The night Tareek and I met, I had just gotten out of a ten-year friends with dick-sucking benefits with someone who I didn’t realize until much later hadn’t deserved me. The night I met Tareek, I had given Chris his walking papers, telling him that whatever it was, whatever we’d had was null and damn void. I wished him well and said my final good-bye. I was too through with his trifling, pussy-whipped ass. He was someone else’s problem, and I was all too happy to kick him to the curb. As far as I was concerned, his bitch-on-wheels, baby’s mama could have him. It was enough drama to make even a soap-opera diva say, “Dayuuummm!” I believe in karma like most people believe in God. And for Chris, it was a hood-rat bitch named Ikeara. But whatev. I’m over that white boy.
I wasn’t about to go home and wallow. I was feeling too good about finally letting that muthafucka go after all those years. I wanted to celebrate, so I stopped off at my favorite watering hole, the Tomahawk, for a drink. I thought if I drank enough, it would wash away the years I wasted, the lies and bullshit. The Tomahawk was littered with broke college students snacking on cheap appetizers and nursing on watered-down Coronas. Gawking at the bubble-headed buff boys was my favorite pastime. I had even hooked up with a few of them. College boys get horny as hell after a few beers.
I was on my second vodka cranberry, talking up Rob, this cute het bartender, when I felt a hand touch my arm.
“Is this seat taken?”
I turned to find this six-four, brawny, brown-skinned hunk of man standing behind me.
“It is now,” I told him.
He cut me a smile as he slid in between me and the bar stool. My dick started to thicken when his thigh grazed mine.
Tareek was dressed in camouflage army garb, with a short haircut faded to the sides. I noticed his pretty light-brown eyes right away.
“What are you drinking tonight?” Rob asked him.
“Do ya’ll have Guinness?”
“Absolutely, my friend,” Rob said nicely. “What kind?”
“Do you have Red Stripe?”
“For sure.”
“I’ll have that.”
Damn, he sounded masculine and sexy like he should be in a Jason Statham movie or something. He had pecs that were tight under all that brown and army-green camouflage. The last time I was in the presence of a man who was as fine as Tareek was…let me see, um…never. My palms were already starting to sweat and my dick was twitching like crazy in my shorts. I wanted nothing more than to reach over and squeeze one of his pecs, but my mama ain’t raise no fool. He would probably mop the floor with my faggot ass if I so much as asked him to pass the beer nuts.
Rob popped the aluminum top off the bottle of Guinness.
“There you go, my friend,” he said setting the cold bottle of booze in front of him. I glanced over just as he brought the beer to his juicy lips and took a swig. His beautiful throat pulsated as I watched the beer wash down his gullet. Jesus.
I just sat there babysitting my vodka cranberry as Tareek watched some kickboxing match that was playing out on the fifty-inch TV that hung over the bar.
“Another VC, Rashawn?” Rob asked.
It was too early still to get shit-faced and I didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of this good-looking soldier who had decided to sit next to me over all the other losers who were saddled up to the bar.
“Let me try one of the…Red Stripes.”
Rob glanced at me like he knew I was trying to impress Tareek. He knew I couldn’t stand the taste of Guinness.
“This shit taste like an ashtray,” I once told him.
Rob popped off the top and set the bottle in front of me. I was hoping that Tareek would take notice but he just kept those pretty-ass eyes of his glued to the boob tube. I took a sip of Red Stripe. I wanted to spit it out as soon as the nasty liquid hit my palate. Eww, that’s gross, I thought, but I played it off like I was sipping on a birthday cake milkshake. I ran my thumb along the front of the bottle. Condensation trickled off the hard, dark skin of the glass onto my drink coaster like the pearls of sweat that leaked from the roof of my armpits. I took several more gulps of the beer in an effort to get up the balls to talk to Tareek.
“Are you coming or going?” I asked nervously.
Tareek looked over at me with those bedroom eyes and lips the good Lord made for kissing.
“What’s that?” he asked.
Within seconds, I had regretted asking him anything, consciously beating myself up for being such a fucking dweeb.
“Are you about to go in or are you on leave?”
“Oh, I’m on leave, actually. Just for the weekend though, and then I return to base in North Carolina.”
I almost couldn’t believe that this fine-ass man was talking to me, that he was giving me the time of day.
“I’m Rashawn by the way,” I said, with my hand extended.
