Dream Girl

Dameon Edwards

“Typical,” Damon Mitchell muttered to himself, tossing the crinkled issue of last month’s Essence back onto his cluttered desk.

Left in the office about a week ago by either one of his residents or resident assistants—he hadn’t really cared to discover whom—Damon finally yielded to the glaring headline beside the pretty mahogany face beaming from the glossy cover: WHERE ARE THE GOOD BLACK MEN? it had brazenly asked.

Pushing his paperwork to the side, Damon had chanced the waters, peeking at the article. After several paragraphs, he had read enough to confirm his initial suspicions. It was yet another griping missive featuring so-called professional, got-it-together women bemoaning the dearth of “worthy” black men. Brothers who had jobs, were “spiritual,” respected them, and weren’t afraid of commitment, yadda, yadda, yadda . . .

Damon, himself a young black man with a college degree, a job, and a car, who hadn’t been on a date for almost a year, knew such “heartfelt” testimonials were full of shit.

His last tepid romance had evaporated as quickly as morning dew. Cheryl, a paralegal he had met by chance at a bakery he used to frequent downtown, had first started in on him by telling him that he was moving too fast, pushing too hard.

At that time, Damon had been listening to the crap Essence and its ilk were selling, trying to be attentive, attempting to show her that he was the one man who was different, that he wasn’t afraid of settling down.

But he had forced himself to accede to her wishes and had backed off. Restricting the previously daily phone calls, e-mails, and text messages first to every other day, and then to two-, three-, four-, and five-day stretches.

His contacts became less frequent, but no surprise in hindsight, so did hers. Until eventually she didn’t call at all. The wound left by her abrupt dismissal still hadn’t healed. Damon knew he could be pushy at times, even needy on occasion, but he couldn’t have been all that bad.

He had always paid for their dates, always picked her up in his car. He had laughed at her jokes even when they weren’t all that funny, tolerated her need to forage in every discount shop and boutique she discovered, and really tried to listen and empathize with her when she raged about her bosses at work. But it had all been to no avail.

At first, unwilling to accept the finality of their breakup, he had left message after message, via phone and computer, seeking answers from her. She had never responded.

Her coldness had hurt him, pissed him off even. He had contemplated, on more than a few occasions, driving over to her apartment to demand an explanation, or at least to see if another man had taken his place.

But he had never done so. Not so much because he was afraid of what he might do, or whom he might find, at Cheryl’s apartment. He was disgusted by the thought of what he would do. Which was nothing but cry and beg Cheryl for another chance, or even worse: ask her to be his friend.

The one thing he hated almost more than anything, being the neutered friend. Always reliable, infinitely understanding, and forever listening as women wringed out their frustrations about how bad their boyfriends were treating them, but never once letting the thought enter their minds that the friend they were leaning on might be the better choice for them. Instead they were more content to often use said shoulder like a tissue, discarding him as soon as he was no longer needed.

Damon had been down that road far more times than he could count. The very thought of contemplating such self-castration dissipated the nagging curiosity he had over the breakup. He had forced himself to let it go, or at least to continuously tell himself that he had moved on, which was good enough.

He just accepted the maxim that he would never understand women. He was almost thirty now and he felt as confused around them as he had since puberty.

But he had at least discovered one thing about females along his journey: For the most part, they were confused themselves, if not outright deceivers, then self-deluded about what they really wanted in a man.

In almost every magazine, book, TV talk show, or movie, black women complained about black men, declaring them dogs, cheaters, abusers, freeloaders, ad infinitum. But it was these same louts, the thugs, the bad boys, that these women were constantly spreading their legs for. It didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t logical. But it was real. Women were just creatures of drama, unable to leave a pot unstirred, he had bleakly realized.

Not at all like the women at the club....

Damon smiled at the familiar hardening in his pants that occurred whenever the thought of Tamales slid into his mind. An hour out of town, Tamales was the best shake joint Damon had ever been to. Most of the women were fine, the drinks were cheap, and the music decent, though a little hard-core for his taste. Best of all, the dancers knew how to treat a brother. Like a real man, he thought: attentive, accommodating, willing to listen to his needs, concerns, and desires for a change.

So what if it was all an act that ended when the cash ran out? So-called real relationships were often fueled by the green, too. His own relationship train wrecks, along with the stories he had heard from his relatives and friends, attested to that.

Damon tapped the keyboard on his computer, deactivating the screen saver. Not a fan of watches, he checked the time in the right-side bottom of the screen: 5:45 p.m.

Only fifteen more minutes. Time’s stretching out forever today, he sighed. But of course, Fridays were always like that. Fridays that fell on the first of the month, payday, were the worst.

