Blue Collar Blues

by Rosalyn McMillan

  After lunch, she called home and retrieved her messages. The first message was from Buddy. His aunt had died.

  Khan felt relieved, and guilty.

  Later that same day, Ron called. It was official: Troy Trim was being sold to Mishupont by the first of the year.

  Ron went on to say that when Mishupont took over, the hourly rate would drop by two dollars. High-seniority workers with twenty years or more could bump to another Champion plant. Those left would get the first option of employment with the new company.

  That left Khan out in the cold with only five and a half years’ seniority.

  The killing part was that there would be no union. With thirty years’ seniority, Ron was considering retirement. Ida probably would retire as well.

  What was Khan going to do? She had some money saved, but it was clear she could no longer count on Champion. She thought of Thyme and wished her friend were nearby to give her advice. Maybe it was a sign that it was time to get her degree. Maybe it was time to take off that blue collar.

  Khan helped Buddy with Aunt Viola’s funeral. Khan perceived from all the mementos in her home that the elderly woman had loved her house. It was her life.

  It hurt her to see Buddy struggling with the small details, going through his aunt’s closets to select a dress she’d soon wear.

  “Maybe I should buy her a new dress,” Buddy said.

  “No,” Khan said. “I think she would want to wear one of her own dresses; she has a closet full of beautiful clothes. We’ll put an orchid in her hair and she’ll look beautiful. The same way she does in that picture on the wall.”

  They both looked up to see a portrait of Viola at age twenty-five. She had aged well. Khan thought of Mama Pearl and missed her more than ever.

  After the funeral, in the early evening, as the late October day faded, Khan waited for Buddy. Soft trickles of rain had begun to fall. The doorbell rang and Buddy handed her a small bouquet of African violets before he stepped inside.

  She touched the dreadlocks that she had come to love and said, “Thanks.” Then, taking his hand, she led him inside.

  “Blondie, it sure smells good in here. Matter of fact, it always smells good in here. What is it?”

  “My new fragrance, Amazon?” She went over to him and held out her wrist and let him inhale it. “There’s a little bit of cedar, coconut, cloves, and I won’t say what else. Like it?”

  “Mm-hm.”

  With a dish towel in one hand and the violets in the other, she led him into the living room and placed him in front of the television, handing him the remote. “Look, CNN is on.” She kissed him on his forehead. “Now sit down and be quiet until I finish.”

  “But, Blondie, this ain’t the kind of sport I’m interested in right now.” He stared at her cleavage. There was no mistaking his intentions.

  “You dog, you.” She plopped his face with the dish towel and gave him a dirty grin.

  Just then, thunder cracked outside. The sky had begun to darken and they could hear the wind reeling through the bare branches of the trees outside and whipping them back and forth.

  Khan was in the breakfast area stretching out a tablecloth over the table. She placed a candle holder in the center and completed the two table settings.

  “I love it when the sky grows dark like this before a storm.” Buddy was standing looking outside the living room window.

  The sky had turned surreal, its colors dark gray, black, silver, and iridescent white; it looked as if God’s face were being stitched across the sky. The sky had become a quilt of the day: death and now new life.

  Khan stopped what she was doing and stood beside him. “It is beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Like you. Your eyes. They sparkle like angels.” His voice was thick and husky. Buddy turned away from the window and came toward her.

  Khan immediately stepped back. She could feel the intensity of his gaze on her. Also noticeable was the way his eyes blatantly feasted on her body. “Let me get the dinner on the table,” she said. “I know you’re starved.” But she knew that rock Cornish hens and dressing wasn’t the type of banquet he had in mind. He wants my ass.

  The thunder cracked outside and the lights blinked off and on.

  Still feeling his eyes on her, Khan felt more nervous than she ever had around him. When she sat, the dishes clinked and clattered on the table. Shit. She dropped the silverware on the floor and went back into the kitchen to get clean ones. Still she felt his eyes watching her at every turn. Khan filled both their plates with generous helpings of hens and dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, French string beans, and cranberry sauce. Just as she’d filled two glasses with ice cubes Buddy called out her name.

