Games We Play

by Ruthie Robinson

  “I’ve heard he’s approached Hugo and Stanley. Those two could use the money. Tom Baker has agreed to sell him his land, I’ve heard. Not everyone likes the direction this city has taken,” the Colonel said, clearly worried. The Colonel was Coopersville’s first gay elected councilman, so he tended to overworry in Cooper’s opinion.

  “Some of the members of the council have called me already. Hank has gotten in touch with them personally, ginning up support for his plan,” Juan added.

  “We’ve made so much progress in this town, and now this will only get everyone all riled up,” the Colonel said.

  “It’s not as big as all that,” Cooper said.

  “You watch. Mark my words,” the Colonel said.

  “I still think you’re making too much of this…and way too much of Hank,” Cooper said as he glanced around the table. “If that’s all you’ve got to discuss tonight, then Myra and I have a date.”

  “I don’t think you’re taking this seriously enough, Cooper,” the Colonel said, not ready to end the discussion.

  “Needless worry,” Cooper said.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” the Colonel added, his final words to Cooper.

  “I do,” Cooper said.

  “I’ll keep you all informed as this thing progresses,” Juan said, standing up, along with the Colonel and Luis.

  Myra stood too, waited for the three men to walk out the front door, then stayed there a few minutes, watching them as they drove away.

  Cooper looked over to Kendall, who was still standing just inside of the kitchen. “Nothing to say?”

  “I don’t know Hank,” she said, leaning against the wall, arms folded across her chest, looking good enough to eat, decked out in shorts and a small T-shirt, her feet bare.

  “Old history that won’t die, apparently,” he said, his only explanation, eyes back to hers now.

  Myra came back into the room and stood next to Kendall.

  “Don’t worry, Myra. I know what you’re going to say,” Cooper said, standing up, leading the way to the back porch. He took a seat on the couch.

  “Time does not heal all wounds,” she said, and sat down next to him.

  #

  Myra and Cooper had gone into the garage. Kendall’s aunt had asked him to look at something, and they’d walked over immediately following their TV program, leaving Kendall alone on the couch. They’re discussing Hank, she thought.

  She stood, deciding to wait for Cooper on the front porch. It was good and dark out, so maybe they could fool around like teenagers before he left. They hadn’t connected since Monday night, and she was in the midst of an internal debate with herself regarding how aggressive she should be toward him.

  They’d agreed to call if either one of them wanted to connect. She’d held off, waiting to see if his version of all summer looked like her freaky every-day-works-for-me plan.

  She stood on the porch, leaning against the railing. It was cool out, and her aunt’s ceiling fan spun overhead, helping to circulate the air. This is a nice town, she thought. She was surprised by how much she liked being here. She wasn’t sure how this Hank person’s proposal would come to impact Coopersville. Not in any negative way, she hoped; she would hate to think of this place changing.

  She was still trailing behind her aunt daily, still meeting new town people. She and Myra were heading up to Austin tomorrow to talk mobile homes with Sandy again; it was time to complete the financing paperwork. The screen door opened, interrupting her thoughts, and she looked over, watching as Cooper walked over to stand beside her.

  “So who is this Hank?” Kendall asked.

  “Just dive right in, don’t you?” he said, chuckling. “An old friend,” he added, scanning the street. It was dark out here except for the full moon, which was making its slow ascent into the night sky.

  “Not much of an old friend if he’s here to change the town.”

  He shrugged.

  “Not going to tell me?” she asked.

  “Why waste this perfectly lovely night discussing Hank when we could do other things with it?”

  “So are you going to fight him? Or allow the city to sell the course to him?”

  “Hell no,” he said, pulling her closer. He looked into her eyes and smiled, set his lips to hers. His hands slid down to her hips, and he gave himself over to the kiss, the way she made him feel—wanted, attractive, sexy.

  “Okay, what other things do you have in mind?” she said, smiling.

  He pulled away and turned to the street, scanning it before he turned his gaze to Myra’s home. It was dark inside, and the only light was coming from the TV room.

  “Myra is watching the news, and she takes her news watching seriously,” he said, leaning in to taste her lips again, pulling her close to his body. He ran his hands up her body, stopping below her breasts, and lightly grazed their undersides.

  Kendall moaned, her lips against his. “Okay,” she said.

  He pulled away again, secured her hand in his, and started down the steps.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, following him as he made a left across the grass, eyes still searching the street.

  “What are you doing? Where are we going?” she asked.

  “You’ll see in a minute,” he said. She stood with her back to the hedges, the very tall hedges located to the left of Myra’s home. He moved forward, forcing her to walk backwards, until her back hit the side of the house. He found her mouth then, his tongue inside a few seconds later, his hands tugging at her shorts, considering what to do with them, off or over. He decided on over.

  Kendall’s hands found his zipper. She lowered it and moved her hands inside, running her fingers softly over him while his hands slid her shorts and underwear aside, and then he was at the entrance of her. A few moments later he thrust up and into her. He’d meant to go slow, but he dropped that idea the moment he felt her moist walls close around him, so now it was just hurry up and move. He thrust up again, holding her hips, her legs wrapped around his waist. She moaned into the night.

