Liar's Game (33 page)

We talked about nothing. Communicated about everything. Had pleasant moments. Which was dangerous for two people with rumpled feelings.

The heat from her breast was resting on my arm. I closed my eyes and ached with that good feeling. My hand eased around her waist. The ocean was spanking the shore when she leaned into me. Seagulls sang when I kissed the silver ring in Naiomi’s eyebrow.

Her lips glowed. She made a pouty face, spoke like her insides were on fire. “A romantic, moonlit night on the beach, and that’s it?”

Her lips parted. I went inside her warmth. Her tongue was stiff at first, reluctant. Her eyes were open. I did a slow move and groove, did the taste test, relished the flavor I savored, was amazed by her rhythm, and hoped my breath wasn’t too funky while I harmonized. Her body relaxed, eyes slowly closed, tongue softened up. Breathing became heavy, her hand on my face, rubbing my beard. She made an orgasmic sound and pulled away.

“Okay, all right, okay.” She fanned herself. “That’s enough.”

“What’s wrong?”

“You kiss like . . . hmmmm . . . you know.”

“What?”

She shook her head, said, “Like you’re having oral sex.”

That line had been crossed.

I leaned away, but she pulled me back. Kissed me. Kissed my neck, danced her tongue up to my ear, moaned her way inside my mouth. She trapped my tongue, sucked it in and out, like she was giving me some serious fellatio.

She said, “Do you want to go to the Hilton?”

I chuckled.

She didn’t.

We tongue-danced again for a while, until it felt right. She put her head on my shoulder. That excited sensation that came from doing wrong—I wondered if that was the thrill that Malaika felt when she was creeping. Wondered if that was what Dana felt when she tipped out with Claudio.

I asked, “How did you hook up with Juanita?”

“We were both going out for the LAPD. I’d run into her when we took the written test out in Hollywood. I was just leaving my husband then, trying to understand, reinvent myself, struggling to be independent again. We were up by Dodger Stadium, at Elysian Park taking the physical agilities test at the same time.”

Naiomi laughed.

I asked her what was funny.

She said, “Neither one of us could get over that damn six-foot concrete wall. Both of us were miserable because we have allergies, and it was springtime, so everything was in bloom. By the end of the day my eyes were swollen like golf balls.”

“And you’ve been together ever since.”

“Yep. We dated awhile. Movies. Dinner. Dancing at this gay club down in Long Beach. Think I fell for her in Starbucks in Marina Del Rey, over a cup of flavored coffee while we sat and talked. We made love that night. It was awesome. She was awesome.”

“So she’s good in bed.”

“She’s good. Very enthusiastic and creative. But I’m better.”

Just like she’d heard me through our wall, I’d heard her. I gave ear to the waves. Seagulls added their melody to the music of the night.

Naiomi said, “Communication.”

“What about it?”

“Strange things happen when people talk and get to know each other. When they get comfortable with each other.”

I agreed by not disagreeing.

“Naiomi? Can I ask you a personal question?”

“Sure.”

“What do you see in another woman?”

“Same thing you do, Mr. Browne. Same thing you do.”

A moment passed. The waves crashed a few times, water splashed high and spread up on the rocks near us. The moon was tugging and the tide was getting higher. Behind us, up over the short hill, sixty-mile-per-hour traffic sped down PCH. Boats were drifting out in the Pacific.

And Naiomi was drifting closer to me.

I never wanted to leave this place.

I asked Naiomi, “How’re you going to get over the wall that’s in front of you now?”

“What wall?”

“Your relationship.”

She said, “Nice metaphor.”

“Thanks.”

She smiled. “The same way you are, Mr. Browne.”

“How’s that?”

“I’ll either get strong enough to pull myself over, walk around it, or turn around and go back from where I came.”

“Back to Oklahoma?”

“Nah. I’ve outgrown Guthrie. I don’t think the Jehovah’s Witnesses would take me back, anyway. I’m a gypsy at heart. I try to stay in one place, but my feet start itching before long. I want to see the world.”

I asked, “How does Juanita feel about that?” “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her until I’m gone.”

Naiomi shrieked, jumped, grabbed my arm so tight it hurt.

