Free Between Lovers by Eric Jerome Dickey

a strip mall up near 40th. No houses. No condos. Just grocery stores, shoe stores, a Blockbuster Video, other things like that. Inside that strip mall is a MailBoxes Etc. The address outside matches the address on the postcard. All I have for Nicole is a damn P.O. box.
    Smart woman. Very smart woman.
    Guess she figures if I have her home address, at some point I’ll bring trouble to her front door.
    She’s right.
    And it’s a good thing. I have a family: two older brothers, one younger, both parents living, waiting for me to come back to them with my prize. I have more accountability than I care to talk about.
    I need Nicole to come back to me.
    So I go back to my room, strip to my boxers, do push-ups, as many as I can, then sit-ups, and with sweat on my brow, my arms, my bare legs, I write. Put all of that emotion down on paper.
    At 2 a.m. there’s a knock at my door. It’s Nicole. She has on blue-and-gray U of M sweats under her black leather coat. Her laptop over her right shoulder, files from work in the same hand, her black-and-white overnight bag is over her left shoulder, and a cup of Starbucks is in that same hand. She looks worn. Very worn. A candle burning at two ends. She smiles. That smile is like stars on a dark night, and that optimistic power makes me smile. Makes me forget everything that’s wrong.
    We kiss right there, before words leave our faces. We stop when her pager goes off.
    I ask, “Work?”
    â€œAyanna. Mind if I call her real quick?”
    â€œI mind,” I say in a no-compromise tone. “You’re on my dime.”
    She smiles like she loves it when I demand her attention like that. Her bracelets sing a happy song as she comes into my world.
    I ask, “Why don’t you ever take those bracelets off?”
    She pushes her lips up into a schoolgirl smile. “I just don’t.”
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    We pull the curtains back so we can see the stars through the plantation shutters that divide my room. My Queen of Clean Hygiene turns on the shower as soon as she walks in, lights candles, undresses me, and we cleanse each other. She never goes to bed without a bath. We oil each other.
    She asks, “How was André’s show?”
    â€œOff the hook. He asked about you.”
    I tell her some of his act, the new parts. And I tell her another joke.
    She frowns. “Ass equals booty plus twenty pounds?”
    â€œThat’s André’s equation.”
    â€œHe is such a pig.” Nicole pauses. “Okay, which do I have, booty or ass?”
    â€œDon’t start.”
    We laugh a bit.
    She says, “Ayanna hates his act.”
    â€œWhat, she can’t take the gay humor?”
    â€œToo stereotypical for her taste.”
    â€œSo, she’s a critic?”
    â€œAlways a critic.”
    â€œShe drive a bus?”
    â€œNo. Why you ask?”
    â€œJust asking.”
    â€œYou’ve never asked about her before.”
    Nicole pulls her locks back, puts on her small-framed glasses, sits in the living room section of the room for about an hour, spreads her papers out over the coffee table facing Jack London Square and reads over her work. She mumbles to herself while she reads. I do some journal writing in front of my laptop, the Leonardo da Vinci screen saver giving extra light.
    When she takes a break, she asks, “You record your signing?”
    I tell her, “The tape is next to the recorder.”
    She pops it in and listens. “You talk too fast at some points, slow down. Take your time.”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œYour voice is so sexy.”
    I smile. Seven years and I’ve never grown tired of her flattery. Never been bored with loving her.
    At one point she rolls her eyes. “Sisters take what you do too seriously.”
    â€œGive it a rest.”
    â€œ ‘Are you single?’ ” she mocks. “What does that have to do with the friggin’ book?”
    â€œStop playa