"Before we married. Over six years ago. We were on holiday in Jamaica."

"What part of the island?"

"We moved around. Mo Bay. Ocho Rios. Kingston."

"And you gave it to her twenty-one times. One weekend. Twenty-one times."

"I think that's where our problems started."

"That's where your problems should've ended."

"It's what she wanted." He smiled, but sounded solemn. "I just gave her what she wanted."

"Okay, let's change the subject. Twenty-one times. I'm getting jealous."

"Sure."

I smiled. "Tell me about you. Never been to Barbados."

"You should go to Barbados with me. Come down for Crop Over."

"Typical Bajan. You are really trying to sell me your island."

"If you come to my island I'll take you to down to Oistin's on a Saturday night and show you a great time. Some of the best entertainment and fish fry in the world could be had there."

"Be careful what you ask."

"Bajan Roots and Rhythms. Or Back in Time at the Plantation, could take you to that."

"You been to our Carnival?"

"Man, do people from Trinidad ever talk about anything else besides their Carnival?"

"I'm sorry. Was there something else better than my Carnival to talk about?"

He laughed. I laughed too.

He spoke with pride and detail as he told me they grew up in Barbados, in Redman's Village, but had relatives all over, some who lived in chattel houses right on H7 on the way into Bridgetown, still had relatives who worked at the bus terminal, at stores on Broad Street, at Digi-cel, Shell Gas, Cave Shepherd, at the sugar factories, at Banks brewery. He could ride the ABC Highway and half the local people on the packed Zed-R public transportation van would speak, same for the sweating people packed like sardines on the yellow minivans, which would modify their route to get him where he needed to be on time. He could get off the plane and bypass customs at Grantley Adams International Airport.

He said, "I'm talking because...rambling...I don't want to leave you yet."

We kissed again.

He kept his lips on me, his voice soft and seductive, still yearning. "Glad you came out."

"Same here."

"I would've been home reading."

"Is that right?"

"That's right."

"What are you reading?"

"Just finished Quiet Days in Clichy. About to get started on Cosmological Eye."

"Heavy reading."

"Stimulates my mind."

"Have you read Sexus?"

"Sexus, Nexus, and Plexus, Tropic of Capricorn."

"You have no idea how hot you're making me right now."

"Show me."

We kissed and kissed, his tongue moving around my lips, putting soft kisses on my lips, my cheeks, my eyelids, sucking my earlobes, his eroticism causing me to jerk, making me throb again.

He said, "Nia Simone. Nia, as in purpose. Simone as in Simone de Beauvoir."

"That's me."

"So your name could mean the purpose of a writer."

"It could. Loosely translated it could."

He kissed me again, this kiss being his final farewell kiss, not knowing if he would ever see me, touch me, feel me, taste me, hear my voice again, hear my singsong moans, my singsong orgasm.

When we were done he traced my face with his fingers, touched my nose, and smiled.

I smiled in return.

He said, "I'd better go."

"Before we start having sex again. Or end up talking literature and have a book club meeting."

That gave him laughter.

He said, "I'd love to have a book club meeting with you."

"A nerd after my own heart."

"I'm serious. That could be fun."

"Can we be naked?"

"Sounds even better. We could start our own naked book club."

He slipped out of the car, rain beating down on him, walked a few steps before turning around and walking backward, an enormous smile on his face, that elation for me as a downpour made him so wet he looked as if he was a God risen from the seas. His smile never wavered, telling me he didn't care about the weather, because in that moment, despite the storm that covered our world, everything was peaceful.

I made sure he made it to his car, waited until his headlights came on.

Then I drove away, exhausted, water draining from my body down over my leather seats.

Satisfied beyond my wildest dreams.

Hours after Mark had given me unadulterated bliss, Logan had stolen what felt good.

I tossed and turned, the ceiling fan spinning over my naked body. My eyes went to the floor-to-ceiling mirror to the left side of my bed. I looked at me. At my tense expression.

My home glowed with the light of a new day, but remained tainted by unwanted feelings.

It was morning but my insides were decorated with shadows darker than midnight.

I turned the television on. Atlanta news came to life. Jewell Stewark was reporting. I gazed at her blond hair, at her beauty, and her Julia Roberts smile. She was wonderful, articulate, well-educated, the Oprah of the city. She looked as if she lived in a perfect world, a world she controlled.

