I stalled. “DU is one of the top schools in the state, Mama. You know that. Shoot, I’m lucky to be here.”
She smacked her lips. “Girl, stop acting innocent. You know that boy is coming up there to be with you. I figured he may as well spend the week with you since he gon’ be there while he’s checking out the place. Who knows? You two might find love again. Wouldn’t that be something?”
I was a bit annoyed that Mama knew more about Terrance’s personal life than I did. He hadn’t shared any of this information with me. That must be the real reason why he called me to begin with. Because DU offered him a scholarship and he thought he might as well get some from me while he was here. And she was so stupid, ushering him right into my bedroom.
“Well, he needs to find someplace else to stay because he can’t stay with me.”
“Ain’t nobody trying to say you have to sleep with him, silly girl. Just be hospitable. Help him to decide to take that scholarship.”
“I don’t care about any basketball scholarship,” I said.
“You should,” she informed. “I don’t see why you aren’t jumping through hoops right now. Come on, girl. This is what we both have been praying for.”
What the…?
“Praying for?”
“Yes. You and Terrance need to be together. You had a child together. It’s only right for you to be married.”
“Oh, Mama!”
I wished she wouldn’t always take things there. I was only eighteen and wasn’t trying to get married. Just because I had sex with him doesn’t mean I have to get married. That was a long time ago and I have my whole life to get married. Right now I need to focus on school. The fact that she’s still holding on to that high school crap shows how silly she really is.
“Look baby, go up there and be sweet to him. He’s sincerely thinking about you, and he has the potential to be a famous basketball star. If you get with him, when he rises to the top, you won’t have to worry about anything. You and your future children will be taken care of.”
Now I was starting to understand. “So this is about money?”
She huffed. “No, silly. I’m just looking out for you. You should at least give it a chance. You might find out that he’s really the one for you.”
“I gotta go,” I said and hung up without giving her a chance to say goodbye. There was no sense in trying to talk to her. It wouldn’t change a thing. Right now she didn’t deserve the standard daughter-to-mother protocol, anyway. Yes, Terrance was talented, and yes, he had a bright future ahead of him. But had she forgotten that this was the same person who slapped me down when I told him I was pregnant with his child? She was wrong for going behind my back with all of this and I was choosing to stay mad at her for it.
As I made my way back upstairs, all I could think about was what I would say to Terrance if he was still there. Would I fight him? Would I kick him? Would I do what I really wanted to do and cover him with kisses?
To my surprise, when I got to my room Terrance’s overnight bag was still in the hallway. The door was closed, so I had to use my cardkey to get inside. I found him sitting down on the couch with a look of regret on his face. Even sad he was fine. I hated to admit it, but it felt good that he was pursuing me again.
“Terrance…” I started.
“No, wait a minute,” he stopped me. “Let me.”
I sat beside him on the couch. When our eyes met I remembered what it was like to be intimate with him. My knees became weak.
“I’m sorry for just popping in on you unannounced like this,” he apologized. “I mean, when your mom told me to do it, I thought it would be a nice surprise. But now I see I was wrong and that I should have talked to you about it first. I’m sorry.”
He looked sincere enough.
“I forgive you,” I said.
He smiled, once again showing those pretty white teeth. They drew attention to his full lips, which were properly moisturized.
“But I gotta be honest with you,” he continued. “You’re not the only reason why I’m here.”
I pretended to be surprised, remembering fully what Mama had just told me on the phone.
“I’m not?”
“No,” he confessed. “Daytown is trying to recruit me to play basketball here next year. They heard I was looking for a school and paid for the trip, but my main reason for coming was you.”
I nodded, pretending to just now understand.
“Oh, I see,” I said. “And why is that?”
He slid closer to me. “Can I be real with you?”
“Yeah.”
“I still love you, Karen. And I wanna make this work. I might not ever get back into the NBA, but if I have you, none of that will matter.”
He was trying to run game. I was almost falling for it.
“You mean you would sacrifice your whole basketball career to be with me?”
He nodded.
“What if I don’t want you?”
He kissed me on the lips. “We both know you do,” he whispered, and kissed me again.
Oh my... I was quivering inside. He felt good next to me. It’d been a long time since I’d been kissed.
“No, Terrance,” I said and stood to my feet, only halfway fleeing from temptation.
“You gon’ stop me just like that?”
I didn’t answer. I was angry at myself for not being able to stay mad at him.
“That’s cold,” he chuckled. “Real cold.”
“Yeah, well, it is what it is.”
He walked over and wrapped his arms around me. “Where you learn to be so cold like that?”
I looked him in the eye. “From you.”
He stopped smiling, becoming somber. “What am I gon’ to have to do to get you back?”
At that moment I didn’t know. I was losing the good sense I’d prided myself in having. What was going on here? No guy had ever kissed me or even hugged me in over two years, and I’d let both happen in less than five minutes. He was making me crazy. Yesterday I thought I was starting to like him again, but that was over the phone when I thought he was miles and miles away. Now that he was here in front of me, holding me, looking and smelling this good and touching me…
“Stop,” I whispered, and unlaced his fingers from behind my back.
