Karl wasn't in the room. But his cologne tantalized the air. He'd left smelling sensual.

Mark and I showered together, light touches and a few kisses, foreplay that I didn't allow to go too far. We sat on the bed, waited for Karl, assuming he had gone to get something to eat. Mark made a few phone calls, at least one being to his wife. His tone was not happy, as if in a heated debate. Reminded me of my conversations with Logan. I went into the bathroom, gave him space. I made calls too, one being to my mother. Another hour went by. No sign of Karl. No message. His Jeep was in the parking lot, viewable from the hotel window. He hadn't gone far. Wearing babydoll lingerie, I moved by the double beds, stood in the window. Mark was behind me, naked, holding my breasts, kissing my neck, his erection firm against my ass, my nipples hard, my clit swelling between my legs, waiting on Karl, Kiki Sunshine on my mind as I gazed toward Hunter's Chase.

Mark needed to do to me what his brother had done. He wanted me now, wanted me to himself. He was jealous. I was jealous as well. Waiting on Karl, imagining where he might be, jaw tight, jealousy rose while hormones raged.

After the weatherman said that the temperature in Greensboro was sixty degrees to night, the newscaster said it was ladies' night at Bowman Gray Stadium; women could get in for one dollar. I wondered if Karl had gone there, to meet new yoni.

He hadn't left a message at the front desk. He had vanished.

Darkness covered Greensboro. Food arrived from a local delivery ser vice.

Mark made me lie down on the bed. He decorated my body, put warm food all over my stomach, all over my breasts, on my thighs, made my body a buffet table. He fed me. Then he started eating sushi off my skin, made me feel so beautiful, like I was a stripper onstage at an exotic club, like I was inside the film 912 Weeks. He ate from my body, then licked my skin clean when he was done.

He opened my legs. Then he licked the edges of my yoni, sucked the meaty part of me.

The winds were picking up. The rain started falling harder.

I made Mark stop. What he did felt good. But I wasn't ready to go there yet. I wanted the full fantasy, something he couldn't do alone. I needed Karl here to dilute any real emotion that might inadvertently rise from the type of passion I wanted to give and receive.

That was what I kept telling myself.

There were no promises. No one owed anyone anything. None of us ever would.

The rain was coming down hard and steady, pounding the ground.

Thunder boomed and the skies lit up.

Mark took my foot in his hand, licked my feet, sucked my toes, asked, "You ever switch up?"

I moaned, fire moving up my spine. "What do you mean switch up?"

"You and your girl, on a double date or something, and you and your date start having sex, then she and her date start having sex, then while it's going down you switch partners."

"No." I squirmed, my toes in his mouth, him sucking as if he was giving me oral. "You?"

"Once. College days."

Another moan slipped free. "You're just as wild as Karl."

"Not nearly."

"Sounds like."

"I doubt if you were up for the Mother Teresa award."

I took my foot away from him, the tingles too strong. "I'm talking about you, not me."

He stared at me, his grin thin. "Notice how you get me to talk without talking yourself?"

I reached for our food, then moved closer to him, began feeding him.

I asked, "How did the switch-up happen?"

"The other girl was prettier than my date. She was more attracted to me than she was to her date."

"What happened to that girl?"

"We married."

"Jewell Stewark?"

He nodded.

Twenty minutes later we finished eating, everything was gathered and thrown away.

We laughed and talked, kissed and touched. The rain remained steady. Karl hadn't returned.

Once again I went to the window, the repetitive action broadcasting my obsession.

When I turned around, Mark was watching me, waiting for me.

I smiled an exposed smile. Felt foolish for waiting on a man like Karl.

Mark whispered, "Want me to call and see where he is?"

I shook my head, my gut telling me where he was. "No."

Thunder and darkness echoed and rose inside of me. A different kind of blackness. The kind fueled by a barbaric emotion I despised in others. Mark had brought two bottles of Riesling. I opened one, poured drinks. Kissed him. Rubbed his body. I danced, made it a show for Mark's eyes only. I wanted this to take forever. I wanted to torture Mark the way the passage of time was torturing me now.

My wish, my desire was for Karl to walk in and see us having a good time.

I wanted him to feel superfluous.

Mark said, "You're getting tipsy."

"Would hope so."

He laughed. "I want you so bad it's killing me."

"I can see."

I ran my fingers up and down his bare leg, my fingers moving across his anatomical blessing.

He smiled like he knew he had me. Glasses of Riesling in hand, we sipped awhile, let the spirits take us higher. The phone never rang. The tattooed half of my fantasy remained MIA.

Disappointment festered.

I called downstairs, asked them if they could send up tea and honey.

By the time the tea and honey arrived, Mark was at the end of his second drink.

I asked Mark, "Have you ever heard of the velvet tongue?"

"Nope. What's that?"

