~ Eleven ~
Colt and Sam were seventeen, almost eighteen the first time he wondered, earnestly wondered, what she looked like naked. Before, he had noticed some things, the kinds of things that made Sam feminine and cute—like the way she looked in a swimsuit, or the smoothness of her knees when she sat down in a skirt that was short enough to rest just above them.
But he had never permitted himself to go all the way there and think about what her entire body might look like, uncovered and without even the tiniest garment. Recognizing her as “feminine and cute” was one thing. But recognizing her as a sexual being was something else entirely.
It happened because of a conversation they had on the phone one night. On the very same day, they had both just gotten their acceptance packages from Georgetown in the mail. Sam was excited, as was Colt, but she worried that going to a university so close to their hometown would be inhibiting.
‘How the heck am I ever going to be able to comfortably ‘ho out if I’m only twenty miles from where my parents live?’
She whispered the words, because Sam didn’t use words like ‘ho’ lightly.
‘You ain’ tryna ‘ho out,’ Colt said. It sounded like a cross between a statement and a question. He waited for her to respond. And when she finally did, she sounded regretful.
‘You’re probably right. But I mean, at some point I’m going to want to have sex, and not have to wonder if my mother’s going to stop by unexpectedly to drop off some laundry or something.’
‘You ain’ tryna ‘ho out,’ was all Colt could manage, once again. He was stuck on that thought, and this time when he spoke it aloud, it sounded like a directive, a rebuke.
After they hung up, he pictured it: Sam, naked and with her legs spread wide; some faceless stranger’s large hands gripping her by the inner thighs. His ashy ass rising and falling as he rut inside her.
That picture, the accompaniment to the thought of Sam ‘ho’ing out’ stuck in Colt’s head, and made him restless. It didn’t even turn him on, the way any sexual image normally might. Instead, it made him feel like he was crawling around inside his own skin, looking for an opening so he could burst out of it.
“You should have seen me. I’m a natural. Jason said it, and even used those words. I’m a natural.” Sam let the last word drag out, like she was savoring the taste and shape of it on her tongue.
As she spoke, she was pulling a yellow blouse off, over her head. It was the precise color of a buttercup in high bloom and had been paired with the cream-colored suit she had shed on the bedroom floor moments earlier.
‘I’m being subversive,’ she’d said to Colt that morning when she got dressed. ‘Jason distinctly told me I should wear a blue suit, but I feel like they’ll listen to me, and remember me better if I don’t look exactly like everyone else.’
‘Nah,’ Colt had told her. ‘They won’t listen to a word. They’ll just sit there thinking how pretty you are.’
‘That’s way sexist,’ Sam told him.
But she’d blushed too, and even let him feel her up a little while he kissed her, just before she had to leave the house in a hurry to make her eight-thirty a.m. pre-meeting with Jason. It was the first time she was going up to the Hill with him, and she was excited because it was for a series of lobbying meetings on that issue paper she’d been agonizing over. If she did well, and if she enjoyed it, it could be the opening of a new door for her, a new career.
“Was he pissed you didn’t wear a blue suit?” Colt asked.
He was reclining on her bed, watching her undress, thinking about how the entire day up till now had been filling time while he waited for Sam to get off work. It was kind of like when they were kids and bored out of their minds, suffering through that empty week after school ended in June, but before camp had begun.
Colt, who had always been an early riser, would sit around from about seven to ten a.m., waiting until it was a reasonable hour to call Sam and tell her to come over, or that he was heading over there. It didn’t feel like the day had properly begun until they were together, in the same place at the same time.
“I think he was a little annoyed when he first saw me,” Sam admitted. “Like he might have been worried that I didn’t know how to follow instructions or something. But we didn’t have a whole lot of time before the first meeting so we had to rush, and then I blew him away in the meeting and he forgot all about it until the end of the day.”
The yellow blouse had come off now, and Colt watched as she reached behind her to unfasten the bra underneath. He watched her so hard, Sam stopped what she was doing and smiled at him.
“What?”
“I can’t get used to it,” he said.
“Used to what?”
“The fact that I get to see you naked.”
Sam managed to blush and seem exasperated at the same time. It was her signature look, and cute as hell.
“By now you’d think you’d be used to it,” she said, her chin dipping, a reference to how often they had sex.
They had sex a lot.
“I don’t think I ever will be.”
Sam lifted her eyes again. She let her bra drop. Then she peeled off her sheer pantyhose, removed the panties and stood naked at the center of the Persian rug that covered most of the carpeting in the center of her bedroom floor.
She just stood there; and let him look at her.
He could see the blush now. Pink, under brown. Underneath all this boldness, she was still Sam. The only woman he would bet his life he knew just about everything about.
Her nakedness was the final frontier he never tired of exploring.
Her breasts were more than a handful, but not too big. They had a ski-slope curve, and small nipples, the size of quarters, brown with the slightest hint of blushed rose, pointing slightly upward. Her upper abdomen was smooth and flat, her stomach had a gentle softness. Hips, wide; thighs solid and not meeting in the middle even when her feet were together. Her legs shapely, her ass pert and her feet the prettiest Colt had ever seen.
