Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Please note the story tags.
I'm writing this to tell you about my first (and so far only) sexual experience with a black guy. His name was Yemi and it happened six summers ago, about a year before I met my now husband Steve.
I wouldn't say that I was overly promiscuous, although I'm not particularly prudish either, but I can count on both hands the number of lovers that I've had and there were periods in my twenties where I didn't have sex for months - even a year on one occasion. This was was one of those occasions.
Yemi was originally from Portmore, Jamaica but moved to Brixton with his family when he was three. It is a Caribbean tradition (so I have learned) to throw a house warming party when you move somewhere new, so, as was his family's custom (his parents had always wanted the family to stay in touch with their Jamaican roots), they arrived in Bristol on the Wednesday and by Thursday afternoon had invited the the whole street over on the Friday for food and drinks.
I lived in Bedminster at the time with my best friend Coop, half way along a row of faded old terraced houses, and, as it happened, right next door to the house Yemi moved into.
I'd had a lousy day at work. I'd had a lousy week at work to be truthful and Coop had to practically beg me to go with her. I text her at lunchtime when I finally relented:
Fine, okay, we can go. Think I could use a night out actually...
We turned up at number twenty-nine just after half eight with a tray of nibbles and a bottle of wine each. I had a heavy fringe at the time and I'd straightened my hair. I wore a scarlet dress; the short, figure-hugging one I usually reserved for special occasions and wore red heels (I have to, I'm 5'2). I'd done my lips and nails to match. I wouldn't say I'm sexy in the traditional sense - I don't have big breasts or long, tanned legs - but men have always found me attractive and I get a fair amount of attention when I make an effort.
The house was positively overflowing with people. Every room was crammed and the party had already spilled out into the garden and onto the street. Everything was alive with the beat of some funky music I'd never heard before and as the front door was open we let ourselves in. We squeezed between throngs of people having a good time; some people I knew, but most I didn't, and I felt strangely guilty for not having gotten to know as many of our neighbours as I thought I had. I'd have to make up for that, I thought, returning the smile of a bespectacled guy I recognised from somewhere but couldn't place.
The house was almost the exact same layout as ours and while Coop headed into the lounge to mingle I went to the kitchen to open the wine. I placed the bottles on the counter and immediately noticed a tall, slightly gangly young black guy wearing a 'colourful' collared shirt (to put it mildly). He was talking loudly and animatedly in a heavy Caribbean accent and handing out cubes of pineapple on sticks.
He's cute, I thought, although it was actually the way he came across - his presence - that struck me rather than his looks. It was the way the people he spoke to hung on his every word; the almost magnetic aura that he exuded. As if on cue, the people gathered around him burst into laughter and he turned around and caught my eye. I found myself smiling dumbly at him and it wasn't until he smiled back that I realised what I was doing and looked away.
Subtle, I berated myself, feeling my cheeks flush with heat, and I busied myself trying to find a corkscrew. A few moments later someone held one out in front of me and I turned around to find him standing beside me. He leaned over the counter, regarding me with an amused sort of expression on his face.
"I'm Yemi," he said, in a deep, rolling voice, and he smiled widely.
Even in my heels he towered over me and enveloped me in his presence. I found myself looking up into his big brown eyes, and by now my cheeks had turned the same shade as my dress.
"Hi. I'm -- I'm Becky," I flustered, trying hard to compose myself.
"Becky... well hey Becky. Nice to meet you."
His eyes roved over the modest swell of my breasts, down the plunging neckline of my dress to the curves of my bare legs and all the way down to my painted toenails. He smiled at me again and I immediately felt my heart start to race, as though an electric current had pulsed momentarily through it. It was so intense that it stole the breath from my lungs and the after-effects of attraction jangled my nerve endings, turning my nipples suddenly, painfully hard.
"Lemme get you a real drink," he said, rolling his R's, and as I watched him turn away I caught sight of myself in the mirror that hung over the breakfast bar. I was still grinning like an idiot and I didn't even realise it. I straightened my dress and did my best to stop smiling, but I was suddenly very glad that Coop had convinced me to come...
*
A few minutes later Yemi slid a drink into my hand. It was a cocktail of some sort; it smelled like pineapple.
"So you just moved here?" I asked.
"Uh-huh. Wednesday."
"Well, you've certainly got a full house," I remarked, struggling to keep my eagerness from showing; "half the street's here."
"That's Jamaican hospitality for you; an open house. Everyone's welcome! My parents are here; over there -- and that's my brother -- and my cousin. My Aunties are... there -- although that's Aunt Pat who's not my real Aunt, y'know. But she's practically family so we all call her Aunt."
I giggled, deciding right then that he was dangerously charming and that I'd need to watch myself with him.
"You know, I didn't think I'd be this lucky though..." he said, "to have such a beautiful neighbour living in our street..."
"Next door neighbour, actually," I corrected, "and perhaps I'm the lucky one". I reached out and laid my hand on his bicep, smiling at him as I sipped my drink through a straw. It was dumb, flirtatious -- but I wanted to send him a signal, a signal that said: I like you; I like you a lot; I want you...
Yemi smiled and licked his top lip.
"Well I certainly hope I get to see a lot more of you," he said.
I gave a flirty shrug and sipped my drink again. He opened his mouth to say something else, but a woman's voice called sharply from across the kitchen.
"Yemi hun - you goin' easy on that rum there? You ain't bothering that pretty young lady none are you?"
Yemi burst out laughing. "My Mother for you," he said, shaking his head in mock-exasperation. "And just as I was getting to know you." He blew out a sigh. "Looks like I gotta go do the whole hosting thing then... Stick around though Becky. Like I say, I'd like to see more of you..."
I watched him breeze across the kitchen, beguiled by his confidence, his swagger, and I couldn't agree more.