Between Lovers (23 page)

“I know. Who does Ayanna remind you of?”

“Me, when I was first with you. Of the mother I never had. Of the best friend I always longed for. Of the sister I always wanted. Of the kind of person I wish I was most of the time. Of you at times.”

I watch Nicole. She's a nervous wreck, trying to act cool. Her mind whirring and clicking and clacking, trying to come up with a solution. Afraid to leave me, wanting to go.

I say, “Go look for her.”

She stalls me again, says, “I do love her, you know.”

“Yeah. I know. I could tell when we were coming up on that accident.”

“And I do want all of us to be able to coexist.”

I'm listening to Nicole and thinking about Ayanna. Remembering that moment when Ayanna was bare in front of me, staring at me, a thing of beauty and vulnerability, licking her full lips, then her sweet expression as she burned and wiggled, letting out her whines and moans and shudders.

I glance at Nicole and see her in a different light. No more illusions. No more masks. So much familiarity between them, the knowing when and how to touch to create those kinds of moments.

I say, “Ayanna told me that she's known you eight years.”

“I met her before you, but nothing happened.”

“When did you first sleep with her?”

“It wasn't eight years ago, if that's what you think. Nothing happened.”

“Something happened. Couldn't end up where you are now if nothing happened.”

“She was married when I met her.”

“And?”

“And I was there for her when she lost her husband. As a friend.”

“Like I said, something happened. Couldn't end up where you are now if nothing happened.”

Nicole takes out her c-phone. Pages Ayanna four times. Nicole's phone doesn't ring back.

I ask, “Coming back?”

“Not tonight.”

“I'm only here a couple of days.”

“I know.”

“Seems like she takes precedence.”

“Don't say that. This is not a damn competition.”

“But eight years is more than seven, right?”

She leans over and hugs me. Hugs me and I notice that she lets go first.

She notices that too. She notices and shakes her head, like she's reading my thoughts.

She says, “I got that from you.”

“Got what?”

“The letting go first. You always did that. Did that like you wanted to make sure you were in control. Like you were afraid to hold on the longest, like that would make you weak or something.”

“I didn't.”

“You don't now, not since things have changed. Not since the wedding. But you did. I'd want to hold you forever and you'd let me go. Trust me on that one. Not chastising you, just an observation.”

I try to remember if it was like that. There are a lot of things I haven't noticed.

She traces her fingers down my face to my lips, and as I close my eyes and suck on her slender extremity, she whispers, “I love you. I need you. Please be patient a little while longer.”

She kisses me; I taste Ayanna stirring on her tongue. I kiss her harder.

Nicole's hand eases into my lap, massages my penis. Under the lights of the Waterfront Hotel, people are walking back and forth, leaving TGIF, entering the hotel, and touring the specialty shops.

Nicole unzips my pants, takes my penis out, moves it back and forth. I grow.

She whispers, “You didn‘t, did you?”

“Nope. Didn't.”

“Let me.”

“No, that's okay.”

“Let me. I want you to be able to sleep.”

I take my penis from her, put it back inside my pants. She held my penis longer than she hugged me.

I wonder if that's how she sees me, as the owner of this dick, not as a whole man. If she thinks, after all these years, that sex is all I need, that an orgasm is all I'm about, when in the end, I want the totality of life, the totality of her.

I tell her, “Go find Ayanna.”

I get out of her car, close the door, and wave as I walk backward to the lobby. Not sure what I'm feeling, or what I want anymore. I turn around and stare at Nicole as she pulls away, dialing on her c-phone. Ayanna is on my mind too. A minute ago, when Nicole was touching me, I was imagining that was Ayanna's hand. I shake that sensation away, give it to the night's breeze.

I put a smile on my face and speak to the beautiful Ethiopian women in the lobby, admire them as I always do, and for a moment I wish they would kidnap me away from this life and love me forever.

One stops me, “You signed Tseday's book yesterday.”

