'Til It Happens to You

by Kristofer Clarke

  Mother had a blanket thrown over her legs to block the light early morning breeze. I wore a button-down flannel shirt, old college sweat pants, wool socks and flip flops just to enjoy my mother’s company and conversation. In the crisp November air, with December and winter lurking around the corner, Mother and I sat sometimes in silence with not more than the sound of us cooling our tea or taking a sip, the steam from for our cups visible in the outside air. I liked just looking at her, and I wondered sometimes why I didn’t look like her. Her dark complexion was beautifully smooth. She always looked at you with warmth in her eyes. I loved to watch her laugh, loud, with her mouth wide open, and an open hand across her chest as if laughing might kill her.

  “May I ask you a question?” she asked, looking serious. I rarely ever saw her without a smile. She stared into her cup as if the answer to her question would come somewhere between the sweet of honey or the sour of lemon.

  “Sure, Mother,” I said, and took a sip of my tea.

  “Are you happy?”

  I digested her question and thought carefully before responding. Why couldn’t she have asked me whom I voted for in this month’s election? “Work is going well,” I answered. “The conferences and traveling can be a bit much at times, but I’m not complaining.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about, Junior. I meant with Trevor,” she clarified. She sat up in her seat, turning to look at me. I saw the look of concern in her eyes. She had that same worried look the day I packed my car and moved away.

  “If I were unhappy, Mother, I promise, you would be the first to know,” I assured her. I don’t know what would give her the idea I wasn’t happy. For the most part, I had found my idea of happiness. No, I hadn’t quite figured out the letter, or how to approach Trevor about it, but I hadn’t led on that anything was going on that would make me unhappy.

  “I hope so, Junior. I certainly hope so.” She sat back in her chair and brought her cup to her mouth.

  I looked at my mother through squinted eyes. If I knew her as well as I thought I did, I think she knew something. But what exactly did she know? Maybe she was just being my mother.

  I took the last sip of tea. I got up and walked towards the patio doors. I slid one door open, and before I stepped into the breakfast area, I made one last request. “I’m sure you have your reasons, but you calling me Junior has bothered me since the day my father left. Can you please stop?”

  She never responded.

  Earlier in the year, my mother had decided this Thanksgiving was going to be just the family. Since Devaan was living on her own, I had finally moved out, and Mr. Kirkwood’s job kept him gone most of the time, spending more time on the road than he was at home, she wanted her family together. Detrick Antone Kirkwood, Mr. Kirkwood’s son from a previous marriage, had joined us from his studies at Wake Forest University. Telly, my sister’s love interest, was there, too. And she was right, he did impress me, but from the look on Mr. Kirkwood’s face, he needed more time to figure this guy out.

  Here we were, one big happy extended family, enjoying a feast of a Thanksgiving meal that my mother, Devaan, Trevor, Detrick, and me had all lend a hand in preparing.

      

  “Let’s talk,” Trevor began, breaking the thick shade of silence that existed between us. Trevor’s eyes remained focused on the road before him.

  I had my feet on the dashboard, my chair reclined all the way back, with an old issue of Today’s Black Woman in my hand. A sexy, young Rihanna was featured on the cover wearing a black dress exposing sexy shoulders. Her mane was purposely swept across her face. Damn! She looks good, I thought. I had been thumbing through the magazine, quickly glancing over articles about Black Female Leaders changing the world, relationships between black men and black women, until I finally found interest in an article on one’s love style.

  “What exactly do you want to talk about?” I finally asked.

  “Anything,” Trevor answered.

  “You know, we never did have that dinner with Dexter and Giovanni,” I began. I kept my eyes on the pages of the magazine.

  “No, we didn’t. It’s cool though. I’m sure they’re just as busy as we’ve been.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” I responded, sarcastically. Trevor shot me a look from the corner of his eyes.

  “Are we having Christmas at your place or mine?”

  “Mine, since I haven’t hosted anything there yet.” I looked at Trevor and smiled.