“Tareek,” he said, taking my hand firmly into his. “Nice to meet ya, man. So what do you do?”
“I’m a modeling agent.”
“I would much prefer to do what you do. I’d run less of a risk of getting my ass shot off.”
I didn’t want to ask him questions about the war, and I didn’t want to come off as being too nosey, so I changed the subject to something more lighthearted like college football, which I didn’t know a thing about. I let Tareek do all the talking and hoped that whatever I had to offer made some semblance of sense.
That night we talked so late that Rob had to practically run us out of the bar.
“My bladder is about to explode,” I said.
“You and me both,” he laughed.
“You guys better make it quick ’cuz we’re about to lock up,” Rob said.
I trailed behind Tareek past booth seats and pool tables to the men’s room in the rear of the bar. We stood in front of two urinals. The bathroom smelled like piss. I undid my fly and worked my dick out of the cotton panel of my draws, out past the copper teeth of my zipper. My dick was semi-hard, and a fast stream of piss splattered against the throat of the white porcelain.
The cruisy fag in me glanced over at Tareek’s dick. He was packing eight, nine inches maybe, thick, with a milk chocolate hue to the shaft. I was literally salivating. Damn, he’s got a big dick. I wanted to drop to my knees and veer his dick to my lips, the stream of piss and all, but like I said, my mama ain’t raise no fool. My dick grew harder at the sight of Tareek’s. I finished peeing before him and tucked my dick back inside my zipper. Tareek was done two seconds after.
Rob held the door open as we exited.
“All right, bruh, see you next time,” he said, as he gave me dap. “Be safe over there, brother,” he told Tareek.
I looked across the street at the clock at Tallahassee Capital Bank. It was five after three in the morning. I still didn’t want to go home. I was off for three days from my job so it wasn’t like I had to be on somebody’s j-o-b the next day.
“Are you hungry? You want to get some breakfast?” Tareek asked.
The only thing I’d had to eat all day was a hot dog and some chips. I was too caught up in Chris’s mess to eat, and I wasn’t a big fan of what passed for food at the Tomahawk.
“Dog, you read my mind. I’m starving.”
“Cool. There’s a Waffle House a few blocks down the street if you feel like walking.”
“Yeah, I could use the exercise.”
“Is your car going to be okay here?” Tareek asked. “They ain’t going to tow you or nothin’ will they?”
“Naw, Rob is cool. He knows me.”
I couldn’t stop staring at Tareek’s arms. I will do anything for a man in a tank top.
I could make out his abs thanks to the thin, ribbed cotton that hugged his torso. The mental pic of his candy bar-long dick was branded in my brain, and how he shook the last drops of piss off the meaty tip.
“So are you from here?”
“Born and raised and I hate it.”
“There’s not much to do. The bars suck, the club scene is like…nonexistent. Tallahassee has like no culture.”
“I hear ya on that one. Where would you like to live?”
“I don’t know. Atlanta, New York, maybe. I went to Fort Lauderdale once.”
“Fort Laud is nice. I have family down there.”
“I really don’t care where I end up as long as I can get out of Tally.”
When we got to the Waffle House, it was packed, which is always the scene after the bars and clubs let out. These coeds need scrambled eggs and hash browns to soak up all that cheap, watered-down beer.
“Damn, it’s thick up in here.”
It was so crazy people were filed out of the door like they were waiting to get food stamps or something.
“Let me ask the waitress how long it’ll be before we can get seated,” Tareek said.
He pulled this female dressed in a yolk-yellow dress and white apron off to the side and whispered in her ear like he was saying something pretty and sweet. She laughed. I watched as Tareek slipped a twenty spot in her hand.
“She’s going to see what she can do.”
“Do you know her?” I asked.
“Akaysha’s brother is over in Basra. All of us grew up together in Pensacola.”
Within a couple of minutes, Akaysha waved us over to a booth table she was clearing dishes from. I was already impressed within five hours of knowing Tareek.
We sat down as she laid two menus in front of us. She was mocha-toned with brown eyes and gorgeous features. Her hair was done up in a hairnet. Girlfriend was way too cute to be working in a diner. And a name as pretty as Akaysha didn’t fit a waitress working in a greasy spoon. She had some super-model, Naomi Campbell realness going on. Her manicure was on point, but I figured after slinging trays of dishes awhile, it wasn’t going to stay that way.
“So have you heard from Jamaal?” Tareek asked.
