Futila was in ninth heaven until two days passed and Dante didn’t call. She made her first excuse for him, “He must’a lost that paper I gave him.” So she called him. He sounded glad to hear from her and they made plans to meet on the next weekend. He missed that date, but kept the next one. In time, they became close, spending some time together, when he could get away from his studies, his family, his job, whatever. Oh, her heart was so full of joy.
Dante did like Futila. He told his friends, “She built, man! She so soft and smell so good; like vanilla cake!” Sex is mostly on all young men’s minds in high school and, of course, sex entered into their relationship. She thought it would make their relationship closer, better. Well, of course, he told her it would. I mean, what else would he say? Of course.
Futila was a virgin and Dante liked being the “only” one. “I was the first and only!” he bragged to his friends.
Now, Dante didn’t know much about sex his own self. He got all he could when he could. After the first triumph of “gettin” Futila had worn off, he wanted more from her. And Futila had, somehow, let him know she would do whatever he wanted her to do just to keep him. She should’a never let him know she loved him more than she loved herself!
Dante had never experienced oral sex before, he had only heard about it. He wanted to experiment with Futila. He didn’t ask any other girl he was dating, cause at that time people thought that was a low-down thing to do. But he knew Futila loved him, and would try to please him.
One evening, in the back of his used secondhand car, as he held her in his arms, he said to her, “You know what, darlin? I been learning a few things from my friends.”
With her head resting on his shoulder, in the darkness of the old car, she smiled up at him. “What, my love?” (She heard that in some romantic movie. In reality that’s what she was living in her mind, a romantic movie.)
He smiled and took a deep breath before he said, “I learned that when a girl loves them, they will kiss them all over their body to show them how much they love them.”
Still smiling, she said, “Well, I know you already know I love you.”
“Yea, but you don’t kiss me all over my body like their girls do.”
She raised her head to see him better, “Sure I do. I kiss your chest, your back. Your body.” She sighed in her self-satisfaction, and laid her head back down on his shoulder.
He put her hand on his private place, down there. “This is my body, too.”
She raised her head up farther this time. “What you talkin bout?”
“If you really loved me, you would kiss me all over.” He pressed her hand closer, if possible. “Here too. Just like them other girls do to their man.”
Futila sat up and pulled away from him, saying, “Baby, you want me to put my . . . mouth on somethin’ you pee-pee with? Baby, that ain’t clean.”
He shifted his shoulder away from her, a little. “What you mean, it ain’t clean?! I’m clean. I bathe all the time, every day. And even if I happen to miss a spot, it’s still me.”
“You don’t really want ME to do that, Dante. That ain’t good. That ain’t right.”
“Who says? If it’s what I want, it’s right. And that is what I want, so I can know you love me.” He removed his arm from around her shoulders. “And if you don’t love me that much, then you don’t love me at all! We can just go on home now.” He leaned to start the engine up, even turned the key. “I thought I had me somebody that loved me. Hell, I ain’t got nobody. I better go on home and wait for the woman to come along that is going to love me right!”
Now if Futila had stuck to her first thought and waited, or even asked him to prove to her he loved her by not asking her that favor, she would have learned that Dante was not going anywhere. Sex was easy to get, but it was not that easy to get and he wanted to keep what he had. Or, she might have thought that if a person has to do something that person doesn’t want to do, to keep somebody, maybe they are not worth keeping. Maybe they don’t love you for yourself. Maybe they only want you for what they want you to do. She should’a asked him to do it to her first!
Anyway, she didn’t stick to her thoughts. She didn’t think at all. She did what he asked! Was a mistake! She should’a waited until they got married at least. Between husband and wife might be different. Between just somebody you know and yourself, it’s too personal, too intimate for just anyone. Your body shouldn’t be the friendly dump. Once you do it, you are gonna have to keep doin it cause they have found out how to handle your mind.
When her little head was bobbing around in the pit of his lap he looked down on her head, and lost a lotta respect for Futila. Somehow, though he didn’t understand it, he felt a little shame for himself and her. But when it felt good to him, he forgot about her, he didn’t stop her. The last thing she saw on his face that night was a grin. She kissed him good night and he chastely kissed her back. He didn’t want his tongue in her mouth. He thought of what she had done, and now, her lips were “nasty” to him.
The following days she waited for his call and it didn’t come. He knew she would call. And she did, at least ten times a day. She annoyed his family. They didn’t know everything but they laughed about her among themselves. Since she was not really important in his mind, except sexually, eventually he forgot his disdain of her. And since he had liked her, and he liked the good feelings she had given him (he had not dared ask any other girl . . . yet), eventually he answered her calls. They continued their relationship, such as it was.
Dante had been working as a mailroom clerk and stockboy to save money to help his parents send him to college. He was smart in school. He was excited to be going away. He liked Futila, but she never crossed his mind when he thought about going away because he knew she would be wherever he left her when he came back. IF he came back. If she wasn’t there, so what? “Man! The cream of the crop will be at that college! I’ll be in heaven!” he grinned as he told his friends.
