Going Down (4 page)

“I’ll see how serious you are, Lana. I’ll leave it on you. Call me tomorrow at work. We’ll go for walk at Piedmont Park. Then we’ll go have a drink at one of those sidewalk spots in
Buckhead
. And then we’ll go see a movie.”

“That’s what I’m talkin’ about,” she said, nodding her head with a satisfied smile. “I like the way you do things, Zack.”

“Yeah right, sure you do. All you gotta do now is call.”

Lana started her car, and started to back up. “That’s right. I’ll call you. ’Cause I’m gonna take your fine ass from Miss Angelique.” Lana was an aggressive woman. Once she decided that she wanted something, she went after it. And Lana was used to getting exactly what she wanted.

I walked back toward the building and looked at my watch. It was after three o’clock. I knew that Lana had no intention of calling me the next day. She would probably call the day after with some story about a meeting that she had to go to, or some client she had to see. “Same old, Lying Lana.” I heard a horn honk. Thinking it was just Lana saying good-bye, I looked back to wave but it was Tee. He was in his car, waving for me to come on.
I got in the car and he drove off.

“Take your time. I ain’t in no hurry,” I told him.

“You ought to be, it’s almost four o’clock,” Tavarus said.

“And?”

“Never mind, I forgot, Angelique don’t trip.”

“It’s not that she don’t trip, it’s that we accept each other. I don’t question her; she don’t question me,” I said, and Tee took me home. When I got there,
I went inside to find Angelique standing in the middle of the living room flipping channels. “Hi, baby.”

She walked by me without a word and went in the kitchen. I knew she was mad ’cause it took me so long to get there.
Angelique was still uncharacteristically quiet. Even when she’s mad at me, she’ll still say something.

When she finally got around to speaking, Angelique sat listening quietly while I recapped the gentler moments of the previous evenings’ activities. She did, however, question the need to have dancers at the party. Finally, she got around to saying what was really on her mind. “What took you so long to get here, Zack? That condo ain’t but so big. I don’t care how trashed it was; it shouldn’t have taken you and Tee that long to clean up.”

“So what are you saying, Angelique?” I asked, cutting my eyes at her, hoping she wasn’t going where I thought she was going.

“It’s not what I’m saying. It’s what you’re not saying.” I started to unveil my cover story, but before I could say anything. “Had me sitting up here waiting on you to get here. The least you could have done was call me and say, ‘Angelique. It’s gonna be a while before I can get there.’ That’s just common courtesy. Sometimes I wonder if you have any respect for me at all, Zack.”

I smiled and looked over at Angelique. “Sorry,” I said calmly, trying not to sound guilty, and defuse her anger at the same time.

“That’s it? Sorry. At least you could lie to me and say you won’t let it happen again.” Cheap shot, but I deserve it. I have never stood her up. But I have kept her waiting more times than I could remember. “You better be glad I love you,” she said.

“But you do love me and that’s what’s important. And I am sorry, Angelique. You should have called and I would have been here sooner; but you made it seem like you weren’t in any rush, so I didn’t rush to get here.”

“You’re missing the point, Zack. I talked to you more than four hours ago. I could have cleaned our house and that cracker box condo in four hours. You were over there messing around instead of cleaning up. That’s what you were doing, ain’t it?”

I paused and looked at her for a moment before answering. Angelique had asked a double-edged question. Did she mean that I was messing around with Tee or did she suspect that I had been with Lana for the last couple of hours?

“You’re right, Angelique, I was just messing around. It was inconsiderate of me and I’m sorry, I should have called.”

“It always bothers me when you agree with me so easily.” The questions in her mind showed plainly on her face. “Just what were y’all doing, anyway? Y’all probably still had some of them
hoochies
over there, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, right. Try me and Tee went to get some brew, and so we had to burn one before we got started.”

“Whatever,” Angelique said, as she got up and started for the room. She looked back at me. “You coming.”

“Where?”

“To eat. I’m hungry.”

We had dinner at Ray’s on the River. It’s her favorite restaurant. After dinner, we stopped at Blockbuster and picked up a couple of movies. For the rest of the night, we watched movies, laughed, and talked.

Angelique and I had gotten into a real good groove lately. We had reached a point where I considered Angelique my best friend. We shared everything with each other—well—just about everything.

But I’ve been devoting so much time lately to this project for
Bandexx
that, by the time I would make it home, I would crash as soon as my head hit the pillow. I look at Angelique and I think about how good she looked. To me she was still the prettiest thing in life I’d ever seen. Just as fine as the day I first saw her. I began to wonder why I do the things I do, when sitting here next to me, was the most beautiful woman I’d ever met. And my best friend.

I knew the answer.

While we were dating, Angelique didn’t want to have sex. She said that she wasn’t a virgin or anything like that, but she wanted to wait until we were married.

“If you really love me like you say you do, then you’ll wait.”

As much as I wanted her, as much as I wanted to be inside her, I did love her enough to respect her wishes. Besides, at the time I thought it was romantic. Angelique was such a phenomenal kisser; I just knew the sex would be good, if not better.

