Toy Soldier Pt. 02

And then sometimes something happens and we jump-shift and start viewing ourself in an entirely different way. In my case a black beauty walked into my life.

Who is she? I know she doesn't think much of herself. Why? And why me, why did she come to my desk and ask me to go with her to have coffee, me of all people?

I got the report in just four days, it was pretty thin. She came from Haiti 26 years ago as a one year old with her mother, there was no reference to a father. They were sponsored by an aide agency. They lived in the city's small Haitian community; her mother worked as a cleaner. She died (unknown cause) when Tosha was three and Tosh subsequently spent her childhood in foster homes, four of them until she was 17 when she got her education in a community college while working in a variety of minimum wage jobs. She joined the company upon graduation. It wasn't always clear where she lived, usually sharing an apartment. That was it, there was nothing else, no wrap sheet, no marriage license, no drivers license, nothing else.

Everyone in the office of course knew her by sight, she was conspicuous, dramatically conspicuous even though she was as silent as I am. Beautiful and thin and black, she had stood in front of my desk and told me rather than asked me to go for a coffee and I went because I couldn't think fast enough not to.

I was confused and intrigued more than anything. She would want something; what had I to offer? I couldn't think of a single thing.

When she put the coffees down in front of us I waited for her to speak, to explain herself. She didn't. The silence should have been uncomfortable. It wasn't. Any time I'm not directly engaged in something I'm thinking of my stories; any time something unusual happens to me I think of how I can build it into one of my stories.

I mapped out the story I was writing about her in my head. She is unhappy, obviously, why? A bad relationship — abuse, flight, the slow quiet licking of wounds ... like I had written; the night stick theme. Had I been right about her in my imagined story? It had to be a version of that: her beauty and blackness would make her vulnerable, her toughness would make her a fighter.

We had been standing at a stoplight on the way back to the office after that first coffee we had together when I could feel her hand on my back, not furtively, publicly, then her fingers dropped and dug slightly beneath my waist band and my heart fluttered, sank, soared — a brief, unexpected, semi-sexual, life altering moment that in no way fit into my life story or the one I had imagined for her ... and then the light changed.

I am alone and unwanted and I'm OK with that, I should be, I've had a life of getting used to it. Feeling fingers on my back, then invading as they did don't fight my memory for other feeling fingers — there haven't been any. What did they mean? And why was my heart a-flutter? And what's up with her silence?

All of that prayed on me through the next few days of coffee and lunch with her. Same thing, including two finger invasions when the situation allowed. But that was it, an apparent desire to be with me that was feeling like a need but not a physical need, more an emotional need that was beginning to grow.

With my erotica I knew a lot about lesbianism ... as a spectator, I write a lot about lesbians because I find them intriguing and I more understand the gender so I can go deeper with my characters — it's all speculation of course but it's relatable speculation.

Our relationship wasn't that but it was hinting at it. And it was building: when someone does something intimate to you, you think about it, a lot, especially if it's never happened to you before and when you do think about it, you naturally want more of it ... it wasn't sex with her I was seeking but to comfort her ... physically, to show physically what I could never convey emotionally, it looked like she needed it — the shoulder to cry on if that's what she wanted.

So far our sex has been her just rubbing on me, we might kiss a bit but then I'm face down and she is squirming and humping on my bum, frantically like she has been waiting all day to do it, not sex I understood but I'm not a lesbian.

She had the look at supper.

I had to ask. "When are you going to start teaching me how to be a lesbian ... I don't think I'm doing a very good job so far."

"What do I know about being a lesbian?"

"More than I do."

"I don't know about that, anyway you're doing an excellent job of being you, that's why I'm here."

"Seriously, I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing to please you."

"Just be you, that does it."

"And what? You're just going to just be you? That's what we have, two individuals just being themselves. Doesn't sound like much of a relationship to me. We won't be building anything, we'll never be more than the sum of our parts."

"What's the sum of your part. How many relationships have you been in?"

"None."

"And that's the sum of my part too. I've never been in a relationship. I've had sex with two guys how many have you had?"

"None." I have erased Murph from my mind ... or tried to.

She pressed. "How much sex have you had with women?"

"None."

"Neither have I. How much masturbating do you do?"

That surprised me a lot ... her claim to have had no sex with women. So did her question. "None ... next to none."

"Do you want us to have a healthy sex life together?"

Of course I do, whatever that is. "Do you?"

"I'm going to have a healthy sex life with or without you ... I masturbate, a lot. It's been my sex life."

"So this will be a sexless relationship, that's what you want?"

"Masturbation has kept me sane and out of trouble, I will continue to masturbate no matter what. Why don't you? We can do it together — we can start to grow our sexual relationship that way, see where it goes. But if nothing grows, if all I have is masturbation, I'm good with that."

It didn't sound normal, didn't sound ... ah, wholesome. "Not much of a relationship when we're having sex with ourself."

"Would you rather I didn't, I just let it build up then go and walk it off ... on a runway?" she sniffed as if making a point

"If it will get you out of the house."

"I'm serious. Orgasms matter to me, they're like an emotional escape valve ... half the time I can't sleep without first having an orgasm."

The sex writer forked her food with nothing to say, nothing to contribute. My imagination never works when I'm thinking about me.

"Look, I love you, I want and expect a sexual relationship with you but I expect masturbation to be at the centre of it ... at least in the beginning. Why don't you masturbate, I don't understand that?"

"I just never have."

"Never?"

I don't know why but admitting this seemed hard. "A few times."