  “Khan.”

  The simplicity of hearing him call her name made her weak. She waited. He called her again, his voice more sultry.

  “Khan.”

  Outside, the pounding rain was building and the cracking sounds of thunder were stronger than before. As the sky closed in around them, the darkness descended upon the house.

  “Everything’s ready, Buddy.” She placed two gold candles in the center of the table, then stood back to appraise her work. Getting her mind off Buddy and sex to eating dinner was quite a feat. What if he couldn’t screw? What if he had a little dick? Ah, hell. “Do you have any matches?”

  He patted his pants and breast pockets. “No.” Just then his penetrating eyes pinned her. They were like the eyes of a falcon and she had to turn away, the connection was so strong.

  Outside, there was the sound of incessant rain, combined with a whoosh of thunder breaking into the scene as if the moment deserved a thread of kinetic energy. It conveyed such power, the power that crept into Khan’s soul and spread down through the most private parts of her body.

  The thunder cracked again and the lights suddenly flicked off. In the darkness she felt Buddy coming toward her.

  His first touch, his fingertips against her face, felt as soft and caressing as a melody. It was ten times stronger than any verbal or emotional contact she had ever felt before. He stroked her eyes, nose, lips, and brought his fingers down beneath her chin, hesitating in the center of her breasts and pressing his splayed fingers against her breastbone. Then he stopped.

  She savored the heat and heaviness of the hand that lay against her breast and raised her hand to touch it.

  Her brain issued an SOS when she felt him disengage. But that touch was immediately replaced by another: his soft lips enveloping hers. He kissed her gently, then pulled back. “Baby, I need you tonight.” Buddy wrapped his arms around her and pressed his body against hers.

  Khan shivered. She could feel the pulse of his penis pressing against her thigh. No, she thought, he did not have a little dick. Desire unleashed months of pent-up passion. She lowered her hands and gently massaged his penis until she could hear his sharp intake of breath on her neck. He unleashed his hot tongue along her neck then inserted it into her mouth.

  His kiss, as they shared one breath, sealed the chamber of her body to her lover, fusing their souls as they continued to drink from the wells of each other’s mouths.

  When the kiss deepened even more, she eased her thigh between his and began grinding her pelvis bone against his rock-hardness. She felt him beginning to move, and she reached down and unbuttoned the top of his jeans. Now she felt like the predator.

  He stepped back, and she could hear him unzipping his pants and shedding his heavy clothing.

  And when she reached out for him, touching him, lower and lower, until she felt the power and strength of him, it was like reaching into a chrysalis. She felt an unspeakable delight. At first she stroked him there. Then, feeling his need, she slid her fingers down the length of him, massaging him in slow, sweeping strokes.

  “What’d you say the name of that cologne was, baby?”

  “Amazon,” she teased. “I was told it brought out the Tarzan in a man.”

  “Mmm, a jungle woman. Just what I need.” Buddy un
dressed her with considerable swiftness. And they stood in the middle of the living room, reveling in the freedom of their nakedness. There was no music to charm the moment, and they didn’t need any. Lightning pulsed through the window. Their only orchestra, the rain outside, provided a natural melody.

  Buddy’s eyelids twitched ever so slightly in the heat of the moment, his pelvis moving with the beat of her nimble fingers into a comfortable rhythm of orgasmic ecstasy.

  And their pelvic bones merged together, creating a louder noise than the one they heard seconds earlier.

  Khan loved the way Buddy avowed the deliciousness of her sex without shame, and she felt the same.

  “There are as many ways to make love,” Buddy said in the throaty, caressing voice she had come to love, “as there are stars in the sky.”

  As he exquisitely stroked her buttocks, she gasped. And his fingers touched, ever so gently, the two secret openings to her body, time after time, with a soft little brush of fire.

  “Mmmm. Ahhhh. Ahhhh. Hhhssh.” Buddy exclaimed against the side of her dampened face. Together, they slid to the floor.

