I pushed her up so she was on all fours and then climbed beneath her so that we were almost in a sixty-nine position. I moved my hand to block Dana's tongue and played with myself. She got the hint and went back to enjoying Jeff's organ. On the next in-stroke I started licking the area that joined them so that I was able to taste both of them at the same time. Dana lost it and started shaking uncontrollably. Jeff wasn't able to hold on after that either and they both had mind-numbing climaxes.
Dana climbed away from us both and lay on the side of the bed. It wasn't long before we both heard her breath deepen
and a slight snore begin. Jeff and I climbed off the bed. We turned off the lights and closed the door behind us.
We waited until we were alone in the living room to begin talking again. “I don't know if I should feel jealous or not. I mean, I never got a chance to sample the anaconda, was it?” I asked sarcastically.
He sat on the wooden table on which Dana had done her striptease and started stroking himself. “You are welcome to the anaconda any time you want.”
“Is that right?” I asked as I knelt in front of him and began kissing the still-wet tool.
“That's right,” he replied as he grabbed a handful of my braids and pushed my mouth down around his dick. Never one to insult my host, I lavished attention on his member. It was rock-hard and ready to go in what seemed like seconds, but I wasn't done yet. I licked around down the base of his shaft and caressed his sac with my hand until he pushed me back onto the floor.
“I don't think the two of you have been properly introduced. Anaconda, this is Kandi. She's as sweet as her name. Kandi, this is the anaconda, and he wants to see you up close and personal.” He grabbed my legs and placed them on his shoulders before he slowly inserted himself into me. I sank back onto him and lost myself in the sensation of being completely filled.
We moved together gently until he was completely ensconced inside me. I closed my eyes and let out a low moan, which was his key to increase the pace. Before I knew it, sweat was dripping from both our frenzied bodies. I climbed away from him as he began plunging deeper inside me. He let me get half a foot away and then stopped me. He groaned at me to turn over so I did and braced myself. He grabbed my hip with his left hand and guided his organ towards my opening. With one quick thrust he was all the
way in and I understood why Dana had been smiling so much. He felt so good this way. My body had to readjust to his girth, but oh, it was lovely once it did. We were bucking against each other so hard and fast that I felt the carpet scraping my knees. Oh, what's a little carpet-burn in the pursuit of happiness? We moved harder and harder against each other until we were both on the verge of cracking the walls with our screaming. How Dana slept through that I'll never knowâbut I'm glad she did. When my legs gave out, we ended up grinding against each other on the floor until neither one of us could hold it any longer. We growled at each other as we climaxed. Neither of us moved for a few seconds. Then Jeff looked at his watch and pressed a few buttons before letting his arm rest at his side again.
“What are you doing?”
“Had to set my alarm so that we wouldn't sleep too long,” he said as he rolled over onto his side, pulling me into him.
“Oh. That's a good idea because I need a nap right now. But I'd hate to leave in the morning without a goodbye kiss from the anaconda,” I said, smiling at him and kissing his sweat-covered skin. “I am going to have to stop meeting your girlfriends this way.”
He laughed at me as he nuzzled into my neck. “How else am I going to be able to get away with making love to the most amazing woman I know with my girlfriend's permission?”
“I see your point. But hey, don't get mad if this one leaves you too. I didn't intend on that whole Janet thing working out that way and you know I don't really want
them
most of the time. I really don't even want this one full-time. That voice would kill me. But hey, if I could keep her mouth busy, it might be worth it.”
“Yeah, well, you don't worry about them. This is about you and me. I'll take you home when we wake up and then we can do one more spin on the Jeff-mobile.”
We quit talking then and relaxed into the floor naked and still entwined. He took me home in the morning and we did things to one another I don't think they have names for yet.
I've been in lust with Jeff since I met him in a straight club several years ago. We tried dating but we both had monogamy issues. We broke up but kept seeing each other whenever the physical urge took over. If he was dating someone when I called, he'd start whispering to her about his secret unfulfilled fantasy to share her with another woman. We'd both end up at The Deep and then buck-naked several hours later. Most of the girls were enjoyable, to say the least, but the last few were what wet dreams were made of.
I figure sooner or later we'll get tired of all the games and just settle into middle age doing freaky things with one another. But hey, even if we don't, I have an amazing number of memories. And those videotapes. But that's a whole different story.
Courtship Rituals
Tananarive Due
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Because he was so tall, Reid was the first person Martine spotted as she emerged from the plane's ramp at Miami International Airport: a lanky giant standing over the waiting knots of Cuban families and sun-reddened college kids on Christmas break. His grin was all teeth, boyish. He'd grown a goatee since she'd seen him last, and it suited his shoulder-length dreadlocks so well that his new look was a revelation. Goddamn him, she thought. Beautiful in yet another way.
“Oh, girl, I'm so glad to see you,” Reid said in a breath, wrapping his arms around her as if he could meld the two of them together. Pressed tight to him, she could already feel his penis semi-rigid beneath his linen slacks, the irrepressible lump nesting against her lower stomach. A promise.