"And they weren't any good?"

"I don't see myself as sexy, I guess."

"I don't see myself as sexy either but I love the feeling and the thought of it ... the thought of it l love even more, the building up to it."

We get quiet a lot. We just stop talking.

"You nervous?" She finally said.

"No. Confused ... and scared."

"Scared. Why?"

"Building a relationship based on masturbation doesn't sound all that sustainable."

"You're not a lesbian, nor am I — us building a lesbian relationship doesn't sound all that sustainable either ... but we love each other, so we find a middle way. That middle way should include some sexual pleasure ... a lot of sexual pleasure. I will help you with sexual pleasure, you will help me with sexual pleasure, we will learn together and we will have fun with it. Sex has always been threatening to me — it can turn perfectly nice guys into predators and perfectly nice women, too. I don't want any part of that, I stay away from any hint of it, and there are always hints."

There must be for her, she must have had a lifetime of it so far. "What about my ass and tits, as you call them."

"I love your ass and tits ... have I got any body parts that get to you?"

"You're beautiful ..."

"Body parts."

I knew this conversation had to happen; I've been doing my best to avoid it. But she was making it easy. "Ass and tits," I tried for a laugh but she didn't take it that way.

"If I was to guess at your answer I would have said ... I don't know, my face or my hands. You haven't given my ass and tits the least bit of attention."

"I've been waiting for you to tell me what to do."

"OK, I'll tell you. First, you have to get comfortable with masturbation, I mean really comfortable with it — I don't want you thinking it's wrong and selfish. We'll start with porn to get you going ..."

"No."

"We'll start with porn ..."

"No, we'll start with you."

She smiled. "Will that help?"

"I love you. I don't want a roommate, I want someone I can grow with."

"Are you writing my story?"

"No, I'm having a hard time finding ways we can connect. Maybe this is it."

"Masturbation?"

"Ya."

"So you'll try it with me?" She didn't wait for my answer, I think the question was more of a statement. "I've been thinking of you the last few month when I masturbate. The first time I did I knew you're the one I've been looking for."

"Because of my quiet and calm or my ass and tits?"

"Your quiet and calm attracted me, that's your vibe, but I liked your innocence, too. You never looked at me, everyone does, so I thought of you as a challenge. I didn't expect to fall in love with you; I didn't expect this place and I didn't expect to feel the way I do — I'm walking runways because of you, that's just impossible for me to believe ... runways, if there's anything I would never allow myself to do that was it, fucking runways. Let's go I'll show you how to masturbate."

I have a vast reserve of abilities, I've always known that. I can do most anything I put my mind to when I apply myself — I have all the confidence I need to do what's best for me. So I wasn't nervous when I followed her to the bedroom, I was mustering the resolve to get it done. But masturbation is going to be a challenge. I've tried it and failed a few times — when you write erotica, you can work yourself up ... but I never managed to get there, I don't know why, it just never happened ... maybe because I just don't see myself and sex in the same frame, hardly the best frame of mind for a writer of erotica.

But it was coming into focus when she faced me beside the bed. She has a look and her hands came up and brushed my breasts on their way to my buttons.

I pushed them away then stepped in and pulled her t-shirt over her head, leaving it as a blindfold. "I couldn't find a paper bag." She laughed and I sat on the bed with my hands on her hips. This was going to matter; I can do it but did I want to do it and did she want it done?

It isn't a bra I had bought for her, it was old and ratty and when I opened her jeans I was met with cotton, the 3 for ten bucks kind that needed to be chucked. I kissed her flat belly, the belly of an athlete, her hand pulled on the back of my head. Jeans are hard to get off, the panties weren't. I fell back on the bed looking up at her. I more admired her than wanted her. "You're beautiful."

"Can I take it off?"

"Yes."

She grinned when she did and saw me lying back and immediately went to my pants and hurriedly took my underwear off with them then she was lying down beside me. "Put your fingers in."

I did, tentatively, and it felt like it always did, like a foreign object invading me. I could feel her looking at me, trying to read me ... I was making an effort to animate but it wasn't working.

"Do something," I demanded. If that sounded like a plea, it was. I had expected her fingers to join mine, to show them where to go.

She did, she turned me over so I was face down half off the bed and she was fitting her pussy against my ass cheek like she always does, her leg between my legs, her arm around my neck, her body flat against mine. I could feel her breasts pressing into me as hard as her pussy. I waited, nothing was happening.

"What's the matter?"

"I could get an orgasm just staying her, not even moving. You don't get anything?"

"When I look at you."

"You feel it then?"

"In my heart."

"Not in your pussy."

"I love you, I've told you that."

She got off me and motioned me to turn over in the same movement. When I did she positioned herself on me the same way, this time with her pussy against my thigh. She was looking down on me, her natural beauty now morphed into her fuck-me face. "Are you feeling anything?"

"Of course I'm feeling something."

"Sexual?"

I was, a little, but love was flooding through me, hot, wet love. I dared to take her by the hips and pull her so she was centred on me, mine against her's, then I reached up and pulled her down, her lips on mine. We have kissed before but not like this, not clinging to each other, not thrusting at each other, not lasciviously probing each other's mouth with our tongues, our spit commingling as much as our bodies.

I got something physical out of it, nothing like she got, no noises came from me, not that they could be heard with her racket but I got something I badly, badly needed. I got the start of our story together, the realization that my devotion to her would include finding ways to encourage those sounds, there would be ways, hundreds and hundreds of ways and I would find them.