Leaning back in his chair, he was content to let the dwindling minutes run out like sand grains in an hourglass. He closed his eyes, holding back a yawn as he imagined sitting in front of Tamales’ main stage, with his favorite dancer, Hypnotize, opening her legs for him, pulling a hot-pink G-string to the side to show him a special treat.... Unbidden, his hand made its way to his crotch, massaging his expanding hardness.

“Mr. Mitchell,” an amused voice softly trilled.

Damon almost fell out of his seat. Scrambling to recover, he began shifting books and papers around on his desk. Damn, he had forgotten to close his office door. Fridays were usually slow, with most of his residents either at the cafeteria or heading home at this time of day. He hadn’t expected anyone to walk by his office, or stop by to see him. But of course, he hadn’t expected to be fantasizing about the pussy he would hopefully be seeing shortly, either. If Hypnotize accepted my apology, that is, the sour thought cooled his anticipation.

“Girl, don’t ever creep up on a man when he’s sleeping,” he huffed jokingly, trying to play off both his arousal and his trepidation.

Aria, one of the shapely cheerleaders residing on the second floor of Hayes Hall, merely smiled at him, her hazel eyes bright. “My light went out.”

Not sure if she was giving him a pass or not, but grateful if she was, Damon slipped into his professional, dorm director mode. “Which light? Overhead? Closet? Desk?” She pointed at the ceiling.

“Overhead, huh?” he asked.

Aria nodded.

Normally, he would advise residents to write a service request and leave it in the tray on the counter outside his office for Housekeeping to attend to on Monday. But what the hell? Damon thought. By the time he finished installing her bulbs it would be past time to get off. Plus, he didn’t mind spending a few minutes gazing at Aria’s luscious form before the real fun began.

“I’ll have to go to the housekeeper’s closet to get you two new bulbs.” He got the statement out before a yawn finally escaped from his lips. He shook his head, hoping he wasn’t getting sleepy. He had been hitting the sack pretty early lately. He hadn’t really known why, chalking it up to advancing age. It wasn’t a real concern because he didn’t have much to stay up for anyway. But this Friday night, payday, was a different animal. He was going to Tamales, if not by willpower, then girded by Red Bull. Jangling the large ring of keys in his pocket, he gestured gallantly with his free hand. “After you, Ms. Jenkins.”

Damon didn’t even hide his smile as Aria bounced out of his office, her apple ass straining against tight purple shorts. He was going to have a good time tonight whether Hypnotize could be mollified or not.

 

 

The third beer eased Damon’s mind but not his disappointment. Slouching farther down in the wooden chair at the back of the room, he sighed at both the empty stage and its ancillary, the blinking string of Christmas lights adorning each only highlighting their barrenness. Beyond the main stage’s single pole, he saw his reflection in the large mirrors covering the wall behind it.

Damon shifted his eyes away, not wanting to see himself. Afraid of what he would see glaring back at him: a chunky loser clutching a sweating bottle of beer, eagerly awaiting the arrival of women who would be in his company only if he paid them to be.

Damon instead turned his attention to the nearly deserted club. Two guys, with the worn-down, disinterested mien of locals, played pool at one of the three pool tables beside the bathroom and dancers’ changing room.

At the bar, the club’s burly owner, bartender, and bouncer, a walking slab named Vern, polished a beer mug absently, a similarly bored look mixed into his perpetual scowl.

The only dancer who even appeared to be in the vicinity of Tamales squatted on a stool by the bar, her porcine face stuck in the video poker machine on the bar top.

Damon had never seen how Peaches got any business. Her very noticeable gut hung down from her frame as if gravity was drawing it to the floor. He imagined that he could see her stretch marks and varicose veins even from where he was sitting. But of course, he had been here enough times to see her ply her raunchy wares for old men who didn’t want to go home just yet to their wives, and young boys who couldn’t distinguish between easy and stank.

Damon glanced at his watch. He hated wearing them, the bands always cutting into his wrist, but he really didn’t like losing track of time, or too much of his money, in a place like this. He liked to maintain a modicum of common sense, of self-control, a feeling that he could leave any time he wanted to.

He had made the watch a part of his pre-Tamales ritual, which also included a shower, a fresh set of clothes, and even a few dabs of cologne.

It was approaching ten o’clock. He belched his displeasure. This had to be the slowest Friday night in the history of Tamales. Usually the girls would start filing in at nine on Fridays because of the good crowd and flowing money. Tamales usually fielded ten to fifteen honeys on Friday.

Of course, his girl, Hypnotize, would usually arrive about thirty minutes after the others, making a grand entrance, usually in something low cut, pumps accentuating the curves of her stallion legs. The night she had first come to his attention Hypnotize had been really bold, sashaying straight into Tamales wearing nothing but pasties and a thong.

