Zane's the Other Side of the Pillow

  “So, Jemistry, would you like to take me up on my offer?”

  He is not giving up!

  I hesitated to respond. He seemed harmless enough, but so do most serial killers. Most are also charming as all get-out.

  “Um, tell you what. I’m not trying to hurt your feelings or anything, but I’m not the most trusting person, as you might suspect.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah, that’s kind of evident.”

  “I prefer to close out my own tab. I ordered the drinks, so I’ll pay for them. It is kind of noisy in here to talk so I can meet you somewhere else.” I held my index finger up in his face. “But I’m not getting in a car with you. Nor are you getting into mine.”

  I already had it in my head that the only thing that talking could possibly lead to was fucking. I would make “arrangements” with him as I had with two other men at the time to come over and have some “drive-by sex” when the urge hit me. I was attracted to him. He was tall and had big feet, so I was guessing that he had a big dick.

  What the hell!

  “Fair enough.” He threw a twenty on the bar for his beers. “Do you have a place in mind?”

  “How about Oya over on Ninth and H?”

  “Never heard of it, but I’ll meet you there in a few.”

  He stood up. Yeah, he was a giant, but a fine one. I could not help but drop my eyes to see his dick imprint in his slacks. I suppressed a smile.

  “Would you allow me to walk you to your car, Jemistry?”

  “No, no thank you. I’ll be fine. I’m going to pay for my drinks and then head that way.”

  He walked off as he said, “I hope you show.”

  I watched him leave out and wondered to myself if I would show up. The key to the entire thing would be to make sure I didn’t catch any feelings. That was always the hard part: having a big heart, desiring to be loved, and trying to avoid falling too hard for a man, especially a man like him. People always said that you have to judge each person by their own character, but it was not easy to keep tossing my heart on the line all the time. Most men I could brush off without a second thought, but there was something different about this one.

  Heaven help me!

  Chapter Two

  “One day you’ll meet someone who doesn’t care about your past because they want to be with you in your future.”

  —Anonymous

  As I valeted at Oya, I was on my cell with Winsome. She was freaking out because I was actually taking a chance.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t tell him to beat it,” she said through my headset. “Normally, when dudes approach you, you act a fool and dismiss them before they can get two words out.”

  I laughed. “I’m not that bad.”

  “Jemistry, please. When we’re in the store or whatnot, you throw so much shade toward anyone who even blinks at you, that they’re too intimidated to speak.” She paused and giggled. “I don’t believe it. You’re lying.”

  “Well, I’m not lying so believe it. I’m actually meeting up with a man. I wanted to alert you to my whereabouts in case something happens.”

  Winsome laughed from the other end. “You are so damn paranoid. You met him in a public place and you’re meeting him in another public place. How do you ever expect to settle down if you think every man is a sociopath?”

  “He might be a damn sociopath. Time will tell and it’s not like I’ve never attracted them before. Did you forget about Paul?”

  “Paul wasn’t a sociopath. Paul was a man whore.”

  “Same difference.”

  We both laughed as the valet handed me a ticket.

  “So, is he fine?” Winsome asked.

  “Have you sucked more than ten dicks in the past year?”

  The valet stared at me like I was crazy. It probably made his dick hard, though.

  I smiled and kept walking toward the entrance.

  “Fuck you, Jemistry.”

  “I’m about the only person you know that you haven’t fucked.”

  “Bye, heifer!”

  Winsome hung up and while my words had been stated jokingly, I really did need to have a talk with her about slowing her roll. Winsome was bisexual, so she was doing the most. She was exceptionally beautiful and that only escalated her ability to get random people into her bed. She was originally from Trinidad but she relocated to the States to attend Howard, which is where we met. She had flawless skin the color of a coconut, dark brown eyes that seemed to stare right through you, and deep dimples that complemented her five-foot-two, petite frame. Men and women were constantly drawn to her like moths to a flame. While I was good at deflecting people, Winsome had this “come hither” look about her.