I pause. Blink. Think. Remember. “Yeah. I did.”

“That's all she's talking about. She has the biggest crush on you.”

I don't want to be rude, or abrupt, so I say a few more words, then yawn when the timing is right.

I tell them, “G‘night. Don't work too hard.”

As I jog up the stairs, I remember what Ayanna said, about holding Nicole for eight years. Not since Nicole has been here in Oakland, but for eight years. Before me. Before me and Nicole met up at mile twenty. And I remember Nicole claiming that nothing had happened between them.

I can't explain why I'm so attracted to Nicole. No one can really explain why they are attracted to anyone, not when you get beyond the physical to the spiritual, to those hidden parts that make you cling to another with all of your life.

It's 3 a.m. when she leaves me alone with insomnia. I have miles to go before I sleep.

I go to my room, take out my cassette recorder, think about putting my thoughts on a brand-new tape, but push it to the side, change my mind and pull out pen and paper. No computer. Pen and paper make me think, get closer to my heart, closer to the truth.

I write. Write about domination and subordination. Women and madness. Men and obsession. Freedom and acceptance. Spiritual peace. What's right. What's wrong.

What's perceived as right, and what is considered wrong.

Write about three people. Drowning in pools of their own emotions. Two are in love with one woman, unable to break their illogical obsession for her, a woman who claims to love them both. I write about a beautiful woman who says that she is trapped, says she needs both to love, both to survive.

I write to understand what I don't understand.

I don't have the answers, not yet, but I do know this is certain; loving, running, and writing have one thing in common. The one who wins at any of those is the one who does it on the days he doesn't feel like doing it. The one who does it when it's hard. The one who sweats through the difficult times and endures the pain. Those are the people who succeed.

In between thoughts, I read bits and pieces of
Lolita.
No matter how many times I read it, he is still a fool. The only way this book will have a favorable ending is if I read it backwards, from end to start, then it looks like he moves from insanity to sanity.

I leave the book alone and write.

Two hours later, when I've written as much as I can stand, after I've stared out the windows at the stars and endured the silence as long as I can, I pick up the phone and page Nicole. Want to know if everything is okay with Ayanna.

Nicole doesn't call back.

Night dwindles into dawn.

At 6 a.m., while seagulls are competing with sparrows for scraps of food, while the streetwalkers are pulling up their bloomers and getting ready to turn in for the day, while oversize trucks are outside my window unloading their heavy contents in front of Jack's Bistro, there is a hard knock at my door. A nonstop hard knock. I spy through the peephole.

I open the door.

She stares.

It's Ayanna. She's alone. Wearing a black business suit, black pumps, thigh-length black leather coat, holding a red-and-white gym bag in her left hand, her black purse and attaché in the other.

I thought that I'd destroyed her last night, thought that I'd won the battle. Maybe I did win that battle. But this morning the look in her eyes, her hostile sneer, that tells me that she's bringing me the war.

She marches in, shoulders stiff, back straight, moves with dignity and grace, with determination.

I pass by her, go back over to the bed and sit down. Her pager beeps a musical melody that is nothing but irritation at this hour. Ayanna reads her digital display then mumbles, “Forty-nine.”

She goes to my closet. Opens the door. Rifles through the subset of my life I've brought to this room. Takes out my running shoes. Hurls them at my feet.

My toes grip the carpet hard enough to raise the top from the padding. I nod.

Friends close. Enemies closer. That's what I'm thinking. Keep enemies damn close.

Where she stands, she strips naked. Her skin glistens with oil. Her frankincense and patchouli aroma smells fresh. She squats to open her gym bag, allowing me to see the outline of her private parts. In that stirring position I see the definition of her legs, the tightness of her calves and thighs, the subtle definition in her back that speaks of lifting light weights, all of that strength comes to life.

