Before We Were Wicked, page 10
Made me feel like I was a black man who had taken a white woman to a meeting at Nation of Islam.
I was done with Jimi Lee.
I’d feed her, be a gentleman, hit it again, make her say my name, then be done with her.
CHAPTER 10
BUT AFTER WE had eaten the burgers, Jimi Lee came to me, and the apology blow job she threw down changed my motherfuckin’ mind. Had me whimpering and saying her name over and over. She used me like she was in summer session at an Ivy League school taking a class dealing with sensual and erotic matters.
Jimi Lee whispered, “I read a lot.”
“That’s obvious.”
“I read that the penis has about four thousand nerve endings.”
She took control of me. Owned me. Comfortable now, exponentially better than yesterday.
She whispered, “I love that you moan. You’re never quiet. That turns me on.”
She left me in the fetal position, shivering like a child.
She whispered, “That time I did it right. And I didn’t expectorate.”
“I see.”
“I like you.”
“Do you?”
“I feel like I can be free sexually with you. I’m physically attracted to you. I need to be like this with someone who can’t hurt me, someone who doesn’t want too much, someone I can see this way and be free, go wild, do things beyond the normal things that people do. I want to be with someone and not have to hide this part of me.”
“I’m your guy.”
“Just for the summer. Just until I leave for Ethiopia.”
“That works for me.”
“This is what we are about. Just fun. Just this.”
We fell into more touching, ear nibbling, tongue sucking that became habanero kisses, fingering that made her murmur, stroking that made me whisper to God and his son, panting that echoed wall to wall, husky exhales that made me sound like an unleashed animal, curt inhales that made me think she was drowning, and with all of that, as the intensity grew, the desire to devour each other was so damn strong. When I was so hard I was about to explode, her legs opened and I felt her fire, a heat that needed to be resolved. And to ease her ache, to soothe her pain, there was the offering of her flower, the willingness to give me her body for more penetration. There was slow penetration that quickly turned intense, turned into a passion she didn’t want to end. Right away we exploded, came at the same time, came hard, came panting, moaning, screaming, rocking the bed, shaking the room. Jimi Lee took all of me that time. Took all of Soul Stealer. And when that was done, panting, we fell into tender kisses.
She whispered, “Soixante-neuf.”
“That what you want?”
“I want to try that next. I want to see what that is like.”
* * *
—
WE NAPPED AGAIN, woke up separated, reached for each other, kissed, touched, cuddled, the thirty-two-inch Sony Trinitron glowing, sound muted.
“Ken, question?”
“Shoot.”
“Do you know where the Hustler store is in Hollywood?”
“Yeah.”
“Is it far?”
“Thirty minutes.” I turned to her, kissed her. “You want to take a ride and go there?”
“I might buy my first vibrator.”
“That’s the spot to get a portable penis. There or the Pleasure Chest.”
“When I leave for Ethiopia, I want to take a discreet toy with me. Something I can hide and my mother won’t find when she snoops and looks in my things. I don’t want to shop for one in Diamond Bar. You can be anonymous in LA. Diamond Bar is like a small town. People talk. I look young and if I go to one, they will ask for my identification; then they will know I am African and know my address. If I am carded in Los Angeles, it will not matter so much.”
“Know what you want?”
“A vibrator. I want to see what Ben Wa balls look like. And plugs.”
“Been to an adult store before?”
“Never been old enough to go in one, only heard my mother tell someone those places are Sodom and Gomorrah. I’m curious. I want to know what goes on in there. I want to know the secrets.”
“And you want a souvenir.”
She laughed. “Wouldn’t want anyone to see me buying a toy or a butt plug in Addis Ababa.”
“How do you know about all this stuff?”
“Guess.”
“Lila.”
“No. I went to school with rich girls. Rich girls get bored and are very experimental.”
“What are rich girls into?”
“White girls at my old school? Everything. They lived for LSD and debauchery.”
“LSD?”
“LSD. Three students passed out in class. And they carried vodka in their water bottles. They had been coming to school high for months. They were high or getting intoxicated right in front of the teachers. Nobody noticed. All were top students. An ambulance came. That was the talk, until the science teacher was taken away.”
“Why?”
“He did something with a student.”
“Sex?”
“He was old. Forty. And the girl was twelve.”
“You get caught doing way more stuff out there in cow town, and y’all chastise folks in LA?”
She laughed a soft laugh, kissed me again, changed the subject, controlled the conversation. “I was a virgin ten months ago. I was scared to think about having sex. My father would kill me if he found out. If I had done drugs or was found with alcohol at school and brought shame on my family, I would have run away from home because he would have beat me within an inch of my life. If I embarrassed my family, I’d die of shame; then he would kill me.”
“He thinks you’re a nonsmoking, nondrinking, non-sex-having virgin.”
“Until the day I marry, that is what he and my mother must believe. Anything less is not acceptable.”
