I ached. God I ached so good. I let hot water burn away my transgressions as I ached.

By the time I came out of the shower, hair damp at the ends, my lavender shower gel releasing sensual aromas to blend with the rampant pheromones circulating in the small hotel room, there was conversation and laughing in the living room area. Mark was up, his jeans on but not buttoned, sitting on a chair while Kiki Sunshine sat on the sofa. Their conversation looked so intimate.

Mark said, "Kiki Sunshine says she's going to cook us breakfast."

She smiled. "That's the least I can do. Forget the fast food. Come get a decent meal."

I asked, "You have time, Mark?"

He nodded. He knew what I meant. A married man's time was always limited. Being here, being away from his wife overnight, that couldn't be a good thing for them.

I had eaten breakfast at Karl's home. I'd been given the tour of his mini-castle.

I'd never be able to feast inside Mark's castle. I'd never be invited inside.

I accepted that.

Mark called out to Karl, "Get your ass up."

"Fuck you."

"Let's get some food and get on the road."

"What she cooking?" That was Karl, in bed with a pillow over his head.

"I make the best pancakes in the world, I kid you not. However you like them. Banana pancakes, blueberry pancakes, what ever kind you like I can make that up real fast. I can run and get some fruit from Wal-Mart. I can get some fruit and make some fresh juice. Won't take me but a minute to throw something together. I have to take my momma furniture shopping this morning, but I have time to feed y'all before y'all get back on the road."

Kiki Sunshine went and sat on Mark's lap, touched his face, rubbed his hair.

Mark looked at me, almost as if he was asking if I was okay with her touching him now.

I smiled, nodded.

Kiki Sunshine asked, "You sure you're not Karl?"

Mark frowned. "Karl is the ugly one."

Karl yelled out, "Like hell I am."

Kiki Sunshine was in heaven.

She said, "Y'all like Deion Sanders in bed."

Karl laughed. "You slept with Deion Sanders?"

"Heck no. I'm saying, on the football field Deion could play any position. Y'all like that in bed. Going downtown. From the back. From the top. Sideways. Upside down. Y'all rock every position. Y'all see an opening, y'all go for it and get up in it before it closes. Y'all like the Deion Sanders of sex."

All of us laughed, but Mark laughed the hardest.

Kiki Sunshine said, "And I'm not letting y'all leave here without feeding you, so both of y'all get up, get dressed, and meet me at my apartment in a little bit. I'm cooking breakfast, that's all there is to it."

It was funny to me. I was born in Trinidad, waved the beautiful flag from the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, but I guess I was a West Coast girl. A product of the rebellious L.A. mentality. After sex, an L.A. girl didn't cook, but expected to be taken to breakfast. Where a man took a woman after a night of wickedness told her how good her performance was the night before. Gladstone's or some seaside eatery in the Palisades or Newport Beach meant she was the bomb. Being taken to Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles was like getting a C+ on your report card. Denny's or IHOP, well, that spoke for itself.

I guess a Southern girl didn't feed a lousy lover.

Kiki Sunshine was ready to feed three people.

In my mind that was better than Gladstone's.

TWENTY-SEVEN.

An hour later.

I sat in an apartment that looked like it was furnished by Pier 1 and Crate & Barrel, designer ceiling fans spinning on low, the room filled with colorful flowers and colorful knickknacks. I had left the hotel with her, became one of the women who went to cook for the men, thought I'd fall into a traditional role, at least momentarily, but ended up watching her work her magic. She may have appreciated a room filled with lovers but she believed in one woman to a kitchen. She didn't share in the kitchen.

I was wearing a Bebe sport racerback tank and capri leggings. Clothes that would be comfortable on the ride back home. Kiki Sunshine had put on a colorful sundress, one that flowed over her figure, had done her hair in a French twist. I doubted if she ever went anywhere in sweats or with her face undone. It was like watching Kimora Lee Simmons playing Julia Child in the kitchen.

It didn't take long for Kiki Sunshine's apartment to smell like pancakes and turkey sausage. The pancakes were made from scratch. Watching her move around the kitchen was like watching my mother make Sunday dinner. Grilled fish and callaloo. Sweet potatoes with pineapples. Rice and peas.

I was craving Trinidad, her sun, her food, her sands, her waters.

Kiki Sunshine made scrambled egg whites spiced up with red onions and snapper. She took out a juicer, made fresh orange juice. Did the same and made apple juice. She did it effortlessly. Kiki Sunshine had planted some deep-South ways in her Brazilian blood.

I asked, "You ever been to Brazil?"

"Never."

"Your mother never took you back to her home?"

"She don't go back down there. I heard it was real bad down there. She grew up in the places by Casablanca where all the gangs and poor people hang out, forget what they are called...fra-villas..."

"Favelas. They're like shantytowns."

"Yeah, those ghetto places. She said people don't have water or electricity."

I asked, "Don't you wish you knew your way around Brazil?"

"I heard they crazy, hijack buses with the tourists and do all kinds of crazy things to people down there. I don't need to go no place that has it going on like that, especially since I can't speak Portuguese. Besides, I heard that was a place men go to buy cheap pussy. All the women are prostitutes."

"That's not true. They have beautiful areas too. Beautiful beaches."

