by E. N. Joy
“Oh no, you don’t.” Locksie pulled away and stepped out of the bed. “You know I have to do Eve’s hair this morning.”
“It’s Sunday, our only day off,” Dawson whined. “How you gon’ arrange to do somebody’s naps? You know how I look forward to my Sundays with you, Locks.” Dawson called Locksie by his pet name for her. Not only was it short for Locksie, but he had told her that she had three locks on him; one on his heart, one on his mind and one on his body.
As Locksie’s feet padded toward the master bath that adjoined their bedroom, which was so huge that the builders referred to it as “the owner’s retreat,” she turned to look at Dawson and smiled. She could tell just by looking at him how sincere he was. She loved it when he desired her. It made her feel good to be desired and loved, especially by a man as beautiful as Dawson. He was the spittin’ image of The Ohio State University graduate and former professional NFL star, Eddie George. And the taste that fell in Locksie’s mouth at just the mention of Dawson’s name was delicious.
They had met three years ago at the gym where Locksie used to be a member and Dawson still worked. Dawson started off as her personal trainer, which was his licensed profession, and then he became her friend. It took approximately four dinner dates, two movie dates and two home-cooked meals for them to transition from friends to lovers.
“Baby, don’t whine like that,” Locksie said, playfully pouting her lips. “You know what your whining does to me.”
“Then come here and let it do what it do.” Dawson winked as he motioned with his index finger for Locksie to rejoin him in bed.
“You know I would if I could, but Eve is going to be here in a few. I’m sewing tracks in, and for all that hair she wants, we’d be at Fiesta all day long trying to get it done if I did it during my work hours. That’s why I’m doing it here at the house. That way I can bank all the money. Because you know at Fiesta I’m on salary, so I’m not about to give them the money for all that work I’m about to have to do.”
“Why doesn’t she just buy a daggone wig?” Dawson huffed as he pulled the covers up to his neck in defeat.
“I’ll make it up to you, I promise,” Locksie said as she entered the bathroom.
“When? How?” Dawson asked with excitement, quickly sitting up at attention as he stared at Locksie’s thick silhouette. Seconds later, every part of him was at attention.
“When? Tonight. How? However you want it, baby.” Locksie licked her lips and let the door close shut in front of her, leaving a panting Dawson on the other side.
By the time she stepped into the shower and began washing the lathering suds down her body, it happened again; that feeling was revisiting her. She’d hoped that this time, after having sex, it wouldn’t, but it had. Her smile, the aftermath of her lovemaking with Dawson, turned into a look of shame. She kept her head down and watched the water stream down the drain, realizing that the sin of fornication wouldn’t so easily do the same.
Locksie had to catch her thoughts and ask herself when she had started referring to her and Dawson’s lovemaking as fornication. She loved making love to him. She loved the way he made her feel. She loved him; the man she had vowed to love to eternity the first night the two of them exchanged those three words. As far as Locksie was concerned, Dawson was her Mr. Right. But for the life of her, she couldn’t explain why everything was starting to feel so wrong.
Lately it seemed as though the wonderful feeling of having Dawson inside of her was becoming more and more short-lived. At first, Locksie tried to blame it on her recent discussions with her aunt Mary—that maybe all that talk about God, fornication, sin and death was starting, slowly but surely, to hinder Locksie’s sex life. But she knew it was something deeper than that.
During their sexual encounter, Locksie could do nothing but enjoy and indulge, but now, only moments later, the pleasurable feeling of her climax was laced with guilt. What once made her feel like she was on top of a mountain was now making her feel as though she was in the lowest of valleys.
Just last week while she and Dawson were being intimate, she had closed her eyes and smiled as his lovin’ took her to that next level, but then her eyes snapped open and she stared up at the ceiling as if there was a mirror there and she was watching herself. Only it felt as though it wasn’t just her eyes that were watching her—that maybe someone else was watching her too. Feeling embarrassed at the thought that someone could actually see what was going on in her bedroom, Locksie had simply closed her eyes again and escaped back into the comfort of Dawson.
