What made her laugh when she wasn’t working?
What kind of food she loved!
What kind of care she needed when the world wore her down?
How deep could she take me down her throat?
How deep could I take her down mine?
Could I stroke her while I stroked into her?
I wondered what she was like when she trusted someone fully. When she let her guard drop. When she wasn’t performing strength but simply existing inside herself.
The thoughts surprised me because they weren’t about conquest or curiosity. It wasn’t even about sex, not really. It was about wanting to know her in the ways that mattered. The ways that lingered.
I sat there in my car and admitted something quietly. I wanted to get to know Zaria the way I knew Lena.
Deeply.
Intimately.
Lena and I had talked about this. About what love could look like outside of rigid boxes. About consensual non-monogamy and the honesty of not limiting your desires. We discussed how nearly everyone we loved practiced it in some form and seemed happier, healthier, more whole because of it.
This wasn’t reckless.
It was deliberate.
Zaria stepped outside a little after last call, keys in hand, shoulders tired but chin lifted. I stayed still, alert, watching the lot waiting to see that reached her car safely, but it never happened. She stopped and waited. For what? I couldn’t be sure.
The need I feel to protect her told me that whatever this was becoming, it wasn’t going to be simple. But simplicity had never been the measure of something worth wanting.
I picked this moment to stop pretending this was a passing intrigue.
It wasn’t. It was a beginning. One that I hoped would end with a love none of us could be without.
It didn’t start with Zaria. It started with Lena. I remember the first time I saw her like it was something my body recognized before my mind caught up. Ajaih’s wedding. The room was alive, loud in that way Black love always is when it gathers in one place. Laughter layered over music, glasses clinking, joy moving freely between people who had earned it.
Then there was her. Barefoot and standing off to the side like she wasn’t the most interesting thing in the room. She wasn’t trying to be seen, but that’s what made me look. Most people perform in spaces like that. Adjust themselves to match the energy. Lena didn’t. She was… contained and graceful without effort. Still, but never stagnant. Like her body held music even when there wasn’t any playing. I watched her longer than I should have.
Not in a hungry way but out of curiosity.
While more quiet than my siblings. Fear never consumed me when my interest was peaked.
“Your form,” I told her, because it was the first honest thing that came to mind. “You dance even when you’re standing still.”
She laughed, light and surprised. “That’s a first.”
“It’s not,” I said. “Nobody’s just said it to you before.”
That was the beginning.
Not attraction. More like recognition. Zaria came after Nd that’s when things stopped being simple. The first time I saw her, I understood two things immediately.
One, she was beautiful.
Not in a way that asked for validation. In a way that existed whether you acknowledged it or not.
Two, she was guarded.
