Chocolate Flava Read online

  Stammering on, she explained, “I developed the beginning of a migraine headache and took some medicine to ward it off. I guess it worked too well. I’m so sorry. I know you have a time constraint, and here I am, nowhere near ready.”

  “I’ve got a better idea. You know, Allah is the best of planners. Maybe this is what we were supposed to do—get some food delivered, listen to some very good music, and talk. We’ve never had enough time to really enjoy knowing each other, so let’s make the best of it.”

  Since D.C. was undergoing major urban renewal with an influx of different kinds of city dwellers, many businesses had cropped up to cater to busy, single, urban pioneers. One such enterprise was a food delivery service that boasted an extensive menu of American and international foods. Nasir ordered Tex-Mex because he loved salsa, which he referred to as “the red stuff,” and Carrie chose Tom Yum Soup, one of her Thai food favorites, full of spicy noodles, chicken, and lemon-grass in a spicy fish broth. Hope I have some Big Red gum, she thought.

  Over food, drink, and wonderful music, they talked about their pasts and their future aspirations. He had become a Muslim many years ago and spoke reverently and earnestly about his faith. Answering her questions about the role of women in Islam, he clarified many popular misconceptions and piqued her interest in a religion that came close to her philosophy of the God of many prophets but no offspring. They spoke of each other’s families and his keen desire to have children.

  “At last,” Etta James sung low and sweet. “My love has come along…” Their eyes met at the moment created by the music and their unspoken desire for each other was obvious.

  “I want you,” he said simply.

  Opening his arms to her and drawing her face to his, he kissed her, deeply and tenderly. Wrapping her arms around him, she caressed him, holding him as if she had finally found the one thing she needed to make her life complete.

  He lifted his sweater over his head, revealing a chest softly covered by a curly mat of hair. Her eyes traveled down to the waist of his pants and she breathed in quickly at the sight of his navel and the thicker thatch of hair just below. As they held each other, she said to him, “I know this was supposed to happen. I know it in my heart, instead of just in my body. You’ve been in my heart for a long time. I just had to find you.”

  “And now we have found each other. But before we go any further, I need you to know this. Some people automatically think that if a brother is in prison, he must be having sex with a man and lying about it. When the urge hit me, I would masturbate and believe me, I learned to do it good. If a man cares for a woman enough to make love to her, part of that caring is to protect her. So I brought protection for us both, to accommodate any kind of love we want to make; just in case this was in fact the right time.”

  Wordlessly, they removed their clothes and stood skin to skin, her nipples brushing his chest. Guiding him over the same trail she took during her explorations in self-pleasure, they began a discovery of their own. The scents of sandalwood and vanilla again filled the room as he poured a thin stream of the fragrant oil onto the middle of her back. His fingers caressed her, and were soon followed by strokes from his erect penis. Sliding up and down her back with the circular motion of his hips, he stroked her, moaning, “Mmm…mmm, baby, baby.”

  She reached back and parted herself as he slid into the slick crease of her behind.

  “Let me look at you,” he said. She turned onto her back as he gently spread her legs and then the center of her that opened up like a dark wet rose at his touch. “Ahh, right there,” she gasped, as he made sweet hot circles with his finger. He plunged his finger deep inside her, then out again, as she worked her hips furiously in rhythm with him. Remembering the times she could only touch herself, she thought, There could be nothing I could do that is as good as this….

  He paused to give her a deep soul kiss. “You’re so sweet to me. I would love to taste us together, but that will come in time.”

  “I want that, too, but right now I want you in me up to the hilt, deep and hard.”

  Eager to please, he rode her like a beautiful stallion, muscles flexing, in and out, both of them gasping at the sweet hot center of pleasure they had created. “Give it to me, baby! Ohh, that is so good! Do it to me, do it to me, baby! Damn, you’re so sweet and so tight. So sweet…”

  Their words gasped in passion, the scent of sex and the sounds the union of their bodies made together fueled their senses until they were lost to everything but each other.

