Black Silk (33 page)

“Hey, what’s up?” he says.

She nods and quickly steps back and to the side to let him by.

“You might not remember me,” he starts but decides to change tack after looking at that tan band of thigh again; in a situation
like this, it’s not going to help to mention a girl’s father. “Wish they had this donut shop back at college. I could use
a jolt of fresh bowties to help me pull an all-nighter.” Awkward, but it got the right information across.

“College boy. I guess I’m getting impressed. Is that what you wanted?”

A stab in his left side. “No. Well, yes. Make a good first impression, always helps. Roy. Roy Williams.”

“So what’s up with you? I guess you’re back home for turkey and stuffing.”

He hesitates, not wanting to talk about his mother’s recent death and funeral. “Yeah. Thanksgiving break,” he says, bending
the truth. She’ll be impressed with his college credentials and keep talking to him. It’s only a short leave of absence from
school. He’ll be back next semester, he thinks, even though he doesn’t know for sure. How old could Luna’s little girl be?
Fifteen. Sixteen. Doesn’t fucking matter when she’s got it going on like that. Big time. Some Asian-Latina fried rice and
plantains. Her father’s Rican eyebrows and cheekbones and her mom’s tight little Japanese body. He’d run into Luna and his
wife over the years, always rushing off to some important appointment or event—sans daughter.

Roy’s fresh hot right-from-the-oven bowties are bagged and ready to go now, and he feels the other customers behind him pushing
forward for their orders. “Take it easy,” he says casually, almost under his breath—suggestively, he hopes—to Reefah and maneuvers
through the crowd and out the door.

The first bite melts into sweet vanilla pudding in his mouth. Standing in the middle of the sun-soaked sidewalk, he closes
his eyes for more than a blink and sways. Swoons. The sun has finally melted away the morning chill and is now slipping behind
the cornices of buildings. But for now the street is soaked in vanilla custard sun. In shop windows Christmas decorations
glitter silver and gold, cherry red and pine green. Bursts of white light bounce off the windshields of passing cars, blinding
Roy for brief moments, hiding him in sunshine. He closes his eyes again for more than a blink. Again. And again. Passersby
step around him. In the broad stripes of sun, a steady stream of life rolls by, on leash, on foot, on bicycles, in rusted
Chevys and new BMWs with tinted windows and chrome mag wheels—funny-looking dogs and grouchy old women, but mostly groups
of bouncing boys wearing baseball caps and down jackets that look like quilted balloons. Standing in the middle of the sidewalk,
he trembles in the sunlight that seems to be shining from within.

Reefah, who’s been watching him with a knowing smile, laughs; a flash of silver disappears in her mouth. “Sure beats Dunkin’
Donuts.”

“That’s for fucking sure.” After licking his fingers, he pulls out a pen and his datebook and quickly writes down his response
to his first taste of the donut, the bright sunlight of midday, and the urgent need to remember. He’s overwhelmed with remembrances.
“There’s this joke my dad always told about this woman who bites into a donut and, somehow, jelly shoots up both her nostrils.
Don’t ask me how she did it, Pop probably exaggerated the whole thing, but that guy, that same old fart in the donut shop,
tried to revive her, give her CPR or something, he was in such a panic, and a slug of jelly flew right out of her nose and
into his mouth and all he could do was swallow it.”

She grimaces. “That’s gross.”

“Isn’t it? My father used to tell stories like that all the time. Over and over again. And I’d be down on the ground laughing
every time.”

“When’d your dad die?”

“He’s not dead. It’s just—” he starts, but doesn’t know how to continue. He doesn’t want to talk about his father losing his
mind. Dementia. Some unknown form of senility. Not Alzheimer’s but something like it, he thinks to himself. He doesn’t want
to explain. He doesn’t want to talk about his mother’s death or having to leave school to take care of everything. He doesn’t
want to feel like his world has fallen apart anymore. Right now he wants to experience some new things, to find some new raw
material to replace all the old memories. Hesitantly, he continues his story. “I’d be on the ground rolling, thinking about
some guy swallowing jelly shot out of a lady’s nostril.”

“All that from a donut.”

“Oh yeah. I’ve probably been going to this donut shop longer than you’ve been living.” Roy’s sugar high has peaked and he’s
trying to make his thoughts slow down; he wants to take his story back and keep his father to himself. “I’m sorry. I sound
like one of those old heads that’s always talking about how everything used to be so much better, like, back in the day and
shit, as if that weren’t a couple of months ago. I’m sorry. Roy,” he says and extends his hand.