"If Momma had wanted me to grow up knowing about them places, she would've taught us. But what ever happened to her down there, why ever she left, she ain't trying to go back. I wish I knew more about Brazil, but I bet if you talk to the people down there, they can't tell you where nothing is in America. They know Brazil. Because they live there. I can put gas in my truck and get you from coast to coast on any highway that runs through America. I know where I live. That's what's important."

I didn't think any less of Kiki Sunshine, but I found her not knowing about her roots sad.

A flag representing Brazil should've been on display in her home. Art from her homeland should adorn her walls. Brazilian music should fill the air, as should the scent of Brazilian food. Her dance should own the one-and-two rhythm of her mother's country.

Again I looked around her apartment, this time slyly, with the eyes of a spy, looked beyond all the pictures of her on the walls, beyond the beautiful furniture, saw plenty of magazines, those that were aimed at gossip, fashion, and hair, but hardly a book. She should have Paulo Coelho. Zora Neale Hurston. Langston Hughes. Maya. Toni. I saw all of that inside her, needing to get out. She had yet to recognize her power. Or maybe I was delusional, maybe I was projecting my values onto her.

We talked about men, the subject she was the most comfortable chatting about, the conversation somehow shifting and landing on the man I had left back in Memphis. I'd become conscious of myself now, of my vocabulary, of my not being as earthy and hip as she was. In some ways I felt inferior. I wasn't built for girl talk, for telling my personal life to strangers, but I tried to fit into her world.

I told her, "This guy, Logan, he would stop by unannounced."

"Don't you hate it when they start doing that mess?"

I kept talking about Logan, that angst spilling out of me. "Then his family started doing the same."

"So you broke up with him but he won't break up with you."

"That pretty much sums it up."

"You had his ass pussy-whipped."

"I did all I could to make him go away. Told him I had been with other men."

"Well, when you cut them off like that, it's like they go into denial. They have to go through all the stages. Shock. Denial. Tears and cussing you out. Then acceptance. But in the end they always want one for the road. Have to get that last nut in, then they can say good-bye, and you never hear from them again. But you can't make them do it until they are ready to do it. It messes with your head big time."

"That's why I left Memphis. Felt trapped. Last time I was with him, don't know what I was thinking. You ever have sex with somebody and you know you shouldn't be doing it?"

"At some point we all end up in bed with somebody we shouldn't be in bed with."

"I ended up lying there, staring at the ceiling with him humping me as if it was some sort of perverted necrophilia act, his ass not noticing if I was moving or not, just humping me and I just wanted him to come and get it over with. I went in the bathroom and cried."

"Shit, at least you made it to the bathroom. I usually end up crying while they on me."

"You serious?"

"Been there, done that, bought a post card and two T-shirts." She shook her head like she was trying to shake the memory loose. "What attracted you to him?"

"Not sure if I was ever really attracted to him." I shrugged. "Loneliness has its own needs."

"Got that disease right now. You combine loneliness and horniness and...and...BAM!"

"You end up at the W in bed with identical twins."

We laughed.

I took the focus off me, asked her, "What went bad with the guy you used to see?"

"Guy I used to see, his thing was too little. I could tell because too much air was getting inside and I kept making pussy farts the whole time. If he was big enough wouldn't've been room for all that air."

"Queefing."

"What?"

"That's called queefing."

"Well, it sounded like a fart to me. His premature-ejaculating ass."

"Why did you stay with him?"

"He was fine. Not a lot of good-looking men around this way. Not a lot to choose from. Had his own business too. And he was good with his hands. He would use his pointer finger and middle finger, put those inside me, then put his pinky in my booty hole, hold me like he was holding a six-pack of beer."

"That's called two in the clit, one in the shit."

"What ever." She laughed. "I would come so fast it was crazy."

"You were happy with that?"

"He knew I wasn't happy. So he hooked me up."

"How?"

"He had this friend. One of his business partners. This guy who lived in Jacksonville."

"Florida?"

"Jacksonville, North Carolina. He was stationed at Camp Lejeune with all the jarheads."

"You had an affair with his friend?"

"I wouldn't call it an affair. It was an arrangement. Guy I was seeing set it up."

"A guy you were seeing let you sleep with his friend."

"Oh, yeah. He took me to Jacksonville, past all those tobacco fields, and we went to his friend's little party. His friend was looking at me all night. Was ignoring his date and flirting with me. Then the guy I was seeing asked me if I'd sleep with his friend. I thought he was playing. He said he knew he couldn't give it to me like I needed it. Offered me his friend's dick. Told him I would if he wanted me to."

"Damn."

"First he did it for my birthday, had his friend drive up here and meet us over at the O. Henry. Had a real nice suite. Rose petals and balloons all over. His friend did his thing like only a marine can. Yeah, my boyfriend set it up, let his friend get some a few more times. That lasted about three months."

"It got out of control?"

"Not really. The marine got deployed again. Just my luck."

All I could say was, "Wow."

Kiki Sunshine was taking out her Mikasa dishes, her best dishes, as if she was preparing for Thanksgiving dinner with the royal family. As if she rarely had company and this was a special occasion. The air conditioner was on too, had the room cool enough for her to burn candles without feeling the heat.

I said, "Damn, Kiki Sunshine, you had it going on."