The Business of Lovers

by Eric Jerome Dickey

  I called out, “How’s the migraine?”

  “Fuckity fuck. Fuck. Okay. This is too much. Meet me in the bathroom.”

  * * *

  —

  MOCHA LATTE SLAPPED two hundred dollars in tens, twenties, and fifties down on the bathroom counter.

  She picked up her phone and said, “Siri, set timer for thirty minutes.”

  “What am I doing?”

  “Hands and mouth, that’s all. Fingerfuck, French kiss me there, fix this migraine.”

  Mocha Latte sat on the edge of the counter. I left her long enough to grab a pillow from the bed. I came back, dropped it on the floor, got down on my knees. I pushed her legs apart, patted her sex, looked up at her face, saw pain and the need for me to hurry up. I touched her vagina, fingered the outside, felt she was dry, then moisturized her with my tongue, took in that salty sweet taste of a woman. I got her wet and worked her with two fingers. She sat up to make sure I got in good, got the angle right. I pressed my left hand against her belly and worked her, massaged her insides with the fingers on my right.

  I’d fingered Coretta right here, just like this, more times than I could remember.

  “Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah.”

  I was so into doing this, so in my zone. I had done this to Coretta, had done it often, but it had never felt as good as this. Pleasing Mocha Latte satisfied me as much as it was a curative for her. She tasted so good it almost made me come. If I had to eat one thing for the rest of my life, Mocha Latte would be my soup du jour. I looked at her face, at her beautiful dark skin, at her underlying glow, her desperate expression, and I felt the army of twitches, the orgasmic sensations gathering up and beginning to explode, rolling throughout her trembling body. I gazed at her as she held on to the edges of the counter. She shuddered and held on like she was on the edge of the sea cliffs along the western coast of the Canary Islands, with no option but to surrender to orgasm’s gravity, to let a thousand little deaths loosen her hands and make her let go and force her to fall sixteen hundred feet and sink into the warm sea.

  She moaned, “You got me you got me you got me you got me you got me damn you got me.”

  She sat up straight, then slid down off the counter to the cool tile on the bathroom floor. I massaged her slowly, rhythmically, backward and forward without pause, took her higher as she moved to get on her haunches, fingered her as she held the sink and bounced, as she moved up and down on my hand.

  “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, yes yes yes yes.”

  That beautiful woman made ugly expressions that let me know her dark and lovely face was on fire. She fell away from my face, stood up, told me to come with her. She dragged me into the bedroom. We hurried to get in bed. She pulled me on top of her, her toned legs wide open. Her ankles hooked around me as she reached for my cock.

  I stopped her. “You paid for fingers and tongue. That thick Brick dick costs extra.”

  “Really? Fucking really? I mean really, you’re going to do an upsale, fatherfucker?”

  “This is a professional service.”

  “One hundred.”

  “Two hundred.”

  “One fifty.”

  “Two.”

  “One sixty-five.”

  “Two.”

  “Okay okay okay, two fucking hundred.”

  “Cash. Plus tip.”

  “Fifteen percent.”

  “Twenty percent. Plus blueberry pancakes in the morning.”

  “Get a condom. And I want repeats.”

  “No repeats.”

  “No repeats, no pancakes. And I want that level-three shit you can do, or no goddamn pancakes.”

  “Okay, one repeat at level three.”

  She said, “Damn you. Siri, set timer for one hour.”

  I countered, “Oh, hell no. Siri, set timer for thirty minutes.”

  “Charging me another two hundred and pancakes? Fatherfucker, you better smash this migraine to smithereens.”

  CHAPTER 37

  BRICK

  TWO HOURS LATER Mocha Latte shook me out of another dream.

  “Brick. Wake up. I need you to drive me to meet my date.”