First she pulls out worn running shoes with dried dirt on the edges, shoes that speak of many miles on pavement and asphalt hills and mountain trails. She lays them on the floor. Then she unfolds a yellow sports bra, black running tights, both faded.

Ayanna stares at me. Her eyes are dark, bleak, despairing, downright cruel. She's simmering.

I strip naked. Open a drawer. Start dressing.

She dresses too.

I move to the area with the sofa, my joints popping and aching as I do overhand reaches. Twists and turn. Heel holds. Wall leans. Squats.

Like a boxer, she remains in the opposite corner and uses the wall to flex her calves, then sits and works her inner thighs, her hamstrings, goes into a full split, does a Chinese split as well.

Her pager sings again. She reads the display and says, “Fifty.”

She wants me to ask. Wants me to ask so bad.

Once more she digs in her bag, taking out Vaseline. She rubs a healthy amount of the gel on her nipples, rubs more between her legs. She softball pitches me the jar and I do the same, using more than enough gel on my nipples and thighs and groin to prevent friction burns.

She stands and moves near the door.

I say, “Wait a minute, Counselor.”

My bladder needs to be emptied. So do my bowels. I take care of that business while she stands outside the bathroom door.

Her pager sings again.

Through the door I hear her say, “Fifty-one.”

 

We take the long route, down the winding hallway to the lobby, take a swift pace out of the Waterfront and head across the cobblestone walkway toward the railroad tracks, the flags overhead flapping and snapping in the frigid air, sounding like a slave owner's whip. I have on a dark sweater. Long black runner's tights. Brown gloves. All she has on is a sports bra and her black tights. From skin to bone, I'm freezing like Frosty the Snowman. This chill is stiffening my joints.

Still, the weather is warmer than her attitude.

An Amtrak blows three times. We wait for the commuters to pass then jog to the steps in front of Jack London Cinema before we stop.

She makes an angry motion toward downtown. “Here to Twentieth, to Lake Merritt, around once, back to here. To this very spot we're standing on.”

She uses her right foot to mark an imaginary X.

I nod. It's a 10K; a little over six miles. Right now, the way I feel, with the heaviness in my body, there's not much difference between six miles and six thousand.

With clenched teeth she says, “I win, you do whatever I ask. No questions asked. If I say get out of Oakland and never bring your no-writing, yellow-ass back and never call her and never return her calls, not even a single e-mail, you do that.”

“No way.”

“Chicken or just low on testosterone?”

I grit my teeth. We stare each other down like rival gangs in the yard at Tahatchapie prison.

I say, “And if I win?”

“I do whatever you ask.”

For clarity I ask, “Anything?”

“Absolutely anything.”

We stare, eye-to-eye, boxers right before the start of the first round.

I ask, “What are the limits?”

“No limits. Agreed?”

“Yes. Agreed.”

We shake hands. The contract is sealed.

She adds, “And Writer Boy, no shortcuts on the grass trying to catch up.”

Ayanna holds up her stopwatch. It beeps when she resets the timer.

I do the same.

Without warning, she breaks away running at race pace, leaving only her scent behind. It's damn cold for a man with L.A. blood and I'm a slow starter.

I chase her to the wild and crazy traffic competing to get on the Tube. She darts through the cars zooming toward Alameda, makes the leader slam on his brakes, moves in an arrogant way that dares those impatient people to even think about hitting her, and I slow down, lose time and rhythm when I give them eye contact to make sure they're not going to run me into the cold, black ground.

A slight incline exists for the first mile leading into the heart of downtown, just enough slope to challenge my lungs, for me to realize that this isn't my pace, and even though I've run this way before, this isn't familiar terrain. I watch the way she slants her head, holds her arms at a comfortable level, how her feet land with an elegant heel-toe roll, all the signs of a refined runner.

A mile later we reach the crowded sidewalks on the outskirts of Chinatown. At last, my body starts feeling warm. The buildings of downtown are waiting for us, standing tall over us like uneven teeth.