Honey and Spice
Bolu Babalola
Chapter 1
“Do you like that?”
I shifted on the bed as the fifty-thread-count sheet scratched against my calves. Biggie was staring down at me from across the room in 24 x 38 form, half peeling, half clinging to the wall with contraband Blu Tack, his crown wonky. An apt display of the indignity of being stuck as a witness to everything that went down in a twenty-year-old guy’s uni room. My Guy—not my guy, but my guy—was using my left breast as a stress ball and okay, yeah, it was midterm so we had a ton of assignment deadlines, but take up yoga or something, lift more at the gym, but please do not take the pressure out on my tender tit. (It was day fourteen of my twenty-eight-day cycle. Hence why I was here. Ovulation sometimes makes decisions for you.) My Guy’s vodka-spiked breath was hot and curled around my neck, suffocating me. Above us, Biggie’s eyes looked bemused, his brows furrowed in concern. I feel you, Big Poppa.
This really wasn’t as fun as I’d hoped. As fun as it used to be. The newness, the thrill had worn off, and exposed the fact that My Guy really had no clue what he was doing. He relied on his status as campus hottie to do his work for him, trusting his squinted hazel eyes, which counterfeited intensity and interest in you—the real you, Ma—to do all the work for him. He didn’t engage with his attraction to you because he was so sure of your attraction to him, and why bother trying to make you feel good when he assumed everything he did would automatically feel good to you?
My Guy had asked me a question but he wasn’t waiting for the answer. He moved to suckle at my neck aggressively, toothily, still using my boob as a distraction from the three-thousand-word essay on macroeconomics he had due in about nine hours.
Honestly, why do so many guys mistake vigor for technique? Like, okay, you want me, this much is clear and, frankly, understandable, but what are you going to do with it? Where is the finesse, hon? The clear understanding that you are handling a masterpiece?! You’ve got this far. Appreciate it.
I shimmied beneath him and for a few seconds the movement deluded him into thinking he was doing something right. He groaned an “Oh is it, babe?”—until he realized I was shimmying out from under him to sit up straight, snap my bra back on, slip on my T-shirt, pull down my tan corduroy mini, and shrug on my leather jacket.
It ain’t, babe.
“Babe?” His hazel eyes were soft with confusion and, bless his soul, I got it. This didn’t happen to him usually. This shouldn’t happen to him, according to his calculations. (All collegiate dating interactions were calculations, and his were Him + Girl = whatever he wanted it to equal, because look at him for fuck’s sake, how could she not want what he wanted.) This abrupt change clearly took some adjusting for him, like it took some adjusting for him when he finally realized that I was the one who didn’t want to be seen in public with him, who chose the hours we were together, who didn’t want to sleep over. It turned his little world inside out that he wasn’t the center of mine. And part of his attraction to me was fascination, exploration of the unknown, a Girl Who Don’t Wanna Be Cuffed by Me safari.
I untucked my braids from the back of my jacket, slipped on my boots. “I hate it when you call me that. Don’t call me babe. I’ve told you before.”
I moved to the mirror pinned against his wardrobe. It was smeared with antiperspirant smatter that hadn’t been wiped and was framed by vaguely sexual-sounding motivational workout slogans: “Rise and Grind,” “Beast Mode,” “Feel the Heat.” I stared at the mirror, then, slipping out a baby wipe from my leather satchel, I wiped my lips, disinfecting them, removing the organic, locally produced lip gloss known as My Guy’s saliva for something more fruity smelling.
“Look, I’ve been thinking”—I dabbed on my lips with a doe-foot wand—“we should cool off with this. You know? I’m busy with uni and the show, and sneaking around has been fun but—”
“You’re ending this, Kiki? Really?”
I flicked my gaze from my reflection to his. Pure disbelief. Brow furrowed, pouty pink lips slightly agape. It would’ve been kinda cute if it wasn’t based on arrogance. He was topless, his firm body panting, recovering, asking his true question, spilling the real tea, You gonna deny this? Really? The thing is when you make going to the gym six days a week your personality, it must be hurtful when it doesn’t melt the knees it’s supposed to, fails to work its tried and true magic. But after a while, it just wasn’t enough. His body wasn’t much of a conversationalist, didn’t ask mine what her interests were, her favorite song, which spot was the softest.
I looked at his reflection. “Okay, let’s be real . . . there was nothing really to end. There was no beginning to this. It just happened and I—we—kept letting it happen.”
“And I’m glad it happened.” He got up from the bed, came up behind me, and looked at himself in the mirror as he wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me back against him so I could feel just how glad he was. He looked at us in the mirror.
“Look at how good we look together.” He removed an arm to lift my chin up, as if I’d asked him for help. “People respect you. People respect me. Think about how we would rule this place, babygirl. Looks and brains. Light and dark.”
Babygirl. It sounded slightly foreign on his tongue. He’d gone to a boarding school in Sussex, used to only have white friends, and was still fleshing out this flavor of persona.