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Time skirted away from Cabrina as she counted down all the things which needed to happen in less than 45 minutes. Shower, pack, pay for my half of the room, make a budget for this road trip, get a map of the Southwest, activate my mobile hotspot, and try to get something to eat before we get the vehicle. Her mind was abuzz as she started the shower, sticking her fingers under the water to check for optimal temperature. After stripping down and folding her PJs to place in her travel bag, the shower curtain protested as she slid it back, allowing entry of her nude form into the soothing water.
An old Luther Vandross song featuring Cheryl Lynn came to mind, and she began to sing the melody, vacillating between the modern version and the original as written by Bacharach. Stepping into the stream of warm water, she adjusted the taps to allow the heat to penetrate the soreness in her back and thighs. Recounting the tender wedding night with her husband, he’d made a definite impression by taking his time, exploring her body as if he were learning every nook and crevice which brought her pleasure. She loved his slow movements when he connected their bodies and stared deeply into her eyes, touching the side of her face before kissing her passionately. He’d brought her to the peak of her pleasure, allowing her to climb slowly and fall languidly over the side of the cliff into her little death as she clung to his muscular arms.
Soaping the cloth, she ran the rag over her arms, around her breasts, and down her stomach, noting the passion marks on her abdomen and inner thighs. She didn’t remember when he gave her those, but that man was a hell of a kisser. Raising her right leg to brace on the edge of the tub, she washed her inner thigh, grinning when she took notice of another hickey there. The more she washed, the more she thought of Gabe’s touches and the louder she sang. Rinsing the suds from her body, she wrung out the cloth, hanging it on the rod, and turned off the taps. Her long dark curls were safely ensconced in a shower cap as she pulled back the shower curtain and screamed.
DeShondra was sitting on the commode, staring at her. When Cabrina screamed DeShondra did too, her eyes wide in shock.
“Shondra! What the hell? Why are you sitting there like Norman Bates’ mother, looking at me all crazy?”
“I heard the singing and I have questions,” she said, looking at her naked friend’s body. She pointed at all the hickeys covering her breasts, stomach, and thighs. Ignoring her observations, Cabrina reached for a towel to cover and dry herself.
“I’m sure you do,” she said, wrapping the fluffy white towel around her body.
“Cabrina, be honest with me. I’m not understanding this. Of the three of us, you were the one who never wanted to get married, and now here you are, wedded, heading out on a road trip and singing ‘If This World Were Mine’,” DeShondra said. “Help me understand your rationale for marrying a man you don’t know.”
“Aloneness,” Cabrina said, grabbing her PJs and heading to the bedroom to get dressed and pack.
“Loneliness?”
“No, aloneness,” Cabrina clarified. “Shondra, this past year has been hard and devastating for me, losing Aisha. I am an only child and since she moved in with us when she was 16, the aloneness abated. We have shared everything in our lives, including a dorm room in college and the townhouse we had until she left. When she left, the aloneness nearly consumed me.”
“You weren’t alone. You had me,” DeShondra added defensively.
“No, I got to talk to you. Outside of that beach fiasco, this is the most time I have spent with you in the past year,” she countered. “Even once we checked into the hotel and sat down our luggage, you deserted me for Beard Boy, leaving me alone.”
“If I am understanding this, you married this man so you wouldn’t be alone, Cabrina? That is no reason to get married,” DeShondra told her.
“That’s not why I married him,” Cabrina said, drying her body and locating a fresh pair of underwear. It didn’t bother her to be nude in front of DeShondra. They had grown up together and were, in essence, also like sisters. Out of the three of them, DeShondra was the crazy, career-driven faux sibling.
“Then why?”
“I married him because I like him and see myself loving him,” she said. “I want what my parents have.”
Her parents Nelson and Courtney ran one of the largest insurance companies in Cleveland, with her dad heading up the commercial side of the business and her mother the residential. Cabrina’s job centered on investments and burial plans. A somber profession, but she was good at her job. She had never reached the point of being great at it because it wasn’t what she wanted to do with her life. Insurance was the family business and she was their only child. It was expected of her, so she complied.
