Grace was confused. She felt bad that Chili had to leave but she understood. It was unexpected, but she’d liked having him around. She liked his looks, the way he talked, and then the way he kissed her. And the way he’d eaten her and fucked her. She’d liked the feel of his body and of course the feel of his cock; in her hands, in her mouth, in her pussy. Even up her ass. But ‘I’m engaged for God’s sake for what seems like forever’ she thought. ‘What the hell am I doing? God, my life is so fucked up’.

She picked up the phone and made a quick call. Then she walked upstairs and down the hall. The shower was running in the bathroom adjacent to the bedroom Chili was using. She sat on the bed.

The shower stopped and a minute later the bathroom door opened and Chili walked into the bedroom. He was naked and stopped in his tracks when he saw her.

Grace took a moment to take in the look of him: The broad shoulders, his slim waist, the muscular thighs. And the muscle between his legs wasn’t bad either. She stood.

“I took a sick day. I figured if we’re going to say goodbye we should do it right.” She opened her robe and let it drop to the floor.

Chili came to her and swooped his arms around her and plastered his mouth onto hers. Grace’s tongue instantly probed into his mouth and he sucked on it. With one arm around her back and her ass in the palm of his hand he lifted her and they fell onto the bed in a single melded piece.

Their kiss was deep and prolonged and their hands roamed their bodies, re-familiarizing their fingers to their fiery flesh. Chili kissed Grace’s nose and eyes and hair and neck and shoulders and sucked her taut nipples into his mouth. Grace held his cock like a hardening lifeline and dug her nails into his neck.

Not playing favorites, Chili alternated tits, sucking her nipples hard until they felt like chunks of gravel in his mouth. Grace moaned as Chili suckled her and she pulled on his cock like it was the arm of a slot machine and she was hitting the jackpot.

Chili tried to move his head further south to get to her salty oyster but Grace wouldn’t let go of his cock. He got the idea quickly and pretzeled his body around quickly so his mouth was in her crotch and her mouth was in his. He spread her legs and she sighed loudly when he tickled her asshole with his tongue. He licked her slit and sucked her clit and felt it grow and harden in his mouth. Then he started fucking her pussy with his tongue.

Grace had been kissing and licking his dick and balls but Chili hissed into her cunt when she took his cock into her mouth. He thought back to the other stoned, smoky night—was that only two days ago?—and how he’d watched his whole member dissolve into her mouth and throat. He shoved his meat into her and as if she were reading his mind he felt her mouth widen and take it all in and just like that her lips were kissing his balls. Their bodies were grinding alternately like a giant inchworm as they crawled toward orgasm. Pushing his cock into Grace’s head was slick bliss and the taste of her lusty snatch almost made him high. He knew he was going to blow a load soon and he wouldn’t hold back. Then suddenly Grace’s body shimmied and her water broke and with a loud groan and a mouthful of cock she came. Chili felt the warm wash in his mouth and on his face as he ate. Then she backed off slightly and sucked him even harder and milked his nuts at the same time.

He came like a hose that couldn’t quite handle the pressure and might burst. As his cum boiled upward it was the kind of ejaculation that felt like the payload was just a tad too wide for the passageway and left an afterburner in its wake. Grace must have swallowed a good amount of cum, but not all of it because he saw a good amount ooze from her mouth and down her chin and some clung to the head of his cock as she moved her head away.

Chili spun his body up beside her and they kissed, their tongues resuming their earlier dance. Grace covered him with little kisses, all over his upper body, from head to waist. Once she relaxed she rested her head on his chest and gently held his scrotum in her hand.

After a minute of quiet repose Chili said, “Man, I could get used to this. Too bad I won’t be able to.”

“You’re going to make me cry again.”

“Oh, no, no crying, not after something so wonderful…so Graceful.”

“I’m so fucked up,” she said.

“What? No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am. Look how fucked-up my life is. I have a ring on my finger for what, going on two years now? No plans to marry. My family wonders what the hell’s going on and I don’t even know what to tell them anymore when they ask. What the fuck am I doing? Sure, I have a decent job and we live in a nice house, but I have a fiancé, if you want to call him that, who gambles too much, drinks too much, gets high too much and gets off watching other men fuck me. And look at me now, lying in bed with his old roommate.”

“Ouch.”

Grace looked up at him. “No! Sorry, I don’t mean it like that. I took a sick day so I could go to bed with you. Is that fucked-up or what? So you could make love to me again. So I could feel you and hold you and you could hold me. I know you care. I can tell by the way to look at me and talk to me and flirt with me and touch me and kiss me and respect me. And fuck me; especially by the way you fuck me.”

