Blind Fold, page 10
“I know you’re standing there,” he said aloud, not moving from his fixed stance. The sound of the sliding door opening told him she had come outside.
“Uriel, are you avoiding me?”
“Yes,” he said in no hurry to mince his words.
He heard her slap at the uncovered arms, then scratch a little where she’d immediately been bitten by a blood hungry insect. The skin on her arms were smooth, with very little hair and supple. When she scratched, it did not sound dry as if all the moisture had left the epidermis.
“Your mother was right,” she said, making One Way turn to look at her. “These skeeters will suck all the milk from a nipple. Do you ever get scared thinking, maybe, that skeeter which bit you, had just bit a rabid raccoon, and now he was sticking his long blood sucky thing in your arm? Then boom, you have encephalitis and your brain swells up and you die. Death by skeeter.”
“There are times when I look at you and imagine how such beauty would look in my arms, but then you open your mouth and kill every instinct I have to procreate,” he said softly.
“Did you just insult me?”
“Yes,” he said. “In a nice way.”
“It wasn’t nice, and you’re back to being an asshole,” she told him. “At some point in the very near future, you’re going to have to come to term with the simple fact, you’re holding on to me and not allowing me to move on to Louisville or whatever is next, because you’re scared that when she dies, it severs your connection to the world.”
“Yes, that is also true,” he said moving towards the back door and opening it for her to step inside. He wore an unscented insect repellant and wasn’t getting bit by the late-night insect feeders. Inside the kitchen, he stood on one side of the island and she on the other.
“Then what am I supposed to do with that information?”
“You talk too much.”
“And you don’t talk enough,” she countered. “Talk to me, tell me what you need. Tell me what you need from me, or...”
“Or what Nichelle, you’re going to leave me? You make everything so complicated. I don’t do complicated. I don’t do messy and you’re going to make my life messy.”
“Bitch, you need some messy,” she told him, standing her ground. “You also need to get laid so that man juice can stop backing up in your brain making you hostile and irritable. When was the last time you burped the baby?”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me, when was the last time you gave yourself relief and took matters into your own hands by getting a grip on the kid and making it spit up?”
“I think, and I’m not quite sure, that I truly don’t like you,” he said, “what’s so fucked up is that I have never wanted a woman as much as I want you. The scent of you drives me insane and all I want to do is sink myself so deep in you that before I even get up from the bed, you’re carrying my son.”
Nichelle blinked several times. He was being standoffish to protect himself, and that she understood. She’d tried to protect herself as well but from the moment she saw him, she knew. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was hers. Instead of arguing, Nichelle loosened the strings of the wrap dress, allowing it to fall and pool at her feet. She wore no undergarments other that the red lacy bra and undies.
“You put those on while I was on the back porch, didn’t you?”
“Yes, because your mother was also right about you and me. Jasir is not here and if you want to get loud, nasty, and smack me on the ass, he isn’t here to think you’re hurting me,” she said, taking a step towards him, as he took a step back.
One Way was reaching his limit. “Nichelle, this is not a good idea. I’m angry. I’m frustrated, and I’m grieving for the sickness that has taken over my mother’s body. A sickness that is going to take my heart away from me. To top it all off, I’ve been benched so there is nowhere for me to vent my rage. If I take you to my bed, I will take all of that out on you; that is unfair and you deserve better.”
“What I deserve and what life has handed me are two different animals,” she said, unfastening the bra. “Tell me two truths and a lie Uriel.”
“I’m am so confounded by you, that I’m not sure if I should choke the hell out of you or make love you until you’re no longer able to form syllables,” he told her, taking one step forward and two steps back.
“What are you afraid of Uriel, that you’ll touch me and like it?”
“No, I’m afraid you’ll touch me and I’ll like it, then touch you back and it goes downhill from there,” he said, almost salivating staring at her slim form in the hot red undies. The contrast of the red lace against the ebony skin was making him harder than he’d ever been, and the throb made him ache with need.
“Okay, that’s a truth; keep going,” she said, reaching behind her back to remove the bra.
“If we do this, this thing, it changes everything. In the end we will never know if we’re who we are because it is what we want, or if we are where we’ll end up because of my loneliness, grief, and unwillingness to be alone after my mother leaves this world,” he confessed, looking her square in the eyes. The evil woman slowly bent over and leisurely slid the red lacy underwear down, now standing before him the nude in a strappy sandal that made her legs look even longer and lovelier than he’d imagined.
“Also, a truth,” she told him, tossing the panties into his face. He had great reflexes but he didn’t move to block or catch the undies which meant he wanted to sniff them without being obvious. “Now for the lie, Uriel. Please, make it a good one because this build up is about to make me ink all down my legs.”
Uriel swallowed hard imagining how much ink he was also going to make her squirt when he got his hands on the lady. The lie didn’t need to be over the top, but just enough to get his point and feelings across to her. One Way or the other, if he did, or if he didn’t, he wasn’t ready for her or the boy to leave his life. Damned if he did, and damned if he didn’t; might as well enjoy the journey.