  She’d showered, was rocking a wig that made her hair jet-black and bone straight and was dressed like an astute businesswoman. Penny and Christiana were in the living room. The television was on. Family Feud. I smelled dinner cooking, and it smelled so good my stomach growled. I went into the kitchen. Christiana had made a five-course Cuban meal of black bean soup, croquetas, shrimp with cilantro cream, garlicky chicken, and salad.

  She said, “I try to cook something that everyone will like. Buen provecho.”

  I said, “You’re spoiling me.”

  “Let me know if I am overstaying my welcome.”

  “If you leave, wherever you go, I’m going too.”

  She said, “I love it here. But we could all put our money together and lease a nice condo in Playa Vista, or maybe a high-rise in Marina del Rey. I did some investigating, and I hope you don’t mind.”

  She took out brochures, put on her excited smile, passed them out to all of us. The booklets showed three- and four-bedroom condos, each bedroom with its own bath. Each unit had a private elevator. Kitchens by Poggenpohl. Granite countertops. Miele double oven paired with induction cooktop and hood. Dishwasher and Sub-Zero refrigerator. Eleven-foot ceiling with floor-to-ceiling glass windows. Wraparound glass balconies.

  Each property was breathtaking. Made my place feel like the junkyard on Sanford and Son.

  Christiana said, “No one would have to work more than once or twice a month to pay their part of the rent. If you worked twice that, each month or so you could vacation in Barbados or Belize. We could schedule in-calls then. No more driving three hours in traffic to work an hour. Time is money. Think about it; no need to discuss or commit now. I know Mocha Latte has to go to work soon, and it’s a long drive to get from here to Newport Beach in this horrible traffic.”

  Penny hummed. “Marina del Rey is a very expensive zip code.”

  “It’s all about location. We can earn more for doing the same thing, and it will be done in the safety of our own condo, not in random houses or in hotels. And when we are not working, we have that ocean view. We can relax, and Penny can study, and we can do it all with fresh ocean air blowing in our windows every day, and after we watch the beautiful sunset, we can sleep in its coolness at night. Plus, we’d save many dollars on gas money. Gas prices are ridiculous.”

  Christiana had been transformed, like the lead character in the classic movie Caged. Sweet innocent girl went to jail, locked up for a crime her husband committed, and came out hardened. All that mattered was what was in it for her. Life in Cuba with an unfaithful husband had been Christiana’s cage. If her marriage hadn’t gone south, I wondered what the attorney would be doing now. She would have a kid, or kids, be a mother, be living a different life, one that she didn’t almost drown trying to escape. Love no longer mattered to her. Winning was all that mattered.

  * * *

  —

  I GASSED UP Miss Mini; then Mocha Latte and I hit the freeway. Had to go forty miles south in grim traffic to Newport Beach. In constipated traffic. Mocha Latte had an overnight date with a man who lived on a yacht.

  Mocha Latte was still looking at the brochures that Christiana had given us, captivated by the lifestyle she’d been offered. As we moved through LA toward the tiki torch part of Southern Cali, we chatted.

  I asked, “How’s the migraine?”

  She laughed.

  I smiled. “What was that strange little laugh all about?”

  “Learn to negotiate. I would’ve paid you at least five hundred. You had me. When you have a client stressed like that, you can get them to buy you a house just to be licked one more time, especially the way you eat pussy.”

&
nbsp; “Didn’t mean to be a cheap date.”

  “Migraine gone, as if it never were. That three-levels-deep shit you can do is both scary and—”

  Her phone rang, and she took the call.

  She said, “Sorry, but I’m a soft dom. Because I really don’t like violence. Sorry. Because I’m not into that. It’s not about raising the price to feed your fetish. What? Well, fuck you too. Your momma.”

  “And scene.”

  She ended the business call and sighed. “These fatherfucking fatherfuckers. I try to be professional. Some people don’t hear a soft, polite no. Then you give them a hard no, and they call you asshole, bitch, and cunt.”

  A look of disgust came and went.

  I asked, “Everything okay?”