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “Oh, make sure you invite Dexter and Giovanni. That’s if they aren’t planning a Christmas of their own.”

  “I’ll tell him. I’m not sure what they have planned, if anything.”

  And we were silent again.

  It wasn’t a long drive from the airport to my house, but we were caught in the Sunday evening traffic with everyone else who had decided to travel this Thanksgiving weekend. Why didn’t we take an earlier flight? We could have avoided all this, I thought. The suitcases sat in the trunk and back seat, including two extra ones filled with a few things we had picked up from all the shopping we did early Friday morning, the craziest Black Friday ever. It cost an extra $50 to check-in those bags, but damn it, the savings were worth it.

  “Did I tell you Denise was dating again?” Trevor asked.

  “It didn’t take her long at all,” I said, closing the magazine and throwing it in the back seat. I opened the bottled water I had purchased at a busy deli across from an American Airline gate after we de-boarded the plane and took a long sip.

  “Do they ever? I mean, life waits for no one. You might as well be happy and live.”

  I looked at Trevor and smiled again. I thought about the time it took him to move on from Kelvin. I guess he did learn something.

  “What’s that smile for?” he asked.

  “Can’t a man just smile?”

  “Anyway, her name is Alaina Knowlton. They’re supposed to be coming this way, either for Christmas or New Years. They’re not sure yet.”

  “Bringing the new squeeze to meet the family and get your approval?” I asked, jokingly.

  “Denise doesn’t need my approval. Toni wasn’t exactly a bad choice. She just chose someone else.”

  “I guess it’s okay to be a little confused or unsure at times.” I was playing with words, gauging how Trevor would react. I thought about how easy it was for him to discuss Denise and Alaina, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell me about his trip to Chicago. He was definitely hiding something, but I wasn’t going to make him any wiser.

  Trevor answered his phone on the first ring, but remained silent. That he was disturbed by the call was apparent since his facial expression couldn’t hide his annoyance. After he hung up, he still said nothing. Whoever it was, or whatever was said, had left him tight-faced and tight-lipped. I was wondering what he was thinking. I could bet my last dollar he wondered what I was wondering. He avoided eye contact and became even more focused on the road than he needed to be. Silence settled between us. After pulling into my driveway, I helped Trevor with his luggage, putting his suitcases in the trunk of his car.

  “You know, I really enjoyed your folks,” he said, slamming the trunk of his Athens blue Infiniti G37 Coupe. I loved seeing him in that car. “Your sister is crazy as hell.”

  “Yeah. Her overprotective self can be a jester sometimes. I love her though.”

  “How can you not?”

  “We used to joke about her marrying a pastor so she could wear her big hat and sit in the front pew as women and men hung on to his every word. But you see Telly was no pastor.”

  “Oh, I saw the penetrating looks your father gave him. But he seems like a hard nut to crack.”

  “He’s not my father,” I corrected with some force.

  Trevor shot me a look.

  Inside the house, we sat on the couch looking at the TV screen, paying no particular attention to what was on. Trevor sat with his back towards the arm of the couch and his f
eet resting in my lap.

  I felt exhausted.

  He looked worst.

  Five regular days with my family can wear you out. I held my head back, closed my eyes, and then let out a deep sigh.

  “Hey,” Trevor said, tapping his feet into my stomach.

  “Huh,” I answered, raising my head and looking at him.

  “Are you ok?”

  “A little tired, but yeah, I’m ok?” I brought his feet up to my lips and softly kissed his toes. Trevor looked at me, smiled, and then winked. He wanted me to continue, and since I didn’t mind, I obliged. I loved Trevor’s feet—soft, beautifully manicured, and they smelled good, too, even though they had spent the entire day wrapped in socks and stuffed in a pair of black and white Adidas sneakers.

