman who knew how to be a woman. But he also wanted what was not visible to the eye, what he could not see. Her beauty appealed to me on that aesthetic level, her conversation stimulated me on an intellectual plane, but I was a man concerned with hereditary transmission. With family history. Yes, before the first kiss I pondered what type of children we would create, what information we would pass on as individual traits. What perfections. What imperfections. Those qualities were important because when a man was ready to abandon the dating game for something on a higher level, he too fell into Mendel’s breeding lab and played What if? All that to say that in the end, we all looked into the eyes of our lovers and we searched for the qualities we wished upon our unborn children.

  I wanted the best. I wanted the next generation to surpass all I had and would achieve.

  What I wanted to see in my son’s and daughter’s eyes, I saw all of that in Genevieve.

  And what I needed for myself, as a man who needed lust and love, I saw that as well.

  Again we kissed; soft and easy, lip-tasting, no tongue at first, then she sucked my tongue, over and over, nice and stimulating. The two glasses of wine had dissipated her shyness.

  Her staccato breathing, the rise and fall of her breasts betrayed her arousal.

  She whispered, “We’d better leave before we do something wicked.”

  I wanted to slide my hand between her legs, massage and feel the heat from her sex.

  Then she got up and led the way, her head up, her sultry stroll no longer professional.

  Another version of Genevieve had emerged, a woman with erotic eyes and wet lips, legs ready to be spread. The jiggle in her breasts was sensual, a little sassy, and very sophisticated.

  No matter how high a woman stacked her degrees, she still had the needs of a woman.

  At every red light, we stopped and kissed. Kissed until horns blew for us to move on. It was the most overpoweringly romantic thing I’d ever experienced. Genevieve could have enslaved me at that point. The lack of concern for the cars behind us, the way she made me feel.

  I was the center of the world.

  Inside our hotel room, velvet touches and butterfly kisses as clothes fell to the floor.

  We never made it to the silk kimono, not that night, not right away.

  The first time a woman stands before a man naked, he does not know if it will enhance what he feels, or if he will be disappointed, if the visual will diminish the fantasy.

  She was beautiful. Toned. No vis
ible scars.

  I stared at her with her clothes off. Doctor Genevieve Forbes. Naked.

  I saw her vagina. Saw how she took care of her sacred spot.

  She gazed at my penis.

  I gazed at her breasts.

  Mysteries were revealed and evaluated.

  A penis, a man’s lingam, in some ways it can be judged, evaluated by sight.

  The same goes for a woman’s breasts. You can see how they hang, which is larger, the nipples betraying desire, even if that desire is not shown in their eyes.

  But a vagina. A man knows nothing until he moves across those fleshy folds.

  She gave me her body to worship. I took my time getting there.

  I was erect and nervous. She was wet and shy.

  She lowered her head, tilted her face to the side, gave me an impish smile.

  I said, “Move your hands. Let me see you.”

  She did.

  The first time a man sees a woman’s bare breast, the first time she gives them to him to kiss, to lick, to squeeze, the first time she allows a man to pay homage, that is Christmas.

  I ordered fruit, painted her skin with strawberries, and licked away the sweetness. I showed her how clever I was with my tongue. Five-foot-one-and-one-quarter underneath my six-foot-plus frame. My weight, hers plus at least ninety pounds. I fit inside her. There was no sigh. A foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier and I fit inside her without a sigh. It surprised me how she took all of me without a sound. Surprised me how she could squeeze her vaginal muscles almost as if she was adjusting her vagina, her sacred space, to fit what was given.

  Doctor Genevieve Forbes climbed on me and moved in a nice rhythm.

  I remember wanting to come, but willing myself not to. Maybe even praying not to come. That heat growing in my belly. Felt as if my penis had doubled in size, was enormous and hot.

  She asked, “Would you like me to give you a blow job?”

  Genevieve. The woman who plans things. This was an option. The logical woman. Sometimes, even the most logical among us lose the ability to reason when it comes to sex.

  I answered, “Yes.”

  She stopped and took me in her mouth, took in both of our scents, both of our flavors, the satin flesh of her tongue first licking me, then her mouth opening and swallowing me. I fit. Her movements were gentle and pure, like a child sucking her thumb, automatic and without thought, natural. But still as graceful as a ballerina, even when she was sucking enthusiastically.

  I looked down on her. Watched until my eyes glossed over and madness arrived.

  I told her I was coming and she moved her mouth away.

  Kissed me while she stroked me, gave me gentle kisses.

  I came. An orgasm that took forever to seep out of me. I came forever.

  She whispered, “Let me get a towel.”

  She came back and cleaned me.

  She asked, “Would it bother you if I smoked a joint later?”

  “So you do have vices.”

