One.
I used to hate the fact that the winter solstice meant that I'd leave for work in the dark, miss the daylight entirely, and return home at night in the dark. Now I've done a total turn around, and I don't mind being surrounded by darkness at all.
For example, when Des and I went to have our ultra sound done, I met a woman in her mid 30's named Nan, who was really taken by the shared affection between my black lover and me--a middle aged white lady.
We were surrounded by the dimness of the ultrasound lab as Nan the nurse/technician ran the gooey wand slowly over my tummy to get a reading as to how the baby was growing and developing inside me.
"Ohh, here it is." Nan smiled. She showed us the delightfully male package growing between the baby's legs. "Looks to me like somebody's having a little boy."
Desmond bent over me and kissed me passionately as soon as we could see the results on the screen. He whispered, "Thank you, little mama."
I could tell she was impressed by how positively both Des and I responded to the sight of the little baby growing inside my body. Funny thing is, deep inside, I wished that my other black housemate, R.J., could have been there too.
To make a long story short, I wrote my email and phone number on a piece of paper with the web address that Des had shown me so long ago, and I told her to keep it and read it later when she all alone.
Des asked me to skip work for the rest of the day, and we went back home and celebrated by re-enacting the same movements which brought our little one into being in the first place.
Two.
Married life had been a thing of the past for me for over six or seven years until Des turned up at my doorstep to see his daughter--my granddaughter. But now, even though it's not legal or binding, I've got an extended agreement--almost a contract with the two most important new men in my life at the momentβboth of them younger, more vigorous and both of them very very black. My grandbaby's daddy, who also happens to be the father of my unborn child, and his closest friend recently released from prison.
Tolliver is a dream come true, both around the house and in the bedroom. I'm glad he's staying after the baby is born.
But, to say we are the scandal of the neighborhood is to put it mildly.
Last night R.J., whom we usually refer to as Toll, spent a little time helping me grocery shop. Needless to say our time in the grocery store seemed less than hospitable, but what surprised me was how patient my 24 year old companion was. This is not exactly his usual behavior, so as we put things away, I asked him what was on his mind.
"It's your bitchin' legs and ass, Thea," he replied. "I love that tight little gray secretarial skirt and how it flairs around your fabulous legs. It made all those people in the grocery store both covetous of you and contemptuous of me as long as the two of us hung together."
"Yeah I noticed them too. They all want to know what I'm doing with a Black Man. So you're a leg man, eh?" I said. "All this time I thought you were strictly a pussy hound."
"I am a pussy connoisseur, babe," he said. "But if a gal starts out with a great pair of legs and an ass like yours, it's easy to work your way up to where the pleasures of the flesh really count."
I nodded. "I learn something new about my two guys everyday."
There was a pause. We both reached for the same box of cereal and suddenly his face was right in mine. He gently placed his wide lips onto mine.
"Des is very excited that his little daughter's going to have a baby brother," R.J. said.
"Yes, I've certainly noticed that."
"I'd guess that you were surprised that it all happened so quickly."
"I was dumbfounded." I turned away to put that cereal in a cupboard.
Toll had walked up behind me. First he patted me on the buttocks cheek, and then he wrapped his arms loosely around my growing abdomen. The black man's hands gently caressed my spreading round belly.
"You could have got rid of this, you know, Thea."
"No, I couldn't," I said. "I wouldn't do that to Des."
"To Des?"
"I-I couldn't do that to me, either."
"Somehow I thought that might be your answer," he said. "If I can talk Des into taking care of Darcie for an hour or so, would you to come upstairs with me?"
Like I said before, I hadn't been married for close to seven years. Now as I stepped free of his grasp and looked up into Toll's big brown eyes and his dark young face, I saw that casual combination of lust and concern rise around him like an aura--and rise behind his slacks like the prong of a longhorn steer. While he lived in this house, and while he was Desmond's best friend, this twenty-four year young black man had conjugal privileges with the woman of the house in that same way that my granddaughter's daddy had full connubial rights to my body.
"Okay," I whispered. "I'd like that."
"Thea, do you believe Des loves you?" Toll asked me this question as he was unbuttoning that gray skirt he'd told me he liked so much.
"When he first arrived, I thought he did, and then you came along, and I didn't get it."
"Didn't get what?"
"If he really loved me, how could he ask me to give myself to you?" I said. "I just didn't understand."
Tolliver carefully peeled my pink work blouse off from my shoulders and breasts. I was down to my bra panties and thigh highs. "Do you think Des loves you any less because he expects you to fuck me?"
"I was worried that he might," I replied. "Now, it seems so--I dunno--so different."
"It is different," Toll stated. "Des and I can't afford the petty jealousy that you white people get so wrapped up in. Why do you think so many blacks were accused of Communist leanings back in the nineteen-forties and fifties? A lot of white men thought that black folk shared sex unnaturally--too communal, you might say. Therefore, all black men were considered potentially Communist. It's not too far a leap for someone to see a potentially sexual threat as being part of a global security threat. If you paint all your blacks red, people will dismiss them."
"Where did you learn this?" I asked him.
"Some people spend their time in the stir starting fights. Me--I just kept reading everything I could get my hands on," he said. "Writing notes to myself. Dreaming of the day when those prison bars would open and let me out once and for all."
I helped him pull his tee-shirt up over his head. My pale white hands slid over the deep mahogany brown of his chest and ribs. What an incredible contrast it was.