  I unzipped the fly of his slim straight 514 Levi’s jeans. He lifted his pelvis and I slid the jeans under his ass. I tossed the jeans on the hardwood floor at the side of the couch and continued my sensual assault of Trevor’s five-foot-eleven inch slender muscled physique, all one hundred and seventy-five pounds of him. I continued down his feet, around his ankles, making my way to that sensitive spot in the back on his knee. He sunk his body into the sofa.

  “Hmmm,” he moaned.

  My lips kissed his groin. His body stiffened from pleasure, and I felt Trevor’s man-piece slow growing against my face.

  “Sit up,” I ordered. I removed his winter-white v-neck sweater, and then his t-shirt and tank. He had a swimmer’s build and the flexibility to match. I knelt on the floor in front of him between his legs.

  “Ahhhh, yeah,” Trevor let out.

  I slid my lips over the mushroom-shaped head of his impressive penis. I looked in his eyes as he disappeared in my mouth. I was pleasing him like I always had. Although I was concentrating on this pleasure I was unleashing on him, it didn’t stop a disquieting thought from entering my mind. If he is giving his love to someone else, is he satisfied with me? I thought.

  I shook my head, attempting to dismiss the image of someone else making love to Trevor from my mind. With his eyes closed, he moaned in pleasure. I circled his dick head with my tongue, and then allowed his piece to disappear in my mouth again. He began to gyrate his pelvis.

  “I’m close,” Trevor warned.

  I removed his piece from my mouth and allowed him to discharge the sexual tension he had been holding in all weekend.

  25

  What Do You Know?

  Trevor…

  When I walked outside this morning, I could smell winter approaching. It was getting darker earlier. Mornings now had a crisp start to it, and winter gears were in full swing, even though we were still a few weeks before winter’s official start.

  I pulled up to a parking space directly in front of Daily Grind. I inserted my credit card into the slot of the new parking kiosk, paying to park for the next hour and a half. I displayed the parking receipt on the dash and walked into Grind.

  It wasn’t unusual for Grind to be busy this early in the morning, and this Wednesday morning was no different. I walked up to the counter, placed my order, and grabbed a seat. I was sitting in my usual place, alone in the corner at a table for two. I removed my laptop from its case and carefully placed it on the table in front of me. I removed my cell phone from my waist and placed it next to the computer. I wasn’t expecting any calls this early in the morning, but just in case. There was a text message from Jackson.

  Good morning, handsome. Hope your morning has started off well. I woke this morning with you on my mind, as always. Hope you have an excellent day…talk to you later.

  - JDB

  I pressed my thumb against the screen to reply to Jackson’s message, but then the phone rang. An unassigned number displayed on the screen. I held the phone against my ear and waited for the caller to speak.

  “You don’t deserve someone like him, and you know that. You don’t know what to do with a good man. How does it feel?” he asked.

  For the first time I realized these numbers displayed on my phone whenever he called were never the same, but his voice never changed. It was throat deep, filled with accusation and the occasional hatred that no matter what I had done or what he knew, I didn’t deserve.

  His phone call wasn’t the first thing I wanted to deal with this early in the morning, or any other time, for that matter. I was hoping to enjoy my vanilla latte and cinnamon rolls, glance at a few stories in the morning’s paper, and prepare a contract before my 9 a.m. meeting with Wesley and Morgan to get an update on the Copeland project. But damn it, here I was entertaining this fool who had decided, again, to interrupt my morning.

  “And what exactly do you think these phone calls are doing to me?” I asked, hoping he would engage. “You think whoever you’re talking about is going to come running back to you? Isn’t that what you hope to accomplish?”

  “It really doesn’t matter to me who he runs to. But that does sound like something you should be concerned about.”

  “Right, but I don’t seem concerned, now do I? Don’t you see? Your phone calls are starting to lose credibility. First you warn me about him, now you’re telling me how much of a good man he is and that I just don’t know it. So which is it? I don’t think you know who you’re talking about.”

  “I see you’ve found your voice,” he said calmly. “Usually you just sit on the phone like a church mouse.” And then he was quiet.