She had playfully bumped her hip against his shoulder before ascending the steps and dispatching the pretender to her throne. The poseur, a lithe beige newbie calling herself Star, had cut her eyes at Hypnotize, rolling her neck to get Vern’s attention. Damon had followed the rookie’s eyes. Ensconced, as usual, behind the bar, the big man had merely shrugged.

Star had snatched up her bra and a few, but not all, of the dollars the patrons had thrown on the stage for her, and stomped off. The DJ had continued playing records, unperturbed by the spat. And Hypnotize had not disappointed.

Damon had never seen the rookie again. Surprisingly, he had felt a little sorry for the girl. Hypnotize had jacked her spot, and Vern should’ve intervened. A supervisor himself, he knew how unwise it was to play favorites or choose sides among subordinates, but then again, he really couldn’t blame Big Vern.

Hypnotize was a star, in fact, the real star of Tamales. Five seven, butter pecan skin, and a voluptuous figure with tits and ass for days on end, she was the belle of the ball. Intricately woven, reddish-tinged microbraids wreathed her heart-shaped face, going all the way down to the small of her back. Despite her stunning physical dimensions, Damon had found her eyes, of all things, to be her best feature. Large, brown, warm, and soft, they reminded him of the thick chocolate chips in the cookies his mother would make when she felt in the mood for baking.

They weren’t the hard, predatory orbs belying the practiced smiles on many of the other dancers, constantly scouring customers for the biggest paycheck. And blessedly, they weren’t the dulled glaze of the girls willing to do anything for a hit.

No, Hypnotize was different. Actually demure, after a fashion. Nothing at all like her onstage persona, he would come to find out. Damon had almost spilled his beer when she had asked him to buy her a drink about a month after the Star incident.

He had promptly done so, and she sat down across from him, ample breasts spilling out of her powder-blue top. Hypnotize had sipped the Long Island iced tea quietly, her tongue flicking delicately over the straw every few seconds like a serpent seeking a vibration or scent.

Damon had known he was ready to be her prey from that moment on. But she hadn’t asked him for a table, lap, or private dance like so many other girls did almost immediately when they approached him. She had asked him something much more shocking. Hypnotize had asked him his name.

“Da-Damon,” he remembered stuttering, not sure if he should’ve supplied a fake name instead. He hadn’t wanted anyone to even know he had set foot in Tamales, much less know he was a damn-near fixture. Damon had never liked people being in his business. Her eyes had sparkled at him, and she had rewarded his awkwardness with a flawless smile.

“So . . . what do you do, Damon?”

“Why do you want to know?” His response sounded too harsh and tinged with suspicion even to him. But he wasn’t in the mood to be conned. He was a good customer and a great tipper. He had even been gentlemanly with all the girls who had performed for him in the VIP, always asking before he squeezed their nipples or smacked their asses.

A frown marred her delicate face. She picked up her drink. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. Thanks for the drink.” She then made to get up.

Damon gestured a bit dramatically for her to stay. Could she have really just wanted to know his name and what he did for a living? He hadn’t met many women, and no exotic dancers, who had seemed all that interested in him unless something was in it for them. Could Hypnotize, the diva of club Tamales, actually be different? The thought fluttered on hopeful, beer-soaked wings through his mind, before he reluctantly dismissed it.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Please, don’t go.” He had never been good reading or using the signs, gestures, and phrases of seduction. He had always preferred things more straightforward. “Didn’t mean to come off so gruff. I . . . I work at Dunlap College in West Point. I’m a dorm director.”

“Really?” She leaned in closer. He would never forget the perfumed scent of her skin that night.

“Yeah.” Damon smiled sheepishly, unable to resist being pulled into her orbit.

“So, what’s it like?” She reached across the table, touching his arm with manicured nails. Her touch was as warm as her eyes. “Do you deal with guys or girls? Upperclassmen? Freshmen?”

“I run a coed building . . . upperclassmen.”

“That must not be too bad. You must be glad you don’t have to deal with any badass freshmen.”

Damon found himself nodding at her declaration. He had been assigned to a freshmen hall his first year on the job. It had been one of the most wretched experiences of his career.

Seeming to peer into his mind, she nodded with a wistful twinkle in her eyes. “I know I raised enough hell when I was a freshman.”

“Do you go to school around here?” He squeaked over the lump in his throat, his heart racing at the thought that Hypnotize was a Dunlap student. He had heard about several girls from the college who danced locally in West Point. That had been another reason he had decided to seek his pleasures far away from familiar eyes.

“No . . . well, not yet, at least. I had gone to school at Clark for a year before coming back home.”

“Why did you move back?” he asked, genuinely curious.

Her face closed up at the question before she stared down at her drink.

“Didn’t mean to pry,” he said quickly.

“No, it’s okay.” She paused, looking at him again, really looking at him as if she were judging him. He fought his natural instinct to turn away from such scrutiny. To this day, he was glad that he had.