Willa wrote one letter for all her family to her mother. She was still working, saving money. “But,” she wrote excitedly, “I’m taking the basic classes I need. Algebra, geometry (ugh), chemistry and botany, right along with Martha. I do a few chores at Martha’s house where I live in the only extra room; the maid’s room (we can’t afford a maid). It is clean and the food is wholesome and Martha’s father is really kind. They bought me clothes to wear to school. I can go to seminars and listen to professors talk about science, medicine, politics, oh, everything. My life is moving slow, but steady.”
Dante finally left, going about three hundred miles away, to a small business college. His family didn’t have a lot of money so his father encouraged him in business administration and accounting. Futila was miserable the moment he left. He returned home for short visits on holidays, but Futila didn’t always get to see him. “Family stuff,” he said on the telephone. But she was happy whenever she did get to see him. They made sex quickly in uncomfortable places, if they made it at all.
Futila was jealous of his going to college and leaving her working behind a counter at the drugstore. She blamed him! She was so glad to be able to say, “My sister is in the East going to college.” At least, that put her somewhere in the vicinity of college. Dante always answered, “That isn’t you.”
Time passed quickly for Willa. Soon she wrote home, “I’m taking classes in French, biology, and studying a little Greek with Martha. Martha’s father has set up a small laboratory for us in the house, including microscopes and shelves for our many books.” Willa and Martha were passionate in their quest for learning, for their degrees. Both needed another scholarship.
Futila didn’t feel balanced in her life; something was wrong. She didn’t feel good about life anymore. She was trying to make up her mind to quit Dante or something. She didn’t feel loved. She hated that “mouth” thing, but that’s what he insisted on now when she did get to see him. Sometimes he didn’t even have sex with her the normal way. “Oh, Lord,” she thought, “I hav
e so many things to decide. Why did you give me this life, Lord? Everybody is better off than me!” But she still ate, slept, and dreamed “Dante.” He seldom gave her a thought until she called him, charging it on her parents’ phone. And she called him often. Too often. He, just as often, lied, telling people, “Tell her I’m not here!”
Dante finished his second year of college, which he had loved. It was full of women, but he had managed to keep his grades up. Now, he had been working, a year or so, as accountant in an insurance office. In college, during his early loneliness, he had started out writing Futila a note once a week. She wrote seven times a week and worried her mother for the stamps. In time, several weeks would pass and she didn’t hear from Dante at all. She would rush to the mailbox every day and find nothing for her there.
When he didn’t come home to her after he received his BA degree, she couldn’t understand. When she pleaded with him and failed to get him to return, she said, “Well, I’ll come find a job there! I want to be with you! We b’long together, Dante.”
Thinking of his social life, he discouraged her mightily. “No, no, you don’t want to come here. You can’t come here. I don’t want you here. You will distract me, and I need to concentrate.”
Futila was not a dumb girl, she simply just applied her mind to her future with boys, and Dante, and not to her own future with herself. At least she was holding on to the same job she had started with, though she still lived at home with her struggling parents.
Willa had driven herself near illness studying and working to acquire money and grants to finish her master’s degree. When her finals were at last completed she slept for three days, only waking to eat. She and her friend rejoiced when a job she and Martha had applied for in Egypt was approved with Willa as a co-worker. Their dreams were beginning to come true!
It was about this time, after one of Dante’s trips home to see his parents, that Futila discovered she was pregnant. She was elated! Happily she wrote to Dante because she couldn’t get him on the phone. (Her mother kept the phone locked because Futila ran the bill up too much for their budget and Futila didn’t want to pay her share.)
Dante called her immediately after receiving her letter. He screamed at her, “I can’t come home! This is my home now! I can’t have no baby now! I don’t want no baby! I’m not going to mess my life up! And I won’t get married. I . . . I can’t marry you, Futila! I don’t want to. And, another thing, that baby ain’t mine! You must’a slept with everybody in town by now. Don’t put this off on me.”
When Futila finished crying she told her parents and they involved Dante’s parents. His mother said, “She is trying to trap my son!” (Futila had dabbled a little with other boys.) Her mother said, “We can’t afford to take care your son’s mistakes.” His father said, “I’ll get the law on them. We’ll see whose baby this little tramp is blaming on my son!” In the end, a hasty marriage was arranged. Futila was happy. “I got my man. I’m a married woman. My future is here at last.” Dante was not happy, his thoughts were different. “I got a burden. My future is over.”
After the marriage, Dante’s father made him come home, get a job, and stand by his child. Dante was smart in his field, and got a job with no problem, although he did it in a cloud of anger and rage. He began to seriously compare his wife, her education and sensibilities and style, to the women he was leaving behind, the women with education and promise.
Passing over all the petty arguments, the young couple managed to have some agreeable times together. Futila was still attractive and he still liked her. It was agreeable to Dante having a piece of lovemaking right beside him every night. Then . . . the baby was born and dirty diapers, 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. feedings and crying noises interrupted his life every day and night. Oh, all the things that happen in a new-baby household.
Dante began to stay away from home more, and even out late at night till early in the morning. As a sophisticated college man, he was very popular with the young ladies in the small town. He had a nice car and wore his old college clothes when he relaxed, and stylish suits to work. He went into the insurance business as an employee and did tax returns on the side for a few years. Then he opened his own business. Insurance did so well, he kept only the largest tax customers and concentrated on insurance. He prospered.
