The Business of Lovers

by Eric Jerome Dickey

“Do you even care that I left you? Did you ever care?”

  “You’re drunk.”

  “Do you think you were fair?”

  “Flip this shit; give me your résumé, say I was spending and not paying one bill, not paying rent, say you had no idea how much money I made, if I had any savings, what my portfolio looked like, and your girls would’ve told you that was too many red flags. They would have told you not to marry me, to break up, and walk away running.”

  “We were living like we were married. I was cooking for you, making you breakfast seven days a week, washing your laundry every Friday, sucking your dick on demand. Your dick was the first dick I ever sucked. I don’t like dicks like that, but I did that for you. I even tried to swallow. For you. On your birthday. I spent months putting up with your OCD, then all of a sudden you needed to look over my check stubs, credit cards, and see my fucking tax forms like you worked for the muh-fuckin’, goddamn IRS? You actually wanted me to have your accountant, someone I didn’t know, look over my personal life, so you could decide if I was good enough to marry you? Who does that?”

  “Smart people who don’t want to be outsmarted by love.”

  “Brick.”

  “If you were going to be part of my life forever, was that too much to ask?”

  “I made you breakfast every goddamn morning. And you never had to ask.”

  “All I asked you to do was put it all on the table. Same as I had done. I didn’t hide anything from you. I operated under full disclosure, but you hid your shit like you’d colluded with Russia.”

  She slurred, “Maserati Mama ain’t complaining. She’ll do anything for me. She’d save two million dollars to get Beyoncé to perform at our wedding, if I wanted her to. That’s how much she loves me.”

  “Give it time. What you have is still new and she’s blinded by the feel-good nights.”

  “You’re jealous. You live off Crenshaw. Nigga, I’m living in Fox Hills now. Being chauffeured in a luxury car. Eating crab legs whenever I feel like it. Ain’t nobody got time for a dumb-ass credit report. That whole credit system is used to keep black people down, and you wanted to come at me with that stupid shit as a deal breaker?”

  “Are we done here?”

  “Are you capable of loving anybody unconditionally?”

  “I let you move in. You paid no rent. I took care of you. That meant I loved you.”

  “Not un-fucking-conditionally. If people love each other and want to be together, then they will be together, no matter what. It doesn’t matter if it’s man and woman or woman and woman. Love doesn’t care about a damn credit score or student loans or a nasty toilet. Why were you such an asshole? I would have walked across Northeast Greenland National Park in flip-flops and a thong to be with you.”

  “You are really drunk.”

  Coretta sipped her poison. “I need to arrange to get the things I left at your funky little apartment.”

  “To the right, to the right, everything you own is in a box to the right.”

  “I should have never dated you, never should have made you breakfast.”

  “Don’t forget to flush twice. And add some roughage to your diet. And bleach will get rid of that brown ring.”

  I hung up. She was plastered, crying out in pain, and I hung up on her.

  I headed toward the elevator, my mind stuck on Coretta. Those mornings she woke up in need, she’d reach back, stroke me until I was awake, then mount me, that intense look on her face as she went up and down, riding strong, sweat dripping down her back, scarf coming loose on her head, heat from each ragged exhale warming my face, taking dick like she owned dick. By the third minute she was coming, and by the fourth minute, I was coming hard while she came her second time. The earthquake inside her created a tsunami inside of me. Morning sex was quick—she had to get to work, and I had to get to my white-collar gig at the widget factory in Santa Monica. It was before the cancer, before I took off work. Then at nighttime, Coretta put on a negligee and wanted to be three levels deep as soon as the sun dozed off. Some weekends we didn’t leave the crib, and it was wine, food, and nymphomania meeting satyriasis. The sex was off the chains, never a bad session, but outrageous sex almost on the daily wasn’t enough to keep us together. If sex kept people together, divorce lawyers would be out of business.

  Everybody needed love. We were born crying for love, crying to be nurtured. We never stopped crying. We just learned to cry in different ways. At five o’clock every bar in the city was packed with people who were crying out to the world, using martinis or Jack and Coke as their evening pacifiers while they searched for someone to take them to their bosom and love them through the night. People just needed to make it through the night.

