Edited by: Sixty-nine
We were only friends. We worked together and found out we had compatible natures. If she had been white, I would have asked her out. If I had been black, she would have accepted.
I certainly had nothing against black women. I found them very sexy and typically, while not always, more sassy and self-assured than white women. I'd always thought the whole race thing was over-emphasized, not that it didn't play a role in my fantasies. I've always had this thing for exotic women.
Rachelle was a "righteous sister," as she called herself. She always downed black men who thought they looked better with a white woman, especially a blonde, on their arms.
Going through a magazine, she'd often say with heated agitation, "Why is it always these skinny, little white girls with their big-haired blonde selves that our men want to parade around with when they think they've finally made it? Why can't a brother be proud of a fine, black woman on his arm? Answer me that."
"Couldn't tell you, babe," I'd usually reply, then if we were out of everyone else's earshot, I'd often add, "maybe its that nice, wide plump ass your women have."
"Shit, you love this ass! I've seen you looking at it enough."
And I guess I did in a completely casual, totally friendly, obsessive sort of way. Rachelle never took that personal though, because I looked at every woman's ass and often made suggestive comments, once I knew she wouldn't take me seriously.
"Nice hips on that one," I'd say as we walked through the mall on the way to getting something for a quick lunch.
"Too skinny," she'd reply, no doubt because it was a white girl.
"Nothing wrong with skinny, either, once you're horizontal."
"Larry, it's been so long since you been horizontal with a woman you'd take anything."
"That's true, babe, but a man can still have his dreams."
Sometimes when we were eating at the food court together, she'd get disgusted and throw down her napkin. "She's looking at us again."
"Let her look, Rachelle. It's just ignorance. Any fool could see that a gorgeous sista' like you wouldn't be involved with a geeky, whitebread like me."
"It still pisses me off," she'd mutter low and under her breath. "When is it going to be when two people can eat together and not be gawked at?"
"Preach on, girl!" I'd say in friendly mockery. "Power to the people, and all that shit! You want some more soda? I'm gonna get a refill."
"You are one geeky cracker," she said, bursting into a fit of girlish laughter. "'Power to the people?' Shit, I haven't heard that in ten years. You been watching VH1 again or something?"
We worked in the same small department of the company. Our schedules were coordinated and often we'd have to work on heavy projects together. That meant a lot of face time one-on-one. It hadn't taken us more than six months or so to start falling into the easygoing banter between us. After a couple of years, we were beyond the point where we had to worry about stepping on toes.
"You know that's bullshit," she'd tell me in her frank manner that I had come to appreciate.
"No, really, it would sound better if this paragraph goes first and then this one."
"That's the same fuckin', EuroCentric, linear thinking crap they taught you in college, Larry. Break the mold, baby! Write something different for a change to go with this spicy graphic! Why do I slave so hard so that white boys like you can just dumb down my work with "See Jane run!"
"See, that's just your prejudice talking," I'd smile back at her. "You'd never appreciate any writer, even if Denzel wrote your copy."
"Not true, little brother," she'd say, Rachelle's highest compliment. "The forever righteous Mr. Denzel Washington studied journalism at Fordham before he took up acting. Man can write, now."
Rachelle had seen every Denzel Washington movie ever made. She even personally dragged my white ass (as she put it) to see "Malcolm X" when it was out. Anytime I wanted to get a rise out of her, all I had to do was "dog" Denzel.
"Besides," she'd say all dreamy eyed, "A fine man like Denzel wouldn't be just writing words in this little ol' office."
"Sure he would," I'd cackle at her. "He's happily married, remember."
"Of course, he is," she'd say indignantly. "To a fine woman, too. A fine, black woman!"
Then, she'd throw my words back at me. "Still, a girl can have her dreams."
One fateful, slow Friday afternoon, Rachelle came back from lunch at the mall by herself. I'd been delayed because I had one last deadline to make and she was supposed to pick me up a Subway sandwich while she was there. I'd finished up the offending copy and e-mailed it to the printer just as my office mate came storming back into the room, clearly pissed off.
"I can't believe that son-of-a-bitch!" she fumed, throwing her canvass tote bag onto her chair. "I can't believe that fucking Paul!"
"Paul? The guy you've been dating? I didn't know you were seeing him at lunch."
"He didn't either, that motherfucker! Him and his white trash, trailer park little bitch of a girlfriend. I can't believe he would do this to me! Steppin' out on me with a white girl!"
She was angry, but she was also starting to cry. As she vented the anger, the hurt got even worse, swelling up inside her until she was almost bursting. Without even thinking about it, I got up from my chair and held her, consoling her in the same way that she had consoled me a year ago when I'd gotten the call that my Dad had died of a heart attack. "It's okay, babe," I whispered into her ear, rubbing her back gently as she started to sob on my shoulder. "He doesn't deserve you, Rachelle. He never did."
"Damn straight, he doesn't," she murmured, rubbing her cheek against the top of my arm. "What's she got that I ain't got, Larry?"
"A dumb-ass for a boyfriend, apparently," I said earnestly, causing us both to chuckle. Rachelle's amusement was short-lived, though. She hugged me tight to her as she weeped softly.
"He is a dumb-ass," she muttered, her clutching need pulling our bodies closer. Then again, barely discernable, I heard her say, "A fine woman like me."
The smell of her was intoxicating, spicy and sensual, just like her graphics. With her firm breasts pressing into me, there was no doubting that Rachelle was all woman. My body, despite my consciously pure motives, began to react to her grieving, feminine nature. I pulled her deeper into my arms, to protect and comfort her, even as my erection started to dig in a little to the softness of her stomach. Rachelle's hips seemed to curl against me ever so slightly. Her back bowed just barely perceptibly as I rubbed it gently.
"You think I'm a fine, woman, don't you, Larry?" she asked sadly, seeking reassurance.
"The finest woman I know," I replied sincerely, breathing in the warm fragrance of her hair.
She rubbed her nose against the top of my chest, nuzzling closer. I looked down at her dark brown forehead and the delicate turn of her ear. I had the desperately crazy urge to lick that ear, to pull her even tighter, and to tell her how beautiful she really was. Rachelle turned her head slightly and raised her chin as though to say something. The words were so soft and inaudible, they slipped past me. It didn't matter, though. All I could see was her lips.
I found myself kissing her without even thinking about the consequences. The only way I knew what was happening was because of the most incredible softness that pressed against my lips. When my anxious tongue reached out, I traced the satin of the inside of those familiar lips. The lips I had studied eating food every afternoon. The lips that I was only just then willing to admit to myself had haunted me for two years in my dreams.
Rachelle's lips, the lips of the first black woman I ever kissed.
"No, baby," she moaned into my mouth. Her pelvis rocked against me, pressing my firmness deeper into her belly. "We can't, Larry."
I kissed her again, firmer this time, my fevered brain not wanting to take no for an answer. Her breasts bored into my chest as my tongue bored into her mouth, searching out, and then finding her own sweet tongue. Coaxing it out, I curled just the tip of my tongue under the smooth underside of hers. Soon enough, our lips were grinding together gently, just as her hips were grinding against mine.