by Tiana Laveen
“Because I genuinely liked you, Aaron, and didn’t know what else to do!”
He looked away from her, turned his back, needing a break from looking into her damn eyes. But, she just kept on talking.
“Initially, when I first wrote to you, I didn’t tell you my real name or any of that because… because I figured we’d talk on and off for the year you were scheduled to be incarcerated and that would be the end of it, you know?” He looked back in her direction. “I didn’t know…” She paused, her voice choked up as she covered her mouth with trembling hands and her eyes watered. “I didn’t know I’d fall in love with you, but I did!”
He turned back around, away from the sight of her. How could he bear to hear her words? No, that didn’t make sense… how could it? How could she truly love him? Knowing who he was and what he was capable of?
“Aaron, please!”
Her footsteps echoed behind her as she raced towards him, closing off their gap, locking him in, and then… her felt her small, warm hand touch his shoulder. He shook her off like a damn tree branch that had grazed his body, then stepped away. A sense of violation encompassed him.
“Don’t touch me. Don’t you ever touch me.” His hand shook as he pointed in her direction.
“How can I not? Never mind that… Aaron, everything but my name and physical description, as far as my race, were true. Everything! How I felt… No, how I feel for you is real!”
“No, it’s not. It couldn’t be. You’re a liar, remember?! I can’t believe a word that comes out of your damn mouth!”
“It is true, damn it!”
“What? True that you’re in love with me or true that you’re a liar?” he taunted.
“Both!”
For a split second, he almost burst out laughing… but he reeled it in.
“You can’t tell me how I feel!” she screamed. “You have no right to tell me how I feel, Aaron!”
“I have every right to do and say whatever I want to you!” He stormed up to her, got in her face. The woman’s chin tilted a bit higher as she put on a brave face, but her body quaked ever so slightly. This time, he didn’t enjoy the taste of fear…
Yet, she didn’t blink, but stood firm, unwavering.
“And that’s too bad, now isn’t it?” he sneered. “I don’t trust you, don’t want you, don’t need you.” He stormed away and slumped down onto the couch to stare at a blank television. Her reflection was cast upon it as she simply stood there, glaring at the back of his head. Several moments later, she joined him, sat on the other end of the thing.
“Aaron, you can be mad at me for not telling you my name and all of that, but I’ll be damned if I will apologize to you for being black.”
“I never asked you to.” He refused to look into those eyes of hers as he steepled his fingers under his chin.
I might need to call Dr. Owens. I’m trying not to, but I think it’s time for me to go. I felt such rage for her just now… but I also felt… Never mind any of that… I just need to get the fuck out of here…
“I won’t apologize for trying to help you, for sharing my life with you, for lovin’ you, all the parts of you. I didn’t love the ugliness inside of you, but that ugliness was because you were hurting. I understood you, even when others told me I shouldn’t. I believed that you loved me… I believed that you were sincere.”
There’s the phone right there on that mantel. I could just stand up and make the call…
“I knew despite what you’d been doing, there was hope for you. I saw it in your letters… I saw the real you in your letters and they screamed at me; they spelled it out!” She lunged for him, grabbed his wrist. He looked down at her hand, the light brown flesh gripping his fair skin. “They told me that you didn’t hate me because I was black! You hated me because people that looked like me had caused you pain, and you came from a world that told you it was me against you… but it isn’t! It’s just you and me, Aaron. I wanted us to be a team, to work together!”
“That’s the thing.” He slowly lifted his gaze and dared himself to look at her once more.
How could God make somethin’ so damn beautiful and the Devil make me hate his creation? She’s a damn field of wild flowers…look at all that freedom and love and light in her eyes… they look like dollops of honey… She’s a walkin’ symphony, and I wanna hear her solo…Stay on track, Aaron…stay on track.
“Trust is a big thing with me, Mia. Once trust is violated, I can’t… I can’t go back.”
Why am I not calling Dr. Owens?! Why am I explaining myself to her?
