Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime

by J. California Cooper

  He had a nice apartment. Bachelor type, barbells, weights, all that man stuff. I liked the smell and looks of mannish things even though I ain’t never been around any, really. Well, when he reached out to kiss me … I let him. Hell, this is what I been workin on and for. Ain’t it?! When he wanted to go a little further, I let him. I knew this Femme Fatale was working on him, you see?

  Now, I have only known one man in a bed and that was Wyndel, so I did not really know what all to expect. But I knew from all these people I see walkin round on this earth, there must be something mighty special about doin whatever it takes to get them here.

  Well, he flexed his big muscles and did all kinds of exercise in the bed. You could sure tell he was athletic. But the one muscle that would have made a difference was the one he didn’t know what to do with it. See? All that body and, far as I could tell, it was only good for show and running and eatin. I’m not talkin about “how much” of it either. I wanted to tell him, “Listen, it ain’t no lance. Don’t throw it! We ain’t in the Olympics. We in bed tryin to make love. Win a heart. Not a medal.”

  Chile, when it was over, he laid back and grinned at me, proud of his flexing muscle self. I smiled like a real Femme Fatale, got up, slowly gathered my clothes and slowly sashayed out of his place, right down the hall to my place without a stitch on. I was so disgusted with myself, I didn’t care bout bein naked. I had made a mistake! I did want a man, a husband, but I wanted to stay with him, married for the rest of my life. The lovin has got to, ought to, please, be good. It ain’t everything, but it’s well mixed in the foundation of love and marriage. It’s part of the foundation. My gramma had talked to me about love!

  Now, I had had two men and I couldn’t be through lookin. I don’t want a lot of men in my body. I want to be one man’s Femme Fatale and I hadn’t found him … yet.

  I bathed, went to bed and said my prayers. “God, why do I have to be done this way? I ain’t done nothing to hurt nobody. All I want is a husband, what You said You created man and woman for.” I said some more, but that ain’t your business. You know, I thought I heard a answer in my head? Said, “God didn’t pick that man, you did.”

  I was sluggish the next day. Was late to work. Came home, shut my door, didn’t put nothin on my stove. To hell with a man. I did that about three days. Didn’t want to see nobody.

  The fourth day, I was sittin on the couch eating a half dozen glazed donuts when the knock came on the door. Knock! Knock! My mouth was full, but I flung out, “Yea?”

  It was #4, Roland. His voice was actually concerned. “Ms. Darlin? Are you alright?”

  “Yea! … No!” Donut spit flyin. I didn’t get up to open the door, but still he talked. “I thought if you were sick or something, I’d bring you some of my dinner. It might not be as good as your cooking, but at least you would eat.” I looked at my donut then, at the door for a minute.

  “Can you hear me?”

  “Yes, yes,” I said. “I hear you.” I thought I needed some tender care from someone, so why not let him be kind. “Yes, please. I would appreciate that.”

  “Okay,” he said, “be back in about an hour.” Then he was gone.

  He brought some really tasty chicken and rice soup, homemade. Crackers, a side dish of asparagus, a chilled apple, sliced, with cheese, a tall glass of water with ice and a slice of lemon in it. Fit for a queen … or a ailing Femme Fatale. He left me to eat alone, which I was glad I could chew in peace, cause you know eatin in bed can be messy if you ain’t used to it. The next day my soul felt a lot better and I was up and out on time and my life felt better to me.

  But I made some steps in my life over the next few weeks that I don’t like to think about. Anyway, I made more friends at work and some of em I went out with and, yea, one I brought home and slept with. Only one, but this bed stuff was adding up and I had only wanted ONE man in my memories. None of them had the slightest possibility of being the one. And it wasn’t just sex was the reason. They didn’t seem to want nothing. Or know nothing about love … And family. I curbed all that desperation when I saw where I was headin. I could go on back home and be lonely without bein miserable.

  I figured I could use a new TV at home in the country, so I bought myself a TV, but the deliveryman left it downstairs at Ms. Mimi’s place. As she was telling me it was there, Hudson was coming down the stairs going to start his running. I asked him to take the TV upstairs for me before he left. Listen to this.

