Noni Jones in Harlem

Caroline

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I parked my luggage in the middle of the living room and started dialing. Now come on Caroline, you know better than this. But at this point, I didn’t. No shame. Dealing with Mr. Smart Ass’ attempted coup de tat had done a number on me. I needed to unwind, in the purest sense. Not with a bottle of wine. Not with Sade nor a vibrator. But with a real, live, male body.

His voice mail answered. “Hi. You’ve reached Lance. Leave a message.” I wanted to obey that deep, sexy recorded voice on the other end of the phone, but I clicked off, stressed, too stressed to sound enticing.

I was on edge. Needed to do something productive to shake it off. I started hanging my suits in the closet, put a load of laundry on and turned to CNN. The anchor was saying something about Ted Kennedy’s funeral.

I heard my phone rattling on my night stand and I ran to answer it.

“Hello.” Could barely breath.

“You finally home.” His bajan cadence seemed more pronounced now that he was in the states. Funny.

“I am. Just got in today– I was calling to see if you were busy.”

“I was wondering the same thing on your end,” he shot back.

“What do you mean?”

“Last few times I reached out to you you didn’t return my calls.”

He wasn’t serious.

“Are you being serious?”

“Of course.”

Apparently in my not responding to his every call I had broken an unspoken rule. Woops.

“Well then Lance,” I swallowed (pride). “I’m sorry. I had a rough time in Paris. You know I wasn’t there on leisure. It was business.”

“No need to explain. How are you now? How was your flight?” Clearly he caught himself, tripping.

“I’m doing well now, happy to be home. Happy to be talking to you,” I told him, letting my voice dip one sexy octave. I could play his game.

But he called time-out. “Wait can you hold on a minute?”

Lance wasn’t home alone. He was going back and forth with an adolescent boy. I know because the other voice still had the screech of puberty.

“I’m sorry. Nelson’s having trouble with the wireless in here. We’ve been trying to get it to work all day. Do you mind holding on for one more minute.”

I was so un-prepared for that interruption I hesitated. “Ummm… do you need to call me back?” Really, I was the one who needed a moment. Hell, I needed a Snickers bar.

“Yes, that would be best. Hang by your phone, okay sweet heart?”

I agreed. My limp body promptly slid down the wall. All the sexual energy just oozed right on out of me. I crouched down on the living room floor, pulled my knees to my chest, and shit, I blanked out. Had one of those moments where the only thing on your mind is what’s right in front of you. In my case, the living room windows. The sunlight was beaming on my skin, feeling good. But it was deceptive sun light. It was chilly outside. Autumn had arrived early in the City.

It was the season of change.

A month ago we lived an ocean away. A month ago we were nothing to each other than a memory, albeit it a pleasurable one. And in one fall swoop, in the amount if time it took to have one Parisian adventure, my perfect fling had acquired feelings and a kid.

Better put, this fling was having an erection. Within two weeks time it had become bigger, deeper, and far more complex than I was prepared to handle. I could feel my vaginal muscles tightening up at the thought.

The anchor was talking about health care. I’m so tired of this debate. Let’s do already. I got up. Changed out of my bra and beige suit pants that I was crazy for sitting on the floor in.

When the phone buzzed a second time, I collapsed on my bed and answered it.

“Hey sorry about that. Where were we?”

“Oh it’s okay. I think we were trying to sync our schedules.” I still wanted to see him. I still had my own selfish needs.

“You were saying Paris stressed you out, right?” He was putting it on me with his voice. He must have been out of his son’s earshot.

“It did.” I closed my eyes, focused in on our conversation. Wanted his words to wrap me like a cashmere throw.

“So what can I do to make you feel better?”

“You can start by making your way over here.” Note, I suggested my place as I would for now on. God forbid his son walk in on us. That would be a lesson in sex he’d never forget.

“And then what? What do you want me to do to you after I arrive?” Lance was killing me softly. Knowing that every word sent shivers up my spine. Made me cross my legs and cringe. Damn. Every word an invitation to sex. “Hello Caroline.” “How are you, Caroline?” “Lay down and spread your legs, Caroline.”

I told him, in great detail, what I wanted to him to do to me, where, and how. I didn’t want to make love. I didn’t want to waste time gazing into his eyes. I wanted to fuck. I wanted him to pump me until sweat dripped of his chin and chest. I wanted him to turn me over and take me from the side. I wanted to get on top and go buck wild. I wanted to close my eyes and see the colors of the rainbow. I wanted to fuck the stress of Paris away and fuck until we cleared the air of all this emotion mess. I wanted to fuck the relationship raw. I wanted to fuck until it was just fucking sex.

He doesn’t take direction well.

