Sweet St. Louis Read online

  To break the tension, as soon as Shawntè set down her drink again, Ant asked her if she wanted to dance.

  “Come on,” she told him.

  He hadn’t even ordered anything. He was too busy guessing and second-guessing her availability for the night. And how much she may have had planned for him. Like his curiosity for the panty line that he failed to notice through her dress. And when they danced, she wasn’t at all concerned about the rhythm of the beat, just the closeness that they shared, making him feel awkward in front of so many grown faces.

  They were so close that he got a good, long sniff of her hair, which smelled of sweet oils.

  “What did you put in your hair? It smells good.”

  “Ginseng oil.”

  “Ginseng? You used ginseng in your hair?”

  “Yeah, it’s called Ginseng Miracle.”

  He grinned. “I guess you can use that for a lot of things then.”

  She grinned back at him. “I guess so. What do you use it for?”

  “I don’t need to use it. But I know other guys who do.”

  “What do they use it for?”

  “Ahh, to stay ahh … awake. Yeah, that’s it. Awake,” he answered with a laugh.

  “You stay awake naturally?”

  “Yeah,” he answered her with pride. “Naturally.”

  “How long are we planning on staying here?” she questioned, bored again.

  “Where else you want to go?”

  “Actually, I’m kind of tired. I just need to lay my head down and relax somewhere.”

  Shit! Is this girl fuckin’ with me or what?! he asked himself. Ant took her answer to mean she wanted much more than grinding on the dance floor. She was turning on the heat, and they weren’t halfway finished with their evening together. It was only eleven o’clock.

  “And what am I supposed to do while you lay down and relax?” he asked, just for kicks.

  She smiled. “I guess you do what you want.”

  He smiled back at her. “Let me get a drink before we get out of here.”

  Sometimes, when you got it good, things just seem to float along like a dream. But the night was real. And on the way back to St. Louis, while crossing the bridge, Shawntè reached over with her left hand and began to tenderly stroke the nap of Ant’s head, sending chills and thrills to all the right places.

  “Girl, you gon’ make me crash doing that,” he warned her.

  She didn’t heed his warning. Instead, she undid her seat belt and slid in closer to him to nibble on his ear, something she wouldn’t have been able to do in bucket seats. Ant’s comfortable old Chevy came in handy that way.

  Damn, she’s in heat! I may not be able to make it to the crib! he thought. We might end up having to pull over on the side of the road somewhere.

  “I thought you told me you wanted to lay your head down and relax,” he said, leaning away from her. Hell, he still had driving to do!

  “I do want to lie down,” she said, still chasing his ear with her tongue.

  There was no doubt in his mind at that point, Shawntè wanted to strip down and dance on bedsheets. His bedsheets. Or maybe not. Maybe the back of the car would do her just fine. Or even the front of the car. Nevertheless, Ant wanted to get her back home so that he could possess her full body, and teach her a lesson. You never outplay a player. Unless you’re the ultimate shit! And Shawntè was not. So he could not allow her to get away with her insane advances to him while on the bridge of all places.

  Shawntè wouldn’t stop. When she went for his olive pants and gripped his hard-on, it became embarrassing. Ant then switched the wheel to his left hand and pushed up her slippery blue dress with his right to grab a handful of her pudding, poking his way to her entrance. And he got an immediate response, as if she were an iceberg waiting to be thawed.

  “Girl, you gon’ make me explode on you right in this car,” he warned her again.

  All she did was giggle, continuing to lead him on. “Do what you gotta do?”

  SHIT! This girl’s a freak! And I didn’t even bring any rubbers with me. Fuck was I thinking?!

  He surely wasn’t thinking that she would turn into a real-life viper on him. He was unprepared for it. But players had rules. Screwing without condoms was one of them. Especially new freak bodies. You don’t do it! Yet, rules were all meant to be broken. It’s only human nature that they were, because there was no such thing as objective perfection, only subjective perfection. In other words, there was no absolute, only situational. All human rules became malleable depending on the urgency of the situation. Some situations made it easier than others to follow the rules. But then you had those cases that did not.

