Charlotte Dare

Outside the luxurious Bay Side Inn, morning fog hovers over San Francisco Bay as a haze of sun tries nudging through. The conference room overlooking the city’s famous Fisherman’s Wharf bustles with an eclectic array of business-women gathered for the annual event honoring the achievements we sisters have long struggled to attain in this man’s world. Ladies of all shapes and sizes, creeds, colors and zip codes descend upon the spread of tofu omelets, bagels, croissants, fruit salad and yogurt dip like squirrels stockpiling food supplies for a New England winter. Who could blame them?

The National Association of Female Small Business Owners spared no expense in making guests feel they’re getting every penny’s worth of the registration fee for the weekend celebration. More than just a schmooze-fest, the convention offers a plethora of networking possibilities, support services and plenty of female bonding, all culminating in the awards brunch late Sunday morning in which one highly accomplished, trailblazing American businesswoman is honored for her stellar contributions.

A female small business owner myself, I’m always game for a weekend hailing the successes of my overachieving, go-getter colleagues provided the buffet is long, the speeches short, and I can get a plane out by two p.m. Sunday. I’d gorged myself on the vegetarian welcoming dinner the night before, yet this morning, oddly enough, I’m famished. As I inch along the line at the refreshment table, I grumble to myself about how these shindigs always feature the Queen’s ransom in breakfast but set tiny little plates onto which guests must either pile a precarious tower of food or make four separate trips for refills.

“We havin’ fun yet? ” she drawls, leaning into my arm as she pours a stream of hot coffee from a towering percolator. I laugh before I even glance over at the face producing the quip. It’s a relief to learn I’m not the only female who finds the annual festival of upwardly mobile sisterhood somewhat of a bore.

“A blast.” I grin, turn away from the fruit salad ladle and feast my eyes on the most exotic beauty I’ve ever seen roaming earth among mortals.

“Girl, they should hold this event in Vegas each year. At least we can jaunt down to a crap table when it gets really hard to stay awake.” She stirs half a packet of Equal into her coffee and reveals a shiny row of impossibly perfect teeth. “I’m Poetess Andrews, ” she says, extending long, brown fingers with French-manicured nails. “Of Andrews Travel in D.C., specializing in business, pleasure, and any exotic locale near or far, recently voted the Beltway’s number one travel planner.”

“After a pitch like that I would’ve guessed you’re in advertising. I’m ready to book.” I shake her hand gently, snapping myself out of an awkward gaze.

Her smooth, rich caramel skin frames a set of piercing amber eyes and full, raspberry-glossed lips wrap gingerly around the rim of her steaming cup of coffee. For the first time in months, I praise Aphrodite for keeping me single for so long.

“So what brings you here? ” she asks, eyeing the mixed fruit I piled high atop a wheat bagel. “Business woman or did you just hear there’d be a bunch of party girls crammed into one big-ass convention room for the weekend? ”

“Gee, and I thought I was so good at passing, ” I joke, stuffing a square of honeydew melon in my mouth.

“Gee, I didn’t know twenty-first century white girls had reason to try, ” she fires back, her wit nearly upstaging a radiant smile.

“I run an online catalogue company, ” I reply, trying to mimic Poetess’ cool. “I sell action figures, T-shirts, calendars. Whatever unnecessary item you need, just go to Tammy’s Trinkets dot com, your one-stop, shop-at-home crap superstore.”

She swallows and snorts a laugh simultaneously, covering her mouth to avoid showering me with coffee. I wouldn’t have minded. It would make a wildly authentic excuse to prolong the dialogue.

“I’ll have to check it out some time, ” she says, moving down to grab a smear of cream cheese for her blueberry bagel.

“That’s an interesting name…Poetess. Is one of your parents a writer? ”

“My father’s a professor at Georgetown. He teaches the Harlem Renaissance. Huge fan of Langston Hughes but never did have a son he could name Langston. Guess the Man upstairs was looking out for me on that one.”

I smile as she nibbles the tip of a strawberry impaled on a plastic fork.

“You here with anyone? ” she asks, examining the unbitten portion.

Small talk or reconnaissance? I can’t tell, but I guess I can hope anyway. “No, I’m here alone. Just needed a little tax-deductible weekend away from everything.”

She sucks the rest of the strawberry off her fork with narrowed eyes. I think I just got my answer. “Well come on then, ” she commands with a tilt of her head. “Let’s go grab us a table near the exit.” Her tailored Donna Karan pantsuit hugs every inch of her tall, slender frame. I trail a few steps behind, deciding the best sight San Francisco has to offer is wiggling right in front of me.

By four p.m., I’m squirming in my seat. The speeches are running long and out of the ten thousand glances at Poetess I’ve stolen since lunch, she was nodding off during at least two of them.

