by Pepper Pace
“It took a long time for me to understand what I did to you when I left because all I could see was me, and what I wanted. I don’t think one time I really thought about your needs. You were right when you told me that and I still didn’t hear you, Jamie. I didn’t understand what it would be like to lose you. Until I did.
“Back then I used to fantasize about getting down on one knee and proposing to you on my 18th birthday. That was like my only dream for years.”
That had been my fantasy as well. But I didn’t speak. I just listened.
“I couldn’t even afford to give you a ring that was halfway decent. And yeah, I know that it wouldn’t have mattered to you. But it mattered to me. I had nothing to give you, Jamie. I was homeless, I was squatting with friends, no education, I was never going to get a good job, and I would never be able to give you the things I wanted to give you. Jamie, I didn’t like myself. I was so proud of you, and I wanted to be a better person for you. And…” He pursed his lips and considered something. “God knows, as much as I love you, Jamie, I joined the military to be a better person for you…But I did it also so that I could be a better person for me.”
I blinked but my tears dripped from my eyes anyway. I looked at the floor. Just admit it, Jamie, I kept thinking. Admit the truth and let it set you free…
I’d been selfish. And there, I’d admitted it. It had been about me me me. My loss, and my hurt feelings. But what about what I’d taken away from him? Me and my family were all that he had. And I’d taken that away to punish him. And I’d taken away letters that he could share with his army buddies. Kenny was the most loving, and giving person, and I’d left him with nothing to share.
“Jamie? Do you still love me?”
My eyes flashed to him. “Love didn’t have anything to do with it-”
“But if you still love me then we can work through anything.”
And that left me to decide whether there was going to be anything for us to work through.
I wiped away my tears. Those eyes of his…"I still love you, Kenny. That will probably never end for me-” He swooped down and lifted me into his arms and he held me so close and it felt so good being in his arms after so long. I wrapped my arms around his neck and his face was buried in my neck, then I heard him sobbing softly and I’d never heard such wracking tears from him before. I could hear words mixed in with the sobs but I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me, or to himself, but words kept falling from his lips and I listened and hugged him and let him hug me.
“I just love you Jamie, I love you so much. I’ve wanted to hold you like this…” I felt his hand on my breast while he still gripped me firmly. “At night I wake up dreaming about that first time we made love.”
I felt my heart pounding tightly in my chest. I turned my head and sought his mouth and Kenny and I kissed for the first time in over two years. My God…It was like the first kiss! I felt electricity hum through my body. I wrapped my legs around his and Kenny didn’t need any other invitation.
He gripped my buttocks, pulling me to him until our pelvises were grinding into each other. I felt him so hard; like I’d never felt him that hard before. Could it be that he’d never been with anyone else in all these years? Because I hadn’t either…
Swiftly he rushed up the stairs, my legs straddling his waist, our lips kissing wildly, passionately at any place they made contact. When he got to my bedroom he roughly kicked the door shut behind us. Then he gently laid me on the bed as if I were breakable. I quickly squirmed out of my clothes as he stripped out of his, eyes never leaving me for one instant.
His body was so much bigger, even his erection was bigger. “I’ve never been with anyone since you,” he said in a voice that was serious. “You don’t have to tell me if you-”
“No…Kenny I haven’t either.”
He leaned over me, then he kissed and tongued my nude body, increasing that delicious pulse between my legs. I could hear him softly moaning and it made everything seem to move quickly within me. I couldn’t bear it! I couldn’t bear foreplay and the teasing of his lips and tongue.
“Oh god…OH GOD!” I called out as I climaxed just from the feel of his kisses. He suddenly spread my thighs, holding me in place despite my writhing. He covered my pussy with his mouth sucking, licking and drinking me in. I bucked and writhed on the bed as spasm after spasm assaulted me.
With a sudden cry of his own, Kenny covered my body, pulling my legs up and he entered me swiftly. I clawed him and he worked his hips rapidly, thrusting in and out of me. With each thrust he growled and I cried out and moaned. We sounded like wild animals fucking in a forest!
“I don’t want to come!” He yelled out to no one in particular, and then he came. Kenny and I had never used any protection other than condoms, so this was the first time I’d ever felt him cum inside me. I couldn’t believe the way it felt. He seemed massive to me, and it wasn’t because I hadn’t been touched like that in years; he was bigger. His hot cum coated me inside and began sliding out of me intermingled with my own juices. I clenched down milking every drop from him, which resulted in both of us being covered with our juices.
Neither of us could hold still afterwards. Our hands moved over the other almost in disbelief.
“Jamie?”
“Hmmm?”
“Will you marry me?”
I shifted until I was facing him fully... “When you can’t take care of me, I’ll take care of you. You understand that?”
