Chapter 18
The power of a woman, this woman, was willful in a way that controlled Demi’s emotions, and he hated it, but it was the reason he worshipped her.
“Tell me more,” he said, rubbing Charlie’s lower back as he ate her pussy from the back.
“I can’t remember what I want to say when you’re doing that, Demi,” she moaned.
A midnight snack. She was his favorite, one he indulged in almost every night.
“Yes, Demi, keep…” she whined as he took hold of her flesh and conquered it, crushing her button between pressed lips then moving his head side to side.
“…keep doing that!” She came, and the sweetest icing coated his lips.
They had already made love. Demi was already satisfied, but Bird was spoiled.
This second helping was hers to enjoy alone.
“I’ll be right back,” he said. He spent five minutes washing his face and getting the taste of her off his tongue.
Her sweetness still lingered in his mind, notes of her still living in his mouth.
He didn’t know if it was an addiction that allowed him to taste her throughout his day or if he actually couldn’t get rid of her flavor, but it kept him spellbound to her.
Charlie, with her sage, and her crystals, had to have bewitched him.
No other woman could ever have her way with him the way Charlie did.
When he emerged, she had changed out the sheets, and a fresh, clean bed was awaiting him.
His body covered the length of the bed. Her personal pillow, Charlie nestled against him. Arm behind her body, her thigh over his torso. He wouldn’t move until she was asleep.
“Tell me, Bird,” he said.
“I’m afraid to have your baby,” she admitted.
His eyes were on the ceiling, his voice trapped as he tried to find a less dominant way to approach his response.
“Are you afraid of me?” He asked.
She heard his wounding. She recognized the concealing of his emotions to accommodate hers. Oh, how she loved this motherfucker.
“Sometimes,” she replied truthfully.
“Rip a nigga heart right on out his chest, Bird,” Demi said, placing his free hand on his stomach because, damn it if her words didn’t make it ache.
“You have this dream of how our life should be. It’s so orderly, baby.
Like the most OCD version of what a life could be.
You’ve organized it in your mind, and you want it so bad, I’m afraid of it.
I’m afraid to tell you I don’t want some of those things too.
I’m afraid of wearing pre-picked clothes.
I’m terrified of following your GPS for your life.
You’ve already passed all the pit stops I want to make in my 20’s.
You’re in Thirtyville, where the speed limit is slow as fuck. ”
“You calling a nigga old?” He asked, a hearty laugh skipping out of him, breaking up his stern demeanor.
“You kinda old, nigga!” Charlie exclaimed. “Especially since I moved in here. You giving me sugar daddy vibes and I just want to live.”
Demi was wrecked with laughter so badly his stomach hurt. “Aww shit, that’s fucked up, Bird.”
She laughed too. “What? I’m serious, baby,” she said, amusing tears coming from her eyes.
“Come climb this mountain, baby,” Demi said. He smacked her little booty on her way to the summit. She laid on his chest, and he rubbed her back.
“I love you. I plan to love you for a long time, Bird. I plan to give you everything you want. I forget sometimes that you’re young. I forget that what I’m ready for you might not be. I never want to control your life, baby. I just want to take parts. If you don’t want this baby right now…”
Charlie put a finger to his lips.
“I just wanted you to acknowledge my wants,” she whispered. “And my pace.” She lifted her head to look at him. “I want to have our baby. Just one right now. More can come later. But if I get one stretch mark!”
Demi smiled and chuckled.
“A nigga can’t control your stretch marks, Bird.” He sighed. She could feel his relief. “I’m driving in reverse to make sure you don’t miss your stops, baby. That’s my word. Whatever I got to do. I’ma be here. Your career. Fucking pussy popping around town with Stassi on your girls’ nights.”
“Ain’t nobody pussy popping,” Charlie said, laughing. “You just old and boring.”
“Yeah, whatever, be having niggas all in your DM’s every time you go out with her. Little booty-ass twerking and going live and shit. All y’all do is yell ‘aye’ and dance in circles, then get mad when niggas shoot they shots.”
Charlie hollered.
“Well, I’m somebody’s mama now, ain’t I?” She asked. “Guess my twerking days are on pause for a little bit.”
“I’ll keep my kid while you do your thing, Bird. You can still shake that li’l ass with your sister.”
Charlie hugged him so tightly. “I’ll never leave you, Demi. I’ll never unlove you. I could do this for a lifetime.”
