Unlikely Bedfellows

ART: "Cherishing The Moment" By Fred Matthews

Cherry Johnson was certain that she was un-noticed....She was in a crowd of people at the University that was watching as Chess received his Master's degree in Business Administration. It was an amazing acheivement. The entire time she had been involved with him she hadn't known that he had been a college graduate. She felt bad that she didn't think he was even a high
school graduate!

Not to get her wrong..She loved Chess..then as she admittedly said to herself now...but he had seemed so street, so tough and gritty..that she had never figured him to be the studious type..but here he must have had a bachelor's degree when she knew him, that hadn't been displayed in his apartment at all. Chess had now earned his bachelor's degree and was surrounded by his friends as they all wished him well.

There was his baby momma, Rell, who she was finnally getting to see for the first time...the other woman...the woman who he had always been so torn between when he was dating her.
She was a pretty woman as women went..She could see why Chess would go for her..and his son..
Little Chess, who looked so much like him...he couldn't deny him.. They were hugging him and kissing him and congradulating him. There was also his gangster friend, Chris Thompson, who was there patting him on the back and smiling. Him? No way he was a college man...even if he had given up his gangster empire to work with Chess and help him run his business...

Also there was another former lover of her's...Fathead Newton...a stone gangster and to her, the dumbest of them all...She wouldn't be the least bit surprised if one day, she read about them finding his body rotting and decomposing in an old building...the subject of a mob hit..the way they found those other two gangsters a few weeks ago....Sonny Templeton and that crazy hit man, Malik Lockjohn...but that was his problem and his destiny...not hers.

Fathead still called her and texted her, telling her he was divorced and wanting her back..asking her what she was wearing and begging her just for a little of her time, lunch dates, dinner dates,
booty calls ,whatever...She never returned them.

Then there was the case of her boyfriend, kind of, sort of...He was a musician... a Trumpet player
named Reed Nelson....He was constantly on the road. She had seen him twice this summer, she thought. Once ,after he got back from Los Angelas and once before he went to New Orleans.
He was in New York now...Close enough...but do you think she had gotten one phone call?? One text? She was thinking of breaking it off with him when he and his band returned to play at Josie's next month.

She watched as Gus, the bartender and owner of Josie's came by and shook Chess's hand and others that she knew vaguely like Kevin Morris, Clerow, Sean Jackson, Paris , Blake and the lawyers, Conrad Nelson and Robert Foxworth all stopped by his outdoor table and congratulated him on a job well done. Just seeing Chess and knowing that he had earned a Master's degree made him that much more attractive to her...but she knew that she had had her chance and she had blown it...He was far out of her grasp now. She was fortunate that he allowed her to live in one of his Apartment units nearly rent free.

"I haven't seen you around...you come around here often?" came the voice.

"Oh puh-lease...you can't come up with a better line than that?" she said as she turned and saw
a surprisingly handsome, yet slender brown skinned man...He was smoking a Newport and letting it drag long and hard.

"Is my smoke bothering you? If so..I'll put these away...I don't need to be doing this...Smoking you know....I keep saying that I'm going to stop." he said.

"No, it's okay...you got another one?" she said.

"Yeah....here you go.....My name is Bobby...Bobby Sanders....and you are?"

"I'm Cherry...Cherry Johnson" she replied.

"That's your real name? Cherry?" he said almost laughing...

"Yeah, what about it? " she said.

"Oh nothin...it's pretty...it's different...it sounds like a stripper name though." he said with a smile.

Normally,she would've gotten angry, but she liked this guy for some reason and she laughed ,despite herself at what he said.

"I used to be from here...but I left a long time ago and settled out in Cali." he said.

"Oh yeah?? I'm from Cali...Where do you live?" she said.

"I live in San-Francisco...Hunter's point right now...but I'm trying to move to Daly City or maybe even Berkeley when I get my money straight." he said.

"I'm from Oakland...Small world aint it..?" she said.

"Yeah, aint it?" He laughed.

"What brings you home, family?" she asked.

"No....I left here cause I was running from a real bad scene...I had some un-finished business
to attend to...Now that that has been taken care of...I'm going back to Cali in a few days." he said.