Reid was wearing the thin, crimson-colored turtleneck she'd sent him for Christmas, but the cologne she smelled at his collar was not from her. Without wanting to, she'd already noticed a dark-colored bruise at Reid's throat he'd tried to hide beneath the turtleneck, and her spirits ebbed. She'd hoped, this one year, he might not have other women at the house.
“Rough stuff?” she asked, breaking their unspoken rule.
Gently, half-scolding, he patted her shoulder. “The driver's waiting out front. I know you love stone crab, so I'll have some Monty's brought in. Hope you're hungry.”
Of course he wouldn't answer her, and she was sorry she'd asked. She felt her jaw tightening, but she forced herself to let the tension go, something she was unable to do with the same grace and ease as she got older. Still, she wasn't about to let anythingâor anyoneâruin her weekend. Her trip to Reid's winter house each January was a tradition, and she anticipated it the way a child pines for Christmas presents and sweet potato pie.
“I'm starved, baby,” she said, glancing toward his face, away from the bruise.
Reid smiled at her like an angel.
That's my good girl
was written in his eyes.
Since college, Martine's plan for Reid had been this: At some undefined time in the future, they would give each other more than soul-filling words, dizzying creative bursts, and occasional sex during hurried, accidental encounters whenever they both happened to be in New York, or in LA, or like that one freakish sidewalk sighting in Minneapolis they still laughed about. (She'd been in town to interview for an arts grant; he'd been there for a meeting with Prince, back when he had changed his name). Eventually, she predicted, they would stand still for each other. She'd
known
this, so she hadn't felt anxious. They both had their lovers when they needed to be held, but that had nothing to do with
Them
. If an idea struck them, they called each other from their lovers' beds in the middle of the night. “Damn, you turn me on when you're so fucking brilliant. I won't be able to go back to sleep for thinking about you,” he might say, or she might say, or perhaps
they said it in unison. Reid was her soul-mate, after all, and in many ways he was as fine a soul-mate as she could have molded from her own rib and the earth's dust.
Reid worshiped her, almost literally. He never screened one of his films without shipping her a tape of the rough-cut first. Six years ago, indirectly, Martine had been responsible for the stink when he had refused to sign the studio's first choice for the lead in
Judas
because she had casually remarked to Reid how wooden the actor was. “You, Martine,” Reid told her that night, “are the other half of my psyche. Without you, I'm naked and blind.”
He seemed to truly believe this, and at times, so did she. She'd found that she enjoyed being worshiped, and that she had a worshipful streak of her own.
Her last two documentaries wouldn't even have made the art-house circuit if it hadn't been for Reid Samuel's name and connections. And
Sisterlove,
in which Reid had invested, had been picked up for cable release in the summerâalso Reid's doing. The way Martine looked at it, theirs was a relationship of desperately trying to repay their mounting debts to each other. It had been that way since they first met at NYU film school, and nothing had changed in fifteen years.
Yet, everything had changed in fifteen years. That was the part Martine detested.
What Martine had not counted on, what had not gone according to her plans, was that Reid had become famous. Now, she wondered why she hadn't seen it coming all along.
He was half Trinidadian and half WASP, with a round-tipped nose and skin the color of creamy coffee, but he was the sort of black man whom white people did not consider black; distinctive enough to be exotic, yet viewed as essentially harmless except by the weak-minded, who were repelled by his rapier intellect and generous looks the way dogs glower at larger adversaries from a safe distance. Every time she
accompanied Reid to one of his monotonous star-fucking parties, she noticed at least one tight-lipped person shrink away from him as though overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of his presence. Most othersâthose who wanted to learn, those who wanted to jockey for positioning, those who wanted to warm themselves in his glowâvalued even a smile or a quick word from Reid, and they were downright giddy if they found themselves in the midst of a conversation huddle Reid was conducting, where truth-telling alone made him a genius.
She still felt amazed when she watched Reid hold court, as he deftly sidestepped egos and kneaded the brightest minds into frenzies. His lovely, refined West Indian accent seduced all voices of dissent. “
Yes,”
one of Reid's observers was likely to cry, yanked out of a stupor brought on by boredom or an empty wine glass, as surely as if Reid had dropped to his knees and brought his moist, full lips to the stranger's crotch. She wasn't the only one who saw Reid exactly for who and what he was. He was greatness unfolding before their eyes.
So, she
had
expected Reid's fame, then, perhaps. Only she hadn't expected what it would bring out in him.
Once they arrived at Reid's waterfront Mediterranean-style house, Martine noticed strawberries waiting for them; the berries were fresh and damp, stacked in a lush pyramid in a shallow white china bowl in the most conspicuous spot in the foyer. Reid had always enjoyed living well in a way that had never mattered to her, probably because he'd grown up so poor. “Hey, nice touch! Does your housekeeper feed you berries while she fans you?” Martine teased as she reached toward the dish.
Reid didn't answer, his face suddenly grim as he moved the berries out of her reach. He didn't seem to have heard her joke.