Free Can't Get Enough of Your Love by J.J. Murray Page A

romance me with the occasional flower, to sing to me in a language I don’t understand as much as I
feel
, to warm me from head to toe with his hands.
    And when it comes to my mind and soul, Roger fills me to bursting, listening to my rants and criticisms, writing me poetry, giving advice only when I ask for it, and massaging my cares away with his hands and his words.
    I’ve made them sound perfect, huh?
    Well, they aren’t perfect.
    Karl chews his nails, Juan Carlos’s nails are sometimes caked with grease, and Roger’s nails are usually too long. Karl bathes in cologne, Juan Carlos sometimes smells like exhaust fumes and gasoline, and Roger nearly always smells like the great outdoors. All three make some seriously strange faces when they’re angry—and sometimes during sex—that are not attractive at all. Juan Carlos’s nostrils flare, Roger’s ears wiggle, and Karl’s upper lip curls until it touches his nose. None of them dresses all that well (not that I care, since I’m more interested in what’s under their clothes), every last one of them wearing jeans and boots. And none of them is particularly smooth when it comes to the “right” thing to say to me to turn me on. In fact, most of the time I spend with Karl and Juan Carlos involves no dialogue whatsoever.
    We just … get it on.
    Now as for Roger … Damn, he makes me sigh, and though I know it’s wrong to think this, I wish to God he was black. If he were black, we’d be married with 2.1 kids, a dog, and a picket fence already. Thinking that doesn’t make me a racist, does it? I mean, Roger has soul, he has heart, he has this soft way of talking, those hazel eyes, that flaming curly red hair and matching goatee, which I’ve secretly nicknamed a “man-gina”—
    Boy looks like his head is on fire even at night.
    Of the three, he speaks to me, and I don’t mean talking. He’s not as—and
don’t
be thinking I’m about to say “as big” or “as endowed” as the others … because he
is
—he’s just not as fiery. He takes his time. He worships my body slowly, and after Juan Carlos and Karl, it’s nice to be devoured slowly, as if I’m a seven-course meal he has to savor carefully, tenderly.
    Though his hair could signal the space shuttle, Visine could use his entire head in an eye drops commercial, circus clowns are envious, and Ronald McDonald wants to sue him for hair-rights infringement.
    Enough of the hair jokes.
    Roger’s passion just burns slowly, like that candle you keep in your bathroom for show that you decide to light one day and, for whatever reason, just won’t burn itself out for months and months.
    Roger’s like that.
    I just wish he didn’t sell death.

Chapter 9
    H e doesn’t “sell” death exactly, but he makes such a creepy living.
    His family runs Fairview Cemetery, which isn’t that creepy. I mean, someone has to do it, right? And it must be a good business. It’s just creepy that folks have to die to give him and his family a living.
    I first met Roger at the front door of my mama’s house one cool Saturday in late February while Mama was working overtime at the banking center. I had just gotten out of the shower, so I was barely wearing anything—no bra, no drawers, just some shorts and a T-shirt. And as soon as that cool air hit my girls, my nipples jumped to life.
    â€œGood afternoon,” he said.
    â€œIs it?” I asked.
    â€œWhat?” he said.
    â€œAfternoon.”
    He looked at my toes, and they are some ragged-looking things. “Yes, ma’am. It’s after three.”
    â€œOh.” I had had a wild night of passion at Karl’s apartment the night before, so I had just gotten up.
    He was still staring at my toes so much that I crossed one foot over the other, giving him a glimpse of only the five less crusty ones.
    â€œDo