“Got a letter from him last week. He’s holding his own. He wants to go over and fight. He says they’re over there just relaxing, getting some R&R and then they ship out to Afghanistan.” Akaysha couldn’t have looked more scared and worried. I thought she was going to faint right there across the table.
Tareek took her by the hand. “Jamaal is tough. He’ll be okay. He’s strong like his sister.”
I could see tears welling up in her eyes. “It’s just that…he’s only nineteen, you know?”
“He’s going to be fine. He’ll have them fools over there break-dancing before you know it.”
Akaysha grinned. “Yeah, you right.”
“Have them doing the running man or something.”
“Wow, that’s pretty old school.” Akaysha laughed.
“That makes me want to get up and do the cabbage patch up in here.”
“Oh god, please don’t,” Akaysha pleaded.
“I agree,” I said. “Please don’t try to bring that dance back. Let it stay buried in the nineties.”
The three of us burst out laughing. Akaysha took a pad and pen out of the pocket of her apron. “So what can I get ya’ll to eat?”
We cracked open our menus. I was in a major mood for pancakes and patty sausage, so I already knew what I wanted. Tareek ordered first.
“Let me get the steak and eggs with a root beer.”
Damn, steak and root beer for breakfast?
“Okay, it’s going to be about ten minutes on that steak. Is that okay?”
“Yeah. We’re not in any rush.”
Akaysha scribbled down Tareek’s order before she turned her attention to me.
“Let me try the blueberry pancakes with sausage and I’ll have orange juice,” I said.
Akaysha grinned as we handed her our menus. “Tareek, I’m glad you came through. I needed to laugh.”
When he started rolling his arms, trying to do the cabbage patch while sitting down, Akaysha giggled.
“Boy, stop,” she said, laughing. “I’ll be back with y’all’s food.”
“That was one of the coolest things I have ever seen.”
“What, my booth-seat cabbage-patch dancing?”
“The way you calmed her down like that. I could tell that she was upset about her brother.”
“Well, you know what they say about laughter being the best medicine. Each other is all they have. Their grandmama raised them after their mama died from a drug overdose when they were kids. She wasn’t about to let them become another statistic on the streets. Jamaal enlisted a few months after I did. I’m like the big brother he never had, I guess. He was always following me around, wanting to do everything I did.”
“So he enlisted because you did?”
“Akaysha seems to think so, and she was pissed at me for a while thinking that I encouraged him to enlist in the army.”
“And you didn’t?”
“I didn’t have a clue that Jamaal had enlisted until Akaysha wrote and told me. I just hope he’s keeping his damn head down over there.”
The Waffle House line was dying down. People either got seated or they left to go somewhere else to eat. The smell of bacon, sausage and fresh-brewed coffee permeated the diner. My stomach kept growling. Thankfully, Tareek couldn’t hear how hungry I was with all of the talking from the other tables.
“So can I ask you something? How does your girlfriend feel about you going to Iraq?”
“Not sure. I don’t have one.”
Yes!
“What about you? Are you seeing anyone?” Tareek asked.
“I just got out of a bad relationship. And I mean just got out of one like seven hours ago.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“I’m not. He was a shit chicken.”
“A shit chicken?” Tareek laughed.
Akaysha sauntered toward our table with a tray of food. “Here, let me help you,” I said.
Akaysha handed me a plate of blueberry pancakes with four sausage patties on the side and two butters. Tareek’s T-bone steak was sizzling on the plate with a side of scrambled eggs. She sat the large glasses of orange juice and root beer on the table next to silverware cocooned tightly in napkins.
“Can I get ya’ll anything else?”
“I think we’re good here, baby girl,” Tareek said.
Akaysha had a smile that could make the meanest of men purr. “All right, just wave if you need me.”
“This looks good,” Tareek said.
“She needs to be on the cover of a magazine somewhere.”
“Who? Akaysha?”
“God, yes. She’s gorgeous.”
“People tell her that all the time, but she doesn’t ever take them seriously.”
“I would love to get her in the studio, take a few shots of her. The modeling industry could use more sisters.”
“I don’t know, but you can try.” We unfurled silverware out of our napkins.
Armed with a steak knife, Tareek cut into his meat as I drowned my blueberry pancakes in syrup. “Mmm…this is a pretty good steak. You want a bite?”
Tareek had no idea how badly I wanted a taste of his meat. “It looks good. I should have ordered that instead.”
