A Deeper Love Inside

by Sister Souljah

  That thought triggered the feelings that began to unfreeze my heart, which I had locked up and made ice cold at Momma’s burial. I wrapped my arms around Elisha’s waist. I could feel him, taller, wider, stronger than the strong he already was. While I was away, he had evolved from boy to man, and as both boy and a man he had always been so beautiful to me. As he felt me clinging to him, he held me even tighter.

  In some moments, I recognized faces of Elisha’s friends in the film, faces I had seen him talking or walking or working with in our summer together, which began passionately on my birthday when I turned thirteen. It was a close and thick love between us that continued till seven days before I turned fourteen. That was when Momma showed up to the underground, bruised and broken.

  Elisha was down there with me, beneath the floor of Big Johnnie’s store. It was only the second time we had been down there alone. I had told him that we shouldn’t be down there together, because down there nothing would stop him from making love to me, especially not me or him. Down there, we would do things that felt so good that we wouldn’t end up doing anything else but that, which would disappoint both of our well-loved mothers.

  I knew Elisha was a great man, and I didn’t want to be the reason he got stuck, causing him to lose focus, lose the confidence of his parents, especially his mother who loved and adored him tremendously. Elisha’s dreams were in color and were larger than many young men could ever imagine. He believed in them, more importantly, he believed he could accomplish them easily. I didn’t want to be the cause for his dreams to die. So we did that year together outdoors, in our market and in parks and schools, restaurants, and studios. Together we stood on the Brooklyn Promenade smelling the stinky water and acting out scenes while glancing at the incredible sky. We walked over the Brooklyn Bridge into lower Manhattan. We shopped in the most unique and most odd stores and window-shopped in the most expensive places. Occasionally we mixed with Elisha’s friends, but the majority of times he kept me to himself, which is what we both preferred. Porsche was in love with him. Siri was in love with him. Ivory was in love with him, deeply.

  Seven nights before my fourteenth birthday, he strummed a song for me beneath a weeping willow in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Park. It was one of those summer evenings where the night temperature was as hot as the day. The song he played was his version of Al Green’s song, titled “Simply Beautiful.” His fingers moving on those strings, love in every stroke, the music floating in the open air, sounding more better than in a closed-in room. It was a moaning kind of song moving mostly on feelings, much more than lyrics. Elisha had me so open that night that I wanted him to make love to me. Both my heart and my body couldn’t wait or resist or avoid anymore. I didn’t tell him with words.

  When he walked me home, I was touching him in the back alley right outside of the metal door in the floor. So he was touching me back and we were against the brick wall unable to manage our passion any further. “Stay with me?” my lips said softly, and my eyes begged him.

  “You know I want to,” he said, his heart pounding crushed against my pounding heart. “But you know what that means,” he added.

  “I know,” was all I said as I continued kissing his mouth. He took my hand. His fingers were so warm. He lifted the metal door. We walked down the cement stairs, our fingers locked together. He placed his badass red guitar, which he carried in a ruggedass brown leather case up against the wall downstairs in the dark. As he did, I removed my blouse and then my bra.

  He began sucking my neck. My skin was all-fever-hot, hot enough to be hospitalized. I felt my nipples brushing against him, which sent a crazy sensation through me. I put my hands beneath his tee shirt and eased it up, both of us pulling it over his head together. We were tonguing now. I was unfastening his belt, my hands feeling all over his butt. My fingers were pushing then pulling down his shorts, his long and thick so solid now it was pushing against my belly, separating our bodies. I touched it, held it, and moved my hands up, caressing and feeling. Easily he eased me out of my skirt, the sensation of his fingers brushing against my tiny panties shot-put more fire on my fire. He lifted me up some. My feet were on top of his feet as he walked us over to the bed. I sat down, my back to the wall. As soon as I spread my thighs and he was over me, a thump came to the metal floor door. It was a familiar and painful noise to me so my legs closed and tightened. Elisha pulled my body back towards him like he didn’t hear nothing. He was full on separating my thighs, pushing my knees apart, coming for me like crazy. His lips were over my lips, his tongue making love to mine. His finger was touching my moistness, stroking my insides. My mixed feelings, extreme worry and extreme pleasure went so wild my legs relaxed again and opened to welcome him in.

  Momma opened the floor door and tripped down the steps.

  It wasn’t the fact that I was naked or that Elisha was erect and just about to push into me, or that his basketball shorts that he wore beneath his jeans were wrapped around only one of his ankles before he swiftly jumped back and pulled them up. It wasn’t the fact that now Momma knew I was about to have sex or that Momma had interrupted us from an incredibly deep and true feeling and what would have been an unforgettable first time.

  It was that Elisha saw Momma high, bruised, and broken. That crushed me. Now he had seen Momma in her lowest condition, and I knew there was no way to snatch that image back from Elisha’s careful movie director eyes. I knew nothing could erase it. No amount of explanations could clean it up. There was no way for me to ever lift her up again. Maybe he wouldn’t even understand why I loved her so much or worked so many jobs or spilled so many tears and had so many sad nights because of Momma. Maybe now he would regard Momma as trash, filth, a waste of life, flesh, and time. And those thoughts were too much for me to bear. Suddenly I felt like I weighed three thousand pounds in that moment. I was so heavy my shoulders were no longer able to hold me up. My body collapsed, leaving Elisha, Momma, and Siri alone.