He pulled me back, but I shoved him away. He knew not to do it again.
“What?” he asked. He didn’t understand.
I smacked my lips, irritated. “Terrance, you don’t get it,” I tried to explain. “Things are different. I’m not the same person anymore. You can’t just come here and expect things to be cool. I mean, that may have been cool when I was in high school, but I don’t get down like that any more.”
He was insulted. “You think I came here for sex?”
I didn’t say anything, which only insulted him more.
“Girl, I could get that anywhere. I get it thrown at me all the time. I don’t care about that. I came here to spend time with a woman who I thought somewhere deep down inside still cared about me, because I still care about her. I came here because I thought that maybe, just maybe, if she would like, we could get to know each other all over again, on her terms.”
It sounded good. It sounded real good. But I wasn’t so easily convinced.
I looked him in the eye. “Tell me something, Terrance. When you were getting ready to come here, did you not think that you’d get some from me?”
His eyes drifted slightly to the right, then quickly returned their focus to me. It was too late. I saw it.
Before he had the chance to feed me a lie, I walked to the door and held it open for him. Both his visit and our conversation were over.
He slumped over to the door and stood in front of me.
“Look, I’m sorry alright,” he apologized. “I’m gon’ be here for a whole week, Karen. Please tell me we can at least kick it while I’m here. You know I’ve been dying to see you.”
I wanted to say no. I wanted to curse him out and tell
him not to ever come into my life again. He wasn’t even man enough to let me know that he was coming. He just came to get his scholarship and he thought he was going to get some from me in the process. I didn’t get down like that anymore, and it was time he realized it. This whole thing was my fault anyway, because I never should have started talking to him again.
“I’ll think about it,” I said against my better judgment.
“Cool.” Terrance walked past the door and stooped to pick up his duffle bag. “So I guess I’ll be seeing you then,” he said.
“I guess so,” I said, not believing what I was agreeing to.
“Until then, love,” he said, and walked away.
thirteen
Anaya
With my eyes still closed, I slid my hand across the cool satin sheets beneath me in search of my lover. I couldn’t wait to feel the stubble on his chin, the smoothness of his lips, and the firmness of his chest.
But he wasn’t there.
I opened my eyes and lifted my head. The Texas afternoon sun shone through the thin curtains of the windows and lit up the big room, revealing all of Reese’s designer bedroom furniture… and my heap of clothes of the floor. I tried to sit up, but the pain from last night resurfaced. I laid back down, smiling to myself as the pain faded and memories of my previous engagement came back to me.
I lost my virginity last night.
Although I struggled to build up enough nerve in the beginning, I finally showed him just how much I loved him. I dreamed that we’d wake up together and spend the rest of the day in bed doing nothing. I’d planned on waking up next to him and giving him a good morning hug and kiss, and afterward just cuddling and talking, but he was already up. He was probably in the kitchen making me breakfast.
I always thought losing my virginity was going to be some wonderful experience, where my future lover would give me a warm bubble bath in a big bathroom full of lit candles with soft music playing in the background. Then he would give me a nice massage and rub me down with scented oils and tell me how much he loved me. Then he’d dress me in a long white night gown and carry me to the bed where he’d cover me with kisses and slowly make love to me all night long. Those were my dreams, but last night my experience with Reese wasn’t anything like that. He sexed the mess out of me, that was no doubt, but I wished he would have gone a little slower.
Once he got me in his bedroom and undressed, he went straight to work. I cried and begged him to slow down, but he kept right on going until he was satisfied, which took way longer than I thought it would. I couldn’t be mad at him, though. He was probably used to loose women and didn’t know how to take his time and make love slowly. And if I was going to be with him I was going to have to learn how to keep up. He probably just didn’t know what to expect with a first-timer like me. But I knew that he loved me, and that was all that mattered.
WHACK!
I jumped when the bedroom door swung open. Reese, being careless, let it smack against the wall. I was sure the doorknob was going to leave a mark on the wall, but he didn’t seem to be concerned at all about his new place. He was cradling a bowl of cereal in one hand and had a spoon in the other.
“You finally up?” he asked between smacks of his sugar coated breakfast. “You been sleeping all day.”
I frowned at the thin trail of milk running down his chin and onto his white tank top.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“It’s almost three. Come on, I got stuff I gotta do today.”
I looked past the childish stickiness on his face and propped my head against my arm. “I’m hungry, baby. Aren’t you gonna make me breakfast?” I asked sweetly.
Reese held the cereal bowl up to his mouth and took a long slurp of the remaining milk, then burped loudly and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“We gotta go,” he said. “Hurry up and get dressed.”
I didn’t like the way this was going. What happened to the breakfast he was supposed to be in the kitchen making for me?
“Well, can I at least take a shower first?”
He shook his head, growing impatient. “Girl, I don’t have time. I got a session that starts in thirty minutes and I gotta take you home. Now come on, let’s go.”