He pulled her up gently and put his lips to hers. Her mouth opened instinctively and sucked him in. They kissed deep and long and their fingers walked again all over their kindled skin. With his cock again board-certified Grace pulled Chili on top of her and wasted no time guiding it into her expectant twat.

“Fuck me,” she rasped. He did.

They were immediately back in sync. Chili threw his cock into her with sturdy vigor and Grace swung her torso in perfect time with his movements. His grunts accompanied every plunge and he aimed the head of his cock at the deepest part of her.

“I love fucking you,” he said sharply, and meaning it, although saddened by the fact that he could not have her. “I wish you were mine.”

Chili dug two fingers into her asshole for a better grip and picked up the pace even more. He banged her with fervent force and the bedsprings kept time like a tambourine. On and on they fucked, a chorus of sighs and moans and groans with each sweaty push, her pussy squeezing his pounding pecker, his fingers butt-fucking her and their tongues numb from doing their own sexy samba.

“Jesus, I’m gonna come again,” Grace shouted.

Chili slowed to long, slower strokes to give her body room to erupt. Her head darted from side to side and her body bucked beneath him. With a shriek Grace expelled her cum and Chili could feel the wet warmth below him as he could feel the heat of her cheek against his own.

----

They were in bed for nearly four hours. They did a lot of kissing and holding and talking. And fucking; a whole lot of fucking. Chili’s head spent another extended period between Grace’s legs. In his exuberance, he left her groin and thighs with several purple bruises he hoped Benny wouldn’t notice. Last but not least Grace wanted it up the ass and Chili happily obliged, first with his tongue and then with his cock. She asked him to make it hurt because she wanted to feel him for a while. He could feel her sphincter loosening and tightening around his shaft as he drilled her and he yowled like a wildcat when he came and dumped his final shot of semen into her.

----

It was late morning and they were still in bed.

“I have to get going,” Chili finally said. “But I need another shower.”

Grace rose and said, “I’ll make you some sandwiches for the road” She picked her robe up off the floor and put it on as she walked out the door.

When Chili got down to the kitchen Grace was dressed in blue jean cut-offs and a sleeveless top. She looked good enough to eat but he knew he was way overdue to leave already plus his dick was sore and felt like it was going to fall off. She had packed a small Styrofoam cooler with two sandwiches, a banana, an apple and a couple cans of cola. He put his bag down on the floor and they stood there looking at each other in silence for a moment or two.

“So this is it, I guess,” Grace said finally.

“Yeah, I guess it is.”

“I know you have to go. I wish you could stay longer but I know why you have to leave. It’s been nice having you.”

Chili nodded. “Thank you. I’m sorry if I’ve complicated your life.”

“No. My life was already a mess. I think I’m just now beginning to realize it.” She stepped forward and put her hand against his cheek. “I think I’m going to miss you.”

“I miss you already,” he said. He put his hand over hers and kissed the palm of her hand.

“I wish I had a picture of you,” Grace said with a slight crack in her voice.

“Talk to Benny. He took quite a few on Friday night.”

“I mean a picture of you. Not a picture of your head in my crotch or your dick in my mouth.” They both laughed, easing the angst.

“Do you have a pencil and paper?” Chili asked.

Grace nodded and pulled a piece of copy paper and a pencil out of a drawer and handed them to him. He drew a crude male face, much like his own, with mussed hair, ears, eyes and nose. Then he drew the mouth: turned downward in an inverted U creating the biggest and saddest frown possible.

“There,” Chili said. “A very accurate representation wouldn’t you say?”

Grace took a look and barked, “That’s not funny!”

“I know. The truth hurts sometimes.”

“I’m sorry, Chili.”

“Don’t be sorry.” He could see her eyes begin to water. “Do you have a calendar?”

Grace nodded and pulled a calendar off of a magnetic clip on the side of the refrigerator. Chili took it and turned the pages to several months hence.

“We both love the blues, right?” Chili said. Grace nodded. He was looking at the month of July. He figured it was a good time because he wouldn’t be too busy with work and it would be summer vacation for a school teacher. He circled a Friday in the middle of the month and handed the calendar to Grace.

“July fifteenth,” he said. “A Friday. Memphis, Tennessee, blues capital of the south. On July 15, at the Peabody Hotel, in the main lobby, a block from Beale Street. Say, two p.m., mid-way between the duck marches. I’ll be there.”

