Erika asked me: "Are you ready?" I wondered whether I was. "Ready as I'll ever be," I said.
Then I took a moment to look her over. "Damn, you look good! I'll bet every guy in the place will want to fuck you."
"I certainly hope so," she said, with just a twist of a smile. "That's pretty much the idea, isn't it?"
"I guess so."
"You
guess
so, Steve? You're having second thoughts? I think it's a little late for that." She offered me her arm. "Now escort me to my limousine, please."
The "limousine" was the same old Ford Taurus that we've had for longer than we've been married. But it's never taken us anyplace like this before. Couldn't have; Altamont may be the San Francisco of the Southern Appalachians, but until just a few weeks ago, it never had anything like this. This place ... this event ... that its organizers call simply "The Club."
A place where white men take their wives to meet black men.
Not that you could tell that by looking at the building. The sign on the front says "Cedric's Place," same as it has for as long as I can remember. It has maybe a little bit racier reputation than other bars in Altamont. A good nightclub for people looking to walk on the wild side just a little; but nothing so specific.
But tonight, Cedric's is closed to the public. Closed for a private party, that's all they tell the people who don't already know. But we do know. That's why we're here. We know what to tell the man at the door. We're in.
A lot of the people look vaguely familiar. But at first scan, I don't see anyone we actually know. That goes for the white couples, and for the black guys as well.
I'm glad, I think.
We're fairly early; I don't see very much mingling going on yet. Especially between the races. People are still checking each other out.
Okay, I'll do that too.
Looking at the other women, I see my wife in a whole new light. I wouldn't say this out loud, but basically, some of them look dowdy, and the rest of them are dressed to look slutty. And that's "slut" with all the bad connotations the word usually has. Most of this crowd are not ready to reclaim the word, to take pride in being sluts. They may want to be, but they're not.
Erika is ready. Her expression, her clothes, and her body all declare, good and loud, "I'm a slut – and proud."
One of the guys has already noticed her. Real young one, maybe about nineteen. Way he's dressed, he looks like what they call a "gang-banger." Baggy shorts, pulled down so that the top of his underwear is showing.
He was standing with some of his buddies, but now he's on the way over. Erika sees him, too.
"Hey, mama! You're looking
good
tonight!" He glances at me for about three tenths of a second, then puts his attention back on Erika. "Gotta be y'all's first time here, right? Bitch as fine as you been here before, I'd remember."
"That's right," Erika says, "It's our first time here." As she says it, she puts her hand on my arm for just a moment. "Are you the welcoming party? Offering to show us the ropes?" She extends her hand to him. "My name's Erika, by the way."
"I'll show you anything you want to see, baby," he says. He looks pleased with himself. "But let me ax you something. This just your first time at The Club, or you ain't never been blacked before, period?"
"The latter, if I understand you. I haven't had sex with a black man ... yet. And your name is ...?"
"Oh, you can call me Tyrone. All us young bulls in here go by Tyrone. Makes it easier for y'all to remember."
All this time, he's still holding on to her hand. Gently rubbing on the palm, and up into the gap between the thumb and fingers. She hasn't tried to take it away. She firms up her grip briefly as she says, "Very pleased to meet you, Tyrone."
"So, I bet you don't want to waste any more time, you ain't never had it before. You ready for me to pop your black dick cherry?"
There's a silence. She looks at me. I think I can read her reaction. She's pretty damn ready, but not quite that ready. But she doesn't want to say so; I think she wants me to play the bad guy.
So I do. "Hey, bro, we just got here. I think we'd like some time to soak up the atmosphere, meet some more folks, watch how The Club operates. I'm not saying she's not interested, dig? Think of it like foreplay."
"You're not my bro," Tyrone answers me. The rest of his answer goes to her. "You gonna let your little-dicked, loser white husband talk for you? I'm asking you, not him. What you want? Foreplay? Ass play? Or you just wanna play with my dick?"
"He can talk for me," Erika replies evenly, "so long as he gets it right. So far, he's doing fine. And he's no loser. He's my husband, and I love him. And he knows me a lot better than you do, Tyrone.
"Don't misunderstand me," she adds, laying her hand on his arm. "I think you look fine, too. I bet you have an impressive dick. I'd love to play with it ... in a while. Just show some patience, OK?"
"Oh, I get it," the young man said. "You two are that kind of white folks, think you're going to come slumming in here, pick up some black dick, but you're going to do it your way, call all the shots.
"Well, let me tell you something. This Club don't work like that. Least, not where I'm around. I meet a white bitch, she's going to do what I tell her to do, when I tell her to do it. And her white husband ain't gonna do nothing but smile and say, 'Yes, sir.'
