Page 26 of Omar

They talked about their husbands like trophies. Complaints dressed as boasts. I stood there holding a glass of champagne I wasn't drinking and smiled at the right moments.

Supreme's hand found me again. He'd finished his conversation and came back to my side, his arm going around my waist, pulling me against him.

"You good, baby?" he asked, his mouth close to my ear.

"I'm great, Premie."

"You need anything? Food? Another drink?"

"I'm fine."

"That's my girl." He kissed my temple in front of everyone. The woman in red watched us with an expression I couldn't read. Envy, maybe. Or recognition.

Three hours. I stood in that ballroom for three hours in heels that were cutting into the backs of my feet, smiling at people whose names I forgot as soon as they walked away, laughing at Supreme's jokes, touching his arm when he made a point, leaning into him when he pulled me close. The performance was seamless because my body knew the choreography by now even when my mind was somewhere else entirely.

When we finally left my face ached from smiling. My feet were numb from the heels. Supreme was energized, riding high on the handshakes and the backslaps and the promise of more deals to come.

We got home just after midnight. Supreme went straight to the bedroom and I heard the shower running. I took off my heels in the closet, changed into one of his t-shirts, washed my face and pulled my hair up. When I came out he was already in bed with the covers pulled back on my side, waiting.

He'd been with me long enough to develop what he clearly believed was a signature entrance for these occasions. Sometimes he came out of the bathroom already working on himself, holding his dick like a gift he was about to present. Sometimes he waited until I was in bed and then rolled over with this look on his face like he'd just thought of something urgent and necessary. Tonight he was propped up against the headboard with one hand already down his boxers and the other reaching for me.

"Come here, baby. Look what you do to me."

I climbed into bed and he pulled me close, his mouth going to my neck while his hand kept wanking. This was the routine. He liked to narrate himself through it, needed me to watch and react and tell him what I was seeing in exactly the register he wanted to hear it in.

"You see that?" His voice dropped lower, rougher. "That's all you, baby. Ain't nothing else do this to me."

I made the sound he wanted to hear, something between a gasp and a hum, and he groaned and wanked faster. His repertoire had three main formats. There was the question version, which required me to confirm what he was telling me. There was the statement version, where he declared things about himself and I agreed with enthusiasm. And then there was the freestyle, where he went somewhere genuinely unexpected and I had to deploy every performance muscle I had to keep my face in order.

Tonight was a freestyle.

"Baby, you know what you are?" He was breathing harder now, his eyes half closed. "You like a ocean wave, the way you move. Powerful and shit. Natural force."

Lord.

I bit the inside of my cheek and made another encouraging sound. He took that as permission to continue.

"Yeah, that's right. You a whole tsunami, baby. Crashing over me and taking me under and I'm just gon' drown in you, you feel me?"

He was there. All of him. Unfortunately.

"You drowning me, baby. Oh shit, you drowning me right now."

He was working faster now, his head going back against the headboard. The show played out like it had a hundred times before, me present in all the ways that were required, absent in all the ways that were safe. He came with a sound that was half groan and half something that might have been my name, then collapsed back against the pillows breathing hard.

"Damn, baby." He turned his head to look at me with his eyes still glazed. "You incredible. You know that?"

"Thank you, baby," I said, keeping my voice soft and warm.

He kissed my shoulder and rolled onto his side, already half asleep. Within three minutes he was snoring, the sheets twisted around his legs, his hand still resting where it had been working. I counted the minutes until I could move without waking him.

At some point I rolled away and closed my eyes. I let myself think about Omar for exactly five seconds. His hands, his mouth, the way he'd looked at me on that street corner like he'd found something he thought he'd lost forever. Then I closed the door on it and went back to the dark.

When I woke up Supreme was already gone. Early meeting, probably. I lay there for another hour doing absolutely nothing, just staring at the ceiling while morning light came through the blinds. I couldn't remember the last time I'd done that, just existed without performing or planning or calculating the next move.

Eventually I got up and made coffee. Checked my phone. Nene had texted me twice asking if I was alive.

I called her from the bathroom with the door locked and the tap running.