One Night (8 page)

Shoulders hunched against the cold, he said, “Thanks for the movie.”

I laughed. “Whatever. I really wanted to see that movie, too.”

“Never been kicked out of a movie theater before.”

“Movies, libraries, church—I've been asked to leave everything at least once.”

When the man from Orange County escorted me toward my candy-white convertible VW Beetle, we stood in the chilly, damp darkness. I had parked in the back of the Denny's lot, close to a used car lot that had cartoonish, colorful walls. I paused and gazed at a large image of Betty Boop holding a steering wheel and waving as she drove. She was painted on the fire-red, sky-blue, and yellow walls. It definitely stood out and made drivers pause. The disgusting police had parked back in that part of the lot as well. We stood at the rear of four police cars and continued making small talk in the dank weather made for creating colds, flu, and pneumonia, as if we were on the beach on a sunny day.

The temperature was in the forties. I pretended I wasn't freezing from the walk back.

He said, “Before you go, may I ask you two questions?”

“Sure.”

“Your hair.”

“You prefer it long and blond?”

“It was against my neck at the movies. Felt nice.”

“You hate it and are about to give me a speech about conformity, right?”

“On the contrary. I admire the history that it holds.”

“Thanks. That caught me off guard. What's the first question?”

“May I touch your dreadlocks?”

That made me pause and tilt my head. “Why would you want to touch my hair?”

“I've never touched dreadlocks before, never experienced the texture.”

“Ever gone out with a black woman who has natural hair?”

“Never.”

“Wow. But why am I not surprised? Seems like white, Indian, Spanish, and Asian men are more accepting of a black woman with natural hair than most black men are. Dude, you disappoint me.”

“May I touch your dreadlocks?”

“Sure you want to do that? Last guy who touched my hair died of sepsis.”

“I have insurance. I'll rush to Kaiser and let them fill me with antibiotics.”

“You have insurance? Must be nice. I break a leg, it's bankruptcy for me.”

“Break your leg, buy some duct tape, and you can use my staple gun.”

“Whatever. Letting someone touch my hair, that's a big thing—monumental, dude—because letting someone put their unwanted energy in my hair, that could change my energy for life, could change me.”

“Okay. Was just asking. No problem.”

“Now I have a question.”

“Okay.”

“When you see a black man or black woman with dreads, what is your first thought?”

“They are Rastafarian. And the hair is nasty, ugly, unkempt, dirty, and probably has lice.”

“You're living up to the black-hating stereotypes in Orange County.”

“A lot of people think that way.”

“My hair is not nasty, not ugly, not unkempt, not dirty. My hair is clean.”

“Your hair is amazing. It's beautiful. Smells very nice. Your dreads are like very fine braids.”

“These are sister locks, but I still call them dreads. I have no hang-ups about the nomenclature used in the science of hair.
Dread
might sound negative to some, but I really don't give two poots and a biscuit what anyone thinks. Nasty? Never. I put a lot of work into maintaining my hair. My hair smells very nice. My body always smells nice. I'm not a nasty woman. I dab when I'm done.”

“Dab?”

“After I pee-pee. I don't use the bathroom and just get up and walk away. I use wipes and dab. And you want to know what nasty hair is? Weaves. You have some women who will leave weave in their hair for six months, and when they go to remove the mess, they have mold growing in their real hair.”

“Wait. Women will pee and walk away without . . . dabbing?”

“There are some nasty bitches out there. If they don't dab the front end, they probably don't wipe the back end. That's women of all colors and races. Guess what? I'm not one. I smell nice at all times.”

“Didn't mean to offend you. I will take that lecture as a long way of saying no.”

“No, I wasn't saying no. You can touch my locks, but I wanted you to know that it is a big deal for me. I don't want you to think I'm the kind of woman who lets any man, some stranger, touch her locks.”

“You sure?”

