A Special Relationship

by Yvonne Thomas

  “He is able, Carrie, and I don’t want you to ever forget that.”

  “I’m not forgetting it. Of course I’ll never forget that. But. . . I thought God would appreciate me more. I thought the sacrifices I’ve made in my life would somehow make me special in His eyes.”

  “You are special in His eyes.”

  Carrie immediately began shaking her head. “I’ve failed Him,” she said.

  “Carrie—”

  “It’s true. Don’t tell me it’s not true because it is. I should have been more faithful. I should have depended on Him more for my survival, for my companionship. If I would have I wouldn’t have never went anywhere with Mona. But I was so lonely.” She said this and turned her face away from Robert. Robert inhaled such a deep sigh of anguish that it made his head hurt.

  “But at least I would have been home,” she went on, “when the shooting started. Millie would have been up at my apartment, instead of witnessing to people on the street, which is what I’m sure she was doing, when the shooting started.”

  “Honey, don’t do that. You can’t change fate.”

  Carrie turned her back to him. “I could have tried,” she said and that did it. She felt Robert’s hands on her body as he slid her further over in the bed. Then she felt the pressing down of the mattress and suddenly his large body next to hers. She turned around and found herself looking into the most caring eyes she’d ever seen. And as if those eyes were demanding that she cry, she did and fell into Robert’s arms.

  Robert held her tightly and then rolled her on top of him, for an even firmer hold on her. He rubbed her hair and listened to her cry into his chest. She cried, off and on, all night. When she wasn’t crying she was lamenting her life, her decisions, her bitterness over what had happened to such a good soul as Millie Rawlings. That was why Robert was imploring her to pray, to trust God through this, to lean on Him. That bitterness would destroy her. That sense of uselessness would be her undoing. And he himself prayed to God that it would not be so. His prayer life had become practically non-existent before Carrie fell into his life. Now, at this moment in time, it was all he knew to do. He prayed for Carrie, for this sweet young lady he had in his arms. He prayed for Carrie all night long.

  ***

  She woke up early the next morning alone in bed. She felt her hand around the bed for Robert since the last thing she remembered last night was lying on top of him, but he wasn’t there. The idea of being alone in some strange hotel room suddenly made her feel panicky and she immediately began kicking the covers off of her and sitting up. With Robert there she felt safe and secure. Now she just felt alone.

  She looked down at her now wrinkled white shorts and the torn green blouse that now was completely parted since the few remaining buttons gave way some time during the night. And looking at those clothes slowed her back down and reminded her of why she was sleeping in a strange hotel room to begin with. Millie was dead. That was why. Mona was heartless. That was why. And Carrie’s own life, this so-called life as she now was beginning to view it, was an unqualified mess.

  “Slept well?” a male’s voice suddenly said into her thoughts and she quickly jerked her head up and across the room. Robert, putting on the suit coat of what seemed like a brand new black suit with a crisp shirt and tie, was standing across that room staring at her. He looked so tall and handsome in that small room that for a brief few moments she didn’t even realize that her shirt was gaped wide open and her bra was being revealed. All she realized was that she needed comfort last night and Robert gave it to her. He didn’t have to. He could have brought her to the hotel, a kind gesture in and of itself, and left her there to cry alone. But he stayed with her. He listened to her cry, he begged her not to give up on her faith in God, and he held her all night long. He was a good man, was what she was coming to realize. The only one she’d ever met.

  “I slept better than I thought I would,” she finally said. “Thanks to you.”

  She could tell right away that Robert didn’t care for those last few words. He even seemed to almost wince when she said them. “Glad I could be of help,” he said as he pulled the cuff of his shirt sleeve down underneath his suit coat and began looking down the length of her.

  Carrie noticed that his eyes seemed to be looking over her body more than they usually did, and it was only then that she realized why. She grabbed her open blouse and slowly pulled it around her. Robert actually smiled as he looked away. She’d been lying on top of him all night with that same blouse opened wider than that without even thinking about it. Now she was embarrassed. He almost shook his head. She was so naive, he thought. So YOUNG. “I’ve got to get to the office,” he said as he walked over by the bed and began picking up his watch, his wallet, and his keys.

  “You look like you’ve already been out shopping.”

  “This suit?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I had it brought up. There’s an outfit for you in the living room. It’s small so it should hopefully fit. But I’ll call you later. Just try to get some rest today.”

  Carrie ran her hand through her uncombed hair. She was still sleepy, there was no doubt about it, but there was no way she could just lay there and rest all day. Millie, after all, was dead. It seemed almost obscene for her to even think about resting.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked. He had moved and was now standing directly over her. She looked up at him, up into those eyes of his, and she exhaled. “What am I gonna do?”

  “You’re going to keep on living, Carrie, and do what you can.”

  “But Millie’s dead.”

  “She’s in God’s hands now. There’s nothing you can do for her now.”

  Carrie shook her head and looked away. She felt so helpless. But Robert was right as usual, she thought. Millie was in God’s hands now.

