The Cocoa Butter Chronicles
"Tamika runs the most popular Black-owned skincare boutique in Oakland. When a fine customer keeps coming back for samples, she discovers the real product he wants isn't on the shelves."
Melanin Magic Skincare is my baby.
Took me fifteen years to build—from mixing shea butter in my mama's kitchen to this beautiful boutique on Telegraph Avenue. We specialize in products for Black skin by Black hands. Every cream, every oil, every treatment formulated by me.
I'm Tamika Chen, forty-seven years old, and I know skin.
What I don't know is how to handle the man who keeps showing up.
He came in three weeks ago.
"Looking for something for my mother," he said. "She's got dry skin. Can't find anything that works."
I walked him through the products. Recommended the cocoa butter blend with vitamin E. Watched his hands—strong, careful—as he tested the sample on his wrist.
"Smooth," he said, but he was looking at me.
"That's the point."
He bought three jars.
He came back a week later.
"My mother loved it." That smile again—devastating in a face that looked maybe forty. "Now I need something for myself."
"What's your concern?"
"Rough patches. Here." He touched his elbow. "And here." His hand moved to his neck, just below his jaw.
I should have given him a sample and sent him on his way.
Instead, I said, "Let me see."
His skin was warm under my fingers.
I examined his elbow professionally, recommended an exfoliating treatment. When I moved to his neck, he stood very still.
"You have great hands," he said quietly.
"Occupational necessity."
"I mean it." His eyes met mine. "Has anyone told you that before?"
My breath caught. "Not recently."
"Their loss."
His name is Derrick.
Forty-two, recently relocated from Atlanta for work, doesn't know anyone in Oakland. He's been coming to my shop every few days now—always with questions, always needing recommendations.
"I think he likes you," my assistant Keisha says.
"He likes the products."
"Girl." She gives me a look. "Nobody needs that much cocoa butter."
Today he comes in at closing.
"Tamika." He says my name like it means something. "I need a consultation."
"We're about to close—"
"Private consultation." He holds up a bottle of wine. "I'll compensate you for your time."
I should say no. Should lock up and go home to my empty apartment and my skincare routine and the silence that's been my life since the divorce.
"Let me turn the sign," I say.
We sit in the back room where I do custom consultations.
He pours the wine—something expensive, something red. Our fingers brush when he hands me the glass.
"What's this really about, Derrick?"
"You." No hesitation. "It's been about you since day one."
"I'm forty-seven—"
"I'm forty-two. Math checks out."
"I'm not..." I gesture at myself. The thick waist. The heavy breasts. The body that hasn't been touched in three years. "I'm not what men usually—"
"You're exactly what this man wants." He sets down his glass. "If you're interested."
I'm interested.
I've been interested since he first walked in, though I buried it under professionalism and self-doubt. But he's here, and he's willing, and the wine is warm in my belly.
"Show me," I say.
He crosses to me, takes my hands, pulls me to my feet.
"You sell products that make people feel good in their skin." His hands find my waist. "Do you feel good in yours?"
"Sometimes."
"Not good enough." He kisses my neck, right where he showed me those 'rough patches.' "Let me help."
He undresses me slowly.
Unbuttons my blouse, unhooks my bra, slides my skirt down my hips. I try to cover myself—habit—and he moves my hands.
"I've been dreaming about this," he says. "Don't hide from me."
"Derrick..."
"You're gorgeous, Tamika. Every curve. Every inch."
He produces cocoa butter from his pocket—my own product—and warms it in his hands.
He massages me.
Not foreplay—actual massage. Skilled hands working the tension from my shoulders, my back, my thighs. The cocoa butter makes everything slick and warm.
"You carry everything here," he murmurs, working a knot in my lower back.
"I run a business—"
"You run yourself ragged." His hands move lower. "When's the last time someone took care of you?"
"I don't remember."
"Then let's make a new memory."
His fingers find me slick from more than butter.
"There we go," he murmurs against my ear. "That's what I wanted to feel."
"Derrick—"
"Shh. Just feel."
He works me with buttered fingers until I'm gasping, until I'm begging, until I come so hard I forget my own name.
"The couch," I manage. "Now."
We barely make it. He strips quickly, and I see what I've been imagining—thick, dark, ready.
"Your turn," he says, lying back. "Take what you need."
I straddle him, sink down slowly, and we both groan.
Riding him in my back room, surrounded by the products I've spent my life creating—it feels like coming home.
"So good," he groans, hands gripping my hips. "So beautiful—"
"Harder—"
"Take it. It's yours."
He plants his feet and drives up into me, and I forget about the shop, the divorce, the loneliness.
All I know is this—his body and mine, moving together, building toward something spectacular.
"I'm close," I gasp.
"Me too. Together?"
"Together."
We shatter simultaneously, my cries mixing with his in the small room.
Afterward, we lie tangled on the couch, covered in cocoa butter and satisfied.
"So," he says. "Same time next week?"
"You want to do this again?"
"Tamika." He props himself up to look at me. "I want to do this regularly. Preferably at your place, or mine, where we have an actual bed."
"You want to date me?"
"I want to date you. I want to take you to dinner. I want to meet your friends. I want..." He kisses me softly. "I want all of it. If you're willing."
I think about my life.
Fifteen years building a business. Three years of post-divorce solitude. Decades of believing no one could want a thick, workaholic woman with cocoa butter under her fingernails.
"I'm willing," I say.
His smile is worth every year of waiting.
Melanin Magic Skincare adds a new product line six months later.
"For Lovers," it's called. Massage oils, sensual butters, romantic blends.
Derrick helps develop the formulas.
Tests them with me every night.
Business has never been better.
Neither has life.