by Meesha Mink
“Huh, baby?” he asks, sleepily.
“When you married me I was ghetto as hell. Long nails, smoking weed, cussing and fussing with braids down to my ass. You still married me, right?”
He hesitates before he answers. “Right.”
“Then I don’t see why you wanted me to change when we got married. Sometimes I look in the mirror and wonder who the fuck that lady is I’m looking at.”
I turn on the bedroom light before I walk back over to the bed.
Reggie pulls a pillow over his head as he groans.
I reach right down and pull it from his face. “Wasn’t nothing wrong with me before,” I tell him, feeling weight lift off my shoulders.
He looks up at me. “I didn’t say there was.”
I nod as I smile down at him. “Good, because this Suzie Homemaker shit stops today. The braids are going back in. My nails are going back long and I’m gone be WooWoo. Leesha’s ass is gone.”
He looks at me for a long-ass time. “Where all this coming from?”
“Just some shit that been on my chest for a minute. I decided to get it off.”
“I’ll say like you say. You tripping.”
“It’s trippin’, not tripping,” I correct him with a slap to his ass.
“Look, WooWoo, Leesha, Sybil, whoever you are tonight. I love you. I would prefer the way you look now but I will love your crazy ass regardless of how you wear your hair and your nails. I had a preference but I never gave you an ultimatum. If you feel like you weren’t true to yourself then blame yourself, baby…not me.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “So you wouldn’t be ashamed of me as your wife?”
Reggie sits up in bed and reaches up to pull my hand. I fall into bed beside him. “I’m not gone lie and say you know you shouldn’t demonstrate your ability to belch for a full ten seconds at a dinner party, but I know you know how to handle yourself in any situation. I married you, WooWoo. I love you, WooWoo. And I’m so happy with you, Woo-Woo.”
I tilt my head up to kiss him.
“Can I go back to sleep now?” he asks as he playfully slaps my ass.
I climb out of bed. My thoughts are so heavy. I’m so damn confused. So fucked up.
I already knew that he loves me. I know it, but I just wish I can say I love him just as much.
I give him one last look before I turn out the lights and leave the room.
Fuck the hair and nails. Even when I change those back to the WooWoo everybody used to know, I’m still not being true to me and what I want. Or what I think I want? Sometimes what you want ain’t what you need, but you want it bad.
I walk into the den where we put one of our three Christmas trees in the house. Reggie knows how much I love this holiday, and he went above and beyond to make our first one something I’d never forget. This tree with the big colorful balls and flashing lights is my favorite. It’s more like me. Wild and loud.
And I do love Christmas. It was the only time of the year that my cracky-ass momma would at least try to do right. She usually did good until early evening, when she would find any excuse to get out the door and hit the streets. Our grandma would give us so much love that she hoped me and Lexi wouldn’t be hurt when Momma dipped. It didn’t work, but we loved our grandma more for trying.
I can’t help but wonder what she would think if she knew about my relationship with Hassan. Lexi still trippin’. She’s not mad or nothing, just shocked. Sexy WooWoo, who always screams about being “strictly dickly,” is…is…
What? Gay? Bi? A Freak?
All I do know is that I fell for Hassan, but the fact remains that he is really a she named Leslie. I just didn’t know that when he moved into Bentley Manor two years ago. Something about the light-skinned cutie drew me away from Reggie. In Hassan I found all the things I knew Reggie would never understand. Do. Be. I loved Reggie and our relationship, but there was something about Has that drew me right on in. Still, I can’t help but wonder if I had known the truth about Hassan from the start if that door inside of me would have ever been opened….
Hassan and I had already been flirting hard with each other when he invited me up to his apartment that first time. I was so excited to finally spend some alone time with him that my panties were creamy when I climbed the stairwell from my first-floor apartment to his on the second.
I knock. He opens the door. We stare at each other hotly before he reaches for my hand and pulls me inside. He leads me to the futon over by the window. I pick up the blunt already blazing atop a beer can on the crates he’s using for a coffee table. He has a bottle of Henney and I reach for it to take a deep sip.
For the next thirty minutes we just get fucked up as we talked about shit we had in common. Shit my boyfriend Reggie wouldn’t even understand. Music. Types of weed. Clothes style. Food. TV shows.
I tilt my head back to blow smoke rings to the sky. I don’t say shit when I feel his hot hands moving up my bare legs to squeeze my thick thighs and push my short jean skirt up around my waist. I’m so horny and ready for that dick. He had that lean and slender look I like with angular features. His laid-back style drew me in and made we want to know more about that new kid with green eyes. “Damn, right,” I tell him huskily as I spread my legs wide as they can go. “Play in my pussy.”
Hassan slips his fingers past my sky blue panties and pushes them deep inside me. I work my hips against his hand.
Finally, I’m thinking, just knowing how lean men usually have big old dicks. I been wanting to have some of him since I first laid eyes on him. I’m not giving up a good thing like Reggie but a little dick on the side won’t hurt a thing. What Reggie don’t know won’t hurt him.
Hassan leans over to press his lips down on mine. Our tongues touch briefly and then we both moan as we deepen it. He lifts my shirt and bra to suck at my nipples like a pro. It’s absolutely right. Perfect. The best.
