One Safe Place Page 4
“She’s a darker-skinned sister and everyone automatically thinks it’s an issue when they see her with her mixed child. You know how that goes. But this is the great Northwest. You see white people with black children frequently, mixed and adopted. You’re mixed, PB, but you were raised by a black man with a parentage of white; me, many think I’m at least part black, but I’m not. I’m socially mixed with all kinds but with more black people in my life. Darcelle being dark-skinned, well—”
“Okay, I know what time it is when it comes to the color line. Tell me what do I have to do with this? What do you want from me?” I can lose my patience when people don’t get to the point.
“Will you let me tell you what I want to tell you? Thank you. Like I said, she married a white guy from England, and that was a fiasco of nasty. The foul piece of a man wore diapers and had Darcelle change the damn diaper while giving him head. Thank goodness he never took a dump, at least so she said.”
None of this shocked me. I have traveled the world and met many people with oddities, but I had to ask. “Ah, Velvet, two things, did your friend know any of this before she married this English noble fool?”
“She’s a good woman, PB, and she was trying to please her man, okay? Don’t be judging anybody. Before they married, it was pretty vanilla sex. After they married, the circus-freak sex show came to town with the quickness. She admits to liking freakish sex, but then he had a huge baby bed built for adults, and wanted her to dress like a little girl. So, a year later she divorced the English punk. That was ten years ago.
“Now a year ago, just as Darcelle is about to run for city office, she received a call telling her that her ex-husband is in an incestuous relationship with his mother, and always has been.” Velvet went silent, but I heard air deflate from her lungs. I let the sound of cars passing by soften the foulness that entered into my ear. “And, it was true, the woman who called, it was Mommy Dearest herself. Darcelle confronted homeboy, and he owned up to it. The dude even admitted he had a relationship with his older sibling at one time. Sickos!”
“Hold on, Velvet.”
“Okay.”
“Hold on for a minute now, I’m coming into the building.” I enter through a private entrance in the rear of my high-rise condo building. It’s where I keep my boy toys and workshop. I had to ask Velvet to stop with the ugly, messy information for a minute. People have called me sophisticated and hard assed, but my soul can feel the bombing of what people can do, and it affects me. I have silent tears when I hear about or see an ugly life on display.
“Velvet, go on, finish.”
“Well, Darcelle being a lawyer making a lot of money, and in the public eye, she had to give up a lot to get this dude to give her a clean-cut divorce ten years ago. Now she is preparing to run for a city office, and after all this time, this foulness comes back to haunt her. The ex-husband…PB,” her voice loses any hint of sexiness, “I am not asking you to do anything, but she needs help. The dude, he is the father of her daughter who is almost ten years old. The dude, he wants a lot of money, and he’s threatening to go to court to get visitation. He got a sweet, more than amicable divorce settlement, but now he wants more. On top of all this he has never wanted a relationship with his daughter and I doubt he wants one now. His daughter is just a pawn to his nasty, fucking twerp of an ass.
“Darcelle is living in fear of this monster touching her daughter or any of his twisted family coming close to her. He mockingly threatened Darcelle, telling her, ‘You know things can happen.’ ”
“You know all this to be fact?”
“PB, I know not to put you in the middle. God only knows what may happen by me telling you what I am telling you. I did my homework. I had her call him using the phone tapping equipment you showed me how to use. I have it digitally recorded. He is a monster and his mother is twisted.”
“Send me the info.”
“PB—”
“Say no more. Just send me the info.”
I look down at my arm; I see a vein pulsating and hairs standing up. My sense of justice has awakened. When it comes to abuse, it is akin to life and death as far as I’m concerned. One must live, and the other must die. I like living, so abuse within my reach must take an exit and disappear.
Sometimes the ocean has a foul smell. It could be for many reasons—things wash up, but mostly it’s pollution from the foulness of people. Sometimes something has died out there. Like humanity can float and thrive; sometimes it dies and rots.
