One Night (19 page)

First I jumped like we were about to be raided by the FBI, then I realized where I was, heard the soft taps again, shook the man sleeping next to me, watched him open his eyes, saw the panic that gave him sudden consciousness. I cleared my voice, stood, and called out, “Yes. How may I help?”

“Room service.”

“Room service? I think you're at the wrong door.”

“You called down an order, right?”

I looked at the time. Minutes had flown by. “Oh. Right. Food. We ordered food.”

He sat up, looked around the room, whispered, “Guess I should go hide.”

“Why would you have to hide? They know what's up. I'm sure they've been invited into rooms where a lot more was going on than two post-sex people hanging out buck naked with funky breath.”

“Well, let me step out of the room until they leave.”

“Okay. Just send the naked lady to the door.”

He headed for the bathroom and again I hurried to the closet, rushed to throw on the white robe, checked the peephole, and saw a woman in a white shirt and black pants in front of a cart. I opened the door and gave her greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and she raised a brow and chuckled.

She said, “Permission to enter?”

“Please. Come on in. The snake has been put away.”

I clicked the lights on, the sudden brightness a shock to my body.

As she rolled in our order, I heard Orange County in the bathroom taking a powerful leak.

Dishes rattled as she pushed the cart by me. “Heard there was an exorcism up here.”

“Sure was. Reverend Long Dong Silver tried to get the devil out of Mrs. Jones.”

“I was outside and waited about five minutes before I knocked.”

“You were outside the door?”

“Well, you sure have made a mess of the room. Rearranged the furniture, too.”

“Look at you. Trying to judge me, trying to be all high and mighty, and look at you.”

“What?”

“Look like someone sucked the devil out of you last night. Like a damn leech.”

“This morning. As much as she could. Trying to hide the damage my new girl left behind.”

“Take some toothpaste, rub it over the monkey bite, and allow it to sit for about an hour.”

“Really? Toothpaste will make it go away?”

“Really. Toothpaste. Or you can put a spoon in the freezer and rub circles on it until the spoon is warm. Or try using a cube of ice in a spoon, rubbed in circles. Or check this out: You can use eye drops to get the redness out. If that fails, go to Target and buy a turtleneck that comes up to your nose.”

She looked at the room, at the dishevelment. She smirked, shook her head like we were insane.

She said, “You're having a damn good time.”

“We worked up an appetite.”

“Shrimp salads. Seared tuna. Blackened fish. Calamari. Tuna Calabrese. Lobster-tail salad. Linguine. Downstairs they joked that you ordered food like Jesus and his homies were up here for the sequel to the Last Supper. I told the people in the kitchen that an exorcism burns up a lot of calories. They dared me to use that exorcism line when I came up here.”

“Security used that line earlier.”

“She stole it from me. She was in the kitchen when I said it first.”

I read her nametag, paused, signed the six-hundred-dollar tab, and added a fat tip to the charge.

She said, “Aren't you a comedian?”

“Wow. Was. Twice in one night someone has recognized me.”

“I saw you one night at the J Spot. Saw you again at the Laugh Factory. Last time I saw you was at Comedy Emporium when they were filming
The Leonard DuBois Story
. That was on my birthday, and the fair-weather lesbian I was dating at the time took me up there. You were funny as hell.”

“That was a long time ago. You hang out at comedy clubs?”

“Not anymore. Had a bad experience.”

“Jokes were that bad?”

“Last time I went to one, after the show Johnny Bergs shot the comedian right in front of me.”

“You were on Sunset Boulevard when Francine was murdered?”

“Three feet away, trying to get an autograph. Actually, I wanted to get her phone number, too.”

“That was an unforgettable night. I was inside the club, about to go onstage.”

“I saw the whole thing. Will never go to a comedy club again in my life.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“But you were real funny.”

“Yeah. At one point in my life, I was pretty funny. I laughed all the time.”

“Well, you're not laughing tonight. Don't look like nobody is up here telling jokes.”

“You've got jokes.”

“I'm funny from time to time, but I ain't got the nerve to get onstage like you do.”

“Let me see the receipt again. Let me tell you a big joke.”

