"Sounds like a favor for him, not me. Not interested."
"Tasha, don't make me ruin this for you. Just tell me where you are, so he can come see you. Hear him out. If you don't like what he says, then be done. But hear him out."
Tasha nervously curled a finger into her hair and began twirling it around, as she thought about what Ruth said. Don't make ruin this for you? Ruin what? Tom already ruined it.
"Tasha? Hello?"
"Yeah, yeah. I'm here. I'm at the St. Francis apartments. 7G."
"Great, thank you," Ruth said. "He'd like you to be dressed and ready to go in one hour. Something formal."
"What? Why?"
"He asked me not to tell. But I will say this, from me to you."
"Yeah?"
"You seem like a really wonderful person. He was a fool to treat you like he did. Good night, Tasha."
At the click of the phone, Tasha's mind raced. Formal dress? Ready to go? Who does he think he is? Tasha wasn't doing anything but waiting for him to get there and see what he was up to. Probably just missed getting his dick sucked, she thought. Take me to some out of town restaurant where only he gets to see me. Tasha headed back out to the living room, with Emma still sitting on the couch.
"Who's that?" she asked.
"Tom's secretary. He's coming here."
"What?? Here? Now? Tasha, that's great!"
"Maybe," she said. "Maybe."
Tasha told Emma about the conversation, and they spent the next hour waiting for him, theorizing what he might be up to. They were certain an apology was happening. Beyond that, they could only guess. Emma urged Tasha to get ready, to go put something on and be ready to go, but Tasha refused.
"Fuck that," she said. "He likes to be the one to set the times and places—he likes to tell me where to be and when to get there. If he wants to take me out, he can ask me properly."
A little more than an hour later, Tasha's phone rang again. This time it was Tom. She answered, gruffly.
"Yeah?"
"Hi, Tash. Hey." Silence on the line.
Tasha gave her best annoyed voice, and repeated, drawing out the one syllable, "Yeahhh??"
"Are you alone? I want to talk to you alone."
"No, Emma's here. It's her place, I'm not going to ask her to leave," Tasha said. Emma mouthed very exaggeratedly "I WILL GO, IT'S OK," but Tasha waved her back and made a face that said she was being ridiculous.
"Well, can you come down here, then?" Tom asked. "I don't want to do this on the phone."
Tasha hung up on him, and then walked over to the window. She opened it up and stuck her head out, looked down and saw Tom pacing the sidewalk. He was dressed in a tuxedo, his stretch black limo parked on the street and idling. She shouted down.
"What do you want?"
"I want to talk!" he yelled up.
"Then talk!"
"Here?"
"You said you didn't want to do it on the phone."
"Well, I don't want to shout it out for the whole city to hear!"
"This is my city, Tom," she yelled. "These are all my people. Anything you have to say to me, you can say to them, too!"
Tom threw his hands up in the air. He was out of options.
"Fine!" he said. "I love you! I'm sorry! Please don't leave me out here by myself, because I'm tired of being alone with how I feel!"
Tasha was stunned. Did he just shout that he loved her? Out there? For her whole city to hear?
"I'll be right down," she said.
Tasha pulled her head back inside, and looked at Emma, who's jaw had come to rest somewhere on the floor beneath her. Tasha ran out the apartment's front door, past the elevators and to the stairwell, and then down seven flights of steps as fast she could make it. She slammed into the stairwell door's crash bar and startled everyone in the lobby of the building, which she didn't notice as she ran right past them and out the front door. Tom was waiting there, bouquet of flowers in hand and arms outstretched. Tasha ran right to him, but stopped about 10 feet short.
"What is this?" she demanded. "What are you up to?"
"I'm not up to anything. I haven't been up to anything since you walked out."
"Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?"
"No!" Tom protested. "You're supposed to love me like you said you did. Look, I'm sorry. I was scared. Of a lot of things. But all this time without you, and you're all I think about. I love you. I don't care who knows it. I'll shout it again, if you want."
Tasha's face broke into a smile. "No, that's alright," she told him. "I believe you."
"So, this is the part," Tom said, "where you run into my arms and we kiss passionately."
"No way," Tasha said. "You can run into my arms. You want to love me, you've got to drop that sugar daddy routine. Treat me like an equal."
Tom moved closer to her, slowly. He was hesitant on the first step, but when she saw him move, Tasha stretched her arms wide to receive him and his movement became quicker. They embraced, and kissed, arms wrapped tight around each other like they'd never let go, until Tom pulled back and looked at her right in the eyes.
"I love you, Tash," he told her. "I don't want to hide you anymore. Will you join me tonight?"
"Where are you going?"
"Churchill Downs. I belong to some CEO council, and once a year we have a huge party there. Mint Juleps, Hot Brown sandwiches, live music, the whole nine. I'm getting an award tonight, and I'd be honored if you'd stand by my side."
Tasha beamed. "The honor is all mine, Mr. Finch."
* * *
Tasha had never seen anything like this party. They were right out in the middle of Churchill Downs, the track of the Kentucky Derby encircling the festivities. She looked around in amazement at the extravagance of it all. Ice sculptures, open bar, platters and platters of every type of food imaginable. A twenty piece swing band played up on a makeshift stage, and hundreds of Louisille and Cincinnati’s wealthiest people all congregated on the turf, laughing and dancing and hobnobbing. But as new and exciting as all this was, Tasha felt completely out of place. She was the only black person there who wasn't serving something, and many of the guests were giving her dirty looks, especially the women, as they watched her stand arm in arm with Tom. The only woman who didn't look at her with malevolent envy handed her an empty an empty plate and crumpled napkin, asking Tasha politely to dispose of the trash. Before Tasha could tell her she was a guest, the woman had already put the plate in Tasha's hands and walked away.
