Jungle Fever Ch. 01

The color of your skin doesn't matter when you're in The Shit.

That's what we called it, Afghanistan that is, when we were over there. It wasn't anything cute like "The Sandbox" or anything gung ho like "The Mission." It was just The Shit with the capitalization obvious.

Skin color don't matter. The ability to put the rounds from your M-4 downrange matters. The ability to throw a grenade through a window accurately, now that matters. Most important, the ability to drag my 185-pound ass behind a big rock while calling in a Hawg to flatten that house from which I had been shot, now THAT really matters.

Something like that forms a true bond, and that is why I was here, in Prichard, Alabama, well, call it Mobile because I know you ain't heard of Prichard unless you're from there, looking for the address Lionel had given me. I hadn't seen a white face in the last ten blocks, but I wasn't worried about that. In part, it was that bond I had with the extremely black man I was here to see. In part, it was my absolute conviction that, although I was extremely aware that I was a civilian now and could neither pepper my sentences with "fuck" every third word nor shoot my way out of trouble, I was still the baddest motherfucker in the valley as we used to say.

But there was the house, finally. A small, tidy, wood frame house with a porch swing and bright flowers across the front. I pulled the rented Ford to the curb and walked up the obviously swept walkway to the front door. There was a doorbell button, but I didn't bother pushing it. It wouldn't work. It's amazing, the things you talk about when you're 8,000 miles away from home.

I knocked and stepped back, politely allowing space.

The woman who answered the door had skin so dark the term "black" made sense. No randy overseer had tainted her bloodline even though I knew her ancestors had walked off of one of those tall ships in Mobile Bay back in about 1800. She was big in that way of women who have given birth seven times. She wore a bright garment, I think it's called a muumuu, that I associated more with Hawaii than Africa. I think I would have recognized Lionel's mom from his descriptions if I had just seen her on the street rather than being greeted at what I knew was her house.

I didn't hesitate. I dropped to my knees, bent forward, and kissed her feet.

She laughed, a great belly laugh, and said, "You must be David."

When I didn't respond, just kept kissing her feet, she laughed even harder.

"Get up, white boy," she said, "you look crazy."

I gave her foot one final kiss and stood.

"I told Lionel I would kiss the feet of the woman who brought him into the world if I ever met her," I said, taking her hands in mine, "and I keep my promises."

Then I heard that great booming voice from behind her.

"My albino brother from another mother," he said, squeezing around his mother, our mother now, I thought, and wrapping me in a bear hug. Lionel is one of the few human beings on the planet that I never thought I could take if it got down to it.

"Let me go, Negro," I said, hugging him back, "so I can worship your mother some more."

He laughed and then did the formal introductions.

"Mama," he said, formally, "meet David Morgan, that man I've told you about. He saved my life, and I saved his. We're brothers."

I smiled my best smile.

"David," he said, "meet Latitia Washington, my mother."

I took her hands, said, "Very pleased to meet you," I hesitated for a second and added, as I had always planned to if this moment ever came, "Mom."

Her teeth were ivory, she hadn't succumbed to the insane tooth whitening craze that was so common these days, making people look like a mannequin on which the last stage of the assembly line had been spray painting their smiles with Appliance White, but against that dark, okay, that black skin it seemed to glow.

"Come here, Babyboy," she said, making the endearment a single word, and pulled me into a hug.

And I was crying.

It was like after an unbroken nineteen months of tension, I was finally safe, and I let it out.

I don't know how long I stood like that, wrapped in Mom's embrace, being cuddled and comforted on the front porch. I was vaguely aware of Lionel's voice, that voice that could carry across the field through small arms fire, the explosions of artillery shells, and the roar of air support, yelling, "Hey, Caleb. Nobody touches that car or they answer to me, got it?"

Finally, I wound down, and then I was embarrassed as any man would be in that position.

"Oh, God," I said, "I'm sorry."

"Don't you DARE be sorry, Baby," Mom said, "you deserved that."

Lionel laid his big hand on my shoulder. "Don't you be sorry, Brother," he said, "I did exactly the same thing when I got home."