“Hey, Poetess, ” I whisper as guest speaker, Lois Rothchild, senior editor of Women in Business, drones on about the insidiousness of the glass ceiling in corporate America. “Wake up. Gloria Steinem is gonna lead the group in stoning a corrupt male corporate executive.”

Stifling a yawn, she discreetly clasps her fingers and stretches stiff arms toward the floor. “Tammy, what in the hell are we doing growing moldy in here? I mean we’re in ’Frisco, girl.”

Next thing I know we’re slipping out the side exit, Poetess leading the way with an impromptu plan to take over the city. We stop off at her room first so she can change into something outrageous for the evening.

“I’m a travel agent. I know where enough five-star restaurants and dyke bars are to keep us living large for a year, ” she brags, turning to unbutton her silky blouse after tossing the suit jacket on the bed.

She absently faces the mirror as she pulls the blouse out from her pants. I catch a glimpse of her candy-apple bra displaying tight, magnificent cleavage above firm, chocolaty abs. A tingle ripples between my legs. She smiles back at me from her reflection. I whip myself around toward the door to hide my complexion, which by now is more crimson than her bra, erasing any doubt as to whether I’d enjoyed the view.

“Uh, Poetess, I think I’ll go press the elevator button, ” I mumble, eyes tracing sage and purple rectangles in the carpet.

“Tam, pull up a chair if you want. I used to model underwear for catalogues. It doesn’t bother me a bit.” She grins as she slips off her dress pants.

Who needs Vegas? I’ve hit the jackpot right there in ’Frisco. I smile at her free spiritedness. “Sorry for leering, ” I confess, “but you do have an amazing body.”

“Thanks.” She winks as though she’d heard that one a million times. She then draws up a clingy black Vera Wang, jumps into a pair of sparkly silver Manolo Blahniks and runs her fingers through wild jet curls. “Outrageous enough? ”

“For both of us, which is good because charcoal gray and pink are as wild as I get, ” I reply, feeling more like Poetess’ bodyguard than her dinner companion.

“We’ll see about that, ” she drawls, grabbing my hand and nearly tugging my arm from its socket.

The Café is the Castro neighborhood’s premier gay/lesbian dance club featuring three bars of top-shelf booze, a jam-packed dance floor, an outdoor patio, and of course, a line snaking out to the curb on weekends. In that outfit, all Poetess needed was her faux supermodel attitude, and we sashayed from the back of the crowd right through the front doors. Heads collided as we entered, and I knew they weren’t gaping at me, or were they? Throughout dinner at Charanga, which consisted of a multitude of unpronounceable tapas or appetizers, I sipped sangria and drove myself to distraction wondering why she was wasting her weekend with me, Clammy Tammy, as I was known in high school. Here she is, this vibrant, exotic woman and she sticks herself with a bland, self-conscious gal from Paramus bent on kicking her own ass for letting her tanning membership lapse.

“I love how that v-neck contours your body. Why don’t you lose this jacket, ” Poetess insists. In the middle of the dance floor, she peels it off my shoulders, wraps it around me and uses the sleeves to draw me against her.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather dance with a woman with some rhythm? There’s a nice pick over there, ” I suggest, pointing to a chic African-American lovely undulating in a cheetah print spandex one-piece and a spectacular afro like Link’s from The Mod Squad.

“Are you generalizing all white folks as bottom-lip-biting, vanilla robots on the dance floor? ”

“Not all white folks, just this one. See? ” I bite my bottom lip and twist stiffly, knowing it will elicit from her that sexy, throaty laugh I’d discovered she had during dinner.

She starts grinding against me as Aretha’s “Pride (A Deeper Love)” pounds from the speakers. Her hot, fruity Cosmopolitan breath steams up the front of my neck as her fingers creep up the back and twirl tresses of hair bobbing at my t-shirt collar. Sweaty air, pulsating rhythm, and flashing strobe lights fade like clouds of dry ice vapors. All I can smell is Poetess’s enticing musk perfume, feel her soft, tight body pushing against mine, her hypnotic amber eyes boring holes through my inhibition.

“How much longer are you going to tease me, ” she breathes in my ear, sliding her hands down my back, halting them just short of my ass.

“My mistake, ” I joke, dying for them to keep sliding. “From where I’m standing, I’m the one being teased.”

“Well, I know only one way we can resolve this debate.” She locks her thigh between mine and we sway to the beat.

“What’s that? Allow six inches of interpersonal space while we dance? ”

“Uh, no, ” she sings, loosening the jacket sleeves knotted around my waist. “Go back to my room.”

She has my jacket off again before the door to her room slams shut. Her plump lips lunge for mine as she tears at my belt buckle and swerves me toward the bed. I caress her soft brown arms and shoulders before falling to the cushy designer bedspread.