  “And I see you’ve lost yours. Caller, are you there?” I took a sip of my latte. It had dropped a few degrees since my first sip. This man was interrupting the flow of everything. “You’re helpless and hopeless and wasting my damn time. Why don’t you just walk away?”

  “Did you tell him about your time in Chicago?” That was supposed to have been his dagger.

  I wanted to see if he actually knew who he was talking about, or if he was just reaching for information, throwing a fishing line and waiting for me to fall for some life-like bait.

  “Him?” I asked.

  “Yes. Him. Jackson. I know you haven’t forgotten his name. Did you tell him about Chicago…with Dexter? Or do you think he already knows?”

  Now I was the church mouse he had just described. I acted as if I just couldn’t find the words, as if the cat had my tongue. “Does he?” I finally asked.

  “Does he what…know about Dexter? Why don’t you ask him?” He paused, waiting for me to respond. “Oh that’s right. You can’t. See, for now, he only knows what you’ve told him. And what are you going to do when Dexter wants more. Whose

  heart are you going to break?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Trevor, what’s most important, that you know my identity? Or is it important Jackson doesn’t find out about your secret getaways with Dexter, or that the friendship you are playing up in his face goes far beyond your coffee-shop meetings?”

  He had a point. “What do you want?”

  He laughed. “You still think this has anything to do with me.”

  “Doesn’t it?”

  “I hate to disappoint you, man, but this isn’t about me. This has everything to do with you, the foolish choices you’ve made, and the choice you need to make.”

  “Between Dexter and Jackson?” I asked as if I didn’t already know. “But Dexter and I are only…”

  “Friends?” he interrupted. “See, that’s a lie you can only tell yourself and Jackson. You can’t have your cake and eat it, too, Trevor. Look, I have to go. You will be hearing from me again. Something tells me you’re not really listening to me.”

  “Wait,” I called out. “You haven’t told me your name.”

  He exhaled heavily. “It’s Bran.”

  I was quite sure it was an alias he pulled out of nowhere. Then the phone went dead.

      

  I was sitting in my office behind my desk, lazily tapping my pencil against the arm of the chair. I still hadn’t responded to Jackson’s text. My meeting with Wesley was less than ten minutes away, and the clarity and focus I h
ad this morning was gone, thanks to Bran.

  “Are you busy?” Caela was standing in the doorway.

  I was deep in thought so I didn’t respond immediately.

  Does Jackson already know about my short vacation with Dexter? Was he just waiting for me to come clean? How could he even make love to me if he knew about the things I’ve done? How could I have allowed him to? What was Jackson up to, if he was up to anything at all? I thought. These questions are never going to end. Then I thought about him suggesting we invite Dexter and Gio for Christmas dinner.

  “Helloooo,” Caela called out, waving her hand in front of my face.

  “Oh. Hey. Sorry,” I said, snapping back to the present.

  “What’s got you so deep in thought? Nothing to do with your meeting with Wesley, is it?”

  “No.”

  “Then what?”

  “It’s not important. Did you need something?” I asked, looking at my watch. “I have about seven minutes to kill before my meeting.”

  “It can wait.” Caela started towards the door.

  “Caela, you’re already here. Just close the door.” I looked at my watch again. “You now have six minutes, thirty seconds, and counting.”

  Caela closed the door, leaned against it, and began talking.

  “Four years old, and now he wants to ask about his damn daddy.” She was irritated.

  “Who? Kellen?! Where did this come from?”

  “When I asked him, he said, ‘Kelsey has a daddy, and Jorden has a daddy, where’s my daddy?’ Trev, you should have seen the look on his little face. It killed my heart.” She had her arms folded across her chest, her stare towards the floor.

  “I’m sure it did.” I walked over and gave Caela the hug she looked like she needed. She was starting to tear up. I held her shoulders with both hands and then asked, “Don’t you think it’s time he knows his father? Call Tavaris. I’m sure you know how to reach him.”