He laughed and added, "She DOES have that effect on you, doesn't she?"

Mom giggled and said something that can only be written as, "Pshaw."

"Let's get inside now," she said, and yelled across the yard, "Caleb, you remember, leave that car alone."

Inside, Mom said, "There's beer in the icebox, some cold chicken, and maybe some cornbread. I'll let my boys catch up a little while I go change."

"Oh, God, I'm sorry," I said, looking and realizing that the top of her muumuu was wet with my tears and probably with my snot as well.

"Oh, Baby," and the way she said it made me think she probably called everybody "Baby," but it made me feel good anyway. "I might never have changed YOUR diapers, but trust me, this ain't nothing compared to being really messy. Don't you worry now. Just get relaxed."

And she left the room, moving with that strange grace some very big women can show.

You can cut a few yards of stock conversation between two guys who had shared the life-changing events of war, catching up, and you'll have it.

Mom came down and joined us. Well, she came down and sat with us. She mostly listened and seemed interested in what we were saying.

"Okay, Brother," he said after a while, "let me show you where you'll stay, and then you can shower, and we're going out."

He paused, grinning, and added, "You still got that jungle fever?"

"Lionel," I said, looking at Mom, but she was just smiling.

"Honeychile," she said, and coming from her, it sounded natural, "I may be an old woman, but I ain't dead. But you be careful now, y'hear. You know what they say?"

I grinned.

"Once you go black, you'll never go back," Lionel and I said in unison.

She laughed, that belly laugh that made you laugh with her, the pure joy of living pouring off of this woman in waves.

"You got a date lined up for my White son?" she asked Lionel.

"Well," he said, and it was the first time since I had known him that he seemed unsure of himself. "Auntie," he pronounced it "awnty", "Ginny said she might be interested in meeting my old friend."

Her eyes got big, and then there was the belly laugh again. She stood, came to me, and pulled my head between her big breasts. Strangely, in another first, I wasn't sexually aroused by this. I was comforted.

"You be careful, Baby," she said, looking down at me, "My little sister might just eat your white ass up." She giggled, pulled away, started toward the other room, and said, "Time for my story now. I don't want to miss an episode. I'll never catch up."

"Mama," Lionel called after her, laughing, "It's General Hospital. You could miss twenty episodes and not miss anything."

She laughed, said, "Shush your mouth, Boy," over her shoulder, and disappeared.

"Come on," Lionel said and led me through the little house to a tiny room with a bed and a small closet. "You crash here."

"It's okay," I said, "I can get a hotel room."

He laughed. "Go ahead," he said, "tell Mama you're stayin' at a hotel. I'd kinda like to see her turn you over her knee, and if you think she can't, just go ahead."

I laughed back.

"You win," I said, trotted out to the rental car, grabbed my little bag, and set up in my temporary quarters.

I showered quickly.

In the kitchen, Lionel was ready, sitting at the little kitchen table with Mama, dipping fingers into the bowl of sliced onions and cucumbers in vinegar that sat in the middle of the table.

"Can I take you to dinner tonight, Mama?" I asked.

She laughed a loud laugh and said, "No, Baby, you and my boy are going out. But I'll tell you this, be careful. My sister can be trouble."

She stood, kissed Lionel on the forehead, kissed me on the forehead, and said, "You youngsters have a good time." She turned to me and said, "Maybe after church you can take me to lunch."

I stood, kissed her cheek, and said, "Done."

Lionel was up by then and said, "We'll take my ride."

In the garage, I saw his two-year-old Cadillac Escalade with obviously aftermarket shiny chrome wheels, chrome wiper blades, chrome door handles, and, well, lots of chrome. When he started the thing, the soft glow of undercarriage LED lights filled the garage.

"I like your Ghetto Cruiser," I said, finding the buttons and adjusting the buttery soft leather seats.

"My savings, my man. Yours are putting you through school, mine bought this. I knew they needed cops, and I'm already halfway through the Academy," he said.

The color of skin didn't matter when we were in The Shit. But I won't deny, I felt a little strange as we drove through this suburb of Mobile. For block after block, I was the only white face around.