  He said, as he passed me by, “Can’t do it right now. I’ll be back in a few hours, I think, and I’ll bring it up for you then. If you can get somebody else to do it, let em, cause I’m not really sure when I’ll get back.” Voice over his shoulder, and he was gone. Never did stop. He must be mad cause I never let him in again. I frowned, a little hurt that he didn’t think enough of me to even do this little thing. Ms. Mimi gave a funny little smile and said, “This is the ‘ME’ generation. If it ain’t for them it ain’t important. Leave it here, Roland will be here in a little while, he’ll be glad to bring it right up for you. Now, Roland, I like.”

  I wasn’t much interested, still smarting from Hudson’s attitude. I said, “Yea … he is nice.”

  Ms. Mimi spoke as she walked me toward the stairs. “You know what he is doing?”

  “No, mam. I don’t know much about anybody round here, evidently.”

  She smiled. “He is trying to get his daughter. His ex-wife gave his baby away without tellin him. She was pregnant when they broke up, but she didn’t tell him that either. He wants to raise his own child.”

  I turned to her. “Sure is gonna be hard for him to get a new wife. He got a ready-made family. A child!”

  Ms. Mimi looked over her glasses at me, said, “A child is only something more to love. You get a chance to raise a child, love it, teach it right and do it with a man you KNOW is going to treat any children you give him right because he ain’t runnin from his child! He is facing his responsibility. Fightin for it! It’s taking most every dime he works for. Some people would give anything for a child.”

  “Well,” I started up the stairs, “you’re right. But it’s still gonna be hard for him to find a woman who wants some other woman’s child.”

  She wasn’t through. “Ms. Darlin, I know you know how hard it is to find anything good that you want to spend your life with. Or even have dinner with, one night. Ms. Darlin, I was thinking you had some sense. I know what you doin. I been married three times. Only one of em had everything I wanted the way I wanted it and he died. I loved the other two, too. They weren’t bad. Well, the first one was cause I didn’t know what I was doin yet. But the next time I did know what I was doin. I wanted someone kind who thought of someone besides himself. And honest. Like that ole Hudson. He ain’t got nothin to do later on, he just don’t know who he’s going to run into on them trails he runs on and he wants to be free.”

  I know I could’a gotten annoyed at her talking to me like that, but she was talkin to me like family talks to you. I had missed it and I needed it.

  “Wait, wait a minute, Ms. Darlin. I want to show you somethin you need to know for what you are tryin to do.” I noticed she was still a shapely woman as she ran back into her apartment. I knew men had liked her, a lot. I knew this was her house and she was independent. She sure must have some sense. I took a deep breath and waited just like she asked me to.

  The woman came back out with a Bible! in her hands! Now, me and Gramma used to go to church every Sunday, and you know I believed in God. I said my prayers. But I was not ready for nobody to preach to me! I didn’t need that!

  My manners came through for me, though, and I stood there to listen, having decided I would start steppin away as soon as she came to the end of the first scripture. She opened the book and, with a well-manicured fingernail, pointed to a place, then read it to me. “The final age of this world is to be a time of troubles. Men (that means women too, she said) will love nothing but money and self.” (She had my full attention.) “They will
be arrogant, boastful and abusive; with no respect for parents, no gratitude, no piety, no natural affection. They will be implacable in their hatreds, scandalmongers, intemperate and fierce, strangers to all goodness, traitors, adventurers, swollen with self-importance. They will be men who will put pleasure in the place of God, men who preserve the outward form of religion, but are a standing denial of its reality. KEEP CLEAR OF MEN LIKE THESE.” I looked to see where that was. Second Timothy, 3:1–5. Well, I declare! It almost got everybody I had been meeting!

  “That’s just about everybody livin in this city, Ms. Mimi!”

  She closed the book. Said, “That’s who you are out there with and that is what you have to choose from or not. This is the ‘ME’ generation. If you ain’t had sense enough to see that yet, just wait, they will knock it in your head. Now, here comes Roland. Watch him take this upstairs for you.”

  I laughingly said to her, “Ms. Mimi, I am not lookin for a husband and I certainly am not tryin to get Roland.”

