He was to blame for my fucked-up love life, even if it had been unintentional on his part, and I truly believed it had been. Sam was a lot of things back when I really knew him, but he wasn’t malicious, and I felt no malice in Immortal Sam’s presence either.
Immortal.
Did I really believe that? Did I want to believe it? Hell, did I even care? He was gone…again, and that was a good thing, wasn’t it? I mean, being around him had awakened feelings and desires that I thought I didn’t or couldn’t possess, but that was because he’d marked my ass.
Wasn’t it?
Hell, my thoughts were all over the place, but my heart? It was still in the same holding pattern it’d been in since I was seventeen years old.
9
Sampson
“Baba…”
My eyes popped open, confusion, and then recognition, registering in my brain in rapid-fire succession. I was still in Brownhaven, and Porter had invaded my damn mind.
Par for the course for him.
“Show yourself,” I grated, not in the mood for him or whatever he’d deemed important enough to disturb me during my misery.
I sat up on the side of the bed just as he arrived, standing before me as I scrubbed a hand down my face and yawned.
Porter’s eyes shifted from me to the empty other half of the bed. “You are alone?”
“You think I’d invite you here if I wasn’t?”
With lifted eyebrows, Porter replied, “So, she rejected you? I suppose that explains the sour mood, Baba.”
“Don’t call me that,” I groaned. “I’m not qualified to be anyone’s Baba.”
“Your blood and the prophecy qualify you. You know that. The ancestors assigned me as your guardian from the day you were born because you were always meant to be who you are…Baba.”
“A Baba, a chief who can’t even be with the woman he loves? A king with no queen?” I scoffed.
“She is your destiny, and you are hers. That, too, is a prophecy that will be fulfilled. Surely you know this. Isn’t that why you haven’t left?”
I nodded. “Yes. I believe she’ll be mine. I do. It’s just that seeing her, touching her, has eroded my patience.”
“I can imagine. She’s quite beautiful, Baba.”
“That she is, Porter.”
*****
A male child will be born of pure African blood, on the same day as the first Asili Baba, a day which is known according to the Gregorian calendar as December 31. He will be born during a storm, and his skin will bear the mark of his forefathers…
As that prophecy rolled over in my mind, I rubbed my finger over the mark behind my right ear, a mark easily missed if one was not looking for it. It was a small blob, a shapeless spot that somehow managed to be darker than my skin. It, along with everything else in that prophecy right down to the unusual Mississippi snowstorm that brought Brownhaven to halt on the day of my birth were the reasons I was not only an immortal, a first man, as my people termed it, but my people’s chief, a king among gods. But every king needs a queen, and the woman who’d always owned my heart was worlds away from me emotionally, although we were only streets apart in physical distance. Weeks had passed since I’d seen her. I was trying to give her time, not crowd or pressure her, but the urgency of my need for her grew with each second we were separated. Coming here, seeing her; that’d only made things worse for both of us. I knew that because we were connected. I could feel her confusion along with her desire for me. Shit, I could almost smell her arousal, her natural musk through the radio as she spoke.
“It’s your girl, Temple, coming to you with another request. Close your eyes, kings and queens, and let’s take a ‘Voyage to Atlantis’ with the Isley Brothers.” Her voice was like warm oil sliding over sore muscles. She sounded so damn good.
I closed my eyes, calling up images of her. Her in my chambers devouring oxtails and rice. Her listening intently as I explained the impossible to her, her beautiful wide, brown, almond eyes fixed on me, the rapid rise and fall of her chest as she became aware of what I’d done to her.
Then I found myself in that hotel room twenty years ago, kissing her, tasting her, fucking her, so deep inside her, I was sure that, even if it was just for a second, we became one person.
I shoved my hand inside my pajamas and gripped my dick as the distant sound of her moans rang in my ears.
“I love you, Temple. I always have, always will. I just…all I want is you,” I mumbled as I pumped my hand up and down my dick. I was the chief; if I wanted sex, there were countless immortal women who’d rush to my chambers back in Bilowga. Shit, I wasn’t a bad looking man; some might even say I was fine, handsome. So, finding a bed partner stateside wasn’t out of the question either, but the only woman I wanted to be inside of was Temple.
My sanctuary.
Behind closed eyelids, I imagined my mouth on her breast, my fingers inside her, her warm breath heavy and uneven as I pleased her. I massaged my dick faster and faster until I exploded., calling Temple’s name so loudly that I had to wonder if it’d flowed through the walls of my hotel room, down streets and around corners, right into her studio.
Temple
He was calling my name, his voice loud and tortured, desperate, echoing in my brain. His chords were thick with need and sorrow.
I was at work, earphones on as I basically sat in front of the computer staring into space, my mind on what it was always on—Sampson Ibrahim.
My thoughts were filled with images from our distant and recent past, his scent, his touch, and as one song ended and another began, I was with him. Not like before in Africa. This time, I knew I definitely wasn’t physically in his presence, but I could see him touching himself, his big hand gripping his bigger dick, working toward a release. His eyes were closed, his moans agonizing, and my name. At the precise moment he spilled his seed, my name flew from his mouth. And well, that made my pussy begin to throb uncontrollably.
I don’t know how I managed to make it through my show, but I did, although I was tempted to abandon ship, run into the nearest bathroom, and finger fuck myself into some relief. I held steadfast, signed off, and handed the reins over to the morning show host. Then I jumped in my car and hurried home to my vibrator and my bed.
10
Sampson
It was early when I stepped into the glass-enclosed shower and planted my ass on the built-in stone bench, my chin in my chest. I needed to contact her again, but my damn heart couldn’t take an outright rejection. Immortal or not, that shit would kill me.
A month had slipped off the calendar, and I was no closer to my destiny than I’d ever been. Maybe I just needed to give up, for now, come back in another twenty years. I honestly didn’t care if I had to wait another forty years to be with her. I was just afraid her time would run out before I could truly make her mine. All that mattered to me was being with her whenever, wherever, and however was possible.
I’m not sure how long I’d been sitting in that shower being strafed with hot water before I decided to turn the water off just in time to hear the knock at my room’s door—my standing breakfast order that I didn’t feel like eating. Nevertheless, I pulled on the complimentary robe provided by the Sable Inn and headed to the door, damn near passing out at the sight on the other side of it.