“Suddenly”

Miller Lockhart lived on North Bay Road in the exclusive Key Biscayne area of South Florida in Dade County. His custom, bone-colored, ornate Victorian-style three-story home was built over ten years ago and was over four thousand square feet. With a spectacular pool area, it was the five-bedroom home he and his wife bought before they divorced. When he retired from Bear Stearns last year, he paid it off. His ex-wife, on the other hand, was living with their son. She had a younger boyfriend she left Miller for, who took her for the money she’d gotten from the divorce settlement. She was getting a taste of the real world and was not handling the reality too well. But from what Magnolia could see, Miller, on the other hand, was.

Magnolia and Rebe had been playing phone tag. And even when Rebe called her back, Magnolia took her time returning her call. She convinced herself she wanted Rebe to answer, needed Rebe to answer, but when she didn’t, it was almost a relief to simply talk to Rebe’s voice mail.

Just after work, all that was on Magnolia’s mind was the peace and serenity of Miller’s place. She entered his kitchen with her key that he’d given her the week before. Old-school Miller played a Lionel Richie CD, right now in the middle of “Three Times a Lady.” Magnolia hummed along while dropping her overnight bag at the door, and set her purse and keys down on the soapstone kitchen counter. She approached Miller with a kiss on the lips, standing on her tiptoes. “Sounds good, looks good, and smells good in here. What are you cooking, sweetie?”

He stood before the stove in his shorts and black T-shirt, barefoot. “You said you liked Mexican food. I made enchiladas.” He pulled back the foil paper from the baking dish. The steam and spicy aroma made themselves known. Extra cheese, black olives, and green onions decorated his baked masterpiece.

Magnolia inhaled and put her hand on his back. “Look at those. You are something else. You didn’t have to cook for me.”

“I wanted to.”

She patted him on his backside. “Chef Miller, after those, I’d like to have you on a platter for dessert, please, sir?”

“I can make that happen, too.” He stood tall.

Magnolia giggled and opened the cabinet to remove two ebony dinner plates. “You’re so good to me. The other morning, breakfast in bed. Not to mention flowers. A girl could get used to this.”

“You should. You deserve it, queen that you are.”

“Thanks my king, that you are.” She looked back at him and gave a wink. She couldn’t believe the fairy tale words she was now hearing, and saying.

Miller took the liberty of placing two enchiladas on each plate as Magnolia held them still. She walked to the table where he’d already placed the utensils, white wine, and ice water as she sat. He was right behind her and then sat beside her. He said, as they joined hands and bowed their heads, “Bless us, O Lord, for these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

“Amen.”

He looked up at her and stared, releasing her hand.

Magnolia looked back at him, noticing his pause. “What?”

“Just thinking, which you’ll find I do a lot. I mean, really. Who would’ve thought? Thought I would’ve looked all around while playing golf, taking cruises, and even to the point of walking around Walmart with one eye on the shelf and one eye checking out women in the aisles, as well as going on blind dates…and then I meet you, the woman of my dreams, at a swinger’s club. Two virgin-curious swingers bumped into each other at Erotic City and, well, here we are. You, Magnolia, are something else, angel.”

“Well thanks, but I don’t know how much of an angel I am. I was coming out of a private room.”

“Like I said, angel. Highly deserving of the very charm you wear around your neck.”

“Thanks.” She gave a sexy wink and a shy smile.

They picked up their forks and dug in.

He asked, “So, have you heard from Neal?”

She swallowed her bite. “This is excellent, sweetie. Very good.”

“Thanks.” He waited.

“No.” She took a sip of water.

“Like you said, you see him at work though, right?”

“Yeah, but not as much as before. Maybe a few times a week. No biggie.”

“And so even though he’s been persistent, not willing to totally let go, you’re sure there’s no chance of you two ever getting back together?”

“No chance. Not on my end.” She gave him full-on eyes. “Miller, there was no chance even before I met you.”

“Good. ’Cause I’ve got plans for you.” He took his first bite.

“Oh really?”

He paused to finish chewing, then swallowed. “Really. I’m telling you, if all goes well, this is it for me. I’m ready for this. I look at us in the long term, being together for the rest of our lives.”

“Oh, is that right?”

“Oh, I’m claiming this. I’ve had a taste of being alone and I choose the alternative. I don’t want to die alone. I want a companion. Life is no damn good alone.”

“I agree.” Magnolia heard his words, and kept eating. She took a few moments, and then asked, “And since we’re asking, how about Beth? Your ex-wife. Nothing from her?”