  Every night since Coretta left, I’ve needed to make it through the night.

  My wolves were growling, growling, growling.

  My duality howled to be set free.

  I almost called Coretta back, wanted to go to her, take her, fuck her senseless, get this rage out of me, put my dick so deep inside her she couldn’t help but to love me the rest of her life, but the door to the elevator opened and the sudden brightness cleared my motherfucking head. Six months ago, she moved to Fox Hills and moved on and fed one of the wolves growling inside her. Sex had been good, but business was bad.

  I still missed her.

  CHAPTER 22

  BRICK

  ROOM 1237.

  Mocha Latte opened the door and hurried me inside the suite. She was nude except for high heels and an impish mask like the ones they wore at Mardi Gras. She saw surprise in my eyes and shrugged. She had been oiled and her dark skin shined like a diamond, oiled so well there was no ash in the crack of her perky little ass.

  Mocha Latte handed me a cell phone. “Record.”

  “What?”

  “Mostly her face. Her expression. Keep it erotic, not nasty. Well, not too nasty.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m cool. This hair. This mask. No one can recognize me.”

  “Okay.”

  “Bring that BDE this way.”

  Mocha Latte fluffed her purple Afro. I followed the out-of-work engineer. Lights were off, but scented candles had been lit. Her client was on the bed, hands up over her head, a cat on a hot tin roof. She squeezed her thighs together, moaned like she had been close to orgasm when Mocha Latte left to answer the door.

  The client moaned, “Who dareth to knock at my door while I am in such a distressed state?”

  “It was the knight thou requesteth.”

  “Return to me at once and hark to the sonnet I sing when you take me beyond the heavens.”

  Mocha Latte pushed the client’s legs apart, crawled on top of her. They caressed, took deep breaths. Soft kisses. Heavy breathing. I aimed the phone at them. The client pulled Mocha Latte’s face to hers, kissed, kissed, kissed. I chronicled their meeting at the first order of the sewing circle.

  Mocha Latte was wicked with her tongue. It surprised me, seeing her do that, work it like that. No one knew a woman like a woman. She was methodical, slow, comprehensive. The client’s arousal was outstanding. Her moans were a love song. Mocha Latte took it slow, like it was a Sunday morning ride down Pacific Coast Highway. I studied her technique, learned. She focused on a circular motion that made the client say things in her original tongue mixed with things in her second language, a mellow ride to a searing orgasm.

  Mocha Latte looked my way, voice soft, “Art thou recording our queen in her splendor and beauty?”

  “Right, right.”

  I had gotten caught up watching, felt heat and arousal, then swallowed, tried to shake it off. Biology ran its fingers up and down my spine, sucked on my ear, dared me to ignore its touch.

  The client grabbed the sheets and moaned. She also wore a mask. It was secure, not slipping from her face.

 
Mocha Latte paused and told me, “Come hither, Lancelot. Sucketh her toes. She’ll reward you handsomely.”

  Phone in hand, still recording, I asked, “Sucketh her toes?”

  “Art mine own words unclear?”

  I went to the prestigious doctor who matriculated to and graduated from Yale, and while Mocha Latte pleased her, I took the client’s small foot in my nervous hand. My touch made her jerk like she felt a new level of stimulation. Her nerves were alive. Her senses were heightened. Her toes were manicured. Feet soft.

  Mocha Latte whispered, “It’s okay. She wants this. She said she’s attracted to you.”

  I rubbed the client’s foot against my nose. Clean. That woke up my fetish. A foot fetish. Since I was fourteen, when my teacher had turned me out, I’d had a foot fetish. I kissed Yale up and down her calves, kissed to her heels, licked across her feet, and finally took her small toes in my mouth, sucked till her back arched.

  Mocha Latte teased her lips. Rubbed her hands down her thighs, played with her inside and outside with her tongue. Tongue, thumb, middle finger, all worked in concert, and that concert made the client sing like a symphony.