He stopped at a house and went to collect his date. He was gone for a few minutes, and I just sat, enjoying the music and air conditioning.

When he came back, I was struck by his girl. She was his height, making her a couple of inches taller than my five-ten. I can't say she was pretty, but she WAS striking in her bright green silk blouse, white pants, green stiletto heels that matched the color of the blouse, and a series of stacked gold hoops around her neck, emphasizing her height. Later, when I asked about them, she smiled and said, "They're called dzilla, from a tribe in southern Africa. I ain't never going to that shithole, but I like the look."

"David, Gwen, Gwen, David," Lionel said by way of introduction, surprising me. I would have bet on some name with an apostrophe like "L'aisha" or maybe something like "Zaria." "Gwen" sounded almost WASP, as in White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.

"Now get in the back of the bus, white boy. My lady rides up front," he added.

I laughed, surrendered my seat, offering my hand to Gwen, and settled into the back seat behind her.

The next stop was at my date's house. Lionel walked me to the front door, and when it opened, I could see that this was, indeed, Mama's little sister. She had the same coloring, skin the color of ground coffee beans, the same features with the broad nose, thick lips, and tiny ears of her race, features uncorrupted by a white interloper into her bloodline. She had the size, too, but distributed differently. Mama was big and round. This woman was a big, soft, hourglass with about eight inches of dark cleavage showing from her scoop neck, bright yellow blouse, a small waist, well, relatively small, flaring hips with a big bubble butt making me remember Lionel, one evening over beers at base camp expounding like a college professor on how stupid white people were for liking their women so skinny as to be almost boyish when real men, which is to say black men as he was the one talking, liked plenty of "junk in the trunk," with a "Ghetto butt" to hang onto in bed, and big legs covered in white pants so tight the cellulite dimpling of her Ghetto butt and big thighs showed.

"Auntie Ginny, David, my brother from another mother, David, Virginia, Mama's little sister, and our aunt," he did the introductions.

She looked me up and down in that same way I had looked my share of women up and down, starting at my eyes, moving slowly down, lingering a moment low on my belly, to my shoes, and back up.

As with Mama, when she smiled, her ivory teeth almost glowed against that dark skin, and she turned away from me to face Lionel. "No, Honeychild, this can't be your brother," although when she said it, it came out, "Nah, Honeychile, dis cain't be yo' brutha'." I had the sense that she was pushing the Deep South, or maybe the ghetto, if you prefer, accent. Something in the way the vowels came out made he accent seem, well, a little forced. That did not, however, affect the way her next words hit me.

"Because," she went on, and I won't try to do the phonetic accent anymore, just accept she kept at it, "if he's your brother, that makes him my nephew and THAT makes what I intend for later with this pretty white boy incest, and we can't have that."

I chuckled, but I also got a hardon. Something about the casual reference to coming sex got to me.

She laughed, noticing my reaction, and now the accent was gone.

"David," she said, smiling up at me, "don't worry. I am many things, but rapist is not among them. I won't force you to do anything."

I was pretty proud of my recovery. "Well, Br'er Fox, as long as it's not the briar patch."

She caught the reference, laid both hands on my arm in that possessive way some women have, and said, "Come along, Br'er Rabbit, and we'll see how the night develops."

I escorted her to the Escalade, handed her into the passenger side, held the door while she got the seat belt latched, shut the door, and ran around to load through the driver's side door.

I realized quickly that I liked these people. They talked in the casual way of long-time friends, but included me in the conversation. We laughed a lot while we just cruised for about an hour. I learned that Virginia, I hadn't been invited to call her "Ginny" and didn't want to push the issue, was, indeed, far from the ghetto bimbo she was pretending to be. Besides that, appearances aside, she had a certain elegance about her that made "Virginia" more appropriate.