  I enjoyed sex but she loved sex, and my issue was that she always had numerous people trying to get into her panties. We were both single so it was whatever. Yet and still, she was prone to bring strangers to our place and that was when the drama started. Some felt like they could drop by whenever, some never wanted to leave, and others simply looked suspect to me. Like they might jump off the edge of a cliff and go off if things did not go their way. Her business was only my business because we were roommates and I would often walk into some mess, or wake up to some mess, and it was just . . . messy.

  * * *

  Tevin was sitting at the bar near the entrance of Oya. I loved the spot because it had a Miami type of feel in the heart of downtown DC. With all-white leather seats, white tables, and white-and-gray-marble floors and walls, the atmosphere was intimate and relaxing.

  “You showed!” Tevin exclaimed. “I didn’t ask for a table yet. I didn’t want to take a walk of shame if you stood me up.”

  “Walk of shame?”

  “Yes, when a person sits at a table looking crazy and staring at the door to the point where people at other tables start watching the door to see if the person is going to be stood up or not. Then they have to try to make an uncomfortable exit while people snicker at them under their breath.”

  “That actually makes sense. Walk of shame. I have to remember that one.” I giggled and looked into his eyes. Damn shame, he was so sexy. “I’ll be honest. I had a little debate with myself about coming, but you seem harmless . . . so far.”

  He shrugged. “The best thing about having a debate with yourself is that you always win.”

  We both laughed.

  “That’s true,” I said.

  An uncomfortable silence fell between us for a few seconds.

  Then, he said, “Once you get to know me, I hope you come to a final conclusion on whether I’m harmless or not. We just met and I don’t even know anything about you . . . except that you’re fine and extremely cautious about my fellow brethren. I have no reason to mislead you.”

  “No one else had a reason to mislead me either.”

  Tevin frowned. “Listen, Jemistry. I love your name, I love your vibe, and I want a fair chance to get to know you. But if all of the drama from your past is about to take a seat at the table with us, I’d rather call it a night now.”

  He was right. I was taking it too far.

  “I apologize. You have a point, Tevin. I can’t promise that I’ll never mention another word about my past. It’s a part of who I am. I’m not sure how we can truly learn about one another without discussing some elements from both of our pasts. That is what has shaped us into the two people standing here in this moment. However, I’ll try to keep my bitterness about days gone by in check.”

  Tevin stared at me for a few seconds, like he was having his own internal debate. Like he said, he was going to win either way.

  He finally said, “I agree. All I’m saying is that if you’re going to automatically disqualify me because of what I have hanging between my legs, it’s pointless.”

  When he mentioned what he had between his legs, my pussy thumped. Currently, I was going back and forth between two lovers, but it was all about sex. Nothing more, nothing less. I was about to interview Tevin to see if he could be the third person in my rotation
, but he didn’t need to know all of that.

  I held up my index and middle fingers. “I, Jemistry Daniels, do solemnly swear that I will not unjustly discriminate against Tevin Harris for the simple fact that he is a man.”

  Finally, I got a bona fide laugh out of him.

  “Cool beans. Let’s grab a table.”

  Chapter Three

  “The only abnormality is the incapacity to love.”

  —Anaïs Nin

  I pulled into the building garage for the condo that Winsome and I shared on Sixteenth Street in Adams Morgan about two AM. Getting to know Tevin had been an enlightening experience. Turns out that he was a vascular surgeon at Sibley Memorial, which made him smart as shit. I was about to be in serious trouble because I loved an ambitious and smart man, not to mention smooth, which he definitely was.

  We had shared a late dinner and amazing conversation. Gazing into his eyes over the candlelight and being serenaded by his deep, sensual voice was too much for me. Even the way that he ate sushi turned me on.

  I sat in my 2011 Nissan Rogue for a moment and digested it all.