* * *
—
TWO DAYS LATER, Jimi Lee broke free again and came back, showed up by eleven in the morning. I took her to eat breakfast at Simply Wholesome, then hopped in traffic and battled my way to 6540 Hollywood Boulevard. When we pulled up at the Hustler store, Jimi Lee was as excited as a kid at Disneyland. We walked through a sea of strap-ons, vibrators, couples’ toys, cock rings, anal toys, dildos, masturbators, prostate toys, whips and paddles, bondage kits, nipple suckers, gags, ticklers, and nipple clamps. I bought her a few things; then we went to Universal City, took in a tour of the back lot, ate seafood, caught a movie. After the movie, we hit World on Wheels. She could skate, but not like I could. She had learned to skate down in Cerritos. I had learned to bounce and rock on my skates in LA, grew up hanging with some of the same people who skated on Venice Beach every weekend. I reminded myself this would end soon. I was her boy of summer. After skating, we went to the Comedy Store, watched comics, had drinks. Then we went back to Leimert Park, hung out at 5th Street Dick’s coffee shop, listened to jazz for about an hour, then headed back to my place, showered, kissed, and tried out her new toy. We had a quickie on the sofa. I took her from behind, our pants pulled down to our knees. I made her come before she had to hurry back home. There was no time to shower or cuddle. Again, she had to be back in her parents’ house before sunrise. I drove her while she slept. Jimi Lee sped away and I had Jake Ellis meet me at the 7-Eleven on Diamond Bar Boulevard. He showed up thirty minutes later. I had downed an energy drink and had a honey bun. We had to drive four hours to Vegas and take care of a problem for San Bernardino. This time the issue was a woman and her husband.
I asked Jake Ellis, “How San Bernardino want this one handled?”
“No mercy.”
“Wake me up and I’ll take the wheel at the McDonald’s in Barstow.”
“Ethiopia wearing your ass out.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
* * *
—
SEVENTY-TWO HOURS LATER, Jimi Lee was back. Again, she had lied, said she was going to be in Malibu with Lila. Jimi Lee had arranged it so she could spend two nights with me. I dropped the top on the Benz and drove her to Morro Bay one day. Lila and some dreadlock-wearing white guy she was dating followed us up the 101, his convertible BMW challenging me and racing me all the way. Lila and her white boy walked around with us. Two couples strolling, holding hands. Jimi Lee called her parents from a pay phone with Gelila at her side, all of them talking in Amharic. Once she had used Lila to make sure her lie worked, we all went our separate ways. Lila and her friend had booked a hotel room. Little Red Corvette was using Jimi Lee as her alibi, her way to get away from her Malibu parents. I had my own spot. I didn’t need to rent space to knock boots, but I booked us a room anyway. Got us some room service, made love with the windows open to the Pacific Ocean, made her feel so good she cried.
Soixante-neuf. She whispered she wanted more soixante-neuf.
I did my best to give her everything she wanted, how she wanted it.
* * *
—
THE NEXT AFTERNOON, I made a stop on the way back into Los Angeles and took Jimi Lee hiking at the Griffith Observatory. We stood up on the hills, disposable cameras in hand, and took maybe fifty pictures with the Hollywood sign behind us. I kept a stock of disposable Kodak cameras with me. I took pictures everywhere we went, grabbed memories of all we did. She was my girl of summer and I didn’t want to forget her, wanted to be able to look in my photo album and remember the time I had with the girl who was going away to become an Ivy League queen.
After dinner in Santa Monica, we held hands and walked the promenade. Just the two of us.
Again, I took more pictures. Took roll after roll. Loved photographing her.
Jimi Lee said, “This is getting too serious.”
“What’s got you upset?”
“We should take a break.”
“I thought this was the break from the other parts of our lives.”
“From each other.”
“I do something wrong?”
“My father almost found out I have been lying to him.”
“How?”
“He’s been checking the mileage on my car.”
“Get the fuck outta here.”
“He found the receipt from the Hustler store.”
“What did he say?”
“I told him it was Lila’s receipt.”
“Lila is your fall guy?”
“I had no choice. I put it on Little Red Corvette.”
“Did he investigate?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re scared.”
She didn’t answer, but said, “I feel so much with you.”
“Is that bad?”
“I must get this under control.”
CHAPTER 11
SAN BERNARDINO SENT Jake Ellis and me to San Diego. We arrived at nine in the morning, hurt a man at eleven, hurt another at two, then were back in Los Angeles eating chicken at El Pollo Loco by sundown.
When Jake Ellis dropped me off at my spot, Jimi Lee was parked out front, waiting.
I saw her and she saw me, and we smiled, and I got all the feelings in the world.
She said, “I tried to stay away from you. I can’t. What have you done to me?”
“Same thing you’ve done to me. Exact same thing.”
“I didn’t see you for a day and I went mad. I couldn’t sleep and couldn’t eat.”
Within five minutes of my arrival, we were in the shower. Shower sex was as spontaneous as it was hot, never gave us a chance to put on a condom. We were too busy capturing corners of each other’s souls. After the shower, it was the bed, and from the bed, we slid to the floor, continued on the carpet, bucking like broncos.