She handed it back to me. Now nervous, she thought she had taken her jokes too far. At first I had given her 30 percent. That was a lot of money to someone like me. I raised her gratuity to 50 percent.

She looked at the receipt. She looked at it two or three times.

Her bottom lip trembled and she gazed up at me, her face blanketed in disbelief.

She asked, “Is this for real?”

I nodded. “Merry Christmas. Hope that helps keep the lights on. Or gas in the car.”

She cried. Just like that, she cried. She turned her head away from me, ashamed.

She said, “My mother has cancer. I'm trying to take care of my little brother and her.”

She smiled a lot, laughed a lot. A woman who laughed a lot had a lot of pain.

I asked, “Your mother . . . ?”

“They give her six months. This is going to be our last Christmas.”

I put my hand on her shoulder. A moment went by with us standing like that.

The television played music as the shower ran inside the bathroom.

In a broken voice she said, “I really needed this money. God bless you. God bless you.”

My eyes watered, too. I looked back at the room, the disheveled romping shop, my escape.

I was here to escape the inescapable. I had tried to not think about it as much. I had needed a day away from the memory. A day away from fire. I needed to block it all out. I had to keep moving.

The waitress read the receipt again, eyes red, tears falling, lip trembling.

She said, “No matter how much noise you make, nobody is going to bother y'all. I'll see to that.”

I stood there with her as she wiped her eyes, tears falling down across her chain of hickeys.

By then I had to wipe my eyes, too. It was the season to be jolly, and I missed my little bundle of joy. She was never far away. I knew that. The waitress wore a nametag. Her name was Natalie.

John 11:35. Jesus wept.

For a minute, so did I.

When Hickey Girl left, I locked the door. Then I wiped my eyes, pulled away my robe, and tapped on the bathroom door. He asked me inside. I opened the door and he was in the shower, soaped up.

I said, “The feast is ready, my lord from the county of oranges.”

“You can start, my lady from the county of riots and drive-by shootings.”

“You're not eating?”

“I'm going to eat before I leave.”

“I'll wait, then.”

“You said you were starving.”

“I want to eat with you, not alone.”

“You need me to bless the food again?”

“You've got jokes.”

“Jesus wept.”

“Shut up.”

I watched him the way I used to watch my husband. I stood the way I used to stand in our overpriced apartment in the Valley, leaning in the doorframe, watching him. I blinked a few times and reality adjusted itself. He was washing me away. I saw the memory of us being scrubbed from his skin. This meant he was leaving soon. The new sun wouldn't touch us. Daylight would never touch us. I'd be back to my car, to a child seat I couldn't let go, to Barbies I'd never throw away.

He motioned for me to come join him. It was the motion of desire, approval, and acceptance.

I grinned. Simple gestures do big things to a harsh mouth and a tender heart.

I put the child seat and the Barbies back into their mental compartment.

Then I was in the shower with him, his hands soaping me up as well, his strong hands rubbing my breasts, my ass, cleaning between my legs, even washing the bottoms of my feet. He took to his knees for a few seconds, and I held the wall and balanced myself with one foot on the edge of the tub. I wished I had my phone to photograph this moment, at least take a selfie of my face, of my expression. This was a first. I had done many things, but this was a first. I rinsed my face and prayed for God to make that hard Cali water be holy water and wash away each and every one of my peccadilloes, but there wasn't that much holy water on the planet. And running bathwater and bathing seven times like I was in the River Jordan wouldn't do me any good, either, not tonight. Since Beyoncé was on my mind because my onetime lover—a delusional man who would only rate her as a six—had mentioned her tonight, I sang a jazzy version of Beyoncé's “Crazy in Love” without realizing what I was saying, sang and bounced my ass and danced with him under the waterfall, trying to do lead vocals and backup vocals at the same time. Then I switched up and rolled my hips smooth and easy and sang a slow and sensuous version of “Drunk in Love” while he held my dreadlocks and sucked on my ear.

I said, “Bite my neck.”

“Like this.”

“Harder.”

“You want me to become a vampire and draw blood?”

“I want you to give me a dozen hickeys.”

“Your boyfriend will see them.”

“I want twenty. Give me thirty.”

“Why?”

“I want to feel the pain right now. I need to feel alive.”

“Are you okay?”

