If you ask me, she is absolutely worth it.
Tree Sex
Max
It’s way too early to be assaulted by the sound of urgent phone calls and text messages at—I squint at my phone with one barely-open eye.6:30 in the morning.
Seriously?
It’s Wednesday. On a normal week, I’d already be up, checking on my mother, scanning my portfolio, combing through work logs for anything that smells like a suspicious IP address.
But not this week.
Not while I’m floating in a kind of escapism that somehow became common law after I found my way into this friend group; book club that is the Cockpit Chix.
Every woman in that circle has managed to capture and marry the kind of man our favorite authors turn into fantasy. Commanding. Devoted. The kind who don’t just show up, but stay long after the happily ever after.
If I let the thought linger, I almost have to pinch myself to ensure I’m awake. I’ve spent my life rolling my eyes at the idea that a story like this could ever belong to me. I’ve always boughtinto the lie that Black girls don’t get to inhabit their wildest dreams—that we simply have to build our own worlds and accept whatever fragments of a dream happen to drift our way.
But here, with Eli, I’m somehow living adjacent to that same reality. I’m sleeping better than I ever have, letting myself brush up against a world I never expected to touch—let alone inhabit. This is my wildest dream. This is a fantasy that I never want to wake up from.
Shit. I’m in trouble, huh?
Yesterday, after we made it home from his office, we did exactly what we promised each other. We settled intous. His space. Where everything moves on his terms.
We made dinner together. He handled the fish. I took care of the vegetables. And I smile at the fact I’ve never met a Black man who can cookanddebone a branzino. And he did it with such ease and precision, narrating the process under his breath while plating it with vegetables we’d pulled straight from his garden. Like it was just…a regular Tuesday for him.
And it made me wonder if this is how he normally is. If this is what he does when he entertains. If the women who come through his life get this version of him too. The quiet. The care. Do they feel this chosen? This tethered to and pulled together by him?
I have to shut those thoughts down fast, because I don’t get to ask them. I have no right. I agreed to the terms so I don’t get to inventory who came before me or worry about who comes after.
Yet, after last night, the thought of him with anyone else unsettles me in a way I probably need to seek therapy for. Instead, I pull on my composure like a suit of armor and pretend I can be normal about this—that I’ll be fine when I return home, and that this won't linger in ways I can’t manage.
For this week, I’m his. He’s mine. And nothing—no one—else exists.
I stretch lazily and finally pick up my phone. Of course, Timantha doesn’t respect the sacred nature of DND mode and just blasted through it with her “ALERT ANYWAY” audacity.
TIMANTHA:I haven’t heard from you in DAYS. Are you alive? Call me!
I groan, roll onto my back. She knows damn well I’m alive. I’ve been sending updates even while working remotely.
ESLIN:We KNOW she’s alive. We’ve seen her Insta-stories, all zen in the Rockies. She’s just ABANDONING us, clearly.
Oh for the love. I hate that I introduced these two.
ME:You two are ridiculous. I’ve been working. Helping Eli with this big pitch…getting sensual massages, fucked against trees and fingered in offices and shit.
I added that last part for shock value.
And because I’m me, I scroll through my camera roll and send a few stealthy snaps I grabbed of Eli—shirtless chopping wood, bent over a blueprint, lost in thought. All without his knowledge. All very yummy.
TIMANTHA:…Did you say IN a tree?
ME:AGAINST a tree, technically. But…*insert shrug emoji*...yeah.
ESLIN:GROUP FACETIME. FIVE MINUTES.
ME:Too early! I haven’t even brushed my teeth!
