It was Mr. Overworked and Underpaid New York Editor calling. My favorite Brit on the planet.

We said hellos and started talking about another project he wanted to send me.

Then we chatted about work, the craft, the industry.

I said, "I thought writing was supposed to elevate the masses."

"Maybe during the Harlem Renaissance."

"What is it now?"

"Profit."

"Ouch."

"The truth is like my ex-wife first thing in the morning."

"Meaning?"

"Unattractive. Very unattractive."

I laughed at his humor. "You are such a snob."

"I'm not a snob. I'm an editor."

"Underpaid and overworked."

"Must you remind me?"

Again we laughed.

We talked some more, casual conversation that moved from books to movies. He told me he didn't see a lot of movies, didn't watch television, outside of CNN and BBC channels.

I asked him why.

He said, "Actors don't impress me."

"Really?"

"Never have been impressed by those dramatically regurgitating words created by the true brilliant ones, the brilliant being the ones ignored while faces that have been nipped and tucked receive accolades and make a larger profit than the one who initiated the project as a labor of love, the entire movie starting with a writer sitting in front of a blank page asking herself or himself 'What if...?'"

I laughed. "I so want to marry you right now."

"I'm sixty-five and Jewish."

"I'll buy you some blue pills if you buy me a menorah."

He laughed.

I told him I was leaving Georgia. I'd been in touch with my real estate agent. My townhome would be leased out for now, possibly sold when the market was more in my favor. Maybe I'd go back to Los Angeles for a while, let my mother pitch my book to as many people as she wanted, stay with her until one of us drove the other crazy. Maybe I'd return to Trinidad for a while. Maybe stay there until after next Carnival.

He asked, "When will you find you a nice young man and be his wife?"

I smiled, warm air blowing across my flesh, tickling my desires.

I said, "Can I tell you a story?"

"Yes."

And he listened.

I told him that once upon a time, a guy asked a girl, "Will you marry me?"

The girl said, "No."

And the girl went shopping, dancing, camping, drank martinis, always had a clean house, never had to cook, did what ever the hell she wanted, never argued, didn't get fat, traveled, had many lovers, didn't save money, and had all the hot water to herself. She went to the theater, never watched sports, never wore lacy lingerie that went up her ass, had high self-esteem, never cried or yelled, felt and looked fabulous in sweat pants. The girl lived happily ever after.

I was that girl.

I told him I was that girl.

FORTY-FIVE.

Yes, I was that girl.

But just because you were that girl, your heart and soul weren't impenetrable.

Because you were that girl, were of the feminine being, feelings were deeper, sex and love didn't separate. You remained a woman. Memories like the W and Greensboro didn't fade overnight.

Men like Mark and Karl, you didn't stop thinking about them immediately.

Their scents were too strong, too penetrating to wash away with a month of baths and showers.

Being licked to orgasm as I counted each stroke of the tongue, being taken in the rain, being seduced for over three hundred miles, and the whole Greensboro experience, unforgettable.

My yoni tingled in remembrance, begged me to go back, gave me heat and torture.

Only time could do what needed to be done. Time and distance.

I remembered how we'd kissed and kissed, those kisses made what we had shared special.

Nothing about Greensboro had ever felt cheap. Every moment had been wonderful.

The look in Mark's eyes when he gazed at me. The need for Karl to express himself emotionally, a desire I had blocked, for things said during heated moments could never be unsaid. And my own emotions, the jealousy.

Yes, Mark and Karl stayed in my mind, remained a part of my restless spirit.

I had the code to their world, a code that would allow me entry to their community of mini castles.

I drove to the Cascades, gave in to my emotions and went to Audubon Estates.

Irresistible impulse. A heart filled with a sense of guilt. Or simply reminiscing about the better moments. That night at the W. No matter the reason, part of me hoped that they would see me.

I passed by Mark's mini castle. The lights were off.

It was the midnight hour. The hour of lovers.

Lights off on my car, streetlights showed me the way as, music off, I cruised to the end of the cul-de-sac and turned around. I slowed at Karl's mini castle, paused at the foot of his driveway. Karl's home was dark.

