Love the One You're With (38 page)

And
his
lips kept kissin'
me
back.

I can describe how he smelled (the Irish Spring mixed in with his own musky scent). And I can describe how he tasted (chocolate syrup).

But I
can't
describe what he sounded like. I mean, the brother was speakin' a foreign tongue,
not
a foreign language, and it wasn't Holy Ghost hosannas or pig latin (which other boyz have testified with as I tossed 'em). The utterances reminded me of a record being played backward: unintelligible and horrific (had a demon entered his body?). But in this case, they were also so damn mother-fuckin'
sexy.

And ya know it was all turnin' me the fuck on
and
out. “I'm gonna stick my tongue so far up your ass, it's gonna tickle your tonsils,” I promised.

And I kept that promise. The harder I stabbed and jabbed, the harder he pushed and mushed back, allowing my tongue to swim deeper inside. And the deeper I went, the more furiously he yanked on that third leg that swung
mighty
low between the other two.

He whirled and twirled and swirled and curled that azz like crazy—and then I
hurled him
onto the table, pushing his thighs out around one of the corners.

I really feasted then, literally eating him out—gnawing, chewing, and chowing down—and burying my face so far up in it I almost suffocated (uh-huh, suicide booty).

And those
sounds
… they got even scarier and louder as he bucked the table the same way he must've bucked when fuckin' in a pickup truck back in the day.

It appeared the table was about to give when he started yodelin'—
on key
—and unleashed the gooeyest juice I'd ever seen on the table.

As he jerked, I scooted up to his head, which was awash in sweat. “Mmm …
just
what was missing from the breakfast buffet: buttermilk biscuits.” I smacked them.

He giggled.

“Now that I've eaten you
on
the breakfast table, how 'bout us actually eating
breakfast
on the table?”

He giggled again.

I actually ate breakfast
on
his biscuits—the table was unstable after the pounding he gave it, so he lay across the futon as I balanced my plate on his azz.

And, unfortunately, we had to make do without the Cream of Wheat, because it burned (yet another case of déjà vu).

He had some of
my
biscuits after breakfast. I was on my back pulling my knees into my chest and squirming, squealing, and
screaming
with unpure delight (my words
were
intelligible and
very
naughty) as he slurped and slobbered all over and all up inside of me.

And as he snacked on my toes (a task he performed with schoolboy joy), I shot my load.

As I came down, he looped his arms around my waist. I locked my legs around his thighs, tapping a beat on his azz. I might've gotten high last night, but I was much higher right now.

“Isn't this hanky-panky?” I inquired.

“No.”

“Then what is it?”

“More like licky-micky.”

We chuckled.

I became solemn. I sighed.

He eyed me. “You're feelin' guilty, huh?”

“Uh … yeah. But … not as guilty as I should.”

“Mmm … maybe we need to go
all
the way, and then you will!” He bumped and humped me.

“That would do it.” I managed a half smile.

He cupped my chin. “You don't
have
to feel guilty.”

“How could I not?”

“Hay, I don't know the brother, probably never met or
seen
him before …”

So you think!

“… but even if I did … the one thing I know how to be is discreet. How else could I carry on with a rap artist the past six months? I know how to keep it on the down low.”

I nodded. “Hmmph, nobody has to know …”

“Right.”

“But—”

“I know:
You
know, and no matter how much fun we had, you still feel bad about it. Well, that's okay. Feel bad about it—just don't make yourself feel
so
bad you feel bad about
you
. Feel guilty, but remember that that is what it was supposed to be—a
guilty
pleasure.”

I ran my fingers through his hair. “You know, many men—be they bi, straight, gay, or otherwise—wouldn't have opened up and shared like you have, especially to a person they'd view as a one-hour stand.”

His eyebrows rose. “Damn.
That's
how long they're lastin' these days?”

We cracked up.

He caressed my lips with his thumb. “It was easy to do. You're a very passionate man—not to mention devoted. He … he's a very lucky brother, whoever he is. I might've caught your eye … but he's got your heart.”

We kissed with our noses again, for a jood minute.

“Oh.” He leaned up on his hands. “And to think all of
this
happened because I wanted to show you …”

He knelt by my head. On his right cheek was the tattoo, in Old English style.

“Why ‘Papa's Boy'?”

“ 'Cause that's what I am,” he trumpeted.

“Mmm … if he can eat ass like you, I may have to experience my first threesome.”

He visibly recoiled. “Huh? I'm a freak, but I'm not
that
kind of freak.”

“Okay then … I guess you'll just have to watch us from the kitchen.”

He stroked his chin. “Hmm … now
that
kinda freak-
y
I
might
be able to work with.”

AFTER A VERY LONG SHOWER (LOCKED IN AN EMBRACE
as A&S played and the water cascaded between and on us) and a very long ride back to West Fourth & Sixth Avenue (it wasn't that long but it seemed that way) came the very long good-bye. We stood in the exact place and the exact spaces we had twenty-four hours before—but this time we were both vocally challenged.

A minute or so passed as we watched others walk by before …

I sighed. “Maybe … we'll see each other again.”

“Maybe we'll
sing
to each other again. May as well give the world something to
really
talk about. They'd trip over a bi male singer; they'd trip
out
over a male singing duo.”

“They would. Uh … jood luck in your career. I'm sure I'll be hearing you on the radio soon.”

“Ha, we'll also be hearing
you
on the radio soon, too, if your prediction is correct. Thanks. I hope to be seeing
your
name at the top of a masthead.”

“You just might.”

Silence.

“Thanks for helping me officially enter my thirties. I had a very
jood
time,” he enunciated correctly.

