MICHELLE:
I hadn't seen Lisa since I'd left home -- it's been more than 25 years. The last time we got to hang out was the summer after freshman year.
We'd been close in high school and had the same interests -- both cheerleaders, gospel choir, honor society. More than once we even dated the same fellas.
She was MY GIRL, MY ACE, MY RIDE OR DIE... two black girls from DC ready to take on the world!
But after graduation life took her in one direction and me in another -- we lost touch.
Lisa stayed close to home. She attended a local college, married one of those fellas from high school, had a kid and eventually got a job with the local school board. She got divorced a few years ago, so now it's just her and her daughter living in suburban MD.
I attended college on the other side of the country. I landed a job with a tech company that took me to Canada for a few years, then to Seattle, Chicago and eventually back home to the DC area. In that time I've worked for three different firms, had two failed marriages and never had kids.
Lisa and I actually found each other again on Facebook. A classmate had sent requests to join a Class Reunion and Alumni Fundraising campaign. I normally don't do the social media thing -- I find it childish and depressing, but it actually worked out this time.
I met Lisa for coffee a month after that and we then had dinner at my place a week later. We fell right back in step, laughing at the same things, having the same dirty thoughts, like the time apart had never happened. The next time we got together at her place and I finally met her daughter, Cassidy ("Cass").
That's when things changed...
Cass was 22 when we met and looked very much like her mom, or more accurately, a slightly older version of what she looked like in high school. People used to always say that Lisa looked like Nia Long.
Unlike her mother, Cass is very "laid back" and reserved. Lisa always was (and still is) an "in your face", "notice me" type of personality. You were always aware of when Lisa entered the room.
That night Lisa and I drank cheap wine, laughed and reminisced, while Cass nursed her glass and refilled ours. Without even realizing it, we'd polished off 3 bottles of grocery store chardonnay. I'm still a lightweight when it comes to alcohol, and it was already late on a Friday night so they insisted that I stay.
Cass gave me one of her oversized t-shirts to sleep in and helped me to get settled in the guest room. When I crawled onto the bed it was 12:35. I was knocked out shortly after she turned the lamp off.
I didn't sleep very long -- the clock read 2:17 -- and I needed water. The guest room is on the first floor near the kitchen. I climbed out of bed still under the fog of cheap chardonnay and felt my way along the hallway in the dark. After downing two cold glassfuls from the fridge dispenser, I retraced my steps back to the room.
There was light coming from the room next to mines. The door was open. I figured that I didn't notice it before because I was going in the opposite direction.
I peeked in -- it took a few more seconds to register what I was seeing.
The light source was a large computer monitor on a desk. The image on the screen was graphic -- two women, one black one white, naked and having hardcore porn sex.
Slouched in an office chair in front of the desk, also naked except for an open bathrobe was Lisa. She was completely enthralled with the scene on the computer. Her right foot was propped against the edge of the desk, her left leg dangled over the arm of the chair. The fingers of one hand gently toyed with a breast, the other hand tended to her crotch.
Lisa's head slowly turned in my direction -- she looked dazed, or even high. But it wasn't Lisa, it was Cass.
