Going Down (13 page)

The song ended. Tyhedra started to pull away from my embrace. “Come back here. I’m not through with you yet.”

The Dells classic
Stay in My Corner
came on; I drew her back to my chest. I liked the way she felt there. Tyhedra was tall: five nine, maybe five ten. I looked into her eyes. She felt good in my arms. I held her tighter.

“I don’t mean to sound over confident, but I intend to make you mine.”

Tyhedra smiled and laughed a little. “Is that right?”

“Yes, it is. And I am prepared to spend all my time, all my energy, and all my resources to do it. Let me take you away from here now. We can find a nice quiet place where we can talk. Get to know each other.”

“No, Tavarus.”

“Tell me what you want to do and that’s what we’ll do. I just wanna talk to you, Tyhedra. I wanna know everything you want me to know,” I said with a confident half-smile. “I wanna know what makes you cry. And what I can do to make you smile.”

“You don’t smile much,” Tyhedra said leaning back.

I had her scent now. “Neither do you,” I replied, drawing her back to me.

“Maybe I don’t have anything to smile about.”

Half of my mind said,
Hey, slow down
. But the beast in me was in control. I laughed out loud. “That’s why you
need
to be with me. Come go with me.”

“No, Tavarus.” But I could tell she wanted to go or at least she was thinking about it. “You don’t waste any time, do you?”

“When one has little time, one can’t waste it. So have dinner with me tomorrow?”

“No, Tavarus.” Tyhedra looked at me. “Not tomorrow. Thursday, seven o’clock at Sylvia’s. Please, be on time.”

Tyhedra left me standing alone on the floor. I smiled and watched her walk away. After Tyhedra left the spot, I went back to the bar and had a couple more drinks before calling it a night and heading to the condo.

On the way there, I thought about what I was going to do about the situation between me and Carmen. According to everyone who offered an opinion, the solution was simple: spend all of my free time with her, which at this point in our relationship, I wasn’t willing to do. I hadn’t been inside long enough to take off my jacket before the phone began ringing. Of course, it was Carmen.

“Hello, Carmen.”

“Oh, so you do know me? I was beginning to think that you had put me out of your mind,” Carmen said, with more attitude than I was in the mood for.

“What makes you say that?” I said, and sat down in my favorite chair. I picked up the remote and flipped on the TV.

“Oh, well, let me see . . . It probably has something to do with the fact that you haven’t called me all day, and when I call you, I get voice mail and no return call. Yeah, I think that sums it up nicely.”

I flipped to highlights on ESPN. I was a bit too buzzed to be having this conversation and was about to tell her that and ask if we could have this little chat some other time, when Carmen started up again.

“Where have you been all night, Tavarus?”

“I stopped after work to listen to that jazz band I told you about. Had a few drinks and I left.”

“Who did you go with?”

“I went there by myself.” Which was the truth; I did go there alone. Telling Carmen, that while I was there I met Tyhedra, was not the thing I wanted to do right at that second.

“See, Tavarus, that is exactly what I’m talking about.”

“What’s that, Carmen?”

“Did you ever stop and think that I might want to go with you?”

“No. You’ve told me on many occasions and in no uncertain terms, that you don’t like jazz. So why would I ask you to go with me to a jazz club, to listen to a jazz band?”

“To be with you. To do something, anything with you, that’s why. But that is the one thing I can’t get you to understand: I want to be with you. Do things with you. Be a part of your life.”

“Carmen, you are a part of my life,” I said, and massaged my throbbing temples.

“What part? What part of your life am I a part of? You’re sex life?”

I was tempted to say yes, but that hasn’t been true lately. Lately, this is what we do—argue. On the phone, in e-mails, in text messages, and in person, this is what we do; and to be honest, I was tired of it, so I decided to tell her. “Look, Carmen, maybe if we did something other than argue, maybe we could do something. But since all we do is argue and it looks like all we’re gonna do tonight is argue, I’m going to let you go and I’m going to sleep.”

“So you just gonna hang up on me?”

“No, Carmen, I’m not gonna just hang up on you. I’m gonna say goodnight, and then I’m gonna hang up on you.”

“Fuck that, Tavarus, you are gonna talk to me. I’ll be over there,” Carmen said and ended the call before I could say not to come.

I shook my head and took a deep breath. I could still smell
Tyhedra’s
scent on me. Knowing that I was in absolutely no mood to answer questions about why I smell like I’ve spent the last few hours in some woman’s arms, I got up and headed for my bedroom.

On the way, I went in the bathroom and turned on the shower. Then I took off my suit, hung it up, and tossed my shirt on the pile to go to the cleaners. I was about to step into the shower when I heard the doorbell ring. I wrapped a towel around my waist and came out of the room. Before I could get to the door, I heard a key hit the lock. Carmen stepped in. “That didn’t take long. What, were in the parking lot?”

“No. To be honest with you, I was up the block. I saw you when you drove by,” Carmen said with her hands on her hips.