Wanting to feel him, I move to lift his shirt. He helps me snatch it over his braided head before he presses me down onto the futon with his body. His lips search out and find my nipples again.
“Oh, Has—”
My eyes pop open at the feel of his own set of soft breasts against mine.
I jerk his head up with both of my hands. “You’re a girl?” I ask, shocked as hell.
He nods and my hands try to stop him from working my panties down over my hips. “I thought you knew. I ain’t trying to hide it or nothing.”
“But…”
I push my hands against his shoulders as he jerks his head away from my hands to shift downward.
I scoot away. “I’m not gay. I didn’t know you were a fucking girl,” I say, scrambling to get away from the feel of those hands—her hands—on my body.
I always been one of those chicks that swore up and down they would slap any lesbo that ever stepped to me. So I am beyond shot the fuck out that my body is battling how I thought I would react in a situation like this.
I still feel excited.
I’m still horny as hell.
Actually I’m not even all that disgusted.
I’m not fighting that hard to get up. Lips kiss me intimately there and I don’t do shit but spread my legs wider….
From then on Hassan and I been sneaking. It’s like wanting something you feel is bad but not being able to turn it down. It feels like an addiction.
But now I can’t lie to myself that I don’t love Hassan, because I do. This whole time we’ve been apart, I’ve been missing him like crazy. But it was so much easier to be with him when I could fool myself into thinking he was a boy. I could fool myself into thinking my ass wasn’t gay or bisexual.
I know the real reason I married Reggie was to prove to myself that I preferred a man. I tried at first to stay away from Hassan. I really tried, but just like now my heart, my soul, and my body craves him like crazy.
I’m not ready to live an open lesbian lifestyle, and now I know Hassan is sick of us sneaking. So that leaves me with one helluva question.
Do I give up my good life with my husband, or move back to the hood with Hassan?
23
Takiah
Christmas is in two days and like all churches, the congregation is treated to a Christmas program by the youth ministry. Young, earnest faces stumbled through unmemorized scripts; however, the children still manage to captivate everyone in their pews. Hell, even I’m moved to tears when baby Jesus (a bundled plastic doll) is finally born in the manger and the cast breaks out in a heart-tugging rendition of “Oh, Come All Ye Faithful.”
Faith. That’s the last thing I have in this world, but I have to admit: I admire those who do. Not fake-ass Christians like Pastor Meyer and even most of the people sittin’ next to me, but like Grandma Cleo.
I steal a quick glance at her and I wonder how she does it. Life has served her one raw deal after another, and she just keeps on praying and keeps on believing that there’s some great invisible being in the sky, waiting to shower her with unearthly riches.
Even with her suspicions of what’s truly goin’ on with me and the pastor, she still shows up, praises Jesus anyway, and keeps on keepin’ on about her business.
“I don’t put my faith in man,” she said the other night. “And when it comes down to it, Pastor Meyer is just a man. You’ll do good to remember that.”
Yes, he’s just a man. A man givin’ me what I need for the moment. I can’t ask for much more than that.
Honestly? It just all sounds silly to me. I mean, if you’re up there, why all the secrecy?
I chance another look at her, and as a result I’m crushed by a wave of sadness. I really do wish I could be like her. I wish I could believe.
I need to believe in something, because I don’t know how in the world I’m going to be able to raise two babies. At the moment, I’m lying out my ass to my grandma about being pregnant, but I know she doesn’t believe me. I know I’m a big disappointment to her, and I wish I could just stop fuckin’ up.
But it’s the only thing I know how to do.
At least this time, I know who the baby’s daddy is.
I twitch through the rest of church service and pretend I don’t hear a few whispers here and there. Due to the holidays, Eddie has been real busy, and my job has been temporarily suspended. I have to figure out a way to get him alone. I got to break the news to him.
However, at the end of service, the pastor is surrounded by different members and genuine church employees that I don’t get my chance.
I’ll try later, when Grandma and Miz Osceola drag me back for evening service. I can already imagine what he’s gonna say.
“Get rid of it!” Pastor Meyer removes a stack of cash from his office safe and slaps it on the corner of his desk like it was the final judgment of a murder case. I guess in a way, it is. “I don’t care who, where, or how. Just get rid of it.”
I stare at the money. There has to be a few thousand there. More than enough to do what he’s asking and pack my shit and get the hell on. This time, to someplace Kameron won’t think to look for me.
“What? You need a little bit more?” Eddie asks, watching my greedy gaze and then adding another stack of money. “Of course, if I give you this, I expect this whole problem to go away.”
He means me.
Apparently the whispers have finally reached him, too. That, or he’s already found my replacement. I suddenly feel sorry for Mrs. Meyer, though I’ve never given her much thought before today.
“Sure. Okay,” I say, reaching for the money. However, the moment my hand lands on top of what feels like my lottery winnings, Pastor Meyer’s hand covers mine to stop me.
“Now this doesn’t mean that we can’t party one last time.” With his free hand, he cups one side of my face.
What the fuck am I supposed to say?