  Mocha Latte paused. “Put the phone down for a second. Let it keep recording though.”

  “Put it where?”

  “Give it to our queen.”

  The client held the camera, stared into it, amazed and aroused by her own erotic expressions.

  I rubbed the client’s legs, felt her softness, her response to my touch sensual and encouraging. It made my nature rise. I got into it. The energy moved from her body into mine, and I made love to her foot.

  Mocha Latte whispered, “Isn’t Queen Guinevere beautiful?”

  I exhaled. “She is. She glows like she is hotter than the sun at summer solstice.”

  “Thou art Shakespearienced.”

  “I am, my melanin-blessed lady.”

  “I’m supris’d. Thee hoyday me at ev’ry freakin’ turneth. I did study the bard in univ’rsity as an elective.”

  “Mine own fusty’r broth’r is in the theat’r, a thespian, and that high-sighted lover of Shakespeare forced us to holp learneth his lines, and ov’r the years that gent did teach us much about the most famous of all bards as well.”

  “Would thou make love to her?”

  I took a breath. “The king wouldst behead me.”

  “How dareth thee mention King Arthur?”

  “Please forgive me for casting his shadow against the mure.”

  “My mistress needeth to asketh nay one. If’t be true the lady hests, ’twill beest done.”

  “Then with her permission.”

  “Doest thou want to prithee the queen, Lancelot?”

  “It’s up to the queen.”

  “She wants thou. Pull Excalibur from its sheath.”

  “The queen has to say she wants me to doeth that, not thou, lest I be beheaded at once.”

  The client nodded and moaned. “Taketh it out.”

  Mocha Latte said, “Remove Excalibur from its sheath.”

  The client moaned again, demanded. “Taketh it out at once.”

  “The queen wants to seeth thine sword; test thine weapon while I please our queen.”

  “I shall reward you handsomely. I only want to see thine sword, nothing more.”

  I was scared, but I was excited. Afraid and aroused. I was caught up in this. It was like I had committed to something by entering Vegas and the only way out was to see it through to its conclusion.

  I unzipped my pants. Did that like I was in a trance.

  Mocha Latte saw my cock and whispered, “Wow.”

  The client said, “Excalibur is beautiful.”

  She reached for me, touched me, held me, stroked me. I felt a hallelujah rising in my soul.

  She shivered, gyrated, moaned in Arabic, then sang, “Ooooo-oooo.”

  Mocha Latte teased her. “What is your desire? What else?”

  “To feel Excalibur awaken the neglected love in my heart.”

  I moaned, felt both dizzy and over-aroused. I wasn’t supposed to be in Vegas. My job was to wait in Barstow, maybe Victorville. But I was in Sin City. I needed to dial this back, but it had too much momentum.

  Mocha Latte stared, surprised, momentarily mesmerized. She moved me away from the client, out of her reach, left her writhing and demanding to feel me in her hand again.

  Mocha Latte whispered, “Do thou want to feel Excalibur again?”

  The client whispered, “I am your queen and I shall have that which I deserve.”

  Mocha Latte said, “To experience Excalibur, Queen Guinevere, that wilt cost extra.”

  “My demimonde, and what doth I receiveth f’r mine own wage?”

  “Thee shall receiveth Excalibur.”

  “Bid me thy most wondrous off’r.”

  Mocha Latte massaged the client, kept her aroused, did the upsale and cross-sale, told her the fee to have Excalibur, as if I had no say, as if I was on the auction block. Or just on the block. Whoever Mocha Latte was now, she wasn’t the woman who’d made blueberry pancakes the other morning. Not the woman who was walking in her sleep, not the woman who hated being an escort. Her fire made the sun seem like ice.

  The client demanded, “Bringeth me Excalibur.”

  She took me in her mouth and made me coo. Mocha Latte recorded the client’s distorted face. Then Mocha Latte put the phone down. The client had me weak. I tried not to moan, but I moaned. The client set me free.

  “Removeth thine armor. I want to seeth thy body in its truth.”

  I hesitated.

