Black Silk (37 page)

But after she turned and the next line danced forward his power waned. Cam shook his head, trying to play above the furnace
raging in his lats and deltoids. He felt Sekou’s eyes on his back. He knew he was supposed to play longer put he couldn’t.
He’d strained himself to maintain the energy level and he only hoped he wouldn’t be peeing blood later. So he lapsed back
into his familiar drum part, hoping no one would notice. Almost immediately, Tunde stood up again and brought the energy back
up, rapping out another lightning-crack solo.

Simultaneously Cam felt a rush of relief and a stab of shame. Tunde saved the dying rhythm and the dancers flew on, unaware,
but Cam hadn’t been able to sustain his solo. They were coming to the end of rehearsal. Tunde’s solo rose in a crescendo and
when he gave the nod to bring it all home, Cam was thankful.

Sweaty footprints from the dancers dappled the floor in front of the drums. The dancers bowed and touched the floor in front
of the drummers and then danced off. Grace made a few announcements about the next rehearsal and Sekou told the drummers he
wanted them to stay longer to practice and listen to a new drum tape from Guinea he’d just bought. As the dancers left the
room, Nyema nodded to Cam. She mouthed the words “see you tonight.” He managed a half smile, then grimaced as Sekou lightly
slapped him on his right shoulder.

“Don’t worry about your man,” Sekou smiled. “Yes
,I know
—you can heal him. But he must learn the drum. It will heal him tonight.”

After midnight Cam reached Nyema’s place and dragged himself up to her second-story flat. Before he could key the lock, she
was at the door, letting him in. The room was dark, except for flickering candlelight from the nearby bathroom. She lifted
a finger to her lips, then quietly took his drum from his shoulder and sat it in the corner. Cam slipped off his boots and
put them next to his drum. Then she led him to her bedroom.

“Will you let me, baby?” whispered Nyema. “This time?” She knew his resistance, understood his constant struggle with his
own vulnerability. He nodded, and she saw something in his expression then. Something like a low-tone blues out of his brown
eyes, placid, sweet, and completely resolved. Nyema returned his smile and kissed him lightly on the lips.

“They really worked my baby, huh?” said Nyema, taking off his shirt. “Let me see…” She looked at his hands. They were still
throbbing as if he were still pounding out mad rhythms on his drum, hot skin on skin. As usual, they were slightly swollen,
callused, and still warm. Nyema softly kissed each finger then finished undressing him.

“What you need after these brutal rehearsals is a helper,” she smiled. “Let me help.”

He watched her as she hovered over him, saw the glossy brown pools of her shoulders glisten in the small light. Sweet spices
hung about her, and she draped them over his body with her touch.

“Okay, now let’s get you in the tub.”

“Hold up, baby,” he insisted. “I can, you know, take one after, um…” He was supposed to be letting go, letting her run things,
but damn, he couldn’t help himself.

“Camden,” she said, and shot him
that
look. It silenced him.

It was a deep, old-fashioned bear-claw tub and the water was hot and low, maybe three inches. Through the steam, he could
see a plastic pitcher on the sink. An incense stick and a candle burned nearby; on the floor next to the tub, a silver tray
was stacked with a few items: sunflower oil, a carton of comfrey leaves, a bowl containing a greenish, creamy mixture, and
a glass of water. As Cam stepped into the tub, he playfully tried to pull her in with him. She laughed and resisted, then
sat down beside the tub. From there, she began to wash him with a soapy body sponge. Soon he was awash in a glistening white
lather from head to toe and standing before her, hard in the orange light. She sat him back down. Then with her pinkie finger
she drew a heart over the lather on his chest.

“There, I made it. It’s mine,” she said.

“Uh-huh,” he intoned as he caught her hand and pulled it down into the water, between his thighs. She stroked him gently,
peering hard into his eyes. His look was serious, necessary. She would have to slow things down a bit. After all, she wanted
only to replenish and nurture her man—at least that’s what she told herself.

“You know what?” Cam asked. “Suddenly, I’m not tired anymore. Come on in.”

“Shh,” she whispered. “I want you to close your eyes and see our fantasy, remember it?”

