Black Silk (16 page)

And no, she did not want no Bible. Could someone instead please get that box of letters from the bottom of her closet? She’d
read them years before, never answering a one. Now was the time.

From the crack in her windowpane, Asenath felt a startling trace of warmth in the air. She thought about Rhonda Robinson,
saw her granddaughter scratching furiously at her flat chest, trying to get at something. (All wrong, all wrong. Wake up girl!
Let me show you how. Let me come near you.)

She asked aloud, —
Are you still having those dreams?

_________________

by Anne Atall

I am Pisces, which to me explains 2 things:

#1: why I am bisexual

#2: why I love to fuck in the water

Let me explain.

About #1:

Pisceans are sometimes described as wishy-washy and indecisive, or as flighty and always coming and going. This notion probably
comes from the image of the two fish in the sign: Each one swims directly opposite to the other.

A friend of mine once told me that Libras are more likely than other folks to be bisexual. Something about the Scales, and
always struggling to remain in perfect balance. Well, I’ve decided to appropriate the bisexuality argument for my astrological
sign, too. One of the fish is pulled toward the boys; the other swims fast and furious toward the girls. There you go: perfect
balance dictated by the stars.

About #2:

I adore being in the water. When I was a child, my mother had to pull me by the hair from the ocean on more than one occasion
because, despite chattering teeth and pruny fingers and toes, I refused to get out of the water.

I remember tubing down the Delaware River with a boyfriend of mine a few years ago. We went with a bunch of friends from school.
A group had scouted out where the van would drop us off; they had a cooler of beer in the bushes nearby. Once the van had
taken off and most of the suburban family day-trippers had floated off down the river, we pulled out the cooler and hooked
it up between a few of the tubes with some rope.

The sound of the rushing water and the sun warming my neck and shoulders were all I needed for the Craving to kick in, but
I suppose the beer also helped to make me lose what few inhibitions I do indeed have. My tube and my boyfriend’s tube had
drifted behind those of our friends. They paid us no mind as they splashed around and sucked down their beers. I used the
rope to pull my tube over to his and climbed onto his lap. I had just planned on a little kissing, but as I bore down on him,
and felt the thick, unyielding seam of his jean shorts pressed to my pelvic bone, his erection growing against the fleshy
inside of my thigh, his tongue probing the warm, wet recesses of my mouth…

Somehow I managed to get my bikini bottoms off and tucked them into the front of my bikini top, under my T-shirt. I thrilled
as the cold water splashed against my ass, and dripped from the thick, black hair between my legs, the drops spiraling down
the crinkly strands like kids going down one of those corkscrew slides. My vaginal muscles had that quick little spasm that
tells me I’m really turned on—it’s kind of like the mild tremor before the Big Quake—which sent cold water shooting up my
cunt, making my head spin.

He slipped out of his shorts, leaving him completely naked, but that was okay, because he was on the bottom and pretty much
out of view.

And then we started going at it.

It was incredible. It’s remarkable we didn’t drown, actually. Just as I started to come, we hit rapids and the tube nearly
flipped over. There was fear in his eyes, but I couldn’t really care at that point; my nails dug in to his back as I struggled
to hang on to him and the violent shocks traveling out from my center, wave upon wave, vibrating from my vagina to the tips
of my fingers and toes.

Once we reached calmer water, I realized that I had lost my bikini bottoms somewhere along the watery way. I had to rip off
the bottom half of my T-shirt to wrap around my waist as a makeshift skirt.

When I am depressed, or stressed, or can’t get to sleep, the thing I love most is a shower in the dark. The absolute dark
that unplugs your ears before it morphs into a soft gray and the eyes take over once again. The sounds of drops hitting the
vinyl curtain, slapping the porcelain tub like waves against the sides of a boat, the tiny pool of water forming in my navel—all
work to soothe me.

I met a woman once who hated the dark. She told me she always slept with the TV on when she was alone. Once inside my starkly
lit bathroom, I unbuttoned her jeans and tried to persuade her that a shower in the dark is one of the best things in the
world. She seemed pretty convinced after I bent down to trace the lines of her navel with my tongue. She dropped her pants
and laughingly showed me the shimmering wetness in the crotch. She is one of those women who never wear underwear. This has
always struck me as slightly dangerous—rebellious, anyway. I couldn’t even imagine what
my
underwear must have looked like.

Anyway, this is beside the point.

That shower was where I first lost my “queer virginity.” Actually, that needs a little clarification. Women had gone down
on me before, but I never really thought of that as lesbian sex; probably because it really irked me in college when girls
I knew called themselves “experimenting” but would never in a million years let girl juice get in their mouths.

Anyway.

In the shower that night, in the dark, we kissed and kissed and kissed… I remember the heady sensation of feeling like I was
losing myself in her mouth… drowning, in the water, in the circling of her tongue, in desire. I was delirious with the smells
of her and me, at first separate, then mingling, then distinct again. The pattern of my breathing chased after hers; panting,
shallow. My tongue traced the paths of her ear, around the outside curve, and then spiraled inward, flicking at the tiny hoop
in the piercing as the hot breath from my nostrils steamed inside and caused a shiver. I kissed one breast as I squeezed the
other, sucking, letting my teeth graze the hardening nipple… My tongue trailed down to her navel… I
love
belly buttons, and the way abdomens curve out from their sinkholes…

On my knees, I parted her hair with my tongue. She began to sway, and leaned back against the wall. The shower spray hit the
side of my face and tickled my eyelashes. The smell was deliciously sharp; she tasted more salty than the Me I had tasted
on her lips and my own fingers.