“This past year, I have had dinner with my parents three days a week. And you know what? Even though they work in the same building, they never bring their work home. Dinner is spent discussing upcoming travel plans, remodeling the house, and ways they can continue to make their love grow,” she said. “Watching them, I began to realize that I don’t have that. I have no one to discuss my day with or my plans or the business I want to open.”
“This Gabe, dirty preacher man, is going to bring this new leaf to your dried-up tree of life?”
“Maybe,” Cabrina answered, stuffing her PJs in her bag. “When I sat across the table from him at dinner and he mentioned the road trip, for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel that aloneness. A new excitement hit me about my life and I realized, I’ve just been existing. I haven’t been living.”
“Oh, shut up,” DeShondra said.
“I will not shut up,” Cabrina told her. “See this is the problem with our relationship. Every time I try to get honest with you, DeShondra wants to shut me down to keep the situation from getting too real. This is real. It feels real and I am going with it.”
“You want to hear something else real? I need a morning after pill,” DeShondra confessed.
“What? You were unsafe last night?”
“Yes, and to make matters worse, I stopped taking my birth control two years ago, since I was so busy and too single. Plus, it was making me bloated,” DeShondra said, looking sad.
“Do you need me to go with you to the pharmacy or take you before I leave?”
“No, I will be okay. I was stupid, caught up in the moment, and I understand the loneliness. My company keeps it at bay, but last night, I swear, that man could see me,” she said.
Cabrina’s attention was drawn away from her friend as she eyed her travel bag. She didn’t have enough clothes for nine days and a plan was needed to keep her in clean clothing for the duration. I’m drifting. She is talking to me. Come back to the conversation.
“Explain,” she said as a hope that DeShondra didn’t realize she’d left the moment of sharing.
“After we left you guys, we grabbed a bite to eat, and I was being me, talking 500 miles a minute, about me, real estate, how I wanted to branch out the business to house flipping, and he listened. Even when I thought he wasn’t, he would respond, and then suddenly, he said he needed to know something,” DeShondra said, blushing a bit.
A soft look came over her face, as she rubbed her hand on her thigh. Remembering his exact words, his movement, the look on his face.
“He wiped his mouth, stood up, leaned over and kissed me. Not a smack on the lips kiss but dueling tongues. Then he sat back down, only offering, ‘Excellent’,” she said smiling. “We went to the show and it was freaky. All these glow in the dark little pod people being born on stage with glow in the dark little happy faces and that shit made me hella horny.”
Cabrina’s jaw dropped.
“Don’t judge, it made him horny as hell, too,” DeShondra said, grinning wider. “I put my hand in his lap, touching the huge bulge and his hand went up my skirt and I kid you not, he got me off in the seat. I feel sorry for whoever had to clean the theater after that first big one I had.”
Cabrina blinked while she listened trying desperately not to look at her watch. Time was almost up. Cabrina didn’t want to be late on her first real day as Gabriel’s wife. Her bag was finally packed, and she was ready to head out, but she knew there was more DeShondra had to say. She sat down on the bed, holding her friend’s hand. Listening for the part she knew was worrying the confident business woman.
“Cabrina, we didn’t stay for the whole show. We made a beeline back for the room and he didn’t even bother to take my clothes off for the first go around,” DeShondra said, lowering her head. “Rounds three and four is where the concern is coming into play. I kid you not, we were out of condoms and I told him I wasn’t on anything.”
Her eyes began to tear up at the risky behavior she took. It was stupid on her part she knew, but the moment was amazing and so was he. A laundry list of what ifs slapped her in the face as she leaned onto her friend’s shoulder.
“He handed me paperwork that showed he’d recently been tested, but that was no reason for me to be stupid. The tests are only good until the last time you had sex. I told him about the risks and he said the disease portion shouldn’t be a problem and the worst that could happen would be that it made us parents,” she said sobbing now. “He said if it happened, I would have nothing to worry about on his end. ‘I will be there for you and our child.’ That’s what he said to me and I believed him.”