“I . . . dropped out after I got pregnant.”

He couldn’t help but gaze over her body, even looking under the table, the brazen, alcohol-fed reaction eliciting a self-conscious chuckle from her. “Damn, you came through all right.” Even in the murky lighting of the club, her skin shone luminous and unmarked by the strains of childbirth.

“Thank you.” Her smile was even more radiant.

“May I ask you a question?” He then leaned in closer to her.

“Yes, Damon?”

“Why . . .” His liquored suaveness had forsaken him, leaving him to stumble over his words. “Why are you talking to me?”

She laughed. His face had grown hot as the dam of past rejections had burst open. Sensing his distress, Hypnotize quickly said, her expression sympathetic, “I’ve seen you come in here a couple of times. And you seemed nice. Smart. You don’t bullshit the girls or act like an asshole like some of the other customers do.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“You’ve never danced for me, so how would you know how I act?”

“We girls talk,” Hypnotize said conspiratorially, her gaze coasting over to the changing room. “In there.”

“Really?”

“Really.” A fit of giggles shattered her serious expression.

“Since you know my name . . . it’s only right that I know yours.” Damon rarely asked dancers for their real names. It hadn’t really been all that important, and plus, too much reality shattered the illusion that he had paid to see.

“Marie. My name’s Marie.”

He stiffly shook her hand. “What about your baby? Boy or girl?”

“A boy. His name’s Joshua.” She made to reach for the obligatory photos, before smacking her blemish-free forehead in mock consternation. “Sometimes I forget when I’m half naked.”

“I wish we could all be so fortunate.” He had been proud of his quip. From that moment on, Hypnotize had become his favorite dancer. Snicka, Blaze, and Honey Bunz had all been forgotten.

 

 

Damon glanced at his watch again: 10:45. Okay, it didn’t appear that Marie was going to show, he realized. Probably because she knew I was going to be here, he surmised. He was a creature of habit, after all, and Marie knew him in a lot of ways better than his own family did.

The last time he had gone to Tamales, things had ended a little shaky between them, but he had hoped that she wasn’t still mad at him. He had given her a whole month to hopefully let things settle down between them. After her set, he asked her to go to the VIP. After the second private dance, and in between records, she sat on his lap. Automatically, his arms coiled around her slender stomach. She leaned back into his embrace, resting her head on his shoulder. It was at that serene moment of blissful tranquility that his nature got the better of him.

I’d had too much to drink that night, said something I shouldn’t, he tried to convince himself for the umpteenth time. He was surely not the first guy, and definitely not the first patron, to ask her for sex. Sitting up, Marie had just looked at him, with a lopsided smile that slowly dissipated before the light dimmed in her eyes.

“You’re serious?” Her tone was incredulous.

“Well . . .” He shrugged. “I . . . mean . . . we’re friends and all.”

“So? What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Nothing . . . I mean. It’s just been a long time . . . since Cheryl. You know.”

“And what’s that got to do with me?”

“I . . . I’ve got money. I’ll take care of you.”

“What? I can’t believe you just came at me like that.”

“Like what?” Treacherous anger shredded his buzz. “I know what kind of shit goes on in places like this. I’ll take care of you.”

“Like hell.” She grabbed his arms. He wouldn’t let her go.

“Let’s talk about this,” he pleaded. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“I’m not a ho, Damon,” she bleated, tears brimming in her eyes. She tried to break his grip.

Then what are you? He remembered the vicious thought sluicing through his mind. But gratefully, a modicum of sense had by then returned. “I’m sorry, Marie. I just . . .” The words had faded away with his resolve. He had let her go, and Marie had jetted out of the VIP.

Despite their friendship, Marie established boundaries early on. She gave him her e-mail address, and even accepted a gift or two, but not her cell number and no dates. As long as he’d had Cheryl, sex with Marie had been a fantasy often used to get him off after one of his Tamales excursions.

But after Cheryl, he had allowed the crushing loneliness and the burning horniness to get the best of him. After making an ass of himself at the club, he had sent several e-mails to Marie, trying to explain what he did and why he did it. He was a good guy, just out for a little fun. And though he might run out every now and then, he didn’t mean anything by it. He was just a man, after all.

She hadn’t replied to any of his electronic entreaties. He had hoped to see her tonight, and see if she was willing to let bygones be bygones. But if she wasn’t, if she thought he was perverted or something, not only was their friendship over, but she would surely ruin his reputation for courtly behavior with the rest of the girls. If he couldn’t smooth things out, he would have to find a new club.

Not only did she seem to be avoiding him, but she must’ve convinced the other dancers to join in a coven against him. Downing the remainder of his beer, he placed it beside the others before making his way to the exit.

