The Misinformation of Langston Hughes: Part Deux

A chance meeting across a parking lot...
     I pulled in visibly excited over the great parking space I nabbed.  How pathetic.  Feeling stimulated over something so fucking dull.  Like an old man with no more purpose.  How did my life shrivel to this point?  I used to have weird fun. I used to experience strange parts of the night.  I used to have stories to write.  But it was that parking spot that opened the door.  Perhaps I had a right to be aroused.  Because, as I headed from the spot across the expanse of the loaded lot, I saw him, immediately.  There was Langston's Hughes' foot soldier in the flesh.  He pantomimed shielding his face from the sun with his hand against his further receded hairline, though it was fully night.  I don't know if it was arousal I felt when I saw him.  It was almost like part of me expected to see him.  On some plane, I must have felt him.  I managed to play it cool, maybe too cool.  He hugged me, warmly.  We chatted mindlessly while dodging cars speeding down the alleyway.  He said we should get together sometime, I told him he had my number...We talked for a few minutes more, but I could feel myself pulling slightly away.  Instead of hugging him goodbye, I just sort of slid into the night.  But he grabbed my arm.  Somewhat tenderly; longingly, somewhat commandingly.  That subtle and authoritative touch turned me on more than many of the combined sexual encounters I've had lately.  It was just a taste of the mind fuck I had been hungering for.  It was forceful, yet sensual.  And all it took was a powerful hand wrapped around my slender, exposed forearm.  The memory of that touch carried me through the night.  I realized I wanted more.  The night didn't quite feel electric, the way it does when I know something is bound to happen, but it did hold the possibility open.  I remembered what it felt like to hunt down those electric nights.  And to trap big game.  This minion of Mr. Hughes was my marlin.  I hooked him, I reeled him in, and let's take this metaphor all the way into the station: I mounted him.
     My brother told me I had a wild look in my eye, when I finally met up with him further down the street.  I felt wild, I felt feral again.  I was charged knowing that I hadn't lost those unpredictable parts of myself.  They were still there, they were just laying in wait, deep under the glacial ice.

A Scheduled Meeting in a Coffee Shop
     What the hell did I think I was doing anyway? Meeting the erstwhile sexual monolith, that I immortalized so many years ago, at the coffee shop.  Part of me thought he wouldn't even show; a would-be relieved part. The other part of me wanted that part to be so magnificently wrong. It was. He was there even before I.  With his fucking Fonzi leather jacket and casual grey thermal Henley. I know someone with that exact Henley, I thought.  He was so inviting and easy to be around.  It felt familial. He held his money together with a novelty-sized paperclip. He was so polite to the waitstaff. He asked if I was vegan or vegetarian. He said he was vegetarian/pescetarian then proceeded to order a sausage, egg and cheese breakfast sandwich. We sat down.  I couldn't stop staring at the five-or-so grey hairs that peppered his sideburns.  Like everything about him, it was a hint at something deeper, something more arcane; undiscovered.  A stray strawberry seed perched upon his left canine lent a vulnerability, rendering him merely human. We talked for over three hours, about everything and nothing.  He left me feeling fully energized whereas I usually feel drained. I felt my whole body abuzz with a marathon energy I hadn't felt in a long while. I felt good. He is amiable, thoughtful, and engaging, yet mysterious. I thought seeing him again after all this time might shatter the mystique I had romanticized over the years, but instead more questions remain than answers. I know he has a darker side. Because I've seen it. No one is that commanding during sex without some diabolical nature.  He wasn't quite rough, but he was very dominant. Which is the ultimate sensual experience for me. It wasn't an act either, or some insecure front. It was coming from an organic, yet sinister place within him. There is also the matter of the proposed threesome text message which I naively misinterpreted until he expounded upon it further during foreplay in his bed. There were seemingly no traces of that side at the coffee shop. I remember nearly everything about that faraway night, even the aforementioned menage a trois suggestion that I conveniently whitewash from my rose-tinted chimera. The way the fire was already crackling, the way the candles were somehow pre-lit in the bedroom. The 90's R & B blasting so loud you could hear from the street.  The banter full of pretense. And when he finally kissed me in front of that white leather couch. The smell of weed and cognac on his breath. It coalesced to an earthy heat that I couldn't get enough of. I wanted  to experience every part he was willing to offer. The way he grabbed my hair to move me where he wanted. It was like he anticipated my every appetite. And the single most erotic exploit I've ever experienced; when he pulled out of me to come all over my lower stomach so dangerously close, and then he just collapsed on top of me in satisfied exhaustion. With no regard whatsoever for the streaks of come amidst us. It was that moment that made it so sensually gratifying. He was completely in the moment. He had given himself over fully to the experience.  It was so entirely stimulating. The intertwining of our bodies throughout the rest of the night made for such a rich, voluptuous experience. One that I had to immortalize in my writing.
     It would become one of the pieces I am most proud of.  It's so raw, vivid and real. It would become a memory bathed in amber and vermilion. One that I would recall when I felt uninspired and unexcited and bored with the trappings of wifedom and motherhood. I had some exotic experiences once. Something to look back on. Something ripe, and juicy; a perfect fruit waiting to be plucked. Something worth writing about. I was young and wild and free. Is tasting freedom worth the price of admission? Do I want the juice of that fruit running down my chin once more?  I certainly want to remain untamed, but at what level does happiness lay?  Responsibilities and obligations are the chains that bind us. They end up defining us.  It's experiential quicksand.  Man-eating is only fun for so long; it was the power I was addicted to, not the men. I fed off them until I was drunk with power. I don't know what state I left them in, but they always came back for another bite. Perhaps they liked the subtle subjugation or perhaps they erroneously thought they could wrangle, then tame me.  I really haven't an idea what those men think of me or if they even do, but I do think of them from time to time. And I recall what it was like to feel in control.

The Misinformation of Langston Hughes or Sweet, Vengeful Immortalization (Part One)