My name is Michael Charleston. I am a young black man living in New York City. I attend the state university and currently, I am taking up business administration. It's alright, I guess. The story that I'm about to tell you takes place during Spring Break of 2006. I had decided to hang out with my friends whom I hadn't seen in a long time.
I'm referring of course to my best buddy James Moreau and his girlfriend Jennifer Brown. James's a tall, caramel-skinned young Haitian brother from Philadelphia. He plays basketball for Elmira College. We've known each other for a long time. I've also known his girlfriend Jennifer for a long time. Jennifer's a thick, jet-black Jamaican with a pretty face, a voluptuous body and a big booty. She and James had been together forever. They have an on-again, off-again type of relationship. These days, they were together.
Man, those two couldn't be more different. James is an overachiever. Back when we went to high school in Brooklyn, he played both basketball and hockey. Yeah, I know. He must have been the first black kid from New York to play hockey. Hockey is usually a sport for white kids but lately, some black kids have started playing. Jennifer went to the same high school we did and that's where they met. Back then, Jennifer was a member of the school's Minorities In Technology club. She was the vice president. James ran for president of the club after being part of it only for three weeks. He was a very popular kid and won by a landslide. Jennifer became his rival. They hated each other at first. Somehow, they ended up falling in love. Don't ask. I don't understand it either.
Back in high school, I wasn't a very popular guy. I'm a six-foot-two, 245-pound black guy who didn't play any sport. I was a very good student, though. I always made honor roll. In fact, I was the first black male student to be valedictorian in my school's history. I won myself a full academic scholarship to New York University. I could have gone to Harvard but Boston didn't appeal to me. It's way too cold down there. I liked New York. It's home for me. So, James and I met with Jennifer and we decided to stay in Long Island for spring break. James's aunt Nicole Moreau had a house there. A nice, beachfront property. Not bad, huh? She was kind enough to let us have it over Spring Break since she was down in Florida with her husband and three kids.
I wasn't too keen on the idea of spending a whole week with James and Jennifer. They were both my friends and I liked them but they were way too d dramatic for me. Besides, I sometimes felt weird around them. James and Jennifer are deeply in love. Oh, they've had some trouble in the past. James once had a thing for this Hispanic chick named Lucinda or something. I remembered her. A tall, curvy girl with long black hair, golden skin and dark green eyes. She was a beautiful gal. James and her had a thing going on while he and Jennifer were briefly separated. From what James told me, Lucinda was terrific in bed. When James got back together with Jennifer, he decided to end it with Lucinda. Lucinda didn't like that very much. She began stalking James. At first, James didn't take it too seriously.
James has a nasty habit that might get him killed someday. He thinks he's invincible and that he can get away with almost anything. If you ask me, no man should ever underestimate a woman. Any woman. Women are a lot more dangerous than men. Trust me, I know. Lucinda stalked James. She showed up at Blockbuster video where he worked. She left threatening letters in his mail box. She was one scary chick. James didn't know what to do. He went to the cops but you know cops don't like helping black males, especially when it's a black man dealing with a psycho woman who's out to get him.
Jennifer is the one who got Lucinda to back off. Jennifer marched to the psycho chick's house and told her to leave her man alone. I don't know the details, except that Lucinda was seen sporting a black eye the next day and she never bothered James again. Jennifer can be a scary woman sometimes. Like all the black females I knew. Still, she loved her man very much and James loved her too, in spite of his player ways. I envy those two sometimes. Okay, more than just sometimes. I started thinking that maybe staying with them for a few days would be a good thing. Of course, I've been wrong before.
When we picked up Jennifer, I noticed that there was someone else with her. Jennifer introduced us to her friend Nadine. I looked at Nadine. She was a tall, good-looking girl with long blond hair and pale blue eyes. I was surprised. I didn't know that Jennifer had white friends. I didn't mind, though. I'm an open-minded and flexible guy, and Nadine was definitely easy on the eyes. I learned a few things about her as the car got moving. James was driving. He's got a macho thing where he insists on driving. Jennifer stopped giving him any lip over it a long time ago. James always has to be the boss. That's just how he is. Yeah, back to Nadine. She was the captain of the women's Lacrosse team at Elmira college and she was studying Criminal Justice. I checked her out through the rearview mirror. Definitely beautiful, that girl.