I took some of the tea, made sure I had plenty of honey, held it inside my mouth for a moment, allowed my mouth to become hot and sticky, then brought Mark's erection to my concoction, gave him the heat, let him feel the hot tea and melting honey as it smoothed across his hardness, a hardness that I suckled until all the honey was gone. He moaned a thousand times. When the honey was gone, I looked up at him. He was in ecstasy. So far gone from here. His erotic smile told me he understood.

I raised the cup, sipped more tea, added more honey, gave him another velvet tongue.

Mark moaned so loud.

I took control of Mark, took that part of him in my hand, took him in my mouth, began a kind of suckling, stroking with my right hand, my good hand, the one I could control the best, once again doing my technique, moving my hand in circular motions, feeling him inside my mouth, feeling him grow, moving up and down until I felt him rigid at the back of my throat, breathing through my nose and relaxing.

I stopped, moved up on him, climbed him, mounted him, descended, began riding nice and slow.

I looked toward the door, wishing it would open, wanting Karl to walk in and see this.

Mark said, "Count to fifty."

"Why...count?"

"Maybe that ugly sonofabitch will be back by the time you count to fifty."

"I don't care if he ever comes back."

Mark moved me, put my ankles around his neck, pinned me down. He entered me, not all at once, went inside me slowly, staring in my eyes, watching my expression.

I looked away.

He began stroking me hard, stroking me fast, going deep inside me.

He growled. "Am I not good enough for you?"

"Yes, baby, yes yes yes, baby."

"You want me to stop?"

I shuddered. "You're going so deep."

"I can stop and we can talk literature, if that's what you want to do with me."

"No, don't stop."

"We can talk Toni Morrison. Gustave Flaubert. Theodore Dreiser."

"You are so fucking deep."

"Do you need me to read you some goddamn Nietzsche while I fuck you?"

"Mark...Mark...Mark..."

"Will that keep you here? Will that keep your damn mind here with me?"

"Damn...Mark...Damn."

"What in the fuck do I have to do to keep your attention?"

"I'm here...Mark...God...Oh God...I'm here."

"Look at me. Look at me dammit."

My eyes went to his, to his passion, to his intense stare, to a level of emotion I could not match. Embarrassed, I closed my eyes. He kissed my face over and over, his kisses patient and telling of a need deeper than sex itself. He made me joyously, drunkenly, serenely, and divinely aware that his need was deeper than sex.

He was that part of me I kept well hidden, that part of me that had been damaged.

"I feel you." His baritone voice was so sensual. "You're coming."

"Uh-huh oh God uh-huh."

He stopped, pulled away from me, left me panting, tingling, sweating, his desire so taut.

Tears were in my eyes. So many tears. He was teasing me. Controlling me. Forcing me to forget about his brother. Forcing me to focus on him. He kissed my face, licked my tears away.

This was poetry.

He whispered, "Tell me what you want. Tell me how to make you happy."

I moaned, told him I wanted to see him touch himself. Wanted to sit and watch him handle himself. Wanted to watch and learn more about that part of a man, about that part of him, the part that created orgasm inside me. He held himself with his right hand, started with slow strokes, moaned, closed his eyes, growing in his hand. I licked my lips. My breathing became disturbed. His strokes became intense, faster, his grunts so sexy. His body began to tense, a thousand little deaths trying to run up and down his spine. I looked up at his lingam, his dick, his penis, his prick, his instrument of plea sure; what ever he wanted it to be called, I would call it that, would whisper it, would moan it, would scream it.

Mark reached for my head, grabbed my hair, begged me as he led my mouth to his fountain. He trembled and cried and shuddered like he was having an aneurism.

When he started to come, I pulled away, watching the fluids flow from his erection. He collapsed, came down on his knees, then used one hand to prop himself up, posed like Atlas holding up the world, his muscles glistening with sweat, his chest rising and falling, his breathing choppy. I watched his orgasm spew, saw his desire weaken him, saw his come, the hue of cinnamon frosting. He coughed on his own saliva. Coughed like he was overwhelmed.

He frowned and cursed, released a thousand vulgarities.

As he coughed and came, again I went to the window, gazed toward Hunter's Chase.

I glanced back at Mark. He was still disabled, panting, eyes glazed over, trembling.

He was calling God, talking to God, praying, his orgasm taking him closer to a spiritual realm. Hearing Mark call out to the heavens sent my eyes to the floors of God's kingdom.

I stared at the skies, looked deep into the darkness, beyond the home of the stars, my gaze unbroken by the blinking of the eyes, my soul on a quest to see God. I didn't think of God as male. Or as female. I thought of God as God. That was too simple, too abstract, too un-creative for most. I refused to remake my deity into my own image, into my own sex, refused to force the color of my skin on God, never felt the need to express my insecurities or egotistical needs in that way just so that in the end I would be able to wag a finger at people who didn't look like me and say, "Told you so."

I believed in God, my mistrust rested in man's interpretation.