“Duck marches?”

“Yeah. They have a bunch of ducks that live up on the roof. They come down in the elevator at eleven a.m. and march into the lobby and spend the day in this big fountain. Then they march back out at five.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Anyway, Memphis is about the same distance from here as it is from where I live. And I’ll be there on July fifteenth. At two o’clock, waiting in the lobby. That gives you three months to figure things out.”

Grace plopped down in a chair at the table, taking it in.

“If you don’t show up, it’s okay, I’ll understand. I know there is a lot you need to consider. But if you do, you will be mine. And I will be yours.”

Chili circled around behind where Grace was seated. He massaged her shoulders and then lowered his hands to her silky breasts. He held them as he kissed her temple, then her cheek, then the corner of her mouth.

“Goodbye, Grace,” he said.

He walked back and picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulder. He picked up the cooler and raised it up.

“Thanks for this,” he said. Grace nodded.

He opened the door and turned to her and said, “I love you.” Then he was out the door and gone.

She got up from the table and walked to the window. She watched him drive away with tears trickling down her cheeks and dripping from her nose.

----

Chili drove for seven hours before stopping for the night. The whole drive was a blur, a dissociative daze, with large chunks of highway behind him and unremembered. It was a wonder he thought, that he hadn’t driven off the road.

He had no idea how he had come up with the idea of Memphis and the Peabody Hotel. It had just popped into his head. He knew it was only a last-second Hail Mary, with a slim chance of success, but he knew he had to do something. He knew they couldn’t be in any kind of contact, that would only muddy things up even more. But if he’d just flat walked out without that date on the calendar, then his slim prospects were less than zero.

Over the following months, Chili busied himself as much as possible. He worked long hours and filled his spare time with numerous activities. He dated a couple times but both were disasters. He was lousy company, and he couldn’t help but compare them to Grace, and unfairly to them, they could never measure up.

He had dreams about her. In one he was standing in a long line on a ramp boarding a cruise ship. Grace was ten or twelve places ahead of him in line. She had a leg in a cast and was on crutches. He asked her about Benny and she said he was lost at sea. They talked about how they missed each other and how nice it would be to be on the cruise together so they could catch up and be together again. She boarded the ship and stood by the railing waiting for him. But only three more people after her were allowed on the ship when they shut the gate to the ramp and said they were filled to capacity, and started preparing to depart. He started screaming and tried to force his way forward but was fought back by the people in front of him. Grace was yelling to be allowed to get off and come back down the ramp but they wouldn’t let her off. The dream ended with them both calling to each other as the ship sailed off.

In another dream, Chili and Grace were passengers in a helicopter. They were holding hands and looking out the window as they came in for a landing. They kissed and said goodbyes. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘I’ll see you in a couple days’, and jumped down onto the tarmac and the door slid shut behind him. He stood and watched as the craft rose up into the air and flew off. The copter passed over a wooded area in the distance and then descended and disappeared behind it. A moment later there was a huge explosion and a massive, kaleidoscopic blast of smoke and flames flashed high into the air from behind the trees.

Grace dreamt too. She was with Chili in the Vapor Room and it was difficult to see him through the thick smoke. Flashbulbs were going off over and over, and every time she reached for him he would evaporate or vanish into a plume of smoke or slide just out of her reach and she was frustrated because she couldn’t touch or hold him. Benny was yelling, ‘No kissing! No kissing!’ over and over and she awoke in sweaty frustration. Coincidentally, a few days after her dream Benny tried to stage another sexy trio in the Vapor Room, and as hard as he tried to convince her to do it, she flat-out refused. She expected a big fight from him later but it didn’t happen.

In the days leading up to July fifteenth Chili would hold the calendar in his hand and stare at the date. He would kiss it. Three months with no contact. A lot can happen in three months. You know what they say, out of sight, out of mind. He knew he was grasping at a short straw.

But on July fifteenth, he was in Memphis. He walked around town that morning. It was hot and humid and he was sweating bullets in minutes. He got off the street and into a diner to cool off, but he wasn’t hungry. He drank sweet tea and tried to read the newspaper.

He was in the lobby of the Peabody by one-thirty. He found a comfortable leather chair on the north side of the lobby with a good view of the front entrance.