It turned out my date was, as I had suspected, a college graduate with a master's degree as well. The Bachelor's degree was in Education with a follow-up Master's degree, also in Education. She taught English classes and was the counselor at the local high school. As we talked, she explained that "I make damn sure these boneheads can speak the language of commerce fluently. Probably the maddest I ever got in a public meeting was the time some idiot, yes, David, a white idiot, started talking about handling classes in Ebonics, whatever the fuck that is. I blew it and right there, with about 400 people in this big ballroom converted into the general convention meeting room, called him a white asshole intent on ensuring a permanent underclass by keeping black kids from learning the language of commerce and putting them at a disadvantage."

She stopped at that point, giggled, and said, "Sorry, but that shit pisses me off."

"I get it," I said. "Your nephew and I had to be able to communicate pretty nearly perfectly or we'd both be dead back inThe Shit." I laughed then and said, "Honestly, I'm glad someone with your melanin content in your skin recognizes the problem."

She laughed then, that belly laugh she shared with her sister, and said, "Sheeit, Honeychile, who knew a white boy would get that the way to a nigger's heart is through her mind."

I touched her arm.

"NO!" I snapped, putting all of the command they taught me in NCO school into my voice, "Even joking, or among friends, I will NOT allow you to call yourself a nigger. It's stupid and beneath you."

Her eyes got big at that.

From the front seat, over his shoulder, Lionel said, "He's like that, Auntie. Hell, the worst fight I was ever in at the NCO club started when a black sergeant called me a nigger. My brother from another mother told him to shut the fuck up, and then we were back to back for a very exciting minute. If you're good, I'll show you the scar I got over that one. And I agree. So no more niggers in my car or, for that matter, in my presence."

Her eyes were still big.

Then she smiled.

"I apologize," she said, "and it won't happen again. In a way, I suppose I was testing you, but, well, maybe I've been listening to too much rap, too."

"RAP!" I cried, wanting to break the seriousness that had overtaken our conversation, "Jesus. Try music. Doo wop rules."

She laughed and said, "Well, along with Soul."

"I won't argue that," I said.

Her face turned serious.

"I do apologize," she said and then flashed that glowing smile. "Do you have a scar too?"

I flashed my grin then, that grin that had been separating girls from their panties since High School, leaned close, and lifted my eyebrow, showing her the fine scar at the top of my eyelid.

"He was a warehouse weinie, though, and about two seconds after he managed to catch me with a lucky punch, my brother up there," I nodded at Lionel, "kicked him so hard I doubt he'll ever have kids."

The crisis had passed. I had passed my test, I suppose, and we passed the next half hour in pleasant chat, people watching mostly.

"I hope you remember the moves I taught you," Lionel said as we pulled into the parking lot of one of those strip malls that used to dot the urban landscape. This one had a Dollar General, a pawn shop, as shop advertising Delta 9 THC - Completely Legal, and a pink neon sign announcing we had arrived at the Pink Pussy with a much smaller cat in white.

I ran around and opened the door for the ladies as Lionel did the thing with his keyfob and the Escalade did its beeping, light flashing thing to go to sleep for a while.

Lionel and Gwen led the way. Virginia and I followed. I liked the way she had both hands on my arm, claiming me.

Lionel had told me of "clubbing," but this was my first time in one of those little clubs he had described. It was basically a bar but with a full third of the space taken up with a stage at the back and a very nice, polished hardwood dance floor separating the stage and the room with its scattered hubcap-sized tables, line of booths along the wall, and the long bar with barstools.

It took about two seconds for me to realize that I was the only white face in the place.

The band was playing something I didn't recognize, but the front man had a voice that made me think of Smoky Robinson. The song sounded like something Smoky might have done, too.

We got settled at a table, and a waitress came by. She was tall, pretty, and damn near naked, dressed only in shorts so short they showed about half of her ass and a bikini top that left her oversized areolas peeking out. Lionel and I ordered a pitcher of beer. Gwen ordered something called a "Slippery Nipple," and Virginia ordered a "White Russian."

Lionel rolled his eyes and leaned across the table to talk to me, striking a conspirational pose. "Black women," he said with a fresh eyeroll, "and their 'special' drinks. Wait until we go to a restaurant and you get to listen to THAT."

I laughed, smiled at Virginia, and asked, "True?"