  It was like it had been with Dwayne at breakfast, when he had ordered food and a hoodie, had made a promise he couldn’t fulfill, and I paid to keep him from being embarrassed. Mocha Latte had promised something, and I felt like if I backed away, she’d be shamefaced. All I had to do was turn around, walk my erection back to Barstow.

  I came out of my clothing, then fell between our queen’s generous thighs. She put my cock inside her, no pretense, no hesitation. I was inside a woman I’d met less than an hour ago, a woman who had never told me her name. We were strangers. Not knowing me, controlling me, this shit excited her. She moved like she was possessed, danced with the heat of the devil as she glowed like an angel. The client positioned herself, moved so she could have us both at once. She wanted the GFE-BFE she’d paid for. Mocha Latte stared at me while the client pleased her. I pleased the client. Mocha Latte looked into my eyes, and we exhaled, had a moment, and despite the third set of moans, it felt like it was just us in the room. Mocha Latte moved, had a small orgasm, not sure if it was real or pretense, and the client rolled away, aroused. On fire, I grabbed Mocha Latte, pulled her to me, turned her over, was about to take her from the back, rubbed my erection against her slit, against dampness, heard the sweet, sticky sound. She jerked like feeling my hardness shocked her back to reality, and she moved away from me, shaking her head. I had imagined something downstairs, some connection, some desire that didn’t exist.

  “We hast nay contract, Lancelot. If thee putteth Excalibur inside me, we shall hast a problem.”

  “Touching thee in such a manner, it wast mine own misprision. Mine own mistaketh to desire to please you as I do the queen, my lady. I didst not meaneth to enter thee; if’t be true yond wast not to beest. Mine own cock wast anxious, out of controleth, but now things art cleareth.”

  The client laughed at us and mounted me. Her full figure amazing, her softness supreme. That feeling was gold. I sank inside heaven, and she moved like she needed to come or die trying. Mocha Latte kissed her queen’s legs, sucked her breasts, then came to me, looked me in my face while the queen sang in ten octaves, touched my lips, smiled, winked. Mocha Latte had me stop for a moment. She got on her back, had the client get on top of her, so they could be breast to breast, kissing, inhaling and exha
ling, while I took the client from the back.

  The client kissed and bit on Mocha Latte as if Mocha Latte was rocking her to heaven. The client was pulled into Orgasmland. Soon, she was three levels deep. Lost in her climaxes, trembling, moaning, moving, grabbing, scratching, biting, coming, coming, coming, then shuddering like she was experiencing the phenomenon called Catatumbo lightning, riding more lightning than struck Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela. Mind, body, soul, she was mine.

  CHAPTER 23

  BRICK

  THE GLOWING WOMEN were on the bed together, in the center, panting. The scent from three had blended into one decadent aroma. The client had her phone out again, and they took a few selfies; then they took their masks off. They giggled the way young girls did after sex. I rested at the foot of the bed, like a wench, a bed warmer, a phallic, an accessory to their impishness. Objectification done, I had been moved aside, put on a low shelf.

  I didn’t know if I should stay in Vegas or stagger back to Barstow, but since no one said for me to leave, I stayed.

  In a dreamy voice that carried a fresh huskiness, the client said, “That was unexpected and amazing.”

  Mocha Latte wiggled like she was tingling. “Any other fantasy I can help you with?”

  The client wiggled in her own way, hummed. “I really want to have sex with two handsome men.”

  “A Devil’s Triangle.”

  “Is that what it’s called?”

  “I can set it up for you. Can be there too, to keep you comfortable, if you want. Fly me to wherever you are, and I’ll be yours. Would be great to do that out of the country. Maybe in Paris, next time you go.”

  “Let me think on that before I commit. Maybe it could be one man and you can wear the strap-on like you did the last few times. That could be interesting. Or maybe this undertaking might be where I draw the line.”

  “Just let me know, and I can make it happen.”

  The client looked at me. “Kiss me.”

  I did, slow and easy. She bit my lips, sucked my tongue, moaned into my mouth.

  The alarm on Mocha Latte’s phone sounded. Mine went off at the same time.