"None of your business."

He shook his head, sucked his lips. "Is that all you need? To be screwed?"

"I was unhappy and I needed to feel good."

He shook his head.

I said, "We aren't equally yoked. Let's just leave it at that and move on."

"What does equally yoked have to do with you having sex with other men?"

"In bed. We're not equally yoked. What I want you can't give me. Out of bed, we have had fun. But it was the kind of fun where other things entertained us. The games, the concerts. But the more I think about it, if you can't understand me on a mental level, we're not equally yoked there either."

"The way you scream and holler in bed, and I don't satisfy you?"

"Just because I allow myself to have an orgasm doesn't mean I am happy."

"What do you need in order to be satisfied?"

"I don't know what I need."

My hands were shaking. Sweat dampened the back of my neck, my heart beating fast.

He was frustrated. "What about real intimacy, companionship, being with somebody you trust?"

"Tell me this, am I the only woman you've slept with since you've been with me? Am I? Can you answer that? I'm not trying to chastise you, all I'm saying is that I understand, and I'm asking, can you understand me? Can you understand what it feels like to feel human, to have desires you wish to explore? Because the other women you were with, that was a desire you chose to explore."

"What other women?"

"I've never been faithful to any man I've been with. Not since college."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I know they weren't one hundred percent faithful to me either. You betray. I betray. We betray each other. I knew I couldn't give them everything they needed, not all the time, not when what they needed was beyond me. Don't look at me like that. Don't look at me like I'm crazy."

There was a hard pause between us. People passed by, rushing out of Wal-Mart, the smell of rain and asphalt mixing in the air, every inhale harder than the one before, the air so thick and damp.

Logan spoke with a calmness that made a mountain of goose bumps raise on my arms. He said, "You were with two men. In my city. While you were my woman."

"I might share myself with others, but I will always belong to me."

"You shared yourself with two motherfuckers while you were with me."

Logan made a harsh step toward me. Then he looked around. People were staring.

Logan went to his Range Rover, head down, his steps slow, heavy, shaking his head as he got inside. I interpreted that as the white flag of surrender. His engine started and I took a deep breath.

His reverse lights came on and he backed out, headed toward the ramp, left without looking back.

He sped away, his Range Rover slashing through rain, his tires splashing fallen water.

My inhales were difficult, as if I was being strangled.

I sat in my car, shaking, letting Logan go to wherever he was going. My head ached. My nerves were too bad to drive. Tears formed in my eyes. My lips trembled. I clenched my teeth and screamed. Then I leaned over the steering wheel. Salty tears fell. I created my own thunder and rain.

I didn't want to be alone. I didn't want to die alone, somewhere in a bed with some incurable illness and no lover at my side, or living alone and dying abruptly only to be found dead days, maybe weeks after I had made that unexpected transition to what ever destination we had after this existence.

No, I didn't want to be alone, not in the end, not when it was time. But I didn't want to be with him. Not with Logan. I didn't want to end this existence with him staring in my eyes at the dimming of my day. And I didn't want him to die holding my hand when he experienced the same eventual moment.

If I was being selfish, then that selfishness was my right. I had no husband. I had no children. Right now selfishness meant I was loving myself first, taking care of my needs the way I felt they should be taken care of. I didn't want to sacrifice myself for anyone who wouldn't sacrifice themselves for me.

Then why in the fuck did I feel so goddamn guilty?

Confusion angered me. Made me feel inept. Made me lash out in defense. Made me primal. Confusion meant there was no control. My mind was floundering, each thought collapsing.

I jumped when there was a tap on my window.

Logan was back.

I opened my mouth, prepared to start screaming obscenities.

But it wasn't Logan. It was two of the members of Wal-Mart security.

What they saw in my face scared them, made them back away from my window.

I told them I was fine, waved them away, told them to leave me alone.

They did.

I started my car, drove away, rain falling hard as I passed the line of stores leading to Howell Mill Road, my eyes spying through my fast-moving windshield wipers for Logan, searching for the man who felt that loving me made me owe him a debt, my eyes not finding him in the storm.

He was gone.

This had become the cycle of my life, collecting wonderful experiences, having my freedom threatened, fleeing like a war criminal, leaving body bags everywhere I went.

I never wanted to hurt anybody. It just seemed to end up that way. We damaged each other. People. We always damaged each other.

I just wanted to be free.

It was my right to be free.

My right to explore my sensuality and sexuality unrestricted by any man.

Tears fell from my eyes like rain. My head ached. I needed a fucking drink.

I needed to escape this pain and find plea sure.

FIVE.

Nighttime was when the primal urges struggled to take control.

Nighttime was the time when the unhappy became restless.

