by Love Belvin
“This bitch…” When I heard those words coming out my mouth, my whole body went stiff.
A phrase I’d used a gazillion times and with conviction had, for the first time, felt like fucking blasphemy.
My eyes circled the kitchen, beginning from the chair she just shot from, all the way to the sink where she left the dishes. It wasn’t her usual style to leave them there. But why did I care to notice?
She kicked me out…
On a huff, I stood to my feet.
My body ached and heart sat heavily in my chest. Giving Jimmy a bed bath may not have been the most strenuous work, but it had become the most distressing task as of late. His body kept…shrinking. His skin, no matter how thick and nourishing the moisturizers I used or made, still resembled thin paper.
It was a painful task for both of us, because no matter how much Jimmy’s body was degenerating, his mind was still present. He knew, likely more than I, the rate of which his body was decaying. But I braved through it. I even took my time massaging creams into his skin, hoping to relax him. Tonight I read to him, something I’d been doing a lot of lately. It would start with a passage from the Bible then move into a novel of sorts. Lately, I’d been reading New York Times best seller It Ain’t Over, written by a two-time cancer survivor. He seemed to have liked it. We’d been at it since last week.
Now he was asleep and his room was cleaned. I could use a shower myself. It was close to eleven at night and I’d forgotten all about my dinner company until I crossed into the kitchen for a bottle of water. It was clean. The table had been washed down, stove scrubbed clean, and sink clear of dishes I was sure I’d left in there. I rolled my eyes then slammed my face into my palms. Rutledge Kadar Amare was a frustrating aberration.
He was immature, furiously sexy, clearly a womanizer, charming, spiritually deficient, amazingly talented according to my research on him last week, and…here almost every night for some unknown reason. After grabbing a bottle of water, I left the kitchen thinking to myself this could have possibly been the last I’d see him. I had no time for his spectrum of energy. Jimmy had been a task I’d committed to with an unknown end date.
I set the alarm and trekked up the stairs, chiding myself for not having the next phase of my life figured out. On my way to my bedroom, I ran down the same questions echoing in my heart for years now regarding a post-Jimmy life. Where would I go? What would happen to Grayson’s Skin Care? Would I be too old to expect a family? Would I die alone? Had my mother been right all along?
By the time I made it into my room, I decided to march straight into the bathroom for a hot shower. I didn’t sleep through the night but could hope to get a solid two hours in before the twisting and turning had me awakening for the first time.
The shower was nice and hot. The beads were weighty on my skin and the sound of droplets falling on my body and against the stall kept me in my head. I stepped out to dry myself off and wondered if I should begin looking for apartments just to learn the market. Or should I go back to school for an advance degree—or possibly another bachelor’s in business or something like it?
I dried off, my body feeling heavier than it did before my shower. Heart feeling achier. I was tired. Frustrated. After slipping on a pajama shirt, I turned off the light and toed to my bed.
“Huh!” I squealed when my hand and knee landed on planks of muscle.
I jerked back, startled. Alarmed. That’s when I smelled him. I leaped for the lamp. My eyes landed on an oversized muscular frame, too big for my mere queen mattress. My chest heaved and heart galloped. This. This! This was that exciting yet dangerous factor of Rut. He made his own rules, set his own pace—and I had a feeling not just with me. It was who he was to everyone he met. There were so many things I should have said in that very moment as I gazed down on his outstretched, carved body. There was that one thing I should have done, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to.
I clicked off the light then ambled with a shaky frame to the other side of the bed. My hand trembled as I pulled back the comforter and crawled in. For the life of me, I couldn’t stop trembling. Tears slipped from my closed eyes. Then a long, hard roped arm hooked around my waist and pulled me into a hot, unyielding body.
It was perfect and forbidden. Needed yet not welcomed. It felt like heaven. Like that element I craved all my life. This was that proverbial “strong arms to cry in” phenomenon. A strange squeal ripped from my chest and my body juddered.