"Funny, I came here because of a bad scene in Cali....and my bad scene followed me here." she laughed ruefully.

"I'm guessin that was a husband right?" he said.

'Yeah, was a husband...He came here and got the shock of his life and now he's in prison for the rest of his worthless life and I am happily divorced." she said.

"So if your business is cleared up..why do you stay here...why don't you go back?" he said.

"I keep asking myself that everyday...I miss the Bay area." she said.

"You got somebody here who is keeping you here don't you?" he said.

"Kind of sort of...but it's not that serious...it could end any day now." she said..staring at his pretty hazel eyes..

"Okay Ms. Cherry..Why don't you and I go somewhere , get some drinks, maybe some dinner
and uhhhh, well, let's see how the night develops?" said Bobby.

"I think that's a great idea." she said as they got up from the table and left the area.

They went to a nice restaraunt in Old City and had dinner and lots of wine. They talked about California and people that they both knew and places they had both been..He told her of his time
in the Marine Corps and Iraq and of his paintings and his attempts to get his paintings sold and
they laughed a lot...He didn't mention the childhood tragedy or the killing of Malik Lockjohn that brought him back to Philly.

They finnally went to his hotel room.... He offered her a glass of wine..but she demurred...

'What ? Are youn trying to get me drunk ,so you can get some ?" she said with a bit of a smile.

Bobby looked at her and then shook his head....

"No, I didn't think I'd have to resort to that." he said.

"You don't." she said as she leaned in and gave him a long and sensuous kiss... They stood up and
he leaned into her and began to kiss her just as passionately as she had kissed him. Bobby took
his free hand and cut off the light in the middle of the ceiling...This just left the small lamp on by the side of the bed...

He lifted Cherry up and took her to his bed and laid her down gently...She watched as he slowly
took his clothes off and began to ease on to the bed...next to her...He began sucking her earlobe
gently and began to open her blouse...

"Wait a minute" she said and she got up off the bed...She unbottoned her blouse and casually folded it, as he had his clothes and then she unclasped her bra....She giggled at the expression on his face ,upon seeing her breasts...She was used to it...She removed her skirt and slowly,teasing ly eased out her panties and then returned to the bed....She climbed on top of him and began kissing him again...taking her hands and rubbing his penis up and down as he moaned pleasurably...He grabbed her buttocks tightly and eased her over to him...

"Come over here..." he commanded. She wasted no time easing herself on top of him and working her body up and down in a rhythmic motion... They both were enjoying themselves and neither of them wanted this to end...It wasn't wild sex, just nice easy and cool kind of sex....
She hadn't felt this good or this kind of release in months.....Not that Reed wasn't a good lover, he was...but he hadn't been around in awhile...She felt absolutely no guilt about what she was doing with Bobby...

Cherry turned around and placed her ankles on Bobby's shoulders and her entered her from the
back...He plowed into her much harder now and this began to get wilder and faster...

'Ohhhhhhh Bobby, don't...don't stop...please don't stop....ouuuuuuuuuu..." she screamed as he continued on like this for awhile...He finnally made his way on top of her and made love to her slow and easy until he could feel her reaching her climax....several times... He on the other hand seemed as if he couldn't reach his...She couldn't believe how hard and long he could go until he finnally exploded and collapsed on her in a heap of sweat....

"Wow...that was....that was something else.." he said exhausted....She felt the same way. To her surprise..he didn't go to sleep, the way most men did after a session like that...He held her in his
arms and stroked her hair gently...until she fell asleep.

**************************

Cherry woke up the next morning to find Bobby up and dressed and staring at her.....

"I didn't want to wake you...you were so beautiful lying there." he said.

"Oh Bobby, you are sooo sweet." she said.

They exchanged numbers in their respective Blackberry's and they went to an outdoor cafe and had a delicious breakfast that consisted of Omelets and Bacon and Mimosas...They said nothing.
Cherry didn't know how long she'd stay in Philadelphia and she hated that Bobby was leaving, but one thing she knew that morning...Her relationship with Reed Nelson was definitely over...
He just didn't know it yet...and this man, this man here..she was going to see again...even if it meant going back to Cali or paying for him to come to Philly!

(For Caroline and Diane)