She smiled, that glowing smile, and said, "Hey, two hundred years of slavery, we get SOME perks."

I shook my head, smiled, and offered her a high five that she accepted with a loud slap.

As the band was winding down the song, the lead singer repeating an outro chorus, Lionel stood and said, "Come with me," so I followed.

At the stage, he did one of those complex five-step handshakes with the singer, stepped up on the stage, exchanged a few words, and then crooked his finger, beckoning me.

I had no idea what was going on.

On the stage, Lionel took the microphone and started talking.

It was really a small place, a dozen tables, a half dozen booths, and maybe 50 people right then.

"Y'all know me," he said, "but for the four or five who don't, I'm Lionel. And this here," he laid his hand on my shoulder, "is David. David is black, in case you hadn't noticed. He saved my life, twice, when we were over there. So y'all treat him with the respect due any brother, y'hear."

He racked the microphone, did that weird handshake with the singer again, and led me back to the table.

"That's not immunity," he said to me, "but it's respect."

"All right," I said, with no idea what else to say.

The band started again, and I stood and offered my hand to Virginia. I mean, who could resist Otis Redding's incomparable Try a Little Tenderness done reasonably well.

We've all used the phrase, "She's ALL woman," from time to time.

Well, what I held in my arms was definitely ALL woman.

She was big and tall, slightly shorter than me, but mostly she had that way some women seem to have as part of their DNA to mold herself to me. Her breasts, big and firm in her bra that was sturdy enough to support them, pressed against my chest. Oddly, her belly pressed against mine, too. And as we danced, slowly, sort of shuffling at first as the music started with that very slow tempo first stanza, even her thighs brushed against mine.

And she was looking up at me. Her brown eyes never left mine as the tempo slowly picked up and we learned each other's moves.

When the song ended, the band merged right into something much faster, and I laughed as she stepped away from me and started dancing to the new, much faster beat.

She moved in that wonderfully boneless way only a woman or, sometimes, a man who has spent his life training for it, can pull off. Her hips seemed independent of her spine as they snapped back and forth in perfect time with the music. Her breasts were a counterpoint, that cleavage moving like a separate being. But mostly it was her smile, all ivory and big eyes, that got to me.

We laughed, danced, and drank until the lights were flashed and a deep bass voice called, "Last call for alcohol."

I wasn't drunk, but I wasn't far from it.

We finished our drinks and loaded into the Escalade.

"Lionel," Virginia announced, "my next husband is spending the night with me. Drop us at my place, please."

He grinned in the mirror and said, "David, you have a say in this."

I rolled my eyes, kissed Virginia, and said, "Now who said there are no stupid questions?"

He laughed, said, "Auntie Ginny, Mama says you be careful with her white son."

She grinned and said, "You tell my sister that I love her and how I treat my man is NONE of her damn business."

He laughed again, said, "Tally ho," and we headed out.

At Virginia's house, Lionel grinned, said, "Y'all don't do anything I wouldn't do."

Virginia said, "Oh, Baby, I intend to do things you ain't never thought of doing."

He laughed as I started to swing the door shut.

Virginia stopped me.

"David," she said, those brown eyes looking deep into me now, "You can say 'no,' and it'll be okay. I know this is all pretty sudden and, well, it turns out I really DO like you and I wouldn't want to ruin something by being my horny self."

I laughed, kissed her, and swung the door of the Escalade shut.

"Unless you're kicking me out, take me inside," I said.

She smiled and kissed me then, on the sidewalk in front her her little house, a lingering kiss full of promise.

"Well, all right then," she said. She took my hand and led me up the little walkway.

Inside, she showed me where the bathroom was before leading me to the bedroom.

"So," I said, smiling at her. I was holding her face between my palms now, loving the soft, warm feel of fat cheeks against my palms. "Is it true?"

"What's that, Baby?" she asked, her hands mirroring mine.

"That for all of the talk about the size of black men's dicks, what a black woman really wants is an educated mouth," I said, holding her eyes.

Her eyes got big, and then she smiled.