“We can’t do this, Rut.” I heaved in a needed breath. “This is his house.”
If it was possible, he pulled me even closer into his hot frame. Soft, moist lips kissed the back of my neck. My entire frame quivered.
When I was able to catch my breath and stop the tears, I was hoisted up on top of him to straddle. The moment my face met his bare chest, comfort and care enveloped me and I was drifting off to sleep.
~Nine
As I held the measuring cup and dropper in the air, adding vitamin E oil, I heard the doorbell sound. Lowering the dropper and cup, I turned and glanced into Jimmy’s room. It was senseless. Jimmy wouldn’t confirm the sound anyways. The bell rang again, prompting me to drop my instruments and remove my goggles.
I made my way to the door, wondering who could be here just before noon on a Thursday? I hadn’t been expecting a delivery. My supplies arrived yesterday while I was at work and no nurses or doctors were due to visit.
When I pulled the door back, shock wouldn’t accurately describe my reaction. And apparently, she had one, too. Her honey-brown irises appeared dilated. A few crow’s feet etched the sides of her eyes, but other than that, she hardly looked her forty-seventh year around the sun.
From root to tip, her hair was its usual yellowish-blonde. For as long as I remembered, she kept it short in variations of a pixie cut. Today it could be no longer than an inch and a half with a natural wave. Her otherwise five-foot-nine frame seemed a few inches shorter than I recalled, but she was still slender-thick, hiding her mild curves behind the London Fog duster she had since I was a sophomore in high school. And those shoes. The Stuart Weitzman tassel flats I couldn’t recall not seeing her in dated her. For a tenured professor, earning close to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, she didn’t use it to aid her wardrobe.
But when I glanced up, I found her eyes locked onto me in trance-like concentration. Her gawk was on my forehead then eyes, nose, lips…my apron and finally down to the black crocs I wore. It was the strangest forty seconds of my life in recent history. When her regard returned to my face, she blinked a few times, unable to speak. One thing was for sure: I’d never seen her so muted in my presence.
Should I invite her in?
Did I want to? I didn’t know the protocol. This reminded me of how long it had been since I’d last seen her. I had to speak.
“This is surprising.” My chin was low as was my voice.
“I had a dream.”
My chin pushed further into my chest. “A dream?”
“Yes.” Unsmiling, she continued. “I dreamt you had a baby—” Quickly, she sniffled and turned her head over her shoulder to swipe her pooling eyes.
My chest lifted as I sucked in a deep breath, surprised by this display of emotions from her.
With a racing heart, I tried to give her something. “I swear to you it’s kind of hard to get pregnant by a man who is bedridden twenty-four hours a day and can’t speak or swallow…can’t even go to the bathroom on his own.” Dry humor, but it was something.
“I know. And I hate it.”
“Let’s not go there.”
“I won’t.” Her tone was firm. “I didn’t come here to go there. I came here to say I got excited for the first time over the prospect of my daughter being pregnant. There’s some form of retrogression going on in the solar system.” She sniffled on a chuckle, wiping her leaking eye again. “Can you believe that?”
“Yeah,” I returned wryly. “You, me, and a baby?” I transferred the weight of my legs. My sarc
asm switched on without thought when inga was anywhere near. “Especially because I’d need a man or a product of the male species to make that happen.”
“Yeah.” She blew out a breath, eyes in the distance again as she returned in the same wry manner, “Let’s just keep that between me and you.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you’re here.”
“Oh.” She turned behind her, looking down. I followed her line of sight to an open box. She lifted it. “After the dream, I woke up and eventually went looking for this. It’s a box your grandmother started of all your random things from a baby. When she passed away, your grandfather added to it. And when…” She tossed her head, shrugging. “Well, after him, I began tossing things in here. We’ve been so disconnected…” She couldn’t look at me. “If by some odd—and convenient—perilous probability you are pregnant or will get there sooner or later, I thought you may want to share some of this with your own little girl.”
Girl?