She takes his hand in both of hers. “Nice to meet you. Again. No more sugar for you, okay?” A flash of silver white light
disappears in her mouth again when she laughs.

“What’s that? What’s that in your mouth?”

“Oh, I got my tongue pierced this summer. It’s fun,” she says, and flicks her thin pointy tongue at him.

“Ouch,” he says, even though it bumps his sugar high to a different level, his crotch.

“Doesn’t hurt. Anymore. You just play with it. Oral gratification. Helped me quit smoking. It’s like attached worry beads.”

“Yeah, back at school, my friend Rupa has one. Pierced tongue, pierced nose and eyebrow, and earrings all around her ear.
Her face looks like a constellation, like it’s stuck full of silver shrapnel.”

It’s as if by frowning she’s saying,
Too much detail, too much sugar.
They start walking in the direction of Roy’s street, but they’re really not headed anywhere in particular. “So what were
you writing in that little book?”

“Things. I just write down little things. Notes to myself. If I’m thinking of something, I write it down. I usually can’t
read my own writing afterward, but then I remember what it was I was thinking. Things I hear people say. Things I read. Whatever.”

“Like?”

“Poems. Pieces of stories. Ideas. Good quotes. Things I want to remember. I write these things that are like somewhere between
a poem and a story and a novel. Like Bataille.”

“Like a good song that tells a story but if you read it, it doesn’t make sense.”

Even though her guess isn’t what he was thinking about, Roy wasn’t expecting her to be so smart, but he should have, considering
who her parents are. He was thinking more like sex as art. “I guess. Bataille wrote these little nasty stories.
The Story of the Eye.
It’s all about sex but’s all about everything. Ecstasy. Obsession. The way people have to live. It’s not a novel, really,
but it’s more than a story.”

“I saw a movie like that.” Roy doesn’t see any need to compare books to movies but, out of politeness, he lets her continue.
“Did you see that movie,
The Lover?
I love that movie.”

“Uh-uh.”

“The book’s better than the movie. For some reason my teacher told me I should read this book about growing up in China. No,
Vietnam. That’s right. So I rented the movie first. It’s about this French girl who has a Chinese lover and they fuck like
crazy but her family has to leave and go back to France.”

“Girls always read. I wish I was reading all that time when I was watching TV and playing Nintendo. Where you go to school?”

“The Academy for Social Change. In Williamsburg. I skipped ahead a few grades.” He knows she’s trying to impress him now;
and he is impressed. “It’s sort of alternative. We, like, study our community and how it relates to things like oppression,
colonialism, and revolution. We read things like
All Quiet on the Western Front. The Wretched of the Earth.
The Declaration of Independence. Articles about Haiti’s revolt against the French.
Survival in Auschwitz.
We watched the Million Man March on TV. Did you go? It’s about ending oppression right now, right here. In Brooklyn. In the
city.” Her genuine way of saying this excites him even more. A baby activist. She adds, “It’s more than a school, it’s like
a community center. People from the neighborhood come in and stuff.” She smiles, then quickly looks away, across the street,
biting on her lower lip.

Was that a signal? Is there something there? Someone over there? He wants to tell her his left side’s aching, his heart’s
palpitating, he wants her, he wants to say anything so they can stop wasting time and already know each other. Teasing takes
too long. He always wants to be honest with girls but he gets afraid, doesn’t know what they’ll do. What if he scares them
off? But right now, all he knows now is this: Like a plant leaning toward the sun, every muscle in his body is stretching
toward her, pulling his joints, organs, all the electrons in his body, tugged by some kind of energy coming from somewhere
inside of her, pulling him to her and her to him. “Cool. I’ve got to check this out. They didn’t have schools like that back
in the day.” He can’t help but try to make himself sound older than her, impress her, even though they’re maybe four years
apart.
What’s four, five years?
he asks himself as he looks down at that band of exposed thigh—honey in a leg-shaped bottle, with black knee-high socks and
ruby-red combat boots.

He can’t get over how there’s hardly any whites in her eyes, the irises are so big, like blossoms. “Want to hang out for a
while?” He buys a newspaper at the corner store.