I jumped with the pain. “What’s wrong?”

Her words came out fast: “I saw a rat.”

“A mouse?”

“No, a rat about the size of Mickey Mouse.”

It was time to go.

On Highway 1, when we were near her Jeep, Naiomi said, “You never answered my question.”

“Which one?”

“Would you like to go to the Hilton?”

 

It was almost nine o’clock when Naiomi dropped me off a few blocks from my place. She didn’t want Juanita or anybody in our building to see us together.

She ditched her Jeep in front of the homes on Edgehill, waited a few minutes, then tiptoed up the seedy alley behind our building. She stayed close to the garages, moved like a cat. There was enough music and chatter coming from the house behind our building to cover her footsteps.

I prowled into the darkness from Degnan, gravel and debris crunching under my shoes. Me. Naiomi. Sneaking toward each other, slow and easy.

Nobody strolled the alley behind our building at night. At least nobody sane. We gave each other warm eyes, glanced toward our building. The light was on in the laundry room. Neighbors’ windows were pitch black. Naiomi stared at her apartment. Her kitchen light was on. A dish clanked. Juanita was moving around, laughing. Powder blue satin robe on her light skin, on the phone, making sweet faces as she yakked and poured herself a glass of wine.

I said, “She’s waiting for you.”

“Let her wait.”

There were six double garages for our twelve units. Two locks on the opposite side of each door. Naiomi undid the padlocks to the garage we shared. I pulled the wooden door up, slowly, to minimize the creaking.

We stepped inside.

Silence.

No dry wall between the attached garages. Could see from one end of the building to the other, echo to echo. Cars and trucks were in the other stalls. I eased the door back down, kept it from banging and rattling.

Me. Naiomi. In the dark. An awkward moment.

I said, “It’s dusty in here.”

“Mr. Browne, we didn’t come in here to talk about dust, did we?”

“No, we didn’t.”

She danced her warm tongue around my mouth as soon as my words faded, ran her fingertips across the small of my back.

She whispered, “Welcome to the Hilton.”

No wine. No candles. No room service.

Naiomi led me around dusty boxes, across oil-stained concrete, beyond cobwebs. We moved back until we bumped into the cream-colored leather sofa and love seat.

I threw the dusty cover over her washer and dryer.

She dug a condom out of her purse, waved it at me. I had a virginal chill. Once again I was sixteen, cutting class at Morningside High, sneaking inside a girl’s house while her momma was slaving at work.

She sat me down on her throne. The soft leather sighed. I pulled her silky blouse up, kissed her belly, lagged my tongue across her small brown breasts. She leaned and sucked my nipples
mmm
and put a zillion tingles in my belly. Then she bit me. Pain felt so good.

My thoughts strayed to Dana. Seeing her face in my mind made me impotent. But Naiomi soon made me hot enough to boil water. Steam rose in thick vapors, clouded the vision of Dana’s face. Lifted that heavy troubled man who was holding me down. I turned her around, hiked up her skirt and nibbled her buttocks. A mixture of soft and hard bites.

I rolled the condom on. Naiomi slid her thong panties off.

Her jewelry clanged an anxious sound. She lifted her skirt, put a knee on each side of my thigh, smirked like she was living in the land of victory.

I was there. Inside Naiomi’s hideout.

Naiomi was a little woman with a lot of space. I was about to feel inadequate, but she moaned, did a sweet measuring, like she was calibrating her love to what I had to offer, eased into a sweet rise and fall. I was praying that I didn’t shame myself and come before she did. Her kisses were the sugar that made this coffee taste so sweet. I struggled to open her blouse. She was just as rushed and frantic as I was. She helped me with the buttons. Her breasts, I squeezed them softly, lagged my tongue over the tips, moved my hands up to her neck, across her braids, a tingle inside me turning into a blaze, fire growing in my gut, curling my toes.

If this was the sensation of sin, the world should go to hell.

One of her block heel shoes fell from her feet, clopped on the concrete floor. Our rhythm became severe, deep. Her other shoe slipped off.

Music blasted from nowhere. Right outside the garage door. Might’ve been another one of our neighbors getting ready to park back here. Naiomi stopped on a dime, shut her moans off like water in a faucet, then shifted her weight like she was preparing to hop up and hide behind the boxes.

