It was time to go home, go inside my closet, and unlock my file cabinet.

I slipped out of the W unseen, the rain falling at a peaceful tempo, the night air thick and humid, hot and moist, like the heat from an aroused lover's breath, his breath covering all exposed flesh.

I made it to my car, keys in hand.

I was too restless to go home. All I would do was end up in bed, tossing and turning, a pillow jammed between my legs, wishing I were anywhere but home alone. Maybe I'd drive to midtown, or ride over to Apache Cafe, listen to spoken word and poetry, find somewhere to sit and let time go by, let sleepiness find me so when I made that journey back home loneliness and desire would not assault me.

My cellular rang. A text message from Logan.

I'm sorry for the way I behaved. Please except my apology.

I sent him a text: Where are you?

Passing through Chattanooga.

That was four hours outside of Georgia. I felt relieved. So fucking relieved. Not until then did I realize I had been dreading going home, kept having a feeling that he would be on my porch, waiting.

I sent him a text back. Take care.

I muttered, "Accept, not except. Hire a freaking editor. Asshole."

I turned my cellular off, remained in the darkness forever. Under dark skies, I stood in the parking lot, not moving. I'd had too much to drink. Not too much to hang out, not too much to lime elsewhere, just too much to drive. It would be foolish to drive, APD peppering the streets. I'd wait it out, sit in my car. But for now I stayed where I was, enjoying the lightheadedness, enjoying the night.

The twins. They had smiled identical smiles at me, expressed dual desires for me, now I was engaged in a battle with myself, with my sensual self, struggling to keep my eroticism from taking over.

Mark, the considerate, deep thinker, had sent me to go consider the consequences of my own desires, to myself become a philosopher. We'd had very little contact, yet he affected me in a way I could not control or describe. I took a deep breath, one that was supposed to be sobering, and then I pondered a woman's love-hate relationship with men, and all women had love-hate relationships with men. I loved handsome men. My femininity loved the masculinity of the alpha male. And I hated that I loved them so. Men were a necessary evil. I hated anything that was necessary, hated needing anything beyond my control, hated needing anything I could not control. And men had love-hate relationships with women. We were their necessary evils. We were their yang. They wanted us. They needed us. And they hated us, always trying to maneuver and outsmart the enemy. We were frenemies. Friends and enemies.

But with us, with women, it was different.

Men came inside us. They marked us. After sex was done they remained with us, dripping out of us, each trickle like a thought, or an unanswered question, our insides, our sexual muscles still feeling their presence, still experiencing the thrusts, twitching from the aftershocks of pain and plea sure, feeling that beautiful intrusion that sent us toward what could only be heaven, left us tasting the liquid desire they had left behind, the come that left us awake and alone with our thoughts. While they felt nothing more than sleepy and tired and thirsty, the same symptoms of an allergy attack.

I had learned that when I was at Hampton. I had learned that lesson well.

They moved inside us, moved inside our wombs, pushed our insides and disturbed the beats of our hearts. I didn't want to take the chance of having the beat of my heart made uneasy. Women were excited after sex, wired, because in their minds the relationship was only beginning. Men went to sleep because for them the orgasm had arrived and the relationship was done.

I took a step and paused, tested my sobriety, my lightheadedness remained.

Before I could return to my apple-martini-inspired philosophizing, I heard footsteps and murmuring. Someone was coming my way. I imagined Mark or Karl, maybe both, looking for me.

I heard a deep male voice, one that had radio quality. In the next moment I saw his silhouette hurrying by me. I was shorter than the SUVs in the lot, my Z4 one of the smallest cars, so as he rushed deeper into the parking lot he didn't see me. But I had a clear view of him. It was the lothario I had met when I first arrived at the W. The arrogant and attractive light-skinned man who wanted me to come up to his room on the fifth floor so he could drink my bathwater. I stayed still until he made it to his car, didn't want any kind of conversation or confrontation with him. I was going to be still until he left.

The lothario unzipped his pants like he was about to relieve himself of his drinks.

He said, "Hurry up, baby. Get your fine ass over here and suck this dick."

My mouth opened, about to curse him, thinking he was talking to me. He wasn't aware of my presence. Footsteps rushed from the other direction. He had stopped one car over, was standing between parked cars, whispering to someone else. He was creeping out to meet somebody.

"You have a beautiful mouth."

Weed. I smelled weed coming from his direction. Good, strong weed.

"That's it, baby. Hell, yeah. Suck the nut out of this dick."

I moved toward the back of my two-seater, moved deeper into the shadows.

He was moaning, the sexual sounds hypnotic and arousing, the sound of plea sure, the beautiful timbre of a rising orgasm. I took slow, curious steps, was as quiet as I could be in heels, a mouse walking on cotton, the beat from the music inside the W smothering the echoes of my footsteps.

