A Deeper Love Inside

by Sister Souljah

  Siri said, “You’re panicking because this is the part where Elisha mixes with all the other parts of our lives. But, Porsche, you should know by now, Elisha loves us. Everything is okay. It’s better than okay. It’s good. It’s perfect,” she said and her voice was sweet and calming.

  When I stepped out of the closet, Elisha was standing there in my bedroom, where I had been staying for three weeks now.

  “I’ll get you a house cleaner,” Elisha said, smiling. “What kind of hurricane happened in here?” he joked.

  “I asked you to give me fifteen minutes,” I said.

  “You needed fifteen hours,” he said calmy.

  “Don’t call housekeeping, please. I don’t want them touching my stuff.”

  “They already told me you’re stuck up,” Elisha said, teasing.

  “I’m not!” I said.

  “They said you don’t talk to anybody, you always keep your Do Not Disturb sign on. You make them leave your room service food outside your door, but you don’t eat it anyway. They said you don’t get no visitors, but you talk to yourself when you’re walking through the lobby.”

  I just looked at Elisha, my hands clutching my papers.

  “I like that,” Elisha said.

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “What would I have done if they said something different about you? Probably gotten into a brawl and got sued. You know people want to get knocked out by a celebrity. Every punch is worth at least ten thousand dollars.”

  Finally, I smiled. I like the idea of Elisha knocking somebody out to defend me.

  “That’s not all. My man the valet said you push a mean rimmed-out, black 600 Benz with custom-made red leather interior and an AMG kit. The guy started to tell me how much it cost. I told him I know exactly how much it cost . . .”

  “It’s Momma’s car . . .,” I said softly.

  “But you bought it,” he said seriously.

  “True,” I confirmed.

  “What you got in your hands?” he asked.

  “Personal papers,” I said.

  “Let me see ’em,” he said.

  “Why, are you the police?” I asked.

  “No, I’m your man. Give in to me.”

  • • •

  After we talked frighteningly honestly, seated on the floor in the hotel bedroom for a couple of hours, our emotions were stirring. Telling all the truths I could tell was like vomiting, without the stinky stench and mess. As I sorted out each truth for Elisha, it was the same as me sorting out each truth for myself. He wiped my tears with his fingers. In a room piled high with brand-new shoes and kicks, designer dresses and handbags, shoe boxes and shopping bags, we sat on the floor next to my scattered documents, which I nervously shared with him.

  He kissed me; my heart started speeding. We were touching and tonguing.

  “Elisha . . .”

  “What, woman? You talk a lot.”

  “This morning when I woke up, my pussy was pounding. I never felt that same kind of strong feeling before. It was so powerful, even though you were asleep and not even touching me. It made me feel crazy.” He kissed me again.

  “It’s just gonna keep getting stronger and stronger,” he said, squeezing my nipples.

  “I think I like you too much,” I said softly. He raised Sheba’s T-shirt over my head.

  “You’re supposed to,” he said, unsnapping the clasp of my bra too easily. My full breasts popped out, the nipples rising right before both of our eyes.

  “I might be a little scared,” I said honestly as he pulled Sheba’s jeans down from around my hips.

  “Scared of what?” he said as he stroked my pussy through the thin panty. I began breathing heavy. I didn’t give an answer to his question. “You can’t front on that,” he said, his lips pressed against my left ear as he pushed inside of me. Both naked all over again, I felt myself falling and cumming, falling further and cumming more. I was drowning and afraid of the overwhelming feeling and my complete loss of control. But it was a feeling I wouldn’t trade for any other feeling in the world.

  • • •

  “Feathers, sequins, masks, glasses, hats, what is all this?” Elisha asked. We were finishing the last bit of packing, emptying the living room closets where my show outfits hung, nicely packed inside of dress bags, while the accessories were piled on a top shelf.

  “Costumes,” I told him.

  “Costumes,” he repeated, unzipping one hanger bag, revealing a dress a crafty Native made for me from sterling silver and turquoise. “That’s an incredible design. You wore this?”

  “On stage,” I said.

  “It must’ve been heavy,” he said. “And it’s see-through. You wore something underneath the dress, right?” he asked. I couldn’t lie to him.

  “I didn’t, but the turquoise parts cover all of my private spaces. I can show you,” I said. He stood staring, maybe imagining.

  “I told you I’m a dancer,” I said so quietly, without an ounce of brag in it. “Not a fucking stripper or a stuck-up ballerina, and no one touches me,” I explained softly again, but I had already shared that world with him in many of my letters. He just never saw it up close and in person like how he was seeing my costumes up close now. After now knowing my body more than he ever did before, and after just pulling himself from between my thighs and peeling himself off of my curves. I could see that he was also in deep. “Put it on and show me your dance,” he said.

  “Nope, you don’t wanna see it,” I said softly. I realized I had just offered to show him. But something suddenly told me that I shouldn’t.

  “No, you don’t want to show me,” he said.

  • • •

  In the limo just us two, followed by a caravan of hired cars and trucks, we were rolling to DC, a three-hour trip from New York, in a fast ride.

  “Elisha, what does enchanting mean?” I asked.