He nodded. “I do.”
I snuggled my head against his shoulders. “Then yes. I’ll marry you.”
The End
~***~
-EPILOGUE-
Kenny and I stood on the porch, watching the moving truck amble down the street. Everything was finally moved in. Kenny suddenly swooped down and picked me up to carry me into the house.
I threw my head back and laughed. “Baby, you already carried me across the threshold when we got the keys to the house!”
“Yes, but now it’s official. The furniture is here and this house is a home.” I gazed into his happy grey eyes.
“This house is OUR home.”
Baby Girl and the Mean Boss
Nicole hopped off her bike while it was virtually still rolling. Quickly she secured it to the bike rack and hurried into the restaurant, hoping to go unnoticed.
She hated being late for work. Her Boss, Marty, was an asshole. She didn’t like giving him a reason to turn his critical eye on her.
She entered through the back door and hurried to the coat rack where she hung up her things. She slipped on an apron and hit the floor.
Marty was at the huge grill, which was his permanent station. Rarely did he allow anyone to take over his realm, which meant he worked almost every day from opening to closing.
Nicole didn’t understand him one bit. He owned The Down Home Calabash, but never had the free time to enjoy the benefits of being a business owner. Maybe that’s why he was such an ass!
She washed her hands. Marty called over his shoulder without even looking at her.
“You got three orders in Nicole. Stat!”
Annoyed, she thought to herself, ‘What do you want, clean hands or quick food?’
Fred was at her station finishing up a Caesar salad. He worked days while she did nights. Nicole and Fred worked the cold bar and prep station, which other then the grill was the most important position in the kitchen. He gave her a big crooked smile, which she returned. The tall lean black man was her best friend at the restaurant and someone who treated her with the respect that she was unaccustomed to. If she cared to look back on her short but rocky life—Nicole would see that all there had been was fighting and scratching to survive. And perhaps somehow, Fred was able to see that because he never missed an opportunity to make life at The Calabash easier for her.
Quickly she assessed all the things she was running low on. “Dinner plates!” She yelled over her shoulders. Fred was careful to never let supplies run low for her, but she knew that s
oon they’d get hit with the dinner rush.
“Thank you!” One of the dishwashers replied. Marty insisted they all use the polite acknowledgement-although he seldom did.
Even though his shift was technically over, Fred continued to help her with the few orders she had waiting. She could have whipped them out easily but appreciated his company. When all of the orders were up, Fred dabbed at his brow with his apron. “Take it easy, Baby Girl, I’m outtie.” Fred was only about three or four years older than her. She didn’t understand how it was that everyone started calling her Baby Girl, especially when she wasn’t even by far the youngest female that worked there.
When she asked him once, he smiled and replied that she looked like she should be someone’s baby girl. Somehow that had touched her. He was very wrong. She had never been anyone’s babygirl—not even her Mama and Daddy’s. She worried after that his treatment and his words meant that he wanted the role, but then she relaxed when she overheard a phone conversation he was having with his roommate and he said he loved him. Aftertwards, the good looking black man had given her a wary look. Evidently it was a secret he wanted kept. Though she felt it wasn’t her place to bring it up or to make assumptions, she did have a little pow wow with him behind the restaurant and she promised that it wouldn’t be mentioned. Whatever Fred’s story was, Nicole never asked…he, like she had never offered up her story. Certain things friends already knew and didn’t need to discuss.
Nicole gave him a quick hug goodbye.
“Two trout dinners!” Marty bellowed.
“Thank you...” Kendall grumbled. Nicole glanced at her with an amused smile. She knew Kendall was not going to be happy. The young spoiled girl did the food prep for meat which meant she mostly worked out of the walk-in freezer handling cold, raw meat. It was a job that she thoroughly hated thinking it was too dirty for someone that looked as good as she did. But she was a horrible waitress and wouldn’t dream of doing the clean up. The position she had her eye on was Nicole’s. Nicole had even offered to swap positions but Marty said no.
Nicole grabbed two dinner platters and prepared them for the trout. She placed them on Marty’s wait table and moved on to her next order.
It went like that for the next hour and a half, order upon order with no time to take a breather in between. But Nicole never complained because at least it made the day go faster.
“Nicole, Kendall, take a break.” Marty eventually ordered.
It felt just like someone had turned a switch off and she went from ON to instantly exhausted. At least the rush was over for the night. Days like this when she had both college and a full day of work was especially hard.
She and Kendall went out front and found a table out of the way of the waitresses.