I heard the sound of wetness, that kind that came from practicing the art of deep-throat.

Somebody was tasting his pre-come and trying to suck an orgasm out of his body.

"Goddamn, you can suck a dick."

I held my breath. Moved slowly, my curiosity leading me into the land of the voyeuristic. I wanted to see her. Wanted to see which woman had been brought outside in the name of plea sure. Wanted to witness her technique. Then I saw his lover. Saw his lover taking him in smooth motions, quick motions, making that part of the arrogant man vanish like an exotic sword swallower, the sound of his mouth loud.

His lover was a well-built man in oversized jeans, his head shaven bald. A bona fide thug was kneeling, his hands on pretty boy's thighs, his bald head dipping and taking cock in his mouth as the yellow man moaned his beautiful moans and smoked a joint, its scent spreading in the damp air.

My cellular chimed and I jumped. The theme from Sex and the City. My mother's ring tone.

I turned the phone off as fast as I could, looked up, and saw the arrogant yellow man.

He was looking my way. He saw me. He saw my face as I stared at his.

He smiled at me.

That wasn't the reaction I had expected. I had anticipated shame, not pride.

His smile widened, then he put his hand on the back of his lover's bald head, kept his lover bobbing at an anxious pace, and stared at me, smoke streaming from both his mouth and nostrils.

His lust moving in and out of another man's mouth, he smoked and licked his lips at me.

As if watching me watch him turned him on, intensified his corrupt sensations.

He jerked, grunted, his eyes rolled into the back of his head, and his body stiffened.

Despite my phone ringing, his lover hadn't lost his enthusiasm.

I broke from my trance, turned around, my heels clicking across the parking lot, ran away from the moans that were behind me, the apple martinis stealing some of my grace.

That shouldn't have surprised me.

I'd seen muscular men cuddled up with feminine men in Piedmont Park. The biggest gay club in Atlanta was Lennox Mall, the section of Atlanta that stretched between Buckhead and midtown destined to be renamed Tops and Bottoms. In this segment of the Bible Belt it seemed as if desirable men sampled semen more than ravenous women. Probably served fellatio with the fervor of Superhead.

Moments like this were disturbing, beyond depressing.

Yet they owned ecstasy.

They owned it without shame, without denegation, as if it were their entitlement.

I was entitled to ecstasy as well.

I went back inside the W, my sensual self inspired to pursue my own sexual fulfillment.

I had a pleasant buzz. Needed to clear my head. The music rolling through my body, stimulating me, drawing me into the lobby, I inhaled the scent of mixed drinks and alcohol. I returned to its sexual energy. Not the place to be if you were any kind of addict. Sexual compulsion had these beautiful pretenders exorcising their sexual demons in the parking lot and the bathrooms with people they'd known for less than an hour, only God knew what was going on in the five hundred rooms they had upstairs.

I saw it everywhere, heard crackling in the air, the decor of desire, whispers from Eros, witnessed the sensuality of submission, saw people in search of love, romance, and lust. Saw women evaluating men, choosing mates, deciding if he was Mr. Right or Mr. Wrong, others in search of Mr. Right Now. The energy in the room was strong, as if canisters of silent and odorless gases that triggered dopamine production had been released, desire making everyone bold, act out of character, physical attraction being desired more than intellectual stimulation, women with body language saying they were ready, they were open to being opened. I stared at a constellation of needs, the need to copulate being the strongest.

I stood in a room filled with people who needed Prozac to dull the keen edges of their libidos.

But there was no Prozac to smooth out lust, alcohol and music being the opposite, doing the opposite, not dulling the senses but enhancing humanness, making everything exciting and exhilarating.

Mark was across the room, waiting. He smiled when he saw me. Smiled good and hard. His smile created erotic turbulence. A startling need for intimacy. I reciprocated, my stare incendiary. We engaged in mutual objectification, our erotic smiles created exotic secretions. It remained my right to choose. Lust was a sin worthy of hell, temperature rising as I headed deeper into the furnace, went toward his outstretched hand, moved through the collective consciousness of the room until my hand touched his, flesh experiencing flesh, the sense of touch so strong, held hands as if we were on the same page, as if we had signed a contract. He made me feel comfortable. Made me unafraid to try something new.

He said, "You came back."

I paused, whispered in order to conceal the nervous ness in my voice, "I came back."

"You decided?"

I was hungry for knowledge. Treading in a lake filled with desires unknown.

Nervous, yet anxious to try new things.

I took a breath. "I've never done this before. Not with two men. I want to try...want to do this because I've never done this before. It could be horrible, it could be great. Doesn't matter. Either way, it'll be my experience. The memory will belong to me. Maybe it will give me something to write about."

