it. “I was looking all over for you!”
She crawled over to her Louis Vuitton luggage that had been sitting in her living room since she moved in and turned it on its back. She put the key in the lock and opened it. She then unzipped the suitcase. A rush came over her. You would have thought she was taking the lid off a pot of gold. Her eyes lit up and she was overwhelmed with joy, looking at all her clothes and purses. She felt like she had gone shopping all over again as most of the things were new items that she had bought just before she left Canada.
“Hum,” she huffed, closing the suitcase. Finding the key had almost made her forget the drama of the workday, but not quite. She decided to get online for a little while.
So how was your first day at work? was the one-line message Dior read from Mr. Good Black Man 2008 when she logged on to MySpace. Once again she saw that his online now icon was blinking.
It sucked, she typed back.
Sorry to hear that. What happened?
Dior sighed. Long story.
I guess we’ve all had those kind of days. Hope things get better.
You spend a lot of time on the computer, Dior typed. Must be nice to have all this free time.
I do most of my work on the computer. Believe me, I have very little free time. But what little time I do have I’ve already discovered I like spending with you.
Dior smiled. How can someone as sweet as you still be single?
His response was that he had a fiancée whom he was supposed to marry a year and a half ago, but she ended up cheating on him and so he called off their wedding. After that heartbreak, he wrote, he chose to be single for a while.
I’m so sorry to hear that, Dior typed.
That’s life, came the reply.
Dior and Mr. Good Black Man 2008 went back and forth sending each other messages for the whole of the night. In between ordering food, going to the bathroom, taking phone calls, and even running to the store, they wrote each other. They got to know a lot about one another and realized they had much in common, the funniest and most significant being they both were Al Pacino fans. She impressed him by telling him that she was working on a campaign for their idol’s new restaurant.
The two of them sent LOLs constantly as they both laughed aloud in their homes. They found out that they were both into zodiac signs and their signs were good together. They were in the same age bracket and they both liked jazz even though they were fairly young.
It was after midnight when Dior finally turned off her computer, clicked off her living room light, and retreated to her air mattress. She pulled back the quilt and the sheet and lay down, resting her head on her makeshift pillow. Good black men aren’t hard to find, she thought. Shit, they come with profiles and everything now. I like this.
She closed her eyes and immediately began imagining Mr. Good Black Man 2008 in bed with her, and found herself getting aroused. Damn, she thought, right before drifting herself to sleep. This online thing is nice, but I could use a noncyber man right about now.
“I’m Gordon Jacobs.”
Dior looked up from her desk and the presentation she was trying to prepare to see a short light-skinned man with freckles and spectacles standing in front of her, with one hand on his hip and the other holding a manila folder. It was Friday, and her presentation to Barbara and the other company bigwigs was scheduled for Monday, so she was mildly irritated by the interruption.
“Hi, I’m Dior. Dior Emerson.”
“Uh-huh, believe me, I know who you are,” the man said in an effeminate voice. “How’s it going? You going to nail that Al Pacino campaign?”
“How’d you know about that?”
“Girl, please,” he said, waving his hand. “I work for Human Resources. We hear everything down there. So, you going to nail that account or what?”
Dior smiled. “I’m going to do my best.”
“Well, just so that damn Candace doesn’t get it. I can’t stand that witch.”
“Candace Waller?”
“Uh-huh. She thinks she’s hot shit, and word around the office is she sees you as the main competition for the account, so you must be the one that’s really hot shit because she sure the hell ain’t.”
Dior paused, not sure what to say. Why would this person she’d never met before be telling her all of this?
“Well, anyway, I gotta go. You can thank me for the tip another time. And believe me you will,” Gordon said as he sashayed off.
That evening Dior excitedly let the air out of her air mattress. She folded it up and put it in her hall closet. She swept and mopped all her floors and wiped down the woodwork, mantel and window seals. She was good and ready by the time the deliverymen came with her furniture.
She opened the door and before her stood a chocolate god. He was at least six feet tall, 220 pounds of nothing but muscle. His skin was so smooth it looked like silk. His bald head glistened against the sunrays. He had the whitest teeth and sexiest smile. He was not to be taken lightly. Mr. Good Black Man 2008 might be nice, but the man standing in front of her was real. Everything about him yelled fuck me. Dior was turned on instantly. Her womanhood started to thump in her pants and her breasts felt like they were waking up from a long nap. She couldn’t control the feelings she was getting just looking at the guy, so there was no telling what she would do once he started moving her furniture in.
“Hello, Mrs. Emerson?” He broke the silence.
“Ms.,” Dior clarified. “I’m not married.”
“Oh, okay,” he said with a smile. “But you are the person we’re supposed to be delivering this furniture to, right?”
“Oh yes, of course,” Dior said, gazing into his deep dark eyes.
“Okay, well, I’ll just have you sign this paper and my guys will start bringing your stuff in,” he said, holding a clipboard out in front of Dior.
Dior signed her name as fast as she could so that she could get another look at him before he went back inside his truck. He took the clipboard back and ripped off the back portion of the paper. He handed it to Dior and walked away.
Dior was in a trance watching his every move. She particularly concentrated on his butt cheeks and his back. She felt herself getting so moist that she was concerned she might have an orgasm. She tried to shun the sexual feelings she was experiencing, but they were too overpowering. She stepped outside without a coat on, hoping the cold air would straighten her out, and all that did was make her nipples harder. She couldn’t believe what she was feeling for a perfect stranger. But she liked it.
She had turned to go back into her apartment when she noticed a voluptuous young woman heading up the stairs to the brownstone’s front door.
“Hi,” Dior called out. “You must be my new neighbor. You just moved in a couple of days ago, right? I saw the moving men bring in your furniture.”
The woman stopped and slowly walked back down the stairs. “Hi,” she said in a sweet southern accent. “Yes, I have the first-floor apartment. My name’s Tamara.”
“I’m Dior.”
The two women eyed each other warily. “Well, I gotta go. I’ve got of lot of work to do,” Tamara said finally. “It was nice meeting you.” She headed back up the stairs.
“All right, Ms. Emerson, do you know where you want everything to go?” Dior’s fantasy asked. She looked at him and wondered if he had noticed the curve of those shapely hips trotting up the steps, but his attention seemed devoted entirely on Dior. Good, she thought, as they went back into the apartment.
“This is the bed frame,” one guy said.
“That goes