I smiled. “Thank
you
for both the ride and the high of my life—
literally
.”

We laughed.

“Not to mention the jood movie and the
very
jood food,” I added.

“Ha, which dishes—the entrée, the dessert, or the salads we had this morning?” He winked.

“All of the above,
especially
those salads.”

“You are most welcome. Hay, I aim to please,
and
I'm a man of my word: I said I'd take you on a trip, I said you'd be experiencing a lot of firsts, and most of all, I said I don't meet you and eat you on the same night.”

I giggled.

“I guess I'll see you next lifetime,” he predicted.

“You believe in people having more than one life?”

“No. I'm talking about another time in
this
life. The time was wrong—but we weren't.”

Silence.

He tapped his helmet. “I get the feeling that neither one of us …”

“Then let's not say it.”

“I can go for that. But neither one of us wants to be the first to walk away either.”

I tapped his front wheel with my right foot. “
You
wouldn't exactly be walking away.”

“You know what I mean.”

I nodded. “I do. Well … why don't we both walk away at the same time. On the count of three, you go your way”—I pointed north—“and I'll go mine.” I pointed south with my left elbow.

“Okay.” He revved up the engine. “Who's gonna do the count?”

“I will.”

“All right. I'll read your lips.” He held out his hand; he searched my eyes. “Next lifetime?”

I folded his hand into mine. “Next lifetime.”

We smiled. He placed his helmet on.

I took a very deep breath. “One … two … three …”

I repeated the heel turn I did yesterday as he zoomed up the block. I quickly spun around to watch him as he rode out of sight.

I cheated—again.

“So …,” B.D. began, after I had told him the
entire
story, “do you have any regrets?”

“Well … I do regret doing it.”

“Mmm-hmm. But you
don't
regret
enjoying
it.”

A grin formed across my face.

“That
, no one
ever
regrets,” he declared. “What would be the point of doing it? But you
do
regret doing it … at least that says you have a conscience.”

We sipped our tea in silence. We were at Tiffany's, a restaurant in the Vill.

“I guess I'm trying to figure out why I did it,” I confessed.

“Like I said before, the man is a Sexy Ass Motherfucker—that ain't reason enough?”

“But I've been surrounded by SAMs the past two weeks; why him? I keep thinking that … there must be something wrong with what Pooquie and I have.”

That
he was
not
featuring; he wore the same frown Gene had given me during that infamous game of Truth or Shade. “You fooled around; don't be no fool about it.”

“What do you mean?”

“
You
know what I mean. That is the trap most folk like to con
ven
iently fall into: they stepped outside of their union because something is wrong
with
their union. I mean, they gotta blame what they did on
something
, right? But they know that ain't the case—and so do you. You didn't do it because you fell out of love with Pooquie. Or because you fell out of
like
with him. Or because the spark you two share is no longer there. Or because you were feeling neglected. Or ignored. Or
bored
. You did it because you
wanted
to. The question you need to be asking is not what this says about your relationship with Pooquie, but what it says about
you
.”

“What do you think it says about me?” I mumbled.

“It says that you are just like the 999,999 other folks who also decided to cheat on their significant others the same time you did: human.”

I nodded.

“You stepped out on Pooquie, but at least you didn't step out of
yourself
. You creeped, but you creeped with a man who could clearly see you belonged to someone else and, in his own way, respected that boundary. Y'all only talked about certain things—and only
did
certain things. Believe you me, if your lips had so much as grazed his, you and Pooquie would
not
be celebrating eighteen months together in a couple of weeks.”

“I wouldn't throw away what I have with Pooquie—”

“Uh-huh, this from the
same
man who emphatically stated that no other man could turn his head. Not only did Montee turn your head, he turned your
tail.”

Indeed.

“Montee knew he could only go so far with you; if he stepped over the line, he would've been in over his head—and his heart. The man didn't want to break up your happy home, he just wanted to borrow the welcome mat for a while—and he knew
exactly
where to lay it down.”

He sho' 'nuff did.

Sips. Silence.

He tapped his teacup. “You two meeting … it must have been fate.”

“You think so?” I was wondering about that myself …

“Sometimes the universe presents us with opportunities,
just
to see what we will do. And, if my calculations are right
again
, you and Montee kept running into each other every three days—and things usually happen in threes.”

Wow
… that we were running into each other often, I noticed; that it was happening in a particular numerical sequence, I hadn't. B.D.'s not as ditzy or dense as he pretends to be.

“
And
, given the way you two …
connected
, he
could
be your soul mate,” he predicted.

My eyes bugged. “My soul mate?”

“Yes, your soul mate.”

“I don't feel for him the way I feel for Pooquie,” I objected.

“Who says that the way you feel for
Pooquie
is the way you're
supposed
to feel for a soul mate? A soul mate doesn't necessarily have to be someone you fall in love and settle down with. Babyface isn't my soul mate.”

“He isn't?”

“Nope. And I'm not his.”

“Then, what are you two if you're not soul mates?”

“Partners in love—and in life.”

Hmm … “Then who can a soul mate be if he isn't someone you fall in love with?”

He put on his thinking cap for this one. “It can be someone you immediately recognize—but have never met or seen before. Someone whose eyes tell a story you've only seen played out in your dreams. Someone you feel such a seismic bond with, it's scary. Someone who may only appear for a brief moment—but makes a lasting impression, maybe for a lifetime.” He shot me a quizzical glance. “I take it by the expression on your face that Montee falls into one if not all of those categories …?”

“Uh … yeah.”

He nodded. “Mmm-hmm. Fate. He came into your life—
now
—for a reason.”