“Bite me. Give me forty hickeys.”

“Okay.”

“Bite me hard. Give me tattoos.”

He removed all the metal dish covers and I inhaled the aroma of the food. My belly growled and I applauded. Outside of all the things Hickey Girl had said were on the menu, there was Pacific snapper with oak-grilled vegetables and cilantro sauce. Mashed potatoes. Apple pie and ice cream. Another glass of wine. There was a healthy fruit salad of papayas, berries, and mangoes, a carafe of orange juice, and a carafe of black coffee. Honey. Brown sugar. Whipped cream.

I said, “You're going to have me leave here looking like the Michelin Wo-Man.”

He sighed. “I don't want to leave. I want you to know that. I want to stay here with you.”

“We need to get to Skid Row and give some of these leftovers to the homeless.”

“I want to stay until we eat every crumb.”

“Wish I could see the sunrise with you. Wish you could stay until the rain ended, then ride down to Venice and walk out to the sand and watch the sun come up, then get tea from Abbot's Habit.”

“I have to leave.”

“No sunrise for us.”

“Sorry.”

“When a married man parks his car in your garage, he can't let the engine get cold.”

“You're cool with it?”

“Dude, I'm a big girl. I made a choice to let go and be crazy tonight. Made a choice to get me some strange with a sexy man I'd just met. Was fun. It was great. No illusions about the outcome. I'm cool with it. You have obligations. I have a boyfriend. I have a boyfriend who likes to play video games after he gets a nut, and you have a wife who likes to play Candy Crush after you get yours.”

We ate like Egyptians. He fed me. The glow from the television made our shadows move like hieroglyphics on the wall. Simply Red sang that he was holding back the years. Orange County filled his mouth with fruit and kissed me again. Light and gentle. Over and over. A man I thought should be exhausted and sleepy was once again aroused. That power nap plus those five cups of coffee had him alert like it was ten in the morning. Me, too. Another wave of passion made parts of me wetter and parts of me swell. He gave me just enough tongue, fed me just enough fruit, made me just wet enough. Then he opened the honey, drizzled it across my breasts, put fruit on the honey, and ate from my flesh.

He said, “I heard you brushing your teeth when you showered a while ago.”

“When I first got here. What's wrong? Is my breath funky?”

“Not at all. Where is your toothbrush?”

“Why? I hope you're not going to use my toothbrush.”

“Where is it?”

“Bathroom. In my bag. If you use my toothbrush, I am going to scream.”

He went to the bathroom, came back with my electric toothbrush. He turned it on. It hummed. He turned it off, then detached the section with the bristles but kept the motorized base in his hand. He took a shower cap from the bathroom, placed the base in the shower cap, covered it, turned it on.

I asked, “What do you think you're going to do with that?”

As the Philips Sonicare electric toothbrush vibrated on CLEAN, he placed it on my vagina.

I died.

He pushed the green button, made it move from CLEAN to SENSITIVE to MASSAGE, and I died a thousand little deaths over and over. I would never see my toothbrush the same way again. I could only handle that for a short time, but he had turned me out. He stopped. Sucked my nipples while I lay there in awe, trembling. Soon I could hear again. Susan hummed along with the song that played in the background. He took a tongue filled with honey and kissed me again; soft, unhurried kisses. This was like Bogey and Bacall with honey and fruit and whipped cream spread from neck to vagina. Cary Grant licking and eating Grace Kelly until she became a princess. Orange County kissed my cheeks, caressed my face, then moved back to my lips, back to my tongue.

He whispered, “Guess I got carried away.”

I laughed again. It was a laugh of amazement, a laugh of irony.

He said, “What's so funny?”

“You joined Club Adultery.”

“My ongoing journey toward the center of hell amuses you.”

“A cheater like Jacob, with an apparent temper like Peter, having an affair like David, getting me drunk like I'm Noah, as insecure as Gideon, and as depressed as Elijah. That's hilarious.”

“That's not funny.”

I calmed a bit, rubbed my hand across his back, smiled, asked, “Is adultery a new sin for you?”

“You asked me that.”

“I think you lied. You're smooth. Showering. On the bed with your dick all fluffed. Taking control. You're a man who has had many, many women. We've done it, so it's okay to tell me the truth.”