  • • •

  My eyes shifted from the inside of my mind back to the movie screen. I could now see what Elisha the movie director had done. He made a film, using all of the businesses and businesspeople and friends and kids and families in Brooklyn as the beautiful background.

  I looked around at the swelling crowds. Elisha’s love, it seems, was contagious. It wasn’t too long before I realized while watching the film, that this was the story of our love, mine and his. Our love was stretched across a huge screen for everyone to see, feel, and perhaps even envy. Our love was being acted out in front of the whole borough of Brooklyn, or perhaps before the whole world. He was sharing it with them, while concealing my identity for us, thankfully.

  Tears boiled up in my eyes when the scene shifted and the main male lead was revealed. I was so relieved that it was not Elisha playing himself, but another actor who Elisha chose to portray him. My worries were being carried away on the wings of butterflies. I squeezed him tighter, our fingers interlocked, moist and warm.

  I’m not too sure if I was really watching the film and listening and paying close attention like a ticket buyer in a regular movie theater at a world premier would watch and listen and follow the story. I was watching two films, the one on the screen and the one in my mind.

  When the image of the space below Big Johnnie’s floor came into view on the big screen in Elisha’s film, I gasped. My body jerked. Elisha felt it. He stroked my hair under the Brooklyn moon as we sat body to body with tens of hundreds of people. Silently, I cried, my body shaking.

  His love doesn’t disappear. It walks with him, as he said, getting stronger and stronger. It was only me who kept disappearing, not wanting to cheat Elisha with my Swiss-cheese heart. Not wanting Elisha’s love to highlight my loveless family. Meanwhile, while I was away, Elisha was loving me by memory, music, and making film, and by meeting the people who were connected to me in some way, including now, Sharp, Poppa, Midnight, and even Big Johnnie.

  I’m better now. I repeated that sentence eleven times on th
e inside of me. No more searching for love that’s right here, a love I can feel, a love I could breathe in, shower in or swim in, a stream of love that’s always flowing, the only mutual love I shared.

  “Momma, I’m giving Elisha my whole heart. Even if I love him one hundred thousand times more than he loves me,” I spoke aloud, facing the night sky.

  Elisha heard me. He wiped my tears with his fingers and gave me a warm kiss. His tongue made my insides move some.

  My feelings were becoming too intimate for a sixteen-year-young girl seated in a crowd. It had been too long since I had been wrapped in his tornado of love. I wanted to lean back and have him touch me up, my back against the warm cement, as though no one was there surrounding us. I wanted his hand to travel up the inside of my red dress and stroke me some. I wanted him to squeeze my nipples or at least suck them. But everyone was there, it seemed. So, burning hot, I exhaled.

  “I’ll give you what you want,” he whispered in my ear. “I waited two years. You wait a few hours. Your man ain’t slow no more.” Even his lips pressed against my lobe got me crazy. I felt I couldn’t sit still.

  • • •

  Mobbed by applause, admiration, autograph seekers, press, staff, and security, Elisha kept his right arm locked around my waist and the other wrapped around my wrist.

  Under night lights, the cheering crowd created a corridor for Elisha and his people to walk through and into the waiting limo that was flanked by black Crown Victorias and Suburbans. He held the limo door open for me. I got in, sat in the corner. He sat beside me, our fingers interlocked once again.

  The limo door was opened a few times by people working for Elisha, I guessed. Each time he said to each of them, “Jump in the car behind this one.” They could tell and I could see he wanted to ride with me alone.

  “Elisha,” I said. He didn’t answer me. He leaned forward and grabbed a bottle of water and handed it to me.

  “Don’t talk, don’t leave. Can you do that for me?”

  “Okay . . .,” I said softly, opening the water and handing it to him to drink first.

  On the Brooklyn Bridge memories of me and him moved through my mind. When I glanced at Elisha, he was looking away from me and out through the window. I could see his jaw flex. I wondered what he was thinking. He made me like this, by always pointing people out and asking me what I thought they had on their mind. Now I sat silently thinking only about him.

  Minutes later, I said, “I have an answer to your questions.” He looked at me, saying nothing.

  “You were the first man to touch my body. No man has touched me since you touched me last. You were my first kiss, my first love, and you are the only man in the world who I love. I’m a little crazy and I know it.”

  He leaned in, pressed his lips against my lips, pushed in his tongue. His passion came pouring out without words, and his hands were touching me up, moving up my bare legs, and caressing my thighs like I wanted him to do.

  Chapter 48

  We entered New York University that same night after viewing his film. It was my first time ever being in a college. In a pretty auditorium, every seat was packed. As soon as the thousand faces turned back and spotted Elisha walking in from the rear flanked by his entourage, they jumped to their feet in loud applause. I wanted to slip and hide in the back row. He wouldn’t let go. He sat me in the chair reserved for him, facing the audience, and stood behind the chair with his hands on my shoulders.

