Dapper Carter's 8 Rules of Dating (11 page)

Halloween had just passed and people were already
starting to gear up for Christmas. I hadn’t bought gifts for my family and
friends in quite some time, so I was already starting to prepare my mental list
of what to get for whom.

Since I was working now, I could afford to take care
of the people who have supported me through my trying time. Caesar was easy. You
could never go wrong buying him Cuban cigars.

Khalil, on the other hand, wasn’t as easy. He would
require more thought because it’s hard to shop for someone who already has
everything.  I decided to buy him a plane ticket to visit his momma in Phoenix.  You couldn’t go wrong getting either of my dudes a plane ticket because
those cats got it in on the frequent flyer and buddy pass programs.

Cez had been to London a few times, as well as Tokyo, Malaysia, Rio, Prague, and Dubai.  Khalil travelled in a more intellectual
circuit of Paris, Moscow, Istanbul, and Cape Town.   Unfortunately I
couldn’t afford to send him where he really wanted to go: Bangkok.

As I patiently waited for them to finish getting
their nicotine fix, it would be just my luck to run smack into Rain and one of
her girlfriends as they were leaving the bar. I was taken aback; embarrassed
actually, because of the company I was keeping that night.

“What’s good Rain?”

“Well, if it isn’t Dapper Carter.”

“How have you been?”  I asked.

“Good.”

I was looking for something to break the ice with
and alleviate the uncomfortability of the situation. So I said the only thing I
could think of.

“So…you still not eating meat?” As soon as the words
left my mouth I knew I sounded like an idiot. 

“No. I still don’t eat meat.”  She was amused,
in fact, and gave a feeble chuckle. I tried to play it cool, but already I
could sense what was coming next, so I braced for it. I could see it in her eyes.

“So, who are your friends?”

I felt like she hit me with a sledgehammer in the
chest. Hesitantly, I answered, “This is Becky and Daphne.”

“You're friends with Dap? Isn't he just the
coolest?”

A slight smile pursed Rain’s succulent lips as she
spoke. “Yeah, he's pretty cool.”

The girls giggled nauseatingly like drunken
schoolgirls.

“Becky? I think I know you from somewhere. Didn't we
take an ethics in business class at Columbia?”

“No, you must have her confused. We're still in high
school,” Daphne chimed in.

My eyes widened as big as flying saucers. “High
school? I thought you girls told me you went to Columbia?”

“Columbia High School in Maplewood!”   

Rain cracked a knowing smile like she just did me a
favor. I was really beginning to dig this girl and it seemed like she had my
back. Rain strolled off as I turned on the girls.

“It was nice meeting you guys, but this is where I
say goodnight.”

“Goodnight? We're just getting started,” offered
Daphne.

“Not me, kids. It's a little past your bedtime,” I
expounded.

“Maybe it's bedtime for all of us?”

“Shit, they'll put me under the jail messing around
with you two. I'll pass. Goodnight, Daphne and Velma. Go find Shaggy and Scooby.
I'm sure they're down to party still.”

I could not believe I was doing this. I still hadn’t
gotten any action since my divorce and there I was turning it away, a threesome
at that. But I guess I did the right thing. Those girls didn’t even know who
Shaggy and Scooby were.

So after I put the kids to bed, so to speak, I
wandered Lafayette Street wondering how you could feel all alone in a city with
six million people.  New Yorkers walked around with their guard up and wouldn’t
let anyone get close to them when deep down no one really wanted to be alone.

Born in Nairobi

The Brooklyn streets weren’t jumping like they
normally were in the summer. The change in seasons tended to do that.  But
there were small bands of people scampering to the different watering holes
with the intent of getting out of the way of the 15 mph wind that was blowing. I
wandered around for another 20 minutes or so before I settled on
John
Henry’s
, which oozed of energy. People were chillin’ outside watching “Superfly,”
which was being projected onto an adjacent building’s rear wall. There was a DJ
playing ’70s funk and ’90s hip hop. The crowd was a cornucopia of the diverse
people living in Brooklyn.                            

I was nursing a Corona hanging out near the bathroom
when an avocado-colored lassie with dreadlocks and a pierced nose, Ladonna
Charles, stumbled from the restroom. She had an eclectic, punk rock look; complete
with a tongue and lip piercings that I had gotten used to since living in Brooklyn.

She was a bit frumpy in her flip flops (48 degrees
outside) and baggy jeans. But that was par for the course in New York. There is
not as much pressure to be in shape like places where they show skin all year
round like LA or Miami. That’s the reason New Yorkers  are all about
fashion in order to compensate for that layer of winter fat they put on to stay
warm. We don’t give Eskimo women a hard time about being fat to stay warm, so
we shouldn’t hassle women from NY, Philly, or Chicago.  

Ladonna shot me a quick, inebriated smile, so I
decided to speak. She was puppy cute and couldn’t be more than twenty-three years
old. I chuckled as the poor girl tried to seduce me with her drunk, globular
eyes. She didn’t look like a deer caught in headlights, but more like its
larger cousin, the Moose.

“You’ve been in there for a while. I thought you
might have fallen in.”

“Not this time.”

“If you had, I would have saved you.”

“My hero.  Who are you here with?”

“Me, myself, and I.”

“Do you want to come sit with me and my frieeends?” 
 It’s kind of cool to be alone at a bar and show off how independent you
can be. But at the same time, women start to wonder
“Why is he alone? What’s
wrong with him?”
So I accepted and to be honest I was beginning to feel a
little bit like the old me again.
Confidence will take you places you never
thought you could go.
 

At the table I met Ladonna’s roommate, Mackenzie, an
engineering student at Pratt. We passed the time by playing the Kevin Bacon
game, which I was much better at than I thought I would be. I was a bit of a
movie buff and amazed them by connecting renowned Black actors such as Sidney
Poitier to the well-known thespian. We laughed and had a good time. I even
treated them to a round of drinks. After drinking my second Corona, curiosity
got the best of me.

