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OTHER PEOPLE’S SKIN EXCERPTS
Take It Off! “You got the power, girl,” Kyle whispered. His onyx eyes burned with affection as he stared up from his velvet playpen of red and gold and purple pillows.
“No, the power is yours, sweet soul mate of mine,” Dahlia moaned. She slid her butter-hued thighs over the satiny black sheen of his hips, and ran her fingertips down the luscious ridges of his collarbone, his pecs, and his tapered waist.
“You don’t know,” Kyle moaned over the sexy sounds of a Boney James CD. His skin glowed, from his high cheekbones now rouged with arousal, to his long, down-pointing nose, to his clean-shaven, angular jaw. His eyelashes, thick enough to give the illusion he was wearing eyeliner, came together as he said, “You don’t know what you can do--”
“Ssshh.” Dahlia tossed her head back, letting sandy braids tickle down her back and dance over his thighs. “Just love me, Kyle.”
Hazy sunshine glowed through white sheers, which billowed in the open windows around them in the round turret. The light intensified the euphoric glaze in Kyle’s eyes.
“One year of heaven,” he whispered. “Give me a hundred more.”
“I don’t want to remember life before you,” Dahlia whispered. “I send up a thank you and a hallelujah and a praise the lord every hour on the hour. Ooohh--”
She closed her eyes, savoring a sudden starburst between her legs that sent erotic ripples down to her toes and fingertips. “Yeah, feel me, Baby Dolly-ya,” he moaned deeply. “Feel the power of us.”
“Yeah,” Kyle’s deep voice vibrated through her chest. “I’m tellin’ you, Baby Dolly-ya--”
“Tell me,” she moaned through parted lips. Dahlia’s mind spun in a psychedelic swirl as they literally became one: eyes blending into two black sapphires... skin blurring into hot pools of butterscotch...amber braids coiling around little black twists like flowers... two pounding, pink hearts afloat in a sea of red blood.
“This power,” he whispered. “The power of us. Of me. And you. Together, we could move mountains--”
Eyes open, staring at him, she traced his lips with a fingertip.
“Kyle, you know I love your brain.” She pressed her palms to the sides of his head; a few of his little black hair twists poked between her fingers. “But right now,” she whispered, “while we’re alone without Angie for once, I just want your body.” “So it’s like that,” he said playfully.
“Mmm, no, it’s like this,” she purred, leaning down. Her honey-colored braids formed a curtain around them as Dahlia sucked his bottom lip. The tip of her tongue slid up his cheek.
He groaned, and in a flash, he clenched her waist and flipped her onto her back, never leaving the hot, fleshy grip between her legs. Kyle stroked her braids into a fan over the hills and valleys of velvet pillows.
“You need to let the world see how fine you are,” he whispered. “Stop hiding under your glasses, your hat--” He tilted his head toward her jeans and sweater strewn over the black corduroy couch. Her brown felt fedora rested on the arm. “Those baggy clothes covering up this brick house--”
“No, Kyle, not now.” Dahlia pressed her hips upward. “We’ve had this--”
“For me,” he said. “I see something in you that you need to share with--”
The tenderness radiating from his eyes melted her inside. But cold arrows of anger chilled her just as quickly. “Let me up.” Dahlia pushed against his chest.
“Babydoll, I’m tellin’ you--”
Dahlia rolled out from under him. The muscles in her legs quivered with lust and rage as she rose to her feet. She pulled her braids to the front, their coarseness prickling the firm, beige points of her breasts.
Kyle propped on his elbows. “You can see,” he said, glancing downward, “coitus interruptus is not part of the program this morning. Come here, Baby Dahlia.”
Standing at his feet, Dahlia stared at him, wishing he would understand that she did not want to expose herself to the world again, or put herself in the headlines once more. Never again did she want to be the hot topic burning up the black grapevine that coiled into every dorm room and Alpha party on campus.
“Kyle,” Dahlia whispered, straddling him and taking small, teasing steps alongside his legs.
“Yeah, Babydoll.” He cast smiling eyes upward.
“I’m going to tell you something,” she said with a seductive tone.
“I’m listening.”
Kyle,” she whispered. “You like leading rallies and marching down State Street, having all the TV stations know you as,” she lowered her voice like a broadcaster: “‘fiery student activist, Kyle Robard.’
“But me, Kyle,” she whispered, “me, for the millionth time, I prefer the power of the pen. The anonymity of--”
“You’re trying to hide the black blood pulsing through this red-hot sista-shape. People think you’re ashamed--”
“People think!” Dahlia shouted. “Those are the two most toxic words in the English language! I’m sick of what people think!” Kyle took her hands, pulled her downward, so their eyes were just inches apart. He kissed her gently. “Baby Dahlia,” he said with a piercing stare, “You need to understand the responsibility that comes with looking like you do--”
“Kyle, you know better than anyone,” she said over a burning throat, “I took care of my responsibility before I got here. Nursing my parents, watching them die! Now the responsibility I feel in the world is using my work as a journalist to make change.”
He finger-combed a handful of braids over her shoulder, holding the uncurling, coconut-oiled ends to his nose. “You’re doing it at the expense of your reputation with the black students. But I know how you can change that--”
Her lips tightened. “Kyle, I don’t know how many times I’ve explained this over the past year, but here’s one last time. That’s a game I can’t win. People think I’m too white to be all the way black. Or too black to be all the way white. So I’m not playing anymore. I’m watching and analyzing from behind a shield of newsprint.”
Dahlia’s mind filled with a collage of images: dozens of people scowling and shouting at her during the Black Student Union strike last year when she’d refused to honor their picket line and crossed it in order to attend a literature class. The black students had been furious with her, calling her a sellout and a honky-lover, and the white students had simply stared past her. With her fedora pushed down snuggly over her jumble of coarse braids, had they suspected she was black?
Although she tried to be invisible and quell their suspicions, she remembered the curious stares from white students and professors, their eyes roving her brown hat, her yellow skin, and that question making their lips twitch: What exactly are you, Dahlia Jenkins?
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