  “Wait, please, baby,” she gasped, and drew him up to her face. He kneeled over her and she took him deep into her mouth, the flavor of the condom now mixed with her own juice. “Now give it to me here like you gave it to me there.” She sucked him deep and sweet until he came with a shuddering explosion; a “tongue-lashing” of the finest order.

  Full, complete, and content, they lay wrapped in each other’s arms until the reality of his curfew caused them to reluctantly part at the last possible minute.

  “Can’t go back smelling like pussy,” he joked as he washed off quickly. “Although some brothers have come back like that, deliberately. They just want to let everybody know they got some. I ain’t on that kind of time—all I need is for you and me to have the memory of how good we were together.”

  Because Carrie had no knowledge of the true nature of addiction, she was unaware of the signs of his relapse although she began to see differences in the man she first knew. What began as inconsistencies and erratic behavior came to a head one cool spring night when Nasir appeared at her door, sweating, wild-eyed, and disheveled.

  “I know there’s a warrant out against me,” he spoke breathlessly, rapidly stepping from one foot to the other. “I walked away from the halfway house yesterday.” Sticky white foam caked in the corners of his mouth as he spoke and she was deeply shocked at his appearance.

  “Oh, no!” she cried, reaching out to hold him. “Can’t you just go back and make the best of it? Won’t it matter if you just turn yourself in?”

  “It don’t matter what I do now. They still gonna send me back. But I just wanted to see you one more time, even though I realize I disappointed you badly. I want to tell you, in spite of what you may believe, that I love you.”

  Sobbing, trying to retain some kind of control over her emotions, she cried softly, “I love you, too. Please, if there’s anything I can do to help you, tell me!”

  “I have to go, baby. Please take care of yourself! I just want you to believe me. I’m sorry. I just fell weak—again,” he cried, as he sped down the steps and into the darkness of Fourteenth Street.

  Heartsick from the losses of both his freedom and their beginning love for each other, she immersed herself in work and study. One night while she was working on a new design, the phone rang. “This is AT&T with a collect call from…” The recording hesitated and she heard Nasir speak his name in its pause. “An inmate in the District of Columbia Department of Corrections. If you accept this call, dial one now.” She pressed one and waited. She heard his voice, tentative and unsure. “Hi, baby…”

  “Where are you? I was so worried, I didn’t know what to do or who to call. I had no idea where you would be sent—”

  “Baby, it’s okay. I’m right here in the D.C. jail. I have to wait until they decide what to do with me. I may be sent back to Lorton.”

  “Lorton? Isn’t that somewhere in Virginia? How far away is it?”

  Laughing at her rush of words, he cut in. “Slow down, baby. It’s not far, right outside D.C., and there are buses and vans that bring visitors, if you want to see me. I’ll write you and let you know what to do, because I don’t want to run up your phone bill. We only have ten minutes and I just want to tell you that I have never been happier than when I was with you. If I ever can, I promise I will make it up to both of us. Love you, baby. ’Bye.”

  This is surely going to be an experience, she thought. Carrie was amazed at the number of people congregated between Eleventh and
Twelfth streets. I have no idea what to do and who to ask, but I’m about to find out.

  Vans, cars, women, and children lined the street in front of Woodies, between F and G streets in downtown D.C. One of D.C.’s landmark department stores, it was also transportation central for wives, girlfriends, mothers, children, and other relatives of inmates at D.C.’s correctional facility in Lorton, VA. Some came dressed casually and comfortably while others dressed in a manner that expressed the importance of looking good for the men in their lives.

  One young woman, resplendent in gold chains hung with charms, designer jeans, shoes, and a fresh hairdo, bragged to her girlfriend. “Yeah, girl, I just sent my baby two cards for our one-month anniversary and some Timberlands. When them guards turn they heads, I’m gonna give him one a these chains.”