We had a big wedding and went away on our honeymoon. The nightmare began on that night. Angelique insisted that we turn all the lights out before she got undressed. When she was naked, she laid down in bed next me. I ran my hand across her breasts and touched them, held them, squeezed them, and teased them with my tongue. I slid my tongue slowly around her beautiful circles, coming close but never touching her nipples. I spread her legs and tried to finger her clit. “Don’t do that,” she said, and pushed my hand away.

“Do what?”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“What this?” I said, and tried to finger her clit again.

She pushed hand away again. “Yes, that. I don’t like that.”

I thought she was kidding, but I went along. Angelique kissed me passionately. I guided my tongue along her eyebrows, and then kissed her eyelids. I stopped to look at her face. Angelique looked more beautiful than she had at any point since we’d met.

I lowered my head and began licking and sucking her nipples. Angelique’s body began to squirm as I began working my way down to her navel. Suddenly, she grabbed me by the shoulders. “Come here,” she said, then pulled me up and on top of her.

I had waited so long for this night. I wanted desperately to be inside her and I thought she felt the same way. I plunged myself inside her and began to move. She laid there with her eyes closed tightly. I was doing what I considered my best
shit
, but through it all, Angelique just laid there with her eyes closed. She barely moved and didn’t make a sound.

After a while, and believe me, it wasn’t that long, Angelique pushed me off of her and rolled into the fetal position. “What’s wrong?” I asked and tried to touch her.

Her body jerked. “Nothing’s wrong, Zack. Just hold me.”

I slid in behind her, wrapped my arms around her, and she started to cry. “What’s wrong?” I asked again. “Did I hurt you?”

“No, no—nothing like that. I’m just happy, that’s all.”

I just assumed that she had cum hard and needed time to catch herself. Angelique fell asleep in my arms that night and left me rock hard and frustrated.

The next night was more of the same. Any attempt I made at any type of foreplay was met with the same words: “Stop” or “I don’t like that.”

Naturally, I assumed that since she hadn’t had a lot of sex that she was just inexperienced; and as time went on Angelique would come around and our sex would improve. But I was wrong—dead wrong.

When we have sex, and that isn’t very often, it is always in the missionary position. Angelique won’t get on top, she refuses to do it
doggystyle
, and oral sex is out of the question. Sometimes I cum, most times I don’t.

It’s something I’ve come to accept about our life together. I’ve tried talking to her about being more adventurous and trying new things, but it always ends in an argument. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t even bring it up anymore. But as a consequence, I have sex with other women, watch a lot of porno flicks, and jerk off a lot.

I love Angelique more than anything in the world and I wish things were different. Everything else about our life together was as close to perfect as it could be. I wonder sometimes if she knows that I’m fucking other women. If she does, she has never said anything about it. Even if she doesn’t suspect that I am, I still feel bad about what I do. Just not bad enough to stop.

“I got something to tell you,” Angelique said.

“I got something to tell you, too.”

“What’s that?”

“You go first.”

“No, you,” she said.

“No, you,” I said.

“Okay, okay,” Angelique said. “I just wanted to tell you that I’ve really enjoyed us spending so much time together. That’s all. And that I love you very much.”

“I love you too. And I’ve enjoyed you too. You don’t have to thank me. It ain’t like it’s a big sacrifice to be with you. ’Cause I love you.”

“Sometimes I wonder about that.”

“What’d you wonder, if I love you?”

“No silly, I know you love me. Or you’ve been giving an academy winning performance all these years. What I wonder about is that sacrifice thing. You always got something to do or some place you gotta be or something. I can’t remember the last time we spent this much time together. And I like it.”

“It has been a minute. Maybe we’re just hitting our stride.”

“No, baby, you’re just hitting your stride. I’ve been in this groove waiting for you for years now. So what did you have to tell me?”

“I’m probably gonna have to go to San Diego sometime next week. I was hoping you’d come with me. I know you got the time; you never take off.”

“That’s why I got time, ’cause I don’t just take off. I’m saving my time ’cause I wanna take one or two weeks for us to go to Rio or wherever.”

“So you are thinking about Rio, huh. I knew it.”

“All right, all right, so I have been thinking about it. But that don’t mean I made up my mind.”

“But you are thinking about it. That’s what’s important. That you’re thinking about it.”

“Whatever. I haven’t been home for Christmas in years. I miss Christmas with my family. We’ve had some nice Christmas’s the last few years. I had burned out on the whole Christmas thing.
And
”

“You and your sister fell out that last time. That’s what you burned out on, was Connie all up in your face.”

“Yeah, that’s what started it; that and some other things. But I started feeling like it was just a yearend clearance sale so the stores can reduce their inventory before the year ends.”

“You’ve been talking to Tee, haven’t you?”

“But he’s right, at least about that. Christmas ain’t about God or religion or any of that. It’s just about spending money. But that ain’t it. Christmas is about the family. Getting together, having fun just enjoying each other. It’s laughing at old pictures and telling old stories and listening to my Uncle Willie get drunk and tell us all about how that woman did him wrong.”