“Spying on me now? Is that what we’ve come to?” She was wearing a jean miniskirt and a halter-top. I looked at her thick thighs, the way her nicely shaped breasts sat up in that top, and I had to admit that she looked good standing there. It made me want to be inside her, but I was too mad about her spying on me to think about that now. I started walking toward her. She had to go.

“I wasn’t spying on you. I was just waiting for you to come home so I could talk to you. Don’t you understand that? I just wanna talk to you.”

“Yeah, well it ain’t gonna happen. You need to go, and I need that key,” I said reaching for the key, which was still in her hand.

“No!” Carmen screamed and jerked away from me. “Why can’t you act like a man and talk to me, Tavarus?”

Damn, I hate it when they question your manhood. “Because you’re leaving. Now give me that goddamn key and get the fuck out.” I made another grab at the key, but this time Carmen ran away from me.

“Why I gotta get out?”

I went at her again, but she was too quick for me. “’Cause I’m tired, Carmen. I’ve been drinking and I want to take a shower and go to bed,” I said and walked toward her slowly.

“Yeah, right. You probably got some other bitch on the way over here. Is that what it is, you getting ready to fuck some other bitch?”

“Only bitch coming over here is the one that’s already here,” I said, and regretted it as soon as I said it.

Carmen didn’t seem to like it either, because she reached back and slapped the fuck out of me.

She was about to do it again, but I grabbed her hand and pulled her to my chest. “Take it easy. I don’t slap so good this time of night.”

Carmen looked up into my eyes and stared at me for a second or two. Since she seemed a little calmer, I let her go. Before I knew it, her arms were around my waist and my nipple was in her mouth.

I held her head with one hand and grabbed her ass with the other. I felt her nipples getting harder, pressing against my chest. I reached under her skirt; she wasn’t wearing any panties. I spun her around quickly and my towel fell to the floor.

With one hand around her waist and the other on her breast, I walked to the couch and bent her over. I pulled up her skirt up, stroked my dick a few times, and forced it inside her.

“
Aaahhh
!” Carmen screamed.

Her pussy was wet and felt so good, as I rammed my dick in and out of her. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it? This is what you came here for!”

“Yes, baby, yes!”

I grabbed Carmen by the hips and fucked her as hard as I could. I felt myself getting ready to cum, so I pulled out of her. Carmen grabbed my dick and began stroking it so hard that I thought she was trying to make me cum. Then she propped herself up on the back on the couch and pulled me toward her. I pushed my dick back inside. Carmen threw her arms around my neck and lifted her legs.

I put my arms under her legs and went back to slamming my body into her as hard as I could.

“I love you, Tavarus. Can’t you understand that? I just want to love you,” she said, and dug her fingernails into my back and put my nipple between her wet lips. Carmen gently ground her teeth on my nipple and I pumped her harder. “I love you!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, and her body began to tremble. When I felt her juices drench my balls, my dick swelled and I exploded inside her.

We stayed there for a while, breathing hard and staring into each other eyes. Once our breathing returned to some semblance of normalcy, I let her legs down and stepped away from her. Carmen stood up and was about to pull her skirt down, but I took her hand into mine and led her into the bedroom. I undressed her and we lay in bed holding each other without speaking.

We made love again and when we were done, Carmen sat up on the edge of the bed. “We can’t go on like this, Tavarus.”

“I know.”

“Maybe we need to take a break from each other.”

“I think you’re right,” I said, and Carmen got out of bed.

She put her clothes on and moved to the door. “Good-bye, Tavarus.”

“Good-bye, Carmen.”

“Call me when you’re ready.”

“You too.”

“I’m ready now. You’re the one that needs to be ready for me. I love you,” Carmen said, and let herself out.

Two things prevented me from staying at that bar and doing what I do: One, I really did come there to hear the band, I love good jazz; and the other was that I had told Tavarus my real name. I liked Tavarus. He seemed like a nice guy and he was a very handsome man. And even though I thought about killing him, I left him there and went somewhere else to do what I do.

I know that I said that things were going to be different here, but you know how shit can go sometimes. One minute I was living what I considered a normal life and the next, I was thinking about killing. In the short time I had been in Atlanta, I had gotten my consulting business started and had picked up a few clients. I was starting to feel like this city was going to be the place where I could put all that killing behind me. But there I was, sitting at another bar eyeing my prey.

The fact that I had actually made a date to have dinner with Tavarus wasn’t lost on me. And I actually planned on going. My thinking was that maybe if I met somebody like Charles, if I fell in love with a man, that I could finally put all the killing behind me for good.

But not tonight.

Tonight I was in what I call predator mode and I had the scent of my prey. I had been eyeing him for the last half hour and he sent me a drink. I motioned for him to join me. We talked at the bar for a while and then I suggested that we would be more comfortable at a table in the back of the bar. “I like the dark. It makes me wanna do things,” I said and stood up. “Why don’t you get us a couple of drinks and come join me,” I said and walked away. Before long, he arrived at the table with drinks and we talked. “Tell me about your wildest sexual fantasy?” I asked.