  “You make the girlfriend experience feel real for me. You make GFE feel real.”

  Mocha Latte frowned, hummed, and rested her soft hand on mine; our fingers interlocked.

  She asked, “What do you think about Christiana’s proposition?”

  “She’s focused. She’s about the money. An altruistic entrepreneur.”

  “Made us that big-ass Cuban dinner and softened us up before she put that proposal out there.”

  “I noticed. She made me imagine getting homemade meals like that on the regular.”

  “Everything with her is calculated.”

  “What are your thoughts?”

  “It scared me, being in that deep, but it sounded like the life I deserve. Those properties . . . I want that life.”

  “We all want that life.”

  “Would be nice to wake up with a view of the ocean. Barnes & Noble is a block away. I could chill there and read. There are two dozen restaurants in walking distance. And at least two movie theaters. And a swank grocery store. All the mainstream coffee shops. DSW to feed my shoe fetish. I could get so many more runs in because the beach would be a mile away. And Christiana’s right, in that zip code, I could triple my fees for companionship.”

  She let my hand go, the affection she had for me gone, replaced by a new ambition.

  She asked me, “What are you up to tonight? Are you going on a date?”

  “Nope. Dropping you off, then heading back to Leimert Park. Why?”

  “Because you packed up a picnic basket of food like you’re going on a hot date.”

  “Just taking some relatives some food.”

  She stared out the window like a woman looking for her true love in the darkness.

  I asked, “We good?”

  She whispered, “‘Beauty is an aphrodisiac of which you are not in short supply. I see an abundance.’”

  “I meant that.”

  “Liar.”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “You had me twice and haven’t asked me my real name once.”

  “Paid services each time, so technically, I’ve never been with you romantically.”

  “You didn’t ask when you danced and kissed me in public like I was Cinderella.”

  “You never asked mine.”

  “Yours was on your mail. At least I know who I’ve been with. You have no idea. Never asked.”

  Annoyed, I asked, “What’s your real name, Mocha Latte? Cappuccino? Hot Chocolate? Tell me.”

  “Doesn’t matter. That was the last time, Brick. Never again, not even for a stroke-level migraine.”

  “I know your goddamn name.”

  “What is it? What is my name, Brick? Who am I?”

  “First name Simply. Last name Beautiful.”

  “Know when to stop joking.”

  “Am I laughing?”

  “Never again.”

  “Cool by me.”

  “Fuck. Jesus. No. I’ve become a goddamn Penny. A fucking Penny after two times.”

  “Are you serious? You’re a goddamn riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”

  “You don’t know my name. You never asked. So I don’t matter to you, nigga.”

  We went back and forth like an old married couple, but soon we held hands again until her phone rang. It was the mechanical engineer she’d met online, the decent-looking nerd with the PhD. She sent the call to voice mail. She took my hand again, restless. I saw that conflicted look on her face. She was struggling with her duality.

  She asked, “Penny okay? That night at the Viceroy scared her to death. She was talking about quitting.”

  “It was a watershed moment. For both of us. Never saw her so terrified.”

  “I was talking about quitting too, while I’m ahead. Before this becomes a career.”

  “Then what?”

  “Malakoff. There is a tractor there with my name on it.”

  “Too bad this had no foundation. I’d drive you to the real Vegas and make you my wife.”

  “Too bad it can’t be reverse engineered.”

  “Marry me anyway.”

  “Sure, Brick, if you can tell me this. Which is the first element on the periodic table?”

  “Carbon.”

  “You blew it. Last try. Which Spanish town is completely surrounded by France?”

  “Damn you.”

  She laughed and held my hand tighter.

  “Brick. Tell me about this experience you had with cancer.”

  “Why?”

  She held my hand a little tighter. “Because I care.”

  We had bad traffic and a good hour to go to get to Newport Beach. I took a breath, told her all about it.

  Chemo, three days in a row, then three weeks off, five cycles.

  The pretending to not be weak.