  “We all have vices.”

  “You smoke weed. That’s surprising.”

  “When… sometimes. Would that bother you?”

  I lied and I told her it didn’t.

  I asked, “Did you come?”

  “Almost. It was good. I enjoyed it.”

  “I want you to come.”

  Then I licked her again. Licked her until my jaws ached. Licked her like I was on trial and her orgasm, or lack of orgasm, was the verdict, what determined if this would happen again.

  It took some time to get her flushed, to get her breathing irregular, to get her to move from making love soft and gentle to fucking, to get her hips bucking, to get her to let go of her PhD, be honest with her primal desires, to seek pleasure. And I was proud to make love to her.

  A woman not having an orgasm while congress is in session, in the land of Eros, as the impulses to gratify basic needs take over, that was a nonnegotiable.

  That is my selfishness. The need to please and be pleased.

  That night she came once. She smiled and said that was good enough for her.

  She went to the bathroom, brushed her teeth and showered, came back and cuddled.

  Sleep found me, and my dreams took me to my teenage years. To another woman. To Maria. To my Ecuadorian lover. She comes to me in my dreams as a lover, but as a mother figure as well. I turn my back on her now, as she did to me then, when I was no longer useful.

  The sun was rising when I woke up, in bed alone. Genevieve was across the room. She was sitting in a chair, in her kimono, back straight, legs crossed, hands on knees, dignified and sensual, staring out at Fresno. Clouds faded over my head. The room held the scent of ganja.

  Her nostrils curled and a ribbon of smoke snaked from her mouth. I asked, “What are you looking at?”

  “The railroad tracks. I grew up by railroad tracks. Could hear the train.”

  “You miss it?”

  “No. I don’t ever want to wake up to that sound again.”

  Genevieve suddenly looked like a saturnine woman with a permanent frown.

  Then she smiled, came over and kissed me, as beautiful as the sun over Malibu.

  And she remained obscure in so many ways, enough of a mystery to electrify me.

  No matter who Doctor Genevieve Forbes was, I loved her then, as I do now.

  Six months of dating and two years of marriage have flown by on the wings of time.

  Her mysterious ways didn’t trouble me back then.

  Now I long to unravel the secrecy of the woman I married.

  EIGHT

  IT’S LATE WHEN OUR FLIGHT DESCENDS INTO BIRMINGHAM. THE FINAL leg of our journey is filled with turbulence, enough to make this feel like a roller-coaster ride into the arms of Lady Death.

  For a while I jerk around and stare at the rain, think about my mother. Sweat blooms in my palms. The rain. Our accident. My heart speeds up, my breathing shortens.

  Genevieve touches my arm. “You okay?”

  I nod, manufacture a smile, a lie to calm her worry, then I create a yawn and look away, my five senses drifting back outside the window, back to a rainy day in Pasadena, Texas.

  Outside my window, gloom and trees. No tall buildings like cities such as New York or D.C., no grids and endless traffic like LAX. In the darkness I stare at land I’ve never seen before, try to imagine when this was the land of slaves. Of forty lashes. Of bombings and lynchings.

  When we leave baggage claim it feels like I’m breathing through a damp blanket.

  I ask, “It’s this tropical all the time?”

  “Tropical is sexy.” Genevieve says that in a voice that can barely be heard, already wishing she were somewhere else. “Beaches and Spanish drinks by a pool. This is not sexy.”

  A Town Car is waiting for us at baggage claim, the driver holding a sign with Genevieve’s last name. The driver is thin and white, his black suit not crisp, the pants and jacket two different shades of black. He is smiling but exhausted from his long wait. I smell the cigarette smoke in his suit, smell the cancer as it rises from his pores, permeates the airport, the city.

  The driver asks, “How was y’all flight in from Los Angeles?”

  I wait for Genevieve to answer, but she ignores him.

  I say, “Started off smooth then got pretty rough near the end.”

  “Sounds like my first marriage.”

  He laughs. I laugh a little too.

  He says, “You and the missus picked a heck of a day to come to town. Tornado done already carved out some parts down south then went through Atlanta, now looks like it’s turned and is heading this way quick, fast, and in a hurry. We was about to shut down, thought the airport would do the same, but they sent me to make this run before the weather turned on us.”

  As he loads our bags he talks incessantly, his Southern accent strong and redneck, an offspring of Deliverance, not rooted in slavery and at the same time reminding me of those pale-skinned people who used to own dark-skinned people. His demeanor so
different from all the Hollywood people we just left behind, all of his interactions peppered with no, sir or yes, ma’am.

  The driver takes 1-20. The skies become the blackest of all blacks. Traffic crawls at a civilized pace, as if they respect the weather, something that does not happen in Los Angeles.