“So, Ladonna, where are you from, if you don’t mind
me asking?”

“Why would I mind you asking me if I was from  Luziana
(Louisiana)?” This might be the only word that New Yorkers will annunciate
every single syllable correctly:
Lou-i-si-a-na
. She knew what I meant. Fucking
smart ass!

“No, I meant your ethnicity.”

“Oh. French, Jamaican, Irish, and Creole.”

“Shit, you ain’t nothing but a plain old nigga.” I snickered
under my breath.

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing. I said I wish they made these glasses
bigger!”

“Ohhh. Tell him what you’re mixed with, Mackenzie.” She
involved her seemingly white roommate who sported fire engine red hair,
electric blue eyes, and a door knocker hoop bulled through her nostrils.

“Dutch, Irish, and Kenyan. I was born in Nairobi,” she bellowed.

“Get the fuck outta here! Ladonna, you look Black,
but you’re actually more white. And Mackenzie, you look white and are actually
African. Go figure.”

“I’ve got a little Indian in me too,” Mackenzie
chimed in for good measure.

She was definitely Black.  Sistas have been using that line for
years!  Ladonna took a healthy gulp of the Riesling she was finishing.

“So, changing the subject, are you going to put a
dress on for us?”

I looked around like they must have been talking to someone else that
entered the conversation and I didn’t know it. There was no way she could be
talking to me.

“Excuse me? What did you say?”

“Are you going to wear a dress for us? You would look
so cute. All of our male friends have done it. Haven’t they, Kezie?”

“Yup.”

“Get the fuck outta here!”

Mackenzie tapped two guys standing nearby. It was no
coincidence that neither of them were Black nor were either of them over the
age of twenty-four.

“Guys, haven’t you put on a dress for us before?”

Dumb and Dumber nodded yes. I’m sure it seemed like
a good idea at the time, but you could tell they were having regrets about it
now. Mackenzie then whipped out her cell phone, adding insult to injury, to
show condemning pictures to prove it. They didn’t look too happy. Red sequins
dress for Dumb and a turquoise one for Dumber. I laughed my ass off.

“Well, that shit ain’t gonna happen here. You
motherfuckers are crazy…and confused.”

Ladonna hungrily ran her hands up the inside of my
thigh and looked at me with her sexy, drunk eyes.

“You wouldn’t put on a dress for me, baby?”

I thought about it for a second. Not to consider an answer to her
ridiculous request but deciding whether or not I was going to call her every
bitch
in the book.

“HELL NO! That shit ain’t even negotiable.” I stood
up, finished my beer, thanked them for the company, and began to step.  I
could see the wheels turning in Ladonna’s head. A naughty look came over her
face as she grabbed me by my hand and led me through a score of drunken
Brooklynites into the co-ed bathroom.

Once inside, she pinned me against the door and began
to attack my face with her mouth, planting sloppy kisses aimlessly.

 I slid my hands down her hips and around her plump
behind. She had some cushioning to her and I even liked the muffin tops that
hung off her hips. It was soft and gooey like pizza dough, but I wasn’t
complaining since it was the first female body contact I had in over two years.

I showed off my newly acquired strength, picked up
the five feet four inch 150 pound cutie and hoisted her onto the sink. My hands
were ravishing her soft, plump behind that oozed between my fingers.  I
promptly hitched up her skirt, spread those Virginia hams wide and dropped to
my knees.

“What are you doing?”

“Giving you a gift..”

“You know I’ve never done this before?”    I
smiled at her and thought to myself,
yeah right
.

       “Let me do this, not because you
want me to, but because I want to for you!” Part of her was shocked at the swiftness
and grace I moved with scooping her literally off of her feet, and another part
of her was shocked that I had the presumptiveness that I could go down on her
after having just met. Luckily, the part of her that was drunk and horny
overruled the reasonable part of her brain.

I began to lap up her panty less crotch. 
Suweeee! 
She squealed with delight like an Arkansas razorback.  But mostly
because I stuck my tongue in her ass.  I was nasty like that. 

Next I stuck my index finger in her gopher hole as a
place holder while I inserted the thumb from my same hand into her flooded
ravine.  I stood up to gain leverage while keeping both fingers in her
orifices and rubbed them together vigorously, simulating playing the world’s
smallest violin. While the symphony was playing I tongue kissed her right in
her mouth with my booty breath, wanting her to know exactly what she tasted
like.  She didn’t mind.  Luckily, she was nastier than me.

Bigger Than a Rattlesnake

After biting Ladonna’s muffin, I came out of the
bathroom with a cat-that-ate-the-canary grin. Or should I say
canary-that-ate-the-cat? I walked back through the crowded bar and things
seemed to have all of a sudden gone from dullsville black and white to full
blown Bugs Bunny Technicolor for the second time in my life.

I guess you could call it pheromones because all of
a sudden every chick in the whole bar was checking for me like they could smell
the sex on me. All eyes were on me almost to the point where I was feeling self-conscious.
I slowed my gait, lagging behind Ladonna on purpose to relish the attention. A
smoking hot honey who was melanin-challenged (white) staggered by and instantly
caught my attention. We held eye contact for what seemed like an eternity
before we both stopped in our tracks, smitten with one another. Our connection
was obvious especially since she had emerald green eyes, shoulder-length dark
hair, and tantalizing hot pink glossed lips.  It also didn’t hurt that she
sported 40-DD jugs beneath her teasingly half zipped or half unzipped (glass
half empty or half full) chinchilla bomber jacket with the matching yak fur
Uggs.  This got an arousal from my already over-stimulated loins.