  Shawntè had become urgent. Very urgent. The situation was unbearable. Even for a practiced player. Fortunately, the law won out. Literally. As they entered downtown St. Louis they came upon a swarm of flashing police cruisers, gathered for some downtown disturbance.

  “Put your seat belt back on,” Ant snapped to Shawntè with a shove. He didn’t want to be pulled over with a full-blown hard-on. Fear of male humiliation was more urgent than sex.

  “God, you don’t have to throw me out the window,” Shawntè huffed.

  “I didn’t push you that hard. Stop whining.”

  “You did so push me hard.”

  He read her face to see if she was serious, and decided to lighten things up.

  “You gonna get pushed all right. And I’ma give you something worth whinin’ about,” he told her.

  That turned Shawntè’s fake frown into a real smile. She behaved herself and sat quietly until he got her to his place, all cleaned up and ready for her arrival.

  “Aren’t you neat,” she said, taking in the tidiness of his living quarters. Ant had everything he needed in his living room: a nice sofa, a La-Z-Boy chair, a coffee table, and a massive television set. In his miniature kitchen he had a small dinette set. He had Tupperware on his shelves, silverware in his kitchen drawers, and food inside his refrigerator and cabinets. He even had clean facecloths and hand towels, soap, and toilet tissue in his bathroom. And in his large bedroom, he had quality dressers, a huge vanity mirror, and a perfectly made bed that included matching shams.

  OH MY GOD! Shawntè thought to herself in a panic. What kind of man do I have here? She didn’t expect him to have all of that. And it wasn’t as if anything was extra expensive. It was just all there. As if he paid strict attention to the details. Guys who chased after the cute smiles and sexy skirts were not supposed to have completed apartments. They were supposed to have just a place to sleep and do their business. A crib. But Ant had much more than that. He had a home. That scared Shawntè half to death. Because she realized that she would like him more now. He was a man with a complete place of his own, and not in his momma’s home or some makeshift apartment with too much traffic running through it. Ant was self-contained and stable. The same thing that Dana Nicole Simpson had found out and fell for.

  Shawntè found herself floating toward the bed, helplessly, as Ant carried her in to her fate. She squeezed him, desperately, knowing that it would hurt. Not so much physically, but in the heart, because she realized there was no way to stop herself from extending it to him. Especially if he was able to take care of business downstairs. Because the upstairs was already accounted for.

  And when her clothing was tugged off and thrown to the floor, she felt nothing, and yet everything. Nothing, because every other thought on her mind had disappeared. And everything, because his cool, wet tongue on her bare nipples stimulated excitement in a trillion nerve cells running from the hair follicles in her scalp, down to the skin beneath her toenails.

  All that she could do was shake her head with her eyes closed, with no strength for words, only illegible moans of pleasure. But Ant could read them. It was the language of physical bliss. He had become an A student of that a long time ago. He teased her with his tongue, all the way down to her inner thighs, causing her to cling to the sheets for help.

 
Help me, somebody! Oh God, help me! Pleease!

  When she felt it, she melted, becoming a full body of soup as he stirred her with his ready spoon. She kissed his lips, devouring his tongue like a serpent while he prepared her serving like the chef she prayed he wouldn’t be. Why? Because it hurts so bad to love so good and not know if you could keep that loving forever.

  Forever!

  Forever!

  Ooohhh, my God, forever!

  “You okay?” Ant asked Shawntè, exhausted in his sweat-drenched bed.

  She was barely awake. After all, it was only six o’clock in the morning, and he had pushed her far beyond her limits until half past two.

  “What time is it?” she mumbled, praying that she could stay there and recuperate for another three and a half hours. At least!

  “It’s time for me to get ready for work. I have to drive you back home first.”

  Can I just stay here for a while? Shawntè thought of asking. But she knew better than that. Pressing the issue would only buy her a faster ticket home for the next time she wanted to stay. That’s why it hurts so bad. She would be forced to deny herself what she would desire so torturously: Ant’s time, trust, affection, and dedication.