Cabrina’s arm went around her shoulder. Rubbing her friend’s dry skin, she asked, “It is a new morning. Do you still believe his words?”
“I do,” DeShondra stated. “I called him this morning and he asked me to put on some pants, and close-toed sensible shoes. We were going to spend the day together exploring.”
“DeShondra, get out of your own way and go with this. You can never tell how it will end. Enjoy the time with him and see where it leads,” she said. “If anything, you should be impressed that he was able to follow along with your conversation and respond.”
“He definitely heard everything I said,” DeShondra softly said. “Isiah really heard me, and it was nice to spend time with a man who listened. You know, not to make money off me or to try to get me in bed. He was going to get me in bed anyway, so he didn’t have to pretend to care about what I was saying.”
DeShondra looked at her watch, jumping up, wiping away the tears. “I need to get moving. He also asked me to check out of this room and share his for the rest of the weekend,” she said.
“Are you going to stay in his room?”
“Girl! The morning after pill may not do me any good. Rounds three and four were like a Bukkake scene in a porn movie. I know some of those swimmers hit a target and there may well be three ashy babies already attaching themselves to my uterine wall,” DeShondra said frowning.
“You didn’t answer my question,” she said. “Are you going to stay in his room?”
“Shit, why not? I need to get to know the Daddy of these potential babies,” she said, offering a hug and advice to be safe and making Cabrina promise to call her each night.
“Will do. I have to get moving. My 45 minutes are up,” Cabrina said.
“I love you, Cabrina,” DeShondra told her.
“Love you too,” Cabrina said, blowing DeShondra a kiss and grabbing her overnight bag.
****
IN THE LOBBY, SHE FOUND Gabriel waiting on a bench by the door. Several women tried to get his attention as he read over a map of the lower United States. In his hand was a yellow highlighter as he traced the path across I-40 into Georgia. There were a few places he wanted to stop along the way if his wife was game. My wife. He smiled as he looked up and saw her coming his way.
Gabriel got to his feet, excited to get moving, but looking behind her for luggage. She’d traveled lightly as he had, with nothing more than an overnight bag. This would alter the budget greatly if they needed to buy clothing.
“You are traveling lightly. We may need to stop and buy more clothing,” he said.
“I was thinking,” she said, looking into those same brown eyes that touched her ability to hold a clear thought in her head, “what if we buy a small bottle of detergent, collect a tee shirt from every eatery we stop at, wash them at the hotel, and the next day, we wear our tees from the last stop. I have leggings and another pair of jeans, so we can get through without spending too much money.”
He offered her a grin that made her nipples tingle, her pupils dilate, and stars dance around her head. My husband. He is mine.
“That, my beautiful babe, is a wonderful idea! I am thinking we can stop at the Petrified Forest on our way or stop for lunch in Flagstaff and roll hard to get into Albuquerque tonight,” he said.
“Or, we can take out time, stop when we see something of interest, drive to the New Mexico border, and hit Albuquerque in the morning. There are a few shops I would like to visit that I read about,” she told him.
“Works for me,” he said. “Are we ready?”
“Yep, we need to get to the rental car place and select a vehicle. I was thinking a compact,” she said.
“Already ahead of you, but I am not spending a week in a compact car,” he said, jangling a set of keys. Out front was a mid-sized blue SUV. He pressed the keypad on the starter, and the lights flashed.
“You have the vehicle already?” she said, surprised.
“Government rate and they delivered while I was showering,” he said, taking her overnight bag and offering her his arm. “Let’s ride, Cinderella.”
She didn’t move, but stood still, staring at the SUV. I am actually doing this. We are actually doing this.
“Come on, Wifey,” he said.
“We are actually doing this,” she repeated out loud.
“Yes,” he said, taking her by the hand. “Our honeymoon begins now.”
