Fifty Shades of Jungle Fever (21 page)

“It’s just been a long day,” I say. “And I’m worried about my Mama.”

He holds me close. “I know. I should’ve been cognizant of that. Shall I have my neighbor inquire if your mother’s doctors are top notch?”

“Mama is even more independent than I am. She’ll ask for our help if she needs it.”

Tristan leaves the bed and grabs our robes.

“Wait, aren’t we going to finish here?”

“Are you insane, woman? You almost fainted on me. You’re too stressed. Strenuous role-play can wait until after your mother’s surgery.”

He dresses me in my robe and ties it, then slips into his own. Before I know it, he’s carrying me, as a groom would carry a bride over the threshold out of his role-play room, and into his bedroom.

Tristan makes love to me with the gentlest of touches. This is not just vanilla sex. I’m sure he would beg to differ, but he doesn’t perform like a man who’s just “into having sex, not making love.” I relegate it to the episode I just had in the playroom, and his sensitivity to what’s going on with my mother. Reading anything else into it could prove disastrous for me, so I guard my heart.

~*~

147

Pastor Johnson and I, the last to see Mama before the nurse wheels her into surgery, join Tristan, Mrs. Searles, Javier Jr., Jada, and later Nate, in the waiting room as we wait for Mama to come out of surgery. We are a motley crew, hopped up on coffee and anxiety. There is no comfort to be had in the institutional furniture, so I pace.

Pastor Johnson prays. He had us all join him earlier, but now he sits in a corner reading his Bible, closing his eyes and praying ever so often. Javier keeps stealing glances at Nate as if he can’t believe he’s in a hospital waiting room with a Chicago Bull. Mrs. Searles gives me and Jada a “Why-aren’t-you-giving-the-black-man-a-chance,” look, the one we all as people of color understand and have seen or given at one time or another.

Finally, Javier’s wife, Dr. Nina Beale and mama’s
oncologist, Dr. Horace Jane
stroll through the doors. We crowd anxiously around them, Tristan stands behind me and holds my shoulders in a show of support.

The doctors train their eyes on me and Javier but share th
e news with everyone. Dr. Jane
speaks first.

“As I explained to you earlier, we were going in with the hope that we would only have to do a lumpectomy, but after we assessed what we found, we had to remove the entire right breast. Your mother gave us permission to perform a reconstruction, so we were also able to harvest some flesh for a skin graft to do so. She’s in recovery now.”

“Thank you, Dr. Jane,” Javier and I say almost simultaneously.

“Glory to God,” Pastor Johnson says.

“We’re extraordinarily pleased with the outcome.” The white-haired physician smiles at us, and turns to leave.

My sister-in-law, clearly in her element, speaks next. “Even I can’t circumvent the rules in recovery. Besides Javier and Keisha, we might only be able to finesse a brief visit for Pastor Johnson.”

“Girl please,” Jada says. “We’re all just here for moral support. We can see Mama Beale when she’s in a regular room.” Like me, Jada has no love lost for Nina.

Nina presses her lips together but doesn’t respond. She pulls Javier into a corner, and from the looks of it, she’s expressing her dislike about something.

Tristan bends to my ear. “You just say the word, and I’ll call in a favor with the hospital administrator.”

I turn to him and whisper back. “Could you? Mrs. Searles and Mama are like sisters. I’d hate for her to have sat almost all day without a chance to see her.” Tristan immediately gets on the phone.

“I’ll take Pastor Johnson back first,” Nina announces.

“No, let these children see their mother first,” Pastor Johnson says. We debate back and forth who’s going to go in first.

Finally, Nina motions to Javier, who looks to me.

“Go on,” I say.

“Just a second, Dr. Beale,” Tristan says. “Dr. Guyton has given Mrs. Searles permission to see your mother-in-law.”

Nina opens her mouth to protest, but thinks better of it when she sees Tristan’s demeanor. She nods, and she and Javier disappear through the double doors.

I turn to Tristan, and on tiptoe, clasp my arms around his neck. “Thanks,” I say, and give him a chaste kiss on the lips.

Mrs. Searles walks over to us with tears in her eyes. “Thank you for pulling strings for me, young man. Clara Lee is the best friend I’ve ever had.”

“It was my pleasure, Mrs. Searles,” Tristan says clasping her hand with his.

“You can call me Thelma,” she says.

Oh, here we go again, Dominant extraordinaire Tristan White has charmed the hell out of another old black lady.

#

Rather than send flowers, and wish her
a speedy rec
overy
like a normal person, Tristan sends my mother a registered nurse to care for her during her convalescence. I don’t bother to object to his grandiose gifts anymore, although I’m sure he’s dropped a bundle on this specific perk. Mama wants to send the lady packing.

“Keisha, what in the world? Your boyfriend sent this woman over here. I don’t need no nurse.”

I shoot the nurse an apologetic smile.

“Yes, you do Clara,” Pastor Johnson admonishes before I can respond. “You should accept blessings how?”

Mama is sheepish. “Without complaint.”

“You know I will only be able to be here at night beginning tomorrow, and you’re not ready to take care of yourself. You just got home from the hospital.”

“Okay, Reverend.” She says coyly. Then turns to the nurse. “What’s your name again, baby?” I’m sure this perky blonde nurse likes being called baby.

“Tiffany Adams, Mrs. Beale.”

“Okay, Tiffany,” My Mama says with a smile, “I guess it’ll be you and me every day then.”