  “What the fuck you talkin’ ’bout?” her friend exploded. “He ain’t away at college. His ass in jail! What do he need wit’ all that shit anyhow? To show off for the rest of them jailbird assholes? So he can profile in jail? Y’all make me sick—acting like just ’cause they black and in jail they some kind of political prisoner! That muthafucka ain’t Nelson Mandela or Robin Hood—he a straight-up thug and yo’ ass know it. And on top of everything else, who was he robbin’, cheatin’, and stealin’ from—other black folks! Shit, if he want a gold chain, gold watch, or gold teeth, his ass ought to get a job like the rest of us. You know what—I’m tired of bringin’ your butt down here every week, but that shit gon’ stop! Catch the fuckin’ bus!” Still cussing as she reached into her purse for keys, she angrily looked back at her friend who was by then running to get a place in a van, oblivious to the sense behind her friend’s tirade.

  “Excuse me…” Carrie approached a sister who looked less likely to explode and asked how the transportation system worked. She decided to ride in a van. Even though the cost for riding in a van was higher, it was less crowded with a more flexible schedule. Missing a van meant boarding the long bus that she referred to as the “stretch Metro” with its accordion-pleated center that literally bent around corners on its route through the city.

  Paying her fare, Carrie boarded a van whose driver operated his vehicle like a conductor and talked nonstop.

  “Yeah, I was in Lorton years ago, for child support. But now I got my own business and I’m doing well. Look at me, I’m sixty-five years old and I got me a forty-year-old girlfriend. I know what to do, y’all. She told me she can’t get enough….”

  Oh, shit, Carrie thought. Come on, Dick Tiger, just drive your van and get us there. I hope he doesn’t have anymore “my ding-a-ling” stories. Dick Tiger was a Nigerian boxer who had won the world middleweight championship in the sixties. Although she had never seen him, the name was perfect for the image that came to mind whenever an older man boasted of his virility.

  Just then, a woman took over the conversation, which swirled around one of the many rumors surrounding the jail and its prisoners, apparently always rampant. Today the story centered around a female corrections officer involved with an inmate, apparently a regular part of prison life. The sister spoke angrily about her own situation. She had recently married her longtime boyfriend at the prison, and was incensed.

  “Every time I would come down for a visit, that bitch would grit on me. One day I got tired of that shit and I told her ‘That is my man! I know where you live and I will come to your house and beat your ass if I ever hear of you tryin’ to fuck with him.’ ”

  Adding her two cents’ worth, another traveler spoke in dry amusement. “Some of them po-lice bitches ain’t thinking ’bout no co-rrection. They thinkin’ ’bout e-rection. Now don’t get me wrong—most of them sisters is cool. They let you slide on the pat-down and everybody need a job, but some of them took that job so they could wear them tight-ass pants around a bunch a dudes!”

  Well, well, take me to school, Carrie thought. If I ain’t getting an education today…

  The van wound its way through the entrance to the prison. The maximum facility, its first stop, loomed like a ruined medieval castle.

  All it needs is a moat with some alligators and archers at the turrets, she thought in amazement.

  The central facility, also known as Big Lorton, was where Nasir was housed. Men milled around dressed in blue pants, light blue shirts, and jackets, and were housed in dorms as if they belonged to Uncle Sam. In fact, the facility had been a military installation before being taken over as the District’s prison.

  In the gym-like visitors’ room, she waited with anticipation, not knowing what to expect. Her heart stopped and started again when she saw him come through the door, his eyes never leaving her face. She stood as he beckoned her, and walked to meet him. Reaching for her hand, he found seats for them.

  “I know you told me you would come, but I was afraid to believe it, even after they called my name, until I saw you when I came through that door.”

  Facing each other in the seating arrangement mandated by the prison, they embraced and kissed deeply, sharing as much love as could be had under the watchful eyes of the corrections officers.

  “I feel like I’m being chaperoned at a high school dance,” she remarked, as correctional officers stood around and sometimes walked up and down between the rows of couples.

  “You’d be surprised at how creative some of these brothers and sisters can get.” He laughed as he pointed out an officer walking toward a pair who were about to get too close for his comfort.

