Queen Move

“Whose are you?” I’ve never asked another woman for this, never needed it. But at the core of who I am, I know I belong to Kimba. I want to hear that she feels the same.

“I belong to myself,” she says, a spark of defiance in her eyes. “And to the boy who married me when I was six years old.”

I pull back and stare down into her eyes, alive with love and peace and fire. “You remember.”

“I remember everything. You owe me a lifetime.”

The distance between us is a physical ache when she’s saying the things I’ve dreamed of hearing, reflecting the words that have been locked away in my heart for years. Treasures I thought would rot, would fade with age, but never have. Our love is as bright and real as the day we were made together. I plunge into her body, and she wraps herself tightly around me, arms and legs clutching me to her. I brace one hand on the headboard, curl my arm under her knee and push in deeper, finding no resistance, only a warm, wet, tight welcome.

I surrender to every primal urge I’ve checked. I fall through the trap door to my basest desires, biting her neck, her breasts. Slamming into her with such force that the headboard bangs the wall and the bed slides.

“Oh my God, Ez.” She drops her arms behind her, over her head, giving her body to me completely. “As hard as you want. As long as you want. Just keep fucking me like that.”

I seize the fullness of her ass in one hand, squeezing, pushing in deeper, urging our bodies beyond the limits of flesh and bone. That place where we’re joined is a gateway to what I want more than anything. I’m desperate to reach her heart, her soul.

We claw and bite and sigh and snarl until her body trembles beneath me with sobs and shudders. Even after she comes, I go on, needing to release, but not wanting this to end in case it’s all a dream. When I come, it’s with a primal roar that ricochets through my marrow and tears at my throat.

We lie there in the dark, our bellies pressed together, a tangle of sweat-slicked limbs and hurried heartbeats. I can’t imagine leaving her body right now, so I don’t. Our skin cools and our breathing evens into a quiet that doesn’t need breaking. We rest in our own thoughts and in each other’s arms.

“I need to tell you something,” she finally says.

“Okay.” I find her hand, link our fingers. “What is it?”

“I’m in…” Her fingers tighten on mine and I hear her swallow. “I’m in perimenopause, Ez.”

I don’t know what peri in the front of it means, but I do recognize menopause.

I reach over to turn on the light, but she stops me. “Don’t.”

Reluctantly, I pull out and lie down to face her, making out the shape of her face in the moonlight slanting in through the window

“You’re too young for that, right?”

“It is early, but it happens for different women at different times. This is when it’s happening for me.”

“So what does this mean?”

She hesitates. An uncharacteristic uncertainty hangs around her. She’s always sure, but right now, even in the dark, I see that she is not.

“I haven’t had a

period in four months, almost five now. I may have a year, eighteen months to have a baby naturally. It’s hard to know, but there is a definite, shrinking window. There’s an expiration date in the near future.”

I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed sometimes. It takes me a few moments to realize the uncertainty, at least in part, might be because of me.

“You don’t think it makes a difference to me, do you? I know this is a big deal, and I’ll support you whenever it gets hard, but I’ll love you no matter what. You know that, right?”

“You’re a great father,” she says, somewhat haltingly. “Earlier you admitted to wanting more kids. I don’t want to be presumptuous, but I think we have some kind of future together.”

“That’s not presumptuous at all. I know you’re in D.C. and are on the road a lot, and I’m here in Atlanta. We’ll work it out but make no mistake. You are my future, Kimba.”

“I feel the same way, which is why I wanted you to know that it’s possible I won’t ever have kids naturally. I’m still deciding what I want to do.”

“What’s the decision? What are you considering?”

“I want to elect Georgia’s first Latino governor.”

“And you will.”