I nodded again. He came closer, entered that invisible three feet of personal space, and ran his fingers through my locks, then across my hair. I thought that he would just take one and feel its power and texture, but he touched my roots as if he were trying to read my history, touched my roots and massaged my hair, massaged my scalp. It felt good. I licked my lips. He ran his fingers across hair that held the strength of a thousand ropes, of a thousand ancestors who won a thousand battles before they lost a war on the shores of Africa, a war that sent many into the Middle Passage, a lost moment that had sent a culture into an unrecoverable depression, and he smiled like he understood, this man who lived behind the Orange Curtain, away from the poverty of people who looked like him, away from the culture of men who had hair like mine. Then I reached up to him, touched his face.

I did it without thinking. I touched his face and looked into his eyes.

I took a step away, gave him an uncomfortable smile. He smiled back.

Then he looked into my eyes, and his expression seemed to say that watching me was like smoking opium.

When we made decadent eye contact, he laughed like a shy boy. I almost laughed a little girl's laugh, too. I laughed, but I remained cold, an ice queen. Had to keep my walls high or the enemy would try to climb over. Cold rain fell again and he looked at me like I was beautiful, as if he were an ancient explorer who was desirous of crossing the Bering Strait and venturing deep inside another country. I was beyond my age of innocence, self-indulgent games no longer new or surprising to me.

Then he broke the stare, shut down the moment, and checked the time on his cell.

I looked at the time on mine, again checking for a text message, freeing myself from his gaze.

When I raised my eyes from my Samsung, his erotic eyes were waiting to see mine.

I tried to read his body language. I had lost that ability. I was without power. As we maintained eye contact, he confessed that he had wanted to feel my hair from the moment he had seen my locks. I nodded, told him that I was glad to fulfill that small wish, and said that I was glad that he had asked first or I would've been offended. Someone touching my hair—it was a personal thing.

He said, “There was a second question.”

“What do I win if I get the answer right?”

“I'll go across the street to TGI Fridays and buy you cheesecake, if you like cheesecake.”

“Oh, hell yeah. I love cheesecake. My thighs want the best cheesecake in L.A.”

“Sure you want to know the question?”

“Dude, we're talking cheesecake. What's the question?”

He asked, “May I kiss you?”

I stopped blinking. The six lanes of traffic stopped moving. That question made the world stop spinning. A chill ran up and down my spine. My hands opened and closed a thousand times.

I cleared my throat, took a step away, and shook my head, folded my arms across my breasts.

I said, “That came out of nowhere.”

“Not for me.”

“Well, it did for me. Why in the hell would you want to kiss me?”

“Have you seen you?”

“I'm not big on looking in mirrors.”

“What did you think I was going to ask?”

“You have a wife.”

“I do. Somewhere out there, I have a wife.”

“I have a boyfriend.”

“I know. You have Chicken and Waffles.”

“Whatever. We have people to kiss.”

“Regardless, before I go away and never see you again, I want to kiss you.”

My breath fogged in front of my face, telling me the temperature had dropped.

I looked at him. Tall. Well dressed. Intellectual swag. Successful. Professional.

And he had some edge to him; some academic, lack-of-self-control bad boy was in his blood.

I glanced at his car, then at his wedding ring. He had a cow to make go moo. I had someone to get the milk for free. I was an L.A. girl and he was an O.C. dude. We had nothing in common.

I said, “Convince me. Tell me why you want to kiss me.”

“You're a person of great wit, of great intellect.”

“But?”

“There is no but. You're a beautiful bel esprit in dreadlocks.”

“Wow. That was a real compliment.”

“It was.”

“And why should I want to kiss you?”

“Because we'll never have the chance again. This is our once-in-a-lifetime moment.”

We stared. He had held my hand. He had touched my hair.

I said, “It would be just a kiss.”

“Can I? May I? Will you? Can we?”

“Are you a good kisser?”

“Don't know. Never took kissing classes in university.”

“You have to kiss the right people. Otherwise you just end up with spit in your mouth.”

“You get cheesecake.”

“Just one kiss?”

“Just one.”

“For how long?”

“Ten seconds.”

“Five. Take it or leave it.”

“Okay. Five. Up to you.”