The girl with ancestry in the West Indies, the woman who was in search of her roots.

The Jewell of the South was telling the people in the surrounding counties that despite the heavy rain, restrictions on watering lawns remained. A drought existed and heavy fines were being enforced on all violators. Lake Lanier, the city's main supplier of drinking water, was dropping to dangerous levels, was expected to continue its dehydration, yet car washes were open and working overtime.

Hypocritical priorities existed all over the world, none more extreme than in the Bible Belt.

I stared at The Jewell of the South and agreed. Rain had come, but all had not been relieved.

There still was a drought.

ELEVEN.

I had to keep running from her.

It hurt. I couldn't breathe. But I couldn't stop running. Had to get away from her.

She was behind me, a long-bladed knife in her hand, the kind made for hunting wild animals.

The kind of knife made for gutting and killing beasts in the wilderness.

And that evil heifer had been chasing me for almost two miles.

The trees were knobby and bent, worn and abused by strong winds and rain in the summer, snow and ice in the winter. I hiked over a fallen tree and negotiated another steep incline made of wet ground and jagged stone. I heard her coming after me. I looked back and saw her. Saw her young face and short hair, her mane as black as pepper. I didn't take in her features, just looked at the knife she carried. A knife with an eight-inch blade. A knife that could kill a bear.

I started running again, ran through this section of the Blue Ridge Mountains, took it uphill at a strenuous pace, almost slipped on a section made of soapstone and dunite, recovered, then hit a stretch of flat ground that led me to another precipitous section made of earth and rocks, a section that slowed me down to a strong walk. I kept panting, pushing branches out of the way when I had to, slipped on jagged rocks that were still along the pathway, muscles burning, and I grunted and panted and attacked another steep section, one that made the final hills at Stone Mountain seem like mild inclines.

I had to stop again, couldn't tell which way to go to get out of this jungle. Looked back and couldn't see her. I was beneath a northern hardwood cloud forest made of huge, old birches that covered the north face. Legs ached. There were too many rhododendrons and mountain laurels and shrubs to get a view of her. Hoped she had given up. I stood still on the cold soil. Listened. I saw her again. Saw her before I heard her. She was closer than I had realized, running through wildflowers, coming up one of the longest, highest ridges in Georgia, closing in.

Sweat covered her face and she looked evil. The knife in her hand made her resemble the legendary, horrible, sharp-clawed, winged beast who attempted to steal and eat Indian children.

God, I was hurting.

She was going to catch me. I heard her knife, heard it cutting anything in her way.

My legs were trying to cramp up on me.

Then she dug in deep, came after me again.

She was determined.

I ran. Ran through trees and foliage that were as old as time itself, ran and I could no longer hear the echo of traffic creeping through the trees, coming from everywhere at once, giving no true sense of direction. Town and Union counties were beyond the wilderness. I couldn't be that far from where the forest opened up into the paved area that led to the summit. Couldn't be that far from people who were up by the wagon trail that used to be part of Georgia Route 66.

She was getting closer.

I had gone up five hundred feet in half a mile. It felt like I was dying. Felt like I had never worked out a day in my life. I looked back and saw her coming around a wicked turn, her blade in her right hand.

I started back running, my face orgasmic, sweat first falling like gentle tears, then like a torrential storm as I panted and pushed on toward the Hiawassee Ridge. My pace not as fast, but I kept fighting that uphill battle, kept pushing past foliage on a narrow trail that led me toward the highest in a spine of mountains called Wolfpen Ridge.

As I panted, I looked back.

There she was, breathing hard, sweat running from her pixie cut down over her brown skin, her red T-shirt soaked with sweat, her painful grimace no more than twenty yards away from me. She struggled with the terrain, chased me through a dwarfed red oak and white oak forest, I felt her getting closer as I sprinted by trees that were old, twisted, and limby, heard her getting closer as I frowned and trampled dwarf willow and red-berried mountain ash.

It surprised me when she caught me.

She grunted.

I dug in deep, sprinted, left her huffing and puffing.

Once I made it out of the forest, I stopped and waited on her.

She jogged until she caught up to me, put her hand in the air, and I gave her a sweaty high-five.

She struggled to breathe. "Don't believe that fat ass of yours beat me."

I panted like I was dying. "What ever."

"God, your ass is spreading."

"At least I have an ass."

I laughed. At least I tried to. Was in too much pain to express the joy of winning our race.