  “This is how it always begins,” I said aloud. “You fall for a man too soon and then the proverbial shit hits the fan.”

  I had agreed to see Tevin again, but did not commit to a specific day or time. I told him to call me the next day at work. I could not believe that I had stayed out so late on a Wednesday when I had to be in my office by eight. Being a high school principal was not an easy feat, but it was a rewarding one. Teens had a bad rap overall; most of my students were simply trying to get an education amidst the pandemonium created by the five percent of students who had been failed by their parents and believed that making a spectacle of themselves would be their claim to fame. I was not having it, not at Medgar Evers High School.

  Tevin said that he was thirty-four, and I was thirty-seven. Not a big deal, but I preferred to date men at least my age or older. Then again, I didn’t want to actually date him. I only wanted to fuck him, so it didn’t matter. As long as I kept repeating those intentions to myself, I would be fine.

  When I walked into the front door of our condo, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Then again, I shouldn’t have been the least bit astonished by anything Winsome did. After all, she worked as a fake-review writer from home. Yes, it was actually a paid position. Companies such as hotels, restaurants, and retail chains paid her to post positive comments on all the major review websites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Zagat. She made her own schedule and only had to send in a weekly list of all the reviews that she had posted in order to get paid. That was one of the reasons why I never paid attention to reviews—at least not the positive ones. A lot of those were fabricated. I was sure that Winsome was not the only one working those sites on the regular. The sites were not at fault since they were simply offering consumers the opportunity to vent about their experiences and to make recommendations.

  I was planning to kick off my shoes, sit on the sofa, and watch the latest episode of Paternity Court on the DVR after I’d tossed my purse and keys on the small table in the foyer and walked into the living room. When I first heard that they were making a show with that title, I talked major shit. It was mind-boggling to me that the paternity of so many children could be in question that it warranted an entire show on the topic. Maury already covered that topic about three days a week on the regular. But the thing that fascinated me the most about Paternity Court was Judge Lauren Lake’s hair. It was always flawless. Half the time I could not even concentrate on the cases since I was staring at her hair. I kept meaning to ask my stylist if she thought it was her real hair, a wig, or a weave. Whatever it was, it was banging, and it made me want to step up my game.

  As much as I proclaimed that I would never watch a show like that, I was all into it. I would often get emotional over some of the guests and when they showed the little kids playing in the toy area on the screen, I would want to pick them up and embrace them one at a time. Then they had adults who would make an appearance in order to finally discover whom their biological fathers were for once and for all.

  Part of my issue with men was that my father had died before I was even born. The one man that I should have been able to count on to love and protect me never even got to meet me. He was a Metropolitan Police officer and he died in a high-speed car chase at the infamous intersection of Minnesota Avenue and Benning Road. My mother was never the same. Well, I can’t say if she was the same or not, but that was how everyone else in the family described her. Never the same. All I know is that she was depressed for my entire childhood, sedated by all kinds of medications, and never loved another man up until she died of breast cancer when she was fifty-two.

  * * *

  I heard the moaning before I saw the action. Then I saw nothing but tits, asses, and one big-ass dick. Winsome was having a threesome with a man and another woman. I had never laid eyes on either one of them before. She was in the middle and enjoying her own little slice of heaven, lying on her back as the man fed her his dick and the woman ate out her pussy.

  I kicked off one of my black boots and threw it at Winsome’s tits. “What the fuck are you doing? I can’t freaking believe this!”

  The chick stopped eating her out immediately and looked petrified. I was betting she thought that I was Winsome’s woman coming home, catching her in the act. That exact scenario had happened before and I had to make it clear that I had zero interest in Winsome’s coochie. I simply didn’t care to see it under any circumstances. The man could not have cared less and probably thought that after a few seconds of bitching, I would want to join in since his dick was so big. Nope. Wasn’t happening. He was still trying to shove more of his mandingaling down her throat, trying to get his.

