For two hours, I stared at the granulated ceiling and tried to count all the tiny spots. I always got messed up around 120, either because Rasul would change position or the channel. We weren’t ready to get into it just yet. I liked that he took his time, didn’t feel the need to devour me as soon as I walked through the door like Leroy always had. The pillow play before the act was a sign of the pillow talk to come after. But he came back from the Travel Center with foot-long sandwiches and pop, spreading one of the hotel towels in between us on the bed like a picnic blanket, and with our stomachs satisfied it was time to satiate the part below.

“You ain’t scared is you?” he asked me.

“Shit,” I spat, defensive. “What I look like scared of something? You know I been with a grown man.”

“I’m grown,” he assured me.

“Prove it then.”

He was now undaunted by the sass that had arrested his interest from the moment we met. We had begun a new chapter in our young lives together, and I thought that type of commitment warranted him not using a condom. He felt light on top of me, so much so he didn’t bother to raise up once. Plus, while he caressed me, and hugged me for what seemed like hours before and after, he said strange things that I thought I only heard because I was high off cigarettes. He teased me with talk of the future, and “our baby.” All that sweetness Ma had warned me against. The type of talk men used to get our noses open to get what they wanted. But it sounded so good as we pressed into each other underneath the scratchy covers, the blinds shut tight to close out the fading daylight. It sounded so good as he pushed deep inside of me, so much slower and gentler than Leroy. It sounded even better when his words muffled my own promises, whispered in the midst of a passion I could finally be unashamed of. I stretched myself as wide open as my body would allow, letting him stay on top of me the whole time. I was fine with him being in control. While he whispered my name, I enjoyed his surrender to me. I escaped inside my own head to have a talk with my child.