I couldn't believe my eyes. There was Carolin sitting in a booth drinking coffee. She was still the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, white or black, and Carolin was black. Or African-American, as she referred to herself.
"Hello, remember me?" I asked.
"Tommy, my God, how are you?"
"Ah, all right. A couple of turns of bad luck, but other than that..."
Carolin was alone. But then again, she was always alone. That's because she had no equal, white or black...I knew this because I was white, and at one time I was her lover.
I was embarrassed at the torn knee of my jeans and the faded flannel shirt that I wore. A symbol of the tough times I had faced. She was dressed in an expensive looking navy blue pantsuit with a top that accentuated her ample chest.
We met in Vegas. It was 1999. She was at a cosmetics convention and staying at the "Riviera Hotel." I was staying there too. She had just started a business that catered to the cosmetic needs of African-American women. I didn't know much about cosmetics. But, I wanted to know about the lady sitting at the bar with legs the length of a roulette table. She had a regal air about her. As if there were a glass shield between her and the rest of the world, and you could only look, but not touch. I hoped that wasn't true.
"May I buy you a drink?" I asked.
"Yes, you may," she said.
"What'll you have? By the way my name is Tommy Shay."
She lifted her glass to her gorgeous dark lips and drank. "This is 'Grey Goose,' and I am...Carolin."
She smiled and a sledgehammer beat at me from inside my chest. The business, she said, was going slow, but it was going to be all right. What did I do for a living? What was my favorite song? "Mona Lisa?" It wasn't her favorite, she said, but not a bad choice. I felt vindicated by this creature of such exquisite, dark beauty. Deep, dark brown skin, big, brown eyes, and her perfect, thick lips that I ached to kiss were all part of this woman who now owned me.
"I'm going to be blunt," I said. "Because I've never met anyone like you, and I know that I never will again. Would you like to come up to my room where we can be alone?"
"I don't know if I can trust you," she said. Then she found my hand, entwined her fingers with mine, brought them to her lips and kissed them. "Let's go to your room, Tommy Shay."
I closed the door and she was there, kissing me. I'm a fairly tall man, about 6 feet tall, and we were eye to eye. That excited me. Looking straight into her passionate eyes, and knowing that I belonged to this black goddess, I dropped all masculine pretense, we were no longer man and woman in the traditional sense, but two hungry lovers, one white and one black. Between lip and tongue kisses, I unbuttoned her blouse, and planted grateful kisses upon the darkest, smoothest skin, I could ever have hoped to touch.