  “I know,” he whispered, kissing her, and then it was fast and hard, his lips moving roughly over hers, his tongue dueling with hers in time with the hard thrust of his hips, his two favorite parts of her anatomy in his palms, moving her up and down to receive him, again and again, and they were racing fast, both moving toward a climax, a crawling-up-through-his-bloodstream climax, blocking out any thoughts but here, the rightness of this, of him inside her, the way she felt surrounding him, and he moaned into her neck, pushing her back into the wall, staggered by the strength of his release.

  She wasn’t much better. She had his neck in a death grip, her arm wrapped around it, holding him tightly to her as she moaned out her pleasure into his hair.

  It was quiet, with no sounds other than the rustle of hedges and their labored breathing, heavy and fast into night, and then slower and slower as their bodies returned to normal.

  “Wow,” she said, and they both started laughing at the urgency, at the power of their releases.

  He shook his head and kissed her again.

  #

  Friday evening

  The Proctor brothers were at their usual place in the Coopersville Brewpub, seated at the bar. They kept an eye on the place, considering it part of what they owed to Senior, a man like no other and one they’d admired tremendously. They missed the old days, missed messing with those niggers. Missed the time when they knew their place, and the idea of a black president would have been dismissed as absurd. WTF happened to this great country to make that even possible?

  They came by once or twice a week to visit what they considered to be Junior’s place, not some kind of cooperative that everyone owned a piece of. It belonged to Junior as far as they were concerned.

  They loved the beer Junior brewed here. They were glad he’d gotten the idea to start it up. He was what they’d like to call a beer musician. He was the best. But mostly they were here to keep an eye out for Cooper
. Made them feel like they used to in the old days, when they’d been Senior’s go-to men and had looked out for Junior too.

  They’d seen Cooper’s new addition, that African American woman, the niece of the old black woman Junior thought he had to look after.

  The Proctor brothers were seated beside the Colonel tonight, a queer of a man, who loved the beer here too.

  Niggers and queers, Stanley thought, what has the world come to? Had to be the end times, is all he could figure, although he wasn’t big into that whole church deal.

  “So how’s it going, Colonel?” Hugo asked.

  Stanley smiled at his brother, amused that he was starting a conversation with the army queer, taking the bull by the horns, just as Hank had asked them to do. Who knew that a skinny runt like Hank would turn out so good? He’d started life as such a timid, scary little thing.

  “Good. You?” the Colonel said, clearly surprised that they’d deigned to speak to him this evening. A first. Usually it was all hard glares and staring.

  “We’re fine.”

  “I hear you’ve been approached to sell your land,” the Colonel said, taking this opportunity to get a sense of them. His worries about the town’s future and the new proposal hadn’t abated any.

  “We have. We know the fella that’s heading it up. Hank, he’s one of our local boys that made good.”

  “You thinking about selling?”

  “We might. Might like to change things around here,” Hugo said. “Hell, we might even be able to get Cooper to join us, sell his golf course back to Hank. You know he and Hank used to be like brothers back when Senior was alive.”

  “Yep, those two were thick as thieves,” Stanley said, eyeing Kendall as she entered the bar and walked past them, heading to Cooper’s office like she owned the place. Uppity nigger, he thought, and he didn’t care if she knew how he felt. He made no bones to hide his disapproval, and if Junior kept it up, he’d have to speak to him about it too.

  “No, I didn’t know that,” the Colonel said.

  “Well, they were,” Hugo said.

  “You don’t know Cooper like you think you do,” Stanley added. “That boy has a history, if most folks knew of it,” he said, shaking his head, as if he knew a story too sad to tell. “I bet they wouldn’t be so fired up and raring to get into his good graces. His daddy was old-school, and he ran this town in the old-school manner, with an iron fist. He didn’t allow no riffraff with new ideas to enter it. Taught his boy all he knew,” Hugo said.

  “Really? Well, it looks like Cooper must have decided to go his own way. He seems to be a much more tolerant man.”

  “He hides it well is all. His daddy taught him everything he needed to know,” Hugo said, and he and his brother started laughing, some secret they shared between them apparently.

  “I hear that Hank’s proposal would be good for the town,” Stanley said, his attention on the Colonel now. “You’re a councilman, so I bet you’ve heard about the proposal,” he said.

  “I have.”

  “I hear Cooper is the holdup.”

  “There are several holdups. The committee hasn’t discussed it yet.”

  “Don’t seem right that Cooper should get in the way. Not given his past,” Hugo said.

  “You’re good friends with Cooper, right? I see you in here drinking his beer, you and your funny friends,” Stanley said, and chuckled, as if he’d told some big joke. Hugo laughed too.

  The Colonel remained silent.

  “I bet you wouldn’t be so quick to be Cooper’s friend if you knew some of what he’s done. He ain’t the angel you think he his.”

  “I don’t think he’s an angel, but he is my friend.”