I grabbed my forehead with clenched eyes. “inga… All this crying and emotional babble of babies.” I glanced up at her. “I’m sure you’ll understand me wondering if you’re a clone. The real inga grayson must be tucked in her basement office back on campus, drowning in books from wall to wall while hostilely grading a term paper. Surely, there is a some poor student she feels has integrated too much demoiselle emotion in what should be a separatist, feminist narrative.”
“Yup.” She nodded, eyes cast away again. “That’s actually where I’m going next and to do exactly that. I just wanted to bring you this.”
She handed me the box. I didn’t understand what was going on here. The last person I expected to see today and here was Dr. inga grayson. And with a box of memorabilia.
For a long while, we stood in silence. It was clear to me this had been just as awkward an experience for her as it was for me. For the second time in my life, my mother couldn’t maintain consistent eye contact with me.
Then she nodded, nose red and eyes still low. I took it to mean she understood it was time for this strange exchange to come to a close. Though she couldn’t see me, I nodded, too. She turned away to leave but I stood there stock-still, holding remnants of my childhood.
My regard was blindly in the box when I heard, “Parker…” My eyes flew up but my brain didn’t work fast enough to speak. “There’s this new coffee shop a couple of blocks away from the campus. It’ll be nice to meet there some day. Maybe share a latte?”
We hadn’t shared a caffeinated drink since I was sixteen. What was going on?
I licked my lips and my brows narrowed, heavily confounded. “Maybe.”
She nodded, rubbing her lips together with her eyes down cast. When she sauntered off, I closed the door.
She pulled the door open and her eyelashes batted.
“You’re late.”
I took a deep breath, aware and annoyed by that fact. “I know, man.” I pushed my arms in the air, relaxation settled in already for the night just being near her. “I had a session with the head doctor today.”
Her smile was shy as her eyes stayed low. “Hey,” she muttered.
Her hair was up in a curly ponytail and a white tank top was tied behind her tiny waist. Parker always looked like a teenager when in house clothes. I couldn’t decide if she was sexier like this or in those fitted skirts and sexy blouses she wore to work.
My cheeks stretched and belly tightened.
“Hey, Gray…” I sang playfully.
She tossed her head backward. “The table’s set. I’m going to finish up with Jimmy and I’ll join you.”
So that meant she was expecting me? Good. I guessed she should have seeing I’d been coming every week night since the first time I visited.
I stepped in. “A’ight.”
Then she was off. I watched the biker shorts she wore cling to her jiggly ass as she pranced down the hall. That made my damn mouth go dry and butterflies take off in my fucking belly. That shit hadn’t happened since I was like eleven. I closed the door behind me and saw a box right next to it. The picture of a baby girl on top caught my attention. I kneeled to get a better view. The baby could be no more than a few months. The picture was framed in white wood with an inscribed plate. Parker audre Grayson.
She was beautiful. Even the typo on her name was cute. She was a gorgeous brown baby with a head full of hair, long curly lashes, a button nose, and drooling lips. There was other baby stuff underneath. I decided I’d done enough snooping and lay the picture back in the box.
My first stop in the kitchen was the sink to wash my hands. Then I went to the stove to peep what was inside the pots and pans. Looked like salmon with some kind of teriyaki sauce, brown rice, and snow peas. My phone starting blowing up in my pocket so I decided to handle that as I waited. When I checked, all there was were texts from chicks, DMs from chicks, and missed calls from chicks. One was Chestnut Cherries from Arch & Point. I hadn’t been through there since the night I bagged her. We did a little texting back and forth with promises to get up again. The problem was I hadn’t had the time. Seeing her last text from earlier reminded me to read through it and reply.
CC: U playn games I thot u was bout that lyfe
She included the laughing emoji icon to soften her thirst.
Me: Nah. My bad been busy. I got you tho.