It was nighttime.

I was stressed. I was unhappy. I was restless.

By ten P.M. Georgia state troopers had the interstates lit up with their flashing lights, a ton of speeders had been busted by radar and pulled over on I-285 between I-75 and Georgia 400, the 400 also being known as the Alpharetta Autobahn. I kept my speed right at the limit until I exited at Ashwood/Dunwoody, headed toward the scent of apple martinis.

The W Hotel was across from the far end of the Perimeter Mall, just shy of California Pizza Kitchen. I eased around the roundabout, saw the arm was up on the visitor lot, decided to save the valet money and went into that lot, sat in the car, Alexander O'Neal singing "If You Were Here To night" on Sirius, checked my makeup, reapplied lip gloss, thanked God for MAC and how it made my skin look.

Every W was so sexy and sophisticated, attracted beautiful people. It was a great place for hanging out on my laptop or lounging. Loved the way the lobby was laid out like an airy living room with free-form seating. The low tables were sexy as hell. Everyone was already here, the crew from Rolling Out magazine and their followers sashaying and peacocking around with drinks in hand, flirting hard, relaxing on the sofas, laughing, and schmoozing. Hundreds of votive candles had the first floor lit up.

I searched for familiar faces and didn't see the twins. Maybe they didn't come. If they did, I doubted if they would flirt with me. They might not remember me, or recognize me since I was in decent clothing. My hair was done. Face made up. And I was three inches taller. There were a lot of women here. Attractive women of all sizes and complexions. Too much competition in a city where the women outnumbered the men about twenty to one. Women with bodies like strippers and ass measurements that equaled their waists plus twenty inches. Even if they didn't swing from a pole, they owned the physiques that the church going men, rappers, and politicians loved to decorate with dollar bills.

I looked around. Loved that Miami feeling of the place, the colorful and artsy furniture. Loved the way they had couches on the patio, loved the large cushions on the furniture.

Loved the sexual energy. Orgasmic desires crackled like an electrical storm.

I felt good. Loved to get dressed up. The MAC makeup, the perfume, the sexy clothes, it was fun to walk into a room, hips moving with the confidence of Natalie Portman in the final moments of the movie Closer, hair down as if to say I was uninhibited, and see the effect I had on men.

A nice-looking man walked over to me. Wavy hair. Freckles.

He said, "Would you like to go to room 521?"

"Excuse me?"

"Would you like to come up to my suite with me?"

"I'm not your type."

"And what is my type?"

"Women who look hip and chic but in reality are pathetically lonely and desperate. And broke. Smiling women sitting on their low self-esteem, women who never had attention given to them in a healthy way. Women who confuse emotional abuse with affection. That's your type."

"I'd love to drink your bathwater."

"I piss in my bathwater."

He walked away, headed toward a group of women, ready to continue his hunt.

Alcohol diluted shyness and made fools of once-noble men.

I smiled at a few people, found an open spot at the bar. Ordered an apple martini. Men would come over now. Men were smart. Smart enough to let a woman order a drink first before making a move. If I were a man I'd do the same. Wouldn't waste a dime, let alone ten dollars on a stranger.

Sexual predators disguised as perfect gentlemen. Gold diggers disguised as respectable ladies.

I looked around the room, witnessed all the sexual arousal. Human beings were capable of sexual arousal and it had nothing to do with the urge to procreate. That made every day mating season.

Sometimes I wondered if primal needs, if sex was the only thing that united men and women. The need to seek plea sure. The urge to procreate. Take away those needs and each sex would render the other useless, pointless. Without desire one sex would have destroyed the other a billion years ago. Men would've tossed all of us women to the dinosaurs-if we hadn't poisoned and castrated them first.

I laughed at myself. Laughed hard and shook my head.

When I started thinking like that it was time for me to head back home.

Before I could get up, a brother sat on the barstool next to mine. Jeans, black shoes, black blazer, hip designer T-shirt that had hues of brown and orange to make a solar design, like a smiling sun about to go supernova. He smelled nice. Very nice. He smelled of Egoiste, an aroma that enhanced his masculinity, the oriental and woody fragrance sending his pheromone level into the red zone.

In the smoothest baritone voice he said, "Your hair looks good."

"Thanks."

"All yours?"

"Watered it and grew it myself."

"Are you a model?"

"No. But thanks."

"Buy you a drink, Miss...?"

"Bijou."

"French?"

"My stepfather is...was French."

"So you're bilingual?"

"Oui. Some Spanish as well."

"Trilingual."

"S."

"Can I buy you a drink, Miss Bijou?"

"I don't know. Can you?"

"May I buy you a drink, Miss Bijou?"