“Aaron… Listen to me, please.” The muted tone of desperation limped across each syllable that spilled from open, slightly moist lips. He could see she was trying her damndest to make this right, to make it better…
…Yes, make it better, Mia…
But he wasn’t sure that she could. Not now, not ever.
“What I did was wrong. There is no other way to cut, dice, and slice that reality and turn it into something else, something good. I won’t pretend otherwise. But you have to understand that initially I knew I wasn’t supposed to participate in the pen pal program, but hardly anyone was signing up. I wanted to help, so I did it, and I figured there would be no harm in using a fake name and identity. I’d just be your friend, someone to talk to, and then it would be over.”
“But what about when you realized I was serious and wanted more than a pen pal, Mia? Why didn’t you stop and tell me the truth?”
She rubbed her hands together and averted her gaze as if she, too, couldn’t bear to face him a moment longer.
“You had plenty of opportunity. We’ve been correspondin’ for about six months. In that timeframe, I wrote forty-eight letters to you, Mia! Forty fucking eight! You wrote me forty-two, not including all the ones I sent back to you recently. You had almost fifty chances to tell me the truth and now you want another? Well, fuck that shit!”
And then, he withdrew from her, delved within himself as if an internal stop sign had been thrust into his face. Her face tensed, relaxed a little… and then some more. Like a spider finishing the last of its web in preparation for the perfect prey, the black widow admired her work…
Fuck.
I’ve busted myself. She knows now; she knows just how much I adored her. Well, of course she does, but that’s not the problem here. The issue is that I still remember everything and I can’t seem to let it go!
“I don’t want a 50th chance. I just want this time with you, to talk to you, to make you understand. I just want your forgiveness, Aaron. It could make all the difference.”
“How so? So you can have a clear conscience? Do you know that some guys would have killed you over something like this? I’m serious, Mia!”
You know I’d never hurt a hair on your fuckin’ head… You’ve weakened me, woman…
“I know that now. I wasn’t thinking this through and I will keep saying that to you until it finally sinks in, Aaron. I need this; we need this so that you can look me in the eye and talk to me, just like we’re doing. I don’t expect us to get married and run off into the sunset. It’s obvious that you can’t see past many things concerning me. My race is forcing you to no longer even see me as a whole, flesh and blood woman, and then you have the nerve to act as if I should have been totally happy with telling you the truth after I realized I had feelings for you! Why? So you could reject me and call me a damn nigger?!”
“That’s a goddamn lie!” Something within him snapped and called it quits. His brain throbbed in his damn head as he looked about, frenzy in his limbs, needing something to grab a hold of and destroy. He reached for one of the little plaid pillows on the worn couch and tossed it furiously across the room, knocking over a damn lamp. The thing wobbled back and forth on its axis then hit the ground in a crash, the bulb shattering and spraying shards of white glass here and there. It wasn’t the only thing wrecked, crushed, and falling apart…
“I saw you, Mia. No, I didn’t see you in perso
n—at least I thought I hadn’t, had no picture—but I saw you in a whole different way. I wanted you, would have done any fucking thing for you and that’s where the problem lies. I wouldn’t have cared if you were heavier than you said you were, or had blond or red hair versus black… To me, those are little white lies…”
What a strange choice of words…
“But you lied to me about something you knew was a damn deal breaker. I was honest with you from the beginning, Mia. I told you what the hell I looked like, what I wanted, and how I wanted it served.”
“…And I cooked it for you just as you ordered and gave you seconds and thirds, goddamn it.” Her voice was steely cool, London gray and full of fog, and the natural glimmer, the dark twilight that swam in her eyes, was slowly dissipating right before him.
She’s something else, isn’t she? Fiery, conflicted… She’s got a mean streak… Stands up for herself when she’s had enough. I don’t like it… yes I do… She’s falling apart, too. A bit peculiar, sly, strong… playing a sweet role. Or maybe both sides are her and it isn’t a role at all? She doesn’t have to be all or nothing now, does she? Maybe, just maybe, she is like me, and that’s what I loved about her all along…
“I gave you a warning, Mia.” He moved away from his deliberations and jumped back into the exchange, promising himself he’d not derail the conversation again with silly thoughts and sideline analysis. “I told you to not play games with me. Soon after we connected we were telling each other all sorts of things, personal stuff—I let you know that. I knew I was falling for you, so I kept giving you chance after chance to leave me alone before we got in too deep.”