“Beth will always be Beth. I did ask her not to call so late, like she did a couple of nights ago when you were here.”

“But you didn’t have to.” Magnolia said, yet in her head wondered why his ex-wife still felt she could.

“I needed to. Her calls did wake me up at times.”

“Okay, I just didn’t want you to say it because I’m in your life now. I don’t want to be the reason.”

“Done deal.” He leaned over and kissed Magnolia on the cheek.

She smiled and took another bite.

He asked, “So, are we going to your grandmother’s house so I can meet her next week?”

“Yes. After church. You sure you’re ready for that?”

“I am. I’m ready for whatever’s in your life.”

Magnolia put down her fork and rested her elbow along the table, her chin to her inside palm. She examined him closely. “Are you real? Wait, let me pinch your amazing ass to see.” She grabbed the skin of his forearm and squeezed.

He laughed, moving himself away as though ticklish. “You’re something else. And yes, I am real. And I was thinking about something. Angel, I want to help you find your father. I have a friend who can help out.”

She leaned back in her chair and shook her head. “Honestly, after all these years, I don’t want to know who he is, Miller. And besides, my grandmother knows. I’ve just never asked. Some things are better off left alone.”

“Okay. Whatever you say.” He ate another bite and sipped his wine. “Does your grandmother know my age?”

She nodded and leaned forward.

“Cool.”

“Miller, I’m cool with you. You just keep showing me who you are by what you do. And from what I’ve seen you doing, you’ve got my full attention. I told you before, you’ve also got my heart, and my trust. To lose it, it’s on you.”

After a few minutes, he stood and took their plates to the sink. He said, “Just remember what I said. My search is over. Period.”

“Okay now,” Magnolia told him with a big grin that seemed sure.

But it was her heart that felt like it was only half sure. It braced itself for a usual replay of her past.

And just in case, for a moment, she imagined him not being who he said he was. It was her usual mind-visitor named Doubt.

Doubt had beaten her into shape for years, just from relationships not lasting.

From saying I can’t live without you, to managing to live without you.

It was the doubt that made her a bit more reserved than she wanted to be.

Reserved just enough to wonder at that very moment, Why is Neal being so unusually quiet?

Magnolia spoke from the place where Miller explored that was bringing her to a slow, lustful, dizzying place that made her want to talk with her eyes closed. “I’ve never been made love to. Like really made love to. Like I want to stay close to you, like this. It’s the best thing I’ve ever felt.” It was all brand-new to her.

“Yes.” His precision grinds had soul.

They lay naked on his king bed. The headboard was dark leather. The bedding was blue and gray striped. His deluxe bedroom had vaulted ceilings with exposed beams. The amber light added a subtle glow, floor to high ceiling, and upon their bodies. Her gardenia scent was potent. The Hugo Boss cologne he’d sprayed added to the manly allure of man-to-woman bonding. His testosterone and her estrogen mixed well together. His strand and her strand of DNA were in the other’s brain, making love. Dopamine at work.

She purred. “You’re a great lover.”

He growled. “So are you.”

Another five minutes just as they were, and then she said with a sultry voice, “Baby, turn me around and let me stand at the end of the bed, and do what you did when I was in your swimming pool last weekend. Please.”

He was on it without hesitation, pausing and easing himself off of her. She got up and stood at the foot of his bed. “Let’s try it this way,” he said, propping up a pillow along the mattress, under her knees as she got on all fours. “Now lower your head and poke out your rear end.”

She did.

He kept one foot on the floor, and the other foot on the bed, he rose up as high as he could, pressing her down even lower so he could hit the top of her vagina at an angle, her light brown apple bottom was positioned before him, ready to submit, and he inserted himself, bare, just like they’d done ever since they’d gotten their negative blood test results just before the first time they had sex, the day after they met.

He grabbed the width of his dick and stuck himself inside of her soft opening. She gripped him with her anxious sugar walls, receiving him fully and pressing herself back toward him as he pressed in toward her.

And Magnolia began making that sound. The same sound she made when he had her in the pool. The sounds of a car that’s been sitting out in the cold for too long, and now someone has finally turned the key that fits, the key that’s trying to get it to start, trying to get it to kick over. It was a revving rumble, like a humming sound, a dick to pussy winding sound, almost as though in pain, yet with a tad bit of ecstasy. Magnolia’s head was to the side, her eyes were closed, her mouth was open.