  She looked over her glasses at me again. “Ms. Darlin, I am a woman and if I don’t ever know nothin else, I know you, dear.” She turned toward Roland who was coming in the door. “Evenin, Roland. Listen, your neighbor has a TV down here and wants to get it upstairs to her apartment. I know you’re tired, done worked all day, but …”

  He touched his cap to me, said to her, “Sure, where is it?” And that was that.

  Ms. Mimi followed us upstairs, arms raised to try to catch Roland if he stumbled. We went into my apartment, Roland put the TV where I said I wanted it, then he left saying, “I have promised old Ms. Thompson a ride to an appointment she got, so I got to go. If you don’t like it there, I’ll move it later when I get back.” Then he was gone. But Ms. Mimi wasn’t.

  Ms. Mimi walked around my apartment, just looking at things. She said, “Girl, it ought to hurt your eyes livin in this place the way you got it fixed!”

  I said, “What? Why?”

  She said, “Everything in here is shining, glitterin, or blasts out at you. Why you need all this gold glitter thread in everything you got? You like that? And look at all these plastic flowers, dusty. They ain’t successful in fooling nobody that they are real. Why you need all that imitation stuff? Who are you? What kind of woman are you?” She didn’t sound mad or mean, just sounded bewildered. “I noticed you when you got them false fingernails, and … and them eyelashes. What you need them for? Grow your own. Natural is beautiful when it’s clean and done well.”

  I sat down on the couch, hard, ready to cry. “Ms. Mimi, I am a Femme Fatale and this is how a Femme Fatale lives! I think … thought everything was beautiful!”

  She sat beside me, “Well … it is, if each piece was off by itself somewhere, but not … not all together.” She looked around the room again. “You been givin men the wrong impression of you. This stuff ain’t you. You are not really false and gaudy. And a real Femme Fatale is not false and gaudy either. She has charm, she is clean, she is restful and her home is pleasant and peaceful. A man can be rested and content around her. He can relax and be himself, think and hear himself think. She has manners, she is courteous, she is thoughtful and kind. She has style … and class. Not the kind that you see dressed up on a bar stool, but the kind that when you see her you know she is a lady of value, inside and out. That is what make her so fatale and irresistible. She is hard to beat when it comes to making things to satisfaction and happiness. Contentment.”

  I sniffled, my ears so wide open, hearing everything she was saying, because that is what I want to be. A real Femme Fatale.

  She spoke again. “I see you love flowers. So do I. You know, you can get one real bouquet a week and for the rest of this stuff, get you some silk flowers instead. Soft, quiet colors. Put them all around. Show you got some taste and style. They’re beautiful, and restful to the eye. This is more to the taste of a whore. She needs all these bright, blinding things so that a person never really looks at her. You don’t need these things.” Ms. Mimi stood up to go. “Unless you really like them. If you like them, keep them.” She smiled at me. “Well, I got to go now and tend to my own business. Come on down sometimes and I will show you what I mean about style.”

  You know I was goin!

  But, first, I sat there in my little “whore” rooms and I cried like a baby. Maybe I wasn’t so smart and maybe I was foolin myself about bein a Femme Fatale. I really hadn’t done anything anybody else could not do … give my stuff away. I mean my body. I was disgusted with myself and I felt defeated. I was alone, lonely and felt like givin up. Giving up what? I didn’t know, but I felt empty inside again. I just sat there and cried and cried … and cried. All my hopes runnin down my face from my eyes. I finally got up from the couch about three o’clock in the morning and fell across my bed. Tired. A failure. I hurt, chile.

  When I went to work in the morning, I tried to get out the house quietly so I wouldn’t have to see anyone, specially Ms. Mimi, but Ms. Mimi opened her door as I passed. She had to be waitin for me. Lord knows, I wasn’t ready for her.

  She smiled a serious smile and looked searchingly in my eyes, which I kept cast down. She said, “Miss Thing, Miss Darlin, I thought you might be feelin bad cause I talked about all you been doin to help yourself. Don’t be. I am very proud of you for all the things you did for yourself. You were seekin and that is what a smart Femme Fatale does. She just changes when she is runnin up the wrong road. (Made me think of Gramma.) You love yourself and that’s the first thing. You’re goin to find what you need. What you want. You’re made of good stuff, girl. You’ve got what it takes to take what you want when you find it. Don’t feel bad, feel ready. Cause that’s what you are gettin … is ready!”