“You mean…?” He knew it well but wanted to try to tease her, too.

“Mmmm-hmmm,” she hummed. “You’re already in water.”

She rested her fingertips upon his temples, then his eyelids, closing them gently. He sighed heavy and sank back into the
tub. She slowly poured the pitcher of water over his chest and body. Then she rubbed oil into her hands and began to massage
it in to his shoulders and chest. Her slender hands made circular motions as she gently stroked his muscles back and forth
and toward his heart. Next, one by one, she laid the cool comfrey leaves on his shoulders and arms.

As she worked over him, he felt her dark breath on his skin and the wisp of her long, black dreadlocks. But he was having
trouble visualizing their imaginary love-dream. So for inspiration, he cheated and peeked up at her. He could see her firm
brown nipples sway in little circles beneath the worn, almost transparent fabric of her fading batik wrap. He squinted and
saw a high forehead flash, her laughing eyes, both shiny and bright. Then he pressed his eyes shut and revisited their silvery
tropical fantasy over again in his mind. When she finally finished preparing him, she instructed him to go into the bedroom
and wait for her.

Cam sat alone on the edge of the bed. The night released a muted, heavy drone, which he initially though was her refrigerator
or some other electric appliance. But it wasn’t. It was the night, alone. Then he heard the pull of a freight train clicking
into the nearby West Oakland scrap yard. The train’s distant whistle came to him softly, stirring something deep within. “How
odd,” he thought, as he lay back onto the satin sheets and tried to be patient. His hand slid down his slick body and found
a familiar hardness.

“I see you have your energy back,” said Nyema, suddenly at the foot of the bed.

“What? Naw…” muttered Cam. “What took you so long?”

“Don’t worry about that. I’m trying to hook you up,” she said, handing him a cup of tea. “Come.”

“Your famous tea?” he said, sipping the steaming roots-and-bee-pollen elixir.

“Uh-huh.”

“Girl, you my juju queen.”

“Uh-huh,” she said. “Okay, lay back now.”

Nyema laid a long beach towel on the sheet next to Cam and told him to lie on it. Next she picked up the bowl of greenish
cream, which was really an avocado-mango-almond-oil balm, and massaged small amounts into his palms. The sensation of the
cream, first cool upon his skin, then like ice melting beneath her hot hands, was immensely intoxicating. He wanted to ravage
her right then but for some reason, he gave in to her pace, allowed her to tease him. Soon she’d worked the luxuriant deep
into his arms, elbows, biceps, shoulders, chest, stomach, and thighs. She was moving down to his pelvis when her wrap fell
off. Naked and shimmering, she tossed it to the floor and continued her love chore.

Nyema held Cam firmly in her hand and slathered the cool cream on his dark shaft. She massaged it between his thighs and lightly
rolled it onto his balls. He tried to sit up but she pushed him onto his back, told him, “Relax.” Next she slowly kneaded
her way down to his knees, past his cream-covered lance, which quivered and twitched from side to side. But a heat, an electromagnetic
compulsion, drew her back to his center. She knelt over him and let her breasts sway lightly upon the hard candy she found
there. Soon her chest was frothy with the cream.

Now Nyema was on her back and Cam was over her, stiff and plunging, teasing her lips. Her hands caressed his buttocks and
invited him deeper.

“You did it, baby,” he whispered. “Now I want to do something for you.”

“What?” she said, licking the sweet-smelling cream from her lips.

“Stay just as you are. I’ll be right back.”

Now it was Nyema who heard noises in the night and anxiously awaited her lover’s return. Soon he was back with a smile and
a steaming coffee cup in hand. He sat it down and took her hand and led her to the bedroom wall. Cam instructed her to close
her eyes and to stand with her naked back to the wall. Nyema eagerly played along. Her naked body flinched against the cool,
cool wall but Cam made sure she remained there, pressed lightly.

He stood back briefly and admired her anxiously trembling form. He believed her sloping dancer’s body carried ancient memories;
each curve, crevice, and muscle revealed a story. Her sista hips and her high, round ass teetered back and forth, kissing
the chilly wall. Cam spread her legs slightly and told her to try to remain still. Then he began his experiment. He took the
coffee cup and dipped his finger into it. A string of hot honey ran off his finger and onto Nyema’s left nipple.

