To my surprise, Tee gets to her feet. “Actually, Mrs. Cage, I think I’ll go up with you. It has been a long day.” She looks back at me. “And Penn needs a little time with Annie.”
My mother nods pointedly, and I know then that Serenity has scored a point with her.
“Good night, you guys,” I say wearily.
They turn and walk into the hall together, without Serenity giving me the slightest signal that I might see her later. I can’t believe she’s going to go to bed without hearing Quentin’s report of his meeting with Judge Elder. And that, I suddenly realize, was her signal. She knew she’d never slip a wink or an intimate wave past my mother.
She left it to me to figure out the obvious.
An hour later, I’m staring up into Tee’s eyes as she labors above me with quiet persistence. Then she closes them, which I regret, but this allows my own eyes free rein over her body, which is miraculously new and strange. Her skin is indeed the color of a paper bag, but her nipples and areolae are the color of Hershey’s Kisses.
“I—don’t—like—being—quiet,” she whispers with rhythmic frustration, working toward her second release. In the moment of cresting, her eyes flash open and find mine, and the urgency behind them pours into me, or rather, seems to pull something from me. Serenity’s orgasms, while long and powerful, seem not to satiate a deeper need that I feel within her, a hunger for connection that is only partly physical.
As she shudders above me, closing her eyes once more, then falling forward until her face is pressed into my neck, I think of all the places she’s been, the experiences she’s had, so many of which she described in her book. All that—a story known to hundreds of thousands of people—is contained within the mind and flesh of the woman molded against me now, breathing deeply in my ear.
“What is it?” she asks in a sleepy voice.
“What?”
“You want to ask me something.”
“No, I don’t.”
Her eyes open. “Liar.”
I feel such an eerie sense of having my mind read that I grasp desperately for any subject other than the one I was thinking of.
“I was just wondering,” I begin blindly, “why . . . you haven’t asked me if you’re the first black woman I’ve slept with.”
“Hah!” Serenity rolls onto her back and spits a sharp laugh at the ceiling. “Baby, please. I know I’m your first.”
She’s gone from somnolent to wide awake in less than a second. Boy, did I pick the wrong question. “How do you know?” I ask.
“The way you look at me, smell me, touch my hair. It’s a good thing your writing’s more subtle than your game.”
“I’m sorry I brought it up.”
She rolls onto her side and runs her finger over my chest. “’Course, I’m just half black,” she says in a teasing tone. “Unless we’re going by the one-drop rule. Then I’m all black. But I don’t know if you could handle the real deal.”
“Can we just skip it?”
She runs her fingertip down to my abdomen, then farther still. “Next thing, you’re gonna ask me about penis size. That’s the next white-boy question.”
I try to keep my face impassive, but Tee just laughs harder. When she finally stops, she says, “You want me to just tell you?”
“I don’t know.”
She pokes me in the side, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Well. Just between us girls . . . beyond a certain minimum, it’s not how big it is. It’s how hard it is.”
For some reason, this doesn’t comfort me much.
“It’s killing you not to ask me, isn’t it?” she presses, her eyes filled with mirth.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, yes, you do. That certain minimum.” She reaches down and closes her hand around what is commonly called my manhood and whispers, “You made the cut, Mr. Mayor. Just.”
While I process this answer, she squeezes me and says, “How ’bout you finish what you started?”
Before I can do that, my cell phone rings. Serenity groans, then rolls over and grabs it off the bedside table.
“Quentin,” she says, handing it to me.
I click send and say, “You took long enough, didn’t you?”
Tee presses her lips to my ear and hisses, “Speakerphone.”
I hit the button.
“Is anybody else with you?” Quentin asks.
Serenity shakes her head.
“Just you and me and God, Q. Or was that redundant?”
Quentin chuckles. “I’m surprised. Where’s that hot little Nobel Prize winner you had with you before?”
Serenity snorts a laugh, and Quentin says, “I thought so. I caught some vibe earlier tonight. You’re a lucky man, Penn Cage.”
Tee rolls her eyes, but the smile doesn’t leave her face. “Did you do any good tonight,” she asks, “you old hound dog?”
“Judge Elder and I had a frank and honest exchange of views. I think we’ll find him a little more amicable in court tomorrow. What about my potential star witness? Have you two been hanging with the Klan?”
“We have. Everything may depend on John Kaiser at this point. They’ve promised to testify for Dad, but the witness is scared to death of Snake Knox.”
“Rightfully so.”
“I’ve promised to guarantee their security. I’d be more confident if Kaiser and the U.S. attorney could get a deal signed. Kaiser is grateful to us for turning the witness, so he’s glad for him to help Dad out. But there are a lot of moving parts.”
“Always, always.”
“What about Dad? Did you talk to him?”
“I’m just leaving the jail now. I told Tom everything you told me—the possibility of deputies tampering with the hair and fiber evidence, everything—and he agrees with me. Don’t make any accusations against the sheriff’s department.”
Serenity squints at me as though something is wrong.
“Dad said that?” I ask.
“Yes, and more. Tom said, ‘We have no proof of anything, and even if we did, it would only create a distraction.’”
I’m incredulous. “Wait a minute. Dad said that even if we have proof of tampering, we should do nothing?”
“Correct.”
“Quentin, what the hell?”
“There’s more. Tom also said to tell Jewel Washington to stop digging into whatever those deputies might have done.”
“Why?”
“You lost your fiancée, Penn. Do you really have to ask me that?”
A wave of heat passes over my face. “Are you saying those deputies might kill the county coroner to cover up what they did?”
“I’m saying it’s reckless to pretend we’re not in a very dangerous situation.”
“Christ, man. If we could get proof that Billy Byrd’s deputies suppressed evidence implicating someone else in Viola’s death, that alone—”
“Boy, listen to me! This case ain’t about hair and fiber. Do you hear me?”
Serenity’s brow is knitted tight in concentration.
“What’s it about, then?”
“For me? Representing your father’s interests to the best of my ability. Now, I’ve got to go. Doris is waiting. The best thing you can do is get the U.S. attorney to close that plea deal and clear—”
“Don’t say the name!”
Quentin curses in frustration. “I was going to say clear my witness to testify tomorrow. But don’t make any other moves without checking with me first.”