It was about ten o'clock that night when my ex-girlfriend Rashida called me. I had just got home from work and was looking forward to unwinding in front of the Playstation for a couple of hours and hitting the sack. The phone rang.
"Hello?"
"Hey," came Rashida's raspy voice from the other end.
"What's up?" Even though it had been seven years since we'd been a couple, Rashida and I still talked on the phone at least three or four times a week. This was about the extent of our relationship since we only saw each other about twice a year, usually to do lunch or something like that.
"Nothing," Rashida replied. "Just sitting here. Watching TV."
"Uh huh." I hadn't yet began to really pay attention to her. She had a habit of calling and having nothing to talk about. I continued to concentrate on my game.
"Actually, I was calling to see if you wanted to get together, maybe have a couple of drinks, smoke a joint?"
This was odd. Rashida never asked me out. "Sure, I guess. When?"
"Now."
"Right now? Tonight? Where?"
"Over here."
"Huh?" Rashida wanted to have a couple of drinks over at her place at the spur of the moment? She must really be bored, I thought.
"I don't know," I began. "I just got home from work. I was just going to unwind for a bit and then hit the sack." I'd just spent ten hours humping at the job and didn't really feel like going back out. "How about tomorrow? We can get off to an earlier start. I don't have to work or anything."
"Well. . . , I kind of wanted to get together tonight."
"It'll be better tomorrow," I insisted. "I be more rested, y'know?"
"Okay," she said, disappointedly. "If you really don't want to."
"Tomorrow then. . . ."
"Yeah, but, it won't be the same tomorrow."
"Why not?" I asked.
"I really wanted to see you
tonight
."
"Oh." A twinkle of understanding was finally beginning to grow in the back of my mind. But this didn't make any sense. Since the breakup, our relationship had been purely platonic, without much of a hint of anything else. If she was coming on to me, why now, all of a sudden? "Are you
sure
it can't wait until tomorrow?" I wanted to make certain I wasn't misunderstanding her but, at the same time, I didn't want to come right out and
ask
just in case all she really wanted to do was hang out.
"I'll put it like this," she said. "You can come tomorrow but it won't be same as if you came tonight."
"What do you mean, 'It won't be the same?'"
"I might be in a different
mood
."
"Okay," I said, shutting off the Playstation. "I'll be there in less than half an hour."
"Sure." Rashida sounded skeptical.
"Really," I insisted. "I'll be on my way."
"Okay." Rashida hung up and I hurried into the bathroom to start the shower. All my life I'd been notoriously slow to pick up on women's subtle hints, sometimes being so dense as to drive them to the point of having to grab my dick to get my attention. But not this time. Either I was way off base or Rashida was extremely horny and had decided to call me of all people. Whatever the case, I wasn't going to snooze through this one. I stripped and hopped into the shower to scrub the sweat and dirt of the day off me. Five minutes later I was done (the quickest shower of my life) and getting dressed. I threw on a t-shirt, a pair of sweat pants, grabbed my keys and was out the front door in less than five minutes.
Rashida lived less than two miles away and as I raced there in my Oldsmobile, I wondered why we didn't see more of each other. Her excuse was that she was always busy working or taking care of her three year old daughter. I thought that was bullshit because, at the same time, she'd always complain about how tired she was from kicking it all weekend. She just never kicked it with me.
In no time I was pulling up in front of her high rise. Miraculously, I found a parking place and was soon in the vestibule buzzing her bell.
"Hello?" She sounded groggy.
"It's me. I'm downstairs." There was a click and then the door buzzed. I went through the lobby and got on the elevator to her floor. I got off, found her apartment, and knocked. It took a few moments then she finally opened the door.
It occurred to me that I hadn't actually seen her in four months; the time I'd taken her and her daughter grocery shopping. She looked like she'd been napping; her eyelids were heavy. She smiled at me stood aside as I walked in.
"I didn't think you were coming," she said.
"I told you I would be here. You know I'm always dependable."
"Ha." She closed the door and slipped her arms around me. I hugged her back, enjoying the contact. Rashida had always had a way of hugging that was unlike anyone else I'd known. She pressed her small breasts into my chest and subtlety pushed her pelvis against mine. My dick would get hard every time she did that but I never got too excited because I knew she hugged everyone like that.
The apartment was dark and quiet. That meant her daughter was probably asleep on the futon in the living room. "Is your roommate here?" I asked.
"No," she said, taking her arms from around my neck. "She's still at work."
I knew this but I was just making sure. "You look nice," I said. And she did. Her hair was cut short, the way she'd always worn it. She had on a brown knit sweater and a matching brown suede skirt which complimented her dark skin tone. Her response to my compliment was typical. "Please," she said, turning away and heading for the kitchen. "I look scruffy as usual." Rashida, in my opinion, was a rather high maintenance girl, wearing top of the line clothes and always looking fine. She disagreed, saying she seldom wore jeans and t-shirts and stuff like that because she "wasn't in high school anymore". I, being an electrician, had an excuse for wearing jeans and t-shirts at all times.
I sometimes wondered how Rashida and I had hooked up in the first place. I was far from her "type". She typically went for flashy, well-dressed, light-skinned brothers with the well groomed hair and immaculately tapered mustaches. Though I was quite light-skinned, I was far from flashy, dressed like a bum, shaved quarter-annually, and wore a wild, uncombed afro (when we'd been going out I had dreadlocks). She claimed I'd always been attractive, even when we'd just been "friends" in college. The summer of our brief relationship, she'd made several fruitless attempts to dress me and bring out the pretty-boy she knew was lurking somewhere inside. After a few weeks she gave up.
"You want something to drink?" she said, as we entered the kitchen.
"Yeah. What you got?"
"Water," she said, bending over and looking into the fridge, "and lemonade."
I got caught up for a moment gazing at her big, round behind and the thick legs beneath it. When I didn't respond she looked over her shoulder at me. I made no attempt to hide the fact that I'd been staring at her ass. "Water, I guess. . . ," I paused for a second. "Wait a minute! I thought you were inviting me over for 'drinks'?"
"Actually, I don't have any liquor," she said, smiling at me mischievously. "I do have weed, though."
"Great," I said, sarcastically. "Water then."