  “Let me see.” He was thinking.

  “Having a magical influence over one or more people,” he defined as I sat thinking about what Sheba was saying to me this morning.

  “Use it in a sentence,” I requested.

  “Her pull on her man was so strong, people thought he was enchanted.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  “How about patriarchy, what does that mean?”

  “It means the man, husband, father, brother, or sons are the bosses of the house, or the men are the bosses of the hood, the state, the country. What he says rules,” Elisha carefully explained.

  “Use it in a sentence,” I asked him.

  “If a house and the community are set up right, there will always be a patriarchy,” he said. We laughed.

  “So if a woman has enchanted her man, is he still the patriarch?” I asked.

  “Yep,” was all he said.

  “Prove it!” I said. He paused at first, delighted by the test.

  “A true patriarch doesn’t have to keep saying I’m the boss. I’m the boss. He lets the women talk and cry cause that what they do. If he loves his women and his daughters too much, even an enchanting one, it doesn’t take away from his power or position. He protects and provides for his women, handles the business, and makes them moan!” We laughed. “And gives them babies, so they can have something to focus on instead of getting themselves into trouble.”

  “So why was the girl yelling about patriarchy at NYU the other night.”

  “She’s out of order.” We laughed again. “Someone needs to tell her that the Earth—that’s you—revolves around the sun. That’s me.”

  Chapter 50

  Since being locked up, I never had seen so many girls in one place. But these girls were not prisoners. They were relaxed and free. They were pretty, of every shade of skin, and type and style of hair. They walked confidently. We were “on the campus of Howard University,” Sheba said.

  “When I went to school here, there were seventeen female students to every one male student,” Sheba said. “Talk about competition!” She was guiding u
s around. It was me and the girls from Elisha’s staff and film, which of course included Audrey.

  “Usually out here on the yard, on a Saturday night like tonight, the fraternities and sororities would be stepping. It’s really a fun and amazing thing to see.”

  “Stepping?” I asked. “Is that dance?”

  “You could definitely call it a kind of dance,” she said, which made me curious.

  “Sheba, did you dance?” I asked.

  “You have to be a member to step,” she said. “And yes, I stepped. I’m a Delta.”

  “A Delta?” I asked.

  “Delta Sigma Theta; it’s a sisterhood, a sorority,” she explained.

  “How do you have any sisterhood with seventeen women to every one man?” Audrey asked. “Sounds like a fucking fight.”

  • • •

  Shoulder to shoulder in a packed college hall, Elisha had a thousand women, and one hundred seventy men, mesmerized by his rendition of a Carlos Santana joint. Showing off, he played two guitars in one performance, the acoustic and the electric. It didn’t hurt that he was tall and handsome and that whatever he did and wherever he went everyone could see him shining. On his guitar he was more than good. His fingers were comfortable and swift. His strumming moved many hearts, especially mine. As he stood in the darkened hall beneath the glowing spotlight, him and his band, I asked myself, Are you ready to handle this man who every girl of every type seems to desire? I even was asking myself, what had I done to win his heart so solidly?

  “What made you come back?” a voice to the left asked me. I looked over my shoulder. It was Audrey.

  “My momma died. So, I had to come back to Brooklyn.”

  “I wish she would of lived,” Audrey said, and I felt myself getting red real quick. I saw myself slapping the shit out of her. I saw the old Porsche stabbing her in her side or punching her dead in her face, but I didn’t. I didn’t like the slick shit she was saying, she wished Momma would of lived. I wish Momma would of lived, too, but I knew that’s not what she meant. And what if I beat Audrey’s ass and then had to explain to Elisha or anyone that I beat her because she wished my mother would’ve lived? The twist of her tongue and words would’ve made me seem crazy. Instead, I turned to her and forced up a smile.

  “Thanks for letting Elisha practice on you,” I said. “I could tell by the way he made love to me last night and this morning that he practiced on some bitch till I got home.”

  “Fuck you, Ivory!” she said. I smiled again.

  “That’s the thing about being an understudy. Everyone feels cheated when the understudy performs. Everyone wants the real thing,” I told her calmly.

  She pushed me. I pushed her back. She fell against Sheba. I went in my black Gucci bag, my fingers deciding on my box cutter or my bag of Back the Fuck Up, which I always carried. Luckily for her, Sheba held her still. Sheba straightened Audrey out and walked her away from me. When I looked up, Elisha was watching me. I don’t know what his eyes were saying right then. So we just stared at one another as he strummed out the finale of his session. I didn’t take my eyes off of him. He didn’t take his eyes off of me. Maybe that’s what he wanted. Maybe he was hypnotizing me. I was willing.

  When he disappeared from the stage, the next group appeared. The crowd got a little restless while they set up. I felt a mixture of emotions. I felt the feeling you feel when you got beef with a next girl on lockup, and everyone’s moving in population. You must keep your eyes moving and watch all hands and mouths, too. It was so easy for another girl to just stick you and keep walking. You wouldn’t even know what happened until you saw your own blood bleeding. Then I also felt too pretty to get low like a prisoner. I was wearing the dress that Elisha chose from my wardrobe, a black Christian Dior. I was standing high on my Giuseppe Zanotti heels. I didn’t want to fight, but then again I never did—but I would if I had to.