"Tom, I'm really uncomfortable here," she told him.
"I know, baby. But look at all these people. They're even more uncomfortable," Tom joked, and he laughed, but Tasha wasn't finding the humor in it.
"Look, I appreciate you taking me out tonight, and out among your colleagues, especially," she said. "But I think I'd like to go now."
"We can't, Tash," Tom explained. "I've got to get my award. And it's not going to work between you and I if we stay in hiding." Tom grabbed her hands in his. "I really want this to work. To hell with these people."
The band started playing a down tempo number, and Tom asked Tasha to dance. They moved in to the scrum of people dancing, wrapped their arms around one another and swayed back and forth. Tasha rested her head in Tom's chest, and he held her close. They both had their eyes closed, and wore huge smiles on their faces. They almost didn't notice that the band had stopped, but when the crowd applauded, they came to and clapped along. Just then, a portly white man waddled out to the microphone, and tapped it three times to get everyone's attention.
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. How're y'all doing tonight?" he asked.
A modest smattering of cheers and applause from the audience answered his question.
"Well, folks. Every year I have the distinct privilege to present to one of our own with a Community Service Award, to honor the man or woman in our business community who goes above and beyond in putting their assets on the line for something greater than profit. Our recipient this year needs no in
troduction, but maybe his philanthropy does. How many of y'all knew that Tom Finch outfitted every underfunded public school in his hometown of Cincinnati with state of the art computer labs? How many knew that he pays for the salary of each teacher the schools needed to hire to teach on those computers? Tom has single handedly brought thousands of kids into the 21st cenury through his generosity, and each one of those kids is better equipped to make it in our tech driven economy. Please give a warm welcome to our 2013 Community Service Award recipient, Mr. Tom Finch!"
Tom's applause was not the thunderous, raucous welcome he would have expected, given the intro he'd just received and his usually positive relationship with the members of the party. It's not that he did it for the cheers, but the lack of it right now underscored how much he'd alienated the so-called polite southern society. He stepped up on the stage and took the mic. In his hands were note cards with the bullet points of his Thank You speech written out.
"Ladies and Gentlemen," he began, "I want to thank you for the very warm and welcoming round of app—" He stopped. He looked back out the audience, a sea of expressionless faces and blinking eyes. "Oh, bullshit," he finally said. Gasps were heard from the audience.
"Might as well forget about these," he said, as he threw his notes to the ground. "See, this was written with the expectation that you'd all be happy for me. You'd all applaud me, if not for me, then you'd applaud for you, because you all voted for me to get this damn award. But I've seen the looks you've been giving me all night. I get an award if I help some anonymous inner city kid get a leg up in school and compete with your kids. That's OK for you, and we can call that progress, I guess. But what did you think was going to happen when we gave those kids opportunities? Did you think they'd stay in their slums? Did you think that if we gave them the tools to succeed they wouldn't have any success? Because I'm looking out at a whole bunch of unhappy white faces now, and I can only guess why."
The silence was overwhelming. Nobody dared breathe, for fear of missing what would happen next, whatever that was going to be.
"Tasha, would you come up here with me?"
Tasha looked stricken. No way did she want to get up on that stage and invite whatever small mindedness would head her way.
"Please?" Tom asked. "I can't do this alone, and I don't know anybody stronger than you."
Reluctantly, Tasha got up on the stage. All was silent. A cool breeze blew in to the field, and everybody waited and watched to see what would happen next. Tasha took the long walk across the stage to the side where Tom was. As she approached, he reached his hands out for hers, and when their hands met he pulled her in and kissed square on the lips. More gasps from the audience.
"Folks, this is Tasha. Tonight, Tasha made me a lucky man, by accepting me back into her life. She forgave me for treating her much like you all have been treating her tonight. I'm telling you this, because I bet if each and every one of you makes the decision to stop looking at her as something different, she'll likely forgive you, too. That's the kind of person she is. You all are going to have to get used to her being around me, because I intend to keep her around as long as she'll have me, so long as I deserve her."
Tom turned towards Tasha, and reached his free hand into his pocket.
"Baby?" Tom said to her, as he removed his other hand from the pocket.
He got down one knee. Tasha's hands flew up to cover her face in disbelief.
"Will you make me even happier than I thought possible, and marry me?" Tom asked.
Tasha didn't even have to think on it. "Oh my god! Yes!" she said. And Tom slipped a ring on to her finger.
He stood up and held her close, leaned in and kissed her. He kissed her long and unashamedly, his hands holding her face as their lips and tongues gave every one in that audience something to talk about.
"Good," he said into the microphone. "Now let's get the hell out of here."
Tom dropped the mic onto the stage, which landed with a loud clunk and squealed feedback out to the everyone before the soundman could cut the volume to it. Tom took Tasha by the hand and led her off the stage, across the field, and out of Churchill Downs. They found the limo and got inside.
"Can you take us to St. James Court?" Tom asked the driver, and then closed the privacy partition. When Tom saw the confusion on Tasha's face, he said, "Of course, I didn't sell the place. I got it for you. It's yours."
"You mean ours," Tasha said.
Tom smiled. He put his left arm around Tasha, and put his right hand on her inner thigh. They kissed, sweetly and passionately. Tom moved his hand up her skirt. Having her in his arms felt comfortable, familiar, safe.
"I can't wait to get home," Tasha said.
"I'm already there," Tom replied.
Also by Sasha Collins
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Confessions Of The Secret Call Girl
Interracial Sex Stories Collection: Seducing White Guys Vol.1 (BWWM)
Interracial Romance Stories: My White Sugar Daddy (BWWM)
My White Sugar Daddy Page 7