  Winsome pushed his dick away from her and sat up. “Damn, Jemistry! Why you throwing boots and all of that? It’s not that serious!”

  “Not that serious?” I rolled my eyes. “It’s two in the damn morning and you have strangers up in here fucking you on the sofa that I bought. The one that I sit on to eat my oatmeal every morning and watch my favorite shows on at night. The one that my company sits on to chill. You got musty dick and pussy juice drizzling all over it and you don’t think it’s serious?”

  Winsome stood up, tits swinging. “First of all, they’re—”

  “Don’t first of all me like I’ve done something trifling. I spoke to you a few hours ago and you said that you were here chilling and working.” I looked the guy in the eyes and then the broad. “You a call girl now? Did they find you on Craigslist or some shit?”

  “No, I’m not no call girl and you know it. All I was trying to say is that they’re not strangers. I’ve known them for a minute.” She ran her fingers through the woman’s reddish-brown hair. “This is Kay Kay.”

  “What’s up?” Kay Kay said nervously, still probably shocked that I walked in.

  Winsome ran the fingers of her other hand down the man’s chest. “And this fine thing right here is Dominic.”

  Dominic stared at me, up and down, and licked his lips. “What’s good, cutie?”

  Winsome folded her arms in defiance. “See, they’re definitely not strangers.”

  “The fact that you happen to know their names doesn’t mean that they’re not strangers. Put on some damn clothes and get them out of here.” I walked past the sofa toward my bedroom and waved them off. “You can miss me with all of that.” I paused and turned around, glaring at Winsome. “On the sofa, though? You’re buying a new one. I’m never sitting on that shit again!”

  I went into my room and slammed the door.

  After undressing, I went into my bathroom and hopped into the shower. By the time that I threw on a nightgown, Winsome was poking her head in my door.

  “How did the date go with that dude?”

  I rolled my eyes at her. “His name is Tevin. He’s cool. I plan to hang out with him again sometime.”

  “Thank goodness! You need a man!” Winsome came in and sat down
on the edge of my bed. She had on a black T-shirt that had BEAT ME, WHIP ME, FUCK ME, CUM ALL OVER MY TITS, AND THEN GET THE FUCK OUT printed in white letters on the front, and a pair of white sweatpants. “I’m tired of you disrupting my flow!”

  “Winsome, you’re a trip. I’m not disrupting a damn thing that doesn’t need to be disrupted. You are sexing way too many people at the same time. And from what I saw tonight, with no damn protection.”

  “Oh, come off it. We were doing oral when you came in. You will not make me believe that you use dental dams and condoms when you’re serving up your pussy or slobbering on a dick. Don’t even try it.”

  “I’m not going to try, but the difference between you and me is that I only have sex with a couple of people.” I paused and started analyzing what she had said a moment ago. “And I could have a man if I wanted one, and you know it. I’m sick of the bullshit, so I’d rather stay single and do me. Relieve my sexual tension when I feel like it and keep it moving.”

  “You push men away the second they start talking about getting serious. There are a lot of chicas out there who want a man to tie them down and you push them all away.”

  I climbed underneath my comforter and turned on the news. I really wanted to go watch Paternity Court, but I was serious about that sofa. I was donating it to a nonprofit and making Winsome purchase a new one, but not before I laid down some ground rules.

  “You can’t be fucking all over the place, Winsome. That’s not cool. You’re getting a new sofa and you’d better not have done anything on the dining room table.”

  She sucked her teeth. “I’m not that damn nasty!”

  “At this point, I wouldn’t put anything past you.” It suddenly hit me. “You’ve never fucked someone in my bed while I’m at work, have you?”

  “No, don’t nobody want to fuck in your scraggly little queen-size bed when I have a California King. As much as you play in your pussy, ain’t nobody got time for that.”

  I laughed, picked up a pillow, and threw it at her head. I did have quite the toy collection to knock the edge off. “Get out of my room. I have to be at work in five hours.”