“I don’t want to stick my dick in you and show you how well it can make the ink not only run down you leg, but you know, that whole washing my mattress thing,” he said, almost forming a smile.
There were very few times when Uriel Tamagotchi got surprised by things people did in haste, bad judgement or simple greed. As well as he thought he knew women, or even human behavior, and he believed he knew what he was dealing with in Nichelle. He didn’t. He was surprised when she left him in the kitchen and headed for his bedroom. She didn’t talk about it, or come back with a smart-ass comment. The woman simply turned around and walked away leaving the musk of her readiness in the room and him to stand slobbering like an imbecile. He wasn’t totally stupid. It took less than a minute to follow behind her into the bedroom where he found her laid out in the middle of his bed, the covers turned down.
“Don’t you think I should at least know your last name?” He asked.
“No,” she said, crooking her finger for him to joining her one the bed.
“Maybe, it’s something I need to know,” he replied, pulling the soft cotton shirt over his head. She was surprised that there were no tattoos on his chest nor back, indicating her initial assessment of what he did for a living and for whom, was incorrect.
“Don’t matter none,” she said, moving on the bed, shifting her legs to give him a bird’s eye view of the new nest he’d call home.
One Way slowly unfastened his belt, pulling the leather from the loops in his pants, snapping the belt and making her jump. “It matters to me.”
“It doesn’t to me, since once this is over, my last name will soon be Tamagotchi,” she said with a wink.
“You sure about that?” He asked, ready to take on the challenge.
“Ask me again in an hour,” she told him reaching for him and pulling him down on the bed.
****
He didn’t admit it often, if ever, but the woman shook him. Forty minutes in bed with her and he sincerely felt as if he needed to see his Mommy and get a hug. Loading the truck and heading back to Knoxville he was moving on auto pilot, grateful for the quietness coming from the passenger seat. The quietness was a welcomed relief because he didn’t really know what to say about any of it.
Then fifteen minutes into the journey, he spotted her wiping away a tear. When, and if, she wanted to speak on what troubled her, he had no doubts that she would. However, the trickle of tears which started at the fifteen-minute mark turned into a full blown, body racking blubber session at the half hour point. One Way pulled into a rest stop and found a secluded spot under the shade of trees. His plan had been to reach Knoxville before nightfall, pick up a family dinner from a chicken joint, and sit down for a family meal. Now, he had to deal with this...whateve this was.
“Nichelle, did I do or say something to hurt you or your feelings?” He asked, not sure where the tenderness was coming from.
“No,” she sniffed, and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.
One Way pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and passed it to the woman. “Nichelle, did I do a sexual act with you that made you uncomfortable and you didn’t know how to tell me to stop?”
Again, she sniffed, and looked at him with sad puppy dog eyes. “No Uriel, you didn’t.”
“Then Baby, tell me what’s wrong. I can’t help if I don’t know what is wrong,” he said, gently reaching for her.
It must have been the wrong thing because she wailed to the top of her voice. Half of what she said, he didn’t understand and the parts he did understand he wished he didn’t. He asked her nicely to slow down, catch her breath and enunciate her words so he could get a clear understanding of the problem.
“Nichelle, what is the problem?”
“It was so guuuuudddd,” she wailed. “It was so good, that I don’t even know what the hell happened.”
His eyes grew wide as he stared at her in disbelief. She was crying because the sex was good. Nichelle wasn’t crying because it was bad, or she was unsatisfied, she was crying because it was good. Uriel was thoroughly confused.
“My girlfriend Tina, was dating this bum with a big...well you know. All the time she would come crying to me, telling me I just didn’t understand when I told her to leave him, she said she couldn’t,” Nichelle said in between sobs. “Now I understand. I understand so well. I’m never going to be able to leave you!”
She flung herself across the arm rest into his arms and blubbered louder.
“That thing you did, when you stuck your thumb in my butthole and two fingers in my coochie while you held me upside down and did that stuff with your mouth...I squirted!” She yelled, squarely in his face. “I squirted like a yard sprinkler with a broken head. That shit was all over the place, and it felt so good. I liked it. I like it so much. I came so hard and so much, that I feel dehydrated. You dehydrated me by draining my coochie!”
She wailed louder gripping onto his shirt as he tried his best not to laugh. He tried patting her to offer comfort but he couldn’t help but to laugh. He tried his best to hold it back, but the more she talked, the harder it became to not totally lose it.
“Oh my God, do you know what really sucks?”
“No Nichelle, please, tell me what really sucks,” he said, pressing his lips together.
“Well, you, and that thing you did to my clit, while squeezing my right nipple, which also made me squirt!” She said, blubbering again. “What sucks is that I think I love you. I don’t want to love you, but now, I’m going be all excited every time you give me a thumbs up.”
Uriel couldn’t help it, he had to laugh. All of it was so fricking ridiculous that he had no choice but to laugh. He needed her to stop crying. The last thing he needed or wanted his mother to see was Nichelle’s swollen eyes.
“Baby, you’re going to have to stop crying. You don’t want Cool Guy or my Mom to think I’ve harmed you, or hurt you,” he said, caressing her arm.