“Get out of those pants, ” she demands. She then lurches upright, crosses her arms and rips off her slinky black Vera Wang, revealing a candy-apple bra and matching thong.

I’m ashamed of myself, drooling over her all evening like a horny high school boy. Then suddenly I feel sympathy for the little creeps. This evening I’d learned how frustrating it is to want someone so badly. I obey her by squirming out of my dress pants and shirt in time to feel her warm, lanky body push mine back down. As she nibbles my ear and neck, her fingers sneak in through the side of my low-rise bikinis and stroke my aching clit.

“That feels nice, ” I exhale in her ear and bite a sumptuous shoulder that had tempted me all night from spaghetti straps. Her long fingers penetrate, jolting me with pleasure. I gasp and grab her head as the fingers move slowly in and out. I’m so hot for her, I feel like I’ll cum at any second.

“Not yet, baby, ” she says, pulling her hand out and divesting herself of her thong and bra. She sits up and stretches her long, naked body back, rubbing herself all over. She then begins slowly caressing her clit with one hand and fondling a maroon nipple with the other as I lie tortured, permitted to touch only the tops of her thighs.

“Let me, ’Tess, ” I beg, trying to pull her pelvis toward me. She slides up my body and offers my mouth her shaved treasure. I clutch at her firm cheeks and swirl my tongue around her ready clit. She lowers herself fully onto my face and throws her head back as I lick and tease her.

“Aw, yeah, Tammy, do it, do it, ” she moans.

I slip my tongue inside her and she shrieks with delight. Her breasts reach toward the ceiling and she claws at the bedspread as her climax begins. I rivet her clit as fast as I can while her groans fill the finely appointed room. She slowly thrusts against my tongue as an orgasm gathers force in the distance. I’m working her firm and steady, and suddenly feel fingers slide down over my clit, then up, then down again. This woman must be a gymnast. My own climax begins rumbling through, reverberating out to every limb, every organ. I struggle to hold my tongue in place on Poetess as a fierce climax roars in, giving way to an orgasm perfectly-timed with hers. We shudder together in an erotic heap reminiscent of an experimental live art exhibit I saw at some dive gallery in Newark last year.

Poetess then slithers down on top of me and gently kisses my lips, face and neck, all the tenderness skipped in our frantic foreplay. I wrap my arms around her silky torso and one of her long black tendrils falls across my face.

“I’m glad you hit on me this morning, ” I joke, running the tips of my fingernails down her sides.

“Yeah, right. You were all over my shit the second I snatched my bagel.”

She then gazes at me with sweet eyes, and I sigh, knowing I’ll never get that face out of my head no matter how many times I bang it against the wall.

“Listen, ” she whispers. “I know you’re in Jersey and I’m in Alexandria, but I am a travel agent. I can get deals.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.” Just as I’m about to fall asleep in her arms, her lips begin a trip at my collar bone and glide all the way down until I’m once again, shuddering with ecstasy. I think the sun was rising by the time we finally stopped touching each other.

The clang from the Powell and Hyde line trolley screeching by stirs me awake. Or maybe it was the fingers dancing across my stomach. “Time to get up, ” the voice of their owner whispers in my ear.

I pry open sleepy eyes to Poetess’s satisfied grin and jumble of wild curls. After a sensual kiss, she flips the covers off her gleaming nakedness and tries to climb out of bed. One stealth attack from my arm and she’s on her back again, her head bouncing on the pillow.

“We’re gonna be late, ” she giggles, playfully struggling free.

“I don’t care. Let’s blow off that lame brunch and stay in bed. Who needs another long-winded speech from some stuck-up, got-it-all-together overachiever, anyway? ”

“Normally, I’d agree, but since all the other stuck up, got-it-all-together overachievers are sort of expecting me…” She grins with adorably humble eyes.

“You’re kidding, ” I shout, roused from sleepiness. “You mean to tell me I spent the entire night banging NAFSBO’s Woman of the Year? ”

“Sure did. And might I say, damn good for a girl with no rhythm.”

“I guess this means I have to stay awake for the closing speech, ” I tease. She swats me with her pillow before padding off to the shower.

After I stuff my carry-on in the overhead compartment and strap myself into seat D, row twenty-nine of Delta flight 1377, I recall Poetess’s elegance as she stood at the podium before a sea of professional women enrapt by the weekend’s guest of honor. She was eloquent and charismatic as she spoke of the inconveniences encountered by black women venturing out on their own in the business world. My eyes welled at the thought of her voice quivering when she shared how her late artist mother told her in childhood that colors are for canvases, not people; that she should think of herself as a blank canvas and paint whatever future she imagines for herself. I stare at her picture stored in my camera phone once more before I’m instructed to turn off all electronic devices. I close my eyes as roaring jet engines drown out the world. After this weekend, I’m going to be a blank canvas, too.