“It is my first time being with another woman since I got married. It felt awkward. When I was in the shower, it felt awkward. Was hoping you had bailed on me. I was uneasy. Nervous.”

“Are you sure?”

“Other things were on my mind.”

“Things that would concern a married man.”

“Deeper things.”

“You seem to be so good at this particular sin, like Jordan doing a slam dunk.”

“I can't say it's my only sin, but it's the latest to add to the list.”

“Me, too. I've stolen. Coveted. Even slept with a friend's boyfriend once or twice. Long story. She was a bitch. She deserved it. Don't judge me. But this is my first time committing adultery.”

He moved back to the food, ate a little. “You didn't commit adultery.”

“I didn't?”

“You're not married.”

I stayed on my back, my fingers touching where he had put honey and fruit, but not feeling sticky, not at all. He had licked away every drop of sweetness.

I said, “Oh, is that how it works? I have to be married to be an adulteress?”

“Yeah.”

“So I'm just a chick who crept on her boyfriend with a married man.”

“That sorority has many members.”

“You sure I'm not qualified to join the Adultery Club? That club has elite status.”

“You won't be the criminal in this crime, unless you were in the Middle East, and then you would get stoned. But here in America, you're not the one at fault. You broke no laws, just went against the laws in the Bible. Bible says you're a horrible witch of a woman and should be stoned to death.”

“Bible thumpers who get divorced and eat shellfish and eat meat on Fridays and work on Sundays and shave their hair and wear more than one kind of material and plant more than one kind of seed and aren't virgins are going to take the time to stop bashing same-sex marriage, judge me, and pick up rocks?”

“Stop it.”

I laughed.

He said, “You're artistic, can sing, know politics on a global level, are particular about English, work as a part-time con woman, and you know the Bible.”

“All except the part about adultery. Wasn't on my bucket list.”

“Why are you laughing now?”

“You're a cheater, mister.”

“You corrupted me.”

“I feel like I've popped your adultery cherry. Kinda proud of myself.”

“And you cheated on your boyfriend. You cheated on him and joined that sorority.”

“I'm not married. You are. Why, oh, why do married people do such things?”

“For some, marriage exists at an altitude so high that it's almost impossible to breathe. It's suffocating. Or maybe because after a few years of trying to work it through with the unhappy wife, being honest and up-front about one's physical needs and desires, she just flat out ignores it or shoves your angst under the rug and basically points the finger and blame at the husband, so what is a guy supposed to do?”

“Or you're a total ass. Stop trying to intellectualize everything. It gets to be exhausting.”

“Why do women cheat on their boyfriends and husbands?”

“Sometimes it's easier to cheat than to break up. Some people just don't want to deal with the drama of breaking up, and creeping is the easiest way to get back to feeling good, or having self-worth. You cheat and you feel competent, you feel worthy, you feel proud, you feel alive, you feel self-conscious.”

“Ego. Then it's about ego. You kill someone else's ego to feel better about yourself.”

“It can be about ego, or just being tired of being in bed in the same position with the same person.”

“Why not just move on?”

“Same reason people don't quit jobs they hate—again, too much drama. You're married, so that would be infinite drama. You have money. You have security. Money is a glue for her, possibly.”

“Really. So that ego-chasing and perpetual lying and engaging in misdirection leaves me feeling as if I am incompetent, neglected, ignored, underappreciated, and at fault.”

“Some things are beyond your control. She could sleep with you twice a day, and maybe that still wouldn't be enough to stop her from wanting to sex someone else. Just like a woman can give her man sex like a porn star and he'll still put his dick in the next free hole. But this is about you, so let me stay on point. She might love being the bad girl. Cheating could be her character. Or it could be about revenge.”

“No, no reason for revenge.”

“She could just be an unhappy person.”

“Are women ever happy?”

“Not even when we're sleeping.”

“Why is that? Help me unravel that mystery.”

“Started with Eve. She was the unhappiest of us all.”

“Eve? We're back to picking on her again? How was she the unhappiest of the unhappy?”

“She didn't have shoes. A woman can't be happy without shoes. Only had one man to choose from. How much fun is that? One cock, and there were no malls. She wore a leaf.
Scandal
hadn't been invented. Adam didn't have a car. She had two sons, and one was a psychopath. You want the list?”