“Let’s just put this back in the safe and go on over there and tell your grandma that I’ll be takin’ you home tonight.”
That doesn’t sound like a good idea.
“We’ll tell her that you’ll be helpin’ me finalize the plans for the church’s volunteers to visit the homeless shelters tomorrow. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, after all.”
She might buy that, but I’m willing to bet my life she doesn’t.
Then again, what can she say? I’m grown. And the kind of money I can walk out of here with tonight will make it all worth it. Hell, I might not even go home tonight. Make this money, buy a plane ticket, and get the fuck out of Dodge.
Tanana is better off with Grandma Cleo anyway. I don’t know shit about raising babies. What kind of life can I offer her?
We leave his office just as the evening’s guest pastor is finishing up his sermon and the collection plates have made their way up to the altar for him to bless.
I find the whole thing just…sad.
“Who else is working late with y’all,” Grandma Cleo asks when I feed her Pastor Meyer’s line.
“I don’t know,” I lie. “He said he was having a hard time getting people to stay committed this close to the holidays.”
“Well, I can stay and help him,” Miz Nosceola volunteers, settling her hands on her hips. “I ain’t got much to do tonight.”
“That’s not necessary,” I tell her, trying to pretend that she’s not riding my last nerve.
“Why not? You said he needs help and I’m offering to help.”
“But I’m the one that needs the extra money,” I tell her. “If you jump in and it takes us less time to do what needs to be done then that’s less money for me and Tanana,” I lie expertly.
Miz Nosceola purses her lips and turns up her nose, like she smelling something again.
Fuck her. I got to make this money.
Grandma Cleo says nothing, she just looks…disappointed. The same look she always has. When she turns to leave the church, my eyes fall on my baby girl, who’s hanging on her great-grandma’s hip and staring at me like she knows the deal.
Suddenly I’m that five-year-old girl again, watching my mother walk out of my life for good. For the first time, I understand my mother’s choices. She left me because she couldn’t take care of me.
Now I’m about to do the same thing to my baby girl.
I continue to stare long after Grandma reaches her Lincoln Town car, strap Tanana in her car seat, and then drive out the church’s small, pothole-riddled parking lot.
I mope my way back to the pastor’s office while he and the other church members talk and they thank him for this evening’s service.
I’m actually alone for quite a while, and I start thinking about my life. I mean, really thinking about it. As my eyes dart around Pastor Meyer’s incredibly clean and organized office, my gaze also falls to the different crucifixes hanging on the wall.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
I can’t count how many times I’ve heard that passage from the Bible, and I don’t understand why it’s ringing in my head now or even why tears are flowing from my eyes.
For God did not send His son to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
Finally my eyes land on a picture of Jesus, not the blond hair, blue eyes version, but one of darker skin and kinkier hair, and I find myself asking it the question: “Even me, Lord?”
While I’m waiting for an answer, Eddie bursts through his office door, looking both tired and anxious. “We don’t have much time, I told my wife I’d be home before eleven.”
As he heads toward the safe, I jump up from the couch, not believing what I’m about to do.
“I can’t do this.”
Eddie stops and glances at me from over his shoulder. “You can’t do what?”
“This,” I say, splaying open my hands. “The drugs, the sex…the abortion. I-I just can’t.”
“What, you got a motherfuckin’ conscience now?”
His sudden deep, trembling baritone surprises me and I suddenly fee
l like I’m standing before my quick-tempered husband who’s about to launch over that desk and whup my ass.
“I better go.” I pick up my purse and rush toward the door, but old pastor has a little speed on him, and he actually beat me to the door.
“Whoa. Whoa.” His big froglike eyes grow even wider. “I thought we had an understanding here.” Beads of sweat magically appear and dot across his forehead. “I got a lot on the line here.”
“I’ve changed my mind. I just want to go home.”
“You’ve changed your mind?” He stares at me while the muscles along his jaw twitch. When I don’t respond, he laughs and convinces me of one thing: this motherfucker is crazy.
I reach for the doorknob and try to yank open the door, but Eddie is having none of that. “Hold up. Hold up, Sister Takiah. I think we need to sit down and talk about this some more. There’s no way in hell I’m about to let you have this baby.”
“I’ll take the bus home or call a cab,” I tell him, still wanting to get out of this office.
“Did you hear what I said?” He sounds demonic, and one look in his eyes tells me if I don’t start saying what he wants to hear, I may not ever make it out of this office alive.
“You’re right,” I say, smiling. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I can’t take care of no two babies.”
He stares me down, judging if I’ve really come around.
“I just probably need to relax a little,” I continue, sliding my hands around his wide waist and then dipping a couple of fingers below his belt. I may be a fuckup, but I’m also a survivor.
A small smile finally curls Eddie’s lips. “I think I have just the thing you need.” He takes my hand, making sure I don’t make a dash out the door, and leads me back over to his safe.
I smile patiently and follow. He doesn’t take out the money, or even coke. On tonight’s menu is smack. My fingers instantly go to the tracks on my arms. Damn, it’s been more than three months since I had some of this shit.
“Ah. I see you want some,” he laughs, certain that he’s finally won me over.