His wife, Futila, had another child and gave up her countergirl job. She stayed at home being a housewife and mother. He continued to prosper. She was proud of that, among her friends, at first. Then, in a few years of changing diapers, cooking for herself (he didn’t always come home to eat), preparing baby food, she realized that her husband was free. Free of her.
Free! In his own private office, with telephone, new car, and uncounted money; he was free. She was surrounded with the washing, housecleaning, grocery shopping, a dumb TV, two small children, and friends she had thought were jealous of her. She also thought her husband could be sleeping with her friends. They looked satisfied, while she wasn’t satisfied at all.
She knew, by now, he had other women. Sometimes they called her house. Figuratively speaking, she began to lose her mind. Her life became bitter to her. What good is love that no one shares?
She thought of God, but didn’t know much about God. Her parents had been too tired for church. Gramma knew God, but couldn’t get anyone to take her to church, and her grandchildren didn’t want to hear the stuff she talked about anyway. She was too old to know anything.
So Futila didn’t know how to pray. But she was learning; sometimes in the middle of the night in an empty bed.
Futila was young, attractive, but she didn’t feel good. Dante was always on her mind, but out of her sight. She argued with him, but what could she do? He told her, “You can leave.” She didn’t want to give up her place in his life. She had nothing to turn to, except that job as a countergirl at the drugstore. And Time was going by.
Dante did love his children, they looked just like him. That was a good thing because it made it easier for his parents to accept them. His parents loved their grandchildren so he never thought of leaving Futila. Why should he? He was doing whatever he wanted to do anyway.
Now that she could afford it Futila bought pretty nightgowns, sexy perfume, and had regular hair care. Money don’t buy love, chile. Those things barely bought her moments. But, you know, there are times when you turn over and your spouse is beside you smiling, warm and cozy, and things just happen. But Futila wasn’t smiling; that took the “cozy” out. So the intimate moments became fewer. And Time was passing by.
But she loved Dante and there was no her without him. Life was a zero. No party or gathering was fun. No holiday dreams were made. They seldom made love anymore. She had to play with him while he slept, then crawl on top of him when he, inadvertently, became “ready,” and make love to herself. Sometimes his body didn’t respond; he had had sex with someone else too recently. Time was going by at a steady pace, as usual. Several years passed that way.
Willa had been home several times to see her parents and bring them things from different places in the world. She had her Ph.D. in biochemistry, just as Martha had, and she was now Dr. Willa Ways. She had worked projects in Africa, Greece, and Peru, among other countries. She had even written two books.
Willa had her own condominium in New York and her own bank accounts. She had thought of marriage several times: doctors, leaders in the field of science. She was quite attractive to several men. “But I really want to do a few more things before I marry. Besides, I’m not in love and I want to love the man I marry. He won’t have to be a doctor of anything, I can afford to support my husband, if I have to,” she would laugh. But she kept putting marriage off, thinking, “I have time.” Time was passing, but in her life she had already used it wisely, so it didn’t hurt as it passed.
Futila had begun following her husband in the car he had bought her, parking it in strange hidden places she thought he would not see. She watched his office to see who went in, came out, and when he left. Most of the time
he knew she was out there watching him. His co-workers and employees laughed at her. A few women didn’t laugh at her, they felt sad for her. They understood the pain.
Futila didn’t want a divorce. Now, she just wanted to prove to him he was a liar and he was cheating on her. Why she had to prove it to him is a question, because he already knew it.
She listened closely when he came home and slept, whispering questions close to his ear to see if she could make him talk in his sleep. Listen to me, chile: She had hidden, lying under parked cars, crouched in scary bushes, secreted in dark, empty houses and empty lots in the darkness of night, until Dante would come out of some woman’s house or some motel room.
Finally she began to confront him wherever she found him, in a loud and brazen voice no matter the early morning hours. She would forget her social standing. He would argue briefly as he angrily or nonchalantly passed her by, going to his car that was parked right in front of the woman’s house, and drive away. He never hit her, just pushed her away from hitting him. When he was gone she would stand in front of whichever house it was, and call whichever lady it was, all kinds of bitches and things until she remembered her society friends would hear about it. Then outside in the street, by herself, she would run crying to her car and rush home to confront him more. This went on for years. Her grief and pain had begun to show on her face, in her body, even in the way she stood or walked. Bent. She told herself, “He’s gettin older. He gonna stop all this mess. He gettin old and his time is runnin out. He can’t keep this up.” But she was getting older also. Her time was running out also. Time was passing by, chile.
Her close friends asked her, “Why don’t you leave him? Your children are almost ready for college. He will have to give you some of the property. At least your home. Pack your tears away and pack your bags, and go get yourself a education, it ain’t too late! Or meet someone else who can love you and you could love back. Someone who will do you right!” But she wasn’t sure what she wanted anymore. She was obsessed and confused. Well, when did she ever stop to learn anything?
Wild Stars Seeking Midnight Suns Page 2