“But you have hurt me Uriel. You’ve ruined me. All I will ever want from this point forward is you,” she said, “but I’m drawing a line in the sand. You going to have to make me an honest woman because I’m not going to be anybody’s baby mama. Ever again. I’ve done that. I’m not doing that for anyone else. I deserve better and I deserve a man who loves me. I sure hope you love or can learn, because I’m hooked. I’m hooked on you.”
“That’s not such a bad thing,” he said. “Let me see what we can do to make you an honest woman.”
“You’re going to make me a Tamagotchi?” She said sniffling.
“You told me to ask you in an hour, well, it’s been almost two hours and now I’m asking.”
“What are you asking?”
“Hell, I don’t even know.”
“You want me as your wife Uriel? For real and for true or are you doing this so your Momma can see you married before she closes her eyes and Jasir can be her actual grandson,” she said, looking at him suspiciously.
He sighed loudly, looking at the sweet mouth which had nearly brought him to the point of tears as she brought him pleasure. One Way had also known from the moment he first saw her the connection was palpable. It had taken him two weeks to wrap his head around all of the nuances but he was here, present and in the moment. Much like Nichelle, he too wouldn’t ever want another woman in his bed but her, and as pleased as he was that he’d done his job, now, he had to marry the damned woman.
“I want you as my life partner, Nichelle; nothing less, nothing more,” he said.
“Ok, let’s go tell your Mom and Jasir,” she said, sniffing happily.
A knot formed in his stomach as he backed out of the space an turned the car towards home. He was turning towards the future. A future with a wife, a son and in the not too distant tomorrow, possibly another child. He was also turning towards a future that would no longer have his mother.
“One step at a time Uriel,” she said, reaching over and taking Nichelle’s hand. He held it all the way to the house. He was still holding it when they walked through the mudroom to find Yasmine and Cool Guy making cookies. His mother immediately noticed the difference.
“Son, is she alright? What did you do to her, she looks all out of sorts,” Yasmine asked.
“Well, what can I say?” He told his Mom and arched his eyebrows.
“I like them both,” Yasmine said, “any chance of making it permanent?”
“I’ll try in the next week, before things begin to change for you,” he told her.
“No, do it on your own clock, on your own time, son. Maybe after I’m gone, planning a wedding will bring your peace and focus. I do want you to get Gabriel on the line for me, there are some matters I would like handled before I close my eyes,” she told him, reaching over to take his hand.
Tears stung at his eyes as he tried to make eye contact with her. He as only able to nod as he excused himself to go to the garage and unload the items he’d brought for their stay. No matter which way he looked at it, he wasn’t ready to let either woman go.
Chapter Eleven - Layer
In the quiet of the early morning, One Way headed out to the backyard of the home he’d grown up in after all the dust of their uneven lives settled. It took two years for Yasmine to get her feet under her, but once she did, a job in an accounting office became available, and she was able to leave the job as a cashier at a grocery store in Columbus, Ohio and head further south to Knoxville. A year on the job and she made assistant manager and secured a bank loan with a low interest rate for first time home buyers. The home, which she now occupied was the neighborhood zombie.
A zombie house was the worst house on the block in a good section of town that had great schools, shiny sidewalks and at least two parks; three if there was a special hangout for the homeowner’s dogs. The house, once she purchased it, had a leaky roof, smelled of dirty butts, had flea infested carpets and a stench that stayed long after the carpets were removed. A bit of hard work, some help from Bleu Neary and before long, the stink house had taken shape.
The backyard, once Uriel turned fifteen, he’d installed a round-robin sort of work out platform to do pull-ups, sit-ups, and push-ups without needing a gym. It was where he sat this morning. He took his phone with him to the back yard, just in case a call came through. Precaution was also required in his line of work since his life was littered with just in cases.
Last night, he’d slept in his old room instead of going across the hall to wrap the woman in his arms and make sweet love to her all night long. He didn’t, just in case she got too loud and the boy would think his mother was a moaning whore. He also didn’t want his mother to think he’d brought a moaning whore into her home, because if he’d gotten his hands on the woman for round two, he would have her cumming like the Number 40 Northbound, pulled by eight freight engines. A smile eked at the corner of his lips as he began to run in place to warm up his muscles.
He was in his third rep of push-ups when the chimes on his phone went off. Chimes meant a call from The Company was coming through. Those calls always made him nervous. He much preferred the fax machine, which worked almost Pavlovian in his mind that it was time to work. A phone call meant it as time for a meeting. One Way didn’t like meetings, but he knew better not to not answer the call, just in case.
“You have One Way,” he said hesitantly into the line.
“This is the Operator, please hold for a connection to Mr. Exit,” the soft sweet voice said.
He waited. Sweat beads formed on his upper lip as he wondered what the number three hitman had to say to him. Maybe it was about the investment club. Maybe he’d lost all of their money. Maybe, he needed to go put a bullet in the man because that ten thousand was hard earned. Maybe, he needed to calm down, just in case in was good news.