Her eyes welled up with tears, and she was going nuts.

His rear entry pussy fucking was fucking her up. As he thrust his hips, he aimed at an angle, downward, and then he switched up, aiming his angle toward his foot. He was at times very deep, and then at times shallow enough to add the right amount of pressure to Magnolia’s soft yet rough spot, and he could tell when he hit it by her pleasure screams. He made sure he had a precise, direct hit, using his hands to grip her womanly curves that flowed from her waist to her hips. If he’d had neighbors close by, they would have known he was fucking, because all she said while sucking on her teeth was, “Shit. Shit. Shit,” over, and over, and over again.

On her own, she brought her hand down between her legs to rub her fingers along her excited clit, and her orgasm approached fast. She suddenly stopped touching herself, as her new king conquered her by taking her to the greatest height while she ran around in the kingdom of her spinning head, and again yelled, “Shit.” She unraveled and froze.

In two minutes, Magnolia had Miller’s dick in her mouth as he stood and she lay across the bed on her stomach, bobbing him into ecstasy with two hands serving a tight grip, standing in as her vagina, and a wet, willing, sucking mouth, and even as quiet as he was while he fucked, he did manage to say, “Will you marry me?” And then he came.

Magnolia tensed up and took his release into her mouth, swallowing twice to accept all of him the way she’d done before. The way she’d done for no other man. It was a real sexual resolution that she’d vowed to try. And Miller was the lucky winner of her newfound bravery. She backed away and could focus on nothing but wondering if his out-of-the-blue question was out of temporary orgasm insanity.

He looked down at her. His face was flushed, and his hairy chest was, too.

She morphed into a sitting position. “What did you just say?” easing her ear toward him.

“You heard me.”

“Miller, you asked me to marry you?” She wiped her lips with the back of her hand.

“I did.” His breathing was unsteady.

“You asked me now?”

“I did.” He looked no nonsense.

“You cannot be serious.”

He had one hand on his hip and his other hand on his flaccid penis. “I am. I don’t have a ring, I know that’s not the best way to do it, but I’m ready to go get the ring you want. Tomorrow if necessary. Hell, now, dammit.”

“I’m just…I mean, this is what I wanted. I’m just a little surprised by your timing.”

“I know.” He sat beside her and then placed his elbows to his knees, looking down at the floor.

She placed her hand on his shoulder. “I mean, not even so much that you asked me while we’re having sex, well, really, while I was giving you, well, while we’re in bed. But since we just haven’t known each other very long, Miller. It’s so soon.”

“At my age, what is soon? I know what I want.”

His proposal still rumbled though her brain. “Oh my.”

He scooted back and turned to her. “Listen. I’m also old enough to know one thing, and that is if the answer was yes, you’d have said it by now.” He stood, stepped to the other side of the bed and got under the covers.

Magnolia turned to him and slipped under as well, snuggling close, hugging him, and kissing the side of his face. She rested her head on his chest and inhaled him. Bonding. “Can I answer later? Can I think about it?”

“You can. That’s fine. You need to be certain.”

She looked up at his face. “Thanks. And there’s nothing wrong with waiting, right? I mean, if we’re really for each other then, that’s cool, right?”

“You want to get to know me better. I understand.”

“I just want time to think. To be sure. I’ve waited this long, I can wait a little longer. It’s just that I’ve never been married before.”

“I know.” He closed his eyes.

Magnolia shifted her body to lie on her back. She looked straight up. “Funny, I just heard on the radio that if you’re over forty, and you find someone who loves your old ass, you’d better be glad.”

“Uh-huh,” was all he said.

Magnolia turned back toward him and tickled him alongside his waist.

He jumped, opened his eyes, and grabbed her hand. “I know one thing. If you keep hollering like that, my neighbors are going to think my name is Shit.”

She laughed. “You’re so silly. Whatever your name is, you’re the man.”

“I’m your man, angel.” He hugged her.

She gave a little girl giggle. “You’re the man who found my spot, you know?”

“Oh, okay, so I guess older men are good for something, huh?”

“Far from old, Miller. Far from old.” She said it twice because she really, really meant it. She placed her head along his chest again and heard his heart, beating fast.

But so was hers.

He hugged her closer.

She snuggled in closer.

She closed her eyes and felt cherished. The word her grandmother told her about and tried to describe. But now she knew for herself, that it felt good.

Cherished.

She basked in the feeling.

His protection was her escape.