"Tell me what you want."

"I've never...two men...fantasized about it...but never."

"As much as you want. As little as you want. Just enjoy."

Karl saw us, made a head motion.

Moments later we were walking past the bar, past reception, moving by the anxious crowd, to the hallway that led to the quarters made for relaxation and sin, then we were getting on an elevator.

My easy banter and relaxed attitude belied my anxiety. I looked back at the people to see who was spying on us. There were a few intoxicated eyes, a few knowing glances upon a woman who had been flirting with two men, now all of us heading toward an elevator inside a sensual hotel during the hours of mass copulation. I swallowed. Wanted to jump off the elevator before it was too late.

When the elevator door closed I was standing between them, silenced by nervousness.

The photographer was in front, facing me, touching my breasts, his hands soft and his grip intense. His erection rubbing into my leg. He was more aggressive than his brother. Not a bad thing, just an observation. His aggressiveness was wonderful. He had the look of a man who was a dramatic lover. Good in bed. Not the perfect lover, but the one who took a woman and with his sex he pleased her into submission, made her go insane with orgasm, then walked away beating his chest as he grunted.

The developer moved closer, was behind me, kissing my neck, his kisses soft and sensuous.

It was like he was following his brother's lead. Hardness startled me for a moment, the thickness of his erection rubbing up against my ass. An erection my body moved against, automatically, as if I was in a club and soca music came on, the movement, the wining and rolling my hips done without thought.

He moaned as I moved up and down against the stiffness of his blessing.

I was surrounded by the hardness of sex, by the hardness of desire, each breath as stiff as lust.

I closed my eyes in surrender. The world fell away. Began gasping like I was underwater.

Oh God.

A smooth hand went underneath my dress, teased my flesh, touched my legs and butt. I pulled my lips in, stifled a moan. Hot hands on my burning flesh felt so good, so nice, so needed. Another hand went to my inner thighs, a rougher hand that possessed a gentle touch, the juxtaposition of tenderness and gentleness turning moans into submissive groans. Fingers teased me. Each touch intoxicated me, stirred me, inebriated me to the point of defenselessness, leaving me unable to protect the outer layer of my hidden emotions. My sex was wet, my clit firm. My lips were swollen, opening like a flower, opening wider as an ambitious finger moved to and fro across its moist petals. Throbbing overwhelmed me, my erratic breathing betraying my body, twitches telling them I needed this, that every part of my body was begging to be touched and touched. My yoni told them her needs, wanting to be more than stroked.

Asking to feel tongue, pleading to be licked.

Fire.

I was on fire.

SEVEN.

Thirty minutes passed with me living on the edge of madness.

One hundred and thirty-three...one hundred and thirty-four.

Mark, the married twin, he licked me deep and I twitched, released moans, deep breathing, a symphony of sounds, the foreground sounds, the echo of foreplay, no longer supping on popcorn, but not feasting on the steak I desired either, feeling tongue but wanting a deeper pleasure, a plea sure that went inside the depth of me, wanting that badly, yet remaining nervous about crossing that line.

One hundred and thirty-five...one hundred and...and...and...thirty-six...

Don't stop counting, Nia Simone.

I was inside a suite on the ninth floor on a yielding bed, the pillow-top mattress elegant and royal, made for a queen, created for sin and satisfaction. My hands gripped the featherbed as my yoni was being licked, grabbed the soft linens as I moaned and groaned and struggled to count each lick, a struggle that had already moved the fluffy goose-down duvet and plump down pillows to the carpet. The lights were low, romantic, enough to illuminate the room and reveal everything was saintly, the whitest of whites.

My flesh was a contrast against the whiteness as I moaned, as I struggled to count each lick. The whites in the room, the dim lights, I was inside a contemporary heaven, moans echoing as the heat in my body continued to rise like the sun, heat that made me dance, heat that made me wine and squirm.

The scents in the room, the hints of orange and cinnamon, the way the aromas seduced my sense of smell one inhale at a time, adding to the perpetual stimulation I was receiving, the mind-blowing foreplay that had taken me from the elevator down the hallway and to the bed, the high intensity of sexual chemistry that was consuming me, an out-of-control blaze moving through a forest.

One hundred and forty...one hundred and...and...and...forty-one...

The spirits in my blood made every touch more pronounced, the alcohol had enhanced every stroke of his tongue, every time he grazed my sex, licked my sex, sucked my sex, small eruptions happened inside my body, eruptions I wrestled with, fought with, danced with, moaned with.

I felt fantastic.

I felt free.

But still I was nervous.

One hundred and forty-seven...one hundred and forty-eight...one hundred and...and...