Zane's the Other Side of the Pillow (9 page)

“So why even approach me? Why even ask me out if you saw all of that?”

“Because I wanted to be the one to change your outlook. Color me stupid, but I believe it's actually working . . . somewhat.”

I blushed. “Yes, it is.”

We shared a long kiss and I was ready to let him take me right there on the deck, but I stopped him.

“I have to warn you about something,” I said.

“
Warn me?
You're not really a man, are you?”

I slapped him on the thigh and we both laughed.

“Now that would truly turn this situationship into an adventure,” I replied. “No, I'm not a man.”

“I was just kidding. You're way too beautiful to be a male.”

“Please, there are some trannies that would put every woman that I know—including me—to shame.”

“Not a topic that I'm interested in, but I'll take your word for it.”

His comment made me concerned so I asked, “You're not homophobic, are you?”

“Absolutely not! Everyone should do them. I'm just not interested in the lifestyle of transsexuals. Nothing against them, though.”

“Good, because Winsome is bisexual.”

“Your roommate?”

“Yes.”

Tevin had met Winsome when he came to pick me up. It was not going to go down any other way. Winsome had made it a point that if she did not finally meet him, she would give me hell when I got back.

Tevin shrugged. “Cool with me. So she's involved with both a man and a woman?”

I giggled. “I wouldn't say involved. I would say she is simply doing her. She's more scared of putting her heart on the line than I am, but her issues are different.”

“Like what?”

“A lot of men get excited about her being bisexual because she can help them live out their fantasies. A lot of women don't trust
her because they think she'll go chase after dick behind their backs. The truth is that being bisexual doesn't automatically mean that you'll always want to have your cake and eat it too. It means that you find something attractive and exciting about both.”

“Got you.” He paused and licked his lips. “Wait; whoa, back up. What exactly is a ‘situationship'?”

“It's a word that I use to describe what I usually end up in. A situationship is like a relationship but one where there is so much outside bullshit, so many emotional hang-ups, and so much that will inevitably go wrong, that it ends up being a hot mess.”

“Are you saying you still expect something to go wrong with us?”

“I sure hope not.”

We stared at each other for a few seconds. He was probably trying to see if I was going to shut down on him suddenly, after he had made so much leeway with me. I was going to try my best not to do that. I wanted him, and not only in a sexual way. But I was still scared half to death to get my feelings hurt again.

“It's getting chilly. Let's go inside.” Tevin took my hand and led me inside.

“Love is when you look into someone's eyes and see everything you need.”

—Unknown

L
ater that night, we had both showered in separate bathrooms and met back up in the living room of the yurt. Tevin had put our bags in different rooms to let me know that there was no pressure to sleep together. He had no idea that fucking him was definitely on my itinerary for the weekend.

“Don't you look cute,” I teased, talking about his flannel pajamas.

I had on a black two-piece set that showed a little bit of boobies and accentuated my ass.

“I didn't want to come out here like I usually sleep,” he said.

“And how is that?”

“Completely nude.”

I giggled as I sat Indian-style beside him on the sofa. “Aw, so you're a ten-percenter.”

“What's a ten-percenter?”

“That's the percentage of people globally who tend to sleep naked.”

“You and your encyclopedia head. I like the fact that you're a thinker. Not every woman can stimulate me intellectually.”

Oh, I plan to stimulate you, all right!

“I still need to warn you.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “I forgot about the warning you wanted to issue to me earlier.”

“I hope you don't take any of this the wrong way.”

“One way to find out. Issue the warning and let me decide how I take it.”

I got up off the sofa and went over to the TV that had an iPod dock attached to it. My iPod was already there, charging.

“I need some theme music.”

“Theme music?” I could hear Tevin chuckling. “To talk to me?”

“Yes. Haven't you ever noticed that there's usually at least one song that explains and expresses what you're thinking at any given moment in time?”

“Never really thought of it like that, but it makes sense. So what's your theme song for this moment in time?”

“ ‘Things Don't Exist' by Goapele. Ever heard it?”

“No; never. What's it about?”

“Just listen to it and then I'll pour my heart out to you afterwards.”

“Pour your heart out? Maybe I should pour us some wine.”

We both laughed nervously as the song started. It seemed silly, but I really wanted him to be able to relate to how I was feeling. “Things Don't Exist” summed it up perfectly.

Tevin sat there and listened to the nearly five-minute song that described a woman who was blue and who admitted that she was her own worst enemy. She sang about how when she looked into her current man's eyes she saw a love that she had never known, and about how things still existed in her heart that she hoped to get rid of so she could embrace love.

“Deep song,” Tevin said after it ended. “Let me analyze it, even though I am not a Virgo.”

I giggled. “No one ever said that only Virgos can analyze things, only that we tend to go overboard sometimes.”

“Sometimes?”

“Okay, all the time.” I rubbed Tevin's cheek tenderly. “I wanted
you to hear that song because it truly does sum up the woman that I am, in this moment, here with you. I see something in the way that you look at me that I actually do believe is real, but I'm broken. I'm broken and hurt, and as much as I wish that I wasn't, it's the truth.

“I'm not sure why you made the decision to even try to establish anything real with me. I'm a good woman and I know it, but I've always been a good woman. I was a good woman when Wesley decided to commit to me over all the others. And I was also a good woman when he cheated on me, gave me chlamydia, got me pregnant, and put a pillowcase over my head and beat me half to death. I decided to abort the child without him ever knowing. Don't judge me for that, please.”

Tevin took me into his arms. “Oh, baby, I'm so sorry.”