For now though, I need to clear my head. My lover is upstairs waiting for me.
CHAPTER FIVE
Papillon Hot Butterfly
Gabrielle (Gabby) Brandywine
I’m having a morning eye-opener: three strawberries, one ounce of lemon juice, one ounce simple syrup, one ounce vodka, Club soda, and crushed ice while staring at the Northwest winter morning sunshine. Up ten stories, I stare downward, avoiding the blinding sun and enjoying the water, watching the ferries go from Seattle over to the local islands and coming back.
On the beachfront down below, I’m watching my ex-Secret Service agent, my lover man, who is sparring with the ocean air with quickness and hardly any effort in his fluent movements. He possesses the kind of power men fear. Psalms is on Alki Beach, shadow boxing in the sand.
With downtown Seattle in one corner of his world, and the Puget Sound in the other, he works out with the street behind him as if his back is against the ropes in a boxing ring. He beats the air until I’m sure the air is heated to one-hundred degrees in twenty feet in each direction surrounding him.
Since I’ve known him, I’ve had the opportunity to see him do what he is doing now, many times, and I never grow weary of watching him. I have watched him shadow box and heat up the air with his rapid-firing fists along an iced-over river in Moscow. I watched his body move along the Panama Canal with the icy quickness of a Doberman as he seemingly cooled the hot air with the speed of his kicks. Along the Great Wall of China, I watched him attack the breathed air of past warriors, and it evoked a vision of him fighting and defeating Genghis Khan. Psalms Black has the build of Mike Tyson, yet he moves like a jaguar in the Amazon jungle.
I have felt that same power in his lovemaking, taking me and making me feel that he wants me. The responsiveness of his proficiencies in lovemaking takes the form of a ballet dancer’s grace performing between my thighs. My ex-Secret Service agent, my lover, has picked me up and floated me down on his manhood in a way a man cannot be trained. He is all-natural in all he does. Psalms touches every square centimeter of my body with his strong hands, and I sweat between my inner thighs from the softness of his caress.
He gives me hot flashes and my body’s clock is not there yet. When he touches me, it feels like whispers to the pores of my body that he has opened up with the heat of his touch. He licks and sucks on my skin as if he’s licking the middle of an oyster, and he is trying to go as slow as an hour clock drains sand as he eats the middle. He sniffs all my pores and openings, and he makes sounds that have no names. It’s undeniably him. When those golden eyes scan my body, I watch his hardness become his weapon of choice. He slays all my fears, and imprisons the stipulations I thought I needed to maintain some control. He replaces my wants with total fulfillment in my desires so I can lose all control. When I’m in his control, I’m truly free.
As my Secret Service agent, my feelings grew more intense each time he was assigned to protect me. I wanted him. I wanted any part of the man who would take a bullet for me. Black Knight Syndrome, maybe? I am no different from any other woman who wants what they want in a man, no matter whether if it’s good or bad for them. I have surrendered to my fearless man.
Psalms has many dimensions. One night in Paris, Agent Psalms Black was off for the night. My security detail worked in teams, and my other agents, EL’vis, Dean, and Phil Armstrong, were on duty. If there were times for a single agent, Psalms was one of the few agents allowed to do so. I eavesdropped on the on-duty agents speaking to
Psalms as he needed to inform them of his whereabouts. I’m sure they knew I was listening, and he would be at a small jazz club later that night sitting in with a band, I overheard. I had no idea what that meant since I knew so little of him at the time. He, unlike the other agents, hardly ever talked to anyone.
I instructed my agents that we were going out that night. They found it odd, but I was the boss. I was the most powerful woman in the world, and if I wanted to go out on the town in Paris, it was their duty to serve. Hell, I had told the Prime Minister of France earlier in the day that he needed to grow a pair when dealing with Israel.
