The Mystery Caller

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About five years ago I got a very mysterious telephone call.  Before I picked up I noticed that it was a Washington DC telephone number and the name associated with the number belonged to one Samantha Fox.

I picked up the phone and said hello.  The ladies voice on the other end said, Yes, Can I speak to Bernard, Bernard Bradshaw.

This is Bernard I responded.  Hi Bernard, This is Samantha, Samantha Fox!  How are you doing? she said happily.  I looked at the phone crazy.  I didn't know a Samantha.  I had never met a Samantha once in my entire life.  Who was this chick with the hyper voice calling me?

I'm sorry, but I don't know a Samantha. Where did we meet? I asked.  We met over ten years ago in Los Angeles at the NAACP Convention, I had the biggest crush on you, she said. 

I scanned my memory banks.  When I was a teenager, I went to a NAACP sponsored youth convention in Los Angeles.  And it was one of the best trips that I ever had. I was an awkward teenager with a tight little waist line at the time.  Then, Z. Cavarricci pants were huge, as were rayon print shirts, and patent leather (or Zodiac) shoes.  But I went to all of the parties that week, and I danced with a whole bunch of girls.  Madonna's Vogue was actually popular.  I remembered everyone I met that week. The boys and the girls--and I know that I didn't meet a Samantha Fox.

I'm sorry, but I don't remember meeting you in Los Angeles at that convention I told her.  You don't? she asked, and added, Well we exchanged telephone numbers and talked for weeks after that.  But we lost touch.

I'm sorry Ms. Fox, I interrupted.  There's no way we met.  That was a very memorable trip for me, because some very special things happened to me on that trip.  There's no way I would have forgotten you if we exchanged numbers.  Trust me.

What made the convention so special?  she asked.

I told her, Well for starters, I won an award while I was there.  So that was pretty memorable, but...  and I hesitated,  I met a really nice girl named Ze'eva.  And she and I stayed in contact for a minute and lost contact.  Is this you Ze'eva? I said excitedly.  It sounded like Ze'eva.  I remembered Ze'eva's voice was full of energy, bubbly and girly just like Samantha's voice was.

No honey, it's not Ze'eva. she said.

I didn't want to tell Ms. Fox the real reason why I remembered the trip to LA so vividly.  It was because of RYAN.  I met RYAN at the conference.  He was older than me, and had just graduated from high school.  He was a high yellow black boy with the cutest curliest hair.  He wore grey contacts, and had a little bit of facial hair. He smelled good, and was stylish.  My most vivid memory of him is in a pair of denim overalls wearing patent leather shoes, a loose fitted button up white dress shirt wearing a green tie with white polka dots--and the tie was partially undone.  Damn, he looked fly. 

Even though I was a junior in high school, I pretty much knew that RYAN was gay.  He was a little effeminate.  But he was so handsome.  I don't remember how we started talking.  But over the span of the weeklong conference we ran into each other everywhere--at the nightly dances, on the elevator, at lunch.  And after a while, we just started talking to each other and flirting.  But I never acknowledged or asked him if he was gay. 

On the night before I was to return home, I called RYAN in his hotel. We were both staying in Los Angeles's Westin Bonaventure, in the red tower.  I was on the 17th floor.  He was on the 18th.  It was three o'clock in the morning and I asked him to meet me in between floors on the stairwell.  He agreed. 

We sat in that stairwell next to each other and I felt so alive and electric.  I wanted to love him.  I wanted to grab him and hold him and never let him go because to me he was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and I just wanted him to touch me, kiss me--or just breathe on me.  Not much was said in that stairwell--but I managed enough courage to take the back of my hand and rub it on the stubble on his cheek.  As soft as he was, I loved feeling the prickly manhood sticking out of face.  We exchanged telephone numbers and addresses and we stayed in touch for the next few years as I got settled in to college.

And here was Samantha Fox, whose telephone presence was reminding me of my first teenage crush with a man that could have actually been realized.  But I wasn't about to tell this weirdo on the telephone about RYAN.  I didn't know who she was.  And I was beginning to think that she was some nosy bitch just out to get information on me.

I ended my RYAN flashback and got back to Samantha.  I said, Well Samantha, if you're not Ze'eva.  I don't know who you are.  I racked my brain.  Could it be Joy?  Joy was a girl that kinda had a crush on me at the conference.  Joy had a beautiful singing voice.  When she opened her mouth, I swear little magical birds came out of her lungs.  Her sound quality was so angelic and pure it made me want to cry on a few occasions.  But I avoided her, because as pretty as her face and voice were--I knew at that young age that I like boys.

I liked boys.

Boys like my roommate on that trip to LA.  He was a 17 year old high school graduate who had the muscular definitition of a 25 year old.  He was a little rowdy, but he and I got along.  And at night we would would sit and talk about how he would get angry when he would take girls to McDonald's on a date and they wouldn't give him any pussy afterwards.  His stories would simultaneously repulse and excite me. 

I thought back over my entire trip to LA with a smile.  I replayed the dozens of sexy black teenagers thatt I meton my trip.  Had I forgotten anyone?  Faces flashed in my head.  And then one face stayed fixed in my mind's eye.  I was pretty sure I knew who Samantha Fox was...

Comments

[FLAW]

how is it possible that you have the SAME telephone number as you did years earlier?

[JayJay]

your killing me....

[Fratman1906]

If it is who I think it is, I am ROTFLMAO!

[Reginald Pointdujour]

Jeez - as usual, the suspense kills me.

[noname]

Man..you are so full of shit..

[JP]

OH!!! I think I figured it out!

[Linear]

It took me a minute to figure out who Samantha is going to turn out to be.

Funny story. Life just circles about doesn't it.

[kristen]

thank you for (almost) finishing this story! now all i have to do is listen to the podcast and i'll be all set.

p.s.- is samantha fox who i think she is...

paz

[carl]

Uh Oh! .. I smell a shocker coming ...LOL

[Landfall]

Awggh, shucks, Bernard! You and them cliffhangers!

[E]

Hmmm...I think I have an idea..:-)