Detouring at the bathroom, Damon dispensed most of the beer in the bathroom’s urinal, afraid to even go into the bathroom stall, the stench from it permeating the walls. He zipped up and ran some cold water on his hands, a veteran enough to know that there was no soap in the soap dispenser hanging from the wall above the sink. He took a quick glance in the mirror, checking to see how red his eyes were.

Pleased with the results, he squared his shoulders, opened the bathroom door, fortifying himself to leave Tamales forever . . .

And then he saw her.

Standing calmly on the stage, decked in a sable sarong with matching bra, her svelte body radiated passion and poise.

“Fellas, Tamales is proud to bring to the stage, all the way from the Islands . . .” The DJ’s voice took on a faux Caribbean patois. “. . . Noir.”

Damon absently closed the bathroom door without taking his eyes off her. Noir. The word rolled around in his mind, its shadowy and sensual connotations thrilling him.

Ghosting to the stage, feeling disconnected from his legs, or the rest of his body for that matter, Damon blinked in surprise when he actually found himself eyeing Noir’s pierced navel.

He took a slow, loving appraisal of her as his gaze made its way to her face. Rich skin a shade beyond sepia, purple, or coal, as Stygian as the night itself, the woman’s body seemed to have been carved by a sculptor more than formed in the womb of a living being. Lighter-skinned women, especially redbones like Cheryl or Marie, had always been Damon’s preference, but none of them compared to obsidian Noir.

Continuing his inspection, he felt a primal energy coiled within the woman’s taut muscles. Unlike supple, voluptuous Hypnotize, Noir was angular. Hard.

Both haughtiness and fierceness warred behind her dark eyes as she looked down at him, though her aristocratic features were impassive. Her regal face was crowned with a short, kinky natural. She reminded him of one of the ancient Egyptian or Abyssinian queens in the Art History textbook a resident had given him after she had been unable to sell it at the “Book Buy Back” last semester.

Strange that he was thinking of crazy shit like that now of all times, he thought, while the most enigmatic and fascinating woman he had ever seen stood before him. Even the DJ respected the sanctity of the moment, of Damon’s discovery, because he had refrained from his cacophonic ministrations for a brief respite. An eye in the hurricane, Damon realized as soon as the music began and Noir quickly dispatched both bra and sarong, her onyx body twisting into a carnal dervish. It was the performance of a lifetime, for the both of them.

After the last dance hall number had ended for her unusual solitary set, Damon was waiting by the steps as Noir descended the stage, bra hanging from her neck as she wrapped the sarong around her dangerous hips. In heels, she met his gaze at eye level. A fine coating of perspiration made her dusky skin shine as if polished.

“That was awesome,” Damon struggled to say, reaching into his pocket to hand her a ten-dollar bill. He had already left a great portion of his paycheck, in ones and fives, on the stage. Noir hadn’t even acknowledged his generosity, and he was shocked that she didn’t seem all that concerned about the green littering the stage even now.

Every dancer, Marie included, was zealous about getting each dollar she felt owed them. But it appeared that Noir was different. But if she wasn’t in it for the money, then why was she here?

“How . . . how did you learn to dance like that?” Damon asked, trying to fill up the vacuum. Noir had been content to stand there, merely gazing at him, her expression giving away nothing as she fastened her bra. Well, say something, Damon demanded in his mind.

Changing tactics, determined to get some kind of response from this woman, unable to be ignored, he asked, “The tattoo, on your back, I was trying to make it out while you were dancing, but you were moving so, so . . .” Images of her sinuous form seducing the lucky dance pole flittered through his mind, momentarily robbing him of speech.

She smiled all of a sudden, quickly turning her back to him. Still, he was able to make out only a letter or two of the heavily Gothic script running along her upper back. Its dark ink blended almost too well into her skin.

“Succubus,” she said, her words clipped, precise, her accent perhaps West Indian. “It comes from ancient legend. Succubae were female demons that seduced men while they slept.”

He shook his head. Damon hadn’t expected too many sisters, especially those that shed their clothes for a living, to know anything about medieval mythology. “I know what a succubus is.”

“You think so?” Though her lips were pinched, her tone was now playful. “I don’t think you do.”

“Well, yeah, I read about it . . .” he began defensively, for some reason feeling a need to explain himself.

“Do you want a private dance?” she asked, cutting him off.

“Well . . . . uh, sure.” Don’t you mean hell yes? his inner voice chided. Hop on that shit!

She wrapped a hand in his. Her grip was cold and leathery, scaly almost. “Come with me. Something tells me you’re no stranger to this place.” She led him toward the VIP lounge.

“No, well, yes. I’ve been here a few times.” Noir looked back at him, her gaze disapproving.

“Okay.” He shrugged. “More than a few.” She was a fantastic dancer and a lie detector all rolled into one.

