Harlem Redux (35 page)

“Stay with me,” she whispered.

Somehow, she’d managed to slip off her coat, and now his was coming off, too.

With nimble fingers she unbuttoned his shirt and rolled it back over his shoulders. Spreading her fingertips over his chest, she covered it with hot, moist kisses. She began to lick him, the tip of her tongue fluttering lightly over his nipples. Her lips traced a line of fire, downward, while her fingers undid his belt, burrowed inside his pants and touched him there ... there ... and
there.
His eyes slid closed; his breathing grew ragged. What was the point? Why couldn’t he—for once—just let go?

He sensed her slide to her knees. When he realized that she was parting his fly, he clasped her by her shoulders and drew her up. She looked at him, wondering. Had she done something wrong? Was he going to leave?

No, he shook his head. “I want to be here, with you,” he said and caressed her with his eyes. “It’s just that ... I didn’t think we could ever have this again. I didn’t really think ...”

A wealth of relief and happiness flooded her face. He stroked her cheek.

“Let’s take our time,” he whispered. “Let’s take it slow ... and easy.”

With his right hand, he cupped her cheek and kissed her lips. When he drew back, he saw that her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted. He drew a fingertip over one of her eyebrows and she opened her eyes. They were like green flames now. Taking her face in both hands, he slowly ran his tongue along her upper lip, then made his way down her chin. Tilting her face upward, he gently sucked on her throat.

Moaning, she pressed herself against him. Her body quivered. Then, she pulled away. “Wait,” she whispered and left the room. He heard the sound of running water. When she came back, she took his hand and led him to her bathroom. He saw that she’d filled the tub, a deep claw-footed one. She’d also set lighted candles on the tiled floor. Their small flames cast flickering shadows on the bathroom’s yellowed ivory walls.

Slowly, they undressed one another. She had him lie back in the tub. Then she stepped in with him and knelt between his legs, facing him. When he reached for her, she pressed his arms down.

“Relax, baby.”

Tenderly, she lathered him with a sponge and a bar of soap scented with sandalwood. Gently, as though she were handling a child, she lifted his arms and soaped his armpits, then moved down over his chest. His erection arched over his stomach like a bird about to take flight. He reached to cup her breasts, but she swatted him away, and then she began to wash him with calm efficiency, a woman reclaiming her lost lover as her own.

For a time, he watched her slender hands at work. Then he closed his eyes, slid deeper into the warm water, and gave in to the sweet sensation of her hands moving over him. Now and then, she would kiss him and where her lips touched him, he ached.

He would never feel as captured by a woman as he was by Rachel. As she bathed him, he imagined a cleansing that went deeper than the skin, one that took him back to earlier times, before shame and exile.

He moaned as she cradled his balls and lathered them. He closed his eyes and let his head fall back, and then he felt her mouth envelop him. A sharp stab of pleasure shot through him. He looked down. With her tongue, she was caressing him from base to tip, tip to base. She looked up, saw his expression, and smiled her Mona Lisa smile, then gave him one last lick. Still on her knees, she took his right hand and placed it between her thighs.

He curled his fingers into her soft dark triangle. Her breath caught as his middle finger slipped inside her and she bit her lower lip. For a brief moment, she closed her eyes and shivered from head to toe. Then her eyes opened to dwell on him, as warm and inviting as the Caribbean. Silently, she leaned forward and kissed him long and hard on the mouth. All of her pain, her longing, went into that one kiss. He drew her to him, sliding her forward through the water, and kissed her eyes, her lips, her throat. Then he washed her, too.

They dried one another with short, rapid strokes of the towel, then went to her bedroom. Once there, they got close, loving hard, loving deep, sweating to make up for lost time. Once he woke her to lick honey from between her thighs. When the day had given way to early evening, she laid her face on his chest and asked:

“So, is your honey-stick sore?”

“It aches, all right.”

She chuckled and played with him lazily. “You were a hungry man.”

“Four years without a dip in the pot can do that.”

“Four years?” she repeated with wonder, turning his exhausted member this way and that. “Why? Were you sick?” She looked up. “Or were you in jail?”

He saw the morbid interest in her eyes and felt only faint surprise. He’d always suspected that she had a dark side and yes, he was attracted to it. He chuckled.

“Yeah, I saw the inside of a couple. But not in the way you mean.”

She twirled some of his chest hairs around her right index finger. “Does loving me cause you pain, David?” She pulled on the hairs a little, watching his skin lift, and whispered, “Do you feel ashamed?”

He shook his head.

She smiled sweetly at him, then gave his chest hairs a swift, sharp yank, ripping some out by the roots. He jerked up and grabbed her hand.

“What the fu—”

“Do you feel ashamed?”

Their gazes locked. She stared him down.

“Yeah,” he said, finally. “I guess I do.”

Her feline eyes appraised him. “But still, you love me.” Her grip on his hairs loosened, and with a contented little smile, she lowered her head and nuzzled her cheek against his chest.