And no matter how much I meant that, I couldn’t conceive the “when” part in my head. When would I pull up on Arch & Point again? Maybe this weekend? Nah. Couldn’t. I was supposed to be getting the call any day now about B-Rocka’s funeral arrangements. My moms told me they were working on it. One funeral home turned his mother down because of all the gun play still going on behind his death. Two dudes from Dolly got hit since I left Trenton Tuesday night. It wasn’t safe at home at all. Before my peoples went in for retaliation, my moms, grandmoms, and a couple aunts left town for a hotel where they’d been laying low. It had been crazy.
CC: Got me how
I snickered at her.
Me: Didn’t I make you shoot off last time?
I went into my IG app to clear a few of my DMs while I waited. I saw a few R.I.P. tags and messages. The word had begun to spread. Someone told me the other day my name was mentioned on the local news. People knew B-Rocka was my cousin.
A text came through.
CC: U aint make me brandee did
That gave me pause. It felt like an eternity since I’d fucked them broads. And after thinking for a few seconds, I did remember I used the girl, Brandee, to help with Chestnut Cherries’ last nut.
Me: But ya first one was all on me. The second was a bonus. I see it wasn’t good enough for ya greedy ass.
I shook my head, laughing to myself about sounding like I really gave a damn. There were some females I cared if they nutted when we fucked. Just because we weren’t together didn’t mean pleasure couldn’t be a two-sided game.
Right?
I had to sit and think about my pleasure-giving ratio. Yeah, I had to think. Getting ass was easier for me than getting clean foods to eat in my line of work. When pussy is handed to you at a high volume, you could easily lose count of who you took care of or just used to get off. Not many were memorable.
In the last three years or so, I got into female orgasms. It was the biggest turn on being able to make one happen, which was why I could be generous that way. I knew dudes who got them off in ways it couldn’t be returned by the female. Orgasms that weren’t understood would be reciprocated. Divine told me that.
He told me, “If your pleasure only comes from your arousal and your nut, you ain’t fucking right. Go masturbate and leave a woman out of it.”
Shiiiiiit…
Fuck no would I give and not get. I wasn’t selfish but not stupid either.
“I spoke to my therapist today.” When my head shot up, Parker was zipping by me, headed for the sink.
“Oh, word?”
She nodded, washing her hands.
“For what?” I asked, closing out of
my apps.
I caught her little shoulders lift. “I told you. When I have a lot jumbled in my head, I’ll hit her up for help sorting it.”
I placed my phone on the table. “You can talk to me.”
“About what?” That amused her.
I grinned. “About anything.”
“And you’re supposed to care?”
“I don’t think ya therapist cares about your shit. She just helps you organize. Right?”
Parker turned the eyes to the stove on low to warm the food then reached for the plates.
That ass though…
Less than two weeks ago, Chestnut Cherries was my target. And now, looking at the contour of fat ass in front of me, the goal line had been moved. I needed something bigger and better to conquer because as men, that’s what we did. We looked for bigger and better challenges in women. Thicker, more sexually skilled, better at discretion, less attached, prettier, sexier, doper in fashion… The list went on and on, and could vary depending on the man.
“Good point.” Parker woke me from my thoughts. “But I don’t think you care to hear about my mother showing up here unannounced with a box full of my childhood, hoping I was pregnant. That’s one of a few things I wanted to talk about.”
“That’s what that big ass box by the door’s about?”
“Mmhmm,” she hummed, stirring the pot of snow peas. “I haven’t even looked through it yet; I’ve been so busy around here.”
“I peeped the big ass picture of you looking like Alf’s baby.” I laughed. Parker’s head snatched around to look at me through narrowed eyes. “Yup. I saw the typo on the name plate, too. I hope ya moms got a few dollars off for that.”
“What typo?”
“Your middle name. Your first and last were capitalized but the ‘A’ in Audre wasn’t.”
She was spooning food onto our plates when she explained, “That’s not a typo. My mother’s a noted feminist.”
“A what?”
“A feminist. The type of woman that would eat chauvinistics like you alive.” She carried my plate to me. “In fact, your coach is probably one. They can sniff limited minds in terms of sexuality out a mile away.”