“Did you see how many trout dinner’s Marty called back?! I mean I got a date tonight and I don’t want to be anywhere near some damned raw fish!” Kendall complained. She was 25, had long auburn hair and almond shaped green eyes. Nicole thought of Kendall as one of those white girls that thought she was a black girl. She talked like one, dressed like one and even though she was gorgeous, she probably wished she looked like one.
Nicole shrugged unable to sympathize. In her 32 years of life she’d done a lot worse then cut fish. “You are in the wrong job, Kendall,” is all she could say. The two weren’t quite friends but by working closely together for the last two years, had allowed them to form a fondness for each other.
Kendall made a face. “I’d hate Marty for making me cut fish if he wasn’t so damn good looking. Don’t you think he is so sexy?” Oh here we go again, she thought. Kendall had the biggest crush on Marty. Why did so many women gravitate towards the assholes?
Nicole wrinkled her nose and then shrugged. “Marty’s not my type.”
“Why? Don’t tell me that you’re against in interracial dating.” Kendall said pointedly. Nicole was used to her bluntness—it seemed to go hand in hand with her beauty; as if beauty gave her license to be nosey.
It wasn’t even worth explaining that her ‘type’ had nothing to do with looks but with content. “His color has nothing to do with it. It’s just him—all him.”
Kendall bounced up in her seat, having dismissed their previous conversation. “Oh my god! I can’t believe I almost forgot to tell you.” Kendall whispered excitedly. “Marty cussed out your boy this morning.”
Nicole frowned. “Who?” Her boy?
“Fred.”
Her mouth opened in surprise. “Fred? But why?”
“Well, you know how Marty goes into his office and he lets Fred take over?”
“Yeah yeah.” Marty might think of himself as superman, but even he had to take a break.
“While he was in his office, one of the regulars complained that her pork chops were tough as leather. It was that old ex-nun lady.”
Nicole nodded. The ex-nun was eighty years old if she was a day - and tough as old shoe leather herself. She never tipped more than 50 cents and had even left a nickel once. Nobody liked her…except maybe Marty who would come from behind his fryers to chit chat with her every once in a while.
“Well apparently she had complained about her meal months before and Marty had given her a credit. She tried it again but Fred wasn’t biting and he told her that he’d bring her out a fresh order of chops. Of course the old hag had already scarfed them down, so naturally she didn’t want anymore. I won’t lie, it did get heated, especially when the old hag referred to Fred as boy.” Nicole gasped. Marty cursed him out on top of that?
“Anyway, Marty comes out slamming that big ass spatula of his on the pass through. He doesn’t even wait until they’re in the office before chewing him out. I heard Marty say ‘That’s bullshit! If she says it was tough then the shit was tough. Who the fuck are you to blah blah blah.”
Nicole just shook her head incredulously. “You’d think considering that Fred’s the hardest worker here, and the only one he trusts to fill in, that he’d give him the benefit. And the very least he could do was take him into the office so he doesn’t lose face. Jeez!”
It brought back the memory of Nicole’s one and only run in with Marty.
It was the last Friday before Christmas and it seemed everybody was out finishing up the last minute shopping. CALABASH being a neighborhood restaurant was popular for its low prices and good food, and it seemed like every customer they’d ever had showed that day.
They ran out of tomatoes right in the middle of the dinner rush: meaning no salads, no burgers dragged-through-the-garden and B L sandwiches with no T. She grabbed $30 out of the slush fund and sent one of the dishwashers to the grocery store. Marty had not had a problem with any of it until he went into the walk-in and found a full box of tomatoes tucked behind a 50 pound tub of pickles.
He bellowed her name so loud that it stopped everyone in the back. Even the waitresses were trying to see what had gotten him upset now. Alarmed, she stopped in the middle of an order to see what he wanted, rushing into the walk-in with him.
“What the hell is this?” He toed the box in annoyance.
“Oh…I didn’t see-”
“And now,” He interrupted. “I have thirty dollars worth of hot house tomatoes.
He handed her the heavy bag and walked out letting the door slam behind him.
That had ruined her day. She wanted to crawl under something and lick her wounds. Instead she worked just that much harder. But did Marty acknowledge her additional effort? No.
So, the question was; did she think he was sexy? WHO THE HELL CARED?! She didn’t like being around him so of course she had never looked at him in that way. Besides, it was a documented fact that white men like Marty went for white girls like…Kendall. And in all honesty what man, period, would look at her twice with her quickie ponytail and jeans and t-shirts. Nicole was on a mission and that didn’t include trying to be cute.
Grudgingly, though, she had to admit that Marty was a good looking specimen of a man; black or white: tall, muscular physique,
shaved head, goatee, tattoo around his bicep, pierced ear and a deep, low sexy voice. His gray eyes were brooding just enough to make anyone- other than her- look twice.