Now, I haven't said much about myself in the way of romance. Oh, well. I'm going to be honest with you. You might want to sit down for this. In case you're already sitting down, brace yourself anyway. I am bisexual. It's not something I go around telling people. If you lived in homophobic Brooklyn, you'd know what I mean by that. I've seen the way queer kids get treated in high school. I didn't need any of that drama. You might think that just because I am a bisexual black man, then I am the kind of guy who goes around sleeping with a lot of people. I'm not. I am celibate. I have been for a long time. Ever since I became aware of my sexual orientation, I decided to fly solo. It was lonely but I was afraid of complications. I didn't want people to find out about me. Also, I didn't want to live a lie. So I focused on school, got good grades and lead a very lonely life. Now you know why I envied my pals.
James drove through the highway. I stuck my head outside and looked. I loved the cool wind on my face. It was getting warmer these days and I loved it. James was shaking his head from side to side as he listened to Hip Hop music blasting on the radio. Jennifer was dozing in the back. I watched Nadine. She was just sitting there, reading a book. I turned around and asked her what book it was. She looked at me, smiled and simply showed me. I blinked. Nadine was reading Rainbow Boys by Alex Sanchez. I've read it before. It's a good fiction book about gay and bisexual teenagers. I smiled at her, and nodded. Nadine returned my smile, and something passed between us. I asked her what it was about. She told me. I told her that her book sounded nice, and fixed my eyes back on the road.
I was somewhat surprised to find a straight-looking white female reading gay literature. Surprised, but not really shocked. Back in the day, I had a black female friend named Tracy who knew that I was bisexual. Tracy was cool with it. It didn't bother her one bit. We were pretty good friends. Tracy admitted to me that she liked watching gay porn, and was somewhat fascinated by sex acts between homosexual and bisexual males. Naturally, I was fascinated by such things too. Guy on guy action, that is. I found women attractive, don't get me wrong. I liked pretty black girls with cute faces, nice bodies and sexy butts. I also liked Tracy. Sometimes, I wondered what it would be like to date her. It's too bad that she had a boyfriend, some guy named Tyrone. Oh, well.
I hadn't thought about Tracy in a long time. She was at Boston College these days, studying business management while playing on the women's basketball team. I remembered the good times we used to have. I told her about a crush I had on Kyle Mendoza, the star of the football team at my old high school. He was a sexy Latin stud. Unfortunately, he was straight and had a very straight-laced girlfriend, Kimberly. I've had so many crushes in high school. I once had a crush on Nikki Trevor, a beautiful redhead who was also the star of our women's hockey team. Yeah, I like jocks. I befriended Nikki. We became pals. Unfortunately, when I confessed my feelings to her, she told me that she didn't see as anything more than a friend. That hurt me, but not as badly as I had been hurt by Mendoza's teammate Josh Hawk when he found out that I had a crush on him. Hawk and his homophobic buddies did quite a number on me that time.
As you can see, I didn't have much luck in the romance department. Both girls and boys had shattered my heart. I was twenty years old and so far, I've never done anything more than kissing with members of both sexes. I've kissed a guy named Martin, once. He was an older gay man I had a crush on it. He liked me but didn't see me as boyfriend material, unfortunately. I've also kissed Wanda, a pretty black girl I once liked. We've kissed a couple of times, though she had a boyfriend named Steven at the time. Yeah, that's my life story. I never got the girl...or the boy, for that matter.
After driving around for an hour, we finally arrived at the place. James's aunt had a nice place. We parked the car and went inside. I took a look around the place. Everything looked nice from the outside. We checked inside. A well-furnished house, two stories, with a basement. Three bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen and two bathrooms. Not bad. Not bad at all. In Long Island, a place like this must have cost a fortune. We picked our rooms. Jennifer and James would stay together in the bedroom upstairs. Nadine would stay in the room right next to them and I would stay downstairs. The arrangement worked well for me. I was closer to the bathrooms and I had my privacy.