“The dummy actually believed that using a pillowcase wouldn't leave any bruises. Can you believe that? He actually told that to the police at the emergency room when they came to arrest him. Like using a pillowcase should get him a pass for putting his hands on me.”

“I wish that I could get my hands on that motherfucker. I'd kill him.”

I could tell that Tevin was serious. It was a pleasant thought, but not a realistic one.

“Trust me, I considered killing him myself, but that would have allowed him to take everything from me . . . including my freedom. He damaged me enough. I call what Wesley did to me my initial ‘hit and run.' Then other men came along, saw me as a wounded deer in the middle of the road, and ran over me again. Used me for sex; used me for money; used me as a punching bag. Then it became normal. It is what I came to expect.

“I started wondering if the way that romance and love were portrayed in books and movies from the past was all a myth. If
you look at the current novels and theatrical releases, the romantic comedies and love stories, they all make it seem like two people can meet, fall in love, and live happily ever after. Yet, most of my friends are struggling to even find a man to fuck that isn't already doing another one of our friends.”

“I take it that it's been a while since you've been with someone, Jemistry, and I want you to know that I don't want to rush you.” He sighed. “No, let me rephrase that. I don't want you to think that you're obligated to do anything with me. Of course, I'd love to make love to you, but that has to be what you truly want.”

“I know that you would never force me to do something with you, Tevin. And the fact of the matter is that I've changed to some degree. I made a promise to myself that I would never allow another man to hurt me ever again. He might get one shot in, but after the first red flag, it's over. I wouldn't be here with you if I thought you were capable of
intentionally
hurting me. Yet, in the back of my mind, I don't put anything past anyone.”

“Well, I appreciate your
somewhat
faith in me. I'm willing to prove what type of man I am, and it's going to take time and consistency. I get that. You can trust me. I would never lie to you. Anything you ask me, I'll be truthful. That's the only way this could ever work. We have to tell each other the truth . . . about everything.”

I sat there thinking about what he had just said.

“Then I need to tell you something,” I said.

“What's that?”

“When I met you, I was sexually active with two different men.”

I felt Tevin clench up a little. I am sure he never expected that and I damn sure knew that I couldn't tell him that I had fucked Anthony right before I met him for dinner. I did feel it was imperative for me to come clean. Secrets tended to show up in the most
unexpected places, and DC was so small, there was a good possibility that Tevin and I would run into either Anthony or Gregory at some point. For all I knew, he actually could have been acquaintances with one of them, considering the fact that all I ever wanted in regards to them was their dicks.

“Let me explain. I was having sex with them, but I wasn't emotionally connected to either. And that was on purpose. Even though both of them wanted to pursue something more, I refused. Having sex with them was a way of taking care of my needs and proving that I could exercise some type of control over my emotions.

“There was a time when my vagina was directly connected to my heart. If you didn't have my heart, then you couldn't even think about touching my pussy. But then, after each failed relationship, I became more and more disillusioned when it came to loving a man, or being loved by one.

“I even considered becoming a lesbian, but I'm not attracted to women, and from seeing Winsome go through drama with chick after chick, that's definitely not the answer. So I wanted to be touched; I wanted to touch back.”

Tevin rubbed his hands on his thighs uncomfortably.

“I'm only telling you this because you expect honesty, and that's fair. I stopped sleeping with both of them after our first official date at Oceanaire. I blocked their numbers and haven't contacted them since.”

“That's kind of cold, isn't it?” Tevin asked.

“I don't see it that way. Both of them understood that there was nothing there, and that eventually it would come to an end. I met you and I felt guilty about them. Crazy, but true. We'd just met and I already felt some kind of obligation to you.”

“And why do you think that is?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Fate, maybe. The feeling that everything that I had
ever been through and endured might have brought me to you. The fact that even though you watched me spew out all of that venom, you still asked me out. The chemistry I felt with you the second we laid eyes on each other.

“Part of me felt like it died a long time ago. But there was another part of me that was still alive.”

I kissed Tevin lightly on the lips.

“I want to try. I want to try to make this work . . . whatever this is. As much as I am flattered about being the woman that you want, it's more important for me to be the woman that you need . . . in all ways.”

“You are the woman that I need, Jemistry.”

“I want to be, but you're going to have to be patient with me if we take this further, and I don't mean waiting for sex. I want to make love to you . . . tonight. But once we get into this, I don't want you to feel slighted or get angry with me when I voice my insecurities or shut down from time to time while I try to climb onto the next plateau. It took a couple of decades to turn me into this mess; the cleanup is not going to happen overnight.”

“I understand everything that you're saying, and I'm prepared. I'll do whatever it takes to make you happy, so that I can be happy.”

I eyed him seductively. “So why don't you take me to bed so we can discover our happiness?”

“Love is of all the passions the strongest, for it attacks, simultaneously the head, the heart, and the senses.”

—Lao Tzu

A
re you sure about this?” Tevin asked as he laid me down on the king-sized bed after carrying me into the bedroom where my luggage was located. “I can wait.”

“Wait for what?” I responded. I stood up on my knees and started unbuttoning the flannel pajama top. “Wait for global warming to end the world, which could happen tomorrow? Wait for one of us to come up with an excuse not to do it? We came up here to be alone, and we are. Our cell phones are off; you're not on call; so all we have between us is space . . .” I licked a trail down the middle of his chest, “. . . and opportunity.”

I pulled his top down over his massive, muscular shoulders, and then let it fall to the floor. Then I pulled my own over my head and tossed it beside his. I started unfastening my bra.

“I want you, Tevin. I want you to devour me, partake of everything that I have to give. I want you to make all of my pain go away . . . all of my fears. I want you to make me forget my past. I want you to make me even more excited about the future than I am already.”