He came over an hour after our phone call and the first thing on the agenda was a shower. And we laughed hysterically. He was poking me in all the places that he remembered I was ticklish. Do you know how good it feels to laugh out loud, in the shower? And then when he mounted my damp body, he didn’t go hard. He went slow and deep. Kissed every part of me, prolonged his own orgasm until he watched me shudder. It was good. So good. Too good. Suicide dick. So good, I didn’t want to repeat it. We fell into an easy sleep, interrupted abruptly by the sound of his pockets rattling. It was after 11. He was leaving.

“You heading home?” I asked, looking up at him. I was groggy. My body limp.

“Yeah sweetheart, you know I got to to get back”. I was fixated on the sexy region where his groin met his belt buckle. He was fastening his pants. Still hadn’t pulled his shirt on. I wanted to mount him all over again. But I couldn’t. I had to respect that this man had grown-up responsibilities.

“So Nelson? That’s his name.”

“Yehp. Uhhh his grandmother named him after Nelson Mandela. He’s a handful, ” he laughed as he sat on the foot of my bed. He stroked my legs through the covers.

“I bet. But you can handle it, dad!” I smiled.

“That’s big daddy to you!” he laughed. Then he got quiet. ” You going to keep in touch with me?” Something about the way he looked at me when he said it, like he was pleading. I detected something fragile in his tone. Something he’d never forgive me for breaking.

Suddenly we’d gone from a playful tryst, to a tryst that was not to be played with. I was nauseous.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I said. It felt like a lie. I wanted him, but I didn’t want his emotions. I didn’t want to carry his baggage. Hell, I have my own. I didn’t want to worry about hurting this grown man’s feelings every time I had to cancel on him because I was working late, or because I had other plans, or hell, because I just didn’t feel like it.

He kissed me, passionately. It felt like a thank you. Like he was saying, thank you for accepting me, all of me, back in to your life. Wait. Let’s be real. Thank you for not destroying my ego.

I miss the London days, when it was care-free. At the end of all the love mess, I was going back home. I had an ocean and youth on my side then.

I don’t get why I have such a hard time staying out of relationships. Seriously. Can a woman have sex with a man she likes, maybe loves, and enjoys spending time with, without the commitment? Minus the sentimental shit. Men do this all the time. A man can screw a woman for years, and amidst all the screwing, she not realize she’s being screwed. We live in a sex with no strings attached society. Women take dicks over commitment every day. Too bad for double standards.

I had a hard time going back to sleep. Even a nymphomaniac like me enjoys waking up in a man’s arms.

-Caroline

The featured dancer is not a game. Enjoy.

Geneva

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So… Exactly why are you here?

Each time I watched Paul grab OJ from the fridge to drink from the carton or warm up some more leftovers, that question went off in my head.  It wasn’t tripping over his free-loading; laying around the house engrossed in a stack of books, eating up the food, being here when I closed my eyes at night, and at first morning blink. I wasn’t tripping over that.  My roommate’s never around any way.

I was annoyed that Paul was suffocating me when I needed to have some privacy. I needed to sleep alone. To eat alone. To be left alone.

He finally left on Thursday. He fled into the Harlem night like swirls of dust after a good porch sweeping. He journeyed back to Brooklyn for another 2 -3 day period of absence. Good-grief. It felt like fresh air returned to the house and I could breath  again. He’d been stifling me.

By the time he left, the gloom had passed. It always does, like a storm cloud that exhausts itself then casts the sky steely gray. But even in the damp quiet, I needed to figure out my life, my existence. Figure out how I’d so easily slipped into another dark episode. He wouldn’t give me space to do that.

And  honestly, I didn’t ask for it. My ass is too polite. Instead, I let him crowd my space with his twisted energy and shards of chatter that occasionally erupted silence like the smattering of glass.  Paul is the only man I know that can avoid someone and suffocate them at the same time. When he wasn’t on campus, he was sitting on the living room couch, comforted by an open window, reading a  book. Not talking to me, talking through this, trying to figure out if we could salvage what was left. No. There was no love happening. There was the only the turning of pages, fan blades cutting through air, and the occasional siren and curse word shouted on the other side of the window.

Shame.

“Yo, I’m about to pick up something from the bookstore.”

I had just walked home from work and I was changing into  a cotton dress. Our AC was broken. If Paul wasn’t there, I would have stripped naked, and curled  up next to the fan. “Okay.”

“You wanna come with me.”

“Yea, that’s cool.”

We walked down  into the 145th street subway platform and waited on the C. It was hot as hell. I could feel beads of sweat crowding my kitchen. He wrapped one arm around my waist and held my hand with the other. “You alright?”

“I’m good.” Since when had I become so delicate? Since when had he grown so quiet. Where was the man that hosted Fight Night in undergrad, shouting at the TV screen like he was ringside. Where was the man that gave Black kids from New Haven tours of Yale? Where was he? Still it was a nice gesture and the only one I can recall from the week. Paul held my hand until we made it to the used and rare bookstore in Noni’s neighborhood.