  Robert stared down at Carrie and it took all of the willpower within him to stop himself from taking her in his arms once again. She was in so much pain, so much anguish, but he didn’t see how attaching her to him could possibly help her in the long run. She needed to figure things out for herself. He got her out of that hell hole she called her home. She was safe here. But where did she go from here and how she choose to live her life from this day onward was up to her.

  He placed his hand on her small chin and lifted her face back up to his. Her eyes looked like a sea of green, almost droopy they were so tired, and he smiled. “I want you to stop worrying, Carrie,” he said. “You understand me? You’re going to be okay.”

  Carrie looked at him and nodded. He stared at her a moment longer and he suddenly couldn’t help himself. He leaned down and gave her a kiss on her lips. He could feel her lips quivering beneath his, which only excited him more, and he found himself lifting her up from the bed and kissing her even more passionately. She wrapped her arms and legs around him and allowed the contact, although it was amazing even to her that she was allowing it. Dale had wanted to kiss her this way, and many other men, but she’d always said no way. Not before she got married. Now she wasn’t even dating Robert, she was, in fact, just barely acquainted with him, and she was not only allowing him to kiss her, but to ram his tongue down her throat and have his way with her. But it felt so good and she felt so vulnerable that she couldn’t break away even if she wanted to.

  Robert couldn’t break away either, although every fiber of his being was screaming for him to do just that. But he couldn’t. There was something about this girl that was turning him inside out. The way she made him feel was just the tip of this iceberg. She was making him feel unlike he’d ever felt before. And he couldn’t get enough of her as he rubbed her hair and her back and pulled her closer and closer to him, as he drug her deeper and deeper down into the abyss he called his life. A woman like her couldn’t turn this stuff on and off the way he could. A woman like her couldn’t appreciate that they were just caught up in the moment and that was all there was to it. And it was that very thought, that he was ruining her, that he was taki
ng advantage of her, that he was starting something he had no intentions of finishing, that made him regain his senses and finally leave her alone.

  Carrie, however, felt empty when he stopped filling her up with his kisses. Even when he tried to release her, when he tried to sit her back on the bed, she wouldn’t let him go. She held him and hung onto him as if she was clinging to him. She wasn’t normally so needy, she wasn’t normally so dependent on somebody else, but she felt that way about Robert. She needed him right now. She needed to know that she wasn’t alone out here right now. But he didn’t need her, she thought, as he forcefully removed her small arms from around his neck and laid her down on the bed anyway. “I’ve got to go, Carrie,” he said.

  “When will you be back?”

  Robert exhaled. He’d done it now, he thought. “I’ll call you later.”

  Carrie saw it in his eyes. “You aren’t coming back, are you?”

  “Carrie—”

  “It’s all right,” she said. “I just would like to know, that’s all.”

  “Listen to me. This isn’t about me. This is about what you want to do with your life. The job offer is still open at Dyson and I’ll help you get settled if that’s what you want. But it has to be what you want. What I don’t want is for you to lay around here dreaming up ways to latch yourself onto me because that’s not what you need right now. I’m the last thing you need. You understand, Carrie?”

  It felt like a slap in the face. And she understood it very well. She knew what ‘get lost’ sounded like, no matter how he tried to dress it up. “Yes, I understand,” she said, refusing to reveal her distress. He smiled, he actually smiled, told her goodbye, and then he left.

  And so did she. As quickly as she could shower and put on the clothes he had purchased for her, a pair of jeans and a shell shirt, both of which were too tight, she left that fancy-dancy hotel that she didn’t belong in anyhow. She needed to pay her condolences to Millie’s family. She needed to check to see if Mona made it out of that hellish party okay last night. And most importantly, she needed to go into the privacy of her room and pray. Long and hard. She committed a sin with Robert this morning when she allowed him to kiss all on her the way he did, she wasn’t about to try and make that sound innocent because it felt way too good for it not to have been wrong. Then the way he all but told her to get lost as if he had no feelings for her whatsoever, as if he was just using her for a momentary pleasure toy, made her all the more certain that she had to give penance. And that she had to get away and stay away from Robert Kincaid as quickly as she possibly could.

  NINETEEN

  The knocks on the door were so deafening loud that Mona slung it open ready to tell that idiot a thing or two. But when she saw who stood on the other side, this big white man in his five thousand dollar suit, she stood mute. Carrie had told her all about it. She told her how the CEO of Dyson had picked her up last night and ended up taking her to a hotel after they found out that Millie had been killed. She claimed nothing happened, that it was all innocent, and given who Carrie was, Mona was inclined to believe it. But now, looking at this man who obviously had to be that CEO, made her know better. Why else would some sophisticate like him be taking an interest in her country bumpkin sister except to seduce her? He had that spirit of seduction all over him and Mona felt she should know, because she had it too.

  “Yes?” she calmed herself and asked.

  Robert was, at first, taken aback by the woman at the door. This had to be the sister, the exotic dancer who thought so little of Carrie that she’d put her at risk too, and his anger, which he was barely controlling since he returned to the hotel to find Carrie gone, resurfaced. “Tell Carrie to come here.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said tell Carrie to come here.”