After failing to wash her sins down the drain, Locksie turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. Even though the bathroom was filled with warm steam, all of a sudden she felt a cold chill. She grabbed her towel, not because of the tender breeze that had just ripped through the bathroom, but because she felt that same feeling she had experienced last week. So she covered up quickly, not wanting to be exposed. She knew that no one else was in the bathroom, but still, the feeling that there was someone watching her was all too real to ignore.
“Argghhh!” Locksie screamed as the bathroom door flung open, startling the heck out of her.
“Sorry,” Dawson said, entering the bathroom, now wearing a pair of fitted boxer briefs. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Don’t you knock?” Locksie snapped. “I mean, you knew I was in here. How you just gonna bust in like somebody wasn’t even already in the bathroom?” Locksie, slightly shivering, clenched her towel around her.
“Dang, I’m sorry,” Dawson said with a puzzled look on his face. He had never knocked before entering the bathroom when he knew she was in there. And Locksie had never once seemed to mind him invading her space so freely. Not once . . . up until now.
“And you should be sorry,” Locksie said, heading out of the bathroom, brushing past Dawson, but making sure her body didn’t touch his in even the slightest way. “Next time knock.”
“What’s with this change in you?” Dawson threw his hands up and let them flop back down to his side.
Locksie sighed and allowed her tense shoulders to relax. “Nothing,” she said as she pulled the bathroom door closed behind her. “Nothing’s changed,” she mumbled a second time, in an attempt to convince herself. Locksie leaned against the door with her hand still on the knob and closed her eyes. She had just lied to Dawson. When he asked her what had changed, she told him nothing. But she knew very well that something had changed; she just couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was.
Chapter 3
The next day, Locksie was at work trying to focus on her client’s hair, but instead, thoughts of her and Dawson lingered on her mind.
“You sure you okay today?” asked Hannah, one of Locksie’s regular clients at Fiesta.
Locksie had been doing Hannah’s hair for close to a year. Outside of the salon, they never talked to each other on the phone or went out together or anything, but in the salon, there was just this bond between them as if they’d been friends for years. It’s funny how women have that certain relationship with their beauticians. They tell their hairstylists things they’d never tell their best friends, knowing that everything is going to stay right inside the shop; which is usually where their friendships stays as well.
Hannah was one of several clients who had followed Locksie from the beauty school to the hair salon. And she was also one of Locksie’s few white clients. Hannah wasn’t 100% white, though. Born to a black mother and a white father, her father’s genes dominated, especially in the fire-red hair and the red freckles sprinkled across Hannah’s sugar-cookie-colored skin.
“Yeah, I’m good,” Locksie replied, removing one of the bobby pins she had nestled between her lips. She was using them to keep Hannah’s pin curls in place.
Hannah may have appeared to be a white girl, but her hairstyles were more typical those worn by black women, letting the brothas know she had some chocolate drizzled over her sundae. This was how Elkan, her husband, knew he had a chance with he
r. As the fine, honey-dipped brotha he was, when Elkan saw Hannah up at Alumn Creek Beach with all those hips and booty hanging out of her swimsuit and her hair corn-rolled down her back, he was convinced that she was the one white girl who could make him throw out his “never play in the snow” motto.
With a five feet and eleven-inch, 180-pound frame and looks that could land him any woman he wanted, Elkan definitely had been blessed with his share of women, but he vowed to himself that he would never disrespect the black woman by dating outside of his race; especially a white woman. He had contemplated a Latino Jennifer Lopez look-a-like who worked as a clerk at the law firm where he practiced civil law, but he came to the conclusion that no matter how dark her skin was, she still wasn’t no sistah. Besides, what would his mama think, him bringing someone other than a black queen home? So whenever Elkan got attention from a white woman, his conscience would remind him that he didn’t play in the snow. But the moment he laid eyes on Hannah, he silenced that little voice in his head and made a move.
