Three Years Ago
“I know for a fact there’s at least three women somewhere in the world calling you their man,” I said to Amadi when he came out of the bathroom. The diamond mine between my legs was swollen and tender, but as I watched his half-hard dick bounce against his leg as he walked, I still contemplated another round or two.
“What are you talking about?” He pulled his boxers over narrow hips and crawled next to me in bed.
“If you gave any other woman what you just gave me, she thinks you belong to her.”
“Hmm. It was good like that, huh?” He smirked, sidestepping my question altogether. I wasn’t one for stroking a man’s ego like that, but when the dick was god-tier, I couldn’t deny it.
“You know how to use what God gave you,” I admitted.
He nudged my legs apart with his shoulder and rested his head between my thighs. This kind of intimacy was somewhat foreign to me. Of the men I’d been with, the majority of them were gone from my bed and apartment minutes after the condom came off. The only real adult relationship I’d been in lasted for about a year, and he didn’t do cuddling or physical affection. It was new to me, but Amadi looked and felt at home right there.
“But you sure it ain’t a woman out here waiting for you to come home and knock her pelvic floor loose?” He cackled loudly.
“Do you think I belong to you now?”
“What?”
I didn’t want to give the first answer that popped in my mind. Of course I thought he and that dick belonged to me, but I wasn’t a goofy and would never admit that. When it was good like that, they almost always were sharing it with whoever they wanted to.
He maneuvered between my legs until his face was inches from the heat rising at my center. She throbbed, knowing her new owner was near. With his eyes boring into my face he said, “You’re saying my dick makes women think I belong to them, so do you think I belong to you?”
I backed myself into this corner; I couldn’t fault Amadi for asking the question when I put the subject on the table in the first place. Why did it matter if some woman thought Amadi was her man? He wasn’t mine. Before he fucked me ten different ways and talked me through a handful of orgasms, I hadn’t been checking for him like that. So why was I pressing him about his relations with other women? When the sun came up, we’d separate and go back to lives that didn’t involve any of what transpired in this bed.
“Answer me, Marie,” he insisted. The deep intonation of his voice, the stern, unwavering glare, and the knowledge of what he was capable of set me on edge. But that same tone told me to answer, lest I be snatched up and fucked through another round of orgasms that would make it impossible to let him leave.
“No, I don’t think that.”
I was literally thanking God for Amadi and this night would definitely find its way into a few of my songs, but I was a big girl. I’d be okay when he left.
“Mm. Why do you think you’re here right now, Marie?”
“What do you mean?”
“In my bed, satiated from hours of pleasure, ready to fall asleep in my arms.”
“Because that’s where the night lead us,”I replied simply. The facts were the facts; timing, proximity, and opportunity aligned to create this moment. It wasn’t about anything else. Amadi nodded and shrugged his shoulders.
“It could be that. But it’s deeper. Much deeper.”
“Deeper? How?”
You’re in my bed because the night lead us here, sure, I’ll give you that. But satiated from hours of pleasure? Cuddled up ready to fall asleep in my arms? The way your breathing and heartbeat have slowed to match mine? That’s the result of me waiting a long time to have you.”
Amadi stopped talking but I stared at his mouth, waiting for more words to come and help make sense of the first few. His statements didn’t match up with my understanding of our relationship up to this point. In high school we were close. Not best friends-close, but we ran in the same friend group for years. When we started leaning into art and passion work, we showed up for each other. I could always bounce song ideas off of him and I was present for every art show. But that’s what friends did in small towns.
Me and Amadi both left Langston Lake shortly after high school. He went to school in France and I left Lake University and enrolled in NYU’s creative arts program. Over the last fourteen years, our paths had crossed a number of times back home during the holidays. After I stopped going home, I didn’t see him again until last night, and that wasn’t by anybody’s design but God’s.
“Amadi, what are you saying?” I finally spoke up. My eyes traveled up to meet his, searching for the “aha” or “gotcha” moment he meant for this to be.
He sat up and put his legs on either side of me, giving me a false sense of security in his body being so closely connected to mine. This felt natural, but wrong, too.
“That it’s always been you, babygirl. I’ve wanted you for as long as I’ve been aware of that kind of desire.”
“Me?”
“You. And it’s not just the physical either. Of course I’m attracted to you. Chocolate stacked so divine on a figure-eight shape? Hell yeah, I’ve wanted to make love to you since the first time I had sex. But your personality? Your character? Those things are the reasons I want you in a forever kind of way.”
My shock must have been etched into my face because he chuckled lightly and shook his head. Grabbing my hands in his, he glanced down to where his thumb circled my wrists.
“I don’t expect you to be in love with me, Marie. Not yet anyway,” he murmured. He brought my wrist to his lips for a kiss, but I pulled my hand away before he could.
“Madi,” I began, quickly averting my gaze away from the dejected look in his eyes.
How did I tell him that even though I wanted him like that, I would never be available to him, or any man, in that way. I gave up on the idea of an everlasting love when Mama tried to force me into marriage as a business decision that benefited her. I wouldn’t give up me to love anybody, not even the man who could probably make every single dream come true.
“Just think about it, Marie,” he said sadly, grabbing my wrist again and kissing it. “If you feel like I belong to you because of what we shared last night, hold tight to that thought. And think about what I said.”