And I think of all this now, as I awaken with pruny fingers and wrinkly toes in the arms of the woman who currently holds
my attentions and fascinations. Surprised by a thunderstorm, whose pelting raindrops were much too cold for the middle of
August, we stripped down as soon as we reached the apartment. I ran a steaming bath and sprinkled the water with eucalyptus
leaves and scented oils (I am a woman seduced by powerful smells) while she raided the refrigerator for the strawberries she
had been craving all afternoon. When she climbed into the tub with me, it became clear that she hadn’t craved the taste. She
clamored for the experience. The easy sinking of her hard, sharp teeth into the soft, yielding fruit; the deep, deep red shocked
by that sparkling white; the curve of the berry as she curled her tongue around it; the roughness of the seeds stroked by
the tip of that playful tongue; the luscious juice dripping down her chin and making a soft splash in the water.

I chose one of the larger berries and trailed it down her neck before taking a bite. The bite uncovered the coldest, wettest
part of the fruit, deceptively pink beneath the ripe red of the dry, seeded exterior. I pressed this wetness onto her collarbone
and smeared it down her chest, eventually swirling it around her nipple before it disintegrated and I had to lick the mess
from her body.

_________________

by Camika Spencer

It was 1987. It started with a natural need that came from the core of my young being. I was fifteen, taking a look at my
pussy for the first time. It felt instinctive after laying in my twin-size bed gripping my forearm between the unyielding
clutch of my legs feeling the need to hunch against something solid. A natural need to have something pressed against me.
Inside me. As the overwhelming feeling of curiosity called, I jumped from the bed, careful not to wake my mother sleeping
in the next room, and locked myself in the bathroom. I grabbed a hand mirror from the cabinet and propped myself on the toilet.
At first glance it had the appearance of a piece of candy I once picked from a Valentine’s Day sampler. A small ocean of pinkness
surrounded by coconut-shell-colored waves of flesh with dark wispy beginnings of pubic hair. I ran my index finger around
it, separating the outer lips, feeling the warm smoothness of my vagina. Exploring that intimate part of myself by traveling
my finger in it as far as I could, wiggling it around, and withdrawing.

As I sat gap-legged on the toilet, I touched the tip of my clit. Added pressure… resigned… then again. It felt good so I repeated
the activity, stroking my way into a new addiction. I leaned back on the toilet seat, closed my eyes, and exercised my hand
more, humping against it with the fervor of a child pup trying to keep up with its mother. Then, without notice or warning,
drums began to beat inside me. I opened my eyes and removed my hand, ignoring the pounding heartlike beat surging from my
valley. My vision blurred and I saw myself as a young whore as a clear substance glistened my naive jungle and dripped onto
the mirror. I jumped up, wiped myself, cleaned the glass, pulled up my panties, and tiptoed back to my room, cowering beneath
my sheets, intending never to visit that sacred place again.

Shame engulfed me, as did the voice of my mother. “Keep your legs closed!” she’d said to me the day I got my cycle, three
years prior, and every month thereafter sounding like a broken record, and despite her pointed finger preaching, there I sat,
legs opened, revealing myself to myself. Disobeying Mama, I lay in my bed shivering with thoughts that I’d left some omen
and my mother would find out I had failed at keeping my legs closed and she’d punish me. But I’d borne a fathomless curiosity
that day. One that would send me on a journey later in life that would eventually end where it began. Me between my own.

It was March 1999, I was twenty-seven years old, and Reginald and I had fucked for the last time. He was a beautiful, engaging,
and intelligent man who was undersexed and deeply submerged in personal problems. I’d indulged my twenty-seven-year-old self
in his drama for three years, until he finally admitted to me that I wasn’t the one. With a few tears and a lot of curses,
I released him. That sneaky spring night (three months after our relationship was over), as we fogged my car windows and called
each other’s names, I went as he came. I wasn’t his after that. I didn’t belong anymore. It was a rebound fuck. One of many
fucks that came along once I began searching again for that feeling I discovered at fifteen. That
guilty that I hurt her feelings
or
maybe this will bring him back
kind of fuck. It was rushed, hard, and done without any of the conversation that it deserved. With every thrust and moan,
I acquiesced. Finding that valuing myself didn’t mean saving myself for Mr. Right, but it meant letting Mr. Could-Be-Right
know up front who I was, what I wanted, and for him not to add or subtract to it. That would happen from here on out and it
would save me a lot of heartache; so I thought. The months went by as I wrote in my journal and Iyanla-Vanzanted my way to
answers as to why I was gainfully employed, childless, honest, dependable, attractive, spiritual, and smart
but
single. I wanted a man to call my own. No, let me change that. I wanted a dick to call my own. A dick that represented me
to the fullest. A dick with passion, charisma, rapture, and a little adventure. A smart dick. This dick couldn’t just be any
old dick. Not the kind with children or girlfriend/wife drama. I wanted a dick that complemented my pussy. A single dick that
wasn’t down for the bullshit that comes with lack of communication or fear of rejection. I wanted a safe dick. A dick with
testimonies about how life has dealt some hard blows but one that knew it was always in the best interest to keep getting
back up and fighting the good fight. I wanted an honest dick. I wanted a dick that was sensitive enough to call me when it
was thinking about me. Ask me how I was doing. Send me a birthday card. Be free enough to do these things because it was a
caring dick and not a dick held up by time constraints, marital obligations, sexual frustration, tainted quickies, or the
hassles of overbooking booty calls. Simply put, I wanted a personal, liberated fuck friend.