  Buddy lowered his head past her abdomen and past her blond bush. He stopped at her ankles, delicately kissing the moist beads of sweat there. She felt his tongue move up the exterior of her thighs and her breath quickened, anticipating the ecstasy. She held her breath. Her mind begged him—no, willed him—to go farther. Inches closer. And then finally, when she felt his tongue touch the outer lips of her vagina, she shuddered.

  Khan lifted her head and looked down at him. His mouth touched her soft mound and she prayed that he wouldn’t stop.

  He grabbed the curve of her buttocks. His tongue, in short brushstrokes, dipped inside and outside her flaming lips. Her heart beat more thunderously than the storm outside her window. Her knees grew weak and fell open like an oyster revealing its prized pearl. When she felt his hot breath blow against her desire-fevered vagina, pressure rising like black steam, she lost all thought.

  Khan’s hands gripped his head and pressed it deeper within her, inviting further his erotic exploration of her throbbing vagina. Her bones quivered. And then she felt it—exquisite torment. A thrill like she had never experienced before ran through her. She broke like a pane of glass, then relaxed, soaked from pure joy.

  The whole surface of her skin was stimulated, the way swimming naked made her feel. Only what she felt now was compounded by sensuality. All the hairs on her body moved like seaweed in an ebb tide, and the current was guiding her with his persistent fingers exploring every part of her nerve endings. The sweat on her feet felt like a squish of wet between her toes. She was drenched in an orgasmic tidal wave, and nothing could stop the torrent. The buoyancy of their bodies blended in one long and delicious tremble, like a chord, and for a moment, the light of their souls shone like living torches.

  When they paused to take a breath, the thunder outside had stopped.

  The cool wind howled outside, and white flurries had begun to fall.

  Afterwards, Khan kissed him slowly on the lips. Her breath was like new-mown grass. “I love the taste of you,” she said to Buddy.

  She had no recollection of lying down, but there they were. She reached up and raised the blinds, letting the moonlight flow over their naked bodies. They were so comfortable with each other. Everything felt so right, so new, so fresh.

  “I know it’s early, but I wish it would really snow. You know, like ten inches or so.”

  “It’s not even November yet, Blondie.”

  “Still, I love fall. But my favorite is winter. That’s why I love living in Michigan.”

  “Tell you what, they’ve probably got fourteen inches of snow in Aspen, Colorado. I’ll call my travel agent and book a trip. If not there, then we’ll go to Minnesota—Or maybe we’ll say fuck the snow, and spend a week in the Sahara Desert.”

  “Stop kidding! Someday I’d love to travel all over the world.”

  “It’s a great experience. But only if you share it with someone. I spent five lonely years traveling the globe after my parents died.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I was angry, and alone. But now I’ve found you, and I’m not lonely anymore.” He kissed her ever so gently.

  Her own smile felt good to her as it slid across her face.

  Buddy pulled her back down next to him. He eased his hand down lower and lower over her sweaty body and pressed his palm over the hub of her vagina.

  Khan felt the lips of her vagina swelling, anticipating, waiting, demanding full entrance. Relief came seconds later, when slowly, ever so slowly, he slid his fingers back inside her.

  Her eyes took on a dreamlike quality and her breathing became harsh. The corners of Buddy’s mouth widened in a satisfactory smile. “I’ve got a helluva lot to do with Mother Nature, Blondie.”

  “Amen, brother.” She led him to the bed. “Don’t stop now.” She was in the midst of a caravan of pleasure. And she didn’t want the trip to end.

  And it didn’t. Not for a while.

  Later, they lay in each other’s arms feeling the pleasure of remembering their pleasure. It was a feeling they would share for years to come, a special feeling. One they knew would last a lifetime, no matter what else happened.

  Stripped as they were, both Buddy and Khan began to talk to each other from that place deep in the soul.

  “I want you with me always, Khan. Not just tonight, but every night.”