  “Don’t you yell at me!”

  Robert exhaled. “I’m here to speak with Carrie. Will you please ask her to come to the door?”

  “What you want with my sister?”

  “I want to talk with her.”

  “About what? What could some uptown cracker like you possibly have in common with my sister?”

  Robert didn’t respond. It wasn’t a matter of commonality and this streetwise stripper already knew that. Carrie had a hold on him, had a pull on him, and it could not have been more evident than when he returned to that hotel room. She was gone. She had put on the clothes he’d purchased for her and took off. He could have left it alone then. He could have patted himself on the back for seeing to her safety last night when she needed it most, but it didn’t even occur to him to do so. He wanted her back. Pure and simple. He couldn’t get that stunned look in her eyes out of his mind. He couldn’t stop thinking about the way she tasted when he kissed her and the unexpected way she’d responded to him. Giving her up felt like giving up a part of him and he had too few parts left to lose any more now. “Is she here?”

  “I just wanna know what you tryin’ to do with my baby sister ‘cause she ain’t like that, see.”

  “Like what? You?”

  Mona gave him an icy look, looking him up and down, and then she walked away from the door. Robert could see inside the sparse apartment as Mona walked toward the back and knocked on a closed door. The idea of his Carrie living inside a place like this was almost unbelievable to him.

  When the door opened and Carrie came out, walking slow in those too tight jeans and shell shirt he had purchased for her, his heartbeat quickened. He was angry that she had left the way she did, without even trying to get in touch with him, but he was also surprisingly thrilled to see her now. His feelings for her were so intense, in fact, that he just knew this wasn’t going to work.

  After Mona told Carrie that her “sugar daddy” was out front to see her, she began walking toward the door. She suspected that Robert would be concerned about her departure, but she never dreamed that he’d actually come looking for her. Not the man who kissed her and then all but told her to stay out of his life.

  “You can come in,” she said to him as she made her way to the front door.

  “Let’s go, Carrie,” he said.

  “Go? Go where?”

  “Yeah,” Mona said as she sat down on the living room sofa and pulled a cigarette out of a crumpled pack. “Where she going? She ain’t going no-where with you. This her home. I’m her family.”

  “Popena, that’s enough,” Carrie said to her phony sister. Then she looked at Robert. “I’m staying here,” she said.

  “Why? Because of what happened this morning? That was nothing, Carrie.”

  “What happened this morning?” Mona asked in the background.

  “It’s not that,” Carrie said to Robert, although that was a major part of it. “I just would rather stay here until I decide what to do. My sister’s right. This is my home.”

  Robert looked at her, at the dispirited look in her large eyes, and he knew there would be no talking her out of it. This was a cross she had to bear alone. She was probably already beating herself up over what she allowed him to do to her this morning when it was really no big deal and was all his fault. But that was Carrie.

  He opened his suit coat, revealing a silk-green shirt tucked into a pair of tailored, pleated pants, and he placed his hands in the pockets of those pants. He exhaled. Decided to try one more time. “It’s not safe here, Carrie.”

  “I know. But I’m under God’s protection. Nobody can harm me.”

  “I just don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “It won’t, Robert, really. It’s not as bad it seem.”

  “For real,” Mona said in the background. “He must think we livin’ in Iraq somewhere!”

  “Call me if you need me.”

  “I will.”

  “And I don’t want you hanging out around that stoop.”

  “I know.”

  “Seems to me that bullet that got your friend was probably meant for one of those young men.”

  “I don’t hang around there, Robert. I just come
and go without even saying anything to any of them.”

  Robert nodded, looked down the length of her, and then tried to smile. “I guess I don’t know your size after all.”

  Carrie looked down at the tight clothes she wore and smiled too. “I guess not.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “No, thanks for getting them.”

  Robert nodded again and they both stared into the other’s eyes. They both knew departing was best. For Carrie she wouldn’t have to deal with temptation. For Robert he wouldn’t have to deal with risking his heart. But knowing what was best and doing it were two different things.

  That was why they lingered. First with small talk and then with no talk at all until Robert finally said goodbye. To both their shock, however, he leaned in before he left and kissed Carrie on the lips. It was a peck, nothing passionate at all, but it still raced her heart. But when she closed the door and had to listen to Mona go on and on about how that white man was using her and disrespecting her and up to no good with her, reality set back in and her once racing heart calmed back down.

  Two nights later, when Carrie was still just trying to pray her way through her depressing state, Mona was at it again. Dooney still had a spot for her at Simms, she said, and Carrie need to reconsider it. But Carrie wasn’t about to reconsider. She sat quietly on the sofa while Mona kept on talking, until Mona got tired of talking and left.

  Mona slammed the door when she left because she was tired of Carrie too. That moralistic, holy rolling sister of hers was getting on her last nerve. All she wanted to do was sit around the house and read that Bible of hers as if living in this world was beneath her. Mona began walking down the stairs still fussing, still so filled with rage that she didn’t realize Willie Charles had entered the building and was heading up.

  “What’s wrong with you, girl?” he asked her as they met on the walk-up.