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“Really?” I said and I heard that my voice was louder than usual. “I don’t feel anything. I just feel good. Like loose.” I got up and started dancing a bit to show Dame how loose I felt.
“Oh, shit,” Dame said, laughing. “That’s the work of palm wine. You feel good.”
“I sure do,” I said, suddenly feeling the beat from the speakers coming up into my feet. It was as if there was a drum right under the sand beneath my feet. It was pounding and pushing its way up my body. I jumped forward and felt my chest bow toward the sand.
“Let’s dance, baby,” I said, looking at Dame. “I want you to feel what I’m feeling.” The drums were now at my hips and building toward my stomach.
“Okay.” He took a long sip from his bottle and took mine from me. “I don’t think you need any more of this.”
“What?” I reached for the bottle playfully. “I need my wine. My palm wine.” I laughed at how my words swayed into each other and then the next memory I had was of Dame and I in the middle of the crowd by the bonfire, our chests knocking into one another as the drum took over our bodies. My hands were up over my head toward the moon above and I touched everyone around me just to feel the vibrations.
“You all right?” Dame asked, holding me up in his strong arms.
“I’m in love,” I said. “Love.”
“With?” He grinned.
“Y-O-U,” I spelled out, trying to tap Dame on the nose with each letter, but always missing.
“You don’t mean that,” Dame said. “In the morning, when the wine wears off, you’ll be back to being the teacher I’ve been chasing forever.” He pulled my body closer to his and we stopped dancing. “The teacher I’ve always loved.” He kissed me on the lips and then looked into my eyes so deeply, even in my fuzzy mind, I knew he meant every word he was saying. “Even if you don’t love me in the morning, I’ll always love you.”
Dame kissed me again. The next thing I felt was his tongue on my breast as my dress hit the floor in the hotel room. I didn’t move. I couldn’t. I just let my body feel his. His teeth around my nipples, his hands as they pulled my body closer to him. I felt like one of those palms being pressed for the sweet, intoxicating wine. I grabbed his arms and shuddered as he backed up to the bed. There, he stopped and looked at me but I was ready to move on. I pushed him onto the mattress. I got on top and bent down to him.
“I want you,” I said into his ear, pulling his hair. “I want you inside of me.”
I was in charge then, but Dame was a tease. Before he even took my request, he massaged every muscle in my body with such intensity I knew he’d been planning this for a long while. He made my body feel beautiful and delicate, even in the bright light the moon shone over the bed. As I moaned from his touch, he sighed with a tone of release that built the closer he got to my middle.
“You ready?” he asked, pulling his shorts off.
“Yes.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
I placed my wedding band on the nightstand when I got up that morning. Waking with the sun and long before Dame, I put it there because I knew that chapter in my life was now really, really over. It had gone past words and now into action. I had to let go. And I wasn’t sad, I said to myself, putting on my sarong and a pair of flip-flops. I wasn’t happy either. Instead, I was just wondering what all of this meant. What I really meant when I said I loved Dame. I’d loved Evan, too. But it wasn’t like this. I hadn’t felt like this. Not as moving. Not as encompassing. I looked at Dame, brown and asleep in the middle of the bed with his arms wide open as if he thought I was still on top of him. This was something more. This was something I could feel.
We’re dying for love.
That’s what I wrote on the first page of the empty pad that I’d taken from my purse when I went to go sit on the beach. I looked out onto the water.
We’re dying for someone to love us.
I thought of Zenobia and Billie ... Ms. Lindsey ... Naima ...
Just to feel that feeling
And know that we’re not dying at all.
I thought of Kayla and Richard and then May and Jr.
To imagine that someone could be dreaming
What we’re dreaming.
Hoping what we’re hoping.
And then there was my mother and father, Jack, and Justin.
And praying what we’re praying, too.