Moving beyond the beaded veil entrance to the VIP, the best-furnished room in Tamales, Noir led Damon to the long black leather couch placed against the back wall. First taking care of securing access to the room by greasing Vern with the remainder of his cash, he hoped this dance was worth it. He had known what to expect with Hypnotize. It had been one of the things he liked most about her. But Noir was a totally unknown quantity.

For a few terrible seconds, he wondered if Marie would find out. He had been so focused on the stage that he wouldn’t have noticed if an elephant had shambled in behind him. What if she had seen him, giving all his money away to this new girl, treating Noir like he had once done her? Would she be mad? Jealous? Or would she feel anything at all?

Staring up as Noir leaned over him, her eyes glinting in the variegated light of the disco ball twirling from the ceiling, he realized that he really didn’t care what Marie thought. If she wanted it to be business, then he would keep it at that level.

And he was going to have his fun, whether she showed up or not. When the music started, Noir tossed her sarong to the floor before unhooking her satiny bra, an ebon nipple grazing his lips. “Take it,” she whispered. He complied, sucking the hard, salty aureole into his mouth. Noir pounced on him, grinding her pelvis slowly against his groin.

He moaned, breaking contact as he seized her firm ass in both hands. She roughly grabbed his head. “Continue,” she rasped.

Following her directive, he was proud when her moans quickly outpaced his own. Lips locked on her nipple, his hands roved her slick back, even chancing a few ventures beneath her black thong panties. He paused; afraid she would stop him, by slapping his hand away, cursing him out, or even worse, calling for Vern. But she didn’t.

Her tacit permission opened something deep within him. He began nibbling on her breast, as one of his fingers sought her asshole. He delicately spread her labia with his other hand. When he poked a thumb inside her, the depth of her heat and wetness stunned him. Damon hadn’t thought he could ever get a woman so excited.

His thumb made circles around her clitoris, her body moving in sync with the questing digit. She groaned so loud that Damon thought Vern might hear them. He knew the big man didn’t give a damn about what happened in the VIP so long as everybody kept things quiet.

But he wasn’t about to tell her to be quiet. Her gasping was turning him on.

“Do you want more?” she managed between breaths as the song faded.

Gazing at the panting girl, with flagging disappointment, he said, “Honey, I would really like to, but I don’t have any more money.”

The look she gave him was sad, pitiful. But strangely, not detached or condescending, a reaction that similar admissions had engendered in other dancers.

“I don’t care about that.”

What? “What?”

She cupped his face in her hands; her touch was still reptilian, but no longer cold, as if the heat he had created between her thighs had suffused her whole body. “I don’t care about money,” she repeated.

“What’s going on here?” He looked around, scared that cops were going to storm in at any second, or maybe Vern or another dancer. Was this some kind of joke? Perhaps Marie had put her up to this, to teach him some kind of lesson. She might be waiting just beyond the beads at this moment, ready to spring in and prove him to be the lout she tagged him as.

“I want you. I need you.”

“Is this a joke? Hypnotize put you up to this?”

“Marie,” she whispered. Even in the poor light of the disco ball, Damon saw her dark features twist with displeasure. She leaned her torso away from his still hungering lips.

“You know Marie.” Damon nodded, things becoming clearer. “She put you up to this, didn’t she? Trying to teach me a lesson about not wanting a woman just for sex, right?”

“I know Marie,” Noir said, her voice icy. “Is she what you want?”

“Just what the fuck is going on here?” Damon asked again, anger beginning to simmer. “Is this some kind of game?”

“Only if you want it to be,” Noir said, her voice filled with accusation. “I’m here because I’m not into games, and I thought you were the same way, but if you want to keep on chasing after Marie, then go ahead.”

“So you do know Marie.”

“Didn’t I just tell you that?”

“I’m sorry,” Damon said, on reflex. Noir grabbed his head again, this time more gently, caressing his cheeks.

“I know her, and I know you. I’ve seen your longing. Tasted your dreams.” Her voice trailed off as her eyes glazed over.

Great, the one woman I’ve had success with is crazy, Damon thought, already whirling contingency plans through his mind to toss this woman off his lap and tear out of the club if she got violent. “I don’t understand.”

She smiled. It was one of the most serene expressions he had ever seen. Her eyes twinkled as she leaned in close to whisper in his ear, “I’m not supposed to tell you, but this is a dream.”

“Bullshit!”

She twisted his head roughly, her nails digging into his bald pate. Damon bit back a yelp.

“Don’t do that again,” she warned. “I’m serious. This is a dream. You are my charge. I have been with you for a long time . . . since you were eleven in fact.” She paused, peering deeply into his eyes with wistful fondness. “I was there for your first wet dream. And every one since.”

His erection a memory, Damon didn’t even try to hide what he thought of this strange woman’s revelation. “Noir, I’ve never seen you before in my life. This shit isn’t funny.”