  “Well, I’m ’bout to take a shower. In the meantime, I need you to do me a favor and get yourself ready for yours. Okay?” He waited for her answer to make sure she understood him.

  “All right,” she whined. “I’ll be up when you get out.”

  While the warm water smacked Ant’s face and body, washing the midnight’s lust away, he thanked his lucky stars for being born a boy. Then he proceeded to wash his tool like it was the most treasured item in the world. And it was. The magic wand of all creation.

  Girls held the keys to creation. The soil. And they were usually well-rounded. More so than boys. They knew more. Felt more. Read more. Expressed more. Not just about things and statistics, but about life in general. How to hold on. Keeping it all together; maintaining the earth, and all that was in it. In fact, if it were not for girls growing into nurturing women, mother earth would have starved and died a million years ago.

  Men, on the other hand, were more concerned with trying to blast off into outer space and land on the friggin’ moon. Many of them only succeeded in crashing into the deep blue ocean and drowning, pulled down by the reality of gravity. But that was what men were born to do. Explore new heights. So women had to push them to do that. Push them to be “the man.” Push them to conquer, while praying that their fickle minds would not forget who was there through thick and thin to help them reach their lofty goals of manhood. So Sharron understood how tough it was for Sean Love to feel complete and manly without attaining his life’s goals, even as she tried her best to avoid him.

  “I just need someone to share my dreams with sometimes,” he was telling her, long distance from Chicago.

  “We all need that, Sean,” she responded.

  “But do we all get it?”

  Of course we don’t, she thought. But she would never say it to him. Sharron was too courteous and respectful of his feelings.

  “Life isn’t fair for any of us. We all have our bad days,” she reminded him instead.

  “I’m not just talking about bad days here, Sharron. I’m talking about a worthless life!” he snapped, becoming agitated. Sharron was not feeling his urgency. He wanted answers! Right now!

  “Your life isn’t worthless,” she told him. “Think about your daughter, if nothing else. She needs you. She’s a part of you. So think about her.”

  “But I’m talking about my own life here, Sharron. I can’t live through my daughter. What kind of a life is that?”

  What else could she say? Sean had made his bed, and he had to lie in it. Just like everyone else. Nevertheless, men had this thing about them that made them feel as if they were the only organisms alive who could not have things their way. And yet, they never had to worry about cycles of bleeding every month, with regular visits to the gynecologists to make sure everything was all right, or breast cancer checks, weight struggles, bad-hair days, the pill, the waiting game of double-standard dating, less pay for the same jobs, slower promotions to management, constant resistance to their authority, and the worldwide pressure to forgive their man for his faults while eliminating all faults of their own.

  NO! Men could just rock and roll and get their things wet as much as they wanted. All they had to do was slip on a condom, yet they refused to do that half of the time because they “can’t really feel it that way.” However, to tell them these things would only send them into fits and immature rages. So Sharron decided only to listen. Listen and learn what she already knew. Men thought only about themselves and could not seem to get past the extensions of their petty erections. Because as powerful as they may be, they were hardly the only things popping up in the world.

  “Sharron, can I ask you a question?” Sean asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Have you ever thought about suicide?”

  “No. Not at all,” she answered.

  There was an extended silence between them.

  “Why?” she asked him back. He couldn’t possibly be thinking of killing himself. No way in the world would she believe that. Then again, Sean had always been a tad bit emotional. Could emotion push him over the deep end? Could it? Realistically?

  “I thought about it,” he said. “Not like I would do it or anything, but just as a thought, you know, as if you could start your entire life over again.”

  “But you can’t start all over again,” Sharron told him. It’s a cop-out to even think that way, she thought.

  “I know. It’s crazy, right? But I do think about it. I can’t lie about that,” he admitted.