It was imperative that whenever I was in public, whether in interviews or meeting heads of state, I had to look professional and elegant. A woman in my position was judged quickly and critically. My personal stylist always traveled with me, and, yes, that was on the taxpayers’ dime. She always had my wardrobe prepared, my makeup flawless, and my hair never open to criticism.
Always on the stage front as the Secretary of State, I’m confident in my skills and presentation. That night I walked in the club dressed in a red after-five dress that any woman in Paris would envy. Normally, sexy is not the look I’m after, but I felt desirable from head to toe. I’m known as the sling-back-heel woman. I had on red suede sling-backs with black leather toes. My agents had me sit at a table along a wall near the rear exit for security logistics.
On the stage, Psalms played a huge stand-up bass with the same precision he could shoot his service revolver with. He played the bass without missing a beat as if it were his heartbeat. The band played jazz and blues, and Psalms played as if he had been with the band all his life. He is a man who one may never truly find out all he is capable of, what he has done, and what he will do.
His thick, long fingers strummed and pulled strings. His fingers, his fingers, his fingers, oh my goodness. I sat there squeezing my thighs, and my thick lips—I was squeezing them thin. I had to remember to breathe.
My serotonin levels always elevated with him standing near, even if I gave a press conference on climate change. With his body nearby and ready to serve and protect, I would give an elegant and relevant presentation and just happen to look over at him and the climate changed between my thighs. I’d smile out to the audience, and my mind would send a movie in to my vision replacing the people in front of me. I would see his head between my thighs and hear the soundtrack of his tongue licking and eating and sniffing me, and the volume would be on ten. I would think that in front of hundreds, just from a glance his way.
He was always in my head holding my attention in ways other men had not. I’m sure most women see a certain man and develop some kind of crush, but in time, they mentally move on. But, this man—I felt my soul stalking him, even in his sleep.
I had daydreamed after seeing him play that stand-up bass, wanting his hands to treat me as an instrument. I wanted him to master me. I wanted to experience a rainforest of his sweat dropping on my back. I wanted him climbing in and out of me, feeling his power stroke my insides until I couldn’t take anymore. I wanted his hands to cup my ass and squeeze hard while his lips locked onto my collarbone and worked down to my breasts. I wanted that man.
I stood in the window watching Psalms give a homeless-looking man money or something. He is a giver, rarely a taker. He crosses the street and his walk is powerful. Cars seem to slow down, knowing the damage he could cause to their vehicles. He walks and it makes me relive classified fantasies of every time he was in my presence before we became lovers. I can hear Minnie Riperton singing:
Every time he comes around I feel like I’m on fire
When he looks into my eyes and sees down to my soul.
I write my memoirs in a journal in the form of short stories and poems. I laugh at my closet poet’s mind, knowing I’m the person who can’t share my off-color thoughts and dreams. Not this public figure! But I write them, wishing one day I can share them and maybe leave them with someone who would want them because they want to know me and not exploit me.
A year passed before I opened a door to Psalms entering a danger zone with me. I was putting two careers in serious peril. When I finally crossed the line, and asked him to cross over with me, it happened while in another country. I’d had enough of being with plastic people that day and needed some realness. I love representing and serving my country to the point I endured rejection by many of my own people for what I represent to them. I endure all of that and not have any love at the end of the day waiting for me? Enough. I made my move.
• • •
Agent Psalms Black made one last inspection of my hotel suite at the end of a conference while we were in Bahrain. He was a man of detail. His eyes move like graph paper lines when he scans. He removed his sunglasses and his golden eyes…his golden eyes.
Under his eye—his birthmark is noticeable. Although he’s not ashamed of it, he felt it drew the wrong attention while doing his job to protect whomever. He said his birthmark was a bull’s-eye target to the right killer. That night in my room I spoke to him like no other time. He was my target. I needed for him to live and to give me some life.
“This might seem extraordinarily peculiar to speak to you but, Mr. Black, I seriously need to have some conversation that’s not based on ‘How is the weather?’ and ‘How was your day?’ and to give back more than a nondescript response. I would love to drop all the pretentious verbiage. I would like to have a drink…share a drink with you, and talk with you about anything other than world affairs,” I said to the agent assigned to protect my body.
