She stared at me with a stirring look of pleading and confidence. I was really trying to redirect her but that look made it hard. All men want their women vulnerably aggressive. She turned, glided into the fire lit boudoir and disappeared into a door in the back of the room.
"Dammit!"
As I stood there contemplating my next move, my mind raced with colliding pasts, presents and futures. Reality is highly subjective and a matter of the point of view of the person experiencing it. Clearly Channel and I were experiencing different realities. Mine was extremely difficult at the moment and hers was about to be.
Lost in thought as I stood gazing at the gently falling dusk, it was her scent that guided me out of my reverie. As I swiveled my head to look over my right shoulder, my brain began to process the incoming data in one word bytes: hair, eyes, negligee, sheer, voluptuous, stilettos...damn. It was with effort that I closed my betraying mouth, it having fallen open unbeknownst to me.
She smiled furtively as she beckoned me into her sanctuary with one...slow...sexy...forefinger. Hypnotized, I found myself moving toward her against my failing will. The baser part of me shouted down my good sense and reason. When I arrived at what felt amazingly like home, her arms, she began to draw me toward the seemingly hundreds of candles illuminating the turned down bed of heaven she had prepared.
Just as we were about to cross the threshold, an insurrection started with my feet; they stopped moving. My awakened manhood retreated from his urgency understanding that this was neither his day nor his time. My mind made it unanimous by sending a hand to the door jamb to both establish a barrier and steady the body from the coup that just took place between lust and reason...past and future.
"Chanelle. Let's talk," I said with a mixture of resignation and resolve.
Fear crept into her eyes, but she powered through it, saying, "Come with me baby. I have something for you."
"Let's talk," I said quietly as I looked into her eyes.
It's as if that was a cue that they needed watering. The tears begin to ring the lower lid of her eyes, reflecting the dance of the candle flames.
I led her to the over stuffed couch and held her hand as we sat and semi faced one another.
“Chanelle...honey, what are you doing?”
“Miles I wanted to feel close to you again, it’s been a long time.”
“Yes it has...a VERY long time. But honey all of this is so...sudden.”
“I know it’s sudden but it wasn't my initial thought process when I planned this trip with you…for you, for us,” she said quietly.
“From the looks of that bedroom, not to mention your very sexy lingerie, it seems that you definitely had some things on your mind,” I offered evenly.
“Yes, I admit once you called me back to say you would come with me I made all of these arrangements. I wanted this time to be special, to mean something.” Then she smiled as she arched her back and placed a hand in her tightly waved coif, striking a vogue pose. ”I know your favorite color is black,” she fetchingly hissed as she forced my gaze through the gauze like material. “My memory is golden.”
“Easy big fella,” I mentally chided myself.
“What’s stopping you baby? Time was when all I had to do was yawn and you were all over me,” she wondered earnestly. “What’s your hesitancy?”
“But Chanelle, there is so much unresolved between us. What you've done here is nice...very nice, unbelievably nice. I don't know if it's worth it to even go back into "us" but honey we've not spoken a word in years. You left without so much as a note and I was left to pick up all of the pieces...alone. There was NEVER any closure with that," I said compassionately. “You went on to get married and have a family and after a while I was glad for you. I was proud of what you accomplished with your business and that you had the loving husband you always wanted me to be. I regret, more than you know, that we didn't walk that road together. I regret that I didn’t understand better; that I didn’t fight harder. Babe I just didn’t see.”
Ghostly emotion began its journey from the dark padlocked box in the depths of my psyche, to the surface of my consciousness.
“My heart aches for what you're going through and I'll always be here for you because I'll always love you but this is too much too soon for both of us and doesn't even take into consideration that though you were traumatized, you're still married,” I offered in emotion defeating logic.
Channel subconsciously pulled the throw on the couch around her, covering herself. “I got tired Miles. I wanted easy. I didn't want to fight for your attention anymore. Now I'm embarrassed and humiliated again.” she achingly choked, as she pulled the throw even closer around her neck. “I'm sorry,” she said as she attempted to rise. “Let me change my clothes and we can talk."
The tears that merely moistened her eyes before formed pools that began to overflow and slide down her perfect skin.
“Sweetie, stay right here,” I said as I gently restrained her by hugging her shoulders. She resisted at first and then collapsed her full weight onto me as her crushing agony overwhelmed her.
“You have no idea what I’ve been through. You can’t know what it’s like to be rejected by your husband in favor of another man. You don’t know what it’s like to have to go and get an HIV test, to cry every night, to wonder if it’s your fault, to be utterly alone in the world,” she screamed hysterically. “And now this!” She sobbed.
“This is just too much,” she whimpered, as her hitching, childlike convulsions shook us both.
“Babe, it's not rejection, it's redirection. Sex with me is not what you need right now. Healing is what you need,” I offered with all the compassion at my disposal.
The couch soaked up our combined woes and worries as we drifted off to sleep there.
Prov 16:20
Shout out to my "Pahtnah" Miz Represent
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