The Other Side of the Pillow

“Well, I appreciate your somewhat faith in me. I’m willing to prove what type of man I am, and it’s going to take time and consistency. I get that. You can trust me. I would never lie to you. Anything you ask me, I’ll be truthful. That’s the only way this could ever work. We have to tell each other the truth . . . about everything.”

I sat there thinking about what he had just said.

“Then I need to tell you something,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“When I met you, I was sexually active with two different men.”

I felt Tevin clench up a little. I am sure he never expected that and I damn sure knew that I couldn’t tell him that I had fucked Anthony right before I met him for dinner. I did feel it was imperative for me to come clean. Secrets tended to show up in the most unexpected places, and DC was so small, there was a good possibility that Tevin and I would run into either Anthony or Gregory at some point. For all I knew, he actually could have been acquaintances with one of them, considering the fact that all I ever wanted in regards to them was their dicks.

“Let me explain. I was having sex with them, but I wasn’t emotionally connected to either. And that was on purpose. Even though both of them wanted to pursue something more, I refused. Having sex with them was a way of taking care of my needs and proving that I could exercise some type of control over my emotions.

“There was a time when my vagina was directly connected to my heart. If you didn’t have my heart, then you couldn’t even think about touching my pussy. But then, after each failed relationship, I became more and more disillusioned when it came to loving a man, or being loved by one.

“I even considered becoming a lesbian, but I’m not attracted to women, and from seeing Winsome go through drama with chick after chick, that’s definitely not the answer. So I wanted to be touched; I wanted to touch back.”

Tevin rubbed his hands on his thighs uncomfortably.

“I’m only telling you this because you expect honesty, and that’s fair. I stopped sleeping with both of them after our first official date at Oceanaire. I blocked their numbers and haven’t contacted them since.”

“That’s kind of cold, isn’t it?” Tevin asked.

“I don’t see it that way. Both of them understood that there was nothing there, and that eventually it would come to an end. I met you and I felt guilty about them. Crazy, but true. We’d just met and I already felt some kind of obligation to you.”

“And why do you think that is?” he asked.

I shrugged.

“Fate, maybe. The feeling that everything that I had ever been through and endured might have brought me to you. The fact that even though you watched me spew out all of that venom, you still asked me out. The chemistry I felt with you the second we laid eyes on each other.

“Part of me felt like it died a long time ago. But there was another part of me that was still alive.”

I kissed Tevin lightly on the lips.

“I want to try. I want to try to make this work . . . whatever this is. As much as I am flattered about being the woman that you want, it’s more important for me to be the woman that you need . . . in all ways.”

“You are the woman that I need, Jemistry.”

“I want to be, but you’re going to have to be patient with me if we take this further, and I don’t mean waiting for sex. I want to make love to you . . . tonight. But once we get into this, I don’t want you to feel slighted or get angry with me when I voice my insecurities or shut down from time to time while I try to climb onto the next plateau. It took a couple of decades to turn me into this mess; the cleanup is not going to happen overnight.”

“I understand everything that you’re saying, and I’m prepared. I’ll do whatever it takes to make you happy, so that I can be happy.”

I eyed him seductively. “So why don’t you take me to bed so we can discover our happiness?”

Chapter Eleven

“Love is of all the passions the strongest, for it attacks, simultaneously the head, the heart, and the senses.”

—Lao Tzu

Are you sure about this?” Tevin asked as he laid me down on the king-sized bed after carrying me into the bedroom where my luggage was located. “I can wait.”

“Wait for what?” I responded. I stood up on my knees and started unbuttoning the flannel pajama top. “Wait for global warming to end the world, which could happen tomorrow? Wait for one of us to come up with an excuse not to do it? We came up here to be alone, and we are. Our cell phones are off; you’re not on call; so all we have between us is space . . .” I licked a trail down the middle of his chest, “. . . and opportunity.”

I pulled his top down over his massive, muscular shoulders, and then let it fall to the floor. Then I pulled my own over my head and tossed it beside his. I started unfastening my bra.

“I want you, Tevin. I want you to devour me, partake of everything that I have to give. I want you to make all of my pain go away . . . all of my fears. I want you to make me forget my past. I want you to make me even more excited about the future than I am already.”