“Oh, I don’t know.” She squints and looks into his eyes.

“Come on. We can watch a movie or something. And I have to go look after my dad, he sort of has something like Alzheimer’s
but it’s not. It’s different. And the nurse is getting off soon.”

She doesn’t say no and she doesn’t say yes. So, with his newspaper under his arm and his bag of donuts in his hand and the
cute girl beside him, he pushes forward toward home.

Inside, it takes a while for his eyes to adjust. The checkerboard of morning light in the living room has faded and it looks
as if Fami has straightened up a bit and gone home. He takes Reefah’s coat and hangs it up, offers her something to drink,
a glass of milk to go with her donuts. They settle down on the couch and watch TV. The reception’s bad. Meteor showers of
interference race across the screen; he tries to fix it first with the remote and then by playing with the cable box and jiggling
the wires in the back. When he sits back down he’s a little closer to Reefah. Nothing harmful in that. It’s going to take
a while to close the gap between them. Like a planet, moon, or satellite in orbit, he feels as if he’s set on a predetermined
course. To reach for the remote. To show her the photo albums he’s been looking at night after night, black-and-white pictures
of old Harlem streets and distant relatives from his mother’s side of the family. He tells her about his mother’s death and
his father’s slow deterioration and then decides talk like that’s not going to turn anyone on but doesn’t know what else to
say.

Then he becomes aware of something that was already there, as soft and warm as his favorite comforter. Is her thigh rubbing
against his? Has she leaned against him too long? Too hard? Her hand drifts down his stomach then hesitates and settles on
his belt. He doesn’t know if he likes it, the pressure of her hand near his crotch. Can he wait? Is she going too fast? His
pants are too tight and unyielding. He needs to shift everything to one side instead of letting his hard-on point down and
rub against his thigh; it feels too good, too soft touching his own skin, too hot and sweaty. Can he move? Should he take
control? As she places her hand right there, right on target, she looks him directly in the eye and sighs. It looks as if
her eyes are filled with shining black oil that spills down her cheeks. Is she crying? Is he forcing her? Roy opens himself,
his arms and his legs and his lungs to make sure he’s still breathing, and with a quick turn and strategic pivot, she pours
herself into the space he’s created; she straddles him, hip to hip, face to face, his whole body now filled with her. He pushes
his hands up under her shirt and rubs her hard nipples, spreads his fingers to touch more of her, cover more of her, feel
more of her, know more of her, be in control of her. She’s got to slow down. He squirms. Her skin is too hot.

Her hands tug and pull his belt open, his fly open. Because he doesn’t have underwear on, his hard-on leaps out of his pants.
She takes his cock in her hand and, as if in approval, as if in response to hold him, her mouth becomes a black-filled O.
Her hands move fast and assured, tugging his pants down, feeling what she can’t see. What’s she doing down there, measuring
his cock with her fingers? She giggles and sighs as she rubs the head to the base of his hard cock, and then guides him inside
her. He begins anew, to stretch, up his spine, his neck, to the top of his head and down his pelvis, his legs, to the tips
of his toes, lifting him up off the couch, pushing his face into her covered breast. They kiss for the first time with such
force that their teeth click. Or was it her pierced tongue? It hurts. “You okay?” he asks but her answer is to bite his lower
lip, which forces him to open his eyes—he remembered that he could open his eyes—and he sees her as if for the first time,
not the pretty girl, not his friend Luna’s daughter, but he sees in her shining black eyes nothing less than the endless sky
filled with radiant stars.

It feels really good. Fucking good. The silver bead on her tongue leaving trails, from his ear to neck, chin, and nose. He
leans back on the couch and slides his hands up her thighs to where her legs join her torso. He really wants to see her, her
pubic hair, her tight pussy, her tender clit and folded lips; he wants to make sure that this is true, that this is really
happening, and he’s fucking her the way she wants to be fucked. He tries to pull her skirt up but she pushes her weight down
on him harder, keeping him in check. With his thumbs, he searches for her clit and rubs, hardly touching the head, until she
begins to shudder and quake, and her sighs turn to low moans that she doesn’t want to let out, it seems. “Oh yeah,” he responds
and rubs faster. He’s there but he’s not ready, not yet, he’s got to hold on, but he can’t. Constellations contract. Stars
implode. And the rocket, man, doesn’t wait for the countdown to reach zero.