Tareek ran a piece of the beef in steak sauce with his fork. “Here, try it,” he said, leaning across the table.
I wrapped my mouth around the savory morsel of meat and then sucked it from the tip of his fork.
“How is it?”
“Mmm…that is good.”
The last time I was fed from someone’s plate, I was five. I found his maneuver kind of romantic. If I hadn’t known any better, I would have thought I was falling for Tareek. I still didn’t know if he was one of the children yet.
The next time she stopped by our table, I told Akaysha that I was a modeling scout. She thought I was bullshitting until I gave her one of my cards. I told her to come by the office Monday morning.
“That face oughta be on the cover of Vogue,” I told her.
She laughed and tucked my business card into her apron pocket.
“I’m serious. Come by. My friend Bryan Brown would love to take some shots of you.”
“Oh my god, I know him. He’s one of the best photographers in Tallahassee.”
“Yes, and I want you to come meet him.”
“Okay, I’ll do that.”
When Tareek took out his wallet to pay for our meal, Akaysha said, “It’s on the house.”
Tareek insisted on leaving her a twenty-dollar tip. He gave Akaysha a kiss on the cheek followed by a hug before we left. “You keep in touch and be safe over there,” she said.
It was ten after six when we got back to my car in the parking lot of the bar. “Thank you for breakfast,” I said.
“Thank you for the company.”
I kept my hands nervously in my pockets.
“Now can I ask you something?” Tareek said.
“Anything.”
“Can I kiss you?”
I don’t know if my heart was thumping crazy from the walk back to the bar or from the prospect of being kissed by this gorgeous Adonis of a man. My suspicions had been confirmed. Tareek was gay. I wanted to say, “Hell yeah you can kiss me,” but I kept cool.
“Okay.”
I didn’t care who was around or who might see. I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to be kissed by Tareek. I leaned against the door of my Cadillac Escalade as he leaned into me. His lips were warm and supple against mine. I thought about sticking my tongue in his mouth, but I didn’t want to come off fresh on what I guessed was our first date. When I felt his arms around my waist, I thought I was going to melt. Please don’t let me be dreaming this shit.
“That was nice. You’re a good kisser,” he said.
“Um…you too.”
My dick was so hard in my shorts you would have thought I had overdosed on Viagra.
“You like basketball?” Tareek asked.
“I’ve watched a few games.”
“The Seminoles are playing Wake Forest tomorrow night. You wanna go?”
“Sounds like fun, yeah, sure.”
We exchanged phone numbers. I gave Tareek the address of my apartment.
“The game starts at seven thirty, so I’ll pick you up at seven.”
The minute I got home that night, I grabbed a bottle of lotion and some tissues and jacked my dick as I thought of Tareek deep-dicking me in the ass.
We had dinner the following night at Po’ Boys and then went back to his aunt’s house, as she was conveniently in Biloxi over the weekend. We cuddled on her flower-printed sofa, sliding hands under shirts and between each other’s legs, feeling at each other’s brick-hard dicks.
Tareek kissed me, sliding his tongue in my mouth, past my lips. We kissed each other hard. When I lay on top of him, I felt his dick sticking warm against my thigh. Tareek’s tongue tasted sweet like candy.
“Let’s take this to the bedroom.”
Tareek and I kissed, peeling each other out of our shirts as we walked lip-locked to the room he was staying in. Afrocentric portraits hung on each wall. There was a chest of drawers in front of one of the bedroom windows that were hung with sheer, white curtains and a dresser with tiny blue-and-white figurines that matched the color scheme of the bedroom. It definitely showed a woman’s touch. Items like bottles of cologne, a brush and other miscellaneous male items were strewn along the dresser. A colorful assortment of fake carnations and a clock radio sat on one nightstand while a phone and a couple of crystal candy jars sat on the left side of the bed. It reeked of potpourri. There were shirts and jeans neatly folded in a white rocking chair in one corner of the room. Tareek’s dog tags hung around the neck of one of the bedposts. We fell onto the king-sized bed that was decorated with fat pillows and a flower-printed bedspread.
Tareek undid the buckle of my belt and the clasp of my jeans. He tore my boots from my feet, throwing them to the floor before he pulled off my jeans. Being that I wasn’t in the best of shape, I was nervous about him seeing me naked. Tareek didn’t seem to mind. His fingers tickled as they grazed delicately against my thigh. My dick popped free like a jack-in-the-box when he pulled my draws past my waist, around my booty and down to my feet.