If my days were busy before my Mama had major surgery, they become even busier afterward. My schedule becomes rote. Up at s
ix-thirty
, in the studio by eight, working with our artists, while our personnel in the music store sell CDs, records, musical scores, instruments, music lessons, and electronics to other patrons. I have lunch with my mother every day, then back to work until around six, then over to see my mother again. I cook dinner for her, because she can’t stomach just “anybody’s food.”

She is all right with Tiffany’s breakfast, and as she puts it, “any fool can throw together a sandwich and heat some soup at lunch,” but dinner is a whole ‘nother ballgame.

She wants cooked vegetables, beans, cornbread, and all the comfort foods she cooks daily. It’s a good thing she taught me well. By the time I get to my place, or Tristan’s, I’m usually too wiped for anything but missionary sex in a semi-comatose state.

Thankfully, Tristan doesn’t pressure me to go back into his role-play room, and I am
grate
ful for the reprieve. I
’m
afraid I might have another panic attack, so I milk th
e
hiatus for all it’s worth. However, I’m not stupid enough to believe it will last forever. Tristan is a man of peculiar tastes, and I
’
ll have to step up, eventually, or go home.

When my mother becomes fully ambulatory and g
ets a clean bill of health
, I know it’s time to give my man what he wants again. Over the weeks, I’d seen him look with longing at the door
to the role-play room. He tries
not to show it out of deference for me and my mom, but I c
an
tell he
i
s itching to get back in there.

The very next weekend after Mama gets her glowing report from Dr. Jane, I text Tristan and tell him I’ll be over after the store closes at nine. I’ve taken the later shift since Jada has done so without fail or complaint while Mama recuperated.

W
hen the last employee leaves, I
lock the doors, and
dress in lingerie fashioned after a French Maid’s uniform, complete with black fishnet stockings and a garter belt. I put my London Fog raincoat on, button and securely belt it, arm the alarm, and go out to find the driver from Tristan’s after-hours car service waiting for me.

I let myself into the condo, and go straight up to his role-play room. Taking a deep breath, I turn the knob and open the door. Tristan reclines on the oversized bed waiting for me. I immediately shift my eyes to the floor when I locate him in the room, but not before I get a look at him in his customary smoking jacket and pajamas, his long legs crossed at the ankles. What I remember most though, are his eyes. They are bright with carnal excitement.

I assume the position, kneeling just to the left of the door. I don’t dare remove any clothing until he commands me to.

I hear him move off the bed to
come and
stand directly in front of me. I am so excited to be in here with him again, I feel like throwing myself onto his feet and kissing them, but I don’t. I’d be pulling a punishment card from the deck, pronto. In the nine months we have been together, I have grown a lot as a submissive. The old Keisha might have wretched at the thought of kissing a man’s feet, or at the very least said, “That’s just nasty.” I smile to myself, and snap to attention when he addresses me.

“Stand up and remove your coat,” he says. It may be my imagination, but I believe I can feel his eyes taking in my five-inch heels, my fish-net stockings. I un
do the
sash, unbutton and remove the raincoat.

“Beautiful as ever, Ms. Beale. Very good,” he says, taking the coat from my hand. He opens the closet, takes a hanger, and hangs
up my coat
. “My cock is already ready for you, but we need to get you wet.”

He moves until our bodies are flush, and said cock pushes into my belly. He winds his arms around me and kisses me. Hard. This kiss is reminiscent of the first one we shared in his office, and this time, he’s able to hoist me up, and I wind my legs around him. He doesn’t move for what seems like forever, but when he does, he still doesn’t stop kissing me.

I experience
the
familiar feeling of vertigo as he lowers us onto the bed, his tongue making the nerve endings in all my extremities vibrate with excitement.

He finally releases me and strolls away from the bed. I lie perfectly still, waiting to see what he will do next.

“You may watch what I’m doing.”

He takes a small toy from a drawer, which looks like two tiny rubber balls with even tinier round nodules covering their surface. They are joined by a rubber extension about two inches long. My guess is he’ll insert them in one of the crevices of my body. I had worn a butt-plug a while before my mother got sick, but we suspended that training for obvious reasons.

“The body’s own fluids are the best lubrication.” Tristan puts the balls into his mouth and rolls them around in there. I imagine his tongue brushing against those balls and wish it was me.

He climbs onto the bed and crawls between my legs and I open them wide, like he likes me to as he comes to the apex. I’m am not wearing panties, so he has clear access to his choice. He wets a thumb with his saliva and rubs it around my sphincter.
Ass it is.
Then I feel pressure as he inserts the balls, one at a time into my asshole.

“Is that uncomfortable?”

“No, Sir.” In fact, it’s kind of hot, but I don’t offer him any superfluous thoughts.

Next, he goes to the wall and takes some soft leather strapping, then goes into the closet and gets something else which he stuffs in his pocket
so fast
I can’t see, and returns to the bed.

“I’m going to tie you into a position of supplication, and I’m going to fuck you from behind. The balls in your ass will provide additional stimulation as I do so. If, at any time, it becomes uncomfortable, you will tell me, right? What are your safewords, Keisha.”

“Jungle. Fever.”

I know, I know. Don’t forget them
.

“Don’t hesitate to use them.”

“Yes, Sir.”

I am drenched already. It seems that now all it takes is for me to enter this room, and I am wet. I want him
as if
I’ve never had him. Tristan pats my ass, and I turn on the bed with my back to him. He begins to tie me up, first my hands using the Kente cloth tie I gave him at the grand opening.

“
R
emember this?”

“Yes, Sir.” I smile inwardly. I have seen him wear this tie on more than one occasion. I’m happy it’s found its way into his role-play room.

“On your elbows,” he says. “This will be fast once I begin, because the position you are in will be too taxing to stay that way for long.”