Free One Night by Eric Jerome Dickey Page A

day.”
    â€œWe made love for the first time. We were on my boat. I docked us at Catalina for the night.”
    â€œ
Bow chica bow wow
. She broke out the lingerie and hooked you up.”
    â€œIt wasn’t planned.”
    â€œShe planned it. Trust me. She shaved the cat and climbed on the boat ready to freak.”
    â€œIt was spontaneous. We were only going to meet for lunch. One thing led to the next.”
    â€œShe stepped on the boat, saw you were rich, and the doors to her church opened.”
    â€œShe told me I was the man of her dreams. I felt love when she touched me.”
    â€œLust is a master showman who disguises himself as love, and love is a mythical creature who keeps habitat with the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and other lies we have been fed.”
    He shook his head, rubbed his hands together, said, “Funny.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œIt started off that she was the only woman I wanted to look at. She was the only beautiful woman on the planet. When love goes in the other direction, every other woman on the planet is more attractive than a man’s wife; more attractive because he does not judge his wife from the outside in, but from the inside out. In the end it will always be about character over beauty.”
    â€œMarriage made you hard.”
    â€œIt’s not marriage that makes us callous. Marriage, that spiritual union, will always be beautiful. It’s the people who marry and don’t take marriage seriously; it’s other people who make us coldhearted.”
    I asked, “How educated is she?”
    â€œShe went to University of Pennsylvania, graduated magna cum laude.”
    â€œHer major?”
    â€œInternational law. She modeled to pay her way through university.”
    I nodded, let that end right there. His wife had serious credentials. Had married smart. I imagined his intellectual trophy, nicely dressed, magnificent, with cascading blond hair; the kind of woman who can walk into Starbucks on Centinella and suddenly every black woman in the room feels invisible.
    He said, “Eyes averted. Shoulders dropped. Biting lip. Your temperament has changed.”
    â€œI’m like the people sitting here in Denny’s. This is as close to Dubai as most will ever get. I’ll never be mansion-smart. Best I can do now is pass by mansions and throw rocks.”
    I pulled my lips in. The baby across the room cried like it was colicky. The man across from me saw me look at the kid, saw my discomfort, saw me adjust my body language. I had studied him and now he had turned the tables, and I didn’t like being studied, didn’t like being dissected.
    I asked, “Why are you looking at me like that?”
    â€œAnswer a question for me. It’s about your boyfriend.”
    â€œWhat about him?”
    â€œTell me the truth. How does he treat you?”
    I shrugged. “I’ll be honest. Some days, like today, I feel ignored, like I need to be with someone worth being faithful to. Some days being faithful to him makes me feel like I ain’t doing nothing but cheating myself of the next opportunity that could present itself to me. Kind of stuck where I am right now.”
    â€œHow many years have you and the chicken and waffles guy been together?”
    â€œWe might be at about six months now.”
    â€œMight be? You’re not sure?”
    â€œWell, I’m confused about it most of the time. We’ve never really discussed the anniversary, or which anniversary should be the official anniversary. Women, we have first-time-we-talked anniversary, first-time-we-went-out anniversary, first-time-we-went-to-a-movie anniversary, first-time-we-kissed anniversary. Didn’t write down the day I think we became an official couple. Actually, I wouldn’t know how to figure out the day—if I should go by when he first liked my comments, or when we starting talking on Skype every day, or when we met