  That was the first of many visits for the two years that followed. She came for the religious celebration of Eid, which celebrates the end of the holy month of Ramadan. She traveled to the prison for family days, holidays, and most weekends. In spite of its limitations, prison was the forge that fired, molded, and shaped their relationship and strengthened rather than diminished the love that others dismissed as temporary and ill-advised. They grew stronger together, in spite of never-ending unwanted advice. “Girl, you got to get you some. You can do better than a man in prison. He’s just using you.”

  Nasir and Carrie also discovered the whole of each other, not just the romantic ideal that existed at the beginning of their relationship. He had a volatile temper and she found him at times to be harsh and abrasive. To him, she was overly sensitive and too quick to “get all in her feelings” as he described her emotional reactions.

  And too often huge phone bills threatened their communication and their delicious, erotic phone sex play. He would sit at the phone, wrapped in a blanket, while she lay on her bed, each whispering and stroking themselves to orgasm.

  “Hold it in your hand and look at it, baby,” she breathed. “See that line underneath going to the head of your dick? That’s the spot I like and the spot I’m going to lick when I have you in my bed—when I lay you down, straddle you, and wet you with my honey from top to bottom. I wish you could see my pussy now, baby. I wish you could feel my pussy muscles put a hold on your dick and suck it dry. It’s wet and juicy and my finger is going in and out and it’s making that sound that drives you crazy and you know you like how it smells when I’m hot. Just waiting for you to suck it and lick it, baby. Just waiting for you to lap it up like cream.”

  He heard her make a soft, hissing sound. He knew she was about to come and whispered, “Come on, baby….” The sound of her pleasure caused his seed to shoot out into the tissue he held in his hand under the blanket. “Whew…mm, mm, mm,” he breathed. “Can’t wait for another bedtime story, baby.”

  Her love sustained him in prison and his love supported her wait for him. She listened to Al Jarreau a lot. His songs were soothing to her in the middle of the night when she especially missed Nasir, and these words were their anthem: “The love that heals the wound after the war is through.” Their pledge to each other was that nothing and no one could break the circle they created for themselves. They would be together “forever and a day.”

  True to their word, two years later, they stood together.

  “Don’t turn around,” she whispe
red softly, standing close enough for him to feel her warmth and again smell the vanilla and sandalwood scent he had used on her body that first time. Soft hands gently covered each side of his chest, her fingers stroking his nipples through the down of hair covering his torso. A deep sigh escaped his lips, turning to soft gasps of pleasure as her tongue flicked in and out of his ear, a particular point of pleasure for him. Her travels took her from the nape of his neck to the curve of his behind, while stroking him into an iron-hard erection.

  Standing before him again, she slowly removed her rose-colored robe, followed by each item of pastel pink lingerie, which made a pool of silk before him on the floor. She remembered that he liked her in pink, and in preparation for this day had made a special-order selection from a sister-owned adult fantasy boutique in the city.

  He bent to pick the garments up, bringing them to his face, inhaling her scent. His eyes devoured her beauty as he spoke. “Forever and a day is how long we said we’d be together. But while I was away, I would lie awake at night, replaying in my mind the times we were together, aching with wanting you and stroking myself thinking of you. I was imagining how it could be again and tried to rid myself of the thoughts of another man loving you, touching and tasting you instead of me.”

  Her words reassured him as her touch continued to arouse him. “I want a man that I can depend on, a man who won’t make me hold my breath and wonder what’s next. I have always believed that man was you and never gave away what I always felt was yours. If there were someone else, I would have told you. If there were someone else, this room with you and me together would not happen. You have always been the man for me.”

  Following a deep and passionate kiss, he began to take his tongue down the center of her body. Remembering how sexually sensitive they were, he left a heated trail across each of her swollen nipples, licking circles around them and stroking each with the pads of his thumbs. “Oh…my…God!” she gasped, each word punctuated with pleasure. Reaching between her legs, he searched for and found her wet, diamond-hard clitoris. Encircling it with his finger, he began to slide it back and forth, in and out of her “sweet spot” as he loved to call it. She worked her hips in time with his touch, and with her eyes closed, completely abandoned herself to the pleasure building at her center.