I nodded. “Guess a short kiss won't hurt anybody. It's almost Christmas. All the palm trees—we can say those are mistletoe, and it will be a kiss based on custom and culture. It can be our secret.”

He asked, “You okay?”

“I need to floss.”

I reached into my purse, took out floss, pulled him a long strip, did the same for myself.

Then I said, “I don't like bad breath. I have a fear of bad breath.”

I dug in my purse and pulled out two individually wrapped, melt-in-your-mouth hospitality mints that I had left over from eating breakfast at Chick-fil-A about two weeks ago.

I handed him one. “Suck on that first.”

“Seriously?”

“I want you to suck it. Or there will be no kiss.”

He unwrapped his and I unwrapped mine.

He sucked on his and I sucked on mine.

He asked, “How do we do this?”

“Dude, you're the one who wanted the stupid kiss. Make it happen or say good night. And let me put down the rules. No sloppy tongue, no ass-grabbing, and no grinding. I'll slap the Jesus out of you.”

He took my hands and eased me closer. His touch, my fingertips in his hand, made me tingle, and that tingle ran across my lower back, startled me, and I almost tripped, felt aware, clumsy. Then we were close, bodies touching, adjusting, trying to figure who should put their hands where, how close we really needed to stand, like we were middle school kids getting ready to start their first slow dance.

“Dude.”

“What?”

“To the right. You're supposed to turn your head to the right when you kiss, not to the left.”

“It looked like you were turning your head to the left, so I mirrored your movement.”

“I was adjusting my dreadlocks. Don't want one to end up in our mouths.”

His finger touched my chin and I turned my neck, angled my mouth toward his.

His lips touched mine and I felt a mild jolt. His tongue touched my lips and I jumped.

He asked, “You okay?”

“Let's try that again.”

“We don't have to.”

“No, I want to.”

“You're falling apart.”

“Trying to not freak out. I can do this. I can. I can do this.”

My mouth opened, not all at once, but it creaked open and accepted the tip of his tongue.

The tip. Just the tip. It always starts with them whispering they want to give you the tip.

I felt the tip of his tongue. Our tongues touched. And we were connected.

My mouthed opened a little more, then a little more.

Our tongues intertwined.

I opened my eyes. I saw that his eyes were closed. Then I closed my eyes again.

My heartbeat accelerated. My hands held him to keep steady. My breathing thickened.

I was nervous. I exhaled tension, unable to relax, like I was having sex for the first time.

Then it felt like summer. The tension dissipated. Kissing him became a meditation. His tongue moved in and out of my mouth, tasted me in a slow, easy, unhurried, perfect rhythm, hypnotic and smooth, then he sucked my tongue, sucked it softly, and, without warning, I imagined other things.

One minute. Two minutes. Three. Four. I fell into a sweet, warm haze. Dizzy, I eased away from the kiss, from him, moved five steps back, put a safe distance between us and caught my breath.

“Damn, dude.”

“What?”

I looked down at the ground, looked at the dark, damp asphalt under my Timberlands.

He asked, “What happened?”

“I'm checking to see if my drawers came off. That kiss was a panty-dropper.”

He came back to me. My head tilted to the right and my mouth opened as my eyes closed. Our tongues reconnected. Soft. Sweet. It became a hungry embrace, and at that moment everything in this world seemed all right. Another minute passed before we paused. We stared at each other. Tilted heads again. We kissed again and I felt a strong, unexpected desire; I felt famished for this. My clit began to twerk. The taste of his tongue was like a brand-new type of sweetness, and I couldn't get enough.

I said, “Don't kiss me like . . . like . . . like this.”

“I could tell you the same.”

We kissed again.

I said, “Jesus . . . you can kiss . . . you can kiss . . . damn you can kiss.”

“Your tongue-piercing—it gives something extra to the kiss.”

“You like that, don't you?”

I sucked his lip and my body quaked, and I felt the earth move beneath my feet, felt the ground shift like it was about to break apart and separate us, move him away from me for my own good.