“My name is Nahema. Please call me by my given name. It is only fitting, since I know so much about you, and you know almost nothing about me.”

“Bitch, I don’t know shit about you!” Damon’s anger felt soothing. He needed it to get some control back over this spiraling situation.

“I know about Mrs. Harland, your sixth-grade teacher, Tomika Simmons, your first crush . . . Aria Jenkins, the little cheerleader you jerk off over during your lunch breaks, and so many others.”

“How . . .” The rest of the question hung in his throat.

She smiled, nodding with approval. “They were me. Well, actually I assumed their forms.” She tapped his right temple. “In your dreams. Your fantasies. I fulfilled your every desire, performed, suffered, and enjoyed your most deviant whims.”

“How . . . what . . .”

“I’ve seen how these mortal females treat you. They don’t understand you. They’ll never accept you.” Her voice was filled with an unfathomable sadness. “They don’t appreciate your passion. I do.”

“You . . . do?”

“I want to be here for you. Forever.”

“Forever.”

She smiled, nodding. “Yes. Forever.”

“How . . .” Damon didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. If this was a dream, it was the weirdest dream of his life.

“Right now, in the corporeal world, you are dozing on your couch, preparing to disgrace yourself by apologizing to Marie, a mortal, who has never known your heart like I have.”

He took in his surroundings. The black leather couch, the murky carpet, the disco light, the music blaring through the VIP’s thin walls and beaded entrance, and the salty tang of Noir/Nahema’s breast on his lips . . . It all seemed so real to him.

Damon shook his head, trying to clear his mind. But how did she know those things about him, about the women he had secretly fantasized over since his first strand of pubic hair had sprouted?

“Fine, don’t believe me,” Noir/Nahema huffed, pouting as she lifted off his pelvis.

“Wait.” He grabbed her arm. “Let’s say this is a dream. How can you be with me? What do you want from me? How can you be here for me? Forever?”

She hopped back on him, pushing him into the plush leather. He couldn’t help but feel like he was drowning, being swallowed up by something far beyond anything he had ever known or believed possible as Noir unzipped his pants and pulled out his dick, stroking it back to aching readiness. Pushing aside her panties, she mounted him, her heat engulfing his manhood, spreading out from his shaft to envelop his entirety.

As she rode him, slowly at first, increasing in force and rhythm with music only she heard, Damon had never felt closer to a woman. In fact, he felt outside himself, his whole existence becoming a pulsing, throbbing sun, entwining with her fiery star, exploding in an orgasmic supernova that he feared might incinerate the club around them.

For dizzying, terrifying seconds afterward, Damon couldn’t see, he couldn’t breathe or feel anything around him; only the slackening pulse of his heartbeat told him he was still alive.

“That’s what it can be like, Damon,” Nahema whispered into his ear. His vision clearing, he saw her looking at him, her dark skin aglow and smile beatific. “Every night.”

“My . . . God . . . what do I have to do?”

“I live in your dreams, sustaining myself on your essence . . . in small doses.” She lowered her head, her voice tinny, penitent. “I’ve been imbibing more of your soul lately in order to puncture the walls of the dreamscape to be able to talk to you like this . . . that’s why you’ve been so tired,” Noir admitted, her haughtiness subdued. She looked at him again, her gaze searching for acceptance. Damon nodded impartially, forcing himself not to roll his eyes. “For me to be with you permanently, in your world, a bigger infusion will be required.”

“Infusion . . . like blood or something?” Damon was still dazed from their frenzied lovemaking. He wasn’t sure what Noir was talking about, but if it allowed him to continue fucking her, he was down with it.

Nahema pursed her full lips, her confidence now resurgent. “Not quite . . . I need a body, a vessel to live in. I need you to find a person for me, with a soul I can consume totally so I can be with you on your plane.”

“You’re serious?”

Noir merely looked at him. Damon felt his intestines twisting. A frost layered his skin. “My God, you are serious.”

“The only question you really need to ask yourself is, are you?” Noir replied, her eyes eager as she took him in again. Damon readied himself for another session, but the dancer slithered off him. Her hungry gaze never left him as she walked backward out of the VIP, saying nothing else, the clinking of the beads the only sound in the club, in Damon’s whole world.

Her voracious eyes lingered long minutes after he woke up, on his couch, a damp stain soiling the crotch of his jeans.

Taking in his surroundings, his heart stalling in his chest, Damon forced out a breath. “My God, that shit was real,” he whispered. “I was dreaming. She was right.”

His thoughts a muddle, Damon stumbled to his bedroom. He glanced at the glowing red digits on his alarm clock: 9:30 p.m.

