“?’Cause I love black girls’ bums, innit, Queenie. Das why. My wife, yeah, she’s got a pretty face but she’s skinny. No bum.”
He maneuvered me into the position he wanted, and I did as I was told because, frankly, it was easier to just do than to think. If I thought about what I was doing, I’d have to think about why I was doing it, and I wasn’t prepared for that at this moment. “Can you turn the heating up?” I asked. “It’s a bit chilly.”
“Shhhh,” Adi whispered, smacking my bottom once. I winced as I stared out the back window, trying to direct my attention to something completely removed from the car. I focused on a streetlight in the distance.
He smacked my bottom again. “You like that, yeah?” I glanced at Adi, and he flashed the charming smile again. I looked at the streetlight.
“Yep,” I said.
“Nice, nice.” He smacked me again and this time kissed the area. It stung as his facial hair grazed the skin.
“Do you want to see my tings? I’m hard.” Adi gestured to his crotch.
“Your . . . ?”
“My tings, my dick, innit.” He smiled.
“No, I know what you mean when you say your ‘tings,’ but why are you asking? I assumed that at some point in the evening I would see everything, you don’t need to ask.” I laughed.
“You’ve always got to make man feel dumb, innit? I didn’t go uni and I don’t talk all posh like you, but I’m not a idiot,” Adi grumbled.
“No, no, I’m not, sorry, go on,” I encouraged him. “I didn’t mean to. Please, Adi. Let me see your ‘tings.’?”
“All right.” He smiled, his angry pride retreating. “That’s more like it.”
His hands shook as he unzipped his jeans and pulled them, along with his long johns, down. It was cold, but not cold enough for so many layers. When he got himself naked from the waist down, he, very proudly, presented me with his “tings.” Circumcised. Along with having sex with men in cars, another first for me.
“What do you think?” Adi asked, flashing a nervous grin.
“Of your penis?” I asked politely.
“Yeah, of my tings, innit.” He shrugged.
“Nice?” I asked. What was the right answer here?
“Is it big, though?” Adi questioned, almost agitated that I wasn’t showering his manhood with praise.
“Why does that matter? That shouldn’t matter,” I said.
“So what you saying, that it’s small?!”
My eyes must spend at least 50 percent of any given day rolled to the back of my head. “No, Adi. It’s huge. The hugest I have ever seen in my little life. How will it fit?” I said flatly.
“Yeah, that’s it, that’s what I’m talking about.” Adi bounced in his seat excitedly. “Do you want to touch it?”
I placed my hand around it and, as I started to move my hand rhythmically, was struck by how odd a dick feels when it’s exactly that: an anatomical penis from a science book, and not the familiar and less hostile penis of the person that you love.
? ? ?
“Queenie, wake up!”
“I’m up!” I said. “I’m up. What’s going on? Where am I?”
Light from Tom’s lamp filled the room. “You’re okay. We’re at mine,” he said, stroking my arm. “I think you were having a nightmare.”
“Oh God, I’m so sorry,” I groaned, and turned away from him, embarrassed.
“I thought the house was being robbed, you landed a punch right on my jaw and started shouting at me.”
“What was I saying?” I asked quickly, looking at him. What had I revealed?
“Nothing I could work out,” Tom said, touching his jaw tenderly. Relief filled me.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “I meant to warn you, but we must have fallen straight to sleep.”
“You fell straight to sleep, you were hammered.” Tom handed me a glass of water.
I sat up and downed it. “I should have warned you I was a cheap date too.”
“Two glasses of wine,” he said. “Two.”
“I hadn’t eaten!” I said, handing the glass back.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Tom asked, wrapping his arms around me and covering us with the duvet in one move.
“Are you? Sorry for the punch.” I wriggled around so that we faced each other.
Tom shrugged. “Nothing I don’t deserve.”
“I can’t guarantee that it won’t happen again,” I said quietly. “It’s a ‘thing.’?”
“That’s all right. Everyone’s got a thing,” Tom said, kissing my forehead.
“Yeah, but my thing could have knocked you out.”
“I think you’re overestimating your strength, Queenie.” Tom laughed.
“Maybe I can kiss it better?” I kissed Tom softly on the jaw.
“That feels better,” he said.
“Okay, I’ll stop,” I said, closing my eyes.
“No, no, it’s actually really hurting again, I think you need to keep doing that.” Tom stuck his jaw out.
I went to kiss his jaw again and he moved so that our mouths connected. As we kissed, he moved again so that he was on top of me.
“Hold on, Tom, you’re leaning on my hair,” I said, trying to pull my head free.
“Shit, sorry!” Tom said, lifting his arm. “Are you okay?”
I nodded and smiled up at him. We kissed again, me enjoying his weight on top of me. I felt safe underneath him.
“How easily do these things come out?” Tom stopped to ask, lifting a handful of my twists from the pillow.
“They’re not going to fall out!” I laughed. “But I don’t know how wet I’m going to get with a headache.”
“Okay. Maybe you should tie it up.” Tom lay back and watched as I stood up and ran over to my rucksack. I reached inside for a hairband and ran back over to the bed, climbing under the covers.
“Could you not just stare at me like that, please? This is the first time you’ve seen me naked, and I’m going to worry that you’re looking at all of my bad bits,” I said, turning away from him.
“What? You don’t have any bad bits.” Tom sat up and kissed my shoulder.
“I am made up of bad bits, actually,” I told him as I wrapped my hair in a bun and tied it on top of my head. “I’m actually one whole bad bit.”
“Nonsense.” He laughed, pulling me on top of him. I could feel his erection through his boxers. “I’ve been observing closely. There’s nothing bad about you.”
“Oh! Who’s this?” I asked, moving my hand down.
“I could make a joke about naming my penis, but now isn’t really the time, is it?” Tom asked.
“Tom,” I said. “There is honestly never a time for that.”
? ? ?
“I call him ‘the destroyer,’?” Adi said confidently. “And the destroyer wants to be inside that mouth.” He winked.
“Sorry, no.” I’m very particular about that sort of thing. Interestingly, my gag reflex is fine, it’s more the sexual power play that I think about.
“Ah, come on, I beg you, suck it,” Adi said, frowning.
“It’s not going to happen, I’m afraid,” I said.
“Will you kiss it, then?”
“Will I kiss your penis? No, I won’t.” I only wanted a bit of sex to tide me over, not all of this back and forth.
“Just a peck, I beg you.” Adi pouted.
“. . . I don’t know what to tell you, sorry.”
“Just lick it one time.” He shrugged.
“Nope.”
“All right, spit on it, then,” Adi suggested.
“I just feel like, the more you ask me these things, the more you’re going to get annoyed. So I would stop here.”
“All right, all right, jeez. You black girls are so up yourselves, innit.” Adi sighed. “If I’m not getting my dick sucked, shall we move to the back?”
Was that the automotive alternative to moving to the bedroom? Wanting to get things over and done with, I squeezed myself between the driver and passenger seat with no grace and pulled my dress over my head.
Adi joined me and beckoned me onto his lap. He grunted with satisfaction as I lowered myself onto him and pressed my chest against his, resting my chin on his shoulder.
I didn’t want to kiss him. That would be too intimate. I moved up and down rhythmically, slowly, measured, listening to Adi’s moans. I kept the streetlight in my sights the whole time. I’m not sure that I blinked once.
* * *
“Have you ever had sex in a car before?” I stuck my head out the door of the neon-lit staff kitchen before I said anything else.