  The opioids for pain. The medicine for nausea.

  The fear when I dropped twenty pounds in a week.

  The mornings I cried alone, then faced the world and pretended to be perfect.

  The days I didn’t have enough energy to get out of my fucking bed.

  André was on the road telling jokes and Dwayne had been touring with his stage play.

  Dwayne Sr. wouldn’t have cared, would’ve thought I needed his financial help.

  I didn’t worry my momma or my stepdad. We talked on the phone, but I hid my issues.

  Frenchie had been going through what she was going through, and I was going through my own shit.

  God had everybody too occupied, had us thinking everybody else was doing just fine.

  We’d all been suffering in our own way, doing it in silence.

  I hadn’t told anyone that much detail.

  She held my hand and cried.

  CHAPTER 38

  BRICK

  LATE EVENING, I met Dwayne back at Hot and Cool Cafe. He was dressed in distressed denim, a pure-white T-shirt, and a big brown fedora. He was drinking a chai and ranting while he flipped through the pages of Backstage.

  “How in the fuck have I paid a million dollars and my son is still starving? Hasn’t Frenchie saved one dime over all these years she’s been sweating me and bleeding me for every penny she can get?”

  I almost told him what Frenchie told me not to tell, but instead I said, “Checkmate. New subject.”

  “What does she plan to do when Fela turns eighteen and I make the last payment?”

  “Get your laptop, open up a new file in Word, and write out your anger. Say all the negative shit you want to say there. Call her names. Tell her how you really feel about her, about the situation. Then e-mail that six-page diatribe to yourself. Read it ten times, then delete it. Because once it’s said, it can’t be unsaid.”

  Then my brother shifted gears, started a new conversation, asked, “The girl you broke up with . . .”

  “Coretta.”

  “Bad breakup?”

  “Bad enough.”

  Dwayne said, “Not all breakups are bad. Sometimes when you break up with somebody, it hurts but
it forces you into a better place. Know that. Sometimes it’s better to push the reset button and start over with somebody new, as opposed to dealing with something that is never going to get any better. Pussy good, relationship bad, then relationship bad, even when the pussy is good. Learn to let go of the pussy, no matter how good.”

  “Funny how you get your heart broken, but you’ll take them back instantly just to ease the pain.”

  “New poison is the cure. A new poison will make you forget the old poison.”

  “Sometimes poison is just poison.”

  “A brokenhearted man is a broken man, so he does things to make himself feel like a man worthy of being called a man again. Be careful what you do to make yourself feel like a man again.”

  I realized that Dwayne was always listening to me. Even if he didn’t respond, he heard me.

  I nodded. “I’m proud of you. You’ve fought this battle over Fela for over fifteen years and you’ve never given up. Even though I’m tired of hearing you talk about that shit, I’m not tired of hearing how you feel. I care how you feel. I’m learning how to be strong too, how to not give up. You taught me to not give up, to be persistent, and most of all, to love. Sometimes men go away, run away, so they won’t have to be a father. Your son loves and respects you because you love and respect him. Unlike my dad, our dad, who was horrible at taking care of that which he created.”

  Dwayne said, simply, “I’m glad you’re my brother.”

  “We almost didn’t meet. Never would have if it had been up to Dwayne Sr.”

  “Nigga Daddy.”

  “He didn’t want it this way.”

  He said, “I hated being an only child. I was so happy when I accidentally found out I had siblings.”

  “Accidentally.”

  He nodded. “My mother had written your name down, as my brother, on a document for social security. She knew and wasn’t going to tell me. Yeah, I remember when I first found out that I had a brother that my dad had never told me existed.”

  “You were eleven and I was six years old. I remember it like it was yesterday.”

  “I found your address and I rode my bike to your parents’ front door, knocked and asked for you. They asked me who I was, and I told them I was your brother, and I was coming to meet you. You were six and had a baby brother by your momma and her new husband. André.”