He still had time to make it to Tamales, still time to find Marie and attempt another apology. Still time to hear her curse him out, or laugh at him, or even worse, ignore him, dismissing him for the scrub he feared he was.

“There’s another way. . . .” The words wafted through his ears, coiling around his mind, piercing his heart.

“There is another way,” he muttered to himself. If Nahema was right, then there was a woman waiting for him, wanting him, who knew all of his faults and secrets, and still found him desirable.

Wake up. His sanity tried to push through the fog. It was a dream. And since it was a dream, wouldn’t it make sense that Nahema would know everything about you?

“You’re right,” he mumbled, the haze dissipating with the thought. He chuckled. Damn, was he that hard up for a woman that he was actually considering a dream woman to be real? “I really am pathetic.”

Hoping that he had at least laid out his Tamales wardrobe before he had fallen asleep, Damon yawned as he entered his bedroom. He smiled at the neatly folded blue shirt and olive khakis lying in the midst of rumpled sheets and torn pages from the latest Black Tail magazine.

The shiny pages, each featuring a different nude black stripper/ model in various forms of invitation, ringed his Tamales gear, almost like a shrine to his lust. Damon usually bought two copies of each issue, one to keep and the other to play with. He could be frenzied at times in his quest to get off, but he didn’t remember tearing through the magazine after work. But I don’t recall laying out my clothes, either. He shrugged. He was a little off tonight, but he would get back on track once he had a beer in his hand and an ass swinging in his face.

He untied his shoes, pulled off his shirt and socks, and tugged out of his jeans, leaving them all in a heap. Damon also doffed his sticky underwear, holding them with a hooked finger as he put them in the hamper beside his closet. He knew he should take a shower, but he didn’t feel like it. He was already behind, and he wanted to get to Tamales and see if he could make amends.

When he reached across the bed, his penis twitched as a glossy image caught his eye. He picked up the picture of the smiling, honey-colored model, her head cocked to the side as the camera captured her from the plump backside. “Every night,” Nahema’s voice purred, as the image on the page transformed into Noir right before his eyes, a current surging off the page, running down the length of his arm, and squeezing his dick in an electrifying spectral grip. His ejaculation strafed the picture.

“My God,” he gasped, shivering, his skin both hot and cold. “I’ve never. I’ve never come like that before. What the fuck is going on?”

He closed his eyes, hoping that when he opened them, the honey-hued model would still be smiling at him through his oozing come. He felt a bowel movement bubbling when he opened his eyes to find Noir still on the page, now spread-eagled, a teasing finger over her glistening chocolate-pink clit. Damon balled up the page and threw it against the wall. It bounced off, falling behind his bed.

I need to lay off the caffeine, or something, Damon tried to joke, though he felt hollow inside, guilty even, as if he had somehow hurt Nahema. The bitch is not real, sanity railed. Get it together!

“Get it together,” he whispered to himself, exhaling away the craziness in a big gust. His peace of mind lasted all of a few seconds.

“That . . . took a lot out of me . . . to do that,” Noir’s voice wheezed in his ear. “Hurry, Damon . . . I need you.”

He shook his head in denial. “This shit can’t be real.”

“Hurry . . . please.”

Damon then grabbed his head, painfully squeezing his meaty noggin. “Shut up,” he warned with quiet vehemence. “Shut up.” Am I losing my mind? Oh God.

“You’re not losing your mind,” Nahema breathlessly continued, softer currents now brushing against his naked skin, amazingly bringing his flaccid penis back to life. “We don’t have a lot of time. I can only remain on the corporeal plane for a few moments. If you don’t want to be alone anymore you have to make a choice . . . now.”

It was madness, he knew, but what if it was real? What if it was his one shot at companionship? Something he had always longed for, but never knew how to make a reality.

And she was offering it to him, begging to be in his life.

If he had one chance, didn’t he have to take it? But how?

“Hurry.” Gossamer lips brushed against his left earlobe, serpentine words dripped venom into his heart, burning away his loneliness, dissolving his fear. Phantom fingers fondled him once more before fading into the ether, perhaps never to touch him again. Unless I did something about it, Damon sadly understood, a plan already forming.

He went to his closet and pulled out a metal case. A black .22 caliber pistol was nestled inside it. Damon hated guns, but he had felt a need to have one just in case something crazy popped off. His neighborhood wasn’t exactly high society.

He took the gun out of the case, his hands trembling as he loaded it with bullets. Placing the loaded weapon on his bed, he quickly put on his Tamales gear, thankfully unspoiled by his wild orgasm.

Next, he rifled through the mirror cabinet hanging over his bathroom sink, tossing barely used medicine bottles until he found the sleeping pills he was looking for.

As he stepped out of his apartment, in a blue pressed shirt and crisp pair of olive slacks with noticeable bulges in both pockets, Damon Mitchell no longer felt alone.