When they were in bed together, he sometimes kissed her feet. The insoles, the toes, the ankles. She was ticklish, but she let him do it, never seeming to know whether she should giggle or moan. Colt had never done that before with any other woman. Of all the things he had done—and there had been plenty—that wasn’t one of them. The kissing of feet, that was just for Sam.
Taking her in from his position on the bed, Colt appreciated every detail. Nakedness wasn’t always about sex. Sometimes it was just about knowing a person. He just wanted to have this—to know the rest of her. The last piece.
Finally, Sam’s eyes grew weary. “Had enough yet?”
Colt shook his head. “Nah. But I know how to control my appetite.”
Sam laughed. “Right.”
She was talking about the night before. When he’d shown up at her door after she expressly told him, earlier that afternoon, that she needed to be well-rested for her first lobbying meetings. He showed up anyway, bringing her dinner from her favorite Mexican restaurant, and insisting that he was only there to eat with her, and then leave.
They ate, and then she said she had to work, and he told her it was no problem; she didn’t need to entertain him. He would just chill and watch television while she did what she had to do. But after an hour, he got bored with the show, and told himself he would just go upstairs to check in on Sam before heading home. Because it wasn’t like they had to have sex every time they saw each other (even though, lately they had).
Upstairs, she was sitting in the center of her bed—this very bed—a pen between her teeth, laptop balanced on her crossed legs, and a notebook next to her on the covers. She was wearing her reading glasses and looked up when he entered. Without speaking, Colt crossed the room, took the laptop off her lap, shoved aside the notebook, and pressed her backward. Only once she was on her back did he take the pen from between her teeth.
‘Colt,’ she said.
And then after that, there was no talking for a very long time.
“So now you want to be a lobbyist?” he asked her.
Sam was pulling a long tank over her head, no underwear beneath it. “I think I might,” she said, her eyes bright with excitement. “It was almost fun. It didn’t even feel like work.”
“Cool.”
“But I’m not naïve,” she went on. “I know it’s not going to be like that all the time. I’m sure sometimes it’ll suck, and I won’t feel like going to work at all.”
“But that’s true of right now anyway, right? Sometimes it sucks and sometimes you don’t feel like going to work now.”
Sam paused and looked at him. “That’s true,”
“At least this would be something new.”
She nodded.
“So, go for it.” Colt shrugged.
“I probably won’t be able to avoid the blue suit forever,” Sam said. “Jason told me that if I was meeting with a Member …”
“Member …?”
“Of Congress, Colt. If I was meeting with a Member of Congress.”
“Okay, if you were meeting with a Member then what? You’d have to be in a blue suit?”
“Yeah, it’s protocol.”
Colt rolled his eyes.
“It’s just the way it is,” Sam said. “And I can’t get in there and break all the rules. Not if I’m new. Today was just … I mean, I can’t make a habit of doing that. Not if I want Jason to take me seriously.”
“Okay.”
Colt found the minutiae of Sam’s work boring and didn’t imagine that would change much if she became a lobbyist. He just liked watching her face become animated when she talked about it. But he didn’t feel guilty about being bored since he was fairly certain she found his work boring too. Since he’d been in the NBA, she had only twice come to watch him play, and only when he was playing against Washington, in DC.
All of his offers to fly her and some girlfriends out, put them up in a suite and get them into a box in other arenas, had gone refused. He wasn’t insulted exactly, but there was part of him that wished she was even a little excited about the luxuries that being in the NBA afforded him. He sometimes wished she would ask him for something. Something big, that he could give to her in a grandiose, public gesture. He wanted to impress her.
He fantasized about getting her a fully-loaded black Land Rover, much nicer than the one he had, with all the bells and whistles. He pictured Sam seeing it, and her eyes going wide, and then her hand going to her mouth just as she emitted a squeal of pleasure. He pictured her jumping up and hugging and kissing him.
“I have to go to Philly next week,” he told her. “You want to come?”
“When?” Sam had settled on the bed next to him and picked up the novel she was still working on.
“Maybe Thursday. Coming back Sunday.”
“Can’t. I have work.”
“Come Friday after work then.”
“What’s happening in Philly?”
“One of my teammates is having something this weekend. It’s his birthday, so his wife’s got some stuff planned, and a dinner at his place on Saturday. I told him a long time ago I’d stop through. Figured I’d get there early and take care of some business. If I don’t bring you, his wife will try to hook me up with one of her girls.”
Sam looked up at him, her expression flat.
“I mean, not that I would …”
She looked back down at her book, and Colt felt a stab of frustration.
“You don’t care, do you?” he said.
“About what? That women try to hook you up with their girlfriends? That’s hardly new. My own mother tries to hook you up.”
“Maybe because she doesn’t know I’m already with someone.” Colt said, hearing the snappishness in his tone.
Sam put down her book and looked at him again.
“You don’t worry?” she said. “About just putting it out there? About you and me.”
Colt shook his head. “No. Why should I? Why are you worried?”
“I just …”
She traced a pattern on the sheets, near his shoulder. Colt felt himself yearning for her to close that tiny distance—mere inches—and touch him. Now that he could touch her, and she could touch him in ways they hadn’t touched each other before, he thought about it constantly. He wanted her, constantly.
“What if it changes things? What if they try to make us into something that we aren’t? Before we even get a chance to figure out what we are.”
He knew what they were. He was just waiting for Sam to catch up.