We got in so deep, I drowned, and I can swim very well but it was no use… Goddamn you… You’re so fuckin’ sexy…
His eyes languidly scanned her form…
… Call Dr. Owens, Aaron. Call him before it’s too late.
“I told you everything about me for God’s sakes! I had Dr. Owens mailing the letters for me ’cause I could trust him to not read them. Security in the mailroom would’ve seen what I was sayin’ to you if I had continued to send them that route. They could have used it against me in some way, so I was vigilant… but I wanted you to know me, Mia, really know me. I thought you wanted to know me, too, and then we talked… and I dreamed about you… I dreamed so much about you Mia.” He narrowed his gaze on her, caught in her cleavage, and wouldn’t let go. “And I let you know what was happening with me every step of the way and you still fucked me over.”
He leaned in close to her, so close, the woman trembled as her back pressed against the couch.
“I didn’t fuck you over, baby… I didn’t!” Her voice finally rang free after allowing him to rant and rave for the past couple of minutes. But then she cut the rope and let the words escape. “I fell in love with you and didn’t want to hurt you.” A slow tear cascaded down her cheek. “I was jammed up, stuck. My lie caused trouble, but my truth was gonna set you free! So I tried!” Another tear and then another… “I saw you were all messed up inside, Aaron! You were tormented and picking yourself apart. I teach! It’s what I do!”
“You sure as hell taught me a lesson, now didn’t you?!”
“I wanted to turn my back on you when you told me what you were doin’, who you were affiliated with. Your ideas literally sickened me!”
“Then why didn’t you leave me the fuck alone, huh?” He caught a whiff of mint on her breath… For whatever reason, the more she spoke, the more he gravitated towards her, loving her sweet, sultry feminine voice, loving the things she said… the expressive yet coherent words that came out of her mouth.
“Why didn’t I leave you alone? Because everybody needs love and another chance and besides, I’d already seen your heart. Who would I be to think I’m better than you after that? I knew you had an opportunity to turn this around, and something inside of you wanted it. Aaron, I’d seen the potential in you, and you proved me right.”
“You don’t know any of this…none of it at all. It could have been wishful thinkin’ on your part.”
“No, it wasn’t, Aaron. Day in and day out, I study children and their potential. I can look at a child after spendin’ a bit of time with them and I know almost instinctively what gifts they possess. I like to bring that out of them, encourage it.”
“I ain’t a child…”
“This is funny, because I had the same conversation with a few people that mean a whole lot to me. I’ll tell you, like I told them. In some ways you aren’t, in some ways you are, ’cause you gotta take baby steps to completely turn your life around, Aaron…baby steps.”
He looked at the woman, and his heart plummeted in his chest at her revelation.
“You aren’t like everybody else and neither am I. I got past you being a Nazi.” She reached for him once again, and this time, he didn’t push her away as her fingers caressed the side of his neck, touching…kneading and rubbing the skin covered in a swastika. “And instead, I saw ‘Nice’… I got past you being Aryan, and I saw ‘Aaron’… I got past you being a Socialist, and I saw ‘the Sun’!” The woman’s face was wet with tears—so many tears—and his damn soul swelled with renewed life and faith.
Those tears are for me. They aren’t for her. They are her hopes and dreams for me!
“I’m black, you’re white, and to that, Aaron, I say so what?” She shrugged. “God made us like this and I’ll be damned if I’m going to question it. I love my skin, my frizzy hair, and my curves. I love my heritage. I’m a black woman with a dash of Creole from my mama’s people who came from Louisiana. We got a little French in us, but baby, we’re black and proud.” A sad smile creased her face. “When it’s time to go home, Heaven and Hell won’t be segregated, Aaron. I hate to break it to ya, but it will be divided totally differently and God ain’t gonna treat us like laundry. He gonna divide us by how we done ourselves and done others!” She swiped a tear from her eye.