“Men get unhappy, too. We have shoes and we're unhappy.”

“Have you seen men's shoes? Hideous and come in two decent colors. What's to be happy about?”

“Good point.”

“Do black men feel guilty about being with a white woman?”

“What is your obsession with race? Is this the sixties? Let me check my calendar.”

“I know sisters who date white men, but never take them to a black area, always leave their tribe and venture into the white world to have their fun. I know a lot of black women who will never date a black man, only white men. They fantasize about private-school and half-breed babies with good hair.”

Then he went down on me again, licked me a hundred times in a few seconds.

He said, “Until now, I have never cheated on my wife.”

“You've only been having sex with one woman.”

He licked me. “Until you, only her.”

I squirmed. “You've been having sex with one woman more than a monk sleeps with.”

He licked me a dozen times. “And you've never cheated on your boyfriend?”

I squirmed more. “Never cheated on Chicken and Waffles until tonight.”

He tried to come back up, but I gripped his head, pushed him back down.

I clenched my teeth and panted. “Don't do that and leave me hanging like this.”

My hips moved. I grabbed his head, began to grind on his tongue, held his head, and positioned him where he needed to be to make this happen again. He centered on the bull's-eye. Arousal erased our inhibitions. I owned him, was his master. When I let him go, he came up, kissed my lips, put his palm between my legs, facing up, and his finger slipped inside me, gave me the come-hither motion, tapped on my spot. He knew where it was now. He tapped my spot over and over. Soon he moved his finger away, put the tips of his fingers on either side of my vagina, slid his fingers up and down.

He went down on me again. Ten licks. Pause. Five licks. Pause. Twenty licks. Pause. That rhythmic licking came first; then came the humming. He had my Sonicare humming in his hand again. Those vibrations. After he played with me, he ripped open another condom. He was ready to go again.

I had to pause my breathing, had to stop moving and surrender.

The intrusion was saccharine. He separated my lips, parted me, divided me in a sensual way. I made honey. He made me make honey. Again I opened for him, the flower bloomed, went into full bloom, and I sighed and felt myself stretching to accommodate his length and girth, wondered how tensile I could become, how much of a man I could take when I was severely aroused. His dick had recuperated and had come back strong. Unyielding. Now he had to go harder to be stimulated, to make it rise like it had risen before. In my mind I saw the blood flowing through his veins, rushing to fill the meat that protruded from his body. For a moment he struggled, vacillated between hard, then soft, then pumping hard to raise the dead once again. He apologized. I told him it was fine, said I understood. The condom stole sensitivity, made it so he was inside me, but never really felt the true me. For a few dozen strokes, I felt the condom, and that made it feel like an inanimate object was moving in and out of me. I was aware of the intrusion, aware of his every breath. But soon it felt better. Soon reality began to fade. Soon I stopped watching the rain as it fell on the other side of the darkened windows. Soon we no longer felt like two bodies, but one working together, a beast with two backs. He tensed and made a sound that reminded me of sorrow, only it was the opposite, so that meant it felt better to him. So he gave it to me, gave it to me good to make his erection reach its potential, then once it had filled the condom, he tested me, tested to see how much of him I could handle, see how much I could stretch, how deep he could go before I broke and begged him to back off, and when he was satisfied with his power, with my whimpers, my confessions that came as whimpers and coos and mild screams and calls to God, he resumed a pace that told me he wanted to coast for a while. I wanted it all, tip to balls. I wanted him to lose control, stroke me like he wanted to break the condom. Wanted fast and hard and deep. I wanted to prove to be a woman and take it all no matter how he gave it. I wanted to be better than all his other women, than all the women he thought about when he made love to his wife, and I wanted to be better than his wife. His stroke was a sweet punishment, and it all but paralyzed me. I held him like I was trying to keep from falling and he stroked me, an evil bastard who wanted me to come for his entertainment. Then I turned him over, sat on top, reached for a pillow, pulled the pillowcase free and wrapped it around my waist like a belt, then had him hold both ends of the pillowcase like they were reins. It was time for me to ride. It was time to show him what I could do.