I stopped him when he started to undress himself. “Here, let me.” Tareek dropped his arms to the side and let me do the honors. He kicked off his boots as I pulled his tan camouflage uniform pants down his muscle-bound legs. The bulge in the tent of his boxers caused me to salivate. I had been anxious to get my lips around his meat since the night before in the bathroom at the Tomahawk. I hooked my fingers over the waistband of his underwear, easing them off his milk-chocolate skin. My cut seven-incher had nothing on his ten-inch appendage that literally banged against my chin.
“Damn, T.”
“We both know you can handle my dick,” he said.
“I’ve wanted to do this since the bathroom.”
“I figured you did. I saw you checking out my dick.”
I tongued the head, licking precum from the teardrop spout before I enveloped the head with my mouth. He slid along my lips like a dream.
“Turn over for me. I want you to feel me inside you.”
I did what Tareek wanted. There was a bottle of lotion on the dresser sitting next to a blue and white porcelain pig. Tareek slathered it along his dick. He smeared himself on top of me. Black skin kissing black skin. I felt his dick pressing into the ditch of my ass, the tips of his fingers traipsing along my nips.
Tareek pushed until I felt his bulbous crown slip in past my asshole.
“You okay?” Tareek asked, as he started to thrust.
“Fuck, this feels good.”
“Yeah, you like me inside you?”
“Don’t stop.”
I watched Tareek’s dick sliding in my ass reflected in the dresser mirror. He pinned my hands to the pillows as he fucked me.
“Damn, this some good ass.”
“And it’s all yours,” I told him as he kissed me along the nape of my neck. Tareek was a man who knew his way around a man’s ass, who knew all the right buttons to push.
“Turn over.”
Tareek flipped me over on my side. He tweaked my nips as he pulled me into his dick.
“Don’t stop. Keep fucking me,” I pleaded.
Tareek had me. This soldier was a pro at deep-dicking booty.
He toyed with my balls, jacking my piece from the front while fucking me from the back.
“I want you to come with me,” Tareek said.
“Fuck yeah.”
Our breathing was heavy. His pumps of my dick were in sync with his thrusts.
“I’m about to nut. Cum with me,” Tareek pleaded, as he pumped my dick crazy.
“Fuck me, Tareek!”
I couldn’t hold out. “I’m ’bout to cum, damn!”
Within seconds, jets of white spurted from my spout onto his aunt’s flower-printed bedsheet. The woman would probably keel over with a heart attack if she saw me and her nephew butt-ass naked in her bed. My cum oozed over Tareek’s fingers. He pulled out of my booty and shot warm strings of nut. Tareek held me close as we came together in sloppy-wet French kissing.
“That was amazing.”
“You’re amazing,” I said.
That night we fell asleep in each other’s arms. I felt Tareek’s soft dick against my booty as we spooned. There was nowhere else I wanted to be.
We spent the whole weekend together. Sunday was his last day before he had to leave, so we had brunch and went to a movie. “What time does your bus leave for North Carolina tomorrow?” I asked, as we walked out of the movie theater.
“Six a.m.”
“Can I drive you to the bus station?”
“Are you sure?”
“We can get breakfast tomorrow before we go. I want to give you a proper sendoff.”
I hated the idea of him leaving but I understood why. It was a little after four in the morning when we got to the Waffle House. Tareek looked so handsome in his uniform. Akaysha wasn’t working. This time we both ordered the steak and eggs. We didn’t talk much. I didn’t want Tareek to leave, but I didn’t tell him that.
“It might rain today,” I said.
Tareek stared out of the tinted window of the diner. “Looks like it.”
We got to the bus station twenty minutes before Tareek’s bus departed for North Carolina. I struggled to keep from crying.
“Call me when you can. Write, email, something to let me know that you’re okay.”
“Will you do me a favor?”
“Anything.”
“Look out for Akaysha for me. She doesn’t have anyone else.”
“I promise.”
Tareek and I hugged. “Come back to me. That’s a fuckin’ order.”
“Yes, sir,” he grinned.
As the bus pulled out of the terminal, I mouthed to Tareek. I love you.
He pressed his hand to the glass. I love you, too.
It wasn’t until I got in the car that I cried. Not because Tareek was gone, but because I was in love.