“I know.”
“Maybe we need to take a break from each other.”
“I think you’re right,” I said, and Carmen got out of bed.
She put her clothes on and moved to the door. “Good-bye, Tavarus.”
“Good-bye, Carmen.”
“Call me when you’re ready.”
“You too.”
“I’m ready now. You’re the one that needs to be ready for me. I love you,” Carmen said, and let herself out.
Chapter Ten
Tyhedra
Two things prevented me from staying at that bar and doing what I do: One, I really did come there to hear the band, I love good jazz; and the other was that I had told Tavarus my real name. I liked Tavarus. He seemed like a nice guy and he was a very handsome man. And even though I thought about killing him, I left him there and went somewhere else to do what I do.
I know that I said that things were going to be different here, but you know how shit can go sometimes. One minute I was living what I considered a normal life and the next, I was thinking about killing. In the short time I had been in Atlanta, I had gotten my consulting business started and had picked up a few clients. I was starting to feel like this city was going to be the place where I could put all that killing behind me. But there I was, sitting at another bar eyeing my prey.
The fact that I had actually made a date to have dinner with Tavarus wasn’t lost on me. And I actually planned on going. My thinking was that maybe if I met somebody like Charles, if I fell in love with a man, that I could finally put all the killing behind me for good.
But not tonight.
Tonight I was in what I call predator mode and I had the scent of my prey. I had been eyeing him for the last half hour and he sent me a drink. I motioned for him to join me. We talked at the bar for a while and then I suggested that we would be more comfortable at a table in the back of the bar. “I like the dark. It makes me wanna do things,” I said and stood up. “Why don’t you get us a couple of drinks and come join me,” I said and walked away. Before long, he arrived at the table with drinks and we talked. “Tell me about your wildest sexual fantasy?” I asked.
“This might sound crazy to you, and it not a fantasy because I’ve done it, but I like to have sex while I’m handcuffed to the bed.”
I smiled because he was making it too easy for me. “Do you have handcuffs?”
He laughed a little and looked away, but looked back quickly. “In the car. I never leave home without them. You never know when they’ll come in handy.”
I leaned close to him. “Maybe we should go find a bed to handcuff you to,” I said seductively, and gently touched his face.
“I’m ready when you are,” he said.
“I’m going to run to the ladies room,” I kissed him on the cheek, “why don’t you meet me outside?”
“Okay,” he said, got up quickly, and headed for the door.
It is so funny. When a man thinks he’s gonna get some pussy, he’ll do anything you say. I sat and watched him leave the bar. Then I sat there for a while longer before I went to the ladies room. Before I lef
t, I went to the bar and asked the bartender if I had paid my tab. “I don’t remember if I paid for that last drink,” I said.
“You did, honey,” he said, and then talked to me for a while about how most people would have just left without bothering to ask, and how he appreciated my honesty. Once I was sure that neither he nor anybody else in the place would connect me to leaving with my prey, which was how the LAPD got on to me, I left the bar. Of course my prey was still outside waiting like he was told.
“I was starting to think that you had changed your mind,” he said like they always do.
“No chance of that happening,” I said like I always do.
I followed him to a nearby motel and waited in the car until he paid for the room. I pretended to be on the phone, lying to my man, when he walked up. I put my hand over the phone and he told me what room he was going to die in. I waited until I saw him go in before I started up my car and drove out of the parking lot. I parked down the street and came back on foot. Once I had satisfied myself that nobody was in the parking lot, I made my way to the room and knocked on the door.
The door swung wide open. “Come on in,” he said. He was already butt naked, standing there rock hard, with the handcuffs swinging from his dick.
“You don’t waste any time, do you?” I said, and walked by him like his exhibition was no big deal, because it wasn’t.