I had been feeling guilty that his being there wasn’t the healing I needed. A month ago, the only thing I wanted was Paul to come around. To know where he was and to know he was thinking of me. I felt the guilt of a sinner when he finally tosses a prayer in the air and  it lands unanswered. His presence wasn’t my healing. Let him tell it, it was the healing, the salvation and the testimony.

I don’t know why men think that their jism is the cure-all, like it can mend a broken-heart and fix a relationship. No. Cum is not super glue, it’s just cum.

Every night, like clockwork, he’d come in from the shower, hit the lights. Take off his boxers. Force my legs open and pump me like with enough  sweat he could cum inside my mind– skeet all over my thought process. His body felt good to me. Better than I should admit. But something wasn’t right.

This wasn’t the same sex that made me fall asleep with a smile on my lips. This wasn’t the sex that made me want to get up and make him breakfast, make him feel like a King at my kitchen table. I felt like he was feeding me left overs. Spoils that he’d either been sharing with someone else or had been left sitting for so long, they’d gotten stale.

I wanted his love when it was fresh but when it was fresh he was stingy. I wasn’t  satisfied with the day-old, caked up kisses he was feeding me. It wasn’t filling it any more. I was hungry. Hungrier than I ever knew.

Nobody knows the exact time when fruit goes bad, you just know if you leave it at the bottom of the fridge long enough it will.

I don’t know when but at some point our love reached it’s expiration date. Paul and I had exploited all romantic possibility. We were fasting and it wasn’t for the spirit. But  unlike food, it’s not so easy to throw love away.

-Geneva

Caroline

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I tell you, this shit is getting old. Old and tired. I mean if I had a nickel for every time some Tom, Dick and Mr Charlie tried to steal my idea, I’d own half this company by now. I could retire before thirty and not have to put up with this shit.

It’s been a long day. I’m trying to unwind. I’m on my third glass of Merlot this evening. Probably should have chosen something stronger.

I knew that this  time around Paris wouldn’t be the city of romance, the city that I, a self-proclaimed Afro-Dite, love to turn out. This time around Paris was work  and a crazy hectic mess.

The company’s developing a new celebrity fragrance that we’re passing off as being ‘created’ by a  young actress that you all know.

Originally we wanted the scent to be bliss in a bottle, an up-beat  chypre targeting single twenty somethings with dreams of big weddings and autumn walks through Central Park in Manolos.  You know what, perfume is very cheap to make.  You  pay for the bottle and the dream.

We thought we had it. The lab put together an amazing rose-peach-cedar scent. Something sophisticated yet sweet, with a brush of naughty. Something I’d even wear.  I projected that this scent would have a broader appeal, maybe even reach into the older demographic. We had the ad campaign approved  until a sample group of ‘average’ Joes and Janes sat around a dry room in New Jersey, sniffed a  dozen viles, different variations on the scent, and checked ‘no’.

Shit.

Emergency overhaul.

I mean, I find out I’m going to Paris on a Monday, and by Thursday my team (meaning I) need a brand new marketing strategy. I worked my ass off. Grabbed maybe 5 hours of sleep (cups of jamal*) over the course of 48 hours. Took an Ambien on the plane and slept the whole way there.

This time around we directed the perfumers to take out the nuance. No room for coquetry, just girlish. Obnoxiously sweet. Something for the woman with sling backs, lace bras, and tea cup dogs. A blend of  Bergamot, lavender, cedar… a hint of apple martini. Nothing I’d ever where, but a guaranteed hit.

All this work so Mr. Smart Ass could present my idea before the board this afternoon as if they were his own. The day before the meeting he agreed to do  the first part of the presentation– the numbers. Then he’d  leave the strategy, the magic, up to me. So when I heard my words leaving his lips– I nearly choked.

Me and the other guy just stood there, like he was Gladys and we were the Pips. Needless to say, the board loved my game plan.  He was congratulated personally by the company heiress for saving the day

And what was I supposed to do? Smile and be grateful they even let a colored girl in the room. No, maybe fly into a rage, confirming suspicions that I’m nothing more than an angry Black woman in Prada.

Hell if I know.
I swallowed the loss.

I’m listening to Shirley Bassey sing “I am what, I am” (loves it), feeling light headed, tipsy, like I might be sleep in the next half hour.

I’m so frustrated I could scream.

But who am I kidding? I want to get laid.

I miss Lance like crazy. It’s times like this I just wish he was hear to hold me.You know those really long hugs that last a zillion minutes and leave you feeling like of all the places in the world you’ve traveled, the cove between his right and left arm is your favorite.

Besides a few text message and one short conversation, we haven’t talked much. Haven’t had time to be sidetracked.Yesterday morning, he wrote “I miss you.” Sweet.

I need it right now. Need it badly . And I want only him. Two more days.

Bisous,

Caroline