  An emcee introduced what he was calling a go-go band. He wilded up the crowd and said, “This is how DC do it!” I got excited seeing all of the drums, really excited. They started tapping em. The music wiped away everything else. The drumming that began just grabbed me. What was it? Why did it sound so good? Why wasn’t this music familiar to me? The beats jerked my joints and my body. My hips began to move and bounce. The beats wouldn’t allow the body to flow. The way they were being banged out, the body had to shake. My hands and arms began dancing. My shoulders and breasts began vibrating, my butt and my thighs bounced. I bent my right leg and bounced it up in the air. I could make my thighs shake and inch open to the beat. Even my calves were excited. I felt so aroused, it was crazy. I couldn’t fight the drum when a drummer touched it up right, and I never wanted to.

  A body pressed me from behind and an arm went around my waist. I bounced on that body backwards, and took my hips all the way down to the floor and back up again. When I turned rhythmically, not losing one second or one beat, I saw what I knew. It was Elisha. I pressed in on him close, still making my whole body shake against his. When he danced with me, them DC girls caught the fever, but not all of ’em could catch those sexual magnetic beats with each groove of their bodies. The ones who could, the ones who obviously grew up hearing that go-go, pulled up on Elisha. He was dancing with me. I was dancing with him. They were dancing with us, showing him just how wild and open they could get. The dense crowd surrounded us, watching. The band was playing to us, and the crowd was chanting like crazy. The temperature in the room was rising so hot, even the walls were sweating. The only way I could stop was when Elisha carried me out of there. He did, leaving the go-go girls shaking and bouncing back there. I didn’t fight him of course. I just wrapped my arms around his neck and tried to slow down my pulsating body and racing heart. I would’ve kept going till the lights came on or to the last tap of the drum.

  • • •

  “Celebrity rule: we always arrive on the set after the party starts. We always leave the set before the party ends,” Elisha said. We were all gathered in the reserved roped-off area of the parking lot where our vehicles were parked. Elisha had his right arm around my neck, my body in front of his body, which was pressed against my back. He was speaking to his team; many were faces that were not with him at NYU. Azaziah, Sheba, and Audrey walked up and joined in a minute late.

  “She is my wife,” Elisha announced. “For the men, look at her once so you know. Then don’t look at her no more.” They laughed some. Elisha didn’t laugh. “For the ladies, treat her good. She’s wearing my rings.”

  • • •

  “You must’ve fucked her. That’s why she’s mad,” I said with heated words, spoken softly.

  “You have been gone two years. I never once accused you,” he said. “And you’re wrong. If I would’ve fucked Audrey, she wouldn’t be mad. She wouldn’t say or do nothing. She’d just wait for me to fuck her again.” That was the convo and the feeling on our way home Saturday night, or Sunday morning round 2:00 a.m.

  • • •

  His mother was standing over us. A dream, I figured, cause I was naked-naked, lying beneath Elisha who was definitely naked. We were glued together by our now-dried fluids. His strong sleeping body pressing me deep into the mattress. Through the fog of my sleepy mind and eyes, I became aware that my pussy was still pounding, again. What a strong feeling our lovemaking had heaped on top of the deep feelings we already had for one another. And an argument, no a disagreement, didn’t cause us not to love. It pushed us further, further inside of each other. I wrapped my arms around him, caressing.

  “Ivory,” his mother said. But she wasn’t really there. What would she be doing in Elisha’s room while he and I were sleeping in a so-intimate way?

  “Ivory,” she said again. “Get dressed and come out to the reading room. Don’t keep me waiting long. I’m on my way to the service.”

  I gasped, for real. I gasped again. “Momma Elon . . .,” I said, tucked beneath her son, but she was already on her way out the bedroom door.

  • • •

/>   Monday morning Elisha married me. Momma Elon thought it was “all too fast.” She believed that we should have a big religious wedding. “Why not wait four months until you turn eighteen, Elisha?” his mother had asked him. Elisha confided in me that Momma Elon said, “Sixteen is the legal marrying age for women, but you still need my signature,” she had warned Elisha.

  “Pop will sign for me. He has already agreed to it,” Elisha told his mom. “He might not have mentioned it to you yet, but me and him talked it through thoroughly. He knows I will handle it. He knows it’s what I need,” Elisha had told her. “But I don’t want to do it that way. I want you to see my heart and understand and give in to me,” he said to his mother.

  When Momma Elon summoned me to their family reading room on the second floor to speak woman to woman, I felt nervous. It’s peculiar how it makes a girl feel in the presence of the mother of the man who has been feeling all over her body. Especially, when a girl knows that his mother knows for sure, and that it’s happening right under her nose and beneath her roof.

  “Ivory, do you know the saddest thing in the world that a mother could ever feel?” she asked me. I was fresh out the shower, the three-to-five-minute kind of shower, and the only kind that could’ve awakened me that Sunday morning.

  “Not exactly,” I said, pulling at the hem of the skirt I had thrown on. My thighs were pressed closed and tight, my calves one over the other, embarrassed and tense.