“When I look at you, I don’t see your race, Aaron, I see your heart, you know that? When I go to sleep at night, I see a rainbow inside of you, but it doesn’t look like a normal rainbow, baby.”
What’s it look like, baby? But he kept his mouth closed…
“This rainbow shines and glimmers from your electricity, your gorgeous mind. Those fiery eyes that prove you got the Devil’s spit and Archangels glow inside of you all at the same damn time. This rainbow has colors ain’t nobody ever seen before but they’re yours, and I’m yours too, baby, and those colors flyin’ inside of you are mine too, you hear me?! ’Cause you’re mine, Aaron!!!”
She pointed directly in his face as her voice rose to a hauntingly loud level, one that he couldn’t believe could come from such a beautiful and delicate looking lady.
“And I don’t care what the hell you say! YOU’RE MINE TOO, ALL MINE!”
That’s it! Enough!
Snatching the woman into his arms, gripping her hard and unsteady, he crushed his lips to hers. They tumbled down into the sinking gut of the broken spring couch. He closed a hand over the back of her head, feeling the texture of her tresses against his fingers, the strange… oddly beautiful curls. He’d never touched a black woman’s head before, a sacred part of the human body, yet here he was… crowning her in his own special way.
“Shit!” he screamed out between hard, rough kisses until he’d slicked his tongue within the confines of her warm mouth, tasting that spearmint he’d just smelled. He wiggled in and out of her mouth, administering more and more urgent affections that he couldn’t reign in. She ran her hands roughly over his short, cropped hair and neck as her tears continued to pour and pour, moistening his face, cleaning his dirty soul. He delicately swiped some away with the side of his thumb, but he was distracted by how fucking good she smelled, the softness of her mouth against his own, and the strange yet alluring coarseness of her hair as part of his face pressed into the tress-filled bounty.
I can’t get enough of her!
He tugged at his pants and readjust
ed his cock as it poked out to tent his slacks. The woman reached between their grinding bodies and pulled up her damn sundress, exposing a pair of silky, vermillion panties.
Red… my favorite color…
“I hate you for making me love you! I love you for making me love you!” he yelled as he lavished her face with more kisses, trailing down until he’d reached her perfumed collarbones. The sound of fabric ripping echoed throughout the room as he tore at her, ravishing her like some gift he’d waited years for… And perhaps he had. “I can’t stop! I can’t stop lovin’ you, Mia!”
“I need you, Aaron!” She clawed at him in return, leaving a burning sensation along his skin from the tips of her long, light pink colored fingernails until his shirt was finally completely ripped away…and then, she paused. And… he paused, too…
As if a funeral were suddenly in session…
Burning cross ashes to burning cross dirty ashes… Nazi flared dust to Nazi flared dust…
She took a shaky finger and traced a deep, dark, pitch black Nazi symbol over his right pectoral muscle… and she did the same to many, many more ink symbols. He kept himself up on the palms of his hands, watching her tears continue to fall. There were no angry outbursts; he simply allowed her to see him, explore him, all of him…
“You still love me now, huh?” he asked harshly between clenched teeth. “Am I everything you ever wanted?” He seethed, flooding with more anger, this time at himself.
Through her eyes, he witnessed the sorrow, the pain, the disgust that his flesh was causing her. She kept on touching him, as if that would make it all go away. Swallowing his pride and their pain, he lifted her off the couch and carted her towards the bedroom. She wrapped her body against his, so tight… so close… so warm. As she buried her head into the crevice of his neck and locked her ankles around his lower back, he wasn’t sure where she began and he ended.
He practically broke the door off the damn hinges, made it swing open so hard that it bounced against the wall in a loud, echoing crash, and causing white flakes of plaster to splinter and fall like snow against the low, tan carpet. His frenzied emotions pushed him on, propelled him forward to toss her down on the bed so hard that she bounced a time or two.
