Can't Get Enough of Your Love by J.J. Murray Page A

delicious blinking.
    â€œThis is my friend, Roger.”
    â€œUh-huh,” Mama said.
    â€œRoger has something to tell you, Mama.”
    â€œHe … does?” Her eyes were like soup bowls, I swear!
    â€œYes, ma’am,” Roger said. “May I sit?”
    Mama nodded, never taking her eyes off his red hair.
    â€œMrs. Cole, have you ever thought about where your final resting place will be?”
    I knew Mama was shook up because she always corrected people when they called her “Mrs.” By the time he finished his question, however, she turned back into Mama.
    â€œMy final what?” she asked.
    â€œYour final resting place. Have you ever thought about where you will be buried in the event of your demise?”
    Mama straightened up and looked hard at me. “You’re from some cemetery, right?”
    â€œYes, ma’am. Fairview Cemetery.”
    She shot a look at me. “Uh-huh.” She turned to Roger. “I am
not
interested.”
    Roger looked at me, and I half expected him to say, “But you
said
she’d be interested.” He only looked down at the table, smiled, and looked back at me … differently, as if he knew why he had made a second trip. “I understand,” he said to Mama. He stood.“Iunderstand,” he said
to me!
“It was nice to meet you, Mrs. Cole.”
    â€œIt’s Miss,” Mama spat.
    Roger nodded to Mama, nodded to me, and then headed for the door, me trailing behind. At the door he turned, his face getting all pink. “Um, Miss Cole—”
    â€œLana, remember?”
    â€œLana. Um, normally two people go out a few times before, you know, meeting the parents, so, uh …”
    Damn, he was quick!
    â€œSo, are you doing anything, say … tonight?”
    I stepped closer to him and whispered, “No.”
    â€œWould you, um, like to do something tonight?”
    I nodded. “And since you’ve already met my mama,” I whispered, “maybe we can take our relationship to a whole new level. Where do you live?”
    â€œI’m practically your neighbor.” He pointed behind Mama’s house to some apartments. “I live about a block away.”
    Perfect
, I thought.
    I had messed with some white guys in high school, but I had never been with any of them in the biblical sense, so that night was illuminating in so many ways.
    I drove (so Mama wouldn’t be suspicious) to his place, a one-bedroom A-frame apartment within shouting distance of Mama’s back deck. It was a clean, neat, and sparse apartment, hardly a bachelor pad. Actually, it was practically empty. A counter with stools sectioned off the kitchenette from the rest of the apartment, which was devoid of any furniture—even a couch—save a thirty-six-inch TV on a stand containing stereo equipment, thin gauze covering the onlylarge window, which looked out onto the second-floor walkway.
    â€œUm, Roger,” I said, but I didn’t finish asking where his bed was because he took me by the hand to the back corner of the apartment to a twelve-by-twelve section of linoleum. He kissed my neck.
    â€œWhere’s your bed?”
    He kept on kissing. “You’re standing on it.”
    â€œYou sleep on the floor?”
    â€œNo.” He tapped the back wall. “That’s a wall bed.”
    â€œOh.”
    He worked his way to my girls, introducing himself slowly with his tongue with a lot more tenderness than Juan Carlos or Karl.
    â€œRoger, are you going to—”
    I froze. Through the gauze, I saw the outline of someone walking by.
    He had my shirt off.
    I covered up my girls. “Roger, can they see us?”
    He was working on my pants using his teeth on my zipper. “What if they can?”
    I didn’t stop him because the danger thrilled me right down to my stuff. I let him strip me naked, I stripped him naked, and then he devoured me, right there on that cool linoleum