Then we were frantic, feral, out of control until we climaxed, first her, then me, and when I slowed, when I softened, we rolled away from each other, panting, skin covered in sweat.
She whispered, “Without a condom, Jesus, it feels twice as good.”
“Ten times as good.”
“Too damn good.”
* * *
—
THEY SAY IT takes about sixty days to create a new addiction.
This compulsion took half that time. Being inside Jimi Lee was more potent than cocaine and twice as habit-forming as crack. And the way she drove thirty miles one way in LA traffic, traffic that could make a one-way thirty-mile drive take as long as two hours, longer in the rain, told me she felt the same, had the same infatuation.
She hated waiting for me to get back home, didn’t feel safe being alone on the streets in Leimert Park, didn’t think it was ladylike for a woman to be sitting in a car waiting for a man to come home, so I gave her a key to the front door, a key to the back door, and the password to my computer so she could dial up AOL and go online if she needed to. I’d come home and she’d be there, in shorts, no shoes, comfortable, doing her version of surfing the Internet, bouncing from chat room to chat room, talking to strangers on blackvoices.com and playing music. I came home from another job in San Diego and she was in the kitchen cooking. She was dressed in lingerie and heels.
With a big smile, she hugged me, kissed me, said, “I am preparing tibsi, dorho, kwanta fitfit.”
“You went shopping, or did you bring all of this from Diamond Bar?”
“I went shopping. Menna Mini Market in Inglewood. I went there to get the things I need.”
“She sells all the breads like injera and spices like berbere. I say those right?”
“What do you know about berbere?”
“It’s a dope spice.”
“It has chili peppers, garlic, ginger, basil, korarima, rue, ajwain or radhuni, nigella, and fenugreek.”
“I bought that and mitmita before.”
“You know spices? I thought black Americans just used Lawry’s seasoning salt and called it a day.”
I laughed. “I don’t eat out much because I love to do my own cooking. I buy different spices. African and East Indian spices are the best. Would’ve cooked for you, but I haven’t been food shopping in a long time.”
“You eat all of that Mississippi food.”
“Did when I was growing up.”
“Shud I mek ya a big ole bucket of chitterlings and some hot waddah kawwwn bread?”
“It’s pronounced chitlins. And I don’t miss eating out of a hog’s ass.”
“You seem obsessed with my culture. You’ve dated an Ethiopian before me, haven’t you?”
“Had a few Ethiopian friends growing up.”
“Northern Ethiopia or southern?”
“Never asked. What’s the difference?”
“Were they darker-skinned, like the south, or more like mulatto in the north? We have a range of complexions and features in Ethiopia. From thin noses to broad. Dark skin and light. All noses. All complexions.”
“Brown skin. Asymmetrical features, like you. Nice people.”
“Yeah, you’re obsessed.”
“Aware, not obsessed.”
“But not intimate like we have been with an Ethiopian before me?”
“You’re the only girlfriend who invited me inside the walls of East Africa.”
“I’m not your girlfriend.”
“I stand corrected.”
“Now come eat. Eat and make love to me so I can hurry back home.”
Sometimes I wouldn’t hear from her all day, and I’d be in bed and the door would open. She would call my name, then run to the bedroom and drop her overnight bag. Once she had on a trench coat and nothing else. She would dance, do her tease, do her belly dance, arouse me as she undressed to her skin, and jump under the covers with me. She would go to Malibu, to Lila’s place, call her parents from there, say good night, then drive to my bed.
And as we calmed down, we rested, touched, held fingers, cooled in beautiful silence.
She glowed. “Never felt this way.”
“You have to get home before the parents wake up?”
“My parents think I am staying in Malibu with Lila. She’s covering for me again.”
“Lila has it covered?”
“They never call her parents’ home, so her parents have no idea. It’s all sorted out.”
“Good to know you’re an expert at logistics.”
“But I have to leave early in the morning. We have relatives coming from Addis Ababa. It’s my parents’ twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, so we will have people coming from Ethiopia, Brooklyn, Minneapolis, Tampa, Boston, and Washington, DC. Everyone is staying at Ayres Suites. I will be overwhelmed. I won’t be able to see you for two days, so I want all the kisses I can get so I can survive.”
“Need a date?”
She made an “I’m sorry” face. “I have a date.”
“Really?”
“I have to go with an Ethiopian boy. For appearances.”
“Are you sleeping with him?”
She made a “yuck” face. “No.”
“You like him?”
“He’s gay. It’s illegal to be gay in Ethiopia. I keep his secret and he keeps mine.”
“Bet you’re going to be dressed nice.”
“I’ll take pictures and get them developed at One-Hour Photo or Costco.”
The conversation was broken by the sound of sirens and ghetto birds. I eased up and looked out the window, made sure the doors were locked, took off the used condom, went back.
I asked, “So, you said that the Ethiopian calendar has thirteen months?”
“Twelve months of thirty days and then a thirteenth month. We celebrate our New Year with a lot of dance and song, and we have an Ethiopian coffee ceremony, a cultural fashion show, and storytelling from our leaders, the elders.”