“Ooohh, ahhhh…” she moaned. “That’s hot.”

“Too hot?” he said, as he dripped more onto her other breast.

“No, uh, it’s okay,” she muttered. “Aaahh… baby, what are you doing to me?”

With his finger, Cam painted a line of honey across her full, plum lips, down the slope of her neck, and into the tiny reservoirs
at the top of her shoulders. Warm amber dripped from her swollen breasts. She quivered against the wall.

“Don’t move, baby,” Cam begged. He couldn’t help himself. He leaned in and began hungrily sucking and caressing her fig-colored
nipples. Then he regained his composure and continued his sweet plan.

He dripped the viscid liquid over her navel and between her thighs. The combined effect of the cool wall and the hot honey
gave Nyema the sensation of floating downstream and being showered with tantalizing, warm raindrops. Coils in her skin tingled
from the soles of her feet and shot waves of frenzied, vibrating signals to her disparate parts: her nipples, her ears, her
scalp, her stomach, her thighs, and her clitoris, which now dripped with her own honey. Cam licked the honey from her lips
and tongued his way to her navel.

Cam turned her around so that the palms of her hands were raised over her head and flat against the wall. He spread her legs,
starting by sliding his hands up under her buns and letting them glide down her thighs on the thick, slippery, hot tide he
found there. Honey dripped down the small of her back and seeped into the pearlike crease of her magnificent ass. Then quickly,
without notice, he turned and dipped down between her legs, catching the streaming honey in his mouth before it hit the ground.
He lapped and sucked his way up to her sweet center and used his hands to further part her round, dark rift.

The effect he was having on her was unprecedented. He’d put the honey down in favor of her nectar—then suddenly another idea
grabbed his imagination. He seized a small wooden stool, draped a towel over it, positioned his back over the top, and slid
under her. It was a perfect fit. As Nyema readjusted her spread legs, his face and mouth slipped into place and he held onto
her soft, abundant ass cheeks with both hands. From his upside-down position, he glanced up and saw her face. Caught in a
grimace of pleasure, she looked down at him and their eyes locked. He glided his tongue lengthwise along the sugary valley
of her vulva. Nyema moaned and clung to the wall, her back dancing fervently. He remained there for a while, licking and sucking,
until her collapsing weight upon his face was too much to bear.

He slid off the stool and madly tossed it aside. She was bent halfway over, still holding fast to the wall for support. Suddenly
he had an unexplainable ache to bestow her with his sight of her; she deserved to be drenched in her own light. The dimples
on the small of her back, the slinky valley between her shoulder blades, the ellipse of her navel; all were divine movements.
He kissed his way back up the backs of her calves, to her inner thighs. Then Cam stood behind her and slid his shaft up and
down between her ass cheeks.

When their pleasure became too immense to bear, he sank inside of her. Just the tip at first. The tip teasing like a sticky
tongue. Then delicious, direct, long, slow strokes. Stroking in and in. Deep. He was up against her back and she was pressed
hard to the cold wall. Slowly, Cam began to churn her in small in-an-out circles, his hips on a 360-degree swivel. His hands
found her breast, his tongue her neck and hot ears. They blazed on.

Nyema clenched him tightly, then the small of her back fluttered like a blanket, sending quiver shots out to all points north
and south. She inhaled and the sound of rivers and streams rushed past his ears. Camden held on, neither thrusting nor remaining
motionless; they were drifting, swamped in each other. They collapsed, still united.

The near lightness of outdoors spread shallow whiteness through a bare window. A morning bird singing on the ledge sounded
like a small child teasing a tune through a toy whistle. Nyema’s head rested on his chest, her brown leg securely clamped
across his. They were in bed; their warm breath heavy, brown bodies coiled. He awoke. Strength surged within him and he held
her close, feeling the waves of her body rise to meet his. He drank her kisses and replenished her with his own. Her fingers
found his spine. Cam yearned to give this woman his breath, whatever it was he had. He was empty with her in almost the way
he yearned to be with his drum. She
was
his drum.