What I saw caused me to smile.

In Karl's driveway was a black Yukon. North Carolina plates.

She was here. Kiki Sunshine was here.

The thing that drew men to women, that thing that drew women to men, that unseen force that inspired love and madness, it was here, in the air, its energy crackling like an invisible Southern storm.

Without desire, without sex, I still pondered what men and women would be to each other.

I imagined I could hear them, each holding a temporary cure for heartache and loneliness.

I imagined I heard Kiki Sunshine pleasing Karl, his moans rugged, hers as musical as water falling on steel pans, the wetness of her mouth curling his toes, stimulating him toward his release, her head tilted back in anticipation, smiling, eager to drink from the spring of happiness, the start of his orgasm being betrayed by an abrupt groan, spewing the taste of mangos and breadfruit, flooding her mouth, the whiteness of his plea sure like lotion on her beautiful Brazilian skin.

And I could hear Mark, with his wife. Biting her. Spanking her. Pulling her blond hair. Putting her on her hands and knees. Her healthy backside in the air. Making love to her with his eyes closed. Maybe pretending she was me. As she made love to him with her eyes closed. Pretending he was Karl. Maybe taking Mark in her mouth as she had taken his brother, his coarse hands touching her face with so much gentleness.

When they were done.

As air conditioners hummed and sweat began to dry.

Mark would wrap himself around Jewell. He would hold his wife as a husband should.

Jewell would sigh, then rest with her back to her husband, her face toward Karl's mini mansion. Her face decorated with envy and pain, her teary eyes in the direction of her heart's desire. Toward Karl. As her husband held her she would look toward Karl.

Wishing. Hoping. Praying. Thinking, one day it would change.

Karl would sleep facing Kiki Sunshine, his new lover, his back to Jewell's misery. He had misery of his own. A misery he drowned in sex and plea sure and work. His mind was forever on Kenya. A woman forever etched in his flesh.

He was married as well, his wife unreachable.

If not for my knowledge of Kenya, in our final moments, maybe I would have let Karl stay.

He'd dropped off discs containing all the erotic photos he had taken of me, everything from when we met at Stone Mountain to the orgasmic images he'd taken of me when I was inside his mini castle, had left it on my porch with a note saying that he was giving me all of that, as a gift, to destroy, or use as I saw fit. And he ended the note with three simple words: I miss you.

I.

Not we.

I.

From a man like Karl, I miss you was more powerful than hearing him say I love you. He was a heartbroken man, his seat of passion possessing a thousand fractures that only Kenya could fuse.

A heart fractured was always a broken heart, even when the damage was hidden behind smiles. Even when it was masked with sex. Some pains could never be fucked away.

The weakness I'd seen in his face, once when we were inside his home, and the last time I saw him, both times his face was filled with emotions, as if to say his feelings were deepening for me, that he wanted to break away from his pain, that he wanted to try to be more to me than he was at the moment.

I couldn't return to a place where I could only envision pain.

Karl. Mark. Jewell.

These homes no longer looked like mini castles. They were prisons. Desire chaining them to each other as if they were on a carnal chain gang. They lived in pain. Pain was their accepted rhythm.

I rejected monotony. I rejected sameness. But I also rejected pain.

This was their roundabout. A roundabout with no exits.

This was where they were the most comfortable.

It had to be, because this was where they remained.

It was impossible to get over someone when they remained in your presence. To let go there must be distance. There must be absence. Being in contact was perpetual renewal.

Kiki Sunshine, the woman forever enamored, forever haunted by Yasamin Kincade.

I stared at Kiki Sunshine's Yukon, felt a twinge of jealousy. Felt some envy.

She had earned a special place in my memory.

What I felt was natural. Tears. Fun. Resentment. Desire. Dreams. Fantasy. Reality. Orgasm.

They continued to engage me in my humanness, both the wanted and the unwanted emotions.

They had given me newness. Before the pain, they had given me what I needed.

I smiled a thankful smile.

Kiki Sunshine had arrived, and with her she brought Karl her own needs and expectations.

This was as it should be.

She had contacted him first. She had longed for him before I knew he existed.