There was something about Hannah that just stood out from all the women at the beach, especially since half of them were blatantly trying to get Elkan’s attention, which was a complete turn off for him. He liked being the cat that chased the mouse and not the other way around. Hannah, on the other hand, had paid Elkan no mind at all. He comforted his ego by coming to the conclusion that Hannah just hadn’t noticed him yet. As Elkan lay on his stomach with his chin rested on top of his hands, he was watching Hannah rub sunblock all over her body. He was certain she had noticed him when she got up and came strutting his way. He prepared a huge smile aimed just at her. But Hannah just walked right on by Elkan as if the slab of handsome wasn’t even in her path. She didn’t even turn back to apologize when she kicked sand in his face as she was dashing by him, headed for the water.
Not about to go unnoticed by Hannah, Elkan made his way to the waters and managed to strike up a conversation with the bathing beauty. They hit it off instantly, even sharing a soda on Elkan’s bath mat after exiting the water. Lying there talking on the beach for hours, Hannah and Elkan ignored the friends they had come with. But what they couldn’t ignore was the evil eye the sistahs were giving Elkan, and the looks of disgust the white men were giving Hannah.
The conversation was engaging and flowed easily. But it was as if Elkan had been holding his breath the entire time, and the moment Hannah told him that her mother was black, he could breathe again. He wanted to shout it out to all the sistahs on the beach who had been giving him the evil eye for choosing the pale girl over them, “She’s black too! Her mother is black.” Instead, he just smiled and thought, Thank you, Jesus. This one can go home to Mama!
Elkan compared Hannah to that chocolate-dipped ice cream cone from the Dairy Queen, only someone had just eaten all the chocolate covering off of her so she appeared like nothing more than a vanilla ice cream cone. But he knew she was black, and that was enough. At least that’s what he tried to convince himself of, but Hannah could sense differently.
“You sure everything is good?” Hannah asked Locksie.
Locksie looked up at the picture of her and Dawson that was on her station. It had been taken two years ago, before he shaved off all of his hair. In the picture he had a goatee, but he had since shaved off all of his facial hair too.
“Yeah, positive . . . I guess.”
“That means no,” Hannah said as she spun around in the chair after Locksie had placed the last bobby pin in her hair.
Locksie relaxed her shoulders and sighed. “Seriously, Hannah, I guess everything is okay. I mean I think it is. I don’t know. It’s just that lately with Dawson and me . . .” Locksie looked around the salon to make sure no one else was listening. Then she lowered her voice. “The sex—”
“Don’t tell me,” Hannah said, cutting Locksie off. “You ain’t as into it anymore? That happened with Elkan and me, you know, after the incident where he cheated on me with that wench named Peni. It just took a long time for my body to start craving him again, you know. And then there are those times when you just get sick of the same old—”
“It’s not that.” Locksie was quick to come to Dawson’s defense in the lovemaking department. “It’s good.” Locksie smiled. “It’s real good when we’re getting down. It’s afterwards that I have a problem.”
Hannah had a puzzled look on her face. “What is it?” She pondered for a second and then said, “Ahh. I get it. He throws in the towel afterwards?”
Now Locksie had a puzzled look on her face. “Huh?”
“You know, throws in the towel after sex—for you to wipe yourself off.” Hannah shook her head. “There is nothing more degrading than that. You give a man a special part of you and what does he do when y’all finished? Gets up, pisses, throws a towel at you to wipe yourself off with and then says, ‘Yo babe, how ’bout making me something to eat?’”
Locksie laughed at Hannah’s deep-voiced imitation of a man. She could tell she was speaking from experience.
“I’m serious, girl,” Hannah said. “That’s why I loved Elkan so much from the start. He wasn’t anything like that. He was so considerate and passionate. From the first time we ever made love to the last, it’s been nothing but a scene from a classic romance movie. That’s why I don’t understand why . . .”
