We went inside the condo and got started. Me and Zack cleaned up the living room while Lana got busy in the kitchen. When we finished in the living room, I disappeared quietly into my room. Didn’t take long after that before Lana followed Zack into the other bedroom to receive compensation for her cleaning services.
I just have to laugh sometimes. Women talk about us being dogs. But just who do they think we’re out here dogging around with.
Women ain’t shit.
Hold up.
That’s not fair. Some women ain’t shit.
I have a problem with women. Not getting them. Some women find me attractive and I have the kind of talent women appreciate, so keeping them isn’t a problem, either. My problem is I don’t understand them and they don’t understand me. Maybe I never have really been in love with anybody, so I don’t understand why a woman in love does the things she does. Why so many equate love with orgasms. Why they call you on the telephone and say, “I didn’t want anything.” And why hearing the three words “I love you” means so much to them. Words are meaningless. Anyone can invoke the words without meaning them.
So I find myself constantly in search mode, looking for the perfect woman, or at least the perfect woman for me. I want her to be intelligent with a degree of sophistication. Without being snobbish of course. I want her to be a beautiful lady on my arm, but be able to fuck like an animal. That doesn’t seem like too much to ask.
There are some good ones out there, just like there are some good men. But some women just don’t care. I’ve told women that I was goin’ with somebody and their response was “So. What’s all that got to do with you and me?”
Lana was like that. She knows all about Angelique, but she doesn’t care. In there right now with her legs in the air.
Women will fuck around on their man too. There was a time, when I first got out of the Army, that all I would mess with were married women or ones that had a man living with them. They were low maintenance and no trouble at all. They would come by the condo, get fucked, get dressed and go home. But I’m not like that anymore. I’m looking for one woman I can settle with.
I’m beginning to believe that a woman like that is just a fantasy, but I resolved myself to wait for her anyway. But waiting is lonely. So in the meantime, I go from one she’ll-do relationship to another. I thought I’d found the one in Carmen Singleton.
I met Carmen two years ago at an Accountants Convention in Las Vegas. On the final night of the convention, the sponsors held what they called a “wanderound.”: a wander around, swapping accounting stories and trading business cards, cocktail party. I started not to go, but I’d lost all the money I could afford to go to the tables. So a boring cocktail party seemed slightly better than a boring night alone in my room channel surfing. After an hour of chitchat, finger food, and Johnny Walker Black—they didn’t have any Cognac—I decided that channel surfing actually was the better option.
Thinking one more drink would keep me out of the minibar in the room for at least an hour, I stopped at the bar for one last Johnny Black. I finished my drink and turned to leave. That’s when I bumped into Carmen. “I’m sorry,” I said quickly. Then I looked up and there was Carmen. And she was beautiful.
“No, I’m sorry. I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
“That’s okay.” I read her nametag quickly. “Ms. Singleton. My name is Tavarus.” I held out my hand.
“Please, call me Carmen.” Her hands were soft and warm.
“Can I get something for you?” I asked, hoping she’d accept.
“Rum and coke, please,” Carmen answered with a smile. She had a beautiful smile and big pretty eyes. For the next hour, we had a very lively conversation, about accounting mostly, then we realized we were both from Atlanta. We exchanged business cards and promised to do lunch. Then Carmen excused herself. “I have an early flight and I’m exhausted.”
About a month later, the next time I wore that suit, I found her card in my jacket pocket. I called her and we met a few days later for lunch. Carmen was intelligent, with a degree of sophistication, without being snobbish of course. While we ate, I wondered how she would stand up against my third criteria. She definitely had the body for it.
Carmen was on the verge of getting out of a bad relationship. The majority of her conversation consisted of her description of how bad she was being treated. The problem was that Carmen was a beautiful and intelligent woman, with a very outgoing personality, who had a very jealous man. Bad combination. I liked her and I wanted to try to get with her, but I had no desire to get involved in a situation like that. “Too much drama.”
Three months later, she finally got away from him. But those three months were filled with heated telephone conversations, hang-ups in the middle of the night, hateful e-mail, and notes on the windshield of her car; several unannounced visits to her apartment and her job. She had to get a restraining order before he stopped.
Carmen spent the next year trying to get back to herself. She swore off men and spent most of her time thinking. First, about where she went wrong. How she could have chosen so poorly. Then she began to focus on what she really wanted in a man and how she felt a relationship should be. She said she ran across my card in her Rolodex and thought about calling.
/>
“An idea I quickly dismissed,” she told me later. She was tired of being alone and I seemed nice enough, but she wasn’t ready to get back in the game. A couple of months later she called me. We met for dinner and then a movie a few nights later. I was surprised at how Carmen seemed so at peace with herself. Not the same angry black woman I had lunch with and dismissed a year ago.
Later that night we were back at my condo and it didn’t take long before clothes were flying everywhere. I attacked her tongue with a vengeance. My hands slid from her breasts to her hips, her ass, and back up to her breasts again. I squeezed them lightly and her body began to tremble. “It’s been so long,” she mumbled.
I lowered my head and took her nipple between my teeth, and it was like an electric sensation had rushed through her veins. Carmen dug her fingernails into back. “Oh yes!” she cried. “Yes, baby, yes!”
I kissed her again, nibbled her chin, sucked her neck. I pushed her legs open with one of mine and pinned her up against the wall. I fingered and dipped into her.
Carmen closed her eyes and I felt her body tremble as I eased my penetrating finger in and out of her. She bit her bottom lip to stop from screaming.
“You feel so good,” I said softly, and Carmen attacked my tongue the way I’d done hers. I grabbed her thighs and lifted her off her feet. Before she could catch her breath, I thrust myself into her, and I swore in that moment that I had found heaven on earth.
Carmen clawed at my neck and back, kissed and sucked my neck. She rocked her hips, moving her body into mine as much as she could, pinned against the wall like she was. I bent my knees and pushed myself deeper inside her.