  Why are you telling me this?! she wanted to ask. But she knew already. He was reaching out to her. He had no one else to understand his pain. Not like she could. They had a history together. They had a history of the minds that had never included the body, and the change of perception that clouded the mind because of it. His connection to Sharron was still pure, and still needful. And Sean still wanted Sharron to realize that she loved him in some way. Even if he had to shove her in through the back door with a desperate cry for help to deter his own fatality. Men could be that damned petty. They could be that damned childish!

  “So, what do you want me to say to you, Sean? I mean, I still don’t understand,” she finally addressed him.

  “I don’t really know. I guess I’m just …” He ran out of words to explain himself. Men usually did. Oh, sure, they could break down every part of politics, economics, war, and sports, but could never seem to explain their own emotions.

  “I think you do know what you’re trying to say, or what you’re trying to do,” Sharron snapped. She was beginning to lose her poise. The nerve of him, to use their closeness like that!

  “All I’m asking for is your support.”

  “My support for what? I’m giving you my support, Sean! I always have! But it seems more like you’re trying to twist my arm or something. Why are you even telling me all of this?”

  She was hurt. Not to say that she didn’t care, or that she did not feel for him. He just hadn’t bothered to adjust his emotional state since the last time they had spoken. And it wasn’t fair to her, to stress her out that way. Long distance. But Sean failed to see it. That pissed her off the most. His lack of courtesy. A friend uplifts and looks for upliftment. Friends do not wallow in the mud and ask you to jump in with them.

  What the hell is his problem?! Sharron thought venomously. No wonder his baby’s mother ran away from him.

  “You just don’t care about me at all, Sharron. Is that it? I’m just an old friend to you. You have your new life in St. Louis. It’s always been that way. Hasn’t it?”

  Sharron sighed, trying her best to regroup. She was not one to lose her patience. But boy was Mr. Love pushing her buttons!

  “Sean, you can’t keep blaming me or anybody else for wanting to live their life. You just c
an’t do that,” she pleaded to him.

  “Yeah, I understand. Everybody wants to get up and walk away from the fire when it gets too hot, and just forget about all of the ashes that are left behind,” he countered.

  “Well, those ashes are for you to clean up, and not anyone else, Sean. It’s your life. And you can’t impose yourself on people like you’re trying to do to me. It’s just not fair. You can’t see that?”

  “I see it all right,” he responded tartly. “I see that you don’t want to be bothered with me anymore. So I’ll just leave you the hell alone now. And have a nice life, sister.”

  When he slammed the phone down, it rang in Sharron’s eardrum, damaging her faith in goodness. Why be so supportive in the first place if you could never be supportive enough? Why care if you could never care enough? Why even respond, when your every response pushes you closer to making decisions you wanted no part of to begin with. But that was how many men had forced it to be, pushing a woman’s back up against the wall until it broke. Then as soon as it broke, they didn’t want you anymore. They would move on to hunt for new, improved women with stronger—or even weaker—spines, so that they could break their backs as well. Yet, they would complain to an empty wine bottle when you, the woman, jumped off of that wall and kicked their asses with your own power. Kicked their asses with your own mind. And kicked their asses with your own destiny. Oh, how they would cry like babies whenever a woman represented for herself. As if you were never supposed to do so. Ever! Or at least not without their permission and full acceptance, which of course had to be noncompetitive with their own softer-than-an-infant’s-ass egos.

  So Sharron was forced to reject Sean, again. And to hell with him! she told herself. Because as long as I’m alive, I want to see my heaven, misguided or not. Because heaven is not promised to any of us. But hell? Hell is just a dime in the bucket. And my life is worth a lot damn more than a dime!

  Dimes were all that some people allowed themselves to have in life. People like Anthony “Tone” Wallace. And while they dreamed of Benjamins—the face of American hundred-dollar bills—fortune, and fame, some people failed to understand that you had to work for it. Hard! Because real success was not based on a lottery system, or the luck of the draw. Nor was real love available without passion. In order to have it, you had to want it. Badly! And not just sometimes, but at all times. However, wanting it was not enough. It was only the beginning. You had to chase it, and be pressed about it, to the point of near perfection. Perfection, like that which Anthony “Ant” Poole chased in everything he attempted.