I watched in disbelief as he walked out of the room. In pain and suddenly feeling cheap, I slowly crawled out of the bed and picked my clothes up from the floor.
What happened to the love?
fourteen
Karen
I was standing at the stove melting a ham and cheese sandwich when someone knocked on the door. I never had any visitors, so I knew it was Terrance. I was glad. Since he’d showed up on campus, he was all I could think about.
“Who is it?” I asked, walking the short distance to the front door.
No response. I looked through the peephole and saw Terrance standing there grinning from ear to ear.
“Who is it?” I asked again, staring straight at him. I wanted him to answer me.
“Man, who you think it is?” he joked.
I giggled and opened the door. He stepped past me and walked inside.
“Excuse me,” I stopped him. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Why you tryin’ ‘ta act tough, girl? You know you want me in here.”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
He ignored it. “What you got goin’ on today?” he asked.
I sighed and closed the front door. “Well, unlike you, I have final exams to study for.”
“Yeah,” he grinned. “Everybody runnin’ ‘round, flippin’ out over those things.”
“Yeah. You would be too if you had five of them to study for.”
“I seriously doubt that,” he bragged.
“Why?”
He pretended to dribble a basketball. “’Cause, girl, I got skills. What professor you know gon’ flunk me wit’ the way I dunk?”
I turned back to my ham and cheese melt. “You want one?”
“What you in here tryin’ to cook, girl?”
I held the sandwich up with my spatula. “Ham and cheese. I got more bread, cheese, and ham left. It’ll only take a few minutes.”
He frowned. “No thanks. You wanna go to the gym and watch me hoop?”
I grinned. This part of Terrance still hadn’t changed. He was still a big-headed showoff, but he could back up everything he bragged about.
“For how long?” I asked. In high school he could play for hours on end. I had studying to do.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. But I’ll tell you what, lil’ mama. As soon as you get ready to leave, we’ll be out. We don’t have to stay long ‘cause they don’ already seen me play plenty of times. That’s why they want me.”
“Listen to you.’”
“What can I say?”
I turned the stove off and put the sandwich on a plate. “Just let me eat this and change my clothes. Then I’ll be ready, okay? Give me about ten minutes.”
I hurried into my room and quickly rummaged through my things. I needed something that showed off my figure, but it couldn’t be too sexy. Snacking on the sandwich, I finally picked out a pair of skinny leg jeans and a thin long sleeved button up blouse. It was a little dangerous to wear in December, but one great thing about Texas was that even the coldest day had a little bit of summertime in it. I would just have to bring a jacket with me and be back by five o’clock.
I took my shirt off and exchanged my cute jeans for the tighter pair. I was just buttoning them up when I felt the presence of someone else in the room with me.
I turned around quickly and gasped. Terrance was standing right there watching me, getting an eyeful.
“Terrance!” I grabbed my blouse and held it across my chest. “What are you doing?”
He held out my cell phone.
“Um, your phone,” he tried to explain.
He was just as shocked as I was, but I didn’t know if it was because he saw me half naked or because of my anger.
<
br /> “Who is it?” I snapped. It had better be either Jesus or President Obama on the telephone.
“It’s your mom,” he said, dangling the phone. “I told her you were changing, but she said to give you the phone anyway.”
He stood there watching me. Then his eyes began to travel downward. I felt like a piece of meat.
“Terrance!”
He brought his eyes back up to my face. “Want me to tell her to call you back?”
“YES!”
He nodded, but didn’t leave.
“Get out!” I screamed.
He hurried out of the room and closed the door behind him. I flopped down on the bed and buried my face in my hands. Whatever happened to knocking? This situation with Terrance was getting out of hand. It had only been two days since he got here, and he’d already seen me without my shirt on. What was next? Was he going to walk in on me while I was in the shower?
He knocked on the door.
“What, Terrance?” I asked, growing more and more impatient with him.
“My bad, Karen,” he apologized. “I thought you would have been all changed by now, that’s why I came in. I’m sorry, a’ight? I didn’t mean to walk in on you and I know you mad.”
I put my shirt on and fastened a belt around my waist. When I finished I opened the door.
“Knock next time,” I said to him, grinding my teeth. “As a matter of fact, always knock.”
He looked down at me with sad eyes. “Yes, ma’am.”
I walked past him and the two of us left for the gym.
**********
“Ooohhhhh!” the crowd in the gym echoed hysterically. It didn’t take long for everyone to realize that Terrance was there, and once they found out he was going to play, the place filled up quickly. Luckily, Terrance reserved a spot for me on the first row next to a few of the guys on the team. The people in the crowd were pushing and pulling each other, all out of excitement for what Terrance was doing on the court. They loved him.
“Oohh, girl he can play,” an excited onlooker said to the person next to her.
“Yes he can,” the friend replied. “You know if he comes here he will definitely put Daytown on the map. We’ll win everything! And he is so fine!”
Casting Down Imaginations Page 10