“That’s the plan, baby,” Demi answered.
“You promise?” She asked. “Don’t leave me. Don’t let someone else make you feel something new and make you forget how you feel about me. Don’t do me like…”
Demi interrupted her. “Like I did Lo?”
She nodded. “She really fucking got you on her side, huh?” Demi asked.
Charlie snickered. “I just don’t want to become her. I don’t want to be introduced to that kind of betrayal when you get bored. Don’t ask me for a kid if this has the potential to end.”
“I didn’t get bored with Lauren, Bird. I was suffocating with her and not because of anything she did. I just couldn’t feel my pulse with her. It was a marriage that should have never happened, but she gave me my son, and I wanted to do right by my son.”
Charlie nodded, but he saw her worry.
“This isn’t the same,” he said. “I want you, not out of obligation, either. I want you.”
“Are you sure, Demi? Because in that hospital, you didn’t want me without this baby,” she said.
“I want you to have my baby because I love you so fucking much. I want to love something that comes from us. I want to share something with you, baby, but if we never have that, I’ll still want this with you.
Nobody else, Bird. Just you. Only way I’m leaving is if God make me. Who else gon’ sing a nigga to sleep?”
She scoffed. Spoiled-ass man. She lullabied him to sleep almost nightly. “I’m in love with you,” he said.
“Then I met you, when I met youuu I knewwww this was it. I’ve never been in love like thissss,” Charlie sang. Even in her playfulness, her voice captured him. “I could do this for hours and hours and hoursss.”
Chills. Every fucking time. She could sing the fucking alphabet.
“Say, man,” he whispered, shaking his head.
“Say, man,” she replied with a soft kiss.
“And that radio host with the slick mouth?” He mentioned.
“Yeah, what about her?” Charlie asked.
“She’s no longer on the air, and she’ll be making a public statement of apology,” Demi said.
“Bitch’ll be lucky if she ever works in radio again.
Mad at you or not, there will never be a day when I let someone disrespect you.
” Protection. Charlie shook her head in amazement.
This man was her mental and physical bodyguard.
Nothing could touch her as long as he was around.
“You didn’t have to do that, but I appreciate you for handling it,” she said. “I don’t know how it’s possible to be so in love with another human being.”
Her phone was an interruption that stopped them from falling down a rabbit hole.
They would stay up all night, finding new ways to express their love.
She’d sing, they’d fuck, he’d eat, they’d talk, insert some laughs, feather strokes to her shoulder while she perused YouTube singers, a break to take Bails out, a late-night bowl of cereal, then finally sleep.
Their love was overpowering, and reality always slipped away.
Charliezonia had a population of two, and they retreated there often, especially at night.
“Who calling you this late?” Demi asked.
She reached for the nightstand. “I don’t know,” she said. She snatched the phone off the charger and showed him the screen.
“Isn’t this Lo’s number?”
Demi came up on his elbows as Charlie sat up, straddling him.
“Hello?” She answered unsurely.
“Charlie, where is Demi?! I’ve called everyone looking for him! He’s not answering his phone! When I call, I need him to answer the fucking phone!”
“Whoa, Lo, chill with all that. My phone died,” Demi said, taking the phone from Charlie’s hands.
“I need you! It’s DJ! We’re at the hospital. He cut himself, Demi. They’re saying he might not make it!”
Demi moved Charlie off him and sat up. “Fuck you mean, he cut himself?”
“He slit his wrist open with a razor blade! Down to the fucking artery! What if he dies?” Lo’s tone was maniacal. She was losing it, and Charlie could hear her terror. Is that what motherhood did to you? Made you susceptible to this type of vulnerability?
“What hospital?!” Demi shouted.
“Beaumont!”
“I’m on my way,” Demi said.
He was moving in circles, chasing his tail, and Charlie sat on the bed, helplessly.
“Where the fuck are my keys?” Demi shouted. He was flipping covers off the bed, pulling drawers out the dresser, and tearing everything up in his path as he threw on clothes.
“I’ll find them, Demi,” she said softly. She climbed from the bed and commanded him. “Hey,” she said. “He’s going to be fine, Demi. I need you to make it there in one piece, babe. I’ll find the keys.”
Demi grit his teeth. “This divorce been hard on him, man,” he said. His jaw tensed, repeatedly. His eyes burned so fucking bad.
“I need you, Bird. Put on some clothes. I can’t do this without you.”