  Elisha’s parents, sister, and brother were all seated in the front row. His mother locked eyes with me. I felt her searching me, not in a bad way. I guess she was searching me for truth. Her stare was stern. I thought to myself, maybe now she can no longer see my wings.

  Audrey, the new young film star, was seated beside Elisha’s mother. She couldn’t hide her true feeling from me, even if she hid it from others. The costars and Elisha’s staff were seated across the entire second row.

  “I’m Azaziah Immanuel. I’m a film student here at New York University and president of the student government for the upcoming school year. Tonight’s guest is my brother, Elisha Immanuel. You all have just viewed his first film, A Love Supreme, along with college students across the country. I’m proud of my young brother, although his accomplishments are an embarrassment to me . . .” The crowd broke out in laughter. “Elisha Immanuel has completed in his senior year in high school what I haven’t even started in my senior year of film school. Hopefully when he takes your questions, he’ll give me some credit for helping him out!” The audience laughed, applauded, and then fell silent in anticipation of Elisha.

  “First, I want to thank the Creator, then my father, Jamin Immanuel, and my mother, Elon Immanuel. Yes, my big brother Azaziah was a big help to me, so please show him some love so me and him don’t have to fight.” They laughed. “And I can’t forget my sister, Sheba. She’s always watching over me cause my mother makes her do it.” They laughed some more. She’s a certified public accountant and a graduate student at Barnard, in English Literature. That’s my family. “Now I’ll take your questions,” he said, humbly.

  “Hi Elisha, I’m Hannah. I just want to say your film was awesome! The cinematography was beautiful and executed so well. How were you able to direct a film with an African American cast and story, and not duplicate the stereotypes that are commonly perpetuated about our communities when it comes to film?”

  “Honesty,” Elisha answered her with one word. The crowd applauded thunderously. “If we remove the fear from our lives and our work, we can get to the good parts. If we’re trapped in our fears and doubts, nothing but the same old things will come out. As a man, I’m not afraid to love, to show love, write love, direct it, and to put love on film. In every frame, whether it was a sad scene or a joyful one, I was giving the audience my heart.” Elisha’s smile lit up the huge space and moved the crowd. The energy in the room was swirling around him and moving through the atmosphere.

  “Hi, Elisha, my name is Adam Silverstein. I hope I’m not perpetuating a stereotype tonight, but I’d like to ask about money.” The crowd laughed. I didn’t know why. He continued, “How were you able to finance the making of this incredible film? I could see that you used two cameras. Film students understand how expensive that is.”

  “You’re the guy who wants my secret recipe,” Elisha said. The crowd laughed. “There really is not a secret but there is a formula. I interacted with a group of people, businesses, and communities that welcomed me and invested in my ideas. I reached out to each investor personally, and gave them a chance to be a part of the process. I think community businesses want to see the youth, especially the young men of the neighborhood, doing something productive, building up instead of doing nothing or tearing things down. Simply put, I gave the businesses an opportunity to show that young black men are not the enemies, and that if a young black guy is making moves, they are willing to move with him, and push him and themselves forward,” Elisha said. “It helped that my mom is an attorney and my sister is an accountant. They gave the project the business structure it needed. My brother Azaziah organized it so that my film debuted on three hundred college campuses across America. He saved me from having to depend only on ticket sales at the mainstream movie houses. My father works for UPS. He gave me the example I needed of how a man has to persevere and stay on course and sacrifice to secure his future, no matter how great the challenge becomes.”

  “Elisha, I’m Imani, I’m a sophomore here at NYU and I’m a serious student but I need to know, and I know I’m speaking for at least a hundred women here, are you single, and would you date an older woman? I’m nineteen!” Everyone went wild.

  “It’s Friday night. I’m single till Monday morning. On Monday morning, I’ll go to City Hall and marry the girl I love.” A low roar moved across the room. I couldn’t miss the surprised, anxious, angry, and even twisted looks that moved across faces. Still, some were smiling.

  “I’m single,” Azaziah called out from the side wall where he was le
aning and watching the audience.

  “Why? Why marry so young?” a female student stood and asked.

  “I need her. When I marry her, she’s mine. That’s what I need. A man’s heart really can’t take the woman he loves just coming and going. He wants her right by his side.”

  “Yo, Elisha, don’t make these women go crazy. You making it hard on the brothers,” a male student said. Everyone laughed at his statement, even Elisha.

  “We gotta man up. It’s time for that. Brother, don’t you agree?”

  The girls leaped out of their seats and began jumping up and down cheering for Elisha.

  “Enough of your patriarchal sexist tirade,” a female student said. Some of the crowd booed her. Others showed her support. I didn’t know what she was talking about. “Where is your fiancé and what does she think? Can we hear her voice?” the female student demanded.

  Elisha stared me over to where he was now standing. Slowly, I stood, feeling shy. Speaking and dancing are not the same thing, I thought to myself. You are not a fugitive, I told myself eleven times. In the satin heels that Mr. Sharp gave me, which I had slipped into inside of the limo, I walked slowly towards Elisha. The male students all stood up and applauded for some reason.

  “What do you have to say?” the same female who first asked about me said. The room went silent as though it was empty, but it was filled.