Bill was washing potatoes at the sink on Mary’s station. He was gonna leave them in the sink, fill up the hors d’oeuvre trays and carry them down. Most of the hors d’oeuvres were sitting on the shelves in the convection oven, the oven where the baked potatoes were cooked. Alfreda stepped up behind him at the sink and helped herself to an immodest feel of him. For his part, Bill tried to but could not quite sidestep her, and as she pressed him into the sink so he couldn’t step away, she could feel him responding to her touch.
“You like that, huh white boy?” She pressed harder on him and tried to work her hand inside his kitchen pants. “Think me and Bea and Mary don’t talk about you? You know I’m starting to feel left out.”
“Jesus Christ,” Bill said. Then an impulse hit him. The water still running, he turned from the sink, grabbed Alfreda tight. He forced his lips over hers and pressed his tongue into her mouth. As he kissed her, he reached under her dress. When his fingers reached where they aimed and he began to explore her, she melted in his arms and ravaged him with her own kisses.
“You know we have to get back,” he said.
“Don’t punk out on me, baby. I’m telling you it’s okay.”
“It ain’t okay.”
“We have to finish this,” she said.
“We don’t have to finish anything. We need to get our asses back downstairs and be at the party with Mr. Jim and his family.”
“C’mon,” Alfreda said. “We got a few minutes and no one’s coming up here. Take me into Tommy’s office and do me.”
“I’ll do you, when hell freezes over,” Bill said.
All this while Bill’s hand was exploring up under Alfreda’s dress. For her it was a mission accomplished. Appearing to have given up the fight since she didn’t respond to what he said, she reached under her skirt and helped Bill’s hand do exactly what she wanted it to do. She was well on her way to getting exactly what she came upstairs for so she closed her eyes and kissed Bill again, long, hard and deep.
It was over when Alfreda had had a nice shiver. She started to get down on her knees but Bill stopped her.
“What’s a matter baby? I can do it real fast,” she said, licking her lips with her tongue.
“Not here, not now.”
“Come on, live dangerously.”
“Goddammit,” Bill said. “Not now.”
Again Alfreda did not bother to take up the fight. Somewhere deep inside her, Bill would find out later, she already knew that she had him and that she would have him and that there was nothing poor Bill could do to stop her. He would find this out on the floor of the Suburban van, while Alfreda straddled him and helped herself to more of him than any woman should have been having except for his fiancé. Only by the grace of God—and a lot of things were happening by the grace of God although Bill could not see it at the time—Bill’s fiancé was up in Cleveland celebrating the new year and the school’s vacation break with her parents and friends.
So they went back down to the party room, each of them carrying trays of hors d’oeuvres to set into the steam table. This they did, each of them, efficiently and deftly. Having emptied their trays, they placed them on a bus boy stand in the corner the party room. Bill immediately went over to the bar and took himself a glass half-full with bourbon. Alfreda followed him and because the bar was open and she could have what she wanted to drink, she had Bebe fix her a vodka and tonic.
While they were both at the bar Henry Lee sidled over. “Been upstairs of my wife, huh?” he said to Bill.
