“So, Basil, are you seeing someone right now?” I inquired as he carried me back to my car.
“No, not right now.” He was quite the blusher; almost shy. “I’m working most of the time. That is, when I’m not in church.”
We’d been over all the vitals already. Employment, general vicinity of residences (apartment in Georgetown, rowhouse near Walter Reed), ages, education, etc. Now it was time for the kill.
“Would you like to come over for dinner sometime? Next Friday, maybe?”
“I’d love to!” he exclaimed, placing me into the driver’s seat. I had my purse and containers on my lap and I put them on the passenger’s seat. “Want to trade numbers?”
“Certainly.” I reached into my glove compartment, where I always keep a pen and pad, and scribbled down my number. He recited his number to me and I wrote it on the next page.
Returning home from Great Mount Bethel was much easier. Shockingly, the D.C. Department of Public Works had actually done something for a change. The sand trucks had done an incredible job of powdering the streets. I did have to watch out for the infamous potholes, more like sinkholes, the city was renowned for.
I called Chance to tell her my wonderful news. She said I was out of my damn mind to risk going out in an ice storm for some dick. Then she congratulated me for finally making some progress.
“Now if you could only get up enough nerve to talk to the brotha that comes into the bank,” she hissed into the phone.
“Chance, puleeze!” I snapped back at her. “Basil’s fine and it’s only by pure luck that’s he’s single. But, that man from the bank is taken. Mark my words. He’s probably married.”
“Well, you need to find out. You’re not a fucking psychic.”
“Find out for what? Are you loco? Basil’s coming over here for dinner on Friday. I’m going to rock his world, too.”
“You’re going to give it up on the first date?” Chance asked, like she’d never freaked a man she’d met less than five hours earlier at a club; two hours even.
“You know how long I’ve been trying to hook up with Basil. If something happens, it happens. That’s all I’m saying.”
When Chance and I got off the phone, I rifled through my stack of mail-order catalogs for the Black Sex Goddess one and started looking at their skimpy lingerie. After all, there was nothing wrong with pushing things along a little.
Twelve
Yardley
“Roxie, hold up! I need to get a glass of water.”
Roxie was pulling another rough rider act on me, about to amputate my dick with her pelvic muscles.
“Yardley, who needs water?” she asked incredulously.
“I do. I’ve never sweated this much in my entire life. Not even when I shoot hoops with the fellas.”
“Well, this isn’t shooting hoops. This is fucking.”
“I’m quite aware of that, thanks,” I said, pushing her off me and getting up from the moisture-ridden sheets. “I’ll be back.”
I headed out to my kitchen, my dick bouncing up and down, condom and all.
Roxie started yelling at me from the bedroom. “Yardley, get your ass back in here and finish me off.”
I ripped the condom off and tossed it in the wastebasket, washed my hands in the sink, and fixed myself an ice-cold glass of H2O. Roxie was a freak. I was beginning to wonder if a freak was really what I needed.
We’d been seeing each other for about four months. Things were great at first. After years of “what-ifs,” I had the sister in my life that had kicked me to the curb way back in high school.
Besides, Roxie was a decent catch. She
was educated, witty, and had a great job as an event coordinator for one of the largest marketing firms in the nation. Unfortunately, that meant attending event after event, benefit after benefit, week after week. All the late nights were beginning to take their toll on me. Roxie accompanying me home nine times out of ten to slay my dick was not benefiting my sleep either.
Don’t get me wrong. Roxie and I had a lot of fun; tons of it. I was at the point where I was even considering settling down permanently. Yet I couldn’t be sure. I kept telling myself that it was all about Roxie and me, but subconsciously I knew better. Part of me was still wondering about Rayne Waters.