"Welllllll," she said, brushing my lips with her fingertips, "I don't know about ALL black women...."

I stopped her with a kiss.

"Top on or off?" I asked.

She looked confused for a second and then understood what I meant.

"On, Baby," she said, "we'll play with these later," lifting her breasts.

I kissed her again, a soft kiss, bent and kissed the cleavage she showed, and got to my knees before her, looking up, holding her eyes.

I had to look down to puzzle out the buckles on the ankle straps of her shoes, but once I had them off, I looked back up. The meeting of the eyes thing was something a VERY expensive whore taught me when Lionel and I had blown two months' pay on a night off base.

The leggings were so damn tight it was like getting her out of a girdle. She was grinning and in her best crazy guy voice from that old Adam Sandler movie The Waterboy, said, "You can DOOOO it!"

Once I got the leggings past her hips, they came easier, although it was still like unpeeling her. The buttfloss thong came with the leggings.

And I was face to pussy with the hairiest pussy I had ever seen. It was the black, kinky hair of her race, just as thick in the wide delta low on her belly as it was on her head. It spread down her thighs slightly, although between her legs she was smooth, a semi-circular chub rub at the tops of the inside of her thighs made the skin there even darker, and I wouldn't have thought that possible.

She moved her left foot, standing now with feet slightly more than shoulder width, reached down, laid spread fingers low on her belly, and pulled, lifting and offering her labia.

"See, Babyboy," her voice all ghetto now, "we's all pink down there. Now get to it. Eat your dessert like a good boy."

She was right. The way she was pulling skin taut, her lips parted a little, and she was VERY pink inside. Pink and shiny with that love honey that was starting to flow. Her scent, as I moved forward, kneewalking to her before I started kissing what she offered, was slightly different than any woman I had ever been with. I assumed it was diet.

I liked it as my nose touched that amazingly thick pad of hair, okay, of wool, and began exploring her with my tongue.

"Ooooh, Babyboy," she said, her voice getting thick as I probed and tasted and finally found her clitoris with the tip of my tongue.

"Oh, sheeeit, dat's good," she whispered, the ghetto thick in her voice now.

Her orgasm, when it came, was oddly gentle. There was none of the sudden muscular contraction, almost cramping, I associated with a woman's orgasm. She hissed a long, sibilant, "Yesssssssssssss" and her nectar flowed into my mouth.

She was delicious, and I drank her pleasure like that strong Japanese beer I like.

When her body jerked, pulling away from the intensity of what I was giving her, I pulled her back to me, my fingers sinking into the softness of her ass.

I kept her going like that until she suddenly jerked away, too hard for me to hold without hurting her, and her final rush of ecstasy sprayed onto my T-shirt.

"Whew," she said as I stood and kissed her with lips slick from her pleasure.

"Now," I said, happy to see my fingers were steady as I started on the top button of her blouse.

She stood still as I got the blouse unbuttoned and slipped it off her shoulders.

"You cheat," I said, smiling, my fingers tracing the line of the garment that had her waist cinched down, giving her that wasp-waist figure I had been fascinated by. I would later learn it was the appropriately named "Waspie."

There were a series of hooks, very close together, and it took a moment to work out the technique for unhooking the thing. But I'm smarter than the average undergarment and puzzled it out.

Her wasp waist disappeared with the last hook, replaced by a thick body that I found even sexier.

I kissed her then, reaching behind and undoing her bra, all six hooks of it. Her breasts were as good as I'd hoped, big, sagging from weight, with oversized areolas and nipples even darker than her skin.

"Now," she said, smiling and kissing me, "undress and get in bed with me. Let's take out time, honey. Besides," she giggled, "I'm a little tired.

I watched as she turned down the bed, fascinated by how erotic it was, seeing her do such basic domestic chores naked. I was peeling off my shirt and stepping out of my pants as I watched.

In bed, she was waiting, lying on her side, looking like a pinup model.

I joined her, my erection leading the way, and moved to mount her.

"No, Baby," she said, pushing, guiding me to lie beside her, "take your time, I'm not going anywhere."

And that is what I did.