Forbidden Fruit

V.

Natía

"--but those are someone else's rules so fuck that, I love you." His words lingered throughout my star stricken mind.

I awake with the sun in my face, a magnum wrapper stuck to my thigh, and a sheet over me. I rolled over to roll into his arms, forgetting that I was on the couch. Falling into the floor really woke me up and helped me realize Calvin's absence and writing in blue pen on my hand.

Tia,

You have really small hands so I have to keep this short. It's Christmas Eve and my mom called me so that I could at least spend today with my dad. I'll be back soon. Thanks by the way for letting me have you.

-Calvin

His message brought a smile to my face, I can still hear his chuckle ricocheting off these walls and reminisced on yesterday. The encounter with a stranger, the exchange of feelings and the exploration of a new love. It's nice to know that there are actual men out here. I stand on my feet, stretching and trying to yawn but I couldn't. Usually there was a loud yell that always accompanied my abrupt intake and exhalation of air but apparently I lost my voice and the sound was absently mute. I shrug, it'd be back as soon as it left.

I sit back on the couch, his Ralph Lauren scent vacillates from the air the couch released, sending chills up my spine as I slide my phone off of the coffee table, seeing that I had two missed calls, a text message and two voicemails. Mecca called me at 7:41 a.m. , she's always up early. Calvin called me at 10:56 a.m. I opened my voice messaging system and entered my pass code to gain access to my messages.

"Hey, Tia, this is Mecca. Give me a call back when you get this message. How did last night go? Call me back asap. Kisses and hugs." Mecca's voice was high pitched and fast, I thought about the answer to her question as I deleted her voicemail. How did last night go ? Hmm, blessedly, unforgettable, savory. In other words, utterly inexplicable.

"Good morning, Tia. I'm at the hospital with my moms and pops, he's fine by the way and he wanted to talk to you. --hello. Hello? Boy, ain't nobody on this damn phone! -- Melvin, that's her voicemail, you damn fool. -- oh, hey, pretty young lady. I don't know what you see in this little knuckle headed boy of mine but I'm glad you got him outta the house cause he always be up under his momma, hope we get to meet ya sometime soon cause I'm tired of this boy talking bout you 25/8. Here, Tonya-- Hi, sweetheart--ma, you seen my keys?-- no I have not and I am using the cell phone, anyways... we will be sending him back to you tonight, he get on my nerves already. You're welcome. Here, Calvin-- Yeah, none of that was true--boy get off that damn phone and go get my soda water!-- but uh, yeah can't wait to see you again. Happy Christmas Eve-- okay!! I'm going, I'm going! Bye, Tia." I laughed so hard, his parents are a mess and now I definitely couldn't wait to meet them. His mom must've came to pick him up because I was staring at his keys that sat next to the tv remote where mine were but I guess he grabbed mine by accident because my doors were locked which could only be done from the outside but I wasn't worried. He'd be back.

As I got up off of the couch and headed upstairs to gather my clothes for a shower with the reindeer blanket wrapped around me, I decided to return Mecca's call. It took a couple rings but she answered after a few.

"Wassup, wassup, wassup! Girl, what happened?! I bet he gave you the business. I want full details!" She picked up with so much excitement that I had a minor headache but it was mainly because I had just woken up.

"After you left, we ate dinner and apparently, pumpkin pie wasn't the only dessert he wanted." I exaggerated a little.

"He want that cake cake cake cake cake..." Mecca started singing and I laughed at her silliness.

"No, but for real for real, here's what really happened." I started, rummaging through my drawers for something to wear.

"All ears." She said, munching on something like always

"We ate dinner and talked about random stuff like how he wants to be a fashion designer and a fashion critique. He can dress, too but he said that together we could make the world full of people with sane minds and insane style." I explained, pulling my favorite ugly sweater with Santa Claus bent over like Kim K.

"Aww, that's cute but keep going."

"Yeah, so after we finished dinner, we watched a Christmas movie and we were cuddling until Vincent called--" She cut me off.

"Oh god, he fucking up the routine!" Mecca exclaimed.

"Hold on, it gets better. Alright so Vincent called and told me the usual and I acted like it was fine until I hung up. I hugged Calvin and my head was on his chest when I started crying. He asked me what was wrong, I said nothing because I didn't want him involved but he insisted that I tell him before he went gangster to find out himself so I told him about Vincent and Frankie and allowed him to leave." I pulled my red leggings from my drawer and red Timbs along with underwear and a bra.

"Damn, Frankie told you to let him go. You should've let him go, now we ain't got no more Natalvin." She pretended to weep after combining our names.

"Shh, here's the best part. Calvin told me that he didn't care that I had Vincent because he wasn't stepping up and neither was Frankie and said that I should leave Vincent because any man that makes a women cry is not a man to him--" I smiled, I knew what was coming

"Amen! Preach!! That boy needa be a preacher, I'll go to his church cause that is some real deal shit right there, that made my Christmas Eve right there. Damn, that was deep. Snap, snap." She advocated Calvin's quote.

"Hey, calm down and let me finish. So after that, he said that he was nothing like them but I didn't believe him because by then, to me, that was bullshit. That was until he got aggressive, holding my shoulders and telling me that he would become as vulnerable to heartbreak as me, giving me his heart, regardless of if he had mine and then, what made my emotions run wild was when he told me that he loved me and didn't care about the 30-60 day rule someone else made. I told him that his magic he used so hard to get my love had worked and we kissed twice. On the second kiss, we ended up on the couch and he got--" I was just about finished until I heard her spit take.

"You have him your v-card?! Oh my god, oh. My. God. This is, oh my god. Jesus must be playing a trick on me ! No way. Okay, okay. Was it good?" She asked, whispering like we were telling secrets.

"Well, I knew that it was supposed to hurt but when it started, there was a little too much pain to the crying point but he kissed my tears away and kept going. All I'm saying is that he was blessed." I explained.

"Aw snap, my dawg got that 9+ danger!" I could tell she was doing some crazy dance.

"Ha, well I gotta go. I'm about to take a shower. I'll talk to you later but are you coming to help me cook this food for tomorrow?" I asked, grabbing my towel and rag from the hamlet then heading downstairs to the bathroom.

"Is Calvin bringing a friend? I'm tryna get that real love action, too, and you gotta hang up that mistletoe everywhere. I'm tryna get some lip action, too."

"Wow, okay, I'll see. Talk to you later." I shook my head smiling.

"Bye." She hung up as I let down the toilet seat and put my clothes, shoes and phone on top.

In the midst of me rinsing off the soap, I heard the bells on my door jingle and knew someone was inside. I figured it was Calvin returning my keys so I just wrapped a towel around myself, he'd already seen me naked so it wasn't a big deal. I opened the door, the steamy mist escaped as I stepped out into he hall to see that it wasn't Calvin.

It was Vincent.