  “But would he be if you knew the kinds of things he’s done?” Hugo asked, and he and Stanley spent another twenty minutes giving him an earful of history, the town’s and Cooper Three’s. They toned it down a bit, like Hank had asked them to do, plus it was better not to sound too gleeful about the old stories, not in mixed company, anyway. When they were alone, or with others like them, they’d have a hell of a time talking about the good old days.

  Nineteen

  Friday night

  “Have you read all of those books on your shelf?” Kendall asked, pointing to the shelves in Cooper’s home. The area near the living room was filled with books, from floor to ceiling. It was closing in on 12:00 a.m. She’d spent an hour or two at the pub before closing, sitting at the bar, meeting more of the townsfolk before ending up at here. They were catching their breath after having completed their first round of lovemaking.

  It was now time for talk, her attempt to know more about the man who loved her aunt so much. She lay on her stomach, he on his side, watching her as she looked around his home.

  “The books are for show, really. I’m always on the lookout for a professor to seduce and bring home. They are almost always impressed by books,” he said, running his hand over her back.

  “Cooper,” she said, laughing at his teasing.

  “I like to read, and if you’re not in a hurry for me to finish, I will. School had those pesky deadlines and tests, which I detested. After school, I realized I could read on my own schedule and about things that interested me. So I do.”

  “Beer, beer, and more beer. You have quite the collection of beer books and magazines. Did you ever want to do something different?”

  “No,” he said, smiling at her, his arm holding up his head, his other hand continuing to roam and caress her body, absentminded in its movement.

  “Do you think I need a guy who likes to read? Do you think it’s necessary for me, the professor, to be happy?” she asked.

  “Don’t know, only you can answer that,” he said, running his hand along her back, then down to her ass. “Does it bother you that I didn’t go to college?” he asked, his hand still continuing its ministrations.

  “No,” she said, looking at his face again. It was filled with skepticism.

  “Really?” he said.

  “It doesn’t. Really. No, not at all,” she said.

  “Why doesn’t it bother you?”

  “It used to matter, if I’m being honest. It was one of my many requirements. The man I needed had to be an intellectual, a fellow professor, or, in the case of Houston, a professional businessman.

  “One day a friend of mine, single like me, a fellow professor like me, said something similar to me. She said that if a man didn’t read or wasn’t interested in reading, it was a relationship nonstarter for her. She said the man she married didn’t have to be interested in the same things as her, but he had to be interested in something, interested enough to want to read about it. He had to be what she called intellectually curious.

  “At the time, I thought she sounded like a snob, like if you don’t do what I do, then you must not be worthy of my time, and that sounded a bit shallow, right? The idea that the only people of value were the ones who were like us.

  “Meeting and getting to know my dad changed me in so many ways. Now I think what’s most important is having or sharing the same values as your partner. Values like commitment, honesty, believing that hard work pays off, that we are responsible for one another and our families, that we should support and nurture our children and take care of those we love. Those sorts of thing are important to me. So I’ll need someone that thinks along those lines. You know?” she asked.

  He nodded his head in agreement.

  “I’d be happy to marry a man like my dad. He works hard, and he wanted the best for his daughters, his family. He would have loved my mother forever if she had stuck around. He never remarried. The wedding vows meant something to him, for better or for worse. Not all who are successful attend college, and not all who do are successful.”

  “What about you? You grew up wanting to be a professor?” Cooper asked, pensive now.

  “You mean after I let go of the idea of being a princess with my own kingdom to rule? Not at first, no. I wanted to get into politics, maybe run for
office, you know, that whole change-the-world thing.”

  “What happened to that goal?”

  “The world is harder to change than I originally thought. It’s slower, at any rate. Nothing really changes overnight, like I’d hoped. It’s all unrelenting effort over the course of many years. That can be very discouraging for an idealist.”

  “Or discouraging for someone who thinks and wants things to change overnight. Most things require time. But why be a professor?” he asked.

  “Even with all I know, I can’t give up the dream of trying to make the world a better place, however difficult. Teaching allows me to believe that I’m at least shaping the students I teach, influencing them before they become lost in the push to acquire at all cost.”

  “Fighting back against your mother,” he said.

  “Yes, although it took me a while to understand that she was the source of why I wanted to be different. There is no emotional in between with my mother. You either like her or you don’t. You’ve met her, what did you think?” she asked.

  “I try to limit my judgments. I don’t really know her,” he said, smiling.

  “A very PC, safe answer,” she said, and smiled. “Yes, to answer your question, I guess pushing back against Vivian is a part of who I am…the result of growing up under her tutelage. So yes, to answer your question. It was hard not to push back against her.”

  “Not everybody wants to acquire at all cost,” he said.

  “I heard that you wanted to give away your family’s fortune,” she said, smiling at him.

  “Who told you that?” he asked, surprised.

  “Nobody. I read it somewhere, I think. Honestly, I’m not sure,” she said, at the look on his face. “Don’t bother denying it. I wouldn’t believe you anyway. There’s more to you than you like to let on,” she said, running her hand over his chest. “But, back to me and wanting to be a professor,” she said, pointing to herself, deciding to change the conversation. He’d weirded out there for a few seconds.