Hannah’s voice began to fade, and Locksie knew where her thoughts had gone—back to five years ago, when she found out that Elkan had not only cheated on her with a client of his, Peni Lampkin, but that a child was the result of the affair. It was the child Elkan and Hannah had been trying to conceive since their wedding night seven years ago, only Hannah hadn’t been able to get pregnant.
Devastated, Hannah had moved in with her mother the night that Elkan sat her down with a tearful confession that she would never forget. He begged her not to leave him. He unpacked her things from the suitcase just as quickly as she was packing them.
“Baby, I’m sorry,” Elkan had cried to her. “Peni meant nothing to me. It was one time. I swear to God. It was that night after I had won her lawsuit for her. I had to take her the paperwork to sign so that she could get her settlement. When I showed up, she had a nice little thank-you celebration set-up waiting. After one too many glasses of wine . . .”
“Let me guess,” Hannah had interrupted him. “She thanked you for a job well done with a well done blow job?” Elkan put his head down in shame. “Oh, and then one thing led to another. Isn’t that how the story always goes?”
“Sorry, Hannah. I wish I could take it back, but I can’t. And now there is a child involved. A child she insists on giving birth to.”
Tears Hannah had been able to hold throughout Elkan’s miserable confession suddenly just poured out, accompanied by wails so loud that it took her a minute to realize that the horrendous sounds were coming from deep within her own soul. Elkan tried to hold her and console her, but she fought him off, slumping down to the ground like a melted candy bar on the cement on the hottest day of the summer.
“What color was she?” Hannah was finally able to ask once she stood up and got herself together.
“Huh?” Elkan had clearly heard her inquiry.
“Was she black?” Hannah yelled. “I mean all the way black? Black-mama-and-black-daddy kind of black?”
“Yes, she’s black, but look, Hannah, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that I cheated and I shouldn’t have, no matter what color she is,” Elkan reasoned.
“And she’s going to have your baby. I’m your wife, but yet another woman is carrying your child.” Hannah pointed at herself for clarification that she was his wife. That she should be the woman giving him his first born. Just hearing those words come out of her own mouth, reaffirming the situation at hand, sent Hannah back to the ground in a tearful fit. “God, why? Why are you doing this to me? To my life? This is a mean, mean, cruel joke, God. You are a mean, cruel God.”
Even though Hannah had been saved as a teenager at the church where her uncle was a deacon, in
her adult life, she hadn’t been to church very much with the exception of an Easter Sunday here and there. The last time she had attempted to go to church was a couple years ago when Christmas had fallen on a Sunday. She had woken up that morning, and for the first time, felt the true meaning of Christmas brewing in her belly. She felt what pastors had been preaching about for centuries—that it wasn’t about shopping in overcrowded malls for overpriced gifts, but that it was to remember the birth of Jesus.
Hannah had gotten dressed and hopped in her car, heading to church. She had even adjusted her radio dial to 106 Joy, the gospel station in Columbus, Ohio. When she arrived at the church doorsteps, she was disappointed to find that it was closed. Some pastors across the country had decided to make the executive call that with Christmas falling on a Sunday, the attendance would be too low to have service, since everyone would be at home opening gifts. The church Locksie had decided to go to that morning was one of them. If they won’t even open up the church doors on the birthday of God’s Son, Hannah thought, then why should I even bother? Disappointed, she turned away, never to return to church again. She couldn’t help but think how God had closed the doors on her that Sunday, and now, as she sat weeping on her bedroom floor, He had closed the door on her marriage too.
At the time, Elkan didn’t know what to do for his wife. He wanted to help her by just taking her into his arms. But how ironic would it have been for her to want to rest in the arms of the person who had hurt her? For the first time ever, Elkan now knew what Prince meant by the one line in his song titled “Girlfriend”: Would you run to me if somebody hurt you, even if the somebody was me? Instead of running to Elkan, Hannah ran to her mother and father.
It only took two weeks for Hannah’s parents to convince her that she shouldn’t walk away from her marriage without at least trying to work things out. “God wouldn’t have you marry a man just to be hurt, wounded and left for dead,” her mother told her.