  I smiled, then I hugged her. She hugged back, tight. I left that house feeling better and by time I got to my car … I felt good.

  In the next couple of weeks, after I saw inside Ms. Mimi’s apartment with all its muted, soft, earth tones, her feminine white bedspread and her understated sculpture and art, I knew what she meant. It was like being in a rich, quiet, beautiful, warm and cozy cave that held promise and could lead to anything. I changed my “decor” and my inner Femme Fatale was satisfied and comfortable. Yes, indeedy.

  I still went out with fellows, but, now, they had to bring me home and leave because I was lookin for something special and I was lucky enough to know what kind of special I was lookin for.

  For some reason I had been watchin Roland. He was quiet, but he was busy. He smiled a lot. And once I saw him with his shirt off and he might have been slim, but he had some nice arms and shoulders. Muscles. Not big and bulky, but solid and showed strength. Finally, I asked him if he would like to collect on his dinner. He said, “Sure would.” And I made plans to cook it.

  He came, he ate, we listened to music (the Femme Fatale kind, slow, funky and good) and we even danced. Then we talked and talked about life and our dreams and how we were. He told me all about his little girl. I was glad to hear he was about to win his case. He left, with only a kiss to my cheek. Friendly. For some reason I appreciated that.

  We began to do that pretty often during the next couple of weeks. When I shopped I began to pick up the things he liked to eat and I was very pleased to find out he was doing the same thing for me.

  One day when I didn’t feel good, he brought me my dinner in bed again. A beautiful tray. A small bottle of wine, a rosebud in a small vase, a nice piece of fish broiled with parsley and butter and some little small boiled potatoes.

  I didn’t look too good, because I didn’t feel too good. Had a old nightgown on, you know what I mean. But the care he had gone through with my meal made me feel much better. I knew he was coming back for his dishes in a little while, so after I ate, I ran through the shower and put makeup stuff on and a pretty nightgown.

  When he came back and got his dishes, he noticed the change and smiled at me. Said, “Darlin, I think a massage would be just the thing to bring back my friend to feelin good again. And it will help you s
leep real good.”

  I mewed, purred, “You think so? I would love one … guess.”

  “You got some lotion?” I showed him, pointing. “Okay, let’s put it on to heat.” I thought to myself, “This man knows what he is doing. Has he had all that much practice?” But I smiled and slid down into the bed.

  When he was getting started, I tried to turn over on my stomach, but he stopped me. I tried to keep my gown on, but he got it off. Gently, but he got it off. Now, I am not a weak woman, but I just ain’t had too many experiences like that. He just said, “Bashful? I’ll take care of that,” and pulled all the shades down and turned off all the lights except one little one across the room.

  Welllll, he started at my toes, honey, and slowly, S L O O W L Y, worked up to the top of my head, then told me to turn over. I didn’t want to, but I did. Slowly, like a Femme Fatale. He had done already seen all my private business. Not all, but almost. He started at my toes again. Chile, honey, chile.

  Now, maybe you wouldn’t have done it, but by the time he got to my shoulders, I just didn’t give the least care at all what he saw. He had pulled my legs apart when he did my legs, one by one. I forgot to be ashamed. At the end, he pulled me to him and took me in his arms. Somehow his shirt had come off while I was facing the mattress.

  In a weak voice I said, “But I’m a sick woman.” My last thought was, “You gonna go through all the men in the building?” Then I had to stop thinking because he was talkin to me. Listen,

  “I know you’re thinkin you don’t really know me. But I know you. I been watchin you. Carefully. You don’t have no men runnin in and out of your apartment. I like that. You’re clean. I like that. You’re smart. You work for yourself. I like that. You’ve got beautiful hair and a fine, big, healthy, beautiful body. I love that. I know you lookin for something. (His pants came off.) And I am too. (He got in the bed and took me in his arms again.) So, I think maybe we ought to look together. I want to make love to you. (The rest ain’t none of your business.)