He let himself sink back against the pillow. One hand he threw across his forehead; with the other, he stroked the top of her head, drawing her hair back from her face. “Why d’you ask?”

Her voice, when it came, sounded as though it was floating from somewhere deep within him.

“Because ... it’s no good when the loving’s easy. It’s got to hurt... and hurt bad. That’s the only way a body knows it’s for real.”

Years later, looking back, he would wonder at the power of pain, at how some people are more attracted to anguish than to ecstasy, how for some they are one and the same. But at the time, he only perceived that Rachel connected with him on a level that no other woman did. And that he was grateful to have someone with whom he could express, without explaining, the pain he otherwise had to hide.

He found that he’d forgotten his keys and had to ring the doorbell. Annie shook her head at the sight of him. Hers was the expression of a teacher who had seen his homework and was none too pleased. It was in the set of her mouth, the way her eyes moved over him. She hung up his coat, gave him another dark glance, then headed off down the hall. He pursued her and put a light restraining hand on her arm.

“Hey, Annie, what’s the matter? Come on, look at me.”

She turned around, her arms folded across her bosom, her lips pressed tight. “Yes?”

“What’s the matter?”

She looked at him hard. This was more than disapproval. It was fury. “Mr. David ... Her smell’s all over you. You reek of her.”

Normally, he was slow to anger, but her words threw his switch. “And what of it?”

“Looka here, I sees you running over there all times of day, disappearing
 
early in the morning and coming back at night. Now I don’t know what you doing, but I can guess and it don’t seem right, not after all that’s happened.”

He took a deep breath to try to calm down. “Annie, I love you and I respect you, but I won’t let you mind my business. Now I know you’re upset about Lilian—so am I—but that don’t give you the right to—”

“This ain’t got nothing to do with Miss Lilian. And you know it.”

He stared at her, not comprehending. “I know
what?”

She looked at him skeptically.

“Annie, tell me what-all I’m supposed to know!”

She studied him, still mistrustful, then relented. She told him to follow her into the kitchen, had him sit down. She talked; he listened. Twenty minutes went by. By then, his throat had gone dry, and he was shaken to the core.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Go back ‘n see her. Talk to her. But no matter what she says, please r’member this: There’s some things a woman never forgives or forgets. Miss Rachel may not want to carry her mem’ries round with her—I’m sure she don’t—but she ain’t got no choice. Them mem’ries is cut into her heart, burned into her soul. She’ll never come free of them. Hear what I say, Mr. David, hear what I say. Them mem’ries will be a part of her till the day she die.”

And so they would be. Rachel would never forget the day when the sun turned dark in her inner sky and bitterness settled like a permanent night over her heart. It was the twentieth of January 1923. David had been gone exactly three months. She’d visited Lilian. They were in the McKay family parlor. Rachel had sat nervously on the edge of the fireplace armchair. She was weak after days of vomiting. Her eyes were reddened from nights of crying. She saw that Lilian couldn’t bear to look at her. They were old friends, but Lilian was ashamed and embarrassed. She obviously wanted her out of the house as quickly as possible.

Lilian took a step toward her, then faltered. Her expression was grim, but decided. “I’m sorry, Rachel. You’re like a sister to me, but I can’t help you. You’re asking for something I cannot give.”

Rachel’s heart thumped painfully. “But why?” she pleaded. “Just tell me where he is.”

“No.”

Rachel’s small hands balled into fists. She willed back the tears she feared were about to spring to her eyes.

Lilian’s pale pink lips pressed together firmly. “Rachel, you’re to blame for the trouble you’re in. No decent woman would’ve let a man go as far as you did.”

Rachel cringed inwardly but she forced herself to speak up. “It’s not like I got this way by myself. David was there, too. I didn’t force him to love me.”

“My brother was only reacting like a healthy man. It’s always the woman’s place to keep matters within proper limits.” Lilian’s control snapped. “You should’ve known better.”

“We were together only once.”

“And this had to happen?!”

“You think I did this on purpose to make him marry me?”

Lilian gritted her teeth. “I have nothing against my brother marrying you, but I won’t let you use him. I don’t believe he loves you. If he did, he would’ve come back.”

Rachel wailed, “He’d come back if he knew—”

“I’m doing you a favor, Rachel. You don’t believe it, but I am.”

“It wouldn’t be the way it was between your parents—”

“How dare you!”

Rachel saw that she’d said the wrong thing. What could she do? Finally, she begged. “If you won’t tell me where he is, will you at least tell him about me, about... ?”

Lilian’s eyes narrowed. A little smile appeared on her lips. “Yes,” she said. “Of course I will.”

“But I knew she was lying,” Rachel said. “I knew it before the words even left her mouth.” Rachel’s eyes moved over David’s face. “I mean, she did lie, didn’t she? You never knew, did you?

“No,” he said. “I never knew.”

His eyes burned in his head. He had left Rachel to face this alone. As for Lilian—he struggled to understand—how could she have done this?

“Didn’t she do anything to help you?”