"Got that? 'Cause here's what you're gonna do, girl. You're gonna suck my dick, right here, right now. In the middle of the floor, you dig?"
While he was giving us that rap, I was noticing something else. Out of the corner of my eye, at first. The other young guys he'd been standing with, before he came over: they'd been watching and listening. And now they began to move.
Towards us ... but not directly towards us, not all of them. Some of them were circling around
behind
us. There were enough of them, they could make a circle around us. Discourage anyone from interfering, but still leave room for others to watch what was going on.
They weren't fast enough. Before they could close up a circle, another man was there, inside it, and right up in "Tyrone's" face. He was black, too, but looked considerably older than these guys. In his mid forties, maybe: about five years older than Erika and I.
"I think you forgot your manners, LT," the new arrival told him. "If you want to come on to some lady all gangsta like that, and she digs it, then right on, I won't interfere. But that's not what's happening this time. You need your ears washed out, you can't hear too good? She was liking you at first; you could have had some, real easy, if you showed a little class. But no, you gotta give her the whole act: 'Bitch do this, bitch do that.' This woman is not down with that. And you know what?" He leaned his face in closer to Tyrone's. "If she's not down with it, then neither am I. You dig?"
Tyrone was like a changed man ... or boy. "Sure thing, Coach. Whatever you say. Shoot, if you had your eye on her, why didn't you just say so? I ain't gonna give you no trouble."
And with that, he turned and walked away. His buddies all drifted in the same direction.
"Sorry, ma'am," Coach said. "And sir. He actually isn't such a bad kid. He's just watched too many of the wrong kind of movies. Plus, he's tried that approach on some of the other women who've come in here, and, so help me, more often than not, it's worked. And the husbands seemed to be eating it up, too. So in a way, I can't blame him too much for being confused.
"But you two are new here, and we can't have you getting the wrong impression. Especially such a lovely lady as yourself. We want you to be comfortable here, and come back because you had a good time. Both of you."
"Please, call me Erika," she said. "And I'm Steve," I chimed in, and offered my hand. He shook it, warmly.
"And hey," I went on, "I really want to thank you." Erika nodded, so I added, "We both do. That could have been ... uncomfortable. You know, as a fantasy, I might even get into something like that. But in real life ...."
"I understand," Coach affirmed. "In real life, if you have any sense, you want to be dealing with someone who sees you as people, not just tokens in their game. Unfortunately, we've had some white couples come in here who apparently didn't have that kind of sense. They seemed to want to be treated like shit."
He was silent for a few moments, looking at both of us in turn. We were sitting down, now; while we were talking, he'd guided us to a table, using gestures alone. It felt natural to follow his lead.
"Like I said to LT, I see a couple acting like that, I don't interfere. They don't have any self-respect, that's not my problem. But it makes me wonder what the country's coming to." We all nodded.
"It's refreshing to see a couple like you two, who stand up for yourselves – and each other. I mean, I assume you know what The Club is about. If you're here, then you have some desires, or at least some curiosity, that aren't, shall we say, neutral when it comes to race. You want to cross that boundary. But you don't want to be humiliated, or pushed around. That about right?"
He was watching both our faces, but Erika's more than mine. So she answered him.
"Yes. Sir," with a flash of smile as she added that word. "I appreciate your stepping in. This young fellow—what did you call him, 'LT'?—I believe you when you say he's not really a bad kid, but he's got some things to learn."
"Yes, I called him LT. It stands for 'Little Tyrone.'" We all smiled.
Erika leaned forward a little. "LT implied that you stepped forward because you had your eye on me yourself. Is there any truth to that?"
"Well, let me put it like this: it wasn't
the
reason. Stepping up to show young guys how to do right, that's just part of who I am. And, call me crazy if you want, but I actually believe that, in the long run, places like The Club can contribute to improving race relations ... but only if we don't have too many guys acting dumb like that and screwing it up."
He paused. "But I admit, I have been known to get a side benefit from a situation like this. An 'intervention' like just now, it does get a conversation started. If that conversation leads ... somewhere else ... somewhere very pleasant, involving a particularly attractive woman ... I don't feel like I need to run away from an opportunity like that."
Erika leaned in still closer to his face. "And do you consider me a particularly attractive woman?"
He moved a little closer, too. "Yes, ma'am. Erika. Quite particularly."
"Mmm," she said. "That makes me feel ... very ... good."
By the time she finished saying that, their lips were so close that it would have been ungentlemanly of him
not
to move in for the kiss. So he did. I timed that first one at a little over four seconds.