long lines of white men and women waiting to get their hair cornrowed for twenty to thirty dollars a pop.
We were able to hail one of the many cabs that waited nearby for tourist. The gentleman was pleasant and welcomed our approach. He had the face of an old spoat (old school, Black southern version of sport), dapper if you please. His hair was silvery gray around the temples and his face was etched with character lines and the beginning of a five o’clock shadow. His teeth were as white as snow. I couldn’t tell if they were natural or if he had bought them from the dentist.
“Are you family?”, he said with a smile that was only upstaged by his buttery smooth Bahamian accent.
“Newlyweds, yeah?”
“Uh yeah,” was the best that I could do under the circumstances.
“Yah Family?”, he asked again. Terri and I looked at him as if he were speaking a lost language.
“What’cha last name?”
“Sweet/Black,” was the best that Terri and I could do as we spoke simultaneously.
“Sweet,” I strongly stated as I cut my eyes at her playfully.
I was afraid to relax because I thought the imposter would jump back into Terri’s body and take me for another unwanted emotional rollercoaster ride. We decided to go on an informal tour of our own to see if there was anything we could get into. The more we walked, the more relaxed I became. Before I knew it, we were holding hands. Now this is how it is supposed to be. When a brother decides to cut off his access to all of the honeys in the world, I think he should get some special treatment or something. After walking what seemed like the perimeter of the entire island, we headed back to our room. God knows I wanted to peel Terri like a Chiquita banana and take a bite from the middle of her banana split or somewhere, and I do mean just about anywhere, but I remembered what my Essence notes said, “Don’t rush or pressure the woman.” So, I didn’t. I suggested that we go down to the beach and check out the water. To my surprise Terri agreed. We quickly entered the room and hopped into our swimsuits.
Off to the beach we went. I felt this adventurous vibe flowing from her. I hadn’t felt this vibe from her since the night my car broke down on northbound I-95 trying to get back to the university campus. A farmer headed to Daytona picked us up. We jumped on the back of his big flatbed truck and huddled together to stay warm. Before you knew it, we were kissing and working things out on the back of a total stranger’s truck at 80 miles per hour. Now, that was a night to remember. “Could this be one of those nights?” Finally, we got to the beach. She looked sexy in her red and white swimsuit. She looked good enough to eat. I must admit, I did look kind of good in my lifeguard gear too. We played in the water like we used to when we would have midnight rendezvous on the Fort Lauderdale beach near the Yankee Clipper Hotel on the swings or on the rocks behind the hotel. I even asked a couple of older white ladies to take our picture while we were in the water. I wasn’t worried about them taking our camera, because I sized them up before I asked the favor and was sure I could outrun them, or beat both of them down. We posed and played for the camera. All of the hugging and kissing aroused me almost to the point of passing out.
We began to walk down the white sand beach under the constant watch of a full moon that seemed close enough to touch. The water washing up on the beach reminded me of the scene from the old movie, From Here to Eternity. I wanted to lay her down in the sand and plant a big Hollywood movie kiss on her, but you know a black woman was not about to lie down and get sand in her hair. Let’s see, wet and sandy? I didn’t even have to read Essence to know the answer to this word problem─“I know you didn’t touch my hair!”, or “This hair do has got to last me for two good weeks”! I tried to prolong the romantic moment as long as I could, but the activity in my swimsuit made it look like I was wearing a purple and gold tent. Essence note number seven: “Be as cool as you can when the Love Jones comes down. Surely you don’t want to scare her mutual desire away.” I’m glad I subscribed to Essence magazine. I felt like I was taking a test and I had all the answers. She resisted for a moment as I gently pulled her toward the elevator.
“Stop!”, she cooed in a voice so soft and sweet.
“Come on Terri” I urged, while trying to keep a pleasant tone, I was thinking, “Damn, I have been married almost three days and the first time we made love was the morning after the wedding and she acted like she was doing me a favor.” Now here I am begging for some lovin’ like I’m Teddy Pendergrass, Keith Sweat or the ugliest man in the world. I did my best to maintain a loving demeanor, so she seemed to give in to my urging. We hustled over to the open elevator and dashed in. The doors closed and I gave her a kiss that could have given life to a dead woman. I swear I felt so eager; I could have eaten her entire head. I pressed the emergency stop button and the elevator jerked to a stop and she was so into the rising heat between us, it appeared as if she didn’t even notice. I pulled her so close, that if she would have gotten any closer to me, I would have been standing behind her. The feel of her curvaceous body in my arms was intoxicating. The pressure of her full lips against mine, combined with the feel of all of her tailor-made buttocks in the full grip of both of my hands damn near made me see stars. To tell you the truth, I don’t know if it was the combination of her lips and hips, or the fact that my hunger was so hard and flushed that it seemed like every drop of blood in my body had gone there to see what all of the excitement was about.
I pressed her petite body against the cool stainless-steel wall in the elevator. I lifted her left leg up and began to manually stimulate her warm and dripping nest of womanhood to the next level of excitement, with the fingers of my right hand. My God! Is this the same woman that just moments earlier acted as if she would have rather played hopscotch than to follow me to our room? Women always give a brother a hard time about not knowing what they need. Hell, they don’t even know what they want when they want it. But, believe me when I tell you, I flowed with the moment. With absolute joy and anticipation, I lifted her off of the floor by cupping her full round hips in the palms of my hands. Like raising a cool wet watermelon to my hungry smile on a hot summer day. I gently lunged my tongue forward to verify the ripeness of her sweet summer fruit. My tongue yielded to the full pucker of my lips. “Ummm”, lip-to-lip contact with her sweet watermelon as it nervously communicated the state of her true emotions at this moment. “My gracious!” It was as if I were a giant who reached down to take a refreshing drink out of the Motherland’s Victoria Falls. I pulled back from kissing her and her eyes rolled forward to their natural position in her head. Her grip on my ears and the movement of her eyes resembled a shark in the throws of a feeding frenzy. The bell on the elevator rang and we quickly snapped back to reality. Terri looked like she had taken the best punch Mike Tyson had ever thrown. I moved to the control panel and glimpsed the reflection of my face shining like a glazed Krispy Kream doughnut. Releasing the elevator, I hoped we would reach our floor before anyone got into the elevator with us. Another bing and the lights on the panel registered the fifth floor. The door slid open, and an elderly black couple got into the elevator. The man made the eye contact I tried to avoid. He looked me square in the eyes and gave me his best eighty-year-old wink.
“Newlyweds?”, the lady asked Terri.
“Yes Ma'am,” Terri replied as she looked at the floor of the elevator. There was an awkward silence.
“You can’t get it all at one time. Believe me I know. Honey and I have been married for sixty years, and we still got a lot more to get,” whispered the lady loudly like a seasoned kindergartener.
The lady chuckled to herself. If Terri were a white woman, her face would have been beet red. Bing-bing, the elevator panel read Penthouse. Terri and I said goodbye as if we had just been caught stealing cake and we had icing on our fingers and lips.
“Love her and take care of her. You hear?”, the man said.
“Stay