The car kept going.

She panted out the breath that she’d been holding, whispered while she rolled her hips and chewed my lips, “Mr. Browne?”

“Yeah.”

Her sweat dripped in my face. “Relax. Feel my rhythm.”

She made me feel comfortable, no pressure to perform or impress. Just sit back and enjoy the ride. Work on my rhythm.

Oh God Oh shit Oh Juanita—I mean Mr. Browne.

Practice endurance. Be submissive.

Oh God Oh shit Oh Mr. Browne.

I was inside a dusty garage, but the gratification I was getting took me far away. My sweat and her sweetness made me feel like I was on the island of Waikiki, loving under green spectacular mountains, thundering surfs, and powdery white-sand beaches. And Naiomi was my Polynesian dancer, giving me a feeling so good that I could spend a million days lost in her loving, smiling while her braids danced a hungry tempo in my face, letting her drops of sweat rain on me and wash away all the bad times. Every last fucking one of ’em.

 

Naiomi trembled. Her forehead bumped into mine as she asked in a horrified whisper, “Where did it go?”

I shifted her to the side, put my hand up and down my penis. Nothing there but moisture and softening skin. “Hold on.”

Her body tensed, locked, and her voice, growing with panic, bonged out like a prayer. “Mr. Browne, please tell me the stupid thing is still on you. You got it, right?”

“I can’t find it. It must’ve come off.”

Naiomi sneezed twice, both times her vagina tightened around me.

She asked, “Inside of me?”

“Nowhere else for it to go.”

“Oh God Oh shit Oh Mr. Browne. Damn, damn. When?”

“I don’t know.”

“Before or after?”

“I don’t know.”

She snapped, “You couldn’t tell when the thing came off ?”

I said, “No more than you could.”

Somewhere between the
oohs
and the
ahhs
and the magic that wouldn’t last forever, Mr. Latex had done a disappearing act.

Naiomi shivered and panted while I eased her off me.

She jumped up, squatted like she was trying to squeeze it out. Nothing came out of her body but a couple of farts.

Panic. Heavy breaths. Rustles in the darkness. Fear crackled.

Her voice was in tears. “I don’t need any more drama right about now.”

I pulled my pants all the way up.

She trembled. “Well, don’t just sit there. Help me find it.”

“How?”

“How do you think?”

Ten minutes of her lying on her back with me acting like the gynecologist of the year, and I couldn’t find the damn thing. That sugary song of pleasure we’d been singing had become a melody of blue.

She snapped, “Are you sure you put the condom on?”

“What do you mean, am I sure?”

“I mean, are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

Naiomi yanked her skirt down, ran her fingers through her braids over and over. She found her shoes, held one in each hand, stared into space.

Her voice had an arctic timbre, a side of her I’d never seen. “I know it’s too late, but can I ask you a personal question, Mr. Browne?”

“What?”

“Have you had any questionable sex?”

I kept my tone level when I asked, “What do you mean?”

“You know,” her voice softened more, “questionable sex.”

My brows furrowed. “You mean, have I ever been with a man?”

“Yeah.”

“
Hell, no.
Why you ask me something like that? You had the condom.”

Her words were quick and snappy. “I work part-time at a center, that’s why I have condoms, to pass out for prevention.”

“I only go one way.”

“I don’t believe this. Don’t believe this.”

I said, “What about you? Any questionable sex?”

“I’m cleaner than the board of health.” She put her purse over her shoulder, didn’t glance back before she eased the garage door half open. Words labored from deep in her throat, “See you around, Mr. Browne.”

She slipped out and eased the door closed on the Hilton.

The aroma of her rose from my lap, through the dust, into my nostrils. My head was low. Again, I’d become the kid on
Leave It to Beaver
. I’d learned my lesson, forgot my lesson, then was reminded of the lesson I’d lost.

Barefoot, low-spirited footsteps moved up the back street toward Edgehill, tipped over crunched debris. A Jeep’s engine started. Tires rolled east to west through the alleyway. Gears shifted. Zoomed toward the streets. Sped away from Stocker and Degnan.