Without looking at him, I poured a double shot of G’Vine Gin on the rocks. My eyes played shy when any other time, I kept my eyes pinned on Psalms. I was sure of my words, but unsure of what I was doing, yet understanding the risk. I chose to break the ice, supplant protocol, and get to know the man protecting me.
• • •
That was seven years ago when we chanced embarrassment and careers. We became lovers. Awareness of our surroundings was something we both kept conscious of as we became lovers and best friends. I look at Psalms walking through his condo door. The extra-wide designed doors in his condo make the average man look like a minor, but Psalms looks manly, wide, and powerful coming through them. He is wide and powerful both physically and intellectually. Damn, he makes me sear with lust and serious cerebral thoughts.
Psalms stares at me with his golden eyes. It feels like he sees me without any clothes on with his graph-paper-line scan. I want his naked, firm body to lift me up and lay me down on the hardwood floor and make my naked body squeak with wet, sweating fiction. I want to role play with him and have Psalms drag me as I submit. I want to feel myself sliding and reaching and touching his calves and on up to his muscled thighs and ass. As he is dragging me, I can see his hardness pointing, ragging, dripping, and my body slips and slides. Once we’re in his bedroom, I’d crawl on all fours, and I’d grab his hardness, hold it, and suck it as hard as he often sucks my breasts. I imagine he is torturing me with pleasure.
I come back to my current existence, and Psalms is still staring at me and doesn’t speak. Psalms offers no greeting or engagement—remnants of my relationship with men assigned to protect me. Speak when spoken to—a power trip request or demand by the lonely or self-absorbed.
I sat down with almost every world leader. I, Gabrielle (Gabby) Papillon Brandywine, an African-American woman born and raised in Galveston, Texas, rose to be distinguished and disliked, but respected for the most part.
There’s a price to pay for being a powerful woman before, during, and after serving in office. The media intrusion in to a public figure’s life remains and, as for me being a woman, privacy is still an issue. Everything I do and say is a matter of public interest and record. A love life is almost impossible for a woman in high governmental office. A romantic dinner out in public and the media frenzy could easily overshadow a peace treaty signing.
I don’t have the option of retiring from office, and becoming an exhi
bition and behaving like a-booty-shaking-washed-up-ex-baller’s-whore-or-wife and I do not want to do either. It is a shame for any woman to become a spectacle on a reality show that too many women look to for training in class.
Powerful men can drop their drawers and get caught with women who make money on their backs. Mostly powerful white men in Congress abuse their power and have mistresses, and abandon their wives, while those wives have been at home and raising the children, or may even be on their deathbeds. These politically corrupt men will dump a devoted wife for a newer piece of ass as fast as a fat conservative radio shock jock needs to swallow a Viagra pill to get it up. Those same nasty-ass men will run for the presidency years later, and the press will only hint about their low-life deeds. A double standard, yes! A woman in high governmental office can expect to be burned at the social stake and seen as a cold-blooded whore if she goes from man to man.
Unlike most men, standards of a professional woman in her public life apply to her private life as well. If I ever step out of bounds, the ramifications can be devastating to a life that is already hard enough. The fact is even when a woman is in bounds, the media still wants to know who is she screwing, and when. If you’re not screwing someone, it may be assumed you’re a lesbian.
Some of the most talented women who have worked for me live alternative lifestyles. They don’t come out because of how they’ll be treated, and it is wrong! So, I’m doing what many women have to do, keeping my private life behind a curtain. Whether a single mom or a woman in a public position, we have to keep our private lives hidden all too often. Being entitled to do as you please as a woman, and be respected, is a pipe dream, unfortunately. To conduct yourself as you please, with “it’s nobody’s business” attitude that is reserved for a reality show ex-housewife or a side piece waiting to become a scandal.