The next half hour seemed like forever. He watched the businessmen in their suits and the tourists in their shorts and tropical shirts come and go. He looked at the huge grandfather clock nearby about every thirty seconds as time inched along. The closer it got to the time, the tenser and queasier and more fearful he became. When the clock struck two he felt a chill and gooseflesh broke out on his arms.

Nothing happened. He scanned the room, his eyes tracing back and forth again and again looking at every strange face hoping to find the familiar one.

At five minutes after he started to become afraid, even though he knew all along this was likely to happen. By 2:10 he wanted to cry.

“Mister Chili?”

Chili was suddenly in a deep trench of thought. At that moment something dawned on him. Memphis was in the Central Time Zone. Grace lived in the Eastern Time Zone. Memphis is an hour earlier. Maybe that’s it. Maybe she’s still on East Coast time. He’d have to wait another hour.

“Mister Chili!”

The loud voice broke his reverie. He looked up to see a large black man in a bellman’s uniform standing before him.

“Uh, yes, I’m Chili,” he mumbled.

“This is for you, Sir.” He handed him a letter-sized envelope.

“Oh, uh, thank you,” he said. He took out his wallet.

“No need, Sir. It’s taken care of,” the bellman said, and he walked away.

Chili looked at the envelope. It was the official stationery of the Peabody Hotel.

His shoulders slumped. His eyes glazed over. His sinuses clogged up. ‘At least she had enough class to let me know’, he thought. He didn’t open it right away. He nervously twirled it in his hands for several apprehensive minutes, anxiously delaying what he now knew was inevitable.

He took a deep breath and opened the envelope. There was a single piece of paper inside. ‘This is it’, he thought, ‘My Dear John letter’. He took the paper from the envelope and unfolded it and was surprised to see it was not on the Peabody letterhead. It was not a letter at all; in fact, there was no writing at all on the page.

But what he saw was familiar. It was the rudimentary pencil drawing of his face that he’d drawn in Grace’s kitchen on the morning he’d left her. But the big downturned mouth had been erased, and it had been replaced with the biggest ear-to-ear grin the drawing would allow. In bright blue ink!

Chili felt paralyzed. He raised the paper to his nose. It was her all right, that clean, citrus sweetness. He looked up and his eyes panned the lobbyscape in front of him, once, twice: The check-in counter, the elevators, the concierge desk, the many faces. He stood up and took a couple steps forward for a different perspective and searched again.

He saw the dress before he saw her face. It was the same sexy floral sundress she’d worn on the day they went to the track. Her hair was shorter, but her deliciously tanned and toned body was the same, and a glorious sight for sore eyes. And even from afar he could see she wore no ring on her finger. Chili’s legs started propelling him toward her in a wobbly power walk as tears rolled down his cheeks. Grace moved toward him, more quickly with each step.

It is fortunate there were no serious injuries when they collided. They burst into each other’s arms and locked themselves together. Their mouths meshed into one and they kissed and hugged and twirled like a top. With their bodies clutched in a vice, they did a thirty-second dance in the middle of the large lobby and performed an unexpected, impromptu floor show for the guests and the help and the ducks. A solid round of applause embarrassed them out of their trance.

They held one another close as they spoke their first words in three months.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you,” she said.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”

“I was afraid you wouldn’t want me anymore.”

“I’ve missed you so much it hurts.”

“I know how it feels, too.”

“Nice dress.”

“The answer is still NO!”

Chili laughed. “You cut your hair.”

“Yes, I’m starting a new life. We are. It’s a wavy bob. Do you like it?”

“I love it. But it’s not long enough to cover all the hickies I’m going to give you.”

“You’ll have to put them on my thighs!”

“I reserved us a room upstairs.”

“So did I.”

----

They had a hard time keeping their hands off each other waiting for the elevator. When they reached the room they tore off their clothes and fell on the bed and instantly began catching up for lost time.

“I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been here. I’ve been going crazy thinking about making love and how good it is going to be,” Grace said.

“Get used to it,” Chili said, and he sucked her tongue into his mouth.

They made love for hours in all the ways they remembered and in some ways that were new. But no part of their bodies, no inch of their flesh went unkissed, unsucked, unfucked or unloved.

During one blissful intermission, Grace said, “I have three interviews lined up with three different school systems near where you live.”

“Where we live,” Chili corrected.

“Right, where we live,” she said. “So, you’re okay with having me for your roommate?”

“You damn sure better be my roommate!”

“You don’t mind if I stay a while?”

“How ‘bout forever?”

Grace smiled, cupped his balls and kissed him.

“I was hoping you’d say that.”