Scotch and curry - short story - Black South Fiction, Art, Culture

African American Review, Summer, 1993 by Lolis Eric Elie

She's kind of quiet, he said, when she's just sitting over there at the bar; she starts off quiet. But when you start working and plunging and grabbing that ass, she will first lick your ear and then put her whole mouth on it, plunging her tongue into your skull. Then talk to you. Telling you how it is to be done. Exactly how this is to be accomplished.

And it's so sweet, he said. Her talking so much shit, you working so much harder, he said. Working, grabbing the bedposts and digging your feet into the sheets like they were hind paws in search of traction.

And when it is right, he said, when it is truly righteous and can get no better, she screams. Screams and claws you and thrusts as if she were moving inside of you and not you inside her. As if she was in control of the whole thing.

"Bruh," he whispered beaming," I never had it like that!"

And at least that much I believed.

I tried to imagine this scene. To see Wandalyn's apartment as a place with a big brass bed and a window that caressed the moon, perhaps with soft music, champagne, and satin sheets. And I tried to see Curry as an actor in this movie, lifting this starlet into his arms and onto these sheets, but I couldn't.

As if to prove my suspicions wrong he walked over to her. Approaching her from behind he kissed the back of her neck and seemed to be groping for her breasts. She stopped him firmly, I thought, but then she smiled and he sat down on the stool next to her. She ordered another scotch and he drank the one she already had. She ordered two more. Then two more.

Putting his glass down, Curry's hand moved to her knee. She moved it off and went to the ladies'room. Without a word she left him sitting there, trying to act natural. She didn't return until we had started the second set.

Curry didn't know Larry Wilkes. While we were playing "As the Years Go Passing By," a slow, grinding minor blues that Albert King used to play, Larry walked up to Wandalyn's stool.

Larry is a lot of fun. He will sometimes get into the middle of the dance floor, pushing everyone back with large gestures, and put on a show. He knows the movements of other dancers and parodies them with finesse. Li'l Brother, who hurt his leg, so he says, in some war, dances with a limp. And Larry will dance over to Li'l Brother doing what he calls the Li'l Brother One-Legged Two-Step.

Then somebody like Thelma Sargeant will start laughing loud and say something like "Ooh, Li'l Brother, he got you good." And Larry will stick his hips out in one direction and his chest way out in the one and start dancing like Thelma. Perhaps too much like Thelma for many to suspect that Larry is not all man. But, regardless, it is understood that this is Larry and it is fun.

Larry danced over to Wandalyn and grabbed her hand as if deciding for her that she wanted to dance. When she didn't move he put his left arm in the air and his right to his breast as if embracing an imaginary partner. Dipping and grinding. Then he motioned to her again to join him. When she didn't he repeated his gyrations with more force and suggestion, then grabbed Wandalyn off of her stool, pulled her close to him, and began doing with her that which he had done with his imaginary partner.