  Khan was afraid. She wasn’t sure what he meant. Did he mean marriage? Or did he mean a live-in relationship? She decided to play it safe. She didn’t want Buddy to hurt her like R.C. had.

  “You know, Buddy, it’s strange. When I hired on at Champion I didn’t plan on being there long. I would work a few years, find a rich man to marry me, and retire by age twenty-five. After the first year I noticed how many people didn’t want to retire. There were so many people with thirty-five, forty, and forty-five years’ seniority who seemed afraid to retire. Then I found out why. The people who had retired kept coming back to the plant every week like they were desperate for company.” Her eyes were moist with tears. “I never wanted to be like them. Now, here I am praying that I can go back so I can maintain my little hut here. You know, take care of my bills and send my Mama Pearl a few dollars.” She sniffed, and more tears began to fall. “I know it’s a simple little job, but I think now I want more. I just don’t know if I’m up for it. Working at Champion brought me many things: love, happiness, and oh yes, I found hurt. I spent some of my darkest days at Champion. But it wasn’t until I went outside the scope of the plant that I was able to find you.”

  “That’s sweet, baby.” Buddy’s voice turned serious. “I’ve got a job for you, Khan. It doesn’t pay as much as Champion. But the wages are fair. And it’ll allow you to take any classes you need.” He grabbed a tissue from the nightstand and wiped her tears.

  She dried her eyes. “How much?”

  “Fifteen an hour.”

  It was seven less than she made at Champion. She frowned, and her body shrugged as well. She could tell that Buddy felt her displeasure, because he spoke quickly.

  “If you take into account our combined incomes, we’d gross about thirty grand a month.”

  “What are you talking about?” Khan was stunned. “Did you say thirty—thirty thousand a month? You make that much money?”

  Buddy lifted her chin up toward his and smiled. “Sure do. Up until now, I didn’t think it was important for you to know.”

  In a flash, she thought about R.C. and his broken promises. She thought about Mama Pearl and all her advice. “Well, it isn’t, but—” Then her hopes died, and her voice reflected her worst fears.

  “What is the job?”

  “You’ll be working for the shortening company,” he said with a smile.

  “What exactly are you asking me?”

  “I don’t want to spend another night without you. It took me this long to find you, and I don’t ever want to let you go. Liv
ing together isn’t for me, Khan. I want to marry you now, while your Mama Pearl is still alive. I don’t want her to miss out like Aunt Viola. Mama Pearl deserves to see her grandchild walk down the aisle, don’t you think? I want to devote the rest of my life to loving you and making sure you’re never lonely.”

  Khan couldn’t help but think back on her Aunt Ida’s words: “Lust, love, devotion,” and she knew she held the world in her arms.

  The relief she felt was overwhelming. She couldn’t bring herself to believe. “Are you serious?” Lord, it was just like her Mama Pearl said it would be. “Buddy—”

  Buddy pulled her toward him and stripped the sheet from her body. His naked eyes lusted over her body like lasers until she felt that the heat was unbearable. She started to speak, and he stopped her with a touch of his fingers over her open lips.

  “I forgot to ask, Khan. Will you marry me?”

  Epilogue

  One Year Later

  __________

  Let me tell you about Tomiko and R.C. Well, as you might have guessed, R.C. lost all but one Champion dealership, the used-car lot he started with. He lost the ranch in Paris, Kentucky, as well. Even so, you know how much sister girl loved her R.C.: so R.C., well, he’s hooked for life. Tomiko’s modeling career has continued to build, and the couple is doing okay.

  Now what do you think is up with Thyme? I’ll let you take a peek at the letter Khan received from her just before Thanksgiving:

  Hello, my friend. You’re probably wondering where I’ve run off to. I’m in Ghana. Yes, girlfriend. In Africa. I’ll bet you’re laughing now. But Khan, I’m serious about my life, more serious about who I am—about being black and living black. I hadn’t realized that by marrying Cy and living the life we did, how